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| | | published Tuesday, May 11, 2010 | 1890 Views :: 0 Comments |
Nickolas Roth | Alliance for Nuclear
Accountability
2010 NonProliferation Treaty Review Conference
At the panel discussion titled “Nuclear Weapons Production in the
Age of Obama: Community Experts Reporting on Continuing U.S. Nuclear
Weapons Production,” members of directly affected communities discussed
environmental, health, legal, and international security impacts of
warhead production in the United States. Three speakers of the speakers
came from communities in the United States that are home to nuclear
weapons production facilities.
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| | | published Friday, May 07, 2010 | 1880 Views :: 0 Comments |
5/4/10
NEW YORK -- Japanese survivors of the 1945 atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki joined anti-nuclear rallies and demonstrations in New York on Sunday, ahead of the opening of the review conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT).
Some 25,000 people, including members of peace organizations and A-bomb survivors, joined the march on Sunday, which went for about two kilometers from downtown New York to a square in front of United Nations headquarters, calling for the elimination of nuclear weapons.
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| | | published Thursday, April 29, 2010 | 1791 Views :: 0 Comments |
Published on Thursday, April 29, 2010 by CommonDreams.org
by Judith LeBlanc and Kevin Martin
Barack Obama is
undoubtedly the U.S. president most committed to nuclear disarmament
since Kennedy. People all over the world have cheered President Obama's
commitment to move toward nuclear disarmament.
Yet the stark
reality is U.S. and Russia maintain over 20,000 nuclear weapons, many of
them on hair-trigger alert, ready to launch on a few minutes' notice.
Many are tens or hundreds of times more powerful than the Hiroshima
bomb, which leveled that city and killed over 140,000 people.
The
New START (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty) agreement, while welcome,
is a modest reduction, leaving the U.S. and Russia with over 1,500
deployed, long-range "strategic", nukes, and thousands more "tactical",
short-range weapons and "reserve" nukes in storage. U.S. Senate
ratification of New START, where 67 votes are required by the
Constitution to approve treaties, may prove difficult, especially
without conditions supporting modernization of the U.S. nuclear weapons
complex that would undercut the treaty's thrust and appear hypocritical
to the rest of the world.
Criticism by some analysts that this
treaty and other recent initiatives (the Congressionally-mandated
Nuclear Posture Review and Nuclear Security Summit) are too modest or
narrow does not diminish the president's stature as a leader on nuclear
weapons issues. It reflects the reality that he is a politician,
pressured by many constituencies, many of whom do not share his vision
of a world made more secure by scrapping nuclear weapons. The Dr.
Strangeloves in the nuclear weapons establishment certainly have the
president's ear. Their influence needs to be countered by an engaged
public in the U.S. and around the world.
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| | | published Wednesday, April 28, 2010 | 1597 Views :: 1 Comments |
Source URL:
http://chronicle.augusta.com/news/metro/2010-04-27/nuclear-study-will-assess-cancer-risk
By
Rob Pavey
Staff Writer
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Plant
Vogtle and Savannah River Site should be included in a new national
study of cancer risks for people living near nuclear facilities,
according to environmental groups.
"It's exactly what we've been
asking for -- for years," said Bobbie Paul, the executive director of
Georgia Women's Action for New Direction, which has lobbied for more
radiological monitoring in the area.
On Tuesday, the National
Academy of Sciences affirmed an April 7 request from the U.S. Nuclear
Regulatory Commission to update the 1990 National Institutes of Health
and National Cancer Institute report, Cancer in Populations Living Near
Nuclear Facilities .
The 20-year-old study, which examined deaths
from 16 types of cancer, found no increased risk of death among people
living in 107 counties containing or adjacent to 62 nuclear facilities.
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| | | published Tuesday, April 27, 2010 | 1461 Views :: 0 Comments |
By KAREN DILLON
The Kansas City Star
The Environmental Protection Agency said Monday that it may put the Bannister Federal Complex on a priority list for cleanup. Two decades ago, the agency left the site off that special Superfund list, but now it will reassess that decision.
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| | | published Wednesday, April 21, 2010 | 1007 Views :: 2 Comments |
Tom Udall Leads Bipartisan Group in Introducing RECA Amendments Act of
2010: Bill Would Expand Relief for Americans Sickened by Radiation
Exposure
WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Tom Udall (D-NM) today led a
bipartisan group of senators in introducing the Radiation Exposure
Compensation Act (RECA) Amendments of 2010, which would provide expanded
restitution for Americans sickened from working in uranium mines or
living near atomic weapons tests.
Originally appeared as a press release on Senator Udall's website.
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| | | published Thursday, April 08, 2010 | 2434 Views :: 2 Comments |
for further information, contact:
Nickolas Roth 914-673-6666
Susan Gordon 505-473-1670
for immediate release: April 7, 2010
ANA APPLAUDS START TREATY SIGNING; WARNS INCREASED WEAPONS SPENDING WON'T WIN RATIFICATION
Today’s signing of new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) by President Barack Obama and Russian President Medvedev is a significant achievement in reducing threats posed by nuclear weapons and should be followed by timely U.S. Senate ratification, according to the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability (ANA).
“Senate Democrats should not, however, be lured into thinking that large investments in nuclear weapons will get them the Republican votes needed to ratify this treaty,” said ANA Program Director Nick Roth. “This treaty should be ratified on its own merits, not on a deal that involves more money for nuclear weapons.”
Last December, 40 Republicans Senators, enough to defeat any resolution to ratify a treaty, sent a letter to the President demanding large increases in nuclear weapons spending before they would support the New START agreement. Among the list of demands were replacing the entire arsenal with new nuclear weapons and a series of new warhead production facilities.
Since the Republicans sent their letter, the Obama administration has proposed the largest-ever budget for nuclear weapons. It includes money for expanding nuclear weapons production capacity in the form of new weapons facilities and a study that explores significant modifications to current warheads. There is still no indication that Republican Senators will support the Administration’s arms control agenda. Earlier this week, Senators Kyl and McCain released a statement saying that current funding levels for nuclear weapons were still “woefully inadequate.”
“These new investments in nuclear weapons are expensive and unnecessary. More importantly they undermine the intent of the New START treaty, which is to demonstrate U.S. leadership in moving towards a nuclear weapons free world,” said Susan Gordon, Director of the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability.
The Alliance for Nuclear Accountability is a national network of three-dozen grassroots and national groups representing the concerns of communities near U.S. nuclear weapons sites that are directly affected by 65 years of nuclear weapons production and waste contamination.
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fact sheets and other materials about current nuclear weapons issues are available online at http://www.ananuclear.org
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| | | published Tuesday, April 06, 2010 | 1970 Views :: 0 Comments |
For further information,
Marylia Kelley, Executive Director, (925) 443-7148
Scott Yundt, Staff Attorney, (925) 443-7148
For immediate release, April 6, 2010
The Obama Administration's New Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) Elicits Some Cheers, Some Jeers from Nuclear Bomb Lab Neighbors in Livermore
TRI-VALLEY CAREs' "TOP LINE" RESPONSE TO THE OBAMA NPR: "First, some cheers," said Tri-Valley CAREs Executive Director, Marylia Kelley. "The
Obama NPR is mostly unclassified, while the Bush NPR was inappropriately
shrouded in secrecy. Further, it is notable that the new NPR opens with a quote from the President's April 5, 2009 Prague speech in which he committed to 'seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons'."
Kelley added, "The NPR contains some welcome statements that move the
nation toward that goal: It forswears new types of nuclear weapons, endorses further reductions in stockpile numbers, and limits the role of nuclear weapons in the U.S. security posture. In so doing, it moves away
from some of the dangerous policies contained in the Bush NPR." Kelley
continued, "We who live in the shadow of nuclear weapons facilities in
California applaud these Obama policy initiatives."
"However," Kelley cautioned, "We must hold Obama accountable and offer
jeers for the NPR's endorsement of Bush administration initiatives to revitalize and rebuild the nuclear weapons complex, which we and others have dubbed the 'Bombplex'."
Scott Yundt, the group's Staff Attorney, explained, "The NPR tries to justify additional funding and 'flexibility' for the weapons labs, including Livermore, to research and develop what will be essentially new warheads. Regardless of how the Obama administration frames this policy, it will be clear to the world that the U.S. is planning to build up its nuclear weapons complex for decades to come. This will inhibit the ability of the U.S. to play a leadership role in moving the world toward the abolition of nuclear weapons."
Yundt continued, "I am deeply disappointed that the NPR does not do more to constrain the infrastructure to develop and build new and modified nuclear weapons. I fear that the facts on the ground in building new weapons plants, and not the words on paper, will ultimately determine how the world sees this NPR."
BACKGROUND ON THE NPR: A year has now passed since President Obama
invigorated peace and disarmament advocates around the world by declaring
in Prague, "clearly and with conviction America's commitment to seek the
peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons."
The administration chose the anniversary of the President's historic Prague
speech to release the long awaited Nuclear Posture Review (NPR), which will
serve as a guide for U.S. nuclear weapons policy.
Tri-Valley CAREs' members, who live around two of the nation's nuclear
weapons facilities, the Livermore Lab and the Sandia, Livermore Site, worked this past year to ensure that the "transformational" change enunciated by the President in Prague would become the centerpiece of his administration's NPR. Our members' hopes are backed by practical aspirations that by winding down a reliance on nuclear weapons in our
national security strategy, Livermore Lab and Sandia, Livermore could focus
their work and resources on cleaner and greener civilian science missions.
In the build up to the NPR, the administration had been debating over a
number of key issues. The one that matters most for the Livermore community
is the debate over just how far the DOE should be allowed to go in changing
nuclear warheads in the existing stockpile.
THE WEAPONS LABS & THE NPR: The weapons lab directors have expressed a
desire to "replace" existing warheads with newly manufactured, untested
nuclear components of new and modified design. This strategy would provide
the weapons labs with little mission change and abundant weapons funding
for the next 20 years or more.
However, the "replacement" option is presently unnecessary and could be
scientifically risky, according to the prominent scientists called the JASON, called upon by Congress last year to answer the question of whether
the country's existing methods are sufficient to maintain a safe and reliable nuclear stockpile into the future.
Moreover, the "replacement" option is politically undesirable because it
would undermine U.S. efforts to discourage other countries from seeking
nuclear weapons and hamper efforts to build support for the nation's wider
nonproliferation goals. Finally, "replacement" options could mean more
highly polluting R&D done at Livermore Lab.
The Obama NPR permits the "replacement option," but does not embrace it. On
page 39, it says, "The full range of LEP [Life Extension Program] approaches will be considered: refurbishment of existing warheads, reuse of components from different warheads, and replacement of nuclear components."
The NPR report goes on to say, "In any decision to proceed to engineering
development for warhead LEPs, the United States will give strong preference
to options for refurbishment or reuse…"
WEAPONS COMPLEX INFRASTRUCTURE & THE NPR: Dating back to the Bush era, the Department of Energy National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) has been pressing for a new, rebuilt nuclear weapons complex, which Tri-Valley CAREs and others have dubbed the "Bombplex." Two prominent features of the "Bombplex" are a new, oversized and wrongly missioned, plutonium complex at Los Alamos Lab in NM, called the CMRR, and a new, oversized, wrongly missioned uranium bomb plant at Y-12 in TN, called the Uranium Processing Facility (UPF).
According to NNSA, the CMRR will enable the production of 50 to 80 new-design plutonium pits per year. Such a capability is only "needed" if the U.S. redesigns its nuclear weapons, which the President says he will not do and the NPR does not sanction. (Note: Existing capability at Los
Alamos Lab is able to produce up to 20 plutonium pits per year for an existing design already in the arsenal, which is more than sufficient for maintenance to the standards laid out in the new NPR). NNSA envisions that the UPF would produce 50 to 80 new "secondaries" (the H-bomb part of a
modern bomb) each year. Again, this capacity is more than what is needed to
maintain the existing nuclear weapons stockpile in line with the new NPR.
TRI-VALLEY CAREs' POSITION: Tri-Valley CAREs opposes Life Extension
Programs that make changes to the nuclear weapons stockpile beyond what is
required to maintain the existing safety and reliability of the weapons as they await dismantlement, pursuant to Article 6 of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. We further oppose construction of the
CMRR-Nuclear Facility at Los Alamos and the UPF at Y-12. We call on the
Obama administration to instead make careful, surgical investments in
infrastructure only where needed for actual warhead maintenance, for
verifiable, irreversible dismantlement of weapons, and for responsible
storage and disposition of nuclear materials.
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| | | published Tuesday, April 06, 2010 | 2270 Views :: 0 Comments |
Largest Peace Group: President Obama’s Nuclear Posture Not Quite Straight
Washington, DC — In response to today’s released Nuclear Posture Review by President Obama, Kevin Martin, executive director of Peace Action — a group founded in 1957 to abolish nuclear weapons and the largest grassroots peace organization — stated:
“President Obama is the most engaged U.S. president ever on nuclear disarmament issues, and Peace Action, like millions around the world, applauded his Prague speech one year ago calling for a nuclear weapons-free world. We are also encouraged by the New START agreement, to be signed in Prague this Thursday, as a modest but necessary step toward further nuclear arms cuts with Russia.
“However, the president's Nuclear Posture Review (NPR), released today, appears to be too beholden to outdated Cold War thinking, and it doesn't measure up to his vision of a nuclear-free world. It's certainly better than the one released by the Bush Administration, which called for the possibility of using nuclear weapons on nonnuclear states. The Obama administration reversed that. President Obama also stated the U.S. would not build new nuclear weapons like those the previous administration wanted but Congress thankfully blocked. Nonetheless, the document leaves room for the possibilities of new warheads in the future.
“Besides this disappointing NPR, the Administration has proposed a big increase in funding for the U.S. nuclear weapons complex, and is considering a very bad nuclear technology deal with Pakistan, thus rewarding one of the worst nuclear weapons proliferators. This is in addition to a similarly bad deal with India under the Bush administration.
“Luckily, the NPR is not the last word on these or other nuclear weapons subjects. Congress, the American people, and the international community all have a role to play in advocating faster progress toward the global elimination of the scourge of nuclear weapons. The upcoming Non Proliferation Treaty Review conference in May will attract tens of thousands of people from around the world to New York City demanding a safer world with no nuclear weapons.”
The Nuclear Posture Review is a congressionally mandated document that lays out nuclear weapon strategy and purpose for the next five to ten years.
####
Founded in 1957, Peace Action (formerly SANE/Freeze), the United States' largest peace and disarmament organization, with over 100,000 paid members and nearly 100 chapters in 34 states, works to abolish nuclear weapons, promote government spending priorities that support human needs, encourage real security through international cooperation and human rights and support nonmilitary solutions to the conflicts with Afghanistan, Iran and Iraq. The public may learn more and take action at http://www.Peace-Action.org. For more up-to-date peace insider information, follow Peace Action’s political director on Twitter. http://twitter.com/PaulKawika
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| | | published Tuesday, April 06, 2010 | 1951 Views :: 0 Comments |
For immediate release April 6, 2010
Contacts: Ann Suellentrop, 913-271-7925, and Henry Stoever, 913-375-0045
Peace Advocates in KC Blast Nuclear Posture Review as 'Lukewarm Compromise'
The Obama administration today unveiled its Nuclear Posture Review (NPR), which evaluates the role of nuclear weapons in U.S. defense and foreign policy. PeaceWorks/Physicians for Social Responsibility-KC (PW/PSR-KC) regrets that Obama’s NPR reinforces the nation's first-strike policy and neglects the issue of removing our tactical nukes based in Europe. In addition, for nations in defiance of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), Obama's NPR unfortunately
keeps the option of nuclear strike in retaliation for aggression with a chemical or biological weapon; a nuclear strike would kill manyinnocent noncombatants.
"PeaceWorks/PSR-KC denounces the NPR as a lukewarm compromise with
Bush administration appointees, including the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) Administrator and Under Secretary for Nuclear Security Tom D’Agostino; Air Force General Kevin Chilton, commander of the U.S. Strategic Command; and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates," says Ann Suellentrop, a member of PSR-KC and a PeaceWorks, Kansas City, Board member. "The Obama administration has clearly taken cues from its predecessors."
"This nuclear posture review is nearsighted to a fault, failing to acknowledge that the world demands drastic reductions of nuclear weapons and their eventual elimination," says Henry Stoever, Board Chair of PeaceWorks, Kansas City. "The NPR curries favor with conservatives in the Senate to try to obtain a two-thirds vote for ratification of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START)."
PW/PSR-KC believes Obama is forsaking the opportunity to chart a course for the next five to ten years for real non-proliferation, namely, taking our nuclear weapons down from alert status (de-alerting), encouraging verifiable dismantlement, and phasing out Life Extension Programs (LEPs), which have allowed for nuclear weapons with new military capabilities, fueling a new arms race contrary to the NPT's original intent. PW/PSR-KC is committed to the vision of a nuclear-weapons-free world and opposes the recently approved plan for
a new Kansas City Plant, an NNSA facility that procures and makes parts for nuclear weapons. PW/PSR-KC believes that if Obama wants leadership, he should look to the people who found new hope in his speech last April in Prague, and in the international community that in December bestowed on him the honor of a Nobel Peace Prize.
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