At UN Egypt calls for nuclear-free Middle East
Egypt proposes nuclear-free Mideast Sky News Sunday September 29, 2013 Egypt has proposed for the Middle East, including Israel, to rid itself of all weapons of mass destruction after the UN Security Council ordered Syria to destroy its chemical arsenal. Addressing the UN General Assembly, Foreign Minister Nabil Fahmy on Saturday called on the five permanent members of the Security Council to support the idea of a Middle East free of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons.
Fahmy, part of Egypt’s army-installed government, proposed that all nations in the Middle East would then commit by the end of the year to ratify agreements against weapons of mass destruction……..http://www.skynews.com.au/world/article.aspx?id=910396
Stanislav Petrov who saved the world from nuclear holocaust
Happy Petrov Day! (How we narrowly avoided nuclear war on this day in 1983) http://www.treehugger.com/endangered-species/happy-petrov-day-how-we-narrowly-avoided-nuclear-war-day-1983.html Michael Graham Richard 27 Sept 13 The best kind of holiday Most of us alive today owe a debt to those who avoided nuclear war in years past, and sadly, there were many occasions when that was necessary. The Cuban Missile Crisis is a well-known example, with John F. Kennedy, Robert McNamara, Nikita Khrushchev, Fidel Castro, and various other government officials on all sides playing a game of poker with the lives of hundreds of millions of people (if not billions, who knows how far things would’ve gone). We came so very close to the edge of the abyss before stepping back…
That’s why anyone even a little bit concerned with the future of humanity – leaving a better world for their children – and about all other living creatures on the planet should be against nuclear weapons and in favor of taking concrete steps to reduce the chances of them ever being used. This can’t be swept under the rug. After all, what’s the point of building a better society and protecting the environment if, during a moment of folly, a few people in positions of power can kill us all?
Giving us a second chance Continue reading
Rouhani calls on Israel to join Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty,
The Iranians have frequently pointed out that they have publicly renounced nuclear arms and that — unlike Israel — Iran is a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations nuclear monitor. The Iranians also have countered that Israel is believed to already have an arsenal of nuclear weapons, which it refuses to confirm or deny.
According to the Arms Control Association, a non-proliferation group in Washington, Israel is suspected of having 100 to 200 nuclear warheads.
Iran’s president calls on Israel to join nuclear treaty http://www.smh.com.au/world/irans-president-calls-on-israel-to-join-nuclear-treaty-20130927-2uhgw.html#ixzz2g9sTxNSF September 27, 2013
President Hassan Rouhani of Iran told the United Nations on Thursday that “no nation should possess nuclear weapons,” and that Israel should join the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty, as Iran did long ago, as part of a grander plan to create a zone free of nuclear weapons in the Middle East. Continue reading
Possibility of Scottish independence raises nuclear arms worry
UK nuclear arms backup plan urgent ahead of Scottish vote – lawmakers 7 News, September 27, 2013 By William James LONDON (Reuters) – The British government must urgently draw up a contingency plan for where it can put its nuclear arsenal in case Scotland, where the submarine-based nuclear missile system is now located, votes for independence, a parliamentary study said on Friday………With less than a year to go to the September 18, 2014, referendum, the issue of what to do with Britain’s nuclear deterrent is urgent, lawmakers said.
“The possibility of Scottish independence represents a serious threat to the future operational viability of the UK’s nuclear deterrent,” said one of the conclusions of the year-long Defence Committee investigation into the impact of independence.
“The UK Government must now give urgent consideration to contingency options in the event of a ‘Yes’ vote,” it said.
Britain is one of only five officially recognised nuclear-armed countries. Four submarines equipped to carry nuclear missiles – the Vanguard, Victorious, Vigilant and Vengeance – are based in deep-water lochs along the west coast of Scotland, and concrete missile storage bunkers are built into the Scottish hillside. At least one of the four is always at sea……. If Scotland votes to break away, Britain would face a huge, expensive and time-consuming task to relocate the system.
The Ministry of Defence confirmed on Thursday it currently has no contingency plan…….Keith Brown, a minister in the devolved Scottish government, called the current nuclear programme a “huge waste of money” and said an independent Scotland would focus its military efforts differently.
“An independent Scotland can halt the disproportionate cuts to our defence footprint and deliver the defence jobs, the equipment and the security that Scotland needs,” he said…..http://au.news.yahoo.com/world/a/19133473/uk-nuclear-arms-backup-plan-urgent-ahead-of-scottish-vote-lawmakers/
A personal story of nuclear-caused suffering, and of hope
The petition – located here – is part of the campaign of The ATOM Project to draw global attention to the need to show more leadership and take decisive steps towards the elimination of the nuclear threat. Anyone in the world can sign the petition and contribute to building a nuclear-weapons-free world.
My experience of the nuclear horror http://globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com/2013/09/25/my-experience-of-the-nuclear-horror/ By Karipbek Kuyukov, CNN 25 Sept 13 Editor’s note: Karipbek Kuyukov is an artist and Honorary Ambassador of The ATOM Project, a global campaign to eliminate nuclear weapons testing. The views expressed are his own.As world leaders gather for the United Nations High-level Meeting on Nuclear Disarmament in New York, I would like to deliver a short message from the survivors of nuclear weapons testing in Kazakhstan.
The perpetual question of whether to pursue the nuclear arms race or eradicate nuclear weapons has divided international opinion. Experts, politicians and world leaders have traditionally sided either for or against nuclear arms. Some believe that nuclear weapons help preserve peace, yet surely many more believe these weapons are a certain path to another world war and the eventual obliteration of mankind.
But although there has been much discussion of the issue, few on either side have turned for advice to the victims of nuclear tests and explosions. We have a lot to say and a right to be heard.
I was born in 1968, about 100 kilometers away from the notorious Semipalatinsk nuclear test site in eastern Kazakhstan where the Soviet Union tested hundreds of nuclear devices over four decades. I was born without arms, a result of the horrific impact of nuclear radiation on the health of our people. As I grew up, I saw that I was not alone.
I saw mothers and midwifes shocked at the sight of other babies born with birth defects. I saw families too embarrassed to show their children to the outside world, hiding them deep inside their homes and bringing them out only briefly to have some fresh air and sun. I saw families and whole communities decimated by radiation-related cancers. As the United Nations notes, more than 1.5 million people in Kazakhstan suffered the effects of Soviet nuclear weapons testing, which lasted from 1949 until 1991. Continue reading
Even right wing Cato Institute getting worried about USA’s massive, unnecessary, nuclear arsenal
Reassessing U.S. Nuclear Weapons Policy By CHRISTOPHER A. PREBLE Cato Institute Sept 24 13 Today Cato released a new white paper, “The End of Overkill? Reassessing U.S. Nuclear Weapons Policy.” I am proud to have contributed to this effort with lead author Benjamin Friedman of Cato, and Matt Fay, a former Cato research assistant now enrolled in the History PhD program at Temple University. We argue that U.S. security does not require nearly 1,600 nuclear weapons deployed on a triad of systems—bombers, land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), and submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs)—to deliver them. We estimate that a smaller arsenal deployed entirely on submarines would save roughly $20 billion annually while deterring attacks on the United States and its allies.
The paper is part of a broader project, “From Triad to Dyad: Rationalizing U.S. Nuclear Weapons Delivery Systems,” made possible by the generous support of the Ploughshares Fund. The project began as a top-line review of the triad, but expanded into a more comprehensive study of U.S. nuclear strategy and policy. Over the last year, we presented our preliminary findings at over a dozen public events in ten different cities, as well as several engagements here in Washington, D.C. This process generated useful feedback along the way.
Here are a few excerpts from “The End of Overkill?”:…..http://www.cato.org/blog/reassessing-us-nuclear-weapons-policy
America’s financially crippling addiction to nuclear weapons
America’s Nuclear Bomb Problem: Outdated B61s Need Expensive Upgrades If U.S. Wants To Keep Them Around International Science Times By Philip Ross on September 23, 2013 U.S. has a nuclear bomb problem. Mainly, the country’s stockpile of B61 nuclear bombs, which have collected dust ever since they were shoved into storage following the Cold War, are in need of some serious – and expensive – upgrades should the U.S. government want to keep them around. According to The World Herald, some of the components of the aging B61s are so old, they can’t be replaced at all.
The slender, gray cylinder bombs, which weigh 700 pounds each and measure 11 feet long and 13 inches in diameter, were designed and built in the 1960s by the Los Alamos National Laboratory, a nuclear weapon facility located in New Mexico. The B61s were deployed at NATO air bases in Europe and were meant to dissuade Soviet aggression on the continent during the Cold War. There were about 3,155 of the bombs built during that time.
According to a 2005 report from the Natural Resources Defense Council, the U.S. still has about 480 nuclear weapons in Europe, stored at eight bases in six countries. The U.S. has about 250 of the B61s left lying around air bases in Missouri and North Dakota, with additional bombs stored in Nevada and New Mexico.
The B61s are the most versatile weapon in the U.S. stockpile. They were built to withstand supersonic speeds and can be carried long distances. The nuclear devices also contain about 6,500 parts, and decades of storage have degraded the bombs to a point where some of the electronic pieces are obsolete and unreliable.
“The B61 life-extension program is absolutely necessary,” Gen. C. Robert Kehler, a Commander of the U.S. Department of Defense, told The World-Herald. “Much has been deferred. Now we don’t have the luxury of waiting.” But it’s not a matter of simply dusting the bombs off and tightening a few screws here and there. The nuclear bombs need expensive upgrades – refurbishments that are estimated to cost about $28 million per bomb, according to The World Herald. That’s not to mention the estimated $65 billion price tag to retool America’s missiles, submarines and aircrafts, something politicians on both the left and the right are reluctant to do during a time of congressional belt tightening.
In August, the National Nuclear Security Administration, which maintains the U.S.’s nuclear stash, pitched a solution to America’s B61 nuclear bomb problem. They want to not only refurbish the bombs, but also upgrade them……. http://www.isciencetimes.com/articles/6107/20130923/nuclear-bomb-b61-cold-war-weapons-upgrades.htm
What if USA’s nuclear bombs dropped in North Carolina HAD detonated?
The Potential Nuclear Fallout in North Carolina, Mapped Atlantic Wire CONNOR SIMPSON 21 Sept 13 You’ve probably heard by now that the U.S. military nearly committed the biggest “oopsie daisy!” in history when they accidentally dropped two nuclear bombs near Goldsboro, North Carolina. But what if they did? Thankfully they didn’t detonate, but let’s imagine, just for a split second, that they did. This isn’t you typical Saturday morning exercise. There’s a certain macabre aspect to it investigation that can be hard to get over. Thousands of people would be dead, but it’s hard not to be at least a little curious to know how much of the U.S. would have been affected had the bombs gone off………
it would have been bad.
How bad, you ask? Well, by using the handy NukeMap3D created by Alex Wellerstein, we can determine how much destruction would have followed at least one atomic bomb dropping in North Carolina. The blast could have reached, with the wind blowing in the right direction, as far up the coast as New York City. Philadelphia and Washington would likely have been affected. This map is calculated with a 15 mile an hour wind and 100 percent fission:
That’s a lot of the east coast. The fallout would likely not fall in such a straight line. And depending on the weather, could bend in many directions and possibly stretch even further. This is all speculative, of course. Most importantly, thankfully, the bombs never detonated in real life.
We know about this ultimate close call thanks to investigate journalist Eric Schlosser. He unearthed this declassified document that details the incident in question through a Freedom of Information Act request while researching his new book, Command and Control, about the nuclear arms race. http://www.theatlanticwire.com/national/2013/09/potential-nuclear-fallout-north-carolina-mapped/69701/
Straight after International Day of Peace, USA tests nuclear missile
There was a point in time when America was the noble country of morals. We would take the hard steps first to address freedom and cooperation.
Nuclear Weapons Test from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Las Vegas Guardian Express by Iam Bloom on September 22, 2013 California — Vandenberg Air Force Base launched a Minuteman III rocket this morning, September 22, at 3:01 AM PST. The target of this morning’s test was Kwajalein Atoll, an island in the Pacific Ocean some 4,200 miles away from the launch site. This is the first of two tests of a nuclear weapons delivery system scheduled this week from Vandenberg Air Force Base.
A LGM-30 Minuteman rocket, or the Minuteman III, completed a test this morning from the California Air Base located some 140 miles north of Los Angeles. The letter “L”, in “LGM”, stands for a silo-launched missile; the “G” stands for ground attack; the “M” stands for guided missile. The “Minuteman” designation refers to the Minuteman Militia during the revolutionary war, a group ready to respond at a minutes notice to engage the English. In the same way, the Minuteman III can be prepared and launched in a few minutes with proper code authorization.
The test itself is not as concerning as what day it follows and the day the next test is scheduled for. Continue reading
South Carolina was very nearly nuclear bombed by US military
The Time the U.S. Military Came This Close To Dropping a Nuclear Bomb on North Carolina Slate, By Will Oremus, Sept. 20, 2013 Remember fallout shelters? Air raid drills? Duck and cover?
At the height of the Cold War, Americans lived in perpetual fear of a nuclear attack by the Soviet Union. But perhaps we were afraid of the wrong side.
A declassified document obtained by author Eric Schlosser sheds new light on the 1961 Goldsboro accident, in which a U.S. Air Force B-52 broke apart in midair over 
North Carolina, dropping a pair of Mark 39 nuclear bombs on the countryside below. The accident is not news, but just how close the military came to wiping out a swath of the Eastern Seaboard has long been debated. For years the military insisted that the hydrogen bombs were never in danger of detonating.
The secret document, written by a nuclear weapons safety supervisor in 1969 and first published by The Guardian today, makes it clearer than ever that was not the case. In fact, three of the four safety mechanisms on one of the bombs were unlocked in the course of the fall. By the time the bomb reached the ground, the only thing preventing it from detonating was a single, simple, low-voltage switch. A short-circuit of that switch as a result of the mid-air breakup—“a postulate that seems credible,” the supervisor writes—could have resulted in mass destruction.
The Mark 39 bombs, Schlosser notes in his new book Command and Control, were some 250 times as powerful as the device that the United States dropped on Hiroshima……..http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2013/09/20/goldsboro_nuclear_accident_declassified_document_u_s_nearly_nuked_north.html
Arms and uranium trade pact between Zimbabwe and North Korea
Zimbabwe in ‘arms for uranium’ pact with North Korea Nehanda Radio 19 Sept 13, President Robert Mugabe’s military henchmen have reportedly signed an arms trade agreement worth millions of dollars with North Korea, in return for allowing Pyongyang access to Zimbabwe’s controversial Kanyemba district, which has sparked a uranium mining race pitting Iran and other powers, Nehanda Radio has been told.
Kanyemba district is about 160 miles north of the capital, and is believed to be holding significant uranium reserves, first discovered in the 1970s by German prospectors, but never exploited due to low world prices at the time.
Several other countries have sought the rights to mine Zimbabwe’s untapped uranium deposits, and these include Russia, China and a failed bid by neighbouring South Africa and Namibia, as they scramble for the Yellow cake which is a key ingredient needed for the production of nuclear bombs. Continue reading
With possession of nuclear weapons Israel has become a target
Putin: ‘Israel’s nuclear weapons just make it a target Jerusalem Post, Linda Gradstein/The Media Line contributed to this report. 19 Sept13 ‘Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that Israel’s alleged nuclear weapons stockpile only serves to make the Jewish state “a target” and creates “foreign policy problems.”…… The chemical weapons deal with Syria has increased pressure on Israel to join the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Some 190 states have joined the NPT, whose goal is to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and weapons technology.
Of the world’s nuclear powers, only four have not joined the treaty. Of these, India, Pakistan and North Korea have all openly tested nuclear weapons. Israel continues with its policy of nuclear ambiguity.
Israel has refused to sign the NPT despite pressure from the international community.
Putin’s comments, reported by AFP, came in response to questions from reporters on the US and Russia-brokered deal to put Syria’s chemical weapons arsenal under international supervision………http://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/Putin-Israels-nuclear-weapons-just-make-it-a-target-326567
A weapons proliferation threat: India’s nuclear submarine
India’s Undersea Nuclear Deterrent Poses Proliferation Challenges WPR, By Yogesh Joshi, on 18 Sep 2013 Despite India’s graduation from outlier to tepidly accepted member of the global nuclear order, one area of New Delhi’s nuclear activities continues to raise alarm: its undersea nuclear deterrent. India unveiled its first nuclear submarine, the INS Arihant, in July 2009. Though the ship was largely indigenous, Russia helped in designing the miniaturized nuclear reactor. Just last month, the nuclear reactor in INS Arihant went critical, clearing the way for its final operational trials in the Bay of Bengal. India has designs to produce four to five nuclear submarines by the end of this decade. When integrated with nuclear-tipped sea-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs), these submarines will provide India with an underwater nuclear deterrent capability.
This technical development has posed two new challenges to the nuclear nonproliferation regime. First, the highly enriched uranium (HEU) used in naval nuclear propulsion for India’s nuclear submarines could be diverted for weapons purposes. India has a dedicated enrichment facility for its naval nuclear program at Rattehali, and some of the uranium from this facility was used for India’s 1998 nuclear weapons tests. According to Princeton nuclear scientist and scholar M.V. Ramana, Rattehali has the capacity to produce 22 kilograms of 90 percent enriched uranium annually, or the equivalent of 40-70 kilograms of 45 percent enriched uranium. However, new analysis reveals (.pdf) that qualitative changes in India’s enrichment technology may have increased this capacity to 48 kilograms of 90 percent enriched uranium annually. This capacity is destined to grow as India prepares to launch more nuclear submarines in the future. ..(.subscrbers only) http://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/articles/13222/india-s-undersea-nuclear-deterrent-poses-proliferation-challenges
USA National Nuclear Security Administration’s projects all behind schedule and over budget
Sentencing delayed for Duluth nuclear protester, Duluth News Tribune A judge has delayed a sentencing hearing for a Duluth man and two other protesters for breaking into a nuclear weapons plant in Tennessee. By: Associated Press staff,, 16 Sept 13
“………..Nuclear facilities across the country are getting renewed scrutiny in light of forced across-the-board federal budget cuts and security lapses such as the incident last year at Y-12. Before finally being detected, the three protesters cut through security fences, hung banners and crime-scene tape and hammered off a small chunk of a building inside the complex that is the nation’s central repository for bomb-grade uranium.
At Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, a seven-year, $213 million upgrade to the security system that protects the lab’s most sensitive nuclear bomb-making facilities doesn’t work. Those same facilities, which sit atop a fault line, remain susceptible to collapse and dangerous radiation releases, despite millions more spent on improvement plans.
In Tennessee, the price tag for a new uranium processing facility has grown nearly sevenfold in eight years to upward of $6 billion because of problems that include a redesign to raise the roof. And the estimated cost of an ongoing effort to refurbish 400 of the country’s B61 bombs has grown from $1.5 billion to $10 billion.
Virtually every major project under the National Nuclear Security Administration’s oversight is behind schedule and over budget — the result, watchdogs and government auditors say, of years of lax accountability and nearly automatic annual budget increases for the agency responsible for maintaining the nation’s nuclear stockpile.
The NNSA has racked up $16 billion in cost overruns on 10 major projects that are a combined 38 years behind schedule, the U.S. Government Accountability Office reports. Other projects have been canceled or suspended, despite hundreds of millions of dollars already spent, because they grew too bloated.
Advocates say spending increases are necessary to keep the nation’s nuclear arsenal operating and safe, and to continue cutting-edge research at the nation’s nuclear labs. But critics say the nuclear program — run largely by private contractors and overseen by the NNSA, an arm of the U.S. Energy Department — has turned into a massive jobs program with duplicative functions…….http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/event/article/id/278086/
Depleted uranium and birth defects – World Health Organisation covers this up
WHO Refuses to Publish Report on Cancers and Birth Defects in Iraq Caused by Depleted Uranium Ammunition http://www.globalresearch.ca/who-refuses-to-publish-report-on-cancers-and-birth-defects-in-iraq-caused-by-depleted-uranium-ammunition/5349556 By Denis Halliday Global Research, September 13, 2013 The World Health Organisation (WHO) has categorically refused in defiance of its own mandate to share evidence uncovered in Iraq that US military use of Depleted Uranium and other weapons have not only killed many civilians, but continue to result in the birth of deformed babies.
This issue was first brought to light in 2004 in a WHO expert report “on the long-term health of Iraq’s civilian population resulting from depleted uranium (DU) weapons”. This earlier report was “held secret”, namely suppressed by the WHO:
The study by three leading radiation scientists cautioned that children and adults could contract cancer after breathing in dust containing DU, which is radioactive and chemically toxic. But it was blocked from publication by the World Health Organization (WHO), which employed the main author, Dr Keith Baverstock, as a senior radiation advisor. He alleges that it was deliberately suppressed, though this is denied by WHO. (See Rob Edwards, WHO ‘Suppressed’ Scientific Study Into Depleted Uranium Cancer Fears in Iraq, The Sunday Herald, February 24, 2004)
Almost nine years later, a joint WHO- Iraqi Ministry of Health Report on cancers and birth defect in Iraq was to be released in November 2012. “It has been delayed repeatedly and now has no release date whatsoever.”
To this date the WHO study remains “classified”.
According to Hans von Sponeck, former Assistant Secretary General of the United Nations,
“The US government sought to prevent the WHO from surveying areas in southern Iraq where depleted uranium had been used and caused serious health and environmental dangers.” (quoted in Mozhgan Savabieasfahani Rise of Cancers and Birth Defects in Iraq: World Health Organization Refuses to Release Data, Global Research, July 31, 2013
This tragedy in Iraq reminds one of US Chemical Weapons used in Vietnam. And that the US has failed to acknowledge or pay compensation or provide medical assistance to thousands of deformed children born and still being born due to American military use of Agent Orange throughout the country.
The millions of gallons of this chemical dumped on rural Vietnam were eagerly manufactured and sold to the Pentagon by companies Dupont, Monsanto and others greedy for huge profits.
Given the US record of failing to acknowledge its atrocities in warfare, I fear those mothers in Najaf and other Iraqi cities and towns advised not to attempt the birth of more children will never receive solace or help.
A United Nations that is no longer corrupted by the five Permanent Members of the Security Council is what is needed.
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Shut down the radiation-damaged Heysham nuclear reactors now
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Say No to NASA’s Reckless Nuclear Reactor on the Moon
Say No to NASA’s Reckless Nuclear Reactor on the Moon
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