Nukewatch

Working for a nuclear-free future since 1979

  • Issues
    • Weekly Column
    • Depleted Uranium
    • Direct Action
    • Lake Superior Barrels
    • Environmental Justice
    • North Korea
    • Nuclear Power
      • Chernobyl
      • Fukushima
    • Nuclear Weapons
    • On The Bright Side
    • Radiation Exposure
    • Radioactive Waste
    • Renewable Energy
    • Uranium Mining
  • Quarterly Newsletter
    • Quarterly Newsletter
    • Newsletter Archives
  • Resources
    • Nuclear Heartland Book
    • Fact Sheets
    • Reports, Studies & Publications
      • The New Nuclear Weapons: $1.74 Trillion for H-bomb Profiteers and Fake Cleanups
      • Nuclear Power: Dead In the Water It Poisoned
      • Thorium Fuel’s Advantages as Mythical as Thor
      • Greenpeace on Fukushima 2016
      • Drinking Water at Risk: Toxic Military Wastes Haunt Lake Superior
    • Nukewatch in the News
    • Links
    • Videos
  • About
    • About Nukewatch
    • Contact Us
  • Get Involved
    • Action Alerts!
    • Calendar
    • Workshops
  • Donate

March 30, 2021 by Nukewatch Leave a Comment

Accidental Apocalypse and Nuclear War on Drugs

Image by Christopher Farrugia.

By John LaForge, Nukewatch

With existential national security threats from floods, droughts, wildfires, water pollution, sea-level rise, and peak oil,[1] the US Air Force, the Air National Guard and nuclear weapons manufacturers could do crucial defense work in the US heartland by building, installing, managing and expanding renewable (wind and solar) electric power systems — instead of polishing their 400 Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missiles, and preparing to welcome an astronomically expensive replacement missile dubbed Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent. Call such a switch a “Climate Defense Initiative” since it would constitute deterrence against actual threats.

But no. Congress’s “ICBM Coalition,” missile contractors Lockheed Martin, GE, Northrup-Grumman, Boeing, and United Technologies, hundreds of subcontractors, their lobbyists, and public relations departments have conjured implausible but scary sounding reasons for paying an estimated $264 billion for yet another new rocket system. Since 1955, the nuclear-armed rocket gravy train has invented reasons for Atlas missiles, Titan missiles, Minuteman I, II and III missiles, and even a few dozen Peacekeepers.

The proposal to replace today’s 400 land-based ICBMs is so unsound and unpopular that even centrist organizations and individuals have condemned it (most for the wrong reasons), among them the editorial board of Bloomberg News, the Union of Concerned Scientists, the Arms Control Association, Defense News, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, former Secretary of Defense William Perry, and a handful of retired military commanders.

Six years ago, the Bulletin referred to “the significant number of ‘expert’ studies that have appeared over the past five years suggesting that the ICBM leg of the nuclear triad should be deactivated”.[2] Gen. James Cartwright, a former Vice Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, chaired a 2012 study group whose final report — co-signed by then Senator and later Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel — said in part: “No sensible argument has been put forward for using nuclear weapons to solve any of the major 21st century problems we face …. In fact, nuclear weapons have on balance arguably become more a part of the problem than any solution.” Secretary Perry warns at his website, in speeches and in his memoir that ICBMs, “are simply too easy to launch on bad information and would be the most likely source of an accidental nuclear war,” and he says the ICBM system is “‘destabilizing’ in that it invites an attack from another power.”

All these critics point to these same fundamental failures and risks of ICBMs: they are redundant; they turn their sitting duck locations in five states into national sacrifice zones; and they robotize military commanders by pushing them to launch “on warning” without knowing whether the warning signals are misreads, mistakes or miscalculations.

Don’t mention the drug busts

Still, the mainstream critiques of the new missile program have ignored the scandals that have rocked the Air Force over the last 15 years[3] resulting in hundreds of demotions, firings, courts martial and forced retirements. Officers among the 9,600 people in the Minuteman III missile system have been punished for sexual assaults, spousal abuse, distributing illegal drugs, violating safety and security rules, failing and/or cheating on exams, sleeping at the controls, and even illegally flying nuclear-armed Cruise missiles cross country. In 2014, the AP referred to, “a flagging sense of purpose”, “stunning breakdowns in discipline, training, morale, security, leadership”, and “a decrepit Minuteman III missile force that few airmen want to join and even fewer view as a career-enhancing mission.”[4]

Missile field duty is understood by those assigned to it as a career cul-de-sac, plagued by years of isolation and boredom in rural outbacks, and haunted by high-level discussions of eliminating the missiles. Lacking a mission beyond sitting in place at attention or rehearsing doomsday drills, and overshadowed for promotion and commendations by warzone colleagues in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria and elsewhere, missile crews can feel left behind. The variety and depth of staff scandals in the missile fields appears to demonstrate a broad-based disillusionment.

In 2007, three full Colonels, a Lt. Colonel and dozens of low-level personnel at Minot AFB in North Dakota were demoted or sacked after they allowed the fantastically dangerous loading and cross-country air transport of six nuclear-armed Cruise missiles.[5] The nuclear weapons, each holding up to ten times the force of the Hiroshima bomb[6] were flown 1,542 miles from Minot to Barksdale AFB in Louisiana the US staging area for its Middle East wars and an operational bomber base with 44 B-52s.

In 2008, three of the four on-duty Air Force missileers in a Minot missile launch center fell asleep at the con­trols of a com­po­nent that holds launch codes. Rules require at least two crewmembers to stay awake while on alert. They were im­me­di­ate­ly barred from missile duty and were later dis­charged from the ser­vice.[7]

In October 2010, a computer glitch knocked fifty Minuteman missiles offline at F.E. Warren AFB in Wyoming “for longer than an hour.” Five launch control centers lost all contact with the fifty far-off Minuteman III missiles they normally control. Most unintentionally, the Air Force’s response to the temporary disarmament demonstrated the missile system’s obsolete and useless status. Retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Dirk Jameson told press that the electronic shutdown had “no real bearing on the capabilities of our nuclear forces.”

In 2013, Air Force missileers, two at Minot and two at Malmstrom AFB in Montana, were reprimanded for leaving blast doors open at missile launch control centers in violation of strict protocols. The lapses were described by former missileer Bruce Blair as having enabled potential saboteurs to access super-secret missile launch codes. Understandably, the blunders were attributed to a lackadaisical mindset among the missileers.

In 2014, two missile launch crew administrators at Malmstrom were accused of operating an illegal narcotics distribution system across six Air Force bases, allegedly sending messages to eleven others, three of whom were members of launch control crews. According to Lt. Gen. James Holmes’ 268-page report on the scandal, the messages mentioned “specific, illegal drug use … [including] synthetic drugs, ecstasy and amphetamines.”[8]

Separately, Gen. Holmes’ investigation uncovered widespread cheating by missileers on launch procedure exams. Consequently, a total of 92 missileers at Malmstrom’s 341st Missile Wing were suspended, decertified, and barred from launch control duty. A total of nine missile field Colonels and Lt. Colonels at Malmstrom, nearly the entire chain of command, was removed from duty for failing to detect the mass cheating.

Damn the torpedo makers

How do the ICBMS survive the corruption, accidents, “stunning breakdowns,” and high-level condemnation? One answer is in a February 9 report by William Hartung of the Center for International Policy, titled “Inside the ICBM Lobby: Special Interests or the National Interest?” Hartung details the huge sums lavished by weapons contractors on lobbying and campaign contributions in order to buy votes from lawmakers in states that host the missiles, air bases, or the contractors themselves (Montana, North Dakota, Colorado, Nebraska, and Wyoming), even though, as the report notes, there is “no militarily sound reason to build a new ICBM.” The report says that Northrop Grumman and its major subcontractors have given $1.2 million to the current members of the Senate missile coalition since 2012 and over $15 million more to members of key Congressional committees that help determine how much is to be spent. In addition, the top eleven contractors working on the new missile spent over $119 million on lobbying in 2019 and 2020, and employed 410 lobbyists.

How can the weapons industry seem to smash or buy off everything standing in its way, whether it’s reason, precaution, or spending limits? Part of the answer is in Mussolini’s definition of fascism as the merger of state and corporate power, and in Eisenhower’s farewell warning against the same.

— This piece was originally at Counterpunch.org, March 28, 2021

Notes

  1. See Vandana Shiva, Water Wars: Privatization, Pollution, and Profit, South End Press, 2002; Gwynne Dyer, Climate Wars: The Fight for Survival as the World Overheats, One World Press, 2008; Richard Heinberg, The Party’s Over: Oil, War and the Fate of Industrial Societies, New Society Publishers, 2005.
  2. Adam Lowther, “A Year Later: Responding to Problems in the ICBM Force,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, February 2015, http://thebulletin.org/year-later-responding-problems-icbm-force7984.
  3. AP, “California: Navy Commander Admits Taking Bribes,” New York Times, Jan. 7, 2015; David Sanger & William Broad, “Pentagon Studies Reveal Major Nuclear Problems,” New York Times, Nov. 14, 2014; “Another Charge in Navy Bribe Case,” New York Times, April 18, 2014; Helene Cooper, “Navy Opens Inquiry into Cheating in Reactor Training,” New York Times, Feb. 5, 2014; “Fraud in Army Recruiting Bonus Program May Cost Nearly $100 million,” New York Times, Feb. 5, 2014.
  4. Robert Burns, AP, “Study Finds Troubles Run Deep In Nuclear Missile Force,” Nov. 20, 2013; AP, “Air Force Is Working To Mend Missile Corps,” Minneapolis Star-Tribune, June 11, 2014.
  5. Sarah Baxter, “US Hits Panic Button as Air Force ‘Loses’ nuclear missiles,” London Times, Oct. 21, 2007.
  6. “W80-1 Warhead Selected for New Nuclear Cruise Missile,” Federation of American Scientists, Oct. 10, 2014, https://fas.org/blogs/security/2014/10/w80-1_lrso/.
  7. Barbara Starr & Larry Shaughnessy, CNN, “Air Force says officers fell asleep with nuke code,” July 24, 2008, http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/07/24/missile.error/index.html.
  8. Minneapolis Star-Tribune, “ND Missile Launch Officers in Drug Scandal,” Jan. 16, 2014; R. Jeffrey Smith, “Aiming High,” Slate, April 14, 2014; and Josh Harkinson, “Death Wears Bunny Slippers,” Mother Jones, Nov./Dec. 2014; “Security troops on U.S. nuclear missile base took LSD, records show”, Associated Press, NBC News, May 24, 2018, https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/security-troops-u-s-nuclear-missile-base-took-lsd-records-n877056

Filed Under: Environment, Military Spending, Nuclear Weapons, War, Weekly Column

March 29, 2021 by Nukewatch Leave a Comment

Nukewatch Quarterly Spring 2021

Click the links below to access articles from the Spring 2021 Quarterly Newsletter. Page numbers take you to the pdf of each page as they appear in the print version. Individual articles are also tagged by issue category.

Cover
Demonstrations Mark Arrival of Nuclear Weapons Ban Treaty
Fukushima at Ten: Aftershocks and Failed Decontamination

Page 2
Canadian Government Clams Up on New Treaty
Nuclear Weapons Treaty Ban Needs Bold Advocacy

Page 3
Nuclear Weapons Treaty the Right Way Forward, Has Already Strengthened Peace and Safety in 50 Countries
German Lawmaker Says “Nuclear Sharing Suspension” Must Become Phase-out 

Page 4
Court Orders Veterans Affairs Department to Replace Flawed Science Used to Deny Benefits to Vets Poisoned in Plutonium Disaster

Page 5
Early Opposition to the Atomic Bomb Came from Black America

Page 6
Reactors and Radioactive Waste: “safe, clean, too cheap to meter”

Page 7
Unpopular Missile Project Saved by Profiteers
UK Base Would Dump 50 Times More Waste 
Kings Bay Plowshares 7 Sentencing Update 
Bomb Test Blowback
Kill Bill Challenges Missile Contracts 
Reactor Closures Leave Long-term Risks Behind
Reactors in Space 

Page 8
Interfering with Criminal Nuclear Conspiracy: Trial Excerpts from Germany
An Appeal To The Personnel Of Büchel Air Base
Judge Panzer for John LaForge 
“All the Way to Texas” 

Filed Under: Newsletter Archives, Quarterly Newsletter

March 29, 2021 by Nukewatch Leave a Comment

Demonstrations Mark Arrival of Nuclear Weapons Ban Treaty

Nukewatch Quarterly Spring 2021
By Kelly Lundeen
In Plymouth, Minnesota, Nukewatch, Women Against Military Madness and Veterans for Peace, Chapter 27, brought the Treaty and banners to offices of Honeywell Corp. which has large contracts around the country making parts for nuclear weapons. Photo by Steve Clemens.

Before the 50th nation’s ratification was submitted, Nukewatch had begun coordinating with Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance (OREPA) and editors of the Nuclear Resister to prepare for the historic moment that the United Nations Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons would enter into force. What culminated on January 22, 2021, were 100 actions in the US involving over 1,000 activists and 200 actions around the world. It was a tremendous show of strength in our grassroots activism for nuclear abolition to celebrate a new dawn for humanity.

Honeywell, Minnesota — You’ve Been Notified

One action was the delivery of the new nuclear weapons ban treaty to Honeywell Aerospace, a division of Honeywell International, in Plymouth, Minn. by Vets for Peace, Chapter 27, Women Against Military Madness, and Nukewatch.

Typically, traffic enters freely into the Honeywell compound, but on January 22, security was waiting for our “Treaty Notification Unit” with two white vans, orange cones, a “greeter,” and no plans for a meeting with the manager we’d requested. When we attempted to enter the company’s parking lot the “greeter” asked for a badge to enter Honeywell property. An Indigenous member of our group reminded the Honeywell representative that it was not Honeywell property, but rather treaty (Indigenous) property.

I read a drafted statement to the Honeywell spokesperson that said in part: “What Honeywell does through its involvement in the production of the Trident II nuclear missiles, the replacement for the land-based nuclear missiles and its work at national nuclear labs and plants is now illegal under international law. We want Honeywell to get out of the nuclear weapons industry. The victims of nuclear war, testing and production need to be respected and compensated, and their communities must be protected. We need to end this welfare for the nuclear industry and start funding real human needs…

“Even states that have refused to join the Treaty are affected by it entering into force. The US has never ratified the cluster munitions treaty, but US companies ended their production of them since it entered into force. Just ask Honeywell. Now Honeywell must decide which side of history it will be on regarding nuclear weapons….

“Polls have shown that people in the countries that support nuclear weapons, including 65% of Americans, want their government to end that support…

“There is a new reality in international disarmament, and that is a world without nuclear weapons. That is the world we want our children to inherit.”

After the Vets for Peace rang bells to commemorate the end of “the war to end all wars,” five-year-old Yasha Lundeen Morales and seven-year-old Sofía Lundeen Morales presented copies of the Treaty to the Honeywell representative.

Ralph Hutchison of Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance said of the January 22 events, “It was a moment, and now it is our job to make it a movement.” Undoubtedly, Vets for Peace, WAMM and many more around the country are already doing that.

Email nukewatch1@lakeland.ws to join our March 25 Zoom call or visit the Nuclear Ban Treaty EIF Facebook page to work on next steps to promote the Treaty!

A video of the Minnesota Honeywell action is available at https://nukewatchinfo.org/videos.

See a compilation of January 22 actions across the US made by the editors of the Nuclear Resister and OREPA, at https://vimeo.com/515883787.

This article was originally produced for Veterans for Peace, Chapter 27.

 

Filed Under: Direct Action, Environment, Newsletter Archives, Nuclear Power, Nuclear Weapons, Quarterly Newsletter

March 29, 2021 by Nukewatch 2 Comments

Fukushima at Ten: Aftershocks and Failed Decontamination

Nukewatch Quarterly Spring 2021
By John LaForge

It’s now 10 years since the catastrophic triple meltdowns of reactors at Fukushima in Japan. As Joseph Mangano of the Radiation and Public Health project put it three years ago, “Enormous amounts of radioactive chemicals, including cesium, strontium, plutonium, and iodine were emitted into the air, and releases of the same toxins into the Pacific have never stopped, as workers struggle to contain over 100 cancer-causing chemicals.” [The Washington Spectator, Vol. 44, No. 6, June 1, 2018, p.1]

Nukewatch and hundreds of other groups and scientific journals have issued dozens of reports about the disaster. A score of books have been published on the subject, and major media have at least done annual reviews of the official evacuations, cleanups and decontamination efforts. With so much information available, it is not possible to do more than present another update on recent news and analysis.

There is news of the shortage of Fukushima health studies; big earthquakes (aftershocks) rattling reactors and waste tanks; corporate and government dishonesty about decontamination; novel radioactive particles dispersed; and renewed fish contamination.

Very few health studies

“So far only one single disease entity has been systematically examined in humans in Fukushima: thyroid cancer,” says Dr. Alex Rosen, the German chair of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War. [https://www.aerzteblatt.de/nachrichten/121561/Zehn-Jahre-nach-Fukushima-Gesundheitliche-Folgen-nicht-gaenzlich-abschaetzbar] Other diseases, such as leukemia or malformations, which are associated with increased radiation exposure, have not been investigated, Rosen told the German medical journal Deutsches Ärzteblatt March 2.

Pictured: One of three large explosions that were a part of Japan’s Fukushima-Daiichi radiation disaster that began March 11, 2011 with the country’s largest-ever earthquake, the fourth largest since record keeping began in 1900. The quake smashed the reactors’ foundations, pipes and off-site electrical supply, causing a “station blackout” that halted water circulation and all cooling of the reactors. A massive tsunami destroyed emergency back-up generators needed for cooling, resulting in meltdowns in three large reactors, enormous radiation releases, and possibly the worst nuclear reactor disaster in history.

(Five studies have focused on birth abnormalities in the areas most affected: three on infant mortality rates, one on underweight newborns, and one on declining birth rates 9 months after March 2011.*)

The one disease study of the population was a screening for thyroid cancer in 380,000 local children under the age 18. In January 2018, the journal Thyroid reported 187 cases after five years. Reviewing the study, Mangano wrote in The Washington Spectator that, “A typical population of 380,000 children would produce 12 cases in five years.” The increase among children is “exactly what would be expected if Fukushima were a factor, as radiation is most damaging to the fetus, infant and child,” Mangano said.

New Earthquakes Rattle Wreckage and Nerves

Another large earthquake, magnitude 7.3, struck Feb. 13, again off the coast of the Fukushima reactor complex, and the reported 30 seconds of terror was followed by14 aftershocks up to magnitude 5. [https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/13/world/asia/earthquake-japan-fukushima.html]

The quake was severe enough that Tokyo Electric Power Co. (Tepco) and federal regulators suspect it caused additional damage to reactors 1 and 3 where cooling water levels fell sharply, the Associated Press reported. The Feb. 13 quake was felt in Tokyo 150 miles away. Japan’s meteorological agency said it was believed to be an aftershock of the record 2011 quake. [https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2021-02-19/water-leaks-indicate-new-damage-at-fukushima-nuclear-plant]

At a Feb. 15 meeting, government regulators said the quake had probably worsened existing earthquake damage in reactors 1 and 3 or broken open new cracks causing the cooling water level drop, the AP said.

“Because (the 2011 quake) was an enormous one with a magnitude of 9.0, it’s not surprising to have an aftershock of this scale 10 years later,” said Kenji Satake, a professor at the University of Tokyo’s Earthquake Research Institute.

There have been six major aftershocks in the Fukushima area since March 2011: April 7, 2011 (magnitude 7.1); April 11, 2011 (6.6); July 10, 2011 (7.0); Oct. 26, 2013 (7.1); Nov. 26, 2016 (6.9); and Feb. 13, 2021 (7.3).

At least 20 radioactive waste water tanks near these were “slid” by the February 13 earthquake off Fukushima Prefecture, according to Tepco. Photo by Lars Nincolaysen-DPA

Earthquake shocks are not the only recurring nightmare to haunt the survivors of the record quake that killed 19, 630. Typhoon Hagibis slammed into Tamura City in October 2019, and swept away an unknown number of bags of radioactive debris that had been stacked near a river.

Since March 2011, over 22 million cubic meters of contaminated soil, brush and other matter from areas hard hit by fallout have been collected in large black plastic bags and piled in temporary storage mounds in thousands of places. [“Fukushima residents fight state plan to build roads with radiation-tainted soil,” Japan Times, Apr. 29, 2018; https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2018/04/29/national/fukushima-residents-fight-state-plan-build-roads-radiation-tainted-soil/#.WuYDcy7wbX4] Yet the volume is the tip of the iceberg: According to R. Ramachandran, in The Hindu, January 31, 2020, no decontamination activities are planned for the majority of forested areas which cover about 75 per cent of the main contaminated area of 9,000 square km.” https://frontline.thehindu.com/science-and-technology/article30543453.ece)

Cover-ups and disinformation

Reporting Feb. 14 about the latest quake, the AP noted that Tepco “has repeatedly been criticized for cover-ups and delayed disclosures of problems.” [https://apnews.com/article/fukushima-nuclear-plant-seismometers-3b1411bc433cca1ac73113faf51c9331] On June 22, 2016, Tepco’s President Naomi Hirose publicly admitted that the company’s lengthy refusal to speak of the “meltdowns” it knew of at its three reactors was tantamount to a cover-up and apologized for it.

The Washington Post reported March 6, 2021 [https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/fukushima-japan-radioactive-water-anniversary/2021/03/05/b0515cd0-76b8-11eb-9489-8f7dacd51e75_story.html] that, “For years, Tepco claimed that the treated water stored at the plant contained only tritium, but data deep on its website showed that the treatment process had failed.” The tanks now hold almost 1.25 million tons of highly contaminated waste water. “In 2018, [Tepco] was forced to acknowledge that 70 percent of the water is still contaminated with dangerous radioactive elements — including strontium-90, a bone-seeking radionuclide that can cause cancer — and will have to be treated again before release,” the Post reported.

Harvey Wasserman reported for Columbus Institute for Contemporary Journalism’s The Free Press on a July 2007 earthquake that shook Japan and forced dangerous emergency shutdowns at four reactors at Kashiwazaki. [https://freepress.org/article/earthquake-screamed-no-nukes] “For three consecutive days [Tepco] was forced to issue public apologies for erroneous statements about the severity of the damage done to the reactors, the size and lethality of radioactive spills into the air and water, the on-going danger to the public, and much more. Once again, the only thing reactor owners can be trusted to do is to lie.”

Radioactive Particles Newly identified

Work just published in the journal Science of the Total Environment documents new, highly radioactive particles that were released from the destroyed Fukushima reactors. The study was led by Dr. Satoshi Utsunomiya and Kazuya Morooka of Kyushu University. “Two of these particles have the highest cesium radioactivity ever measured for particles from Fukushima,” the research found. The study analyzed particles that were taken from surface soils collected 3.9 kilometers from the reactor site. [https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.145639]

Speaking with Science Daily Feb. 17, Dr. Utsunomiya said, “Owing to their large size, the health effects of the new particles are likely limited to external radiation hazards during static contact with skin.” The particles were reportedly spewed by the hydrogen explosions that rocked the reactor buildings and fell within a narrow zone that stretches ~8 kilometers north-northwest of meltdowns.

But Dr. Utsunomiya also said the long-lived radioactivity of cesium in “the newly found highly radioactive particles has not yet decayed significantly. As such, they will remain in the environment for many decades to come, and this type of particle could occasionally still be found in radiation hot spots.”

Smaller radioactive particles of uranium, thorium, radium, cesium, strontium, polonium, tellurium and americium were found afloat throughout Northern Japan, according to a report by Arnie Gundersen and Marco Kaltofen published July 27, 2017 in Science of the Total Environment. [https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0048969717317953] The radioactively hot particles were found in dusts and soils. About 180 particulate matter samples were taken from automobile or home air filters, outdoor surface dust, and vacuum cleaner bags. Some142 of the samples (about 80 percent) contained cesium-134 and cesium-137 which emit intense beta radiation and is very dangerous if ingested or inhaled. “A majority of these samples were collected from locations in decontaminated zones cleared for habitation by the National Government of Japan,” the authors revealed.

Greenpeace Reports Cleanup Failures and Deception

Greenpeace Japan released two major reports March 4 that also contradict the country’s positive decontamination and human rights claims after 2011.

 “Successive governments during the last 10 years … have attempted to perpetrate a myth about the nuclear disaster. They have sought to deceive the Japanese people by misrepresenting the effectiveness of the decontamination program and ignoring radiological risks,” said Shaun Burnie, Senior Nuclear Specialist at Greenpeace East Asia and co-author of the first report.

A Reuters image of a Fukushima reactor in ruins following three hydrogen gas explosions that were in turn brought on by meltdowns inside three reactors.

Key findings of the radiation report Fukushima 2011-2020 are:

  • Most of the 840 square kilometer Special Decontamination Area (SDA), where the government is responsible for decontamination, remains contaminated with radioactive cesium. … an overall average of only 15% has been decontaminated. • No long-term decontamination target level will be achieved in many areas. Citizens will be subjected for decades to radiation exposures in excess of the … recommended maximum. • In the areas where evacuation orders were lifted in 2017, specifically Namie and Iitate, radiation levels remain above safe limits, potentially exposing the population to increased cancer risk.

Key findings of The Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station decommissioning report are:

  • The current decommissioning plan in the timeframe of 30-40 years is impossible to achieve and is illusory.
  • Radioactive waste created at the site should not be moved. Fukushima Daiichi is already and should remain a nuclear waste storage site for the long term.

Filed Under: Fukushima, Newsletter Archives, Nuclear Power, Quarterly Newsletter, Radiation Exposure, Radioactive Waste

March 29, 2021 by Nukewatch Leave a Comment

Canadian Government Clams Up on New Treaty

Nukewatch Quarterly Spring 2021
By Douglas Roche

Editor’s note: We are sharing this column because the writer so deftly skewers the absurdities of the official opposition to the new Treaty.

EDMONTON, Alberta, Canada — With NATO breathing down its neck, the Government of Canada has clammed up on what it will say about the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, which entered into force January 22. The Treaty, endorsed by 122 nations in 2017, is a breakthrough because it bans the possession of nuclear weapons for those states adhering to it. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres hailed the treaty as “historic,” adding that it will “form an important component of the nuclear disarmament and nonproliferation regime” and set a new global norm against nuclear weapons.

But NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg says the Prohibition Treaty “would undermine the security of our alliance,” and NATO has stiffened its opposition. I asked Global Affairs Canada how the opposite positions of the UN and NATO heads could be reconciled. I thought it was a reasonable question to put, since, on Oct. 26, 2020, the government said: “We acknowledge the widespread frustration with the pace of [NPT] efforts toward nuclear disarmament, which clearly motivated the negotiation of the [Prohibition Treaty].”

The government went coy and, in its answer, referred me to the “pragmatic approach” of the Non-Proliferation Treaty “that takes into consideration the security considerations of all states.” In other words: silence on the Prohibition Treaty. The government doesn’t want to talk about it. Why?

The reason is easy to discern. When the Canadian statement recognizing the reason for the Prohibition Treaty reached NATO headquarters, it added to the “soft tones” now coloring the response to the treaty in some NATO countries. A study reported by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace showed that, in several NATO states, significant numbers of citizens and civil society organizations and their political representatives strongly support the treaty. In Belgium, 77 percent of the population is in favour of that country signing it. Fifty-six former high officials of NATO countries, including two former NATO secretaries-general, signed an open letter supporting the treaty.

With support building up, NATO struck back and, in December, the North Atlantic Council issued a withering denunciation of the [new] treaty on the grounds that the 1970 Non-Proliferation Treaty “remains the only credible path to nuclear disarmament.” NATO doubled down in its objection, saying it would “reject any attempt to delegitimize nuclear deterrence.” 

Thus, NATO is intimidating countries like Canada, which had begun a move towards at least acknowledging the reasons for the Prohibition Treaty. It needs to be remembered that three NATO states (the US, the UK and France) possess nuclear weapons, five others host US nuclear weapons on their soil, and all NATO members subscribe to NATO policy that nuclear weapons are the “supreme guarantee” of security. 

These states, including Canada, cling to the Non-Proliferation Treaty even though its major demand, comprehensive negotiation toward the elimination of nuclear weapons, has been ignored for 50 years.

Two former Canadian prime ministers (Jean Chrétien and the late John Turner), three former Canadian foreign ministers (Lloyd Axworthy, Bill Graham, John Manley) and two former Canadian defence ministers (Jean-Jacques Blais, John McCallum) have openly rebuked NATO’s moribund policies and supported the Prohibition Treaty. But the government won’t even respond to these leading Liberal [Party] figures.

Both Foreign Affairs Parliamentary Secretary Rob Oliphant and UN Ambassador Bob Rae declined to be interviewed for this column.

The government’s ambivalence has sparked the overnight formation of a coalition of Canadian activists, comprising 90 groups and 100 individuals, pushing the government to hold a parliamentary debate on the Prohibition Treaty, followed up by parliamentary committee hearings. Anton Wagner, leader of the coalition, says: “What brings all these organizations and individuals together is the concern that there is a great democratic deficit in Canada where Parliament and our political leaders refuse to debate the existential threat that nuclear weapons represent to human existence and civilization.”

The “democratic deficit” in Canada is shocking. The government is allowing NATO to bamboozle Canadians with its false nuclear deterrence doctrine. The Prohibition Treaty is an act of conscience by distressed governments and civil society leaders, and it deserves a hearing. Instead of ducking, the Canadian government should encourage a broad dialogue on how security can be maintained without nuclear weapons.

It should acknowledge the Prohibition Treaty and work with NATO to bring the organization into conformity with it.

But there will be some parliamentary action, at least. Shortly, Parliamentary Green Party Leader, Elizabeth May, will introduce a petition in the House, calling on Canada to accede to the Prohibition Treaty, and the government will have to respond.

At this tense moment, a new Canadian foreign minister, Marc Garneau, takes stage. I hope this highly praised former astronaut, the first Canadian in space, lives up to the belief he showed when, in opposition, he signed the call by Canadians for a Nuclear Weapons Convention for “all member states of the United Nations — including Canada — to endorse, and begin negotiations for a Nuclear Weapons Convention.”

— Former Canadian Senator Douglas Roche wrote this commentary for the Ottawa, Ontario Hill Times. His latest book is Recovery: Peace Prospects in the Biden Era.

Filed Under: Newsletter Archives, Nuclear Weapons, Quarterly Newsletter

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • …
  • 142
  • Next Page »

Stay Connected

  • Facebook
  • Twitter

Subscribe

Donate

Facebook

Categories

  • B61 Bombs in Europe
  • Chernobyl
  • Depleted Uranium
  • Direct Action
  • Environment
  • Environmental Justice
  • Fukushima
  • Lake Superior Barrels
  • Military Spending
  • Newsletter Archives
  • North Korea
  • Nuclear Power
  • Nuclear Weapons
  • Office News
  • On The Bright Side
  • Photo Gallery
  • Quarterly Newsletter
  • Radiation Exposure
  • Radioactive Waste
  • Renewable Energy
  • Sulfide Mining
  • Through the Prism of Nonviolence
  • Uncategorized
  • Uranium Mining
  • US Bombs Out of Germany
  • War
  • Weekly Column

Contact Us

(715) 472-4185
nukewatch1@lakeland.ws

Address:
740A Round Lake Road
Luck, Wisconsin 54853
USA

Donate To Nukewatch

News & Information on Nuclear Weapons,
Power, Waste & Nonviolent Resistance

Stay Connected

  • Facebook
  • Twitter

© 2021 · Nukewatch