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Japan Finds Documents Indicating Secret Nuclear Pact, NHK Says - Bloomberg.com
Japan’s government has discovered documents indicating the existence of a secret agreement allowing the U.S. to transport nuclear weapons through its territory, public broadcaster NHK reported on its Web site.
The government will set up a panel of experts to examine the documents and will announce the findings early next year, Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada said yesterday, according to NHK.
To contact the reporters on this story: Chris Cooper in Tokyo at ccooper1@bloomberg.net
Officials meet to discuss parks at NERP workshop | Aiken Standard | Aiken, SC
Collaboration and working locally toward national goals were expressed as overarching themes Friday as the National Environmental Research Parks (NERP) workshop came to an end in Aiken.
Researchers and scholars from all seven of the nationwide facilities gathered at the Savannah River Ecology Laboratory's conference center.
"The commonality of programs has come through," said Ken McLeod, co-director of SREL. "Despite our geographical differences, we are working on similar research themes."
SREL hosted the workshop for representatives from the seven environmental research park sites located at DOE nuclear sites: Los Alamos in New Mexico, Hanford in Washington, Yucca Mountain in Nevada, Oak Ridge in Tennessee, Fermilab in Illinois, the Idaho National Laboratory in Idaho and the Savannah River Site.
The network of research parks offers opportunities for scientists to combine their data to create a comprehensive picture of the impacts of climate change across widely varied geographic regions.
Growing concern over humanitarian situation in Fallujah
The fifth anniversary of the second attack on Fallujah by US forces has seen an upsurge in interest in the lingering humanitarian problems resulting from the conflict. Both the US and UNEP have roles to play in clarifying exactly what happened and ICBUW calls on them to accept this responsibility.
19 November 2009 - ICBUW
ICBUW is deeply concerned by press reports of a steep rise in birth defects in Fallujah, Iraq, following the two attacks by US forces in 2004. Such stories are sadly familiar to anyone who has followed the history of Iraq after the wars in 1991 and 2003, and it has long been thought that the use of uranium weapons – so-called ‘depleted uranium’ – in both conflicts has played a role in the rise in deformities among newborns.
Asia Times Online: Nuclear fallout rocks Pakistan
Sharp differences between Pakistani leaders over safeguarding the country's nuclear arsenal are placing increasing pressure on the embattled administration of President Asif Ali Zardari.
Zardari is already seriously at odds with the military establishment over dealing with the Taliban-led insurgency and there is a strong likelihood that his government will face a make-or-break test within weeks in the form of mass street protests.
Pakistan has reacted strongly to an article in The New Yorker by investigative reporter Seymour Hersh on November 16, "Defending the arsenal", in which he claimed that Pakistan was discussing "understandings" with the US that could even see specialists take sophisticated nuclear triggers out of the country to prevent them
No Need for New Nuclear Warheads, Agency Says | Union of Concerned Scientists
— The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) today released the executive summary of a new report that should put an end to claims that new nuclear weapons are required to maintain a safe, secure and reliable nuclear arsenal, according to experts at the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS).
"This new scientific report should be the final nail in the coffin for proposals to build new nuclear weapons," said Stephen Young, senior analyst in the Global Security Program at UCS. "The report finds that we can maintain our nuclear weapons indefinitely by simply continuing to do what we are already doing."
The report, by a prominent, independent scientific panel called the JASON group, concluded that the United States can maintain current high levels of safety, security and reliability indefinitely without designing a new generation of warheads or testing current warheads. The panel found that the arsenal can be maintained by two existing programs: the Stockpile Stewardship Program, which monitors the arsenal for signs of aging, and the Life-Extension Program, which refurbishes existing warheads with new components.
Key Physicists Say No New Nukes Needed : ScienceInsider
The secretive JASON group of academic physicists have given a thumbs up to the current program of refurbishing nuclear warheads in the U.S. stockpile instead of building new, more reliable ones. The report should bolster efforts by the Obama Administration to keep dead the Reliable Replacement Warhead program, a Bush-era program to build new nukes. Bush's Energy Department and Pentagon officials had argued that flaws in the refurbishment program were a key rationale for new bombs, but Obama disagreed. (Defense Secretary Robert Gates, a holdover, tried to revive the program this past summer, but failed.) The strong endorsement of the status quo by JASON, says Arms Control Wonk:
should drive a stake through the heart of the RRW and warhead “replacement” in general.
They turned back arguments that refurbishment efforts—known as Life Extension Programs— introduced enough changes to the bombs so as to raise questions about their effectiveness:
JASON finds no evidence that accumulation of changes incurred from aging and LEPs have increased risk to certification of today’s deployed nuclear warheads.
Peace activists push 'Alternative 6' for Y-12 | knoxnews.com
The debate over nuclear weapons in the 21st century continued tonight with about 100 people in attendance. This time the forum was held at the New Hope Center, near the entrance to the Y-12 nuclear weapons plant, and the topic was modernization of Y-12 and the proposed construction of a new production facility with broad capabilities at the Oak Ridge plant.
If there's a price tag for world peace and security, several speakers passionately argued, it's surely not between $1.4 billion and $3.5 billion. That's the estimated cost range of the Uranium Processing Facility, which the National Nuclear Security Administration wants to build at Y-12 to replace antiquated operations -- some of which date back to the World War II Manhattan Project -- for making and dismantling warhead parts.
WPR Article | Global Insights: The Great Nuclear Wall of China
Although nuclear arms control is not likely to be a major agenda item during President Barack Obama's visit to China, it should be. One of the obstacles facing the president as he seeks to realize the ambitious goals endorsed by the Nobel Peace Prize Committee is the need to transform the primarily bilateral strategic arms control relationship inherited from the Cold War into one that places greater emphasis on multilateral frameworks.
Although Moscow and Washington have made progress in negotiating a replacement for the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) that expires this December, other nuclear weapons states must also join this reduction process, which thus far has been almost exclusively a Russian-American affair.
Uranium weapons - all roads lead to the World Health Organisation
Last December, 141 states supported a General Assembly resolution requesting that the United Nation’s agencies - the WHO, IAEA and UNEP - update their positions on the potential threat to human health and the environment posed by the use of uranium weapons. Of these, it seems to be that of the WHO which will prove the most influential.
17 November 2009 - Doug Weir and Gretel Munroe
This was the second NAM resolution on uranium weapons in recent years and it garnered more support than its 2007 predecessor. Abstentions were down as Finland, Norway and Iceland voted in favour while France, Israel, the United States and the United Kingdom were left more isolated than ever.
Following the vote, the UK justified its position by stating that all the research that has ever needed to be undertaken into the potential health impact of uranium weapons has been completed and that we can now therefore ignore the subject.
Worcester Telegram & Gazette: US to compensate Norton workers
At least 19 Norton Co. workers who have cancer - perhaps caused through exposure five decades ago to nuclear materials such as uranium and thorium - will receive compensation and benefits from the federal government. Their survivors may be eligible as well.\n\nThe U.S. Department of Labor announced yesterday that all former Norton Co. employees who worked at the Worcester plant between Jan. 1, 1945, and Dec. 31, 1957, are part of a "special exposure cohort" that entitles them to the compensation and benefits.\n\nTo be eligible, workers must have worked for at least 250 days at the plant, according to Michael Volpe, a Department of Labor spokesman. The workers must also have developed one of 22 cancers considered likely to have been caused by exposure to radioactive material. Those cancers include lung cancer, leukemia, bone cancer, liver cancer, lymphomas, multiple myeloma, renal cancer, as well as a long list of other cancers.
AdelaideNow... Maralinga test site returned to people Maralinga Tjarutja people
LAND in outback South Australia used for nuclear weapons testing in the aftermath of World War II will be handed back to the traditional Aboriginal owners.
Environment and Conservation and Aboriginal Affairs and Reconciliation Minister Jay Weatherill today told Parliament the final section of the Maralinga test site would be returned to the Maralinga Tjarutja people.
"The Maralinga nuclear test occurred during a period in our history when little regard was given to Aboriginal people and their connection with the land," he said.
Site Classification Procedural Explanation Erupts in Wails of Disbelief - Huntington News Network
During the public subcommittee meetings of the Portsmouth Site Specific Advisory Board at the Endeavor Center concerning cleanup and possible future uses for the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant site, a definition clarification led to a volatile exchange between an EPA worker and the survivor of a plant worker.
Joni Fearing, whose parents died from plant related contamination, objected to the Portsmouth/Piketon site not technically qualifying as a “superfund” cleanup site, which in the determination of certain attorneys triggers certain benefits to survivors.
After challenging criteria for “superfund” classification, Brian Blair, Ohio EPA Division of Emergency and Remedial Response, attempted to explain the process.
Sites designated under superfund qualify for the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA) environmental law. The Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant is on the list in Kentucky.
Seattle crowd opposes Hanford cleanup delays
A tentative agreement to stretch out the timetable to convert the Hanford nuclear reservation's worst radioactive wastes into more benign glass drew little support at a Seattle meeting last Thursday.
If adopted, the agreement would delay start-up of a massive waste-glassification complex from 2011 to 2019. And completion of the glassification would shift from 2028 to 2047.
The agreement -- actually a negotiated settlement to a state lawsuit against the federal Department of Energy -- also gives a federal judge the power to enforce the new schedule if the feds balk at it in the future.
Celebration as judge acquits anti-nuclear campaigners | Ekklesia
Four anti-nuclear activists who took part in a mass protest at the Aldermaston nuclear base have been acquitted by a district judge at Reading Magistrates' Court.
The four individuals were accused of obstructing the highway on 27th October 2008, but the judge, Peter Crabtree, ruled that the prosecution had failed to prove that they were even on the highway, let alone obstructing it. The defendants successfully argued that the blockade took place on Ministry of Defence land and did not significantly affect the public traffic flow.
However, the judge did not accept the defendants' argument that the Atomic Weapons Establishment was itself engaged in unlawful activity.
US drops safety claim for island / World / Home - Morning Star
Residents of the Puerto Rican island of Vieques celebrated at the weekend after a US agency dropped claims that no health hazards had been caused by decades of US military exercises on and around the island.
Some 7,000 past and current Vieques residents have filed a lawsuit seeking billions of dollars in compensation for illnesses that they say are linked to the use of the island as a bombing range.
The US Federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry has now admitted that it must "modify" its earlier research on Vieques, which had purported to show that there had been no health risks generated.
Documentary tells story of Mars Bluff incident | SCNow
Many Pee Dee residents recall the details of the incident that occurred on March 11, 1958, in Mars Bluff.
Now, with the production of a documentary examining the aftermath of the day a 3-ton unarmed nuclear bomb was accidentally dropped on a family’s farm a few miles outside of Florence, the story is coming full circle.
Part of the ETV series Carolina Stories, “The Incident at Mars Bluff” tells the story of the Gregg family from that fateful day when their house and all their belongings were destroyed, through their struggles to receive fair compensation from the U.S. Air Force.
On Sunday, approximately 30 people attended a free screening of the program at the Florence County library and Matt Burrows, the director and producer of the documentary, was on hand to field questions about the project.
Toxic munitions 'may be cause' of baby deaths and deformities in Fallujah - Middle East, World - The Independent
Evidence was growing this weekend that babies born in the Iraqi city of Fallujah – scene in 2004 of one of the few set-piece battles of the invasion – are exhibiting high rates of mortality and birth defects.
In September this year, say campaigners, 170 children were born at Fallujah General Hospital, 24 per cent of whom died within seven days. Three-quarters of these exhibited deformities, including "children born with two heads, no heads, a single eye in their foreheads, or missing limbs". The comparable data for August 2002 – before the invasion – records 530 births, of whom six died and only one of whom was deformed.
The Associated Press: US health agency to take 'fresh look' at Vieques
A U.S. agency has overturned its 2003 research that said no health hazards were caused by decades of military exercises on Vieques, a bombing range-turned-tourist destination off Puerto Rico's east coast.
The federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry said Friday it intends to "modify" some of its earlier research on Vieques, where the U.S. and its allies trained for conflicts from Vietnam to Iraq.
The agency, a part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, used its own studies to conclude in 2003 that there was essentially no health risk from the bombing range — a conclusion widely criticized by academics and residents on the 18-mile-long island of less than 10,000 people.
The FINANCIAL - Boeing Seeks Review of California Site Cleanup Law
In its filing, Boeing says the recent state law changes the normal cleanup process applied throughout the state by imposing “irrational and arbitrary requirements” on Santa Susana.
Huge rise in birth defects in Falluja | World news | guardian.co.uk
Doctors in Iraq's war-ravaged enclave of Falluja are dealing with up to 15 times as many chronic deformities in infants and a spike in early life cancers that may be linked to toxic materials left over from the fighting.
The extraordinary rise in birth defects has crystallised over recent months as specialists working in Falluja's over-stretched health system have started compiling detailed clinical records of all babies born.
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