CND Press Digest: Monday 28th May 2024

Nukes in Britain

• A Rosyth councillor has called for assurances that rotting nuclear submarines will not be sent to Australia for disposal. Brian Goodall, who is UK/Ireland Nuclear Free Local Authority’s spokesperson on nuclear submarine decommissioning, said he has written to the UK’s foreign and defence secretaries. He’s asked for confirmation that vessels will not go overseas if a new Australian law passes without amendments. Seven old subs have been laid up at Rosyth Dockyard for decades with Dreadnought being there for the longest – more than 40 years – waiting to be scrapped. The UK and USA signed a pact with Australia to build and operate a new fleet of nuclear submarines which includes the provision of new conventionally armed, but nuclear powered, vessels for the Australian Navy. To support the pact, legislators down under have proposed a new Australian Naval Nuclear Power Safety Bill 2024. This appears to allow the disposal of high level radioactive waste from British and American submarines on Australian soil, and also for the storage of such materials in Australia from “a submarine that is not complete”.

Global Nukes

• EURACTIV: A nuclear blast that would kill nobody?

UK Nuclear Energy

• Dylan Morgan of People Against Wylfa B writes for Nation.Cymru: The announcement of Wylfa as the favoured site for a new nuclear plant is nothing more than blatant electioneering.

Nuclear Energy

• Reuters: Russia will build a small nuclear power plant in Uzbekistan, the first such project in post-Soviet Central Asia.
• The Guardian: Coalition’s brave nuke world a much harder sell after new CSIRO report. The agency’s GenCost analysis says a first nuclear plant for Australia would deliver power ‘no sooner than 2040’ and could cost more than $17bn.
• Ukraine has brought a nuclear power unit back into operation ahead of schedule after repairs, which made it possible to avoid restrictions on energy supplies to consumers on Tuesday, national power grid operator Ukrenergo said.
• FT: Switzerland has endorsed a long sought-after technology known as “nuclear transmutation” to dramatically reduce the amount of radioactive waste from atomic power plants.

NATO / Europe

• Kremlin condemns NATO boss’s appeal for Ukraine to use Western arms in Russia.
• FT: Six NATO countries plan ‘drone wall’ to defend borders with Russia. Finland, Norway, Poland and Baltic states draw up proposal to prevent Moscow’s hybrid attacks.
• The Telegraph: A former German military officer accused of throwing CDs containing official secrets over a wall into the Russian consulate in Bonn has been convicted of spying. Thomas H admitted to contacting the Russians with secrets a number of times because he wanted to “prevent a nuclear escalation of the Ukraine war”, claiming he feared for his family’s safety in a nuclear conflict.

Middle East & North Africa

• Reuters: Iran is enriching uranium to close to weapons-grade at a steady pace while discussions aimed at improving its cooperation with the UN nuclear watchdog are stalled, two confidential reports by the IAEA showed on Monday.
• The Telegraph: The US has cautioned Britain against censuring Iran over its nuclear programme amid high tensions in the Middle East and with the presidential election in November, US media reported. European powers, including Britain and France, are believed to be preparing a censuring resolution against Iran at next week’s meeting of the board of directors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

AUKUS & Indo-Pacific

• North Korea says rocket carrying satellite exploded mid-flight. The launch has been condemned by South Korea, the US, and Japan.

Best,

Pádraig McCarrick

Press and Communications Officer

Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament