Greenpeace UK and CND have been doing some sterling work to establish how much money will be spent on the Trident replacement programme before Parliament decides whether to give the final go-ahead for the programme after the next general election.

I went up to London on Tuesday for a lecture at SOAS, where Dr Robert Gallucci, President of the MacArthur Foundation, was speaking on 'Assessing the Nuclear Threat' alongside Professor Sir Lawrence Freedman from Kings College London.  The talk majored on the need to prevent terrorist groups from being able to develop a nuclear weapon, but the subject of Trident replacement came up, and whether the UK government's plans to replace Trident were helpful or unhelpful in preventing the spread of nuclear weapons.

NIS has received more information about Abnormal Events at AWE Aldermaston – this time in the A45 facility that undertakes much of the work with uranium and other radioactive metals at Aldermaston.

A45 is one of Aldermaston's older facilities, and the Health and Safety Executive has permitted it to continue operating until March 2016, subject to an improvement programme being completed for the building.  After this the facility will be replaced by Project Pegasus – the proposed new enriched uranium facility at Aldermaston.