Number of nuclear weapons held by major powers rising, says thinktank

There are now an estimated 12,512 warheads across the globe, with most of the new ones in military stockpiles said to be China’s

The number of operational nuclear weapons in the arsenals of the major military powers is on the rise again according to a leading thinktank, whose analysts warn the world is “drifting into one of the most dangerous periods in human history”.

At a time of both deteriorating international relations and the escalation of nuclear sabre-rattling, there are now said to be an estimated 12,512 warheads globally, of which 9,576 are in military stockpiles ready for potential use, up 86 on a year ago.

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Japan may take ‘destructive measures’ after North Korea announces satellite launch dates

Tokyo says any missile entering its territory will be destroyed as Pyongyang completes preparations to launch first military spy satellite

Japan’s military has said it will destroy any North Korean missile that violates its territory and is making preparations to do so, after Kim Jong-un’s regime told Tokyo it plans to launch a satellite between 31 May and 11 June.

Japan’s chief cabinet secretary, Hirokazu Matsuno, said any launch by North Korea, even if termed a satellite launch, affected the safety of Japanese citizens. “The government recognises that there is a possibility that the satellite may pass through our country’s territory.”

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Albanese urged to take stand against nuclear weapons during G7 summit in Hiroshima

International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons wants Labor to send a ‘message to the region’ and sign and ratify a treaty to impose a ban on atomic weapons

Anthony Albanese is being urged to take a firm stand against nuclear weapons when he attends the G7 summit in Hiroshima this weekend.

The prime minister has been invited to attend the summit in Hiroshima, which along with Nagasaki was devastated by the US atomic bombing in the closing stages of the second world war.

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As G7 leaders start to arrive, Japan PM prepares push in Hiroshima for nuclear weapons pledge

Ukraine and China’s Taiwan ambitions are expected to dominate summit discussions, but Fumio Kishida will have a powerful backdrop

The war in Ukraine and Chinese aggression towards Taiwan will dominate G7 discussions this week, but host Fumio Kishida is expected to carve out time to push for a pledge on nuclear weapons when leaders meet in Hiroshima, the first place on Earth targeted by an atomic bomb.

The leaders began to arrive on Thursday, ahead of an expected visit on Saturday to the city’s Peace Memorial Museum, which contains exhibits showing the scale of the tragedy that unfolded after the US dropped a nuclear bomb on the morning of 6 August 1945, killing 140,000 people by the end of the year.

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Former world leaders urge G7 to get nuclear arms control back on track

Exclusive: Letter calls on US and Russia to isolate weapons agreements from other disputes

A global array of former world leaders and defence ministers, nuclear experts and diplomats have called on the leaders of G7 countries at their meeting in Hiroshima, Japan, not to let progress on nuclear arms control continue to be the victim of growing geopolitical conflict, including the conflict between the west and Russia over Ukraine.

The Japanese prime minister, Fumio Kishida, who is from Hiroshima, chose the G7 venue to lend seriousness to his personal call to world leaders to at least agree a roadmap to resume nuclear arms control talks.

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North Korea: Kim Jong-un sister says Joe Biden is ‘in his dotage’ as she criticises nuclear pact

Kim Yo-jong’s broadside came after US and South Korea enhance nuclear cooperation and Biden warns Pyongyang an attack would end the regime

The powerful sister of North Korea’s leader has said her country will stage more displays of military might in response to a new US-South Korean nuclear deterrence agreement and compared Joe Biden’s comments about it as a “nonsensical remark from the person in his dotage”.

Kim Yo-jong’s broadside came after Biden attended a summit with the South Korean president, Yoon Suk-yeol, on Wednesday. The US president said later that any North Korean nuclear attack on the US or its allies would “result in the end of whatever regime” took such action.

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US nuclear-armed submarines to resume visits to South Korea for first time in 30 years

Yoon Suk-yeol meets Joe Biden in Washington amid concerns in South over North’s nuclear buildup

The US and South Korea have reaffirmed their alliance, agreeing that nuclear-armed submarines would resume port visits and threatening a “swift, overwhelming and decisive response” to any North Korean nuclear attack, including retaliation in kind by the US.

The South Korean president, Yoon Suk Yeol, said that response would include US nuclear weapons, making explicit an element of the alliance that normally remains unspoken.

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West prepares for Putin to use ‘whatever tools he’s got left’ in Ukraine

Officials ready for nuclear threats and cyber-attacks as part of Russian response to predicted counter-offensive

Western leaders are preparing for Vladimir Putin to use “whatever tools he’s got left” including nuclear threats and cyber-attacks in response to an expected Ukrainian counter-offensive against Russia.

British officials at the G7 foreign ministers’ summit in Japan said they were expecting Russia to retaliate and “must be prepared” for extreme tactics as it attempted to hold on to Ukrainian territory.

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Australia must rescue citizens from ‘dire’ Syrian detention camps, Red Cross says

Global director general says ‘state of in-limbo cannot last longer’, with about 40 citizens still believed to be detained indefinitely

Australia and other countries must continue to rescue their citizens from “dire” conditions in camps in north-eastern Syria, the head of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has said.

The global director general of the Geneva-based humanitarian organisation, Robert Mardini, said the “state of in-limbo cannot last longer”.

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‘Damaged nuclear bomb’ at Dutch base was dummy weapon, Pentagon says

US defence department releases statement saying object was used in training after photo emerged of military inspection

The Pentagon has said that a picture that featured in a report by the Federation of American Scientists (FAS) on Monday about apparent damage to a US nuclear bomb at a Dutch airbase was a dummy weapon used for training emergency response teams.

FAS published a photograph of a B61 bomb being inspected for damage by US soldiers, including two from an explosive ordnance disposal unit, and a civilian. The rear of the bomb appears to have been twisted by an impact and one of the tail fins is missing. There is pink sticky tape covering an apparent hole.

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Russia-Ukraine war live: Moscow to station nuclear weapons near Belarus’s western border, envoy says

As it happened: US government ‘keenly, strongly, closely’ tracking Evan Gershkovich’s detention; IAEA chief Rafael Grossi expected to visit on Wednesday

The Russian state-owned news agency Tass is reporting an explosion in occupied Melitopol. It reports the city administration said a car was blown up in the city centre, and that one person was injured.

The Telegram channel of the Russian-imposed authority in the city has named the injured person as Maxim Zubarev, the head of the occupying authority in the Yakymivka settlement in the region. This is unconfirmed.

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Putin’s timeline for storing tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus is hard to believe

Although Alexander Lukashenko has agreed to host nuclear bases little construction work seems to have started

Like a lot of what Vladimir Putin says about nuclear weapons, his suggestion that Russia would start storing its bombs in Belarus may add up to less than it appears.

In February last year, Putin said he was putting Russia’s nuclear arsenal on high alert, but there was no perceptible change in the country’s nuclear posture, or any unusual movements of its weapons.

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Russia accused of taking Belarus ‘nuclear hostage’ with deal to station missiles there

Ukraine says Putin’s deal to station tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus destabilises neighbour

Ukraine has accused Russia of destabilising Belarus and making its smaller neighbour into “a nuclear hostage”, after Vladimir Putin’s announcement that Moscow has made a deal to station tactical nuclear weapons on Belarusian territory.

The country’s opposition leader in exile, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, said the move “grossly contradicts the will of the Belarusian people” and reflected the further subjugation of Belarus under Russian control.

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Russia to station tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus

Deal with allied neighbour will not violate non-proliferation agreements, Putin says

Russia has reached an agreement with Belarus to station tactical nuclear weapons on its smaller neighbour’s territory, so bringing some of its arsenal closer to the rest of Europe, Vladimir Putin has said.

The Russian president made the announcement on state television, arguing that it would not breach non-proliferation agreements and that it would match similar arrangements that the US has with several of its European allies.

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Putin says Russia ‘will respond’ if UK supplies depleted uranium shells to Ukraine

Russian leader reacts to comments by UK defence minister that Britain will supply armour-piercing rounds to Kyiv

Vladimir Putin has sought to exploit a British statement that it would supply Ukraine with tank shells made with depleted uranium, arguing that the delivery of the armour-piercing weapons would prompt a Russian response.

The Russian leader’s comments, made during the visit to Moscow by his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, came in response to a parliamentary answer given by a junior British defence minister in the House of Lords on Monday.

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Libyan general says 2.5 tonnes of missing uranium found near storage base

UN nuclear watchdog raised alarm hours earlier amid concerns about radiological and security risks

More than 2 tonnes of natural uranium reported missing by the UN’s nuclear watchdog in war-torn Libya have been found, a general in the country’s east has said.

Gen Khaled al-Mahjoub, the commander of eastern warlord Khalifa Haftar’s communications division, said the containers of uranium had been recovered barely 5km (3 miles) from where they had been stored in southern Libya, and after the International Atomic Energy Agency reported their disappearance earlier on Thursday.

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China says Aukus submarines deal embarks on ‘path of error and danger’

Beijing accuses US, UK and Australia of disregarding global concerns with plan to build nuclear-powered vessels

China has accused the US, UK and Australia of embarking on a “path of error and danger” in response to the Aukus partners’ announcement of a deal on nuclear-powered submarines.

“The latest joint statement from the US, UK and Australia demonstrates that the three countries, for the sake of their own geopolitical interests, completely disregard the concerns of the international communities and are walking further and further down the path of error and danger,” China’s foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said during a regular press briefing on Tuesday.

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What is the Aukus submarine deal and what does it mean? – the key facts

The four-phase plan has made nuclear arms control experts nervous … here’s why

In a tripartite deal with the US and the UK, Australia has unveiled a plan to acquire a fleet of up to eight nuclear-powered submarines, forecast to cost up to $368bn between now and the mid-2050s. Australia will spend $9bn over the next four years.

From this year Australian military and civilian personnel will embed with US and UK navies, including within both countries’ submarine industrial bases. From 2027 the UK and the US plan to rotate their nuclear-powered submarines through HMAS Stirling near Perth as part of a push to step up training of Australians.

Embedded personnel and port visits: Australian military and civilian personnel will embed with the the allies’ navies. US nuclear-powered submarines will increase their visits to Australian ports, with Australian sailors joining US crews for training.

Submarine rotations: From 2027 the UK and the US plan to rotate one UK Astute class submarine and up to four US Virginia class submarines through HMAS Stirling.

Sale of US Virginia-class submarines: From the early 2030s – pending approval by Congress – the US intends to sell Australia three Virginia-class submarines, with a potential option for two more if required.

SSN-Aukus: A combination of UK submarine design and US defence technology will contribute to the development of the new SSN-Aukus submarine – intended as the future attack submarine for both the UK and Australia. Both Australia and the UK intend to start building SSN-Aukus submarines in their domestic shipyards before the end of this decade. The first such boat may enter into UK service in the late 2030s, but the Australian navy will receive its first Australian-built SSN-Aukus submarine in the early 2040s.

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Aukus nuclear submarine deal loophole prompts proliferation fears

Scheme allowing nuclear materials in Australian submarines worries experts about precedent of safeguard removal

The Aukus scheme announced on Monday in San Diego represents the first time a loophole in the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) has been used to transfer fissile material and nuclear technology from a nuclear weapons state to a non-weapons state.

The loophole is paragraph 14, and it allows fissile material utilised for non-explosive military use, like naval propulsion, to be exempt from inspections and monitoring by the UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). It makes arms controls experts nervous because it sets a precedent that could be used by others to hide highly enriched uranium, or plutonium, the core of a nuclear weapon, from international oversight.

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No clunkers: Australia buying ‘highest quality’ secondhand submarines from US, congressman says

Senior US lawmaker confident Virginia Class nuclear vessels can be delivered and concerns about joint crewing are ‘overhyped’

Australia buying up to five secondhand Virginia class nuclear submarines would not amount to the US “foisting off clunkers” on to its ally, a senior US lawmaker has said.

On Sunday congressman Joe Courtney, the ranking member of the house seapower subcommittee and the second highest ranking Democrat on the armed services committee, also sought to reassure Australia that concern about joint crewing of nuclear submarines was “overhyped”.

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