Terror
Secret plans to combat the threat of terrorists exploding a nuclear bomb have been in place for 30 years – despite official assurances that it could never happen. While insisting that nuclear terrorism was “unthinkable”, successive governments have run a series of high-level emergency exercises. But until now the programme has remained secret. Nuclear experts regard the revelation as “genuinely frightening” as it suggests nuclear security had not been as tight as was thought at the time, and the threat of a terrorist attack is even greater today. The confidential programme was known as the Criminal Improvised Nuclear Device Emergency Response (Cinder).
Sunday Herald, 14th May 2006
New nukes
DAVID MILIBAND, the new environment secretary, is embroiled in a sleaze row this weekend over his links to a nuclear industry lobbyist. The lobbyist — Alan Donnelly — chairs the minister’s local constituency party. He also helped to pay for the refurbishment of Miliband’s constituency party headquarters in Newcastle. The cabinet minister has appeared at events organised by the lobbyist. Last week Tony Blair announced that Miliband would be central to the government’s decision on whether to build a new generation of nuclear reactors. Miliband has already hinted that unlike Margaret Beckett, his predecessor, he supports nuclear power. Sovereign Strategy, Donnelly’s lobbying firm, represents the US multinational Fluor, one of the world’s biggest nuclear companies, which is hoping to win a stake in the £70 billion British nuclear waste market.
Sunday Times, politics.co.uk, 14th May 2006
politics.co.uk, 14th May 2006
Donnelly is the chairman of Miliband’s constituency association and his firm recently helped to contribute towards the cost of refurbishing the minister’s constituency headquarters on Tyneside.
Sunday Times, 14th May 2006
Nirex
Nirex, the government’s nuclear waste agency, had secret plans to promote the burying of radioactive waste and open the door to new nuclear power stations, the Sunday Herald reveals today. Plans to launch a covert campaign to overturn sustained opposition to burying nuclear waste and pave the way for a new generation of nuclear power stations were drawn up by the government waste agency Nirex, it has been revealed.
Sunday Herald, 14th May 2006
Submarines
Babcock’s future as an independent company was assured at least for the time being by its £45 million acquisition last week of nuclear and airports support firm Alstec, according to analysts. The company was facing a takeover bid from British Aerospace (BAE) and VT Group, which chairman Gordon Campbell said undervalued Babcock.
Sunday Herald, 14th May 2006
Iran
IRAN is ready to hold dialogue with any country except Israel but not under the threat of force, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said yesterday ahead of talks next week on the country’s nuclear programme.
Scotland on Sunday, 14th May 2006
Independent on Sunday, 14th May 2006
UNITED Nations inspectors have found traces of weapons-grade uranium on equipment used in an Iranian military research centre, casting fresh doubt on its claims that it is seeking nuclear power for exclusively peaceful purposes.
The Business, 14th May 2006
Sunday Times, 14th May 2006
The European Union is drawing up new proposals to offer to Iran to get it to halt its nuclear programme.
BBC 13th May 2006
Sunday Express, 14th May 2006
The American secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, and her Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, traded barbs during bad-tempered talks at a foreign ministers’ summit in New York on Iran’s nuclear programme. The exchanges provided a candid introduction to diplomacy for Margaret Beckett, the new Foreign Secretary, who attended the tetchy session at the end of her first full day in the job. The row, which further undermines hopes of a diplomatic solution to the Iran crisis, reflects deepening rifts between the United States and Russia.
Sunday Telegraph, 14th May 2006
Nuclear Testing
Payouts to veterans could reach £1 billion
Mail on Sunday, 14th May 2006
Proliferation
Ever since the break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991, pessimists have been asking themselves when the next cold war will begin, and who the new enemy will be. But what if it’s cold wars, plural, and enemies, plural, we should be worrying about? A world with one potential nuclear conflict was scary enough. It would be a whole lot scarier if in future there were multiple nuclear rivalries – four or more regional cold wars, each with the potential to end in devastating missile exchanges. Unfortunately, that is precisely what the future may hold if the 1970 Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) becomes a dead letter, and nuclear weapons are acquired by powers indifferent to both the post-Nagasaki taboo against their use and the cold war logic of deterrence based on “mutually assured destruction”.
Sunday Telegraph 14th May 2006
