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FRIENDS
OF THE EARTH AUSTRALIA DOUBLE-STANDARD
AS U.S. SENATE SUPPORTS NEW NUCLEAR WEAPONS, Australian peace groups have called both a US Senate vote yesterday that allows a go-ahead for new nuclear weapons designs, as well as a subcritical nuclear test planned for today, a double standard that violates US obligations under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty(NPT). The US recently boycotted a meeting to facilitate the entry into force of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), which would end all nuclear tests. According
to the Australian Peace Committee, CICD, and Friends of the Earth, As
US Senator Feinstien says, 'By seeking to develop new nuclear weapons
ourselves we send a message that nuclear weapons have a future battlefield
role and utility.' Australian
peace groups continued: If the US is serious on nuclear nonproliferation it must first of all deliver on its own obligations under the NPT, and achieve the elimination of its own nuclear arsenal as it has been legally obliged to do for more than 30 years." Contact:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/justin/weekly/newsnat-17sep2003-58.htm Posted :Wed, 17 Sep 2003 20:08 AEST The United States will conduct a subcritical nuclear experiment at its Nevada test site on Thursday, the first time since September 26 last year, the US Energy Department said Tuesday. It will be the twentieth such test since 1997 and the seventh since President George W Bush took the office in 2001. The tests have been strongly criticized as undermining the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. President Bush senior issued a moratorium on full-scale nuclear tests in 1982. The department has been planning a new kind of subcritical test next year but it says this test will employ the method used up to now. Subcritical tests use small amounts of nuclear materials and are designed to stop short of triggering nuclear reactions. They allow scientists to study how materials, such as plutonium, blow apart when detonated with high explosives. The department said the tests ''produce essential scientific data and technical information used to help maintain the safety and reliability of the nuclear weapons stockpile.'' The latest test, dubbed Piano, will be conducted at the base of a vertical shaft about 290 metres beneath the surface of the test, the department said. -- Kyodo
By Nick Anderson, Los Angeles Times, 9/17/2003 WASHINGTON -- The Senate yesterday approved Bush administration plans to research new battlefield uses for nuclear weapons and improve the nation's capacity to make and test them. The 53-41 vote to retain funding for the plan, powered by the administration's Republican allies, set up an unusual intraparty fight on Capitol Hill. The GOP-led House voted in July for legislation that would strip at least $16 million from Bush's nuclear weapons initiatives. The Senate debate yesterday centered on whether the administration would be building nuclear bombs anytime soon. Democrats say things are moving rapidly in that direction; Republicans insist the administration's moves are only prudent planning. The vote occurred before lawmakers approved a $27.9 billion bill funding the Energy Department and other programs in the fiscal year that begins next month. "There's nothing in this bill that produces a single new nuclear weapon," said Senator Pete V. Domenici, Republican of New Mexico, whose state is home to critical weapons installations. But Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, insisted otherwise. "This is the beginning," she said. "This money will go to field a new generation of nuclear weapons. We should not do this." Feinstein
and Senator Edward M. Kennedy had proposed an amendment to remove from
the energy bill $15 million for research on an earth-penetrating nuclear
weapon and $6 million for research on other "advanced concepts," Federal law for the past decade has prohibited research on such bombs, which carry an explosive force of five kilotons or less. But Congress, at the administration's urging, appears to be on the verge of repealing that prohibition. The bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945 had an estimated yield of 12.5 kilotons. Feinstein
said the research would open the door to a new arms race among nations
that see the United States as a superpower seeking to expand its nuclear
capabilities. Domenici derided what he called an effort to "put The
amendment sponsored by Feinstein and Kennedy also would have blocked
administration efforts to reduce the amount of time it would need to
resume nuclear testing at an underground site in Nevada. The site requires
up to The California Democrat also sought to delay long-range plans for the construction of a facility to produce plutonium "pits," trigger-like devices that are a component in thermonuclear bombs. Five
Democrats joined 48 Republicans in voting to kill Feinstein's amendment.
They were Evan Bayh of Indiana, Zell Miller of Georgia, Ben Nelson of
Nebraska, Bill Nelson of Florida, and Ernest F. Hollings of South Carolina,
whose state is a candidate for the new pit-production site. |
