It’s Not Just Cancer! Radiation, Genomic Instability and Heritable Genetic Damage
By Chris Busby | CounterPunch | March 18, 2016
Those who fear the effects of radiation always focus on cancer. But the most frightening and serious consequences of radiation are genetic.
Cancer is just one small bleak reflection, a flash of cold light from a facet of the iceberg of genetic damage to life on Earth constructed from human folly, power-lust and stupidity.
Cancer is a genetic disease expressed at the cellular level. But genetic effects are transmitted across the generations.
It was Herman Joseph Muller, an American scientist, who discovered the most serious effects of ionizing radiation – hereditary defects in the descendants of exposed parents – in the 1920s. He exposed fruit flies – drosophila – to X-rays and found malformations and other disorders in the following generations.
He concluded from his investigations that low dose exposure, and therefore even natural background radiation, is mutagenic and there is no harmless dose range for heritable effects or for cancer induction. His work was honoured by the Nobel Prize for medicine in 1946.
In the 1950s Muller warned about the effects on the human genetic pool caused by the production of low level radioactive contamination from atmospheric tests. I have his original 1950 report, which is a rare item now.
Muller, as a famous expert in radiation, was designated as a speaker at the Conference, ‘Atoms for Peace’ in Geneva in 1955 where the large scale use of nuclear energy (too cheap to meter) was announced by President Eisenhower. But when the organisers became aware that Muller had warned about the deterioration of the human gene pool by the contamination of the planet from the weapon test fallout, his invitation was cancelled.
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
The protective legislation of western governments does, of course, concede that radiation has such genetic effects. The laws regulating exposure are based on the risk model of the International Commission on Radiological Protection, the ICRP.
The rules say that no one is allowed to receive more than 1mSv of dose in a year from man-made activities. The ICRP’s scientific model for heritable effects is based on mice; this is because ICRP states that there is no evidence that radiation causes any heritable effects in humans.
The dose required to double the risk of heritable damage according to the ICRP is more than 1000mSv. This reliance on mice has followed from the studies of the offspring of those who were present in Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the Japanese/ US Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission (ABCC).
These studies were begun in 1952 and assembled groups of people in the bombed cities to compare cancer rates and also birth outcomes in those exposed at different levels according to their distance from the position of the bomb detonation, the hypocentre. The entire citadel of radiation risk is built upon this ABCC rock.
But the rock was constructed with smoke and mirrors and everything about the epidemiology is false. There have been a number of criticisms of the A-Bomb Lifespan Studies of cancer: it was a survivor population, doses were external, residual contamination was ignored, it began seven years after the event, the original zero dose control group was abandoned as being “too healthy”, and many others.
But we are concerned here with the heritable effects, the birth defects, the congenital malformations, the miscarriages and stillbirths. The problem here is that for heritable damage effects to show up, there have to be births. As you increase the exposures to radiation, you quickly obtain sterility and there are no pregnancies. We found this in the nuclear test veterans.
Then at lower doses, damaged sperm results in damaged foetuses and miscarriages. When both mother and father are exposed, there are miscarriages and stillbirths before you see any birth defects. So the dose response relation is not linear. At the higher doses there are no effects. The effects all appear at the lowest doses.
Bad epidemiology is easily manipulated
As far as the ABCC studies are concerned, there is another serious (and I would say dishonest) error in the epidemiology. Those people discarded their control population in favour of using the low dose group as a control.
This is such bad epidemiology that it should leave any honest reviewer breathless. But there were no reviewers. Or at least no-one seemed to care. Perhaps they didn’t dig deeply enough. In passing, the same method is now being used to assess risk in the huge INWORKS nuclear worker studies and no-one has raised this point there either.
Anyway, the ABCC scientists in charge of the genetic studies found the same levels of adverse birth outcomes in their exposed and their control groups, and concluded that there was no effect from the radiation.
Based on this nonsense, ICRP writes in their latest 2007 risk model, ICRP103, Appendix B.2.01, that “Radiation induced heritable disease has not been demonstrated in human populations.”
But it has. If we move away from this USA controlled, nuclear military complex controlled A-Bomb study and look in the real world we find that Muller was right to be worried. The radioactive contamination of the planet has killed tens of millions of babies, caused a huge increase in infertility, and increased the genetic burden of the human race and life on earth.
And now the truth is out!
In January of this year Prof. Inge Schmitz-Feuerhake, of the University of Bremen, Dr Sebastian Pflugbeil of the German Society for Radioprotection and I published a Special Topic paper in the prestigious peer-review journal Environmental Health and Toxicology. The title is: Genetic Radiation Risks – a neglected topic in the Low Dose debate.
In this paper we collected together all the evidence which has been published outside the single Japanese ABCC study in order to calculate the true genetic effects of radiation exposure. The outcome was sobering, but not unexpected.
Using evidence ranging from Chernobyl to the nuclear Test Veterans to the offspring of radiographers we showed clearly that a dose of 1mSv from internal contamination was able to cause a 50% increase in congenital malformations. This identifies an error in the ICRP model and in the current legislation of a factor of 1,000. And we write this down. The conclusion of the paper states:
Genetically induced malformations, cancers, and numerous other health effects in the children of populations who were exposed to low doses of ionizing radiation have been unequivocally demonstrated in scientific investigations.
Using data from Chernobyl effects we find a new Excess Relative Risk (ERR) for Congenital malformations of 0.5 per mSv at 1mSv falling to 0.1 per mSv at 10mSv exposure and thereafter remaining roughly constant. This is for mixed fission products as defined though external exposure to Cs-137.
Results show that current radiation risk models fail to predict or explain the many observations and should be abandoned. Further research and analysis of previous data is suggested, but prior assumptions of linear dose response, assumptions that internal exposures can be modelled using external risk factors, that chronic and acute exposures give comparable risks and finally dependence on interpretations of the high dose ABCC studies are all seen to be unsafe procedures.
Radiation causes genomic instability
Our paper is available on the web as a free download, so you can see what we wrote and follow up the 80 or so references we used to construct the case.
Most of the evidence is from effects reported in countries contaminated by the Chernobyl accident, not only in Belarus and Ukraine but in wider Europe where doses were less than 1mSv. Other evidence we referred to was from the offspring of the nuclear test veterans.
In a study I published in 2014 of the offspring of members of the British Nuclear Test Veterans Association (BNTVA) we saw a 9-fold excess of congenital disease in the children but also, and unexpectedly, an eight-fold excess in the grandchildren. This raises a new and frightening spectre not anticipated by Herman Muller.
In the last 15 years it has become clear that radiation causes genomic instability: experiments in the laboratory and animal studies show that radiation exposure throws some kind of genetic switch which causes a non-specific increase in general mutation rates.
Up until these genomic instability discoveries it was thought that genetic processes followed the laws of Gregor Mendel: there were specific dominant and recessive gene mutations that were passed down the generations and became diluted through a binomial process as offspring married away.
But radiation scientists and cancer researchers could not square the background mutation rate with the increased risks of cancer with age: the numbers didn’t fit. The discovery of the genomic instability process was the answer to the puzzle: it introduces enough random mutations to explain the observations.
It is this that supplies the horrifying explanation for the continuing high risk of birth defects in Fallujah and other areas where the exposures occurred ten to twenty years ago. Similar several generation effects have been seen in animals from Chernobyl.
Neonatal mortality in the nuclear bomb era
So where does that leave us? What can we do with this? What can we conclude? How can this change anything? Let’s start by looking at the effects of the biggest single injection of these radioactive contaminants, the atmospheric weapons tests of the period 1952 to 1963.
If these caused increases in birth defects and genetic damage we should see something in the data. We do. The results are chilling. If babies are damaged they die at or shortly before birth. This will show up in the vital statistics data of any country which collects and publishes it.
In Fig 1 (above right) I show a graph of the first day (neonatal) mortality rates in the USA from 1936 to 1985. You can see that as social conditions improved there was a fall in the rates between the beginning and end of the period, and we can obtain this by calculating what the background should have been using a statistical process called regression.
The expected backgound is shown as a thin blue line. Also superimposed is the concentration of Strontium-90 in milk (in red) and its concentration in the bones of dead infants (in blue). The graph shows first day neonatal mortality in the USA; it is taken from a paper by Canadian paediatrician Robin Whyte (woman) in the British Medical Journal in 1992. This paper shows the same effect in neonatal (1 month) mortality and stillbirths in the USA and also the United Kingdom. The doses from the Strontium-90 were less than 0.5mSv.
This is in line with what we found in our paper from Chernobyl and the other examples of human exposures. The issue was first raised by the late Prof Ernest Sternglass, one of the first of the radiation warrior-scientists and a friend of mine. The cover-ups and denials of these effects are part of the biggest public health scandal in human history.
It continues and has come to a venue near you: our study of Hinkley Point showed significant increased infant mortality downwind of the plant at Burnham on Sea as I wrote in The Ecologist.
It’s official – genetic damage in children is an indicator of harmful exposures to the father
As to what we can do with this new peer-reviewed evidence we can (and we shall) put it before the Nuclear Test Veterans case in the Pensions Appeals hearings in the Royal Courts of Justice which is tabled for three weeks from June 14th 2016 before a tribunal headed by high court judge Sir Nicholas Blake.
I represent two of the appellants in this hearing and will bring in the genetic damage in the children and grandchildren as evidence of genetic damage in the father.
We are calling Inge Schmitz-Feuerhake, the author of the genetic paper, as one expert witness; the judge has conceded that genetic damage in the children is an indicator of harmful exposures to the father. He has made a disclosure order to the University of Dundee to release the veteran questionnaires. They have.
Finally, I must share with you a window into the mind-set of the false scientists who work for the military and nuclear operation. As the fallout Strontium-90 built up in milk and in childrens’ bones and was being measured, they renamed the units of contamination, (picoCuries Sr-90 per gram of Calcium) ‘Sunshine Units’.
Can you imagine? I would ship them all to Nuremberg for that alone.
Dr Chris Busby is the Scientific Secretary of the European Committee on Radiation Riskand the author of Uranium and Health – The Health Effects of Exposure to Uranium and Uranium Weapons Fallout (Documents of the ECRR 2010 No 2, Brussels, 2010). For details and current CV see chrisbusbyexposed.org. For accounts of his work see greenaudit.org, llrc.org and nuclearjustice.org.
Britain to Sign Deal Providing Ukraine With Military Training, Intelligence
Sputnik – 18.03.2016
London will sign a new 15-year-long defense deal with Kiev, pledging to provide Ukraine with military training and intelligence to allegedly protect it from Russia, media reported Thursday.
Under the agreement, UK troops will take part in more joint drills and train larger numbers of Ukrainian troops, according to the paper. The countries will also share intelligence and expertise, it was reported in the article.
“The UK will stand firm with Ukraine as they defend their territorial integrity. This new defence agreement sets out that commitment as we enhance our training of Ukrainian armed forces,” UK Defence Secretary Michael Fallon said, as quoted by The Telegraph newspaper.
UK troops have previously carried out drills in Ukraine, however, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has repeatedly called for more military aid from the Western states, including the United Kingdom.
UK Police pursue pensioner’s peace protest
By Peter Lazenby – Morning Star – March 17, 2016
A Weekly vigil outside a military base by a 74-year-old peace campaigner has been put under threat by a police dispersal order.
Lindis Percy, who stages a one-hour vigil at US communications base Menwith Hill in Yorkshire every Tuesday, told the Star yesterday that police turned up this week ordering activists to leave.
A fellow campaigner decided to leave but Ms Percy was arrested after refusing to budge. She has been ordered to appear in court on April 7.
The base is staffed by 1,450 US civilian and military personnel and is a key link in the US’s worldwide electronic intelligence-gathering operations via satellites.
Ms Percy, who is a retired nurse, midwife and health visitor, has been a leading peace campaigner for more than 30 years. She has been arrested hundreds of times.
She says North Yorkshire Police and the Ministry of Defence Police at the base have begun applying a dispersal order to stop her weekly vigils at the base.
“I very much want this in court as it is serious, if they get away with this. It stinks.”
Dispersal orders are part of the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Bill 2014.
According to government guidelines, dispersal orders give police powers “to disperse individuals or groups causing or likely to cause anti-social behaviour in public places.”
The guidelines also state that “police will be able to deal quickly with emerging trouble spots” and that there must be reason to suspect that “the person has contributed or is likely to contribute to members of the public in the locality being harassed, alarmed or distressed, or the occurrence of crime or disorder.”
Snoopers’ charter ‘unfit for purpose,’ 200 legal experts say
RT | March 15, 2016
Home Secretary Theresa May’s Investigatory Powers Bill, dubbed the snoopers’ charter, breaches international surveillance standards and is “unfit for purpose,” more than 200 senior lawyers have warned.
In a letter to the Guardian, the lawyers, including numerous Queen’s Council representatives and academics, said the bill will destroy privacy.
MPs are due to vote on the bill for the first time on Tuesday afternoon, and it is expected they will pass the motion. The bill itself sets out a series of legal frameworks for the government’s interception of data by GCHQ and establishes the breadth of government surveillance operations.
Chair of the Bar Human Rights Committee Kirsty Brimelow QC has signed the letter, as well as academics from 40 British law schools.
“A law that gives public authorities generalized access to electronic communications contents compromises the essence of the fundamental right to privacy and may be illegal,” the letter reads.
“The investigatory powers bill does this with its ‘bulk interception warrants’ and ‘bulk equipment interference warrants.’”
A well as bulk interception, the letter warns against “targeted interception warrants” which could be taken out on groups, organizations, or premises. The letter also warns that there need only be “reasonable suspicion” to intercept data, not demonstrable proof of threat.
“These are international standards found in the recent opinion of the UN special rapporteur for the right to privacy, and in judgments of the EU court of justice and the European court of human rights,” it continues.
“At present, the bill fails to meet these standards – the law is unfit for purpose.”
The aim of the bill is to establish a legal framework for interception, but critics of the bill say any bulk interception is a breach of privacy. The bill will also make it obligatory for internet companies to keep track of sites accessed by users for one year.
Other critics say the new bill will also criminalize IT staff who fail to destroy security services on its customers’ software on demand, or fail to hack into its customers’ systems upon a Home Office request.
GCHQ says it only targets an individual’s data in the context of a threat to national security, and would only pursue terrorist or criminal activity. It also argues that bulk interception is a necessary step to monitor criminal activity and the majority of intercepted material is never read.
However, the United Nations special rapporteur on privacy, Joseph Cannataci, also warned that the IP bill would legitimize mass surveillance.
Libya military intervention needs UN approval, says Russian FM
Press TV – March 14, 2016
Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov says any military operation in Libya requires the approval of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC).
Lavrov said during a joint press conference in Moscow with visiting Tunisian Foreign Minister Khemaies Jhinaoui on Monday that Russia is aware of some plans for military involvement in Libya, but insisted that those plans could be implemented only with the permission of the 15-member council.
“We know about what’s being discussed openly and not so openly on plans of military intervention, including with the situation in Libya. Our common position is that this is possible only under the UN Security Council’s decision,” Lavrov said.
The top Russian diplomat also noted that a possible mandate for an operation against the terrorists in Libya must be defined unambiguously so as not to allow misinterpretations.
Russia says that the US-led military alliance NATO abused a United Nations resolution in 2011 to protect Libyan civilians from slain Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi’s forces in order to pursue regime change and political assassinations during a popular uprising across the North African country.
The remarks come as New York Times recently reported that the Pentagon and the highly secretive Joint Special Operations Command have provided the White House with “the most detailed set of military options yet” in Libya.
France’s Le Monde newspaper also reported last month that the country’s special forces and members of the country’s external security agency Directorate-General for External Security (DGSE) were in Libya for “clandestine operations” in cooperation with the US and Britain.
Meanwhile, a UN panel is also investigating claims that Turkey, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Sudan have violated an existing arms embargo by providing weapons to warring groups operating in Libya.
In mid-February, Libya’s internationally recognized Prime Minister Abdullah al-Thinni accused Ankara of interference in his country’s internal affairs.
Since 2014, when militants seized the capital Tripoli, Libya has had two parallel parliaments and governments.
Daesh took advantage of the chaos and captured Libya’s northern port city of Sirte in June 2015, almost four months after it announced its presence in the city, and made it the first city to be ruled by the militant group outside of Iraq and Syria.
Muslim student reported to UK terror police for pro Palestine activism
Rahmaan Mohammadi, a 17 year old student from Luton, explains how he was reported to the counter terrorism police for his pro Palestine activism. Mohammadi was speaking at a Stop the War Coalition event in London on March 10.
Britain sets ‘bad example’ on surveillance, says UN privacy rapporteur
RT | March 10, 2016
Britain is setting a bad example by legitimizing rather than outlawing mass surveillance, according to the UN’s privacy rapporteur, Joseph Cannataci.
The criticism comes in a report to the UN Human Rights Council examining mass surveillance around the world.
Britain is singled out as setting a bad example because of the government’s attempt to bring into law a number of new spying measures.
Cannataci claims the Investigatory Powers Bill, which will be debated for a second time in parliament next week, legitimizes mass surveillance when bulk collection should in fact be outlawed.
He argues the British security state should stop “setting a bad example to other states” by pursuing measures like “bulk interception and bulk hacking.”
He said that enshrining such surveillance into law undermined “the spirit of the very right to privacy.”
Cannataci has been an outspoken critic of UK surveillance measures for some time. In 2015 he called for a Geneva Convention for the internet, while arguing UK oversight was “a joke.”
On the lack of proper scrutiny on intelligence agencies, he told the Guardian: “That is precisely one of the problems we have to tackle. That if your oversight mechanism’s a joke, and a rather bad joke at its citizens’ expense, for how long can you laugh it off as a joke?”
The Investigatory Powers Bill was partially informed by the revelations of mass surveillance by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden.
In his 2015 interview, Cannataci put aside the hero/traitor debate on the former contractor, telling the paper “his revelations confirmed to many of us who have been working in this field for a long time what has been going on, and the extent to which it has gone out of control.”
Cannataci’s concerns are shared by some civil liberties groups.
Jim Killock, director of the Open Rights Group, said the report showed that the “bill does not comply with recent human rights rulings” and that the negative impact of the legislation would “be felt around the world, and copied by other countries.”
Disarmament or Bust
Nations Meet to Discuss International Treaty to Ban Nuclear Weapons
By Lesley Docksey | Dissident Voice | March 9, 2016
With the debate going on about whether the UK should renew the Trident missile programme or get rid of it, hardly anything is said about what is happening internationally to rid the world of nuclear weapons – which shows how inward-looking Britain can be, despite claiming a prime position on the world stage.
While national media reported on the Stop Trident demonstration in London, it ignored the discussions taking place in Geneva, or their background including:
- three international, government-level conferences, the last in Vienna, on the humanitarian impact of nuclear weapons, which produced
- the signing and endorsing of the Humanitarian Pledge by a majority of nations
- a vote in the UN General Assembly (voted against by nuclear-armed states which called the Resolution ‘divisive’) but passed by 135 states, to establish an Open Ended Working Group (OEWG) to take forward multilateral nuclear disarmament negotiations
- the first meeting of which took place in Geneva in February
You’d think that deserved a headline or two, the attention of more than some MPs and loud trumpeting from anti-nuclear campaigners, but no. At the London demonstration, organised by the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND), Labour’s Leader Jeremy Corbyn did speak about the Vienna conference and the humanitarian issues.
And the Green Party’s Caroline Lucas mentioned the OEWG talks in Geneva. In a New Statesman article she also urged the UK government to take part in those meetings. Take part? They are boycotting them.
But no one mentions that.
Yet the wit, wisdom and yes, the whingeing, displayed in statements from Ambassadors and delegates, the depth of the debates, were in many ways far more worthy of our attention than another march to Trafalgar Square.
The aim was to identify the legal gaps in the nuclear weapons treaties and agreements that prevented genuine progress towards disarmament. Naturally some states insisted that there were no legal gaps and the old ‘step-by-step’ process was working even though the world is no nearer to disarmament.
Delegates from 90 nations were there, as was civil society. In a statement delivered by Beatrice Fihn on behalf of ICAN and its 440 partner organisations, she listed all the legal gaps needing to be filled. And she reminded all those there that “Non-nuclear-weapon states are not merely encouraged to take positive steps towards nuclear disarmament; they are required to do so – regardless of the continued failure of nuclear-weapon states to act.”
From the start, a treaty banning nuclear weapons was mentioned more than any other legal instrument as a path towards disarmament, even by nuclear-alliance states begging for ‘caution’ and ‘we can’t do this without the input of nuclear states’. They can; and a ban treaty seems the best way forward.
“States that ‘rely on nuclear weapons in their security doctrines remain reluctant to consider moving ahead without the nuclear-armed states” reported the daily updates from Reaching Critical Will.
So what are the nuclear-alliance states? They are those states (such as NATO members) which, although they have no nuclear weapons of their own, claim that they base their ‘security’ on those that do. To quote Reaching Critical Will:
“While many states called for urgent action, others, including Germany, Netherlands, Japan, Canada speaking on behalf of a group of states, and Finland, cautioned that security considerations of states must be taken into account… Bangladesh asked what could be a bigger security concern than being the victim of a nuclear attack.” Good question.
Does this second-hand security mean that these states are depending on someone else to blow up the world? Would they not be equally guilty under international humanitarian law?
Still, give these states their due. They are at least taking part. The nuclear-armed states are determinedly boycotting the OEWG. Not being able to control what’s happening, they are relying on their alliance to fling a few spanners into the works for them.
The Netherlands tried. It argued that the nuclear-armed states should take part in the discussions. The majority of the world somehow cannot move forward without their willingness to take part. The OEWG should use its time thinking of ways to tempt the armed states into giving up their toys. And how was this for a circular argument:
… the Netherlands is not against a ‘ban’. We see it as a final element towards a world without nuclear weapons, when nuclear weapons no longer fulfil a function in the security of states. It is clear that we have not reached this stage yet and that starting negotiations on a ‘ban’ would therefore be premature.
So we should only have a ban when nuclear weapons are deemed useless anyway.
But as the Irish Ambassador said, in a very quotable speech:
This is a small planet, getting smaller every day… In such a world, questions of security impact us all… And in such a world there is no place for nuclear weapons… In any area of life, work or governance, if something wasn’t working for 20 years, or indeed for over 70, we would try to fix it.
As all those taking part in the OEWG wanted a world free of nuclear weapons; that, having signed up to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), they seemed to know how to get there; that they were even more aware now of the terrible humanitarian consequences of using such weapons and the inability of any nation to cope with such an event; despite all that, said Ireland:
… the problem is that we are no nearer multilateral nuclear disarmament now than we were 20 years ago, when the NPT was indefinitely extended.
Ah, but look at how the non-proliferation part of the NPT has succeeded, was the reply. South Africa, among those nations that got rid of their nuclear arsenals, made a telling point: “nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation are mutually reinforcing processes — the disregard of one has a direct impact on the advancement of the other.”
Delegates were coming to realise that working for a ban treaty does not exclude other legal processes towards disarmament. They can work together, but the big gap is the lack of a ban treaty. By the second day they were agreeing that, given the refusal of nuclear-armed states to take part in the discussions, a ban treaty was perhaps the most sensible way forward.
Malaysia explained that as most legal measures proposed are currently blocked by the nuclear-armed states, three not mutually exclusive options remain: a treaty banning nuclear weapons, a framework convention, and increasing verification capacity. They also pointed out that a ban treaty could be negotiated now and be part of a wider framework later, something the nuclear alliance has difficulty accepting, perhaps because they know their ‘security blanket’ will not approve.
New Zealand’s delegate was quite clear:
I have heard some recent suggestion that while a legally-binding prohibition may be necessary for maintaining a nuclear weapon-free world, it is not in fact necessary in order to attain one. However, no clear explanation for why, as a matter of international law, this might be the case has yet to be put forward.
This is surely part of the ‘smoke and mirrors’ game played by nuclear-armed states.
We see no reason why the pathway adopted for the elimination of other weapon systems, including the elimination of both other types of WMD – that of a legally binding prohibition – should not equally be applicable as a pathway for the elimination of nuclear weapons… There is no need to reinvent the wheel…
Indeed no. But we can make it very, very ornate. Australia delivered a fascinating working paper on behalf of itself and 17 other countries – fascinating because nowhere does it mention a ban treaty. Instead it talks of ‘no quick fixes’, ‘addressing the legitimate security concerns’ of nuclear-armed states and ‘incremental but necessary steps that will enhance security for all’.
It is all about ‘means and sequencing’ and identifying “concrete and practical building blocks”. The NPT is brought into play, as is the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty. There are lists of all the tiny steps we might take, or consider taking, along with a), b), c) and so on to m). There absolutely must be transparency and… well, think of it all as a trust-building exercise.
Mexico took up the challenge of the ‘legitimate security concerns’. This concept was not elaborated enough, Mexico argued, as it is not clear whose security these concerns focus on and if states are for or against collective security. As Austria pointed out, collective security is a very different thing to the security of individual nations.
As for the lack of trust, Austria argued this is due to the failures of states to implement various agreements and commitments that had been agreed to by consensus. The onus is on those countries that have nuclear weapons or rely on them as part of nuclear alliances to diminish that mistrust.
Unable to resist a tiny dig at the pro-nuclear states Mexico pointed out that nuclear-armed states boycotting the meeting would not increase trust. Rather the reverse, one would think.
Austria, a leading light in these discussions, reminded delegates that in the Humanitarian (Pledge now adopted by the UN) it says:
We call on all states parties to the NPT to renew their commitment to the urgent and full implementation of existing obligations under Article VI, and to this end, to identify and pursue effective measures to fill the legal gap for the prohibition and elimination of nuclear weapons…
A large number of states share the belief that such a legal gap exists, something pro-nuclear states try to deny. Austria’s working paper on this issue is masterly, laying out all the arguments and exposing the legal gaps. The very structure of the NPT requires additional legal (and non-legal) measures for its full implementation. This applies to Article VI just as much as it applies to the non-proliferation obligations.
(Article VI commits the nuclear armed states to “pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control,” (emphasis added).
All approaches to implementing Article VI should be followed. The ‘step-by-step’ method can sit alongside a comprehensive ban treaty. They are, argues Austria, complementary, and the humanitarian issue is now so serious that all available steps should be taken. Brazil reminded delegates that provisions under the NPT allowed the Nuclear Weapon States only to hold those weapons temporarily, something constantly ignored.
Austria also ripped up the ‘security’ and ‘deterrence’ arguments used by the USA et al. Deterrence rests on the threat of readiness to inflict mass destruction on a global scale, and on the awareness this would be suicidal. Thus, explains Austria:
Ultimately, it is difficult to reconcile this with the underlying foundation of nuclear deterrence that it leads to rational behaviour of all actors involved. The threat is either credible, which requires – in light of the new evidence – readiness to act entirely irrationally. Alternatively, the threat is non-credible since rational analysis cannot lead to the conclusion of risking the use of nuclear weapons.
Not for nothing was Mutually-Assured-Destruction considered MAD.
During 5 days of presentations and debate, many states called for a ban treaty. And key supporters of the Humanitarian Pledge – Mexico, Austria, South Africa, Brazil, and Indonesia – stressed the time has now come to start the negotiations to prohibit nuclear weapons.
The OEWG reconvenes in May for another session. Dare we hope that we will see them start negotiating and putting together the text for a treaty that bans these weapons? It’s beginning to look that way.
• (With grateful thanks to Reaching Critical Will)
• See here for an overview of civil society’s campaign which led, finally, to the disarmament talks in Geneva
Lesley Docksey is the former editor of Abolish War.
‘Human rights abusers’ invited to ‘non-lethal’ weapons show, condemned by activists
RT | March 7, 2016
Activists have denounced a Home Office sponsored security fair, warning that Britain is selling tear gas and other crowd control tools to some of the world’s most oppressive regimes.
Among the governments invited to take part in the fair in Farnborough, Hampshire, 30 miles southwest of London, are Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Israel, United Arab Emirates (UAE), Egypt and Turkey, the Guardian reported on Saturday.
Police and security officials from 79 countries are expected to participate in the fair later this week, according to the list, which was released under a Freedom of Information request.
Since Prime Minister David Cameron took office in 2010, the UK has approved 126 licenses connected with the sale of tear gas and other irritants, according to the Campaign Against the Arms Trade (CAAT).
Also approved were 75 licenses for crowd control ammunition such as rubber bullets, 79 for “acoustic” crowd control – known as sound grenades – and 259 licenses for riot shields.
CAAT spokesman Andrew Smith told the paper: “There are serious questions to be asked about the impact of the so-called ‘non-lethal’ arms industry. These risks become even more important when these weapons are being sold to human rights abusers and dictatorships.”
“A number of the countries in attendance routinely practice torture, arbitrary detention and other appalling acts of violence. The UK should not be arming these regimes and selling them the means to oppress and kill.”
“[The event] undermines the UK’s claims to be promoting human rights while strengthening the position of repressive regimes.”
Defending the trade show, the Home Office said: “A thriving security industry is vital to help cut crime and protect the public and so it is important these products and services can be showcased and expertise shared.”
Described by organizers as “the perfect place to see the latest security equipment and technology in a secure environment,” the Security and Policy fair will be held behind closed doors, with all visitors “pre vetted to strict Home Office criteria.”
UK suppresses documents on Gitmo ‘torture collusion’
Press TV – March 6, 2016
The British government is withholding key documents which could shed light on allegations of UK’s involvement in the torture of detainees in Guantanamo prison, according to a new report.
A number of files have been recently found which reveal confidential exchanges between top former US and UK authorities on the torture and rendition of detainees.
Based on a lawsuit by a British parliamentary group, the US administration is obliged to make public documents which relate to Britain’s involvement.
Former Guantanamo detainees have previously said British officials have either been present at, or submitted questions for, “extreme” interrogation by US officials, according to the Independent.
The documents indicate that former UK prime minister Tony Blair and former US president George W. Bush had been in consultation about the treatment of detainees at the US-run prison in Cuba.
Now, the US State Department is said to have reported that all related documents have been withheld from public disclosure.
At least 12 documents, found in the US State Department’s search, relate to interventions by British politicians and officials over the treatment of detainees and torture techniques.
The State Department has reported, “After reviewing the documents, the UK Government’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office requested that all 12 documents be withheld in full from public disclosure.”
Guantanamo was established by former president Bush in 2002 as a prison for alleged foreign terrorism suspects following the September 11, 2001, attacks in the US.
As many as 775 suspects are said to have been brought to the facility ever since its establishment.
US President Barack Obama had promised to close the Guantanamo Bay prison in his 2008 election campaign, citing its damage to America’s reputation abroad. However, he has so far failed to deliver on that pledge due to stiff opposition from Congress.
A US Senate report in December 2014 revealed that the CIA used a wide array of torture as part of its interrogation methods against Guantanamo prisoners.
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Secret document reveals plans for civil war in Lebanon, Israeli false flags, and invasion
By Randi Nord | Geopolitics Alert | April 5, 2019
Beirut – During his visit with US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, Lebanese President Michael Aoun reportedly received a US-Israeli document detailing plans for creating a civil war in Lebanon with covert false flag operations and possible Israeli invasion.
Although the source of the document is Israeli and created in partnership with Washington, no one knows who presented it to Aoun. The Lebanese TV station, Al-Jadeed, initially reported the document on Lebanese TV and a video on its website. Geopolitics Alert translated the report for this article. … continue
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