nuclear arms

Background

In April 2009, President Barack Obama declared in Prague that he was committing the United States to a vision of a world free of nuclear weapons. His vision was almost universally welcomed and, eventually, honored with the Nobel Peace Prize.

Since then, it has become apparent that the President’s vision is not driving a change in US nuclear policy. Instead things have gotten, as Alice said in Wonderland, curiouser and curioser. The path to a world free of nuclear weapons, the President seems to believe, leads first through the largest increases in nuclear weapons funding in history—the weapons production budget will nearly double, to $13 billion, in the next five years.

Despite the bad weather thousands of Bombspotters have gathered in Kleine Brogel today to denounce the illegal nuclear policy of the Belgian government. They responded to the appeal of Vredesactie and were not intimidated by the massive presence of police and military personnel, kilometres of barbwire, several helicopters and guard dogs that were being deployed in order to try to keep the illegal nuclear policy in place.

Actions for nuclear disarmament at nuclear weapon bases all over Europe

Overview on http://www.bombspotting.org

During the Easter weekend peace organisations all over Europe are staging actions at nuclear weapon bases and command centres, as part of a European Day of Action against nuclear weapons. One month prior to the NPT (Non-Proliferation Treaty) Review Conference, peace movements in all the European countries with nuclear weapons on their territory (Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Turkey and the UK) are sending one message: it is time for nuclear disarmament. The continuing deployment of nuclear weapons does not provide more security, but rather encourages the proliferation of nuclear weapons.

On 15 February 2010, more than 800 activists from Britain and all over Europe blockaded the nuclear weapon factory AWE Aldermaston in Berkshire, England.

[video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KYyodq0x5w]
Video of the Aldermaston blockade on 15 February 2010.

A. deployments

To research deployments you need:

information on military units getting deployed information on the structure of the military, in order to make a good interpretation of the information information on how troops deploy and their logistics 1. A good starting point is the website of the ministry of defense and of the military

http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/nato_countries.htm - an overview of links to the MoD of the NATO countries

On these website you often find:

Overview of nuclear weapons in Europe:

http://www.abolition2000europe.org/map/ (nice map but a little bit outdated) http://mcmilitary.org/en/nuclear_weapons_and_missile_defense (updated for nuclear weapons, missile defense will follow later)

Background report from 2005: http://nukestrat.com/us/afn/nato.htm
This report does not contain the latest withdrawals from Lakenheath and Ramstein, but the author follows the subject very closely through his blog at FAS: http://www.fas.org/blog/ssp/

Flash presentation

Presentation by Sian Jones, AWPC, at the seminar "Europe for Peace" in Milton Keynes, 12 February 2010

Click to start or advance to the next slide

For a full screen version of the presentation, click here (opens in a new window/tab).

On Monday 15 February, at the Big Blockade of the Atomic Weapons Establishment in Aldermaston, Berkshire, one of the seven gates was blockaded by uniquely by women. A planning group of around ten women had got together to organize the ‘women’s gate’. They were members of the Aldermaston Women’s Peace Campaign, the London group of Women in Black against War, the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, the electronic network Women against NATO, the London Feminist Network, and other groups.

Niger exports enough uranium to France to generate 80 per cent of the latter’s electricity supply, writes Khadija Sharife. But ordinary Nigeriens reap little benefit from France’s control of their country’s uranium resources, with over three-fifths of the population living below the poverty line and reports of radioactive contamination of water, air and soil by multinational mining operations.

Up to eight hundred anti-nuclear campaigners from England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales and a number of other countries joined a blockade of the Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE) at Aldermaston in Berkshire from just before 7am in the morning. Every gate was closed by blockaders in the course of the morning. Twenty-six arrests were reported, on suspicion of criminal trespass (for entering the site) and highway obstruction.

Talk at the international seminar in Milton Keynes, 12-13 February 2010.

Cynthia Cockburn

Campaigners plan to shut down nuclear bomb factory as they call for disarmament of Trident and abolition of nuclear weapons