Group items tagged

In recognition of Idaho downwinders who suffered from nuclear weapons testing that began in Nevada 58 years ago today, Gov. Butch Otter has proclaimed Jan. 27 as "Downwinders Day of Remembrance." Otter's proclamation recognizes "the sacrifices of the Downwinders‚ and all other participants in and victims of the Cold War, and hereby memorializes their losses." Downwinders in Nevada, Utah and Arizona who suffer from cancers connected to nuclear fallout are eligible for $50,000 government payments in recognition of the government's role in harming their health. But Idaho, which has four counties among the hardest hit by fallout, is not covered by the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act. Those four counties are Blaine, Custer, Gem and Lemhi.

Family medical histories in and around Semey, a town in north-east Kazakhstan, read like horror stories. It has been two decades since the Soviet Union ended a nuclear test programme close to Semey, but the hundreds of explosions carried out have left a sinister legacy of cancer, birth defects, infertility and other abnormalities. Men and women have lost spouses in early middle age, while children have died young or been born with severe deformities. "All my relatives, children and grandchildren are sick," said Kasenova Kabuda, a 69-year-old who lives in a village called Sarzhal close to Semey.

The US defence secretary has warned opponents of the US against trying to "test" Barack Obama with a crisis in the early days of his presidency. Robert Gates said the new president's security team was ready to defend US national interests from the moment he takes office next month. Mr Gates, who is staying in his post, said Middle East and Gulf security would remain a key issue for the US. He was speaking at a regional security forum in the Gulf state of Bahrain.

France has committed 80 million U.S. dollars to rehabilitate French Polynesian atoll of Hao, a key military base during the 20 years of nuclear weapons testing in the South Pacific. An agreement on France's assistance was signed between the French High Commissioner in Papeete, Adolphe Colrat, the French Polynesian vice-president, Jules Ienfa, and the Mayor of Hao, the Pacnews reported on Monday. Colrat said the clean-up will take seven years and marked a financial commitment by France 10 times bigger than what has been dispersed on Hao so far.

Two conservation groups have joined several local landowners in a lawsuit to try to force the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission to rescind a decision to permit natural gas drilling near the site of a 1969 atomic blast test in western Colorado. The suit, filed in the state District Court of Denver County on December 18, seeks to prevent Denver-based EnCana Oil and Gas from drilling five directional wells from a well pad within three miles of the Project Rulison site near the town of Battlement Mesa in Garfield County. The plaintiffs in the suit say that the COGCC in November issued EnCana permits to drill the wells without holding hearings on the potential of drilling so close to the site where the Atomic Energy Commission detonated a 43-kiloton nuclear bomb 8,4000 feet below ground.

All is not quiet on the western front. For the Western Shoshone, an indigenous nation with an unceded Treaty covering a large swath of 60 million acres of ancestral territory stretching across Nevada, California, Idaho and Utah, their traditional homeland is better described as a war zone. Not only has the US government used Shoshone lands to test hundreds of nuclear weapons, dispose of thousands of metric tonnes of radioactive waste, and proposed Yucca Mountain as a national dumpsite for (even more) deadly nuclear waste; modern corporate gold mining, including many Canadian operations, now threatens to gouge the heart right out of Western Shoshone territory.

Nineteen-year-old Gary Thornton had no idea what he was getting into in June 1962 when he signed a form swearing to secrecy about the U.S. government's involvement in a secret nuclear weapons testing program. The penalty for speaking out was a $20,000 fine or 20 years behind bars. As an enlistee in the U.S. Naval Reserve, he spent two years on a ship in the South Pacific and Far East and had many interesting experiences at various ports along the way.

On Dec. 18, 1950, President Truman approved establishment of a facility on the Las Vegas-Tonopah Bombing and Gunnery Range in Nye County. At first the site encompassed 350 square miles. Subsequent expansions led to its present size of 1,375 square miles. Dina Titus suggests in her book, "Bombs in the Backyard: Atomic Testing and American Politics," that the Nye County location was selected for several reasons: It was the largest of the proposed sites; it was under the jurisdiction of the federal government, meaning less conflict with local governments; it was supported by Nevada's powerful Sen. Pat McCarran; it was a sparsely populated area, with the nearest residents 25 miles away; and it had low rainfall and predictable winds.

World War Two certainly did not end with a whimper, but with a bang. Two very large bangs -- three if you count the Trinity test blast (and you should). The war drums have continued banging ever since. What could have been one of the more joyous dates in history -- the anniversary of the end of the last Great War, World War Two -- is, instead, a time of deep reflection about how it ended, and what it started.

Bikini Islanders in the Marshall Islands hope their case for additional compensation for damage caused US nuclear weapons tests will yield results. Their quest to be given more money has been revived in a new round of litigation in the US court of appeal, with a ruling expected in the next few months.

Bikini Islanders in the Marshall Islands say they have no option but to pursue the US government in court to get additional compensation for the US nuclear weapons tests of the 1940's and 1950s. Their latest case has been heard in the US Court of Appeals which is expected to give its verdict within five months.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) will coordinate a major exercise to test the response to a simulated accident at Mexico´s Laguna Verde nuclear power plant starting tomorrow, 9 July 2008. 74 IAEA Member States and 10 international organizations will join the 48-hour drill to evaluate national and international preparedness for a possible nuclear or radiological emergency.

The French government's nuclear safety expert, Marcel Jurien de la Graviere, says the fallout from the nuclear weapons tests in French Polynesia has not been, as it has been claimed, the cause of illnesses.

June 3 (Bloomberg) -- On May 1, 1962, Lucien Parfait watched the In-Eker Mountain in the southern desert of Algeria tremble and fissure under a black cloud full of dust. Parfait, 68, witnessed one of France's 210 atomic tests from a distance of 800 meters (2,625 feet) with only a white cotton overall for protection.

Nuclear-test veterans say the Government must finally "stop sitting on its hands" now international experts have upheld Massey University research exposing the extent of the genetic damage they suffered.

Veterans from Lincolnshire who fear they were used as human guinea pigs in British nuclear tests have joined a legal fight for millions of pounds in compensation. Three former Cold War servicemen from the county have joined forces with the Atomic Veterans' Group, which has issued a High Court writ against the Ministry of Defence.

A pensioner who says he was a "guinea pig" during atomic bomb tests in the 1950s is suing the Government. Ex-serviceman Derek Connelly, of Churchill Road, Kidlington, says he was made to stand just wearing his shorts and socks to witness nuclear and hydrogen bombs being set off in the Pacific Ocean 50 years ago.

State officials have decided that the 68-acre Weymouth Neck hazardous waste site should be tested for radiation contamination. The decision marks a change in direction for Department of Environmental Protection regulators who earlier this year received a statement from ConocoPhillips, the site's previous owner, indicating that the company was satisfied that its cleanup effort was complete and the site posed no significant risk to people living or working on it.