CND Press Digest: Friday 5th April 2024

NATO / Europe

• NATO and Ukraine: Sharing the Burden. As the alliance reaches 75 its role is more essential than ever. It is right to plan for an uncertain future in which the US may not underwrite Europe’s defence.
• NATO marks 75th anniversary: ‘We must be doing something right.’ Jens Stoltenberg, secretary-general of the alliance, praised the bond between America and European allies and pledged to continue supporting Ukraine.
• Wall Street Journal: Can Europe still count on America’s nuclear umbrella? With US commitments in doubt as never before, leaders from Paris to Warsaw are facing the prospect of deterring Putin on their own.
• Russia says backup power line to Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant has gone down.

Middle East & North Africa

• Chris McGreal writes in the Guardian: Amid the slaughter and with famine looming, Israel’s allies must say enough is enough. If not now, when?
• Devastating it took aid worker deaths for Israel to change course on aid, sayssenior Tory. Alicia Kearns also expresses frustration that Joe Biden is only now calling for immediate ceasefire and says UK must suspend arm sales.

AUKUS / Indo-Pacific

• US shipyards up to three years behind schedule on submarines as concerns growfor AUKUS pact. Greens senator David Shoebridge says review of shipbuilding program ‘adds to the growing list of reasons why AUKUS is likely to fall over’.
• Defense News: Shield AI to buy Australian tech company amid AUKUS collaboration.

Global Nukes

• Newsweek: A Russian nuclear submarine fired a missile this week as part of a training exercise amid the country’s ongoing war with Ukraine. Tass, a Russian state-run news agency, reported on April 4 that Russia’s Northern Fleet had carried out a scheduled training exercise that included a missile launch by the nation’s Kazan nuclear submarine.
• Eurasian Times: India overhauls its nuclear strike capability to counter China’s & Pakistan’s first-use nuke blackmail.
• The Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) has begun assembly of a groundbreaking machine that will allow researchers to use real plutonium in experiments for studying the conditions immediately before the nuclear phase of a weapon’s functioning.
• Asahi: Deterrence could heighten risk of nuclear warfare, study suggests. Rather than ensuring peace will prevail, the notion of nuclear deterrence could in certain situations in an Asian context heighten the risk of nuclear warfare erupting, and possibly going global, according to an international study.
• Reuters: Non-proliferation experts urge US to not support nuclear fuel project.

Nukes in Britain

• The Telegraph: US Navy destroyer or Royal Navy frigate – what’s best for hunting Russian submarines?
• Navy Lookout: 10 reasons to be optimistic about the strength of the Royal Navy.

UK Nuclear Energy

• The Nuclear Industry Association has submitted a proposal for regulatory consideration of newcleo’s lead-cooled fast reactor, marking the first application for justification of advanced nuclear technology in the UK.
• The Telegraph: Hartlepool could host a fleet of mini-nuclear reactors within a decade after the Government awarded a multimillion-pound grant to engineering group Babcock to explore the project’s feasibility.
• Workers at a nuclear power plant have overwhelmingly backed industrial action in a row over what a union describes as a “real-terms pay cut”. GMB Scotland members at the Dounreay plant in the Highlands, which is operated by Nuclear Restoration Services and is in the process of being decommissioned, voted by 85% in favour of strike action.
• Renew Economy: Twenty-five years ago, Australia banned nuclear energy generation at a Federal, State and Territory level. Partly because of this, Australia would be one of the last places you would invest in nuclear energy, notwithstanding our large uranium deposits.

CND

• The April edition of Campaign magazine is out and free to read online.

Best,

Pádraig McCarrick

Press and Communications Officer

Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament