CND Press Digest: Tuesday 23rd April 2024

Nukes in Britain

• The Telegraph: The Royal Navy’s latest Astute-class submarine has been officially named at BAE Systems’ submarines site in Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria.

  Agamemnon – named after the mythical Greek king – is the sixth of seven Astute submarines being built by the company.

• A recent parliamentary question has provided detailed insights into the number of nuclear site events at Coulport and Faslane, home of the nuclear submarine fleet, over the past year. Deidre Brock, MP for Edinburgh North and Leith and member of the Scottish National Party, inquired on 12th April 2024 about the number of nuclear site events at Coulport and Faslane bases in the last 12 months. James Cartlidge, Minister of State at the Ministry of Defence, responded with detailed figures on 22nd April 2024, providing a breakdown of incidents according to a categorisation system established in 2015. Of the total 180 events reported across both locations and years, all were managed safely without any significant radiological or health impact.
• The Mirror: The Ministry of Defence has spent more than £250,000 burying records about blood tests of British troops because of the “legal risks”. Documents show civil servants ordered the cover-up of 78,000 files about Cold War radiation experiments that had previously been in the public domain.
• The Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE) is seeking market engagement on a £600M to £900M contract to provide professional services for the delivery of infrastructure related to the testing and manufacturing of nuclear weapons.

Military Spending

• SIPRI: Global military spending surges amid war, rising tensions and insecurity.
• SIPRI: Trends in world military expenditure, 2023.
• Al Jazeera: War, fear of war spur global military spending to new record: SIPRI report. New high of $2.4 trillion is the ninth straight annual increase, suggesting the trend will continue, research institute says.

UK Nuclear Energy

• East Anglian Daily Times: Sizewell C bosses have agreed to top standards for health, safety and welfare services as part of a new deal with unions and contractors.
• Computer Weekly: Former Sellafield consultant claims the nuclear complex tampered with evidence. Whistleblower Alison McDermott claims former employer Sellafield tampered with metadata in letters used in evidence during an employment tribunal. A former consultant at Sellafield has claimed that metadata in letters used against her in a tribunal hearing by the nuclear facility has been interfered with. A tribunal has heard that three letters produced by managers at the vast nuclear complex and submitted as evidence in the employment dispute were “fabricated” and “tampered with”. Alison McDermott lost a whistleblowing claim against the Cumbrian nuclear facility and is now fighting a demand to pay £40,000 costs. The former Sellafield consultant says the metadata for two of the three letters was “wiped” by DLA Piper, the firm of solicitors then representing Sellafield.
• Daily Record:The SNP has claimed that Scotland could be saddled with a bill of over £22 billion as part of Westminster’s cleanup of nuclear dumping grounds. A row has broken out between the SNP and the UK Government over how much Scotland will pay on radioactive waste. The SNP has claimed that Scotland could be saddled with a bill of over £22 billion as part of Westminster’s cleanup of nuclear dumping grounds. But the UK Government has said that the figure is actually much lower.

NATO / Europe

• The Guardian view on arming Ukraine: US Congress votes against appeasement.
• Did Boris Johnson really sabotage peace talks between Russia and Ukraine? The reality is more complicated. A recent study shows the reasons the 2022 talks failed are more nuanced than critics suggest. Compromise may still be possible.

Middle East & North Africa

• The Guardian: Israel, Gaza and divestment: what we know about the Columbia student protests.
• Reuters: Iran says nuclear weapons have no place in its nuclear doctrine.
• Jack Straw writes in the Independent: How the Israel-Iran conflict could go nuclear and is helping their leaders cling to power.

AUKUS / Indo-Pacific

• Reuters: North Korea carried out its first nuclear counterattack drills to simulate its “nuclear trigger” management system, guided by leader Kim Jong Un, as a clear warning to its enemies, state news agency KCNA said on Tuesday.

Best,

Pádraig McCarrick

Press and Communications Officer

Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament