France acknowledges Polynesian islands ‘strong-armed’ into dangerous nuclear tests, Telegraph UK Henry Samuel, Paris, 24 MAY 2019 France has officially acknowledged for the first time that French Polynesians were effectively forced into accepting almost 200 nuclear tests conducted over a 30-year period, and that it is responsible for compensating them for the illnesses caused by the fallout.
The French parliament issued the much-awaited admission in a bill reforming the status of the collectivity of 118 islands in the South Pacific, with MPs saying the change should make it easier for the local population to request compensation for cancer and other illnesses linked to radioactivity.
From 1966 to 1996, France carried out 193 nuclear tests around the paradise islands, including Bora Bora and Tahiti, immortalised by Paul Gauguin. Images of a mushroom cloud over the Moruroa atoll, one of two used as test sites along with Fangataufa, provoked international protests.
Charles De Gaulle and subsequent presidents had thanked French Polynesians for their role in assuring the grandeur of France by allowing it to conduct the tests.
But in the parliamentary bill, France acknowledges that the islands were “called upon” – effectively strong-armed – into accepting the tests for the purposes of “building (its) nuclear deterrent and national defence”.
It also stipulates that the French state will “ensure the maintenance and surveillance of the sites concerned” and “support the economic and structural reconversion of French Polynesia following the cessation of nuclear tests”.
Patrice Bouveret of the Observatoire des armements (Armaments Observatory), an independent organisation that has been assessing the impacts of French nuclear testing in Polynesia since 1984, welcomed the reform.
“It recognises the fact that local people’s health could have been affected and thus the French state’s responsibility in compensating them for such damage. Until now, the entire French discourse was that the tests were ‘clean’ – that was the actual word used – and that they had taken all due precautions for staff and locals.”
However, he said it was a “scandal” that it had taken 23 years for France to officially recognise its responsibility, and said there was nothing in the law on the ill-effects on future generations……. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/05/24/france-acknowledges-polynesian-islands-strong-armed-dangerous/
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May 25, 2019
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
France, indigenous issues, OCEANIA, weapons and war |
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This Madness Deserves a Protest: an Inside Account at US Nuclear Weapons Strategy, CounterPunch, By Joan Roelofs ,April 5, 2017
“In contrast to the Soviet Union, the United States has always maintained its ‘right’ to carry out a nuclear first strike. This has never changed and was reaffirmed by Defense Secretary Ashton Carter . . . on September 27, 2016.” – Diana Johnstone, From MAD to Madness.
There is not much hope for the retraction of this threat. On March 21, Reuters reported “Trump has said that while he would like to see nuclear weapons abolished, he wants the United States to have an unrivaled arsenal. He also said that the United States has ‘fallen behind’ in its nuclear capabilities, even though it is in the midst of a 30-year, $1.3 trillion drive to modernize what most experts agree is the world’s most powerful nuclear force.”
An insider’s memoir, From MAD to Madness, by Paul H. Johnstone, describing the persistence of the US nuclear threat has recently been published by Clarity Press. Johnstone was a senior analyst in the Strategic Weapons Evaluation Group in the Department of Defense, directing studies on the probable consequences of nuclear war, to us and to them, and also an author of The Pentagon Papers.
He died in 1981, leaving his memoir to his daughter, author (and CounterPunch contributor) Diana Johnstone. He had previously served in World War II as an evaluator of Japanese enemy targets, but as Diana says here: “Hiroshima changed the nature of targeting dramatically, and that is the story my father tells in his memoir.”
In this book Diana has finally published his “Memoir of a Humanist in the Pentagon,” along with her added commentary and a foreword by Paul Craig Roberts. Roberts expresses in a nutshell the contemporary horrific relevance of the book: “The neoconservatives in pursuit of their goal of US world hegemony have resurrected the possibility of nuclear war. The neocons have taken us from MAD to madness.”
The neocons are not some far-right fringe group; they represent the mainstream of US foreign policy in recent Democratic and Republican administrations. The political use of the nuclear threat has a long history. It was inaugurated by the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, a political decision opposed by the military. Admiral Leahy, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff wrote: “the use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender. . .
” The Truman Doctrine (1947) indicated that there were no regrets. It stated in effect that any country that appeared to be adopting a communist form of government, whether through outside intervention, civil war, or ordinary elections, would be subject to whatever punishment the United States chose to inflict, not excluding nuclear attack.
Johnstone traces the “breather” in our policy characterized by MAD—the idea that Mutually Assured Destruction: a path to mutual suicide—was a deterrent to the use of nuclear weapons. This realization by our government occurred once Soviet nuclear capability became obvious. However, as Roberts notes, after the Soviet collapse in the 1990s the US “resurrected nuclear weapons as usable weapons of war. The Obama regime . . . authorized a trillion dollar expenditure for nuclear weapons, and US war doctrine elevated nukes from a retaliatory role to pre-emptive first strike.”
Roberts, who was United States Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy under President Reagan in 1981, maintains that Reagan and Gorbachev “eliminated the risk of Armageddon by negotiating the end of the Cold War.”…….
The military and the increasingly gigantic industries equipping it wanted bases everywhere, and somewhat plausible threats that would justify annual upgrading of the lethal arsenal. Wars now and then that would enable testing and destruction of weapons were also useful for the advancement of warriors and profits of contractors. Furthermore, revolutions that were allowed to succeed and improve the lives of people might create imitators in our land of vast wealth accompanied by astounding poverty and misery.
Yet neither Roberts nor Johnstone discusses the role of multinational corporations and the military- industrial complex in motivating and perpetuating the post-WWII Cold War. They attributed major influence on US policy to anti-Soviet émigrés (Kissinger, Brzezinski and others) from Eastern Europe. A high-level Air Force intelligence “Special Studies Group,” headed by a Hungarian émigré “expert” predicted in every annual appraisal that there would be “a massive Russian land attack on Western Europe the following year.”
The worldwide cold war between capitalism and socialism continues—in Cuba, among other places—and there is now also the megalomaniac goal of world hegemony. The projected attack by the now-capitalist Russia is still awaited, despite indications that the Russians want to eliminate the specter of civilization’s total nuclear destruction.
Johnstone’s sober prediction in From MAD to Madness: “there can be no victor in a nuclear war” must be given priority by the newly-awakened activists. The abolition of nuclear weapons would be a step towards sanity.: http://www.counterpunch.org/2017/04/05/this-madness-deserves-a-protest-an-inside-account-at-us-nuclear-weapons-strategy/
May 25, 2019
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
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ISLAMABAD — VOICE OF AMERICA, 24 May 19,Pakistan says it has successfully conducted a “training launch” of a ballistic missile capable of carrying both nuclear and conventional warheads up to 1,500 kilometers.
The move came amid Pakistan’s heightened military tensions with neighboring rival India, and it is seen by observers as part of the efforts Islamabad is making to keep pace with New Delhi’s massive investments in military hardware and advancements…….
Pakistan has already test-fired the Shaheen-III nuclear-capable missile with a range of up to 1,700 miles, enabling it to strike all corners of India and reach deep into the Middle East, including Israel.
Thursday’s missile launch came a day after Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi spoke briefly with his Indian counterpart, Sushma Swaraj, on the sidelines of a meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization member states in Kyrgyzstan. Following what he said was an informal interaction with Swaraj, Qureshi said he conveyed Pakistan’s readiness to engage in a dialogue with India to resolve all bilateral matters through negotiations.
“We want to live like good neighbors and settle our outstanding issues through talks,” he said.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced in March the country had shot down a satellite in low orbit, making it the fourth country, after the United States, China and Russia, to have used an anti-satellite weapon.
Islamabad had criticized the move as a “matter of grave concern” and a militarization of space by New Delhi.
In the backdrop of India’s recent anti-satellite tests, Pakistan announced Wednesday it has signed a joint document with Russia on no-first placement of weapons in outer space. An official statement said the two countries have agreed to “make all possible efforts to prevent outer space from becoming an arena for military confrontation and to ensure security in our space activities.”
Analysts estimate that both the South Asian rivals possess about 100 nuclear warheads each.
Brink of war
Pakistan and India have fought three major wars since 1947 and came close to the brink of another war earlier this year…… https://www.voanews.com/a/pakistan-tests-nuclear-capable-ballistic-missile/4929203.html
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May 25, 2019
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
Pakistan, weapons and war |
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 As nuclear weapons risk escalates, debate grows about ‘vintage’ US arsenal, By Hollie McKay | Fox News, 24 May 19, The threat of a nuclear weapon being used is higher now than at any point since the conclusion the World War ll, a top United Nations security expert cautioned this week, calling the matter an “urgent” one that requires global attention.
Renata Dwan, director of the U.N. Institute for Disarmament Research warned in Geneva that the heightened risk comes in large part as a result of disarmament negotiations that have chilled during a two-decade stalemate. But Dwan says the threat is also amplified by the increasing competition between nuclear-armed U.S. and China and other nuke-capable nations issuing plans for modernization.
But how does the arsenal of American — the only country to use a nuke against an enemy — compare to those other states?
“Other nuclear-armed states, notably Russia and China, are upgrading their arsenals and have tested, produced and deployed more brand-new weapons than the United States over the past decade,” Kingston Reif, Director of Disarmament and Threat Reduction Policy at the Arms Control Association, told Fox News. “But this does not mean the U.S. has fallen behind. The U.S. military has refurbished and improved nearly all of its existing strategic and tactical delivery systems and many of the warheads they carry, too, last well beyond their planned service life.”
As it stands, nine countries are known to possess nuclear weapons: the U.S., China, Russia, U.K, France, Israel, Pakistan, India, and murkily, North Korea. However, only the first three countries are believed to possess what is known as the “nuclear triad,” a three-pronged structure that consists of missiles that can be launched from land, air and sea.
Harry Kazianis, a senior director at the Center for National Interest, stressed that while many parts of America’s nuclear arsenal are quite old and were designed decades ago, the U.S. “clearly possesses the most advanced and sophisticated atomic arsenal on the planet.”
“Washington’s nuclear weapons arsenal is so powerful it could bring to an end any nation on the planet in less than 60 minutes if it wanted to—and kill billions of people in the process,” he acknowledged. “That amount of power is almost impossible for the mind to fathom, but it is a reality.”
Nonetheless, others painted a far more dire picture of America’s capabilities……..
The Trump administration, however, is proposing to broaden the circumstances under which the United States would consider the first use of nuclear weapons, develop two new sea-based, low-yield nuclear options — and laying the groundwork to grow the size of the arsenal, Reif pointed out.
In addition, the administration has announced the United States will leave the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty in August 2019 and expressed hostility towards extending the 2010 New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty,” Reif said. “In short, the administration is preparing to compete in a new nuclear arms race while simultaneously increasing the likelihood of such a contest.”
But the biggest issue Washington has to contend with when it comes to nuclear upgrade ambitions — bigger than Russia, China or North Korea — is cost.
Mark Olson, a defense consultant and former Lieutenant Commander, Combat Systems Officer, and Missile Defense Expert with extensive experience in European Ballistic Missile Defense, noted that the Congressional Budget Office estimates nuclear weapons spending will cost taxpayers $1.2 trillion in inflation-adjusted dollars between fiscal years 2017-2046, or 6 percent of national defense spending.
“Proposals are underway to modernize the U.S. arsenal over the next twenty years; however, cost remains a critical obstacle and one which appears destined to compel budgeteers to hack at innovation in other, arguably more critical, areas,” Olson said…….. https://www.foxnews.com/us/nuclear-weapons-risk-escalating-debate-over-vintage-u-s-arsenal
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May 25, 2019
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
business and costs, USA, weapons and war |
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Donald Trump needs to reclaim control over his policy toward Iran. National Interest, by Paul R. Pillar 22 May 19, The current crisis atmosphere in U.S.-Iranian relations, in which the risk of open warfare appears greater than it has been in years, is solely, unequivocally due to the policies and actions of the Trump administration. To point this out does not mean that actions of the Iranian regime have not come to be part of the crisis atmosphere as well. It instead means that such an atmosphere would never have existed in the first place if the administration had not turned its obsession with Iran into the relentless campaign of stoking hostility and tension that has become one of the single most prominent threads of the administration’s foreign policy.Without that campaign, and without the administration’s assault on the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA)—the agreement that restricts Iran’s nuclear program—Iran would continue to comply with its obligations under the JCPOA and all possible paths to an Iranian nuclear weapon would remain closed.
The channels of communication established during negotiation of the JCPOA would continue to be available to address other issues and to defuse any incidents that threatened to escalate into war (as was done during the previous U.S. administration). Whatever Iran has been doing for years in the Middle East, such as assisting Iraq in defeating the Islamic State and assisting its longtime ally in Syria, it would continue to do. In short, there would be no new threat and no crisis.
Some of the current discourse about Iran nonetheless makes it sound not only as if there is something new and threatening but that the Iranian regime is the initiator of the threat. At least seven reasons account for this misconception.
One is the demonization of Iran that is rooted in genuinely nefarious things the Iranian regime did in the past and dates back to when Ted Koppel was talking to Americans every weeknight about U.S. diplomats held hostage in Tehran. Over the years other factors have contributed to the demonization, including domestic American political pressures connected to certain regional rivals of Iran that want to keep it weak and isolated. The result is lasting and pervasive suspicion that colors American perceptions of everything involving Iran, regardless of the facts of whatever is the issue at hand………. https://nationalinterest.org/blog/paul-pillar/washington-has-become-warmongers-paradise-58832
May 23, 2019
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
politics international, USA, weapons and war |
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https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20190522/p2a/00m/0na/013000c
May 22, 2019 (Mainichi Japan) NAGASAKI — On May 9, there was a sit-in hibakusha gathering in front of the Peace Statue at Nagasaki Peace Park. The meeting takes place on the ninth of every month, marking the Aug. 9, 1945, U.S. atomic bombing of Nagasaki. This month’s congregation marked the 444th time for such an event.
Koichi Kawano, 79, took to the microphone to speak about the stand-off between the United States and Iran. “This is a crisis,” he said to the around 100 people in attendance, continuing, “Our hearts are one when wishing for the abolition of nuclear weapons.”
Born in North Pyongan Province on the Korean Peninsula, now part of North Korea, Kawano was brought back to his parents’ hometown Nagasaki as a child. Aged 5 in August 1945, he was around 3.1 kilometers away from the atomic bomb’s hypocenter. Now a resident of the nearby town of Nagayo, he has been an activist for the end of nuclear weaponry in roles including his long tenure as chairman of the Hibakusha Liaison Council of the Nagasaki Prefectural Peace Movement Center.
“While enduring untold misery, we have won our rights with our own strength,” he says, looking back on the messages their hibakusha meetings have sent against the government’s constitutional amendment policies and security legislation designed to allow Japan to exercise the right to collective self-defense in a limited manner.
“Perseverance is power” has been Kawano’s guiding motto in engaging in the movement’s activities, but this spring he faced a difficult reality. Masanori Nakashima, president of the Nagasaki Prefecture A-bomb Health Handbook Friendship Society, died aged 89 on March 15. The two men were allies in peace activism. Representatives of five local hibakusha groups, including Nakashima and Kawano, announced a joint statement on peace issues and handed a written request to the prime minister on Aug. 9.
Of the five hibakusha group representatives who were alive in 2015 on the 70th anniversary of the bombing, three including Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Survivors Council chair Sumiteru Taniguchi have passed away. Taniguchi died in 2017 at 88 years of age. “Even with his limp, he dragged himself to that office to hear other hibakusha speak,” Kawano reminisced, while looking ahead to an uncertain future, saying, “What will happen to these groups after we die?”
Kawano himself underwent surgery for esophageal cancer in 2017. Due to ill health he was forced to pull out of a survey of hibakusha in North Korea as a member of the Japan Congress Against A- and H-Bombs in fall 2018. Despite setbacks, his drive for peace remains unchanged. Kawano confronted Prime Minister Shinzo Abe over the Japanese government’s disinclination to sign and ratify the United Nations Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in a face-to-face meeting in 2017, asking, “What country’s prime minister are you?”
As time marches on from the events of August 1945, Kawano is putting his faith in the next generation. “The increasingly quiet voices of the hibakusha must not be drowned out,” he says. At the monthly sit-ins in Nagasaki Peace Park, the number of high school age attendees has increased. As he welcomes the last summer of his 70s, Kawano’s resolve remains strong. “Peace activism is powered by people. I want the movement to continue, to carry on the wish never to see another generation of hibakusha in this world.”
(Japanese original by Yuki Imano, Nagasaki Bureau)
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May 23, 2019
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
Japan, opposition to nuclear, PERSONAL STORIES, Reference, weapons and war |
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There Is No Check on Trump’s Rage Going Nuclear An angry, entitled man has total control over devastating weapons. Foreign Policy, BY ANNE HARRINGTON, CHERYL ROFER, MAY 22, 2019, DONALD TRUMP IS TAKING THE UNITED STATES BACK TO AN EARLIER TIME – ONE MOST PEOPLE THOUGHT HAD BEEN LEFT BEHIND. HIS AGGRESSIVE BOORISHNESS, ENTITLEMENT, AND BELIEF THAT HE CAN DO WHATEVER HE WANTS ARE QUALITIES FROM AN AGE WHEN MEN’S CONTROL WAS ASSUMED, AND OTHERS STAYED SILENT. AND NOWHERE IS HIS RETROGRADE MASCULINITY MORE DANGEROUS THAN IN HIS CONTROL OF THE NUCLEAR BUTTON.
As president of the United States, Trump has absolute authority to launch nuclear weapons – without anyone else’s consent. In the past, it was taken for granted that the president would follow an established protocol that included consultation with the military, his cabinet, and others before taking such a grave step, but Trump is not legally bound to these procedures. Presidential launch authority is a matter of directive and precedent rather than specific law.
Trump’s bravado, penchant for inflated rhetoric, and impulsive decision-making style—including catching his leadership off guard by informing them of policy directives via tweet—have stoked old fears about placing the authority to launch in the wrong hands. So has his constant violation of once cherished presidential norms, including refusing to make public his tax returns and failing to read his daily intelligence brief.
Debates about launch authority have always been intimately bound up with whether we consider nukes’ function to be primarily military or political. Nuclear weapons are so destructive that, since the bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, even the explicit threat of their use has been sparing. They have been used as political deterrents and levers, instead of direct weapons of war.
Reserving launch authority for the president was a key way to emphasize the political nature of the nuclear mission.
Historians trace the precedent of presidential launch authority to President Harry Truman’s decision to check his generals’ use of nuclear weapons.
After destroying Hiroshima and Nagasaki, they planned to bomb a third Japanese city, but Truman forbade them to carry out the attack without his express consent and ultimately decided against it. According to Truman’s commerce secretary, Henry Wallace, the president thought killing “another 100,000 people was too horrible.” By assuming personal responsibility for the launch order, Truman started a tradition of differentiating this new technology from conventional weapons.
Reserving launch authority for the president not only underscored the special status of nuclear weapons as a political asset, but it also took them out of the hands of the generals—men like Gen. Curtis LeMay. LeMay was a laconic man’s man, known for his ruthlessness and impolitic statements. During World War II, he directed the firebombing of 63 Japanese cities, killing hundreds of thousands of people. It was LeMay who relayed the orders for the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and later, as the head of Strategic Air Command (SAC), oversaw the war plans for an all-out nuclear attack against the Soviet Union. LeMay had no patience for subordinating operational effectiveness to moral concerns, or what he referred to as an American “phobia” against the use of nuclear weapons.
LeMay resented the fact that SAC was subject to presidential launch authority. According to the historian Richard Rhodes, he had his own launch plans, ignoring national policy. While LeMay continued to believe that the United States could obliterate the Soviet Union while minimizing its own losses, in the civilian world ideas about the use of nuclear weapons were evolving. A new breed of defense intellectual was pushing the idea that the primary purpose of nuclear weapons was not to decimate U.S. adversaries but to prevent such weapons being used at all. Anchored in a game theoretic approach, these intellectuals assumed that the holders of nuclear weapons would be rational and that what each side believed about the other—credibility—was central to deterring nuclear use.
Robert McNamara, who served as President John F. Kennedy’s defense secretary, was emblematic of this new approach and responsible for introducing this new breed of defense intellectual into the Pentagon. …….
Where LeMay’s approach openly celebrated slaughter, McNamara’s bloodlessness could lead to just as much destruction. The fact that teams of scientists provided mathematical justifications for the Cold War buildup in nuclear arms did not make the possibility of their use any less brutal……….
McNamara’s approach prevailed—not only politically but culturally. The 1964 movie Dr. Strangelove rejected LeMay’s approach to nuclear weapons. The cigar-chomping Gen. Jack D. Ripper is portrayed as insane, his paranoia leading him to release an airborne nuclear strike against the Soviet Union. Maj. T.J. “King” Kong rides the bomb down, brandishing his cowboy hat.
LeMay and McNamara not only represent two different approaches to nuclear strategy but two different ideals of masculinity. The election of Trump has reversed the usual stereotypes of generals and civilians. In the Trump White House, generals like H.R. McMaster and James Mattis inspired confidence in their respect for social norms and display of restraint, while Trump represents the rejected LeMay model of masculinity—without the virtues of actual service and endurance that LeMay also exemplified.
Trump’s personal manner is like LeMay’s—belligerent, inarticulate, refusing meaningful discussion, and deflecting criticism. And, like LeMay, his statements about nuclear weapons prioritize use over doctrine………
Trump’s focus on the individual, the leader is not just narcissistic but also deeply patriarchal. For Trump’s supporters, it is precisely the hope that Trump might “make America great again” by restoring their social world to its “
natural” order, one in which the (white) man’s home is once again his castle. His masculine bravado and willingness to eschew social norms in favor of social aggression and emotional combativeness are his attractive qualities, but it is precisely these characteristics that lead to senseless and irrational conflicts—conflicts that could quickly become global catastrophes in the nuclear era. These days Trump not only brags about grabbing women by the pussy but also
boasts about how his nuclear button is bigger than North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s………..
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Would Trump be willing to use nuclear weapons? That’s unknowable—but he certainly doesn’t need your, or anyone else’s, consent to do it.
Anne Harrington is a Lecturer in International Relations at Cardiff University.
May 23, 2019
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
politics, USA, weapons and war |
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Government workers were kept in the dark about their toxic workplace
As US modernizes its nuclear weapons, NCR looks at the legacy of one Cold War-era plant, National Catholic Reporter, May 20, 2019 by Claire Schaeffer-Duffy
Editor’s note: As the government invests in the modernization of the U.S. nuclear arsenal, while weakening environmental regulations and federal laws protecting worker safety, National Catholic Reporter looks at the toxic legacy of one shuttered weapons plant in Kansas City, Missouri.
In a three-part series about the Kansas City Plant on Bannister Road and its successor 8 miles south, NCR reviews hundreds of pages of government reports and environmental summaries, and interviews more than two dozen sources, including five plant workers and their families, three former federal employees who worked nearby, nuclear industry and government officials, health experts, business sources, state environmental regulators and a former city councilman.
This is Part 1.
“………… Debbie blames Bob’s painful and untimely passing on his worksite. For 27 years, he worked as an engineer at the Kansas City nuclear bomb components plant, a proud and dedicated employee of what is now Honeywell Federal Manufacturing and Technologies LLC. Sworn to secrecy, Bob never discussed his work assignments with his wife. And she never asked. She is now convinced that whatever he did out there probably killed him.
During the decades of the Cold War, the Department of Energy (DOE) and its predecessor agencies employed hundreds of thousands of Americans in more than 350 secretive, hazardous worksites across the country, according to federal records. Scientists, engineers, machinists and laborers were hired to design, test and construct a stockpile of 70,000 nuclear warheads. Inadequately protected from carcinogens and toxins and often exposed without their knowledge, many nuclear workers became ill and died. They devolved into early dementia, endured high rates of miscarriages, suffered nerve disorders, and succumbed to a host of debilitating respiratory illnesses and cancers.
How many Americans died producing nuclear weapons is not a statistic the government tracks. “Irradiated,” a 2015 investigative series by McClatchy DC, the Washington bureau of the media chain that owns The Kansas City Star, put the total at 33,480, four times the number of casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan. In its interpretation of the McClatchy DC data, the Columbia Journalism Review notes 33,480 is the number of American nuclear workers compensated by a government program who have died. “The government has acknowledged 15,000 of those deaths were due to work-related illnesses,” the magazine writes. “The rest only had illnesses linked to their nuclear work and may have died of old age or unrelated causes.”
Wayne Knox, a former industrial hygienist for DOE, thinks the death toll is “much, much higher” than 33,480.
The tally represents a price paid in American lives for the U.S. nuclear arsenal. Cities and communities that hosted weapons plants saw other costs: sick workers and their families who felt betrayed by the industry’s indifference, and persistent environmental contamination.
As the government invests in the modernization of the U.S. nuclear arsenal, while weakening environmental regulations and federal laws protecting worker safety, National Catholic Reporter looks at the toxic legacy of one shuttered weapons plant in Kansas City, Missouri. Continue reading →
May 21, 2019
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
employment, health, Reference, USA, weapons and war |
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  Israel vs. Russia: The Middle East War That Could Become a Nuclear Train Wreck
Yes, this could happen. The National Interest, by Michael Peck 20 May 19, As always with the Arab-Israeli (or Iranian-Israeli) conflict, the real danger isn’t the regional conflict, but how it might escalate. In the 1973 war, the Soviets threatened to send troops to Egypt unless Israel agreed to a cease-fire. The United States responded by going on nuclear alert.
Could Israeli air strikes in Syria trigger war between Israel and Russia?
As always with the Arab-Israeli (or Iranian-Israeli) conflict, the real danger isn’t the regional conflict, but how it might escalate. In the 1973 war, the Soviets threatened to send troops to Egypt unless Israel agreed to a cease-fire. The United States responded by going on nuclear alert.
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May 21, 2019
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
Israel, politics international, weapons and war |
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 Trump warns Iran it will never be allowed to build nuclear arsenal, US president insists he wants to avoid Tehran conflict after weeks of escalating tensions, Ft.com 20 May 19
Donald Trump said he would not allow Iran to develop nuclear weapons, while insisting he wanted to avoid war with the Islamic republic after weeks of escalating tensions. The US president has kept Tehran on edge by mixing threats with statements playing down the odds of a conflict, as foreign policy analysts speculate that Mr Trump is less keen on military conflict than some of his hawkish advisers.
“I don’t want to fight. But you do have situations like Iran, you can’t let them have nuclear weapons — you just can’t let that happen,” Mr Trump said in an interview with Fox News. He had earlier warned Tehran to stop threatening America, and suggested that the US would destroy Iran if there was a military conflict. “If Iran wants to fight, that will be the official end of Iran. Never threaten the United States again!” he tweeted.
Tensions have risen sharply in recent few weeks, with Iran saying it will no longer comply with elements of the 2015 nuclear accord it signed with world powers, including the US, and Washington deploying an aircraft carrier strike group to the region. …….
Mr Trump’s key foreign policy advisers, national security adviser John Bolton and secretary of state Mike Pompeo, have referred to unspecified “escalatory action” from Tehran, fuelling speculation that the hawkish pair are trying to convince the president to go to war with Iran.
This has led some lawmakers to grow concerned that the administration is seeking to enter into a conflict without congressional approval. Several senators were last week given details of the administration’s intelligence on Iran, with more lawmaker briefings expected this week. …… https://www.ft.com/content/0192edae-7b0a-11e9-81d2-f785092ab560
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May 21, 2019
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
North Korea, politics international, USA, weapons and war |
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nuclear-news 