CND Press Digest: Wednesday 7th August 2024

Hiroshima Day

• Morning Star: Peace campaigners honour victims on 79th Hiroshima Day.
• Japan Times: Raging conflicts around the world are “reinforcing the public assumption” that military force and nuclear deterrence are needed to solve global crises — a view Hiroshima Mayor Kazumi Matsui rejected Tuesday in a ceremonial speech marking 79 years since the city was devastated by an atomic bomb. Citing former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and former U.S. President Ronald Reagan’s push to end the Cold War, Matsui stressed the importance of not being “resigned to pessimism” amid conflicts such as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the Israel-Hamas war, adding that the world must take collective action and show that dialogue can overcome conflict.
• The Morning Star: Nuclear disarmament is not a pipe dream but an urgent priority,says Hiroshima governor.
• New York Times: The last survivors speak. It’s time to listen. The waiting room of the Red Cross hospital in downtown Hiroshima is always crowded. Nearly every available seat is occupied, often by elderly people waiting for their names to be called. Many of these men and women don’t have typical medical histories, however. They are the surviving victims of the American atomic bomb attack 79 years ago.
• North East Bylines: Hiroshima Day, Greenham Common, and California. On Hiroshima Day, remembering campaigning against nuclear weapons, and for peace.

Nukes in Britain

• Public Technology: The Home Office has opened bids for technology suppliers to support the UK’s monitoring and detection regime for the potential use of nuclear devices by hostile actors. The department is seeking to put in place a new commercial arrangement to support the 20-year-old Cyclamen programme – which includes detection facilities for radiological and nuclear (RN) material at UK ports as well as “one site in northern France”. This frontline technology is underpinned by IT infrastructure hosted both on-premises and in cloud environments, according to a freshly published contract notice. Cyclamen’s new commercial agreement – which is expected to be worth as much as £360m, once tax is included – will run for up to 10 years, and will be split into three towers, under the oversight of a single “prime supplier”.
• The National: All six of the UK’s Astute-class nuclear submarines are stuck in port – Faslane included – for repairs. The Royal Navy currently has no working docks for repairs, which has led to the fleet’s newest subs not conducting a single operation this year. HMS Ambush — which is stationed at Faslane – has not sailed for two years.
• The Progressive Magazine: We now know the full extent of the US nuclear arsenal.Recently declassified stockpile numbers underscore a continuing arms race.

Global Nukes

• Newsweek: Tactical nuclear weapons ‘already there’ in Ukraine: Russian state TV. The unevidenced suggestion was floated by Alexei Mukhin, head of the Center for Political Information, a pro-Kremlin think tank, on state TV channel Russia-1. He said he believes that the delivery of U.S.-made F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine, which Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had long lobbied for, indicates that tactical nuclear weapons have already been delivered to the war-torn country.

UK Nuclear Power

• Radiation Free Lakeland: Lake District’s coastal nuclear waste dump screw tightens.
• Nuclear Free Local Authorities: Whilst Nuclear Waste Services are keen to promote the number of jobs that might be created by the establishment of a Geological Disposal Facility in West Cumbria, there is less clarity when it comes to identifying the number of jobs that might be lost. One major constraint in the South Copeland Search Area is that it mostly comprises the Lake District National Park and the proposed Southern Boundary Extension which are rightly ‘excluded from consideration’. Consequently, any GDF development would have to be confined to small areas around Drigg, Haverigg and Millom, and for many months there has been speculation that one potential site by the coast might be the location of HMP Haverigg. Mindful that a GDF would most likely mean the closure of the jail, NFLA Secretary Richard Outram sent several Freedom of Information requests to the Ministry of Justice exploring the impact of the closure of the prison in these circumstances. The NFLAs are particularly keen to identify how many local jobs could be lost, as well as ascertaining the impact on local contractors and suppliers engaged in business with HMP Haverigg.
• In Cumbria: Cumbrian leaders put pressure on NDA over land at Moorside for SMRs. A letter signed by more than 100 political, business and union leaders is calling for urgent action to resolve land issues at Moorside so that new nuclear power stations can be built. Whitehaven and Workington MP Josh MacAlister wrote the letter, which has been signed by fellow Cumbrian MPs Julie Minns and Markus Campbell-Savours, local members of the House of Lords, Cumberland Council leader Mark Fryer, trade union leaders in the nuclear industry and dozens of local business leaders.
• Nature: Ultra-highly efficient enrichment of uranium from seawater via studtite nanodots growth-elution cycle. As global energy demand grows and the need for a clean energy transition increases, nuclear power is expected to be a promising new energy in the foreseeable future thus has been developed vigorously. Uranium is the most important component to trigger the fission reaction.

Iran

• Iran International: The latest report from the US Office of the Director of National Intelligence accuses Iran of becoming ever bolder in boasting about its nuclear weapons as the chances of a return to the JCPOA nuclear deal look to be fading away. “There has been a notable increase this year in Iranian public statements about nuclear weapons, suggesting the topic is becoming less taboo,” the report stated.
• Republican ghoul Lindsey Graham shares three ways to confront Iran with the Wall Street Journal: Impose tariffs on countries that violate sanctions, hold Tehran accountable for Hezbollah’s attacks, and set real red lines on nuclear weapons.

Space

• National Interest: Are Russia and China planning to send nuclear weapons into space? The US must prepare for the possibility that Russia successfully deploys nuclear-armed anti-satellite weapons, which could destabilize global security and disrupt conventional military operations reliant on satellites.

NATO / Europe

• UK Defence Journal: NATO has announced a new agreement to boost cooperation with Ukraine in the field of innovation, according to a summary published this week.

AUKUS

• ABC: For two decades [Australia’s] federal governments have tried to find a place to store low-level radioactive waste and failed. Tellus Holdings has 100,000 tonnes of it stored in the WA outback at a facility called Sandy Ridge. The government must look to find somewhere to store waste from AUKUS submarines in the future.
• Reuters: North Korea says German entry into UN monitoring force is bid to create Asian NATO.

Best,

Pádraig McCarrick

Press and Communications Officer

Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament