1 GLOBAL SECURITY
Nuclear weapons spending reaches record high
Global spending on nuclear weapons increased by 13% to a record $91.4bn during 2023, according to calculations from the pressure group International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (Ican).
This is up $10.7bn from the previous year, driven largely by sharply increased defence budgets in the US, at a time of wider geopolitical uncertainty caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the Israel-Hamas war.
All nine of the world’s nuclear armed nations are spending more, Ican said, with China judged to be the second largest spender with an $11.9bn budget, well below the $51.5bn attributed to the US. Russia is the third largest spender, at $8.3bn, followed by the UK ($8.1bn) and France ($6.1bn), although estimates for authoritarian states or the three countries with undeclared nuclear programmes (India, Pakistan and Israel) are complicated by a lack of transparency.
In the five years since Ican began its research, spending on nuclear weapons has soared by 34%, or $23.2bn. Spending by the US increased by 45% and by 43% in the UK.
A new world war threat Page 34 →
2 RUSSIA
US reporter ’s ‘spy’ trial to be held behind closed doors
Russia will hold the trial of the detained US reporter Evan Gershkovich, who denies charges of collecting secrets for the CIA, behind closed doors later this month.
Gershkovich, 32, a reporter for the Wall Street Journal, was detained by the Federal Security Service (FSB) in March 2023 on charges
