Dear all, 

Please find below a roundup of this week’s nuclear news. I’ll be on leave next week so the next email will be in September. Thank you all for your continued support and have a nice bank holiday weekend.

 Britain

• Sophie debated hikes to British military spending on BBC Radio 4’s Across the Red Line programme. You can listen back to the full show on BBC Sounds.
• Sophie also spoke to TRT World about British spy flights for Israel at last Saturday’s demonstration at RAF High Wycombe. Watch here.
• Guardian Exclusive: Radioactive water from UK nuclear bomb base leaked into sea, files show. Polluted water was released into loch near Glasgow because Royal Navy failed to maintain 1,500 water pipes, says watchdog.
• Read CND’s comments on the leaked radioactive water The i Paper has a feature looking at nuclear flashpoints around the world.
• Meanwhile, the grandson of Robert Oppenheimer spoke to USA Today about his hope to get world leaders to a nuclear summit and agree a New START Treaty.
• Reuters has a special report on China’s growing nuclear arsenal and another on discussions within some Japanese political circles to deploy their own nuclear weapons.
• That’s as India ‘successfully tests’ nuclear-capable missile able to reach deep into China. The Agni-5 intermediate-range ballistic missile is also part of Narendra Modi’s defence strategy against Pakistan.
• North Korea’s Kim Jong-un has responded to the start of annual US-South Korean joint military drills by vowing to speed-up Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons build.
• Belarus is planning to ramp up production of its Polonez rocket launcher systems as well as equipping them with nuclear warheads, a defence official said on Thursday.

Iran

• Iran said Friday that it would hold talks with French, German, and British officialsover its nuclear programme. It comes just days away from a dealdine given by the Europeans and avoids a round of UN sanctions.

NATO / Europe

• Reuters Exclusive: Putin’s demand to Ukraine: give up Donbas, no NATO and no Western troops, sources say.
• Tracking US and NATO support for Ukraine: A full breakdown from Al jazeera. 

Nuclear Energy

• A Treasury assessment has deemed the government’s plan to build an underground nuclear dump “unachievable” and could cost the taxpayer £54 billion.
• Two construction companies are facing prosecution for health and safety offences after an employee was seriously injured at the Hinkley Point C construction site in Somerset. Read more from the BBC.
• The Telegraph runs a pro-nuclear article from the Joint Managing Director of Sizewell C.

Best,

Pádraig McCarrick

Press and Communications Officer

Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament