CND Press Digest: Thursday 7th August 2024

Hiroshima & Nagasaki

• Reuters: G7 ambassadors to miss Nagasaki atomic bomb memorial over Israel’s exclusion. Nagasaki’s mayor said he would stick to a decision to exclude Israel’s ambassador from Friday’s event to mark the city’s atomic bombing, though senior diplomats of the United States and other Group of Seven nations said the snub would keep them away.
• North West Evening Mail: Campaigners in Barrow mark anniversary of atomic bombings of Japan.
• Kyodo News: Nagasaki anti-nuke sit-ins take on new gravity as threat grows

Nukes in Britain

• House of Commons Library: Replacing the UK’s nuclear deterrent: progress of the Dreadnought class.

UK Nuclear Power

• Radiation Free Lakeland: While Cumbrian MPs blindly agitate for more uranium mining to feed more nuclear new build, indigenous Australians are celebrating halt to poisoning of their lands. Here in Cumbria MPs, most especially the new MP for Sellafield (apologies, MP for Whitehaven and Workington, Josh MacAlister) are agitating for new nuclear build on the floodplain of the River Ehen next to the bursting at the seams Sellafield nuclear waste site.
• EGI: Urenco, a nuclear specialist company has signed a 10-year lease to occupy a 25,186 sq ft in Paddington, W2.

Nuclear Power

• NS Power: The nuclear fuel used in nuclear power plants today has changed little since the initial deployment of nuclear power more than half a century ago.
• China.org: Despite persistent opposition at home and abroad, Japan on Wednesday started its eighth round of release of nuclear-contaminated wastewater from the crippled Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant into the Pacific Ocean. T

Middle East

• The Guardian: UK reportedly suspends arms export licence applications for Israel‘pending review.’ Government department denies policy change, saying applications will be considered on ‘case by case basis.’
• The Canary: Labour government confusing EVERYONE over arms exports to Israel.
• The New Arab: Will the UK stop selling arms to Israel? Analysis: The UK government is under renewed pressure to halt arms sales to Israel, but the scope of any export ban or when it would happen is still unclear.
• The Morning Star: Britain suspends Israel arms sales licencing pending a review, reports say.
• The Times: Whitehall denies ‘secret embargo’ on arms exports to Israel. Reports of a de facto ban while civil servants investigate potential breaches of international law in Gaza are dismissed.

NATO / Europe

• RUSI: Regenerating the UK’s airpower edge within NATO.
• NATO: Emerging and disruptive technologies. Technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), autonomous systems and quantum technologies are changing the world and the way NATO operates. These and other emerging and disruptive technologies (EDTs) present both risks and opportunities for NATO and Allies. That’s why the Alliance is working with public and private sector partners, academia and civil society to develop and adopt new technologies, establish international principles of responsible use, and maintain NATO’s technological edge through innovation.
• Atlantic Council: How NATO and its Indo-Pacific partners can work together in an era of strategic competition.

AUKUS/ Indo-Pacific

• Reuters Exclusive: South Korean nuclear weapons would fracture US ties, defence chief says. South Korea could rupture its US alliance and shock financial markets if it started building nuclear weapons, Defence Minister Shin Won-sik told Reuters, dismissing renewed domestic calls for the country’s own arsenal to deter North Korea.

Best,

Pádraig McCarrick

Press and Communications Officer

Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament