Father Daniel Berrigan 1921-2016

 

Cambridge, MA City Council Unanimous Vote to Divest Pension Funds from Nuclear Weapons Production

As the US and other nuclear nations move to modernize their nuclear weapons at a cost of $4 million/hour over the next 30 years (instead of fulfilling treaty obligations to disarm under Article VI of the NPT) a new international campaign is being waged called Don't Bank on the Bomb.

With prominent scientists including Stephen Hawking saying: "If you want to slow the nuclear arms race, then put your money where your mouth is and don't bank on the bomb!" this campaign has already taken off in Europe with more than 50 large institutions limiting their investments in companies involved in manufacturing nuclear weapons.

With the Cambridge City Council unanimous vote, peace activists hope that the campaign will take off across the US  to let the corporations know that people do not want these weapons developed and modernized, as Mayor Denise Simmons said, when announcing the vote: "Not in our name!"

Read more about the campaign:  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/max-tegmark/hawking-says-dont-bank-on_b_9606926.html

Another kind of Nuclear Security Summit: The Marshall Islands vs. the Nuclear-Armed States

09.04.2016 - The Hague, The Netherlands - Pressenza Budapest

A 21 kiloton underwater nuclear weapons effects test, known as Operation CROSSROADS (Event Baker), conducted at Bikini Atoll (1946). (Image by U.S. Army Photographic Signal Corps)

By Jacqueline Cabasso

The recent Nuclear Security Summit hosted by President Obama in Washington, DC generated a goodly amount of hype, including some well-deserved criticism of its narrow focus on securing civilian highly enriched uranium (HEU) and other modest, voluntary steps aimed at preventing terrorists from acquiring weapons-useable nuclear and radiological materials. The Summit was silent on the huge stocks of HEU and plutonium in military programs and the more than 15,000 existing nuclear weapons possessed by States, including the Summit’s host – the only country that has used nuclear weapons in war.

Another kind of nuclear security summit took place last month in The Hague, as the tiny Pacific nation of the Marshall Islands took on three nuclear-armed giants before the highest court in the world. Hubris and hypocrisy on one side, courage and vision on the other were on global display.

In April 2014, the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI) initiated proceedings in the International Court of Justice (ICJ) against all nine nuclear-armed nations, the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, France, China, India, Israel, Pakistan and North Korea, contending that each of them is in breach of its obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and/or customary international law to end the nuclear arms race and to engage in negotiations on nuclear disarmament.

Accidental Nuclear War: A Timeline of Close Calls

The Future of Life Institute has put together a timeline of "nuclear close calls" that you can see at the link below:

http://futureoflife.org/background/nuclear-close-calls-a-timeline/

No to the Trident nuclear submarine renewal

As reported in the Guardian newspaper, tens of thousands of people gathered in central London for an anti-nuclear weapons protest on Saturday, February 27, 2016.

Parliament is considering renewing the Trident submarine at a cost of more than £100 billion.  Speakers at the rally included actress Vanessa Redgrave and Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn.

U.S. peace organizations including United for Peace and Justice sent messages of solidarity.

Doomsday Clock at Three Minutes to Midnight

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists is keeping the Doomsday Clock at three minutes to midnight.

Counterpunch has posted this article from Ira Helfand, Co-President of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (1985 Nobel Peace Laureate group).

- www.counterpunch.org - http://www.counterpunch.org -

Ticking Toward Doomsday

Posted By Ira Helfand On January 27, 2016 @ 1:42 am 

Recently, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists announced it was keeping its famous Doomsday Clock at three minutes to midnight. In making this decision, their panel of experts, including 16 Nobel Laureates, cited the  growing danger of nuclear war.

The danger of nuclear war?

For most people today, the threat of nuclear war isn’t even on their radar screens.  It needs to be.

When the Cold War ended most of us started to act as though the danger of nuclear war had gone away. It didn’t. There remain in the world today some 15,000 nuclear war heads, 95 percent in the arsenals of the US and Russia. More than 2,000 of these warheads are on hair-trigger alert. They are mounted on missiles that can be launched in 15 minutes. And all nine counties that possess nuclear weapons are actively modernizing their arsenals at a cost of hundreds of $billions.

For the last quarter century we have been told we don’t need to worry about these weapons. The US and Russia weren’t enemies anymore and they would never be used. The recent conflicts in Ukraine and Syria and the irresponsible nuclear saber rattling by both sides have shown us how hollow these assurances are. There is a real danger that some crisis could spiral into direct conflict between the US and Russia.

We also have to worry about the possibility of accidental nuclear war. On at least five occasions since 1979 either Moscow or Washington prepared to launch nuclear war in the mistaken belief that it was already under attack.

January 25, 2015 nuclear weapons protest at long-time weapons contractor Draper Laboratories in Kendall Square, Cambridge Massachusetts.  They develop guidance systems for nuclear weapons (among other kinds of weapons systems).  In the 1980's a group called Ailanthus (after the hardy tree) protested weekly for years.