CND Press Round-Up - 10th March 2021
Posted: 10th March 2021
Please find today’s press round up below. Thank you for your continued useful feedback and support.
Nuclear Weapons
French Nuclear Testing in the South Pacific
A new report has said that the French government covered up the levels of radiation emitted as a result of its nuclear testing in the three decades between the 1960s and 1990s, with almost the entire population of French Polynesia affected by some radiation, according to Agence France-Presse. The new findings from a report by the investigative journalism website Disclose state that the levels of radiation exposure are two-to-ten times higher than those put forward by the French Atomic Energy Commission in 2006. At present, only 63 Polynesian civilians have received compensation for exposure arising from the tests.
U.S. Nuclear Testing at Bikini Atoll
The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has published an opinion piece today setting out the history of dispossession suffered by the indigenous Marshallese people in order to enable the 1940s and 1950s testing of nuclear weapons at Bikini Atoll and what the ameliorative policy options may be now. Authors Hart Rapaport and Ivana Nikolic-Hughes argue that only a full U.S. sponsored clean up and resettlement plan can do justice to those driven away more than seventy years ago. To their mind, this is given added impetus by the fact that the islands of Bikini Atoll, as one of the highest lying sets of islands in the area, could potentially accommodate climate refugees.
Hiroshima
Japanese media is reporting on a public meeting of women held in Hiroshima on International Women’s Day, which called for Japan to enter the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. Participants, including survivors of the nuclear bomb, rejected the Liberal Democratic government’s claim that remaining outside the Treaty would allow it to act as a go-between from the non-nuclear to the nuclear states.
Anti-war
The Anti-Ballistic Missiles Treaty
The arms control expert Michael Krepon provides a broad historical overview of George W. Bush’s decision to withdraw Anti-Ballistic Missiles Treaty and its continuing consequences on the Arms Control Wonk blog today. He points out that, after considerable progress in the 1990s, the number of U.S. and Russian-deployed warheads has remained broadly constant since the early 2000s. In his view, moreover, continuous technological advances have rendered U.S. missile defences inadequate to those states they are supposedly directed against.
U.S.-South Korea Relations
The U.S. political blog The Hill has a feature today on South Korean-U.S. relations. In particular, it points to the warm response the new U.S. administration has received from President Moon Jae-in, who sees improved relations with North Korea as his key goal over the coming twelve months. In particular, South Korea wants sanctions waivers in order to bring North Korea into bilateral economic projects. Professor Ramon Pacheco Pardo strikes a perhaps more concerning note, however, when he suggests the possibility that South Korea might work towards its intention in this sphere by strengthening its relationship the U.S. and joining an anti-China Quad+ grouping.
U.S. Foreign Policy
Jewish Currents carries a piece today on the relationship on questions of foreign policy and war between the Biden administration and the resurgent progressive wing of the Democratic Party. In particular, left-wing criticism has been galvanised by the prevarication from the White House over the JCPoA and the recent airstrikes launched against targets on Syrian territory. More positively, President Biden has said he wants to repeal the Authorisation for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) which provided the legal justification for the U.S’s post-2001 wars, though the distinct possibility exists that whatever replaces it functions as a purely cosmetic change.
Nuclear Power
Fukushima
Reuters features a human interest story on a Japanese potter displaced from his workshop by the nuclear disaster ten years ago. In particular, Toshiharu Onoda, a thirteenth-generation potter, has been unable to access the famed clay used by the area’s potteries because of continued radiation pollution in the valley where it is gathered.
With best wishes,
Michael Muir
Press and Communications Officer
Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament