Nuclear Weapons
Beyond Nuclear advocates for the elimination of all nuclear weapons and argues that removing them can only make us safer, not more vulnerable. The expansion of commercial nuclear power across the globe only increases the chance that more nuclear weapons will be built and is counterproductive to disarmament. We also cover nuclear weapons issues on our international site, Beyond Nuclear International.
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Last Thursday, Kevin Kamps of Beyond Nuclear debated Victor Murogov, the Head of the International Nuclear Education Center and Professor at the National Research Nuclear University in Moscow. The debate was aired on the Voice of Russia Radio. The discussion revolved around the Nuclear Security Summit in Seoul, South Korea, which President Obama recently attended.
This website, created by Steven Starr, a senior scientist for Physicians for Social Responsibility, is available in four languages: English, Russian, Hebrew, and Chinese. The site describes the deadly long-term environmental consequences of nuclear war that threaten continued human survival. Virtually any nuclear war, even one fought with less than 1% of the deployed and operational nuclear arsenals, will cause catastrophic disruptions of global climate and massive destruction of Earth's protective ozone layer, resulting in global nuclear famine. The site also includes a photo gallery from Hiroshima, Japan, the first city in the world to be annihilated by an atomic bomb in 1945; there is also a nuclear firestorm simulator, which allows you to type in any address or city, select a weapon size, and then illustrate the size of the resulting nuclear firestorm caused by the detonation of the weapon.
In a comprehensive article, NBC News quotes U.S. government officials as confirming that Israeli secret service agents have teamed up with Iranian dissidents from the MEK -- designated a terrorist organization by the U.S. in 1997 -- to carry out targeted assassinatoins of Iranian nuclear scientists, as well as a deadly sabotage attack on an Iranian Revolutionary Guard missile R&D base. In the past 5 years, 5 Iranian nuclear scientists have been assassinated. Most ironically, Israel has a clandestine nuclear arsenal comprising hundreds of weapons, while Iran claims its nuclear pursuits are for electricity generation only.
Radioactive Iodine-131 fallout across U.S.from the Nevada Test Site, by county, measured in radsAs reported in the Salt Lake Tribune, January 27th, 2012 marked the 61st anniversary of the first nuclear weapons detonation at the Nevada Test Site in 1951. 928 full-scale nuclear weapons tests were eventually carried out in Nevada alone, including more than 100 above-ground (certain underground tests also discharged radioactivity to the atmosphere, and "sub-critical" blasts continue today).
This commemoration was marked by a U.S. Senate resolution, sponsored by Idaho Republicans Mike Crapo and Jim Risch, and co-sponsored by Democrats from Colorado (Mark Udall and Michael Bennett) and New Mexico (Jeff Bingaman and Tom Udall), designateing January 27, 2012, as a "national day of remembrance for Americans who, during the Cold War, worked and lived downwind from nuclear testing sites and were adversely affected by the radiation exposure generated by the above ground nuclear weapons testing."
The resolution, along with companion legislation, seeks to significantly expand compensation for nuclear weapons test site Downwinders, as well as uranium miners and mill workers. Qualifications for radiation exposure compensation would be broadened, post year 1971 uranium workers would be covered, and the recognized downwind nuclear testing area of impact would be widened to include seven states, and one U.S. territory: Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, and Utah for the Nevada Test Site; New Mexico for the Trinity Test Site; and Guam for Pacific tests.
Downwinders such as J. Preston Truman and Eve Mary Verde called for an end to nuclear weapons testing and a world free of nuclear weapons, as well as health studies, health care, and compensation for Downwinders. Groups such as Idaho's Snake River Alliance marked the commemoration.
The BBC reported on December 29, 2011 that a dockside fire had spread to a nuclear power and nuclear armed Russian submarine at the Naval base near Murmansk, requiring a land-based, water-borne, and air-borne fire fighting response, as well as the partial submersion of the vessel to bring the raging inferno under control. Russian autorities claimed that the nuclear weaponry had been removed before the fire started, and assured that the reactor was shut down. However, they did not mention that irradiated nuclear fuel still filled the core of the reactor, not the mention the radioactive contamination throughout the nuclear power system -- all vulnerable to a fire spreading to its compartents.
April 1, 2012