Finland
The completion of Finland’s fifth nuclear reactor will be further delayed, until early 2011, because of construction and planning complications, power company officials said Monday. The 1,600-megawatt reactor is now expected to be in operation almost two years later than originally planned, TVO project director Martin Landtman said.
AP 4th Dec 2006
New nukes
The location of the next generation of nuclear power stations will be decided by unelected experts rather than ministers under proposals to be unveiled in a Treasury report today. Kate Barker, the economist and a member of the Bank of England’s monetary policy committee, is expected to say that controversial projects such as power stations, waste facilities and incinerators should be decided by an independent planning commission. Her recommendations are expected to echo those of Sir Rod Eddington, the former chief executive of British Airways, who suggested a commission should be set up to decide where new runways, airports, motorways and railways should go in his report to the Treasury last week.
Telegraph 5th Dec 2006
North Korea
North Korea’s nuclear test shook international safeguards and highlighted the need to wrest control of nuclear material processing from individual states, the chief of the U.N. atomic watchdog said on Tuesday.
Reuters 5th Dec 2006
Iran
Iran’s nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani said on Tuesday Iran would not bow to pressure to give up its right to nuclear technology.
Reuters 5th Dec 2006
Trident
The first minister has backed the UK government’s decision to upgrade Britain’s nuclear deterrent with new submarines to be based on the Clyde. Jack McConnell said the decision allowed Britain to maintain a nuclear deterrent and therefore enter possible multilateral disarmament talks. However, the SNP said Mr McConnell was “taking his orders from London” after “months of indecision”.
BBC Scotland 4th Dec 2006
TONY Blair believes Britain still needs nuclear weapons despite the end of the Cold War because “we cannot be certain in the decades ahead that a major nuclear threat to our strategic interests will not emerge”.
Daily Mirror 5th Dec 2006
The words “nuclear deterrent” occur more than any other in the defence white paper published yesterday, but at no point is the document clear about who or what a new generation of British nuclear weapons is intended to deter. A gamble against uncertainty, as the prime minister told MPs in his statement, the paper endorses a policy of inertia. It leaves Britain clinging to a security blanket which covered the country in the cold war but will be of untested effectiveness in the half-century ahead.
Guardian leader 5th Dec 2006
David Cameron yesterday pledged his party’s full support for the government’s decision to replace fully Britain’s independent nuclear deterrent. The Conservative leader’s support ensures that the move will be approved by the Commons in an historic vote in March.
FT 5th Dec 2006
Telegraph 5th Dec 2006
Times 5th Dec 2006
The Economist 4th Dec 2006
The government cannot argue that a strategic nuclear capability is vital to Britain’s future security. Had it not already possessed the bomb it is inconceivable that any government would now seriously contemplate its acquisition. The same would be true were the cost of replacing Trident, say, three or four times higher than the official estimate of £15bn-£20bn.
FT 5th Dec 2006
Ian Bell column – It is interseting when you find yourself talking about Tony Blair and some North Korean fruitcake in the same breath.
Herald 5th Dec 2006
Letters: Britain’s chance to give a moral lead on nuclear weapons.
Independent 5th Dec 2006
In its 40-page white paper published yesterday the government makes a point of addressing the arguments of those opposed to renewing the Trident deterrent in a special section devoted to what it calls “Responses to counter arguments”. It lists the past cuts in the number of Britain’s nuclear weapons and says the government stands by its “unequivocal undertaking to accomplish [their] total elimination”.
Guardian 5th Dec 2006
Stroud town mayor Kevin Cranston is urging his Gloucestershire counterparts to join him in the fight against nuclear weapons.Mr Cranston has signed up to Mayors for Peace – an international body which opposes nuclear arms.
Gloucestershire Citizen 4th Dec 2006
Anti-nuclear reaction including: Bob Crow, general secretary of the Rail Maritime and Transport union, said: “We need to spend money on saving the planet, not on weapons that can help destroy it.
Guardian 5th Dec 2006
Q&A on Trident debate.
Telegraph 5th Dec 2006
Daily Mail 4th Dec 2006
Foreign Office Press Release 4th Dec 2006
Trident – now 20% less offensive. Steve Bell.
Guardian 5th Dec 2006
They keep arresting us for breach of the peace – but Trident is the breach. About 50 demonstrators had clustered outside the submarine base’s main gate, battered by gale-force winds and driving rain, to protest against yesterday’s confirmation from Tony Blair that he wanted a third generation of nuclear deterrent for the UK.
Guardian 5th Dec 2006
The lifetime costs of Britain’s new Trident nuclear deterrent could amount to well over twice the estimated £15-£20bn initial expense of building the system, senior defence officials admitted last night.
Guardian 5th Dec 2006
Poly Toynbee: The decision to replace Trident has nothing to do with Britain’s status and all to do with denying the Tories ammunition.
Guardian 5th Dec 2006
Michael White: Compared with the uproar 25 years ago that nuclear issues provoked among CND-supporting MPs, yesterday’s exchanges were mild. At least as many Tory MPs as Labour, Lib Dem or Scots Nats challenged the Blair blueprint.
Guardian 5th Dec 2006
Tony Blair’s decision to commit now to a new generation of nuclear-armed submarines – an extension of the Trident deterrent after 2025 – was presented as a fait accompli to the cabinet and looks as though it will easily command a parliamentary majority, with Conservative support, when it is put to a vote next year. It will, nevertheless, puzzle a large proportion of the public and, at the moment, leaves a lot of questions unconvincingly answered.
FT Editorial 5th Dec 2006
