The proliferation of nuclear weapons is the single biggest threat facing the world today, according to former Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating. Mr Keating, who led the government from 1991 to 1996, said the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) entered into in 1970 was on the verge of collapse.

Speaking to a sold-out crowd at the Melbourne Writers' Festival, Mr Keating called on the international community to push for a new order for world peace. He said the 20th Century order had been one of violence, with major powers holding onto nuclear weapons.

"Nuclear weapon proliferation is the single most immediate threat hanging over the world today," Mr Keating said.

He said the United States, China, France, Britain and Russia - all signatories to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty - are not only not ridding themselves of nuclear weapons, but developing new ones.

He cited Tony Blair's Trident submarine program announced in 2006 and said the Bush administration had "turned its hand to new bunker-busting nuclear weapons designed to attack underground facilities."

Thousands of containers of lethal nuclear waste are likely to fail before being safely sealed away underground, a devastating official report concludes. The unpublicised Report is by the Environment Agency, which has to approve any proposals for getting rid of the waste that remains deadly for tens of thousands of years.

The document effectively destroys Britain's already shaky disposal plans just as Ministers are preparing an expansion of nuclear power. It shows that many containers used to store the waste are made of second-rate materials, are handled carelessly, and are liable to corrode. The Report concludes: "It is cautious to assume a significant proportion will fail." It says computer models suggest up to 40 per cent of them could be at risk.

Britain's leading expert on nuclear waste yesterday called the report "devastating" and Peter Ainsworth, the Conservative Environment Spokesman, said he would write to Ministers to urge them to "make changes to ensure public safety". He added: "Such a warning from the Environment Agency must be taken extremely seriously. The failure of just one container could prove catastrophic."

CND has warned that the development of the US Missile Defence in central Europe and the expansion of NATO are plunging Europe into a new Cold War.

CND condemned Foreign Secretary David Miliband for fuelling international tensions, on the same day that the US and Poland sign a deal on US Missile Defence, by announcing Georgia had been given a ‘route map to membership’.

Support for US Missile Defence puts Britain at greater risk of military attack rather than providing greater security, with US bases in Yorkshire potentially on the front line of any future wars involving the US. Moscow has already announced that it will re-target its missiles on Europe if missile defence goes ahead.

The Foreign Secretary’s stated commitment to Georgian membership of NATO, ratchets up the new Cold War danger, siding with the US in escalating tensions with Russia. Rather than expanding NATO, CND advocates the extension of the influence, resources and funding of the Organisation for Security and Co-Operation in Europe to develop a strategic approach to European security, independent of White House dominance.

Kate Hudson, CND Chair, said ‘The United States, with UK support, seems hell bent on escalating tensions with Russia and is leading us into a new Cold War. The agreement to place interceptor missiles in Poland, together with its drive to expand NATO into Georgia and the Ukraine, is enormously provocative and puts British and other European citizens at greater risk. It is not providing us with greater security. Europe is being used as a pawn in the global military strategy of the United States – our Government should be championing dialogue and diplomacy rather than missile systems and nuclear-armed military alliances.

The timing was about a month after the Oak Ridge plant received approval to restart production work on W76 warheads, which had been delayed for more than a year because of technical issues. However, Steven Wyatt of the National Nuclear Security Administration said he could not comment on whether the oven-dried weapon parts were associated with the plant's W76 life-extension program, which is refurbishing old warheads deployed on Trident submarine missiles.

The Safety Board's Report said the components - known as canned subassemblies - were mistakenly dried at a "much higher temperature" than intended. Asked if they were damaged by the process, Wyatt responded  "The parts were not prepared in accordance with the original application and could not be used as intended." Wyatt said the parts were deemed acceptable for an "alternate use" but said they had to be rebuilt. He would not disclose the future use or say if it was a weapons mission

The diplomatic brinkmanship between Russia and the West over Georgia has brought back memories of the dark days of the Cold War. But the return of tension has raised disturbing questions over the preparedness of Britain's civil defence system, which was all but scrapped after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The country once had a network of thousands of underground bunkers kept in a constant state of readiness by trained volunteers in the Royal Observation Corps (ROC) and governed by a complex command structure. Most have been mothballed, sold to private owners to become tourist attractions, or left to crumble into disrepair.

The network of sirens designed to provide the famous "four-minute warning" has been dismantled and the ROC was finally stood down in 1995. Since decommissioning its last air-launched nuclear missiles in 1998, Britain has only a single nuclear deterrent in the form of four Vanguard-class submarines each equipped with up to four Trident missiles.

Experts say that, while the risk of a missile attack on Britain is low, the country may still be faced with a serious threat.