Abrüstungs-Versprechen: Internationale Konferenz zum Verbot von Atomwaffen gescheitert (30.05.05)

Die Konferenz zur Überprüfung des Atomwaffensperrvertrages in New York ist am Freitag gescheitert. Die teilnehmenden Länder konnten sich auf keine Abschlusserklärung einigen und viele Beteiligten gewannen den Eindruck, als sei der Vertrag in ernsthafter Gefahr. Der Vertrag verpflichtet die offiziellen Atommächte zur Abrüstung, untersagt allen anderen Ländern Nuklearwaffen und garantiert ihnen gleichzeitig die zivile Nutzung der Atomenergie. Verschiedene Länder hatten von den etablierten Atommächten, und vor allem von der USA gefordert, wie versprochen abzurüsten statt neue Atomwaffen zu entwickeln und alte zu pflegen. Es wurde auch von einer atomwaffenfreien Zone im Nahen Osten gesprochen. Die USA wiederum verlangten beispielsweise, die eventuellen Absichten Irans und Nordkoreas auf ein Atomwaffenprogramm zu verurteilen. Verschiedene Nicht-Regierungsorganisationen wiesen darauf hin, dass die vom Sperrvertrag garantierte Erlaubnis auf zivile Atomnutzung den Einstieg in die militärische Nutzung extrem vereinfache. Der Bürgermeister von Hiroshima, Vorsitzender einer Atomwaffen-Abrüstungskampagne sucht jetzt gemeinsam mit seinen Mitstreitern nach unabhängigen Wegen die Gefahr von Atomkriegen abzuwenden.

Die ganze Nachricht im Internet:

http://www.ngo-online.de/ganze_nachricht.php?Nr=11164

US study finds H-bomb tests still causing cancer in Marshalls 50 years on

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20050417/hl_afp/marshallsusnuclear_050417204948


Informant: Raulmax

"Atomwaffen-Drohung ist ein Kriegsverbrechen": Friedensbewegung inspiziert NATO-Hauptquartiere in Belgien (14.04.05)

Gewaltlos und öffentlich werden am Samstag, dem 16. April, friedensbewegte Gruppen aus ganz Europa und auch aus Deutschland die beiden NATO-Hauptquartiere in Belgien inspizieren. Dies kündigte die DFG-VK (Deutsche Friedensgesellschaft - Vereinigte Kriegsdienstgegner) am Donnerstag an. Der internationale Delegierte der DFG-VK, Kai-Uwe Dosch sagte: "Die NATO-Staaten erfüllen seit etlichen Jahren ihre vertragliche Verpflichtung zur atomaren Abrüstung nicht - jetzt wollen wir selbst zur Verhinderung von Kriegsverbrechen beitragen!" Anlass dieser "massenhaften zivilen Inspektion" sei die Überprüfungstagung des Atomwaffensperrvertrags im Mai 2005, so die DFG-VK.

Die ganze Nachricht im Internet:

http://www.ngo-online.de/ganze_nachricht.php?Nr=10875

http://www.ufppc.org/content/view/2549/


Informant: jensenmk

From ufpj-news

WITNESS FOR JUSTICE # 0206

March 7, 2005

TURNING OUR BACKS ON THE MARSHALL ISLANDS AGAIN

By Bernice Powell Jackson

Last March 1, I was in the Marshall Islands, tiny atolls in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, where we commemorated the 50th anniversary of the Bravo test. On March 1, 1954, the United States dropped a 15-megaton hydrogen bomb 1,000 times more powerful than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. It was one of 67 nuclear weapons tests conducted in the Marshall Islands by the U.S. between 1946 and 1958. But while many of the islanders had been evacuated in previous tests, on March 1 the people of four tiny atolls were not. In fact, they were not evacuated until for four days after the massive explosion whose radioactive cloud spread over an area about the size of New Jersey.

While this story is horrible in and of itself, documents declassified during the Clinton administration appear to point to the decision by the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) to make the Marshall Islanders into human guinea pigs. It appears that there was an AEC project, named Project 4.1, whose purpose was to study the effects of radioactive fallout on human beings. Despite its public statements otherwise, it seems that the AEC decided three days after the Bravo test to make the Marshall Islanders into research subjects. It is unclear whether the Marshallese actually received medical treatments for the exposure to high levels of radiation or whether they just received tracers which helped researchers know how human beings were responding, but we do know that they have suffered extraordinarily high levels of cancer, particularly of the thyroid. Moreover, the second and third generations also have high levels of cancer and immune system diseases. Women and girls who were originally exposed during the Bravo tests also experienced high levels of stillbirths, miscarriages and deformities in their babies. "The only thing I could think of was Nazi Germany," said then U. S. Energy Secretary Hazel O'Leary upon first learning about these experiments when some documents were declassified.

With the release of these documents in 1993, the survivors from the Bravo test petitioned the U.S. government for additional compensation to help pay for the health care and clean-up needs. Under a compact signed by the governments of the U.S. and the Marshall Islands in 1983, the U.S. agreed to pay $150 million into a trust fund. Some additional funds were awarded to specific groups of survivors. But while the commission managing the trust fund has awarded over $1 billion in damage claims, less than one percent of that money could be paid and there are thousands of claims still pending.

Shortly after the beginning of this year, however, the Bush administration rejected the petition for changed circumstances, telling the U.S. Congress that it should not award further compensation to the Marshall Islands. The irony, of course, is that the U.S. is telling other governments that they must take full responsibility for their actions, when we refuse to take responsibility for ours. To make whole the people of the Marshall Islands to treat their illnesses and clean up their islands would take only a few days of the funds we are spending in Iraq and Afghanistan.

This year the survivors of Enewetak, Rongelap, Utrik and Bikini islands sponsored their own commemoration of the Bravo test by inviting survivors of the Chernobyl nuclear reactor meltdown to share their experiences. They found that government cover-ups and misinformation were common to both experiences.

More than half a century after one of our nation's most shameful actions, we must tell the truth, admit our guilt and pay fully for our actions. Only if we make amends to the people of the Marshall Islands can we move forward into the future with integrity and truth.

(Note: You can contact your Senators concerning the petition for changed circumstances of the Marshall Islands at 202-225-3121. Or contact your congressperson at 202-224-3121).


Informant: Raulmax

"It's awfully hard to ask countries around the globe to do a lot more to fight against the North Koreans or the Iranians getting nuclear weapons if we ourselves seem to be increasing our dependence on nuclear weapons," Nunn said.

http://tinyurl.com/4goyu

A U.S. policy of preemption and a push for new nuclear weapon designs could be a recipe for disaster that makes proliferation more likely, not less.

http://www.thebulletin.org/article.php?art_ofn=ma05speed


From Information Clearing House

Peace and Justice News from IRC
http://www.irc-online.org

February 25, 2005


Nuclear Terror at Home

by Noam Chomsky

If you can imagine some rational observers from Mars looking at this curious species down here, I don' think they’d put very high odds on survival--another generation or two. In fact, it’s kind of miraculous that we’ve come along this far.

The world has come extremely close to total destruction just in recent years from nuclear war. New Mexico plays an important role in this. There’s case after case where a nuclear war was prevented almost by a miracle. And the threat is increasing as a consequence of policies that the administration is very consciously pursuing.

Noam Chomsky is the author of Hegemony or Survival. (Purchase online at: http://www.irc-online.org/content/books/chomsky.hegemony.php ) He has been an IRC board member for 15 years and a steadfast supporter of IRC s mission and programs.

See complete new IRC paper online at:
http://www.irc-online.org/content/chomsky/0502nuclear.php

With printer-friendly PDF version at:
http://www.irc-online.org/content/pdf/0502nuclear.pdf

Read what Chomsky wrote about IRC in support of our 25th anniversary and why you should generously support IRC, as he does.
http://www.irc-online.org/content/25th/chomsky.04.php

Also see what he had to say about Iraq Elections at our 25th Anniversary Celebration:
http://www.irc-online.org/content/chomsky/2005chomsky-iraq.php

Obgleich für die US-Regierung die Nichtverbreitung von Atomwaffen ein wichtiges Ziel ist, will sie den Beitrag für die Umsetzung des Abkommens kürzen, gleichzeitig aber neue Atomwaffen entwickeln...

http://www.telepolis.de/tp/r4/artikel/19/19441/1.html