NucNews August 5, 2006 -------- NUCLEAR -------- australia Australia urged to take back nuke waste August 5, 2006 The Age http://www.theage.com.au/news/National/Australia-urged-to-take-back-nuke-waste/2006/08/05/1154198362273.html Environmental scientist Tim Flannery says Australia should be prepared to take the world's nuclear waste if it is to be one of the world's largest uranium suppliers it. By doing so, Australia would reduce the risk of a "nuclear holocaust", Dr Flannery said. The danger of plutonium from the nuclear waste cycle finding its way into weapons of mass destruction was a greater concern than the increased security risk that a nuclear waste dump posed, he believed. "To me, the nuclear waste issue is trivial relative to the (nuclear) proliferation issue," The Weekend Australian newspaper quoted him as saying. "I just think the danger of a nuclear holocaust is pretty substantial." Despite his concerns, Dr Flannery also argued that the federal government should move to replace coal-fired power stations with nuclear power. "When we burn coal in Australia, we spread the pollution globally, whereas the liability for storing any nuclear waste would be solely with us." The climate change author and former South Australian Museum director said one of the safest sites in the world for a nuclear waste dump was Officer Basin in the South Australian-West Australian desert, research by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) showed. He has said continued use of fossil fuels would result in huge rises in sea level, droughts, hurricanes and political instability. -------- depleted uranium Israel using US-supplied depleted uranium in Lebanon Written by Israeli Committee for a Middle East Free from Atomic, Biological & Chemical Weapons 5 August 2006 http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m25473&l=i&size=1&hd=0 The government of Israel has recently purchased from the United States bunker-busting bombs (GBU-28), for use in its war in Lebanon. These bombs contain depleted uranium - a carcinogenic substance that spreads in the form of a toxic and radioactive dust, which enters the lungs and bones and is especially harmful to babies and young children. We call on the government of Israel not to make use of these bombs. This call is of special significance on 6 August, the anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. These days of war remind us of the dangers facing humanity, when the warring sides are equipped with nuclear weapons and radioactive materials. The State of Israel must not resort to the use of weaponry that can cause environmental damage lasting hundreds of years, or any weapon of mass destruction. We call on the government Israel and all the governments in the Middle East to renounce weapons of mass destruction without delay! A Middle East free from all weapons of mass destruction would be the best guarantee against their use. Source: The Israeli Committee for a Middle East Free from Atomic, Biological & Chemical Weapons -------- japan On Hiroshima anniversary, Japan shifts toward militarism By JOHN FEFFER Posted: Aug. 5, 2006 Milwaukee Journal Sentinel http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=480146 Japan is softening its opposition to the use of military force, and the Bush administration couldn't be happier. Sixty-one years ago today, the United States dropped an atom bomb on Hiroshima. Three days later, it dropped another one on Nagasaki. Ever since, the Japanese have been committed to nuclear abolition and a pacifist constitution. But North Korea's recent fireworks - seven missiles launched on July 4 - have illuminated a different Japan. In its desire to become a "normal" country and counter potential attacks from countries like North Korea, Japan is rapidly changing its constitution, its principles and its military capabilities. Some Japanese politicians have even broached the taboo subject of Japan acquiring its own nuclear arsenal, much to the horror of a generation that absorbed the "never again" lessons of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The U.S. has done everything to encourage Japan to break out of its constitutional stance of pacifism. During the Bush administration, Japan has become one of the closest U.S. allies, a Great Britain of Asia. It provided logistical support for the U.S. war against the Taliban and peacekeepers for the war in Iraq. In December 2004, the Diet - Japan's parliament - passed new defense guidelines that modified a long-standing ban on arms exports so that the government could fully cooperate with the U.S. on missile defense. North Korea's July missile launches have only accelerated this trend. For example, leading Japanese government spokesman Shinzo Abe raised the possibility of launching a pre-emptive strike against North Korea's missile capacity. Both Abe and current Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi support revising the Japanese constitution, which bars the military forces from participating in war. Even if constrained by its constitution, Japan's military capacity has been "normal" for some time. Japan spends more on defense than any other country with the exception of the U.S., Russia and China. It has a quarter of a million people in its armed forces. It has an overall level of technology surpassed only by the U.S. Perhaps the most troubling part of Japan's military renaissance is the potential for Japan to become a member of the nuclear club. Tokyo has plenty of nuclear material and the technology to weaponize it. Japan can reportedly produce an arsenal of nuclear weapons in as little as six months. If North Korea officially goes nuclear, Japan may well follow, driving a stake through the heart of the non-proliferation regime. Every year in August, thousands of Japanese and foreign visitors gather in Hiroshima and Nagasaki to mourn the victims of the atomic bombs, decry the nuclear arms race and call for peaceful alternatives to conflict. Unfortunately, those who commemorate the world's only nuclear attack must now make their voices heard closer to home. The rising sun appears to be rising again. And that's not good news for world peace. John Feffer is co-director of Foreign Policy in Focus. He wrote this for Progressive Media Project, which is based in Madison. ---- Japanese Court Supports A-Bomb Survivors Last Updated: 08-05-06 at 3:58PM 2006 Midwest Television KFMB http://www.kfmb.com/stories/story.58980.html TOKYO -- A Japanese court ruled Friday that the government had wrongfully denied 41 Hiroshima atomic bomb survivors recognition as sufferers of radiation sickness, but rejected the plaintiffs' demands for damages, the court said. The decision, which came just days before the 61st anniversary of the Aug. 6, 1945, bombing, will not automatically entitle the plaintiffs to expanded benefits, according to Masako Kudo of the Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers' Organizations, which supported the suit. The 41 plaintiffs demanded $26,000 each in damages for being denied the expanded benefits provided to survivors recognized as radiation sufferers. Those recognized as sufferers of radiation illness are eligible for medical allowances of about $1,200 a month, while most other survivors receive about $300 a month. As of March 2006, the government recognized 260,000 survivors of the bombings, according to Health Ministry official Kentaro Mitsui. However, only 2,280 were considered sufferers of radiation disease. Hiroshima District Court official Takanori Sekido said the court ruled the plaintiffs had been illegally denied the additional recognition, but rejected the damage claim. He provided no further details. A total of 183 people have filed lawsuits against the government seeking official recognition as radiation disease sufferers, according to the confederation. The effects of radiation disease include leukemia and other forms of cancer. ---- Japan court recognizes 41 A-bomb radiation victims but denies damages Holly Manges Jones Saturday, August 05, 2006 JURIST http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/paperchase/2006/08/japan-court-recognizes-41-bomb.php Two days before the 61st anniversary [BBC backgrounder] of the first US atomic bombing of Japan [JURIST news archive], the Hiroshima District Court in Japan ruled Friday that 41 survivors of the 1945 atomic bomb attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were incorrectly denied benefits as sufferers of radiation sickness, but their demands for damages was not approved. The Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers' Organizations [advocacy website] supported the survivors in the suit and their bid for $26,000 each. Japan gives an average of $1,200 per month to radiation sufferers and $300 to other survivors, but the court did not explain their denial of benefits to the 41 survivors. Approximately 183 individuals have filed suit against the Japanese government to petition for recognition as radiation sufferers as a result of the bombings, according to the confederation for bomb victims. The government has formally recognized 260,000 survivors as of March 2006, according to the Japanese Health Ministry [official website], but just under 3,000 were given status as radiation sufferers. AP has more. The Japan Times has local coverage. ---- Nanaimo remembers Hiroshima Aug 05 2006 Nanaimo News Bulletin http://www.nanaimobulletin.com/portals-code/list.cgi?paper=51&cat=43&id=702527&more= Sixty-one years later, the world still remembers Hiroshima. On Aug. 6, 1945 the nuclear weapon Little Boy was dropped on Hiroshima by the Enola Gay, a U.S. Air Force B-29 bomber, killing an estimated 200,000 people and heavily damaging 80 per cent of the city. In the following months, an estimated 60,000 more people died from injuries or radiation poisoning. After the nuclear attack, Hiroshima was rebuilt as a peace memorial city, and the closest surviving building to the location of the bomb’s detonation was designated the Atomic Bomb Dome, a part of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park. The Hiroshima Remembrance Group is having a festival tomorrow (Aug. 6), 7 p.m. at Swy-a-lana Lagoon, to remember all of the victims. This group started observing this event through the Woman’s International League for Peace and Freedom five years ago. Participants are invited to bring kites, lanterns and any other sign that would indicate peace and a world free of intolerance. Help will be available to make some lanterns out of driftwood. The event will include singing and a few speakers. Candles will be lit with the intent that an incident such as the bombing of Hiroshima should never ever happen again. -------- korea Proposal for a 'nuclear-free Middle East' Athens News Agency, August 5, 2006 http://www.ana.gr/anaweb/user/showplain?maindoc=4501935&maindocimg=1432305&service=102 Coalition of the Left, Movements and Ecology (Synaspismos) Political Burea member Panos Trigazis, who is responsible for the party's foreign policy, will announce a Synaspismos proposal for a "nuclear-free Middle East" on Sunday afternoon. A Synaspismos announcement on Saturday said:"The anti-nuclear and anti-war outcry of Hiroshima which the American militarists turned into a vast graveyard on August 6, 1945, is much stronger this year where Israel's war against Lebanon is raging." "On the occasion of the 61st anniversary of the first nuclear holocaust, SYN believes that within the framework of the struggle for a nuclear-free world, the proposal for a nuclear-free Middle East acquires particular importance. On the importance and the content of this proposal, Panos Trigazis, member of the Political Bureau and responsible for SYN's foreign policy, will make statements on Sunday at 5 p.m. at the party's offices," the announcement added. Meanwhile, Synaspismos candidate for the Athens-Piraeus supra-prefecture, Yiannis Panousis, in a statement on Saturday on the occasion of the anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, said:"The dropping of the atomic bomb on Nagasaki and Hiroshima did not simply seal the end of the war, but at the same time opened the door for mass exterminations, of blind strikes with thousands of innocent dead. Neither humanitarian law, neither the law of war, neither any international treaties can any more intercept the perception and practices for a 'a total eradication of the enemy'." Panousis added:"It is not simply an issue of nuclear danger and devastation. It is that since then, humanity does not manage to bury in time its dead (in Vietnam, Yugoslavia, Iraq, Palestine, Lebanon)." Concluding, he said that "the person who so easily kills his fellow-person, is neither an imperialist nor a revolutionary. He is simply the enemy of his children, that is, the future of humanity." -------- pakistan Pakistani Reactor Not as Significant As Was Reported, Administration Says By Joby Warrick Washington Post Staff Writer Saturday, August 5, 2006; A14 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/04/AR2006080401613_pf.html Days after it confirmed the existence of a partially completed heavy-water reactor in central Pakistan, the administration took steps this week to play down the significance of the project, saying the new facility will produce far less plutonium than initial reports indicated. That stance puts the administration in conflict with independent nuclear experts over that crucial question and what the answer means for South Asia's nuclear arms race. The nuclear analysts who brought the reactor to light stood by their conclusion that the reactor would dramatically boost Pakistan's capacity to develop plutonium-based warheads. Pakistan is believed to possess fewer than 50 warheads, all of them based on highly enriched uranium. Uranium-based bombs are heavier and harder to mount on missiles. "We are confident that this is a large reactor vessel," said David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security, a Washington nonprofit group that assesses the capabilities and weapons stockpiles of nuclear states. The ISIS report, described in a July 24 Washington Post report, was based on an assessment of satellite photos of the reactor, which is inside a Pakistani nuclear complex that already has a small reactor for producing plutonium. The scale of the facility under construction suggests a powerful heavy-water reactor with a capacity of at least 1,000 megawatts thermal and a maximum annual plutonium output of 200 kilograms, enough for 40 to 50 warheads, ISIS said. The report warned of the possibility of a new round of nuclear competition between Pakistan and India, which both possess the bomb. Administration officials, citing government intelligence and nuclear experts, said the ISIS estimate was off the mark. They offered few specifics, saying the government's analysis remained classified. "The reactor will be over 10 times less capable" than the ISIS report's estimates, State Department spokesman Edgar Matthews said. Matthews acknowledged that Pakistan appears to be diversifying its ability to produce fissile material for nuclear weapons, and noted that the new reactor would not be subject to international monitoring and inspection. Yesterday, a spokesman for the Pakistani government echoed the administration's position, saying the reactor's annual output would be significantly less than 200 kilograms of plutonium. "The capacity has been highly exaggerated," said M. Akram Shaheedi, press minister for Pakistan Embassy. He acknowledged that Pakistan is was modernizing its nuclear program to "maintain a credible nuclear deterrent." In a statement posted on the group's Web site, ISIS defended its analysis and offered additional detail on how it reached its conclusions. A key factor, the group said, was the size of the reactor vessel under construction, which ISIS described as much larger than the modest plutonium-production reactor Pakistan has operated since 1998. ISIS said the new reactor is comparable in size to reactor vessels at the Savannah River nuclear site, which for decades produced plutonium for the U.S. nuclear arsenal. Those large reactors began operation in the 1950s at 500 to 1,000 megawatts each, but were increased in power over several years to 2,000 megawatts. "It is true that someone can operate at less than maximum power, but the capacity is there," Albright said in an interview. "The reactor gives Pakistan the ability to step up the power of the reactor over time, regardless of what the nameplate power of the reactor is now." ---- No big Pakistan nuclear buildup, envoy says: press by Staff Writers Washington, Aug 5, 2006 http://www.spacewar.com/reports/a060805053908.mba6e928.html A new Pakistani nuclear reactor could be used for "military purposes" as well as for civilian power needs but will not lead to a massive increase in the country's nuclear arsenal, according to Pakistan's new ambassador to Washington, The Washington Times reported Saturday. Ambassador Mahmud Ali Durrani, in an interview Thursday with The Washington Times, dismissed a private Washington-based think tank's report on the reactor under construction at the Khushab nuclear complex as "grossly exaggerated." He denied the report's estimate that the new plant could produce enough weapons-grade plutonium to boost Pakistan's production from an estimated two nuclear bombs a year to as many as 50. But he gave the first official acknowledgment that the heavy-water reactor would bring at least some increase in Pakistan's military nuclear capability at a time of heightened fears of a South Asia arms race with rival India, the newspaper said in its online edition. "The plutonium may certainly be used for military purposes, but it is simply not the case that it will increase our capability X-fold," Durrani was quoted as saying. The ambassador, a former top defense adviser to the Pakistani president and chairman of the country's military industrial complex for much of the 1990s, declined to give production figures for the new plant, the newspaper said. But he said it would be far less powerful than the 1,000-megawatt estimate given last month by the Institute for Science and International Security. Pakistan's current reactor, located near the new one, is a 50-megawatt unit completed in 1998. "I would love it to be 1,000 megawatts, because we certainly have the power needs," he was quoted as saying. But the Khushab site has sparked international concerns as the United States and India move to ratify a nuclear cooperation deal that critics warn could allow India to greatly accelerate its own military nuclear program, The Washington Times noted. Durrani, who presented his credentials to US President George W. Bush a month ago, said Pakistan had conveyed its "deep concerns" about the India accord to the Bush administration, while saying it was unlikely the deal could be derailed. "We know your administration is very keen for this deal, but we also don't want to see an imbalance with India that we would have to match," Durrani said. -------- security The Stakes Have Been Raised Global Hiroshima By DAVID KRIEGER August 5 / 6, 2006 http://www.counterpunch.org/krieger08052006.html Hiroshima was destroyed by a single atomic weapon, giving rise to the Nuclear Age, an era characterized by humankind living precariously with weapons capable of destroying the human species. Should the incredible dangers of nuclear weapons not have been immediately apparent from the destruction of Hiroshima and, three days later, of Nagasaki, throughout the Nuclear Age there have been repeated warnings of their unprecedented capacity for destruction. These warnings have come from scientists, military leaders, religious leaders and, occasionally, political leaders. Mostly, these warnings have fallen on deaf ears. Sixty-one years after the destruction of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, and 15 years after the ending of the Cold War, there are still some 27,000 nuclear weapons in the world. Over 95 percent of these are in the arsenals of the US and Russia, with some 4,000 of these kept on hair-trigger alert, ready to be fired in moments. In addition, seven other countries now possess nuclear weapons: UK, France, China, Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea. All of the nuclear weapons states continue to improve and test missile delivery systems for their nuclear warheads. Throughout the Nuclear Age there have been accidents, miscalculations and near inadvertent nuclear wars. The closest we may have come to nuclear war was the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, tense days in which decision makers in the US and USSR struggled to find a way through the crisis without an escalation into nuclear exchange. In the 44 years since that crisis, despite other close calls, humankind collectively has relaxed and let down its guard against the dangers these weapons pose to all. It has been widely accepted that nuclear weapons are illegal and immoral because they are weapons of mass murder that do not distinguish between civilians and combatants. Ten years ago, the International Court of Justice concluded that there exists an obligation to pursue in good faith and bring to a conclusion negotiations leading to nuclear disarmament in all its aspects. Progress toward this goal has not been reassuring. No such negotiations are currently in progress. Most political leaders in the US are more concerned with the reliability of nuclear weapons than with finding a way to eliminate them. To safely navigate the shoals of the Nuclear Age, three key elements are needed: leadership, a plan, and political will. Only one country currently has the capacity to provide this leadership and that is the US. A spark of hope that such leadership might exist briefly flared during the Reagan presidency when Presidents Reagan and Gorbachev came close to an agreement on nuclear disarmament at their summit in Reykjavik, Iceland. Their good intentions faltered on the divisive issue of missile defenses. Since then, no high-ranking American political leader, including members of the Senate, has spoken out for a world free of nuclear weapons. President Bush's leadership on the issue of nuclear disarmament has been non-existent and, in fact, has set up obstacles to achieving this goal. The years pass with the threat of nuclear Armageddon hanging over us, and we wait, seemingly in vain, for political leaders to emerge who are willing to make the abolition of nuclear weapons a high priority on the political agenda. We continue to wait for political leaders who will challenge the nuclear double standards, which assume that some countries can maintain nuclear weapons in perpetuity while other countries must be forever content to forego these weapons. We wait for political leaders who will advance a viable plan for the phased elimination of nuclear weapons. Civil society has been able to devise a Model Nuclear Weapons Convention, a draft treaty to eliminate nuclear weapons, so certainly government leaders should be able to do so as well. After 61 years of the Nuclear Age, it seems clear that the political leaders needed to achieve a nuclear weapons-free world are unlikely to emerge from existing political systems and structures. These leaders will emerge only if ordinary people demand such leadership. The leaders will have to be led by the people toward assuring a future free of nuclear threat. Absent a sustained surge of political pressure from below, humanity will continue to drift toward increased nuclear proliferation, nuclear terrorism and, finally, nuclear annihilation. The choice remains ours: a future free of nuclear threat or a global Hiroshima. The stakes could not be higher. David Krieger is president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, and a leader in the global effort to abolish nuclear weapons. -------- ACTIVISTS Tennessee - Peace protesters mark 61st anniversary of Hiroshima bombing Associated Press Saturday, August 5, 2006 http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/news/newjersey/story/6593573p-6442788c.html OAK RIDGE, Tenn. - Eight protesters were arrested Saturday after refusing to leave the entrance of the Y-12 nuclear weapons plant. The activists were marking Sunday's 61st anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Japan, in Oak Ridge, the once-secret city for where much of the work was done the World War II-era Manhattan Project. About 300 people participated in the rally and march, where peace activists chanted, pinned paper peace cranes to the barricades and fences and sang songs while the eight sat down on the hot asphalt as an act of civil disobedience. "Today I witness to my trust not in death-making bombs but in the God of life," Erik Johnson, a Presbyterian minister from Maryville, told The Knoxville News Sentinel. "I am outraged at the evil and indifference of those who reap fabulous, obscene profits from the planning, designing, manufacturing, maintenance of these weapons of mass destruction." The 62-year-old Johnson, who was one of the eight arrested, said he wanted to see Y-12 closed, decontaminated and used for other causes. Also arrested and charged with obstructing a roadway were Tom Shelton, 58, Knoxville; Pam Beziat, 60, Nashville; Bill Nickle, 66, Washburn; Tom Mahedy, 43, Wall, N.J.; Gerald Chojnacki, 67, Shelby Township, Mich.; Dorothy Ritter, 51, Fraser, Mich.; and Tom Lumpkin, Detroit. Others were on hand to counter the protests. "Our event coincides with the communist, tax-exempt, leftover hippies of the '60s who have protested and long mocked the sacrifices of our veterans and good laws," said Stacy Griffin of the Citizen Soldiers for the Atomic Bomb, based in Rhea County. Another peace ceremony was planned for dawn with the reading of names of those who died in the atomic blast. Additional events are planned for Aug. 9, the anniversary of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, Japan. ---- 8 Arrested in Tenn. Protest of A-Bomb Aug 5th, 2006 (AP) http://www.wtopnews.com/index.php?nid=104&sid=872129 OAK RIDGE, Tenn. _ Eight protesters were arrested Saturday, a day before the 61st anniversary of the world's first atomic bomb attack, after refusing to leave the entrance of a nuclear weapons plant. Much of the work that went into producing the bomb was conducted at the Y-12 plant in the once-secret city for the World War II-era Manhattan Project. The U.S. dropped the bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, on Aug. 6, 1945. About 300 people participated in the rally and march, in which activists chanted, pinned paper peace cranes to the barricades and fences, and sang while the eight who were arrested sat on the hot asphalt as an act of civil disobedience. "Today I witness to my trust not in death-making bombs but in the God of life," Erik Johnson, a Presbyterian minister from Maryville, told The Knoxville News Sentinel. "I am outraged at the evil and indifference of those who reap fabulous, obscene profits from the planning, designing, manufacturing, maintenance of these weapons of mass destruction." The 62-year-old Johnson, one of the eight arrested, said he wanted to see Y-12 closed, decontaminated and used for other causes. Another peace ceremony was planned for dawn with the reading of names of those who died in the atomic blast. Additional events are planned for Aug. 9, the anniversary of the bombing of Nagasaki, Japan. ---- Sydney Protest to Mark Hiroshima Day August 05, 2006 Agence France-Presse http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,20034094-5005962,00.html A PROTEST march and rally calling for the end of nuclear weapons, no nuclear industry in Australia and peace in the Middle East will be held in Sydney Sunday. The rally, to be held in Hyde Park, also will commemorate the anniversary of the dropping of an atomic bomb on the Japanese city, Hiroshima, in 1945. The marchers are expected to leave Hyde Park at 1pm (AEST), making their way along Market, George, King and Elizabeth Streets, before returning to Hyde Park. NSW Police will work with organisers to ensure the protest remains peaceful and have warned that criminal behaviour will not be tolerated. Police have warned that the march could disrupt traffic in Sydney's CBD. Similar events are planned for capital cities across the country.