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Russian sensors suspected of attempting to spy on the UK’s nuclear submarines have been found hidden in the seas around Britain. 

The discovery by the British military was deemed a potential threat to national security
and has never been made public.

Several were found after they washedashore, while others are understood to have been located by the Royal Navy.
The devices are believed to have been planted by Moscow to try and gather
intelligence on Britain’s four Vanguard submarines, which carry nuclear
missiles. One of these submarines is always at sea under what is known as
the UK’s continuous at-sea deterrent.

The Sunday Times has chosen to withhold certain details, including the locations of the sensors. During a three-month investigation we spoke to more than a dozen former defence
ministers, senior armed forces personnel and military experts to expose how
Russia is using its unrivalled underwater warfare capabilities to map, hack
and potentially sabotage critical British infrastructure.

Times 5th April 2025 https://www.thetimes.com/uk/defence/article/russia-secret-war-uk-waters-submarines-dpbzphfx5

April 7, 2025 Posted by | Russia, secrets,lies and civil liberties, UK | Leave a comment

Miliband pours £2.7bn into nuclear power plant after EDF cuts stake

Sizewell C’s funding boost means UK taxpayers have now spent £8bn on the project

Ed Miliband has sunk an extra £2.7bn into Sizewell C after EDF slashed
its stake in the nuclear power project. The Energy Secretary said the
additional money would boost energy security, jobs and the race for net
zero.

However, anti-Sizewell campaigners questioned the wisdom of pouring
billions into a project that the Government has still not taken a final
decision to build.

UK taxpayers have so far spent a total of £8bn on the
nuclear power station. The latest cash is thought to be aimed at building
confidence in the project, potentially attracting other investors as EDF
steps back. The French energy giant recently reduced its stake from 24pc to
16pc amid pressure from Emmanuel Macron, the French president, to cut back
on risky overseas commitments.

EDF was told it should instead focus on
making a success of multibillion-euro projects at home, ensuring they were
profitable and built on time. Sizewell C is a proposed 3.2-gigawatt nuclear
power station planned for the Suffolk coast, potentially generating power
for 6m homes. Its design would be similar to the Hinkley Point C power
station being built by EDF in Somerset, whose start date has been delayed
by a decade to the mid-2030s (sic?) with costs that have doubled to £40bn.


EDF’s decision to trim its involvement has forced the UK Government into
an undignified search for alternative investors. Those approached are said
to include Centrica, the owner of British Gas, Emirates Nuclear Energy,
Amber Infrastructure Group and Schroders Greencoat, with Barclays advising
the Government.

 Telegraph 4th April 2025 https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/04/04/miliband-pours-27bn-into-nuclear-power-plant-after-edf-cuts/

April 6, 2025 Posted by | business and costs, UK | Leave a comment

“Getting people to do what they can from where they are”: NFLAs support Democracy Day inspiring peace activists to make Councils anti-nuke allies

The UK/Ireland Nuclear Free Local Authorities are proud to support the forthcoming Elected Representatives and Democracy Day being hosted by the Lakenheath Alliance for Peace (LAP) on Tuesday 22nd April, and urges elected members from all parties and none who oppose nuclear weapons to attend.

This event is part of a two weeks International Peace Camp and Conference – 14th – 26th April 2025 organised by the LAP at RAF Lakenheath – https://lakenheathallianceforpeace.org.uk The NFLAs are a partner organisation within the Alliance.

‘RAF’ Lakenheath is in fact the largest United States Air Force base in the United Kingdom, and is expected to, or has already, become the host to newly reintroduced US air-launched nuclear weapons which will be accommodated and maintained in a bespoke facility.

The LAP is hosting a series of themed days during the Peace Camp to which all activists are invited and there will also be a 24:7 vigil at the main gates of the airbase:

LAP is inviting elected members at all levels, whether Councillors in parish, district, county or unitary authorities or Parliamentarians in our devolved national assemblies or at Westminster, to attend and by invitation to speak during Democracy Day.

Confirmed speakers include Baroness Natalie Bennett, former Leader of the Green Party, and several Norfolk and Suffolk Councillors, one of whom used to be an emergency planner.

Elected members who wish to speak or who are willing to give media interviews at the airbase entrance on Democracy Day are invited to submit expressions of interest via https://lakenheathallianceforpeace.org.uk/front-page/get-involved/

LAP is also seeking to arrange a workshop with campaign group MP Watch https://www.mpwatch.org/ which ‘works alongside MPs and communities to champion evidence-based climate and nature-based policies.’

LAP event organiser and former Norwich City Councillor, Lesley Grahame, described “how there has never been any democratic debate about nuclear weapons” with the purpose of Democracy Day being about “getting people to do what they can from where they are”.

NFLA Secretary Richard Outram has put together a briefing paper on this theme containing tips for activists seeking to make their elected member and their Council an ally in the campaign for nuclear disarmament.

This briefing can be found at:

……………………https://www.nuclearpolicy.info/briefings/nfla-policy-briefing-316-taking-action-making-your-council-an-ally-in-the-campaign-for-nuclear-disarmament/

April 6, 2025 Posted by | Events, UK | Leave a comment

Nuclear site given more time to fix safety breach

Jason Arunn Murugesu, BBC News, North East and Cumbria, 4 Apr 25,
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cgkgxdddmlyo

A nuclear site which breached hazardous substance regulations has been given more time to figure out how best to protect workers.

Last year, the Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) served two improvement notices on Sellafield Ltd, near Whitehaven, Cumbria, after it “failed to manage the risks of working with nickel nitrate and to prevent or adequately control exposure of workers to this hazardous substance”.

The breaches did not compromise either nuclear or radiological safety, the ONR said.

Sellafield Ltd said it had completed one improvement notice and “significant progress” had been made on the other. It has until September to come up with a solution.

Used in the treatment of effluent, nickel nitrate is not radioactive but is a hazardous substance and could cause harm to the health of a worker exposed to it.

To mitigate these risks, operations involving the chemical should be conducted in a glovebox to protect workers from any harmful health effects.

However, contamination was found outside the glovebox area at a Sellafield facility, which resulted in workers potentially being exposed to the chemical, the ONR previously said.

A poorly designed and maintained glovebox appeared to have contributed to the situation, it added.

‘Technical challenges’

Sellafield Ltd was required to complete a nickel nitrate risk assessment by the end of October, and to “prevent or adequately control” the exposure of workers to nickel nitrate by March.

However, the ONR said “technical challenges” had come to light regarding the exposure of workers to the material and it would now give the nuclear plant until 30 September to come up with a solution.

Hygiene controls would remain in place in the facility, monitored by an occupational hygienist, until full compliance with both improvement notices was achieved, the ONR explained.

April 6, 2025 Posted by | safety, UK | Leave a comment

Millom nuclear waste plans ‘currently detrimental’ to locals.

Proposed plans for a nuclear waste dump in Millom have been described as
‘detrimental’ for one of the town’s estates. Members of the community were
invited to attend a Town Council meeting at the end of last month to
discuss the construction of a Geological Disposal Facility (GDF) near
Haverigg. Residents of the Bank Head housing estate, which sits alongside
the proposed site, asked for support from the local authority, with a
particular concern on the impact of house prices in the area.

A spokesperson from Millom Town Council said: “[We continue] to have a
neutral stance and support the principle that residents will have the final
say if they wish to be the future host community for a GDF. “Whilst this
could be the biggest economic opportunity for the area since iron ore was
found at Hodbarrow, we cannot deny that the way the current Area of Focus
has been drawn on the map by NWS is currently detrimental to the residents
of the Bank Head estate.

“We do not believe at this early stage of the
investigation that any of our residents should be impacted in the way the
Bank Head estate currently is, with local estate agents reporting that they
have had no requests for viewing homes on this previously popular
estate.” A campaign group, Millom and District Against the Nuclear Dump,
argued that the majority of locals were ‘resoundingly’ against the GDF.

 Whitehaven News 4th April 2025 https://www.whitehavennews.co.uk/news/25060423.millom-nuclear-waste-plans-currently-detrimental-locals/

April 6, 2025 Posted by | UK, wastes | Leave a comment

It’s Official: Ukraine Conflict is British ‘Proxy War’

The investigation’s most striking passages highlight London’s principal role in influencing and managing Ukrainian – and by extension US – actions and strategy in the conflict. Both direct references and unambiguous insinuations littered throughout point ineluctably to the conclusion that the “proxy war” is of British concoction and design

As this journalist has exposed, Ukraine’s Kursk folly was a British invasion in all but name. London was central to its planning, provided the bulk of the equipment deployed, and deliberately advertised its involvement. As The Times reported at the time, the goal was to mark Britain as a formal belligerent in the proxy war, in the hope other Western countries – particularly the US – would follow suit, and “send more equipment and give Kyiv more leeway to use them in Russia.”

Kit Klarenberg,  Global Delinquents, Apr 02, 2025

On March 29th, the New York Times published a landmark investigation exposing how the US was “woven” into Ukraine’s battle with Russia “far more intimately and broadly than previously understood,” with Washington almost invariably serving as “the backbone of Ukrainian military operations.” The outlet went so far as to acknowledge the conflict was a “proxy war” – an irrefutable reality hitherto aggressively denied in the mainstream – dubbing it a “rematch” of “Vietnam in the 1960s, Afghanistan in the 1980s, Syria three decades later.”

That the US has since February 2022 supplied Ukraine with extraordinary amounts of weaponry, and been fundamental to the planning of many of Kiev’s military operations large and small, is hardly breaking news. Indeed, elements of this relationship have previously been widely reported, with White House apparatchiks occasionally admitting to Washington’s role. Granular detail on this assistance provided by the New York Times probe is nonetheless unprecedented. For example, a dedicated intelligence fusion centre was secretly created at a vast US military base in Germany.

Dubbed “Task Force Dragon”, it united officials from every major US intelligence agency, and “coalition intelligence officers”, to produce extensive daily targeting information on Russian “battlefield positions, movements and intentions”, to “pinpoint” and “determine the ripest, highest-value targets” for Ukraine to strike using Western-provided weapons. The fusion centre quickly became “the entire back office of the war.” A nameless European intelligence chief was purportedly “taken aback to learn how deeply enmeshed his NATO counterparts had become” in the conflict’s “kill chain”:

An early proof of concept was a campaign against one of Russia’s most-feared battle groups, the 58th Combined Arms Army. In mid-2022, using American intelligence and targeting information, the Ukrainians unleashed a rocket barrage at the headquarters of the 58th in the Kherson region, killing generals and staff officers inside. Again and again, the group set up at another location; each time, the Americans found it and the Ukrainians destroyed it.”

Several other well-known Ukrainian broadsides, such as an October 2022 drone barrage on the port of Sevastopol, are now revealed by the New York Times to have been the handiwork of Task Force Dragon. Meanwhile, the outlet confirmed that each and every HIMARS strike conducted by Kiev was entirely dependent on the US, which supplied coordinates, and advice on “positioning [Kiev’s] launchers and timing their strikes.” Local HIMARS operators also required special electronic key [cards]” to fire the missiles, “which the Americans could deactivate anytime.”

Yet, the investigation’s most striking passages highlight London’s principal role in influencing and managing Ukrainian – and by extension US – actions and strategy in the conflict. Both direct references and unambiguous insinuations littered throughout point ineluctably to the conclusion that the “proxy war” is of British concoction and design. If rapprochement between Moscow and Washington succeeds, it would represent the most spectacular failure to date of Britain’s concerted post-World War II conspiracy to exploit American military might and wealth for its own purposes.

………………………………………………………………….. the British “had considerable clout” in Kiev and hands-on influence over Ukrainian officials.

This was because, “unlike the Americans,” Britain had formally inserted teams of military officers into the country, to advise Ukrainian officials directly. Still, despite Kiev failing to fully capitalise as desired by London and Washington, the 2022 counteroffensive’s success produced widespread “irrational exuberance”. Planning for a followup the next year thus “began straightaway.” The “prevailing wisdom” within Task Force Dragon was this counteroffensive “would be the war’s last”, with Ukraine claiming “outright triumph”, or Russia being “forced to sue for peace.” 

……………………………………………………………………….Even Task Force Dragon’s Lieutenant General Donahue had doubts, advocating “a pause” of a year or more for “building and training new brigades.” Yet, intervention by the British was, per the New York Times, sufficient to neutralise internal opposition to a fresh counteroffensive in the spring. The British argued, “if the Ukrainians were going to go anyway, the coalition needed to help them.” Resultantly, enormous quantities of exorbitantly expensive, high-end military equipment were shipped to Kiev by almost every NATO member state for the purpose.

The counteroffensive was finally launched in June 2023. Relentlessly blitzed by artillery and drones from day one, tanks and soldiers were also routinely blown to smithereens by expansive Russian-laid minefields. Within a month, Ukraine had lost 20% of its Western-provided vehicles and armor, with nothing to show for it. When the counteroffensive fizzled out at the end of 2023, just 0.25% of territory occupied by Russia in the initial phase of the invasion had been regained. Meanwhile, Kiev’s casualties may have exceeded 100,000.

‘Knife Edge’

The New York Times reports that “the counteroffensive’s devastating outcome left bruised feelings on both sides,” with Washington and Kiev blaming each other for the catastrophe. A Pentagon official claims “the important relationships were maintained, but it was no longer the inspired and trusting brotherhood of 2022 and early 2023.” Given Britain’s determination to “keep Ukraine fighting at all costs”, this was bleak news indeed, threatening to halt all US support for the proxy war.

………………………………… Ukraine’s calamitous intervention in Russia’s Bryansk region was a “foreshadowing” of Kiev’s all-out invasion of Kursk on August 6th that year. The New York Times records how from Washington’s perspective, the operation “was a significant breach of trust.” For one, “the Ukrainians had again kept them in the dark” – but worse, “they had secretly crossed a mutually agreed-upon line.” Kiev was using “coalition-supplied equipment” on Russian territory, breaching “rules laid down” when limited strikes inside Russia were greenlit months earlier.

As this journalist has exposed, Ukraine’s Kursk folly was a British invasion in all but name. London was central to its planning, provided the bulk of the equipment deployed, and deliberately advertised its involvement. As The Times reported at the time, the goal was to mark Britain as a formal belligerent in the proxy war, in the hope other Western countries – particularly the US – would follow suit, and “send more equipment and give Kyiv more leeway to use them in Russia.”

Initially, US officials keenly distanced themselves from the Kursk incursion……………………………..

However, once Donald Trump prevailed in the November 2024 presidential election, Biden was encouraged to use his “last, lame-duck weeks” to make “a flurry of moves to stay the course…and shore up his Ukraine project.” In the process, per the New York Times, he “crossed his final red line,” allowing ATACMS and Storm Shadow strikes deep inside Russia, while permitting US military advisers to leave Kiev “for command posts closer to the fighting.”

Fast forward to today, and the Kursk invasion has ended in utter disaster, with the few remaining Ukrainian forces not captured or killed fleeing. Meanwhile, Biden’s flailing, farewell red line breaches have failed to tangibly shift the battlefield balance in Kiev’s favour at all. As the New York Times acknowledges, the proxy war’s continuation “teeters on a knife edge.” There is no knowing what British intelligence might have in store to prevent long-overdue peace prevailing at last, but the consequences could be world-threatening. https://www.kitklarenberg.com/p/its-official-ukraine-conflict-is

April 5, 2025 Posted by | UK, Ukraine, weapons and war | Leave a comment

‘Another significant show of confidence’ in Sizewell C, – making the total of taxpayers’ money going into the project a staggering £6.4bn)

The government has confirmed that £2.7bn promised to the Sizewell C
project in the Autumn Budget is now available. The Department of Energy
Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) said the money will be drawn down by the
project company according to spending plans agreed with the government. The
sum – available under what is called the Devex (development expenditure)
scheme -is in addition to £1.2bn which was made available to the project
since July last year. (making the total of taxpayers’ money going into the
project a staggering £6.4bn).

 East Anglian Daily Times 4th April 2025
https://www.eadt.co.uk/news/25065158.another-significant-show-confidence-sizewell-c/

April 5, 2025 Posted by | politics, UK | 2 Comments

Hinkley C nuclear power station site teaches A Level students about “clean” energy !!

By John Thorne  Wednesday 2nd April 2025 ,https://www.wellington-today.co.uk/news/hinkley-c-nuclear-power-station-site-teaches-a-level-students-about-clean-energy-780053

A LEVEL students from Bridgwater and Taunton College (BTC) explored the UK’s clean energy future during an educational tour of the under-construction Hinkley Point C nuclear power station.

The trip was an opportunity for students studying subjects such as business, economics, mathematics, physics, and chemistry to witness first hand one of Europe’s most significant infrastructure projects.

April 5, 2025 Posted by | Education, UK | Leave a comment

Meltdown: the toxic culture that helped destroy the Nuclear Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (AMRC)

Dan Hayes•28.03.2025, Sheffield Tribune

Complaints about bullying were made as far back as 2018. Why did the University of Sheffield turn a blind eye?

“This is a diary of events in note form and to be clear I have never felt the need, in 30 years of employment, to create such a record.” 

That opening line was penned by Carl Hitchens in 2018. Hitchens, the former head of machining at the Nuclear AMRC, sent me the diary in place of a conversation. He told me he just couldn’t face reliving such a painful period.

The Nuclear AMRC was set up in 2009 with a simple mission: to help UK manufacturers win work in the civil nuclear sector. As well as research and development into nuclear technologies, the centre also worked with British firms to help them design and build components that could be used in nuclear power plants. Ostensibly part of the University of Sheffield, the Nuclear AMRC enjoyed a large degree of autonomy from its parent organisation.

As we found in our piece last year, the Nuclear AMRC never found its task easy. Continuing concerns about the safety of nuclear energy, the government’s refusal to commit to its future, and newer technologies like small modular reactors (SMRs) all created a challenging environment to navigate. Despite this, all indications are that, in its early days, the Nuclear AMRC was a fairly happy ship.

So how did something that was meant to put South Yorkshire at the centre of a generational transformation of the UK energy sector fall apart in a few short years? How did the Nuclear AMRC go from being touted as a huge growth success story, to being all but shut down? Carl Hitchens’ diary — and the recollections of his colleagues — are now allowing us to answer that question……………………………………..(subscribers only) https://www.sheffieldtribune.co.uk/meltdown-the-toxic-culture-that-helped-destroy-the-nuclear-amrc/

April 5, 2025 Posted by | secrets,lies and civil liberties, UK | Leave a comment

Democracy should not be an April Fools’ Day Joke!


 NFLA 1st April 2025

At a time when, across the Atlantic and in Europe, democracy seems to be increasingly challenged and in peril, the UK/Ireland Nuclear Free Local Authorities finds it incongruous and worrying that undemocratic practices can be discovered nearer to home when it comes to plans to locate a Geological Disposal Facility (GDF) in Cumbria.

The GDF would be the eventual repository for Britain’s high-level legacy and future radioactive waste.

Cumberland Council replaced three existing Councils – Allerdale District Council, Copeland District Council and Cumbria County Council – with their powers and resources being subsumed into the new unitary authority.

During the period of the Conservative – Liberal Democrat Coalition Government, Councils were invited to express an interest in participating in investigations for a site for a deep repository in West Cumbria. After four years of involvement, Cumberland’s predecessor Cumbria County Council vetoed the process, when in January 2013, the Council’s Cabinet voted to withdraw its support.

At that time, Council leader Eddie Martin explained the rationale behind the decision: “Cabinet believes there is sufficient doubt around the suitability of West Cumbria’s geology to put an end now to the uncertainty and worry this is causing for our communities. Cumbria is not the best place geologically in the UK and the government’s efforts need to be focused on disposing of the waste underground in the safest place, not the easiest. Members have remained concerned throughout on the issue of the legal right of withdrawal if we proceed to the next stage.”[i]

The County Council’s decision trumped the continued support for the process shown by the lower Allerdale and Copeland District Councils, and so it effectively ended the process at the time.

In the latest attempt to bring a GDF to Cumbria, Allerdale and Copeland again choose to support Nuclear Waste Services, with both Councils becoming the Relevant Principal Local Authorities which are necessary to keep the process going.

Although the County Council was the biggest amongst the three former Councils merged into the new unitary authority, Cumberland Council ignored its opposition and instead chose to ape the position taken by the two lower district councils; this despite the fact that Nuclear Waste Services had already withdrawn from Allerdale citing ‘insufficient’ suitable geology and that Copeland was only taken into the GDF process by the Council’s Executive of only FOUR senior Councillors, including some holding appointments on the West Cumbria Site Stakeholder Group which are renumerated by Nuclear Waste Services. The whole Council was not asked to agree.

Now campaigners at Radiation Free Lakeland have launched a petition calling on Cumberland Council to convene a belated special meeting of the Full Council where Councillors can debate and then vote upon whether to continue to remain engaged with the process of investigating sites for a GDF in Mid- and South-Copeland and to remain represented on the two Community Partnerships. Should most Councillors vote against engagement and representation, in either Mid- or South-Copeland, then the process in that area would cease and NWS would withdraw.

In the third area under consideration for a GDF, the Theddlethorpe Search Area in Lincolnshire, the Leaders of both Relevant Principal Local Authorities, East Lindsey District Council and Lincolnshire County Council, have recommended to their Executives that they should withdraw. The East Lindsey District Council Executive meets tomorrow (2 April) to decide upon the issue. The decision of Lincolnshire County Council must follow the elections held for that body on 1 May. If both recommendations are accepted and are backed by Councillors on their respective Scrutiny Boards, the process will end. This is what happened at South Holderness where the East Riding of Yorkshire Council overwhelmingly voted to withdraw from the process.

The Radiation Free Lakeland sponsored petition reads:………………………………….. https://www.nuclearpolicy.info/news/democracy-should-not-be-an-april-fools-day-joke/

April 4, 2025 Posted by | politics, UK | Leave a comment

UK Treasury confident Sizewell C nuclear power investors will soon be‘teed up’ – crunch time for Sizewell.

 Ministers will decide whether to proceed with delayed
Suffolk scheme in June spending review. A senior Treasury minister has said
he is confident private financing for the Sizewell C nuclear power station
will be “teed up” in time for a final investment decision in June over
whether to proceed with the delayed project.

Darren Jones, chief secretary
to the Treasury, told the Financial Times that the crunch point for the
planned project in Suffolk was coming in just 10 weeks, at the time of the
government’s three-year spending review. “We have to make the final
investment decision [FID] which we will do at the spending review,” he
said. “FID will be taken in June.” Jones added: “You wouldn’t take
FID unless you’ve got all of your investors teed up. We will do.”

The UK government and French energy group EDF, the initial backers of Sizewell
C, have been trying to raise billions of pounds from investors and had
previously hoped to reach a final decision on investment last year. But the
process has dragged on and the price tag has soared since its £20bn
estimate given as recently as 2020.

Government officials and industry
executives expect Sizewell C will get billions of pounds of funding from
British taxpayers alongside investment from sovereign wealth funds and
institutional investors. The government has been negotiating with investors
including Centrica, Emirates Nuclear Energy Company, Amber Infrastructure
Group and Schroders Greencoat. They may not invest and ministers could yet
balk at the huge costs of the project. But Jones said the government had
already released a couple of billion pounds for the current year for
enabling works at the site.

 FT 1st April 2025, https://www.ft.com/content/4a889ad7-6d41-47a9-a946-c2535ae2aaa6

April 3, 2025 Posted by | business and costs, UK | Leave a comment

Your move: Gamers join nuke industry in planning future atomic disasters


 NFLA 1st April 2025

Following a £2.8 million investment made by Sellafield to transform a Whitehaven furniture department store into a high-tech digital and gaming hub[i], today nuclear industry bosses have announced that they are teaming up with Digital Gaming Content PHD students to embrace a new gaming genre – Atomic Disaster Gaming.

Under Project ‘Atomquake’, the students will be invited to participate in multiple team scenarios in which unprecedented catastrophes will be mapped out which place Cumbria’s population and environment in grave peril.

One such scenario relates to the possible location of a Geological Disposal Facility in West Cumbria in which the work of multiple giant boring machines tunnelling mass voids under the sea alongside the Sellafield site trigger earthquakes along the long-dormant Lake District Boundary Fault Zone.

Another envisages the ongoing leaks from Magnox silos contributing to the liquification of the Sellafield site.

Frightening stuff, and in parts true.

But if you were questioning the entire veracity of our story, you would be right to do so – please take account of the date.

In outlining this tale, we tip our hat to acknowledge software developers, Rebellion Developments, who have just released ‘Atomfall’, an acclaimed action game set in an alternate 1960s Cumbria, where radiation from the 1957 Windscale Fire has blanketed much of Northern England making it a contaminated quarantine zone. In the game, participants in the online world take on player characters who are engaged in a battle for survival.

The disaster outlined in ‘Atomfall’ almost came to pass, so, as life sometime imitates art, who is to say whether, in whole or in part, our innocent April Fool’s Day tale may one day also become our future reality.

(The NFLAs wish to thank Marianne Birkby from Radiation Free Lakeland for her contribution to this article and for the illustration she has kindly provided to accompany it)………………………………………………….https://www.nuclearpolicy.info/news/your-move-gamers-join-nuke-industry-in-planning-future-atomic-disasters/

April 3, 2025 Posted by | culture and arts, UK | Leave a comment

UK nuclear deterrent: the mutual defense agreement is at risk in a Trumpian age

 Prime Minister Keir Starmer recently boarded one of the UK’s four
nuclear-armed submarines for a photo call as part of his attempts to
demonstrate the UK’s defence capabilities as tensions with Russia
continue. However, Starmer faces a problem. The submarine, and the rest of
the UK’s nuclear fleet, is heavily reliant on the US as an operating
partner. And at a time when the US becomes an increasingly unreliable
partner under the leadership of an entirely transactional president, this
is not ideal. The US can, if it chooses, effectively switch off the UK’s
nuclear deterrent.

 The Conversation 27th March 2025 https://theconversation.com/uk-nuclear-deterrent-the-mutual-defense-agreement-is-at-risk-in-a-trumpian-age-252674

April 3, 2025 Posted by | UK, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Cumbria could be only option for nuclear disposal

(and still they intend to keep making the foul stuff!)

Ian Duncan, BBC News, 2 April 25

Cumbria could be the only area left in the search for a new nuclear disposal site, councillors have been told.

Members of Cumberland Council’s nuclear issues board were given an update on the search to pin down a site to build a geological disposal facility (GDF) on Monday.

Three areas had previously been shortlisted by government body Nuclear Waste Services (NWS) – Mid Copeland and South Copeland in Cumbria and Lincolnshire.

Councillors were told that Lincolnshire County Council plans to withdraw, however, the authority is due to meet in June after local elections, when the result could signal a change in a new council’s intention.

Nuclear waste would be stored at the GDF beneath up to 1,000m (3,300ft) of solid rock until its radioactivity had naturally decayed.

Earlier this month Lincolnshire County Council said it would pull out of talks unless it received “significant” further information about the plan.

Two surface areas of focus had been identified by NWS in Mid Copeland, east of Sellafield and east of Seascale.

In South Copeland, land west of Haverigg had been chosen.

The Copeland area is already home to Sellafield, where the vast majority of the UK’s radioactive nuclear waste is stored, as well as the world’s largest stockpile of plutonium…………….

The nuclear waste disposal site would need community support, the Local Democracy Reporting Service said.

NWS previously said construction would only start when a potential community had confirmed its “willingness” to host the facility……….
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cqj4rvkd8e7o

April 3, 2025 Posted by | UK, wastes | Leave a comment

Britain is aiding Israel’s nuclear force

Israeli ministers may not see their nuclear weapons just as weapons of last resort, to be used if the country were threatened with annihilation.

In the months after the Hamas attacks on Israel in October 2023, several Israeli policymakers and commentators—including heritage minister Amihai Eliyahu who was later suspended from the cabinet—suggested that Israel should use nuclear arms against Hamas fighters in Gaza.

DECLASSIFIED UK, MARK CURTIS, 26 March 2025

When the government recently published its arms exports data for the period July to September last year, one item caught the eye: a licence to sell Israel £7.1m worth of “technology for submarines”.

Israel’s submarines are believed to house nuclear arms.   

The government data included a footnote stating that the licence related to “marketing and promotional purposes, including demonstration to potential customers, temporary exhibitions”.

Whatever that might mean, what is clearer is that British ministers have authorised 77 export licences to supply Israel with components for its submarines since 2010. This makes that category of equipment the fourth most numerous for all UK military exports to Israel. 

The total value of these licences is £8.96m, Declassified has established. Two of the licences are, however, “open” rather than “single”, meaning that unlimited quantities and values of such equipment can be exported from Britain. 

These licences for Israel’s submarines were excluded from the UK’s restrictions on exports of military equipment for Israel announced last September during its bombardment of Gaza. 

Also excluded were components from Israel’s F-35 warplanes used to devastating effect in the territory.

Israeli military officials are doubtless pleased that British companies can continue to support their submarines – since their underwater and nuclear arms programmes are both being upgraded.

Nuclear dolphins

Research institute SIPRI estimates that Israel has at least 90 nuclear warheads but that the number could reach as high as 300. 

While Israel continues to deny it has nuclear arms, SIPRI says it is “believed to be modernizing its nuclear arsenal and appears to be upgrading its plutonium production reactor site at Dimona” in the Negev desert.

The Stockholm-based institute also notes unconfirmed reports that “all or some of the submarines have been equipped to launch an indigenously produced nuclear-armed sea-launched variant of the Popeye cruise missile, giving Israel a sea-based nuclear strike capability”. 

It “assesses that around 10 cruise missile warheads might be available for the submarine fleet”………………………………………………………………………….

‘Armed with nuclear weapons’

Israel’s most recent, and sixth, submarine, known as the INS Drakon, is the country’s largest and was unveiled last November at the Kiel shipyard in northern Germany where it was built, and from where it will be delivered to Israel later this year. 

“Israeli nuclear submarines have the capability to be armed with nuclear weapons as well as to perform clandestine spying missions all over the world”, the Jerusalem Post reported at the time.

Israeli ministers may not see their nuclear weapons just as weapons of last resort, to be used if the country were threatened with annihilation.

In the months after the Hamas attacks on Israel in October 2023, several Israeli policymakers and commentators—including heritage minister Amihai Eliyahu who was later suspended from the cabinet—suggested that Israel should use nuclear arms against Hamas fighters in Gaza.

Whitehall in denial

The UK government has consistently refused to acknowledge the open secret that Israel possesses nuclear weapons. One reason Whitehall can be certain, however, is that it helped Israel acquire nuclear arms in the first place. 

In the late 1950s, Britain sold Israel 20 tonnes of heavy water, a vital ingredient for the production of plutonium at Israel’s top secret Dimona nuclear site.

In fact, Declassified previously found that staff in the Foreign Office and Ministry of Defence have for over 40 years believed Israel has developed nuclear arms.

Britain has also aided Israel’s submarine development…………………………………………………………………….https://www.declassifieduk.org/britain-is-aiding-israels-nuclear-force/?utm_source=Email&utm_medium=Button&utm_campaign=ICYMI&utm_content=Button

April 2, 2025 Posted by | Israel, UK, weapons and war | Leave a comment