From: owner-abolition-usa-digest@lists.xmission.com (abolition-usa-digest) To: abolition-usa-digest@lists.xmission.com Subject: abolition-usa-digest V1 #332 Reply-To: abolition-usa-digest Sender: owner-abolition-usa-digest@lists.xmission.com Errors-To: owner-abolition-usa-digest@lists.xmission.com Precedence: bulk abolition-usa-digest Sunday, July 2 2000 Volume 01 : Number 332 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 30 Jun 2000 17:07:42 +1000 From: FoE Sydney - Nuclear Campaign Subject: (abolition-usa) Aust Organisations Solidarity with Vandenburg NMD Vigil FRIENDS OF THE EARTH AUSTRALIA AUSTRALIAN PEACE COMMITTEE PEOPLE FOR NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT-WESTERN AUSTRALIA ANTI BASES COALITION PAX CHRISTI NSW SOLIDARITY WITH VANDENBERG AFB NMD VIGIL Dear Participants in the vigil at Vandenberg Airforce Base on the week leading to the July 7 test of the National Missile Defence System, FOE Australia, PND-WA, the Australian Peace Committee, The Anti-Bases Coalition, and Pax Christi NSW wish to declare their solidarity with your vigil and protest against the July 7 test of the National Missile Defence (NMD) system. Yesterday morning at 9.30am, the Australian Senate passed a resolution in which it urged the US government not to proceed with a national missile defence system. The current national missile defence proposal and indeed, any proposal for ballistic missile defence, would be strategically destabilizing, costly, and would in all probability fail to deliver the security it promises to the American people, while putting the rest of the world, as well as the US, at an increased risk of nuclear exchange. The UN Secretary General, the European Union, Germany, France, Sweden, the New Agenda Coalition, and the Non-Aligned movement have all spoken out strongly against this proposal. It is urgent that all governments, as many have already done, speak out against a weapons proposal that may re- ignite the nuclear arms race with no real security advantage whatsoever to those who deploy it. We wish you every success in your vigil. John Hallam, Friends of the Earth Australia Jo Vallentine, People for Nuclear Disarmament, W.A., Irene Gale AM, Australian Peace Committee, Dennis Doherty, Pax Christi NSW Hannah Middleton, Anti-Bases Coalition, NSW, - - To unsubscribe to abolition-usa, send an email to "majordomo@xmission.com" with "unsubscribe abolition-usa" in the body of the message. For information on digests or retrieving files and old messages send "help" to the same address. Do not use quotes in your message. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 1 Jul 2000 16:52:37 +1000 From: FoE Sydney - Nuclear Campaign Subject: (abolition-usa) SAY NO TO NMD - TEST PLANNED JULY 7 Please forward this message to anyone you know that might act on it. JULY 7 TEST OF 'SON OF STAR WARS' =46AX CLINTON, COHEN, NOW - SAY NO TO NMD. Clinton +1-202-456-2461, Cohen on +1-703-695-1149. CONTAINS: Sample letter and Appeal to fax Cohen, Clinton Press Releases from WSLF, Vandenburg Action Coalition. Dear All, Today in front of the Vandenberg Airforce base in the US, activists have commenced a peaceful vigil against the planned 7 July test of the National Missile Defence system.(NMD) Non-violent civil disobediance is planned for the day of the test itself, and it is hoped that as a result the test will be disrupted or delayed. Ballistic Missile Defence, (BMD) or the specific proposal now under consideration by Clinton known as National Missile Defence (NMD), is essentially the continuation of 'Star Wars'. The current NMD proposal will in all probability not work, is designed to meet a nonexistent threat, and potentially may re-ignite the arms race, setting at nought the obligations of both the US and Russia to the 'total and unequivocal' elimination of their nuclear arsenals, embodied in the final declaration of the NPT Review Conference. The US secretary General, the European Union, Portugal, Sweden, Germany, =46rance, and a coalition of nations known as the New Agenda Coalition (who effectively have the support of of the overwhelming majority of countries in the world), have all expressed grave concern over the NMD proposal. Russia and China have expressed extreme opposition and say it will create a new arms race. Russia has threatened to tear up nuclear arms control agreements if the Anti Ballistic Missile Treaty is broken to allow NMD to proceed. The Australian Senate voted a motion against NMD on Thursday Morning at 9.30 am (Canberra Time) President Clinton and Defence Secy Cohen will be making a decision on NMD within a few weeks. If you think, as most of the world does, that NMD is a dangerous delusion, please fax President Clinton and US Defence Secretary William Cohen now, and let them know that you don't want NMD or BMD. If you are in the US, please also contact your congressperson and let them know that you don't want NMD. If, like me, you're not in the US, you can still fax president Clinton on +1-202-456-2461, and ask that the US not deploy BMD. You could also fax Defence Secretary Cohen on +1-703-695-1149. IF YOU ARE NOT IN THE US YOU SHOULD ALSO LET YOUR MINISTER OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS KNOW THAT YOU WANT YOUR GOVERNMENT TO TAKE A STAND AGAINST NMD. IF YOU LIVE IN A G8 COUNTRY (Which includes not only US but Russia, UK, =46rance, Germany, Japan) ASK YOUR MINISTER OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS OR HEAD OF STATE TO LET THE US KNOW YOUR COUNTRY IS CONCERNED AT US NMD PLANS AT THE COMING G 8 SUMMIT IN OKINAWA. In the meantime, whether you live in the US or elsewhere, you are urged to fax Clinton and Cohen before July 7 to say you don't want NMD. You should also try to fax candidates Bush and Gore. You should also visit the 'Dont Blow it' website at http://DontBlowit.org. from which you can send the president a free e-postcard. I am enclosing: 1)A sample letter to Clinton/Cohen. 2) Press Releases from the Vandenburg Action Coalition and WSLF. Happy faxing! 1) Sample letter to Clinton and Cohen 1)SAMPLE LETTER FOR ESP US FOLKS, TO SEND TO BILL CLINTON, WILLIAM S. COHEN, MADELEINE ALBRIGHT, BUSH, GORE, AND RELEVANT CONGRESSIONAL SUBCOMMITTEES. PRESIDENT BILL CLINTON, 1-202-456-2461, SECRETARY OF STATE MADELEINE ALBRIGHT 1-202-647-6047 SECRETARY FOR DEFENCE, WILLIAM S. COHEN 1-703-695-1149 cc George Bush Al Gore Dear President Clinton, William Cohen, Madeleine Albright, and Presidential candidates, I am writing to urge you not to proceed with proposals for a national ballistic missile defence system. Missile defence schemes respond to a nonexistent or exaggerated threat, are not the solution to real threats, make the rest of the US's security environment less safe, sabotage nuclear disarmament efforts to which the US is legally committed along with the rest of the world, and show contempt for the opinions of US allies and the rest of the world. At the recent NPT Review Conference, the US together with 187 other countries, signed a final declaration that commits it to an unequivocal undertaking to accomplish the total elimination of its nuclear arsenal. Plans to deploy a missile defence system threaten that vital goal, to which the US is legally committed. At the very same conference, the UN Secretary General, and representatives of Russia, China, the UK, France, Sweden, the European community, the New Agenda Coalition and the Non- aligned movement have all expressed strongly that they believe the ABM treaty is the cornerstone of global strategic stability. They do not think it should be modified to allow a missile defence system, still less abrogated unilaterally. On your recent European trip, leaders of Europe and Russia have made the same point. America simply cannot ignore the strongly repeated opinion of the whole world, that the ABM treaty should not be modified to permit BMD. =46urthermore: 1)The threat that the national missile defence system is supposed to address, namely that of missile - equipped so- called 'rogue states' is in all likelihood, nonexistent. 2) A state that really wished to inflict serious damage on the US would probaby rather smuggle a nuclear explosive device into a US city by means that are more reliable and more difficult to trace than missiles. 3)There are serious doubts as to whether this system can work at all, or as to whether any missile defence system can ever work. The problems posed even by relatively simple decoys are probably technically insoluble. 4)National (and theatre) missile defence schemes are unsustainably costly, and cost estimates are likely to rise without limit. Instead of pursuing missile defence, it is vital that the US focus on real solutions to global strategic security. The highest priorities have to be the elimination of as many warheads as possible under any START-III agreement with Russia, and the removal of strategic missile forces from high alert status as advocated by the Canberra Commission, subsequent UN resolutions and the final NPT declaration. In this respect, the commitment of Candidate Bush to deep cuts in warhead numbers and to reductions in alert status are worthy of support. Commitments to costly and dangerous missile defence schemes are worthy only of opposition. Yours Sincerely, Signed =2E... 2) Press Releases =46OR IMMEDIATE RELEASE June 30, 2000 . Vandenberg Action Coalition . . Resource Center for Nonviolence . for more information contact: Peter Lumsdaine (206) 525-6981 / drd864904@cs.com through July 3, (831)423-1626 / Peter.L@rcnv.org July 4 and early July 5, (805)688-7610 from July 5 on Tracie De Angelis (831) 421-9794 through July 4; pnut119@hotmail.com "Vieques west" looms for pivotal Star Wars missile test July 7: PROTESTORS VOW TO INVADE PACIFIC MISSILE RANGE SECURITY ZONES, DISRUPT KEY NMD LAUNCH * "The globalization of the world economy will also continue, with a widening between the 'haves' and the 'have-nots' ... military forces have evolved to protect national interests and investments - both military and economic. ... [the] U.S. Space Command: dominating the space dimension of military operations to protect U.S. interests and investment. Integrating Space Forces into warfighting across the full spectrum of conflict." - ' Vision for 2020 ' (1998 U.S. Space Command document assembled under General Howell M. Estes III) (Vandenberg AFB, California) An international alliance of peace and global justice activists vowed today to carry the "spirit of Seattle and Vieques" into the brushy coastal security zones of Vandenberg Air Force Base to disrupt a pivotal "Star Wars" or "National Missile Defense" (NMD) flight test scheduled for July 7. Those planning to take on the physical and legal risks of backcountry civil disobedience at Vandenberg include dissidents from China, Russia, Great Britain and the United States. Organizers involved in planning the recent Seattle and Washington DC upheavels against corporate globalization, local residents from California's central coast, and veterans of an historic 1983 backcountry showdown at this west coast missile base have banded together in the Vandenberg Action Coalition, backed by the endorsement of the long-established national Peace Action organization (membership 78,000) and the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space. The Resource Center for Nonviolence (founded in 1976) and the Casa Guadalupe Catholic Worker House, just north of Vandenberg, are also involved; and a local World War II veteran has offered his nearby house and farmland as a base camp for the civil resistance teams. Activists say that - much like similar actions at Vieques in Puerto Rico this year, at Kwajalein Atoll in 1982 and 1996, at Cape Canaveral in 1987, and at Vandenberg itself in 1983 - small teams of nonviolent resisters will clandestinely hike into the rugged launch-security zones of the base by July 7 to block flight testing of the Star Wars/NMD system, which they denounce as "a defensively-wrapped Trojan Horse of offensive global terror and a tool of nuclear first-strike warfare." "We are going to rip the mask of lies off of this cleverly camouflaged offensive Star Wars program," declared Coalition spokespeople Peter Lumsdaine and Tracie DeAngelis, "and we will confront the New World Order's space-age missile power with what Gandhi and Martin Luther King called the 'soul-power' of nonviolent direct action - re-occupying the backcountry, putting ourselves at risk near the launch point to stand in the way of this these global war machines and denounce the continued military theft of indigenous lands, from California to the South Pacific. The U.S. Space Command's little-known plan for global domination, expressed in their own document 'Visi on for 2020', must be exposed and stopped." Vandenberg's intercontinental test missiles, including a Minuteman ICBM slated to be used the July 7 test, are fired at Kwajalein - the Earth's largest coral atoll - which is occupied by the U.S. military, despite years of protests and nonviolent resistance actions by the indigenous Marshallese people who once lived around the South Pacific island ring. The new NMD interceptor missile is scheduled to be launched from Kwajalein Atoll on July 7, aimed to collide with Vandenberg's Minuteman. Vandenberg Air Force Base itself is built on the traditional lands of California's Chumash Indians, who were almost exterminated by European forces in previous centuries, but whose descendents still live in the area, near Point Conception, which they call the Western Gate - the bridge to the afterlife. The Vandenberg Action Coalition has stated that they oppose the NMD/Star Wars project and related space warfare programs because these military technologies will facilitate the use of the Pentagon's devastating offensive weaponry against movements and nations that resist the 'New World Order' of corporate globalization, while simultaneously igniting a perilous new nuclear arms race. "Star Wars/NMD weapons are not being built to stop an attack on the United States but to make sure that the U.S government and corporate leadership can securely launch a 'conventional' or nuclear first-strike against any country on Earth" said Lumsdaine and De Angelis. The Coalition denounces the forced relocation of Kwajalein Atoll's indigenous people and calls for the U.S. Space Command to respect the traditional land rights of the Marshallese and Chumash peoples. Coalition activists will also gather at noon on July 1 for a legal protest vigil at Vandenberg's main gate, less than a week before the test launch resistance action. They plan a public educational event on Hiroshima Day (August 5), and a larger backcountry mass resistance action on October 7. Vandenberg is the largest U.S. Space Command facility in the world, with a 55-mile land boundary, and Coalition spokespeople believe that their resistance teams will be able to clandestinely slip into the rugged backcountry. Military secrecy and security regulations require that large areas of the base be cleared of all unauthorized people before a launch countdown can proceed. Futhermore, missile exhaust can endanger people near the launch point and accidental launch explosions can blast shrapnel, burning debris and super-heated toxic gasses for more than a mile in all directions. The nonviolent resistance teams may make their presence in these areas known by the use of banners, flares, balloons, noise or night-time flashlights, while avoiding capture for as long as possible. Some likely participants are veterans of similar actions that disrupted base operations in the 1980s. Others have emerged from the clouds of peppper spray and rubber bullets at recent Washington DC and Seattle globalization protests with a renewed determination to confront what Lumsdaine calls "the military enforcement wing of a slowly crumbling corporate world order, its space-age global web of counterinsurgency terror and thermonuclear brinkmanship." - 30 - =46or more information contact: [see detailed contact information at the top of this news release] Peter Lumsdaine (206) 525-6981; drd864904@cs.com OR Peter.L@rcnv.org Tracie De Angelis (831) 421-9794; pnut119@hotmail.com WESTERN STATES LEGAL FOUNDATION 1440 Broadway, Suite 500 Oakland, CA 94612 Tel (510) 839-5877 E-mail wslf@earthlink.net For immediate release: July 1, 2000 Contact: Jacqueline Cabasso or Andrew Lichterman (510) 839-5877 WESTERN STATES LEGAL FOUNDATION STATEMENT ON BMD, NATIONAL SECURITY AND NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT Vandenberg Air Force Base, CA -- The proposed US Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) system blocks nuclear arms reductions and threatens to spur new arms races. BMD, like =93Stockpile Stewardship,=94 is fundamentally incompatible with nuclear disarmament. This simple fact is often obscured in a blizzard of technical minutia and political gobbledygook. But you don=92t have to be an expert to understand that the best (and possibly only) way to prevent nuclear war is to get rid of nuclear weapons. And you don=92= t have to be an expert to understand that the current US concept of national security if not sustainable. Security cannot be premised on the constant threat of overwhelming bloodshed and destruction. Instead it must be redefined in human and ecological terms. =20 Western States Legal Foundation calls for cancellation of the July 7 interceptor test from Vandenberg Air Force Base and termination of the BMD program and follow-on plans for space-based weapons systems. Instead, we call on the U.S. government -- without further delay -- to seek and accept sweeping reductions in both strategic (long-range) and tactical (short-range) weapons, and together with Russia to take all weapons off hair-trigger alert so that Armageddon is no longer the push of a button away. Further, we call on the US to initiate multilateral negotiations on the framework for a nuclear-weapon-free-world. These are the necessary and appropriate first steps toward nuclear sanity and real global security. Most Americans have no idea that their government continues to brandish nuclear weapons as the ultimate =93big stick.=94 But every government knows that a nuclear threat implicitly backs up every US or US-led military action anywhere in the world. More than 10 years after the end of the Cold War, US Trident submarines continue to patrol the world=92s oceans, armed with thousands of the most deadly weapons every designed, ready to launch them within 15 minutes. Thousands more land-based =93strategic=94 missiles a= re ready to launch within 2 minutes. And approximately 150 US =93tactical=94 nuclear weapons are deployed in NATO countries. Presidential Decision Directive-60 (PDD-60), signed by President Clinton in December 1997, recommitted the US to nuclear weapons as the =93cornerstone=94 of its national security for the foreseeable future and reaffirmed the US policies of threatened first use and threatened massive retaliation. Over the past decade the US has threatened the use of nuclear weapons against Libya (April 1996), North Korea (July 1994) and Iraq (1991 and 1998). The US is planning to spend over $4.5 billion a year over the next decade on nuclear weapons research, development, testing and production; an amount, in constant dollars, well above the annual Cold War spending average of $3.7 billion for directly comparable activities. Through the misleadingly-named =93Stockpile Stewardship=94 program, new nuclear weapons facilities of unprecedented sophistication are being built, a new generation of nuclear scientists is being trained, and nuclear weapons design and production is going forward. Under Stockpile Stewardship, modifications or upgrades in some instances including enhanced military capabilities -- are planned for every weapon type in the US arsenal. This new round of high-tech research and development -- the =93price=94 exacted b= y the nuclear weapons labs for their acquiescence to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty -- is lending renewed credibility to the threatened use of nuclear weapons, and is leading towards the development and production of weapon-types that are more, rather than less likely to be used in the post Cold War world.=20 Moreover, some Stockpile Stewardship facilities have applications for ballistic missile defense systems and other kinds of high-tech weaponry.=20 This technology overlap is of increasing concern as parts of the Stockpile Stewardship technology base are used for many different types of weapons programs. According to one Air Force planning document: =93The technology base required to meet future space weapon needs must be developed and matured today if it is to be available for future warfighter needs.=94 The US Space Command Vision for 2020 contemplates =93dominating the space dimension of military operations to protect US interests and investment... Integrating Space Forces into warfighting capabilties across the full spectrum of conflict.=94 The Pentagon=92s Joint Vision 2020 contemplates = =93the creation of a force that is dominant across the full spectrum of military operations persuasive in peace, decisive in war, preeminent in any form of conflict.=94 =20 It is only within this broader context of current and emerging US national security policy and current and planned technology development that the internationally dangerous and destabilizing effects of the impending decision to deploy a BMD system can be fully understood. Western States Legal Foundation (WSLF) is a non-profit, public interest organization founded in 1982, which monitors and analyzes US nuclear weapons programs and policies with a focus on the national nuclear weapons laboratories. WSLF recognizes that nuclear weapons affect the environment, the economy, the role of violence in society, and democracy itself. Rather than enhancing our =93national=94 security, nuclear weapons threaten our fundamental human security. WSLF seeks to abolish nuclear weapons, compel open public environmental review of nuclear technologies, and ensure appropriate management of nuclear waste. Grounded in nonviolence and rooted in both international and environmental law, the principle guiding WSLF=92s activities is democratization of decision making affecting nuclear weapons and related technologies. WSLF is a founding member of the Abolition 2000 Global Network to Eliminate Nuclear Weapons, and its US affiliate, the US Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons. - - To unsubscribe to abolition-usa, send an email to "majordomo@xmission.com" with "unsubscribe abolition-usa" in the body of the message. For information on digests or retrieving files and old messages send "help" to the same address. Do not use quotes in your message. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 01 Jul 2000 21:39:46 -0400 From: Ellen Thomas Subject: Re: (abolition-usa) US CAMPAIGN TO ABOLISH NUCLEAR WEAPONS UPDATE - --=====================_21196440==_.ALT Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >REMINDER: If your group received a yellow booklet but hasn't >yet sent in your endorsement form, please do so NOW! (If you don't know >what I'm talking about, send me an e-mail.) I haven't the foggiest whether I've filled out this form. Do you know? Ellen Thomas Proposition One Committee PO Box 27217, Washington DC 20038 202-462-0757 -- fax 202-265-5389 prop1@prop1.org -- http://prop1.org *** BAN AND BURY ALL RADIOACTIVE BOMBS * depleted uranium, fission, neutron * Online Petition - http://www.PetitionOnline.com/prop1/petition.html Write Letter to Congress about HR-2545 - http://prop1.org/prop1/letter.htm Depleted uranium keeps on killing!: http://prop1@prop1.org/2000/du/dulv.htm NucNews: http://prop1.org/nucnews/briefslv.htm - --=====================_21196440==_.ALT Content-Type: text/html; charset="us-ascii"
>REMINDER: If your group received a yellow booklet but hasn't
>yet sent in your endorsement form, please do so NOW!  (If you don't know
>what I'm talking about, send me an e-mail.) 

I haven't the foggiest whether I've filled out this form.  Do you know?

Ellen Thomas
Proposition One Committee
PO Box 27217, Washington DC 20038
202-462-0757 -- fax 202-265-5389
prop1@prop1.org  --  http://prop1.org

                         ***

                    BAN AND BURY ALL RADIOACTIVE BOMBS
                          * depleted uranium, fission, neutron *

       Online Petition - http://www.PetitionOnline.com/prop1/petition.html
 Write Letter to Congress about HR-2545 - http://prop1.org/prop1/letter.htm
Depleted uranium keeps on killing!: http://prop1@prop1.org/2000/du/dulv.htm
                      NucNews: http://prop1.org/nucnews/briefslv.htm
- --=====================_21196440==_.ALT-- - - To unsubscribe to abolition-usa, send an email to "majordomo@xmission.com" with "unsubscribe abolition-usa" in the body of the message. For information on digests or retrieving files and old messages send "help" to the same address. Do not use quotes in your message. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 01 Jul 2000 19:57:23 -0400 From: Ellen Thomas Subject: (abolition-usa) NucNews 00/07/01 - An important message for subscribers - --=====================_21196265==_.ALT Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" As we begin the second half of 2000, I'm asking you to help me improve NucNews Archives. Please take a couple of minutes to read the following: (1) NucNews Archives Online files for June 21-25, 2000, which we've been compiling on the Proposition One website, have been uploaded at http://prop1.org/nucnews/briefslv.htm. We will be adding more stories to these files as soon as I've processed the many messages received from subscribers. We really appreciate receiving articles, but have decided the information could be archived much more quickly if you will send them to mailto:NucNews@onelist.com, which automatically posts to http://www.onelist.com/archive/NucNews, rather than to prop1@prop1.org. (3) As a subscriber to NucNews@onelist.com, you should be aware of the capabilities of OneList (http://www.onelist.com/archive/NucNews). You can decide whether you want to merely post messages for archival purposes ("web only"), receive a digest of everyone's postings ("daily digest"), or receive individual e-mails from other subscribers. If you don't want to receive emails, it's easy to arrange, either by yourself, or by replying to this message asking me to make the change for you. At the moment there are only three of us contributing regularly to mailto:NucNews@onelist.com. I hope it will become a much richer, more timely, reliable, and inclusive collection of information. (4) Please only post news articles or official reports about "nuclear" -- weapons, power, waste, business, science, conversion, etc -- at mailto:NucNews@onelist.com (http://www.onelist.com/archive/NucNews). Please include publication name, date, title, author, and URL or other address for verification purposes. Please don't use this site for conversations!! Articles which can't be verified will be deleted. (5) The archives at http://prop1.org/nucnews/briefslv.htm include some non-nuclear stories which we believe are important enough, historically, to be included in our personal archive. All stories are placed under categories (search for "--- " to skip from one category to the next). Starting with June, 2000 we've revised the format of these files so all the NUCLEAR stories are at the beginning, followed by MILITARY (by country), followed by OTHER, which includes activist bulletins, and news about alternative energy, environment, imf/world bank, genetics, etc. Prior to June, 2000, the categories were listed alphabetically. I hope this makes sense, is useful, and inspires you to use the OneList archives for storing articles and reports so we all can collect and share the news. Thanks to the OneList inventors for providing this marvelous service. (You can also get into NucNews through egroups.com.) Ellen Thomas ___________________________________________________ Today's Newspapers and Archives: http://prop1.org/nucnews/briefslv.htm Interactive Archives (since 6/10/00): http://www.onelist.com/archive/NucNews Subscribe to NucNews: mailto:prop1@prop1.org (NucNews-Subscribe) Submit URL/Article: mailto:NucNews@onelist.org About NucNews: http://prop1.org/nucnews/nucnews.htm Excellent e-mail news resources: DOE Watch - doewatch@onelist.com - http://members.aol.com/doewatch Downwinders - downwinders@onelist.com - http://www.downwinders.org/ EnviroNews - environews@envirolink.org - http://www.envirolink.org/environews Planet Ark/Reuters - mailto:anna@planetark.org - http://www.planetark.org/news/ Radbull (Radiation Bulletin) mailto:radbull-request@energy-net.org Quick Route to U.S. Congress: http://www.senate.gov/senators/index.cfm (Senators' Websites) http://www.house.gov/house/MemberWWW.html (Representatives' Websites) http://thomas.loc.gov/ (Pending Legislation - Search) Presidential Candidates' Websites: George W. Bush - http://www.georgewbush.com/ Pat Buchanan - http://www.buchananreform.com/index.asp Al Gore - http://www.algore2000.com/ Ralph Nader - http://www.votenader.org/press.html Online Petition to Abolish Nuclear Weapons - http://www.PetitionOnline.com/prop1/petition.html Updates on Current Events Outside the White House - http://prop1.org/currevnt.htm Distributed without payment for research and educational purposes only, in accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107. - --=====================_21196265==_.ALT Content-Type: text/html; charset="us-ascii" As we begin the second half of 2000, I'm asking you to help me improve NucNews Archives.  Please take a couple of minutes to read the following:

(1) NucNews Archives Online files for June 21-25, 2000, which we've been compiling on the Proposition One website, have been uploaded at http://prop1.org/nucnews/briefslv.htm.  We will be adding more stories to these files as soon as I've processed the many messages received from subscribers.  We really appreciate receiving articles, but have decided the information could be archived much more quickly if you will send them to mailto:NucNews@onelist.com, which automatically posts to http://www.onelist.com/archive/NucNews, rather than to prop1@prop1.org. 

(3) As a subscriber to NucNews@onelist.com, you should be aware of the capabilities of OneList (http://www.onelist.com/archive/NucNews).  You can decide whether you want to merely post messages for archival purposes ("web only"), receive a digest of everyone's postings ("daily digest"), or receive individual e-mails from other subscribers.  If you don't want to receive emails, it's easy to arrange, either by yourself, or by replying to this message asking me to make the change for you. At the moment there are only three of us contributing regularly to mailto:NucNews@onelist.com. I hope it will become a much richer, more timely, reliable, and inclusive collection of information. 

(4) Please only post news articles or official reports about "nuclear" -- weapons, power, waste, business, science, conversion, etc --  at mailto:NucNews@onelist.com (http://www.onelist.com/archive/NucNews).  Please include publication name, date, title, author, and URL or other address for verification purposes. Please don't use this site for conversations!!  Articles which can't be verified will be deleted.

(5) The archives at http://prop1.org/nucnews/briefslv.htm include some non-nuclear stories which we believe are important enough, historically, to be included in our personal archive.  All stories are placed under categories (search for "--- " to skip from one category to the next).  Starting with June, 2000 we've revised the format of these files so all the NUCLEAR stories are at the beginning, followed by MILITARY (by country), followed by OTHER, which includes activist bulletins, and news about alternative energy, environment, imf/world bank, genetics, etc.  Prior to June, 2000, the categories were listed alphabetically.

I hope this makes sense,  is useful, and inspires you to use the OneList archives for storing articles and reports so we all can collect and share the news.  Thanks to the OneList inventors for providing this marvelous service.  (You can also get into NucNews through egroups.com.)

Ellen Thomas


     ___________________________________________________

  Today's Newspapers and Archives: http://prop1.org/nucnews/briefslv.htm
Interactive Archives (since 6/10/00): http://www.onelist.com/archive/NucNews

     Subscribe to NucNews:  mailto:prop1@prop1.org (NucNews-Subscribe)
           Submit URL/Article: mailto:NucNews@onelist.org
                      About NucNews: http://prop1.org/nucnews/nucnews.htm

Excellent e-mail news resources:

DOE Watch - doewatch@onelist.com - http://members.aol.com/doewatch
Downwinders - downwinders@onelist.com - http://www.downwinders.org/
EnviroNews - environews@envirolink.org - http://www.envirolink.org/environews
Planet Ark/Reuters - mailto:anna@planetark.org - http://www.planetark.org/news/
Radbull (Radiation Bulletin) mailto:radbull-request@energy-net.org

Quick Route to U.S. Congress:

http://www.senate.gov/senators/index.cfm (Senators' Websites)
http://www.house.gov/house/MemberWWW.html (Representatives' Websites)
http://thomas.loc.gov/ (Pending Legislation - Search)

Presidential Candidates' Websites:

George W. Bush - http://www.georgewbush.com/
Pat Buchanan - http://www.buchananreform.com/index.asp
Al Gore - http://www.algore2000.com/
Ralph Nader - http://www.votenader.org/press.html

Online Petition to Abolish Nuclear Weapons - http://www.PetitionOnline.com/prop1/petition.html
Updates on Current Events Outside the White House - http://prop1.org/currevnt.htm

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- --=====================_21196265==_.ALT-- - - To unsubscribe to abolition-usa, send an email to "majordomo@xmission.com" with "unsubscribe abolition-usa" in the body of the message. For information on digests or retrieving files and old messages send "help" to the same address. Do not use quotes in your message. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 3 Jul 2000 12:36:26 +1000 From: FoE Sydney - Nuclear Campaign Subject: (abolition-usa) SAY NO TO NMD - TEST PLANNED JULY 7 Please forward this message to anyone you know that might act on it. JULY 7 TEST OF 'SON OF STAR WARS' =46AX CLINTON, COHEN, NOW - SAY NO TO NMD. Clinton +1-202-456-2461, Cohen on +1-703-695-1149. CONTAINS: Sample letter and Appeal to fax Cohen, Clinton Press Releases from WSLF, Vandenburg Action Coalition. Dear All, Today in front of the Vandenberg Airforce base in the US, activists have commenced a peaceful vigil against the planned 7 July test of the National Missile Defence system.(NMD) Non-violent civil disobediance is planned for the day of the test itself, and it is hoped that as a result the test will be disrupted or delayed. Ballistic Missile Defence, (BMD) or the specific proposal now under consideration by Clinton known as National Missile Defence (NMD), is essentially the continuation of 'Star Wars'. The current NMD proposal will in all probability not work, is designed to meet a nonexistent threat, and potentially may re-ignite the arms race, setting at nought the obligations of both the US and Russia to the 'total and unequivocal' elimination of their nuclear arsenals, embodied in the final declaration of the NPT Review Conference. The US secretary General, the European Union, Portugal, Sweden, Germany, =46rance, and a coalition of nations known as the New Agenda Coalition (who effectively have the support of of the overwhelming majority of countries in the world), have all expressed grave concern over the NMD proposal. Russia and China have expressed extreme opposition and say it will create a new arms race. Russia has threatened to tear up nuclear arms control agreements if the Anti Ballistic Missile Treaty is broken to allow NMD to proceed. The Australian Senate voted a motion against NMD on Thursday Morning at 9.30 am (Canberra Time) President Clinton and Defence Secy Cohen will be making a decision on NMD within a few weeks. If you think, as most of the world does, that NMD is a dangerous delusion, please fax President Clinton and US Defence Secretary William Cohen now, and let them know that you don't want NMD or BMD. If you are in the US, please also contact your congressperson and let them know that you don't want NMD. If, like me, you're not in the US, you can still fax president Clinton on +1-202-456-2461, and ask that the US not deploy BMD. You could also fax Defence Secretary Cohen on +1-703-695-1149. IF YOU ARE NOT IN THE US YOU SHOULD ALSO LET YOUR MINISTER OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS KNOW THAT YOU WANT YOUR GOVERNMENT TO TAKE A STAND AGAINST NMD. IF YOU LIVE IN A G8 COUNTRY (Which includes not only US but Russia, UK, =46rance, Germany, Japan) ASK YOUR MINISTER OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS OR HEAD OF STATE TO LET THE US KNOW YOUR COUNTRY IS CONCERNED AT US NMD PLANS AT THE COMING G 8 SUMMIT IN OKINAWA. In the meantime, whether you live in the US or elsewhere, you are urged to fax Clinton and Cohen before July 7 to say you don't want NMD. You should also try to fax candidates Bush and Gore. You should also visit the 'Dont Blow it' website at http://DontBlowit.org. from which you can send the president a free e-postcard. I am enclosing: 1)A sample letter to Clinton/Cohen. 2) Press Releases from the Vandenburg Action Coalition and WSLF. Happy faxing! 1) Sample letter to Clinton and Cohen 1)SAMPLE LETTER FOR ESP US FOLKS, TO SEND TO BILL CLINTON, WILLIAM S. COHEN, MADELEINE ALBRIGHT, BUSH, GORE, AND RELEVANT CONGRESSIONAL SUBCOMMITTEES. PRESIDENT BILL CLINTON, 1-202-456-2461, SECRETARY OF STATE MADELEINE ALBRIGHT 1-202-647-6047 SECRETARY FOR DEFENCE, WILLIAM S. COHEN 1-703-695-1149 cc George Bush Al Gore Dear President Clinton, William Cohen, Madeleine Albright, and Presidential candidates, I am writing to urge you not to proceed with proposals for a national ballistic missile defence system. Missile defence schemes respond to a nonexistent or exaggerated threat, are not the solution to real threats, make the rest of the US's security environment less safe, sabotage nuclear disarmament efforts to which the US is legally committed along with the rest of the world, and show contempt for the opinions of US allies and the rest of the world. At the recent NPT Review Conference, the US together with 187 other countries, signed a final declaration that commits it to an unequivocal undertaking to accomplish the total elimination of its nuclear arsenal. Plans to deploy a missile defence system threaten that vital goal, to which the US is legally committed. At the very same conference, the UN Secretary General, and representatives of Russia, China, the UK, France, Sweden, the European community, the New Agenda Coalition and the Non- aligned movement have all expressed strongly that they believe the ABM treaty is the cornerstone of global strategic stability. They do not think it should be modified to allow a missile defence system, still less abrogated unilaterally. On your recent European trip, leaders of Europe and Russia have made the same point. America simply cannot ignore the strongly repeated opinion of the whole world, that the ABM treaty should not be modified to permit BMD. =46urthermore: 1)The threat that the national missile defence system is supposed to address, namely that of missile - equipped so- called 'rogue states' is in all likelihood, nonexistent. 2) A state that really wished to inflict serious damage on the US would probaby rather smuggle a nuclear explosive device into a US city by means that are more reliable and more difficult to trace than missiles. 3)There are serious doubts as to whether this system can work at all, or as to whether any missile defence system can ever work. The problems posed even by relatively simple decoys are probably technically insoluble. 4)National (and theatre) missile defence schemes are unsustainably costly, and cost estimates are likely to rise without limit. Instead of pursuing missile defence, it is vital that the US focus on real solutions to global strategic security. The highest priorities have to be the elimination of as many warheads as possible under any START-III agreement with Russia, and the removal of strategic missile forces from high alert status as advocated by the Canberra Commission, subsequent UN resolutions and the final NPT declaration. In this respect, the commitment of Candidate Bush to deep cuts in warhead numbers and to reductions in alert status are worthy of support. Commitments to costly and dangerous missile defence schemes are worthy only of opposition. Yours Sincerely, Signed =2E... 2) Press Releases =46OR IMMEDIATE RELEASE June 30, 2000 . Vandenberg Action Coalition . . Resource Center for Nonviolence . for more information contact: Peter Lumsdaine (206) 525-6981 / drd864904@cs.com through July 3, (831)423-1626 / Peter.L@rcnv.org July 4 and early July 5, (805)688-7610 from July 5 on Tracie De Angelis (831) 421-9794 through July 4; pnut119@hotmail.com "Vieques west" looms for pivotal Star Wars missile test July 7: PROTESTORS VOW TO INVADE PACIFIC MISSILE RANGE SECURITY ZONES, DISRUPT KEY NMD LAUNCH * "The globalization of the world economy will also continue, with a widening between the 'haves' and the 'have-nots' ... military forces have evolved to protect national interests and investments - both military and economic. ... [the] U.S. Space Command: dominating the space dimension of military operations to protect U.S. interests and investment. Integrating Space Forces into warfighting across the full spectrum of conflict." - ' Vision for 2020 ' (1998 U.S. Space Command document assembled under General Howell M. Estes III) (Vandenberg AFB, California) An international alliance of peace and global justice activists vowed today to carry the "spirit of Seattle and Vieques" into the brushy coastal security zones of Vandenberg Air Force Base to disrupt a pivotal "Star Wars" or "National Missile Defense" (NMD) flight test scheduled for July 7. Those planning to take on the physical and legal risks of backcountry civil disobedience at Vandenberg include dissidents from China, Russia, Great Britain and the United States. Organizers involved in planning the recent Seattle and Washington DC upheavels against corporate globalization, local residents from California's central coast, and veterans of an historic 1983 backcountry showdown at this west coast missile base have banded together in the Vandenberg Action Coalition, backed by the endorsement of the long-established national Peace Action organization (membership 78,000) and the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space. The Resource Center for Nonviolence (founded in 1976) and the Casa Guadalupe Catholic Worker House, just north of Vandenberg, are also involved; and a local World War II veteran has offered his nearby house and farmland as a base camp for the civil resistance teams. Activists say that - much like similar actions at Vieques in Puerto Rico this year, at Kwajalein Atoll in 1982 and 1996, at Cape Canaveral in 1987, and at Vandenberg itself in 1983 - small teams of nonviolent resisters will clandestinely hike into the rugged launch-security zones of the base by July 7 to block flight testing of the Star Wars/NMD system, which they denounce as "a defensively-wrapped Trojan Horse of offensive global terror and a tool of nuclear first-strike warfare." "We are going to rip the mask of lies off of this cleverly camouflaged offensive Star Wars program," declared Coalition spokespeople Peter Lumsdaine and Tracie DeAngelis, "and we will confront the New World Order's space-age missile power with what Gandhi and Martin Luther King called the 'soul-power' of nonviolent direct action - re-occupying the backcountry, putting ourselves at risk near the launch point to stand in the way of this these global war machines and denounce the continued military theft of indigenous lands, from California to the South Pacific. The U.S. Space Command's little-known plan for global domination, expressed in their own document 'Visi on for 2020', must be exposed and stopped." Vandenberg's intercontinental test missiles, including a Minuteman ICBM slated to be used the July 7 test, are fired at Kwajalein - the Earth's largest coral atoll - which is occupied by the U.S. military, despite years of protests and nonviolent resistance actions by the indigenous Marshallese people who once lived around the South Pacific island ring. The new NMD interceptor missile is scheduled to be launched from Kwajalein Atoll on July 7, aimed to collide with Vandenberg's Minuteman. Vandenberg Air Force Base itself is built on the traditional lands of California's Chumash Indians, who were almost exterminated by European forces in previous centuries, but whose descendents still live in the area, near Point Conception, which they call the Western Gate - the bridge to the afterlife. The Vandenberg Action Coalition has stated that they oppose the NMD/Star Wars project and related space warfare programs because these military technologies will facilitate the use of the Pentagon's devastating offensive weaponry against movements and nations that resist the 'New World Order' of corporate globalization, while simultaneously igniting a perilous new nuclear arms race. "Star Wars/NMD weapons are not being built to stop an attack on the United States but to make sure that the U.S government and corporate leadership can securely launch a 'conventional' or nuclear first-strike against any country on Earth" said Lumsdaine and De Angelis. The Coalition denounces the forced relocation of Kwajalein Atoll's indigenous people and calls for the U.S. Space Command to respect the traditional land rights of the Marshallese and Chumash peoples. Coalition activists will also gather at noon on July 1 for a legal protest vigil at Vandenberg's main gate, less than a week before the test launch resistance action. They plan a public educational event on Hiroshima Day (August 5), and a larger backcountry mass resistance action on October 7. Vandenberg is the largest U.S. Space Command facility in the world, with a 55-mile land boundary, and Coalition spokespeople believe that their resistance teams will be able to clandestinely slip into the rugged backcountry. Military secrecy and security regulations require that large areas of the base be cleared of all unauthorized people before a launch countdown can proceed. Futhermore, missile exhaust can endanger people near the launch point and accidental launch explosions can blast shrapnel, burning debris and super-heated toxic gasses for more than a mile in all directions. The nonviolent resistance teams may make their presence in these areas known by the use of banners, flares, balloons, noise or night-time flashlights, while avoiding capture for as long as possible. Some likely participants are veterans of similar actions that disrupted base operations in the 1980s. Others have emerged from the clouds of peppper spray and rubber bullets at recent Washington DC and Seattle globalization protests with a renewed determination to confront what Lumsdaine calls "the military enforcement wing of a slowly crumbling corporate world order, its space-age global web of counterinsurgency terror and thermonuclear brinkmanship." - 30 - =46or more information contact: [see detailed contact information at the top of this news release] Peter Lumsdaine (206) 525-6981; drd864904@cs.com OR Peter.L@rcnv.org Tracie De Angelis (831) 421-9794; pnut119@hotmail.com WESTERN STATES LEGAL FOUNDATION 1440 Broadway, Suite 500 Oakland, CA 94612 Tel (510) 839-5877 E-mail wslf@earthlink.net For immediate release: July 1, 2000 Contact: Jacqueline Cabasso or Andrew Lichterman (510) 839-5877 WESTERN STATES LEGAL FOUNDATION STATEMENT ON BMD, NATIONAL SECURITY AND NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT Vandenberg Air Force Base, CA -- The proposed US Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) system blocks nuclear arms reductions and threatens to spur new arms races. BMD, like =93Stockpile Stewardship,=94 is fundamentally incompatible with nuclear disarmament. This simple fact is often obscured in a blizzard of technical minutia and political gobbledygook. But you don=92t have to be an expert to understand that the best (and possibly only) way to prevent nuclear war is to get rid of nuclear weapons. And you don=92= t have to be an expert to understand that the current US concept of national security if not sustainable. Security cannot be premised on the constant threat of overwhelming bloodshed and destruction. Instead it must be redefined in human and ecological terms. =20 Western States Legal Foundation calls for cancellation of the July 7 interceptor test from Vandenberg Air Force Base and termination of the BMD program and follow-on plans for space-based weapons systems. Instead, we call on the U.S. government -- without further delay -- to seek and accept sweeping reductions in both strategic (long-range) and tactical (short-range) weapons, and together with Russia to take all weapons off hair-trigger alert so that Armageddon is no longer the push of a button away. Further, we call on the US to initiate multilateral negotiations on the framework for a nuclear-weapon-free-world. These are the necessary and appropriate first steps toward nuclear sanity and real global security. Most Americans have no idea that their government continues to brandish nuclear weapons as the ultimate =93big stick.=94 But every government knows that a nuclear threat implicitly backs up every US or US-led military action anywhere in the world. More than 10 years after the end of the Cold War, US Trident submarines continue to patrol the world=92s oceans, armed with thousands of the most deadly weapons every designed, ready to launch them within 15 minutes. Thousands more land-based =93strategic=94 missiles a= re ready to launch within 2 minutes. And approximately 150 US =93tactical=94 nuclear weapons are deployed in NATO countries. Presidential Decision Directive-60 (PDD-60), signed by President Clinton in December 1997, recommitted the US to nuclear weapons as the =93cornerstone=94 of its national security for the foreseeable future and reaffirmed the US policies of threatened first use and threatened massive retaliation. Over the past decade the US has threatened the use of nuclear weapons against Libya (April 1996), North Korea (July 1994) and Iraq (1991 and 1998). The US is planning to spend over $4.5 billion a year over the next decade on nuclear weapons research, development, testing and production; an amount, in constant dollars, well above the annual Cold War spending average of $3.7 billion for directly comparable activities. Through the misleadingly-named =93Stockpile Stewardship=94 program, new nuclear weapons facilities of unprecedented sophistication are being built, a new generation of nuclear scientists is being trained, and nuclear weapons design and production is going forward. Under Stockpile Stewardship, modifications or upgrades in some instances including enhanced military capabilities -- are planned for every weapon type in the US arsenal. This new round of high-tech research and development -- the =93price=94 exacted b= y the nuclear weapons labs for their acquiescence to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty -- is lending renewed credibility to the threatened use of nuclear weapons, and is leading towards the development and production of weapon-types that are more, rather than less likely to be used in the post Cold War world.=20 Moreover, some Stockpile Stewardship facilities have applications for ballistic missile defense systems and other kinds of high-tech weaponry.=20 This technology overlap is of increasing concern as parts of the Stockpile Stewardship technology base are used for many different types of weapons programs. According to one Air Force planning document: =93The technology base required to meet future space weapon needs must be developed and matured today if it is to be available for future warfighter needs.=94 The US Space Command Vision for 2020 contemplates =93dominating the space dimension of military operations to protect US interests and investment... Integrating Space Forces into warfighting capabilties across the full spectrum of conflict.=94 The Pentagon=92s Joint Vision 2020 contemplates = =93the creation of a force that is dominant across the full spectrum of military operations persuasive in peace, decisive in war, preeminent in any form of conflict.=94 =20 It is only within this broader context of current and emerging US national security policy and current and planned technology development that the internationally dangerous and destabilizing effects of the impending decision to deploy a BMD system can be fully understood. Western States Legal Foundation (WSLF) is a non-profit, public interest organization founded in 1982, which monitors and analyzes US nuclear weapons programs and policies with a focus on the national nuclear weapons laboratories. WSLF recognizes that nuclear weapons affect the environment, the economy, the role of violence in society, and democracy itself. Rather than enhancing our =93national=94 security, nuclear weapons threaten our fundamental human security. WSLF seeks to abolish nuclear weapons, compel open public environmental review of nuclear technologies, and ensure appropriate management of nuclear waste. Grounded in nonviolence and rooted in both international and environmental law, the principle guiding WSLF=92s activities is democratization of decision making affecting nuclear weapons and related technologies. WSLF is a founding member of the Abolition 2000 Global Network to Eliminate Nuclear Weapons, and its US affiliate, the US Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons. - - To unsubscribe to abolition-usa, send an email to "majordomo@xmission.com" with "unsubscribe abolition-usa" in the body of the message. For information on digests or retrieving files and old messages send "help" to the same address. Do not use quotes in your message. ------------------------------ End of abolition-usa-digest V1 #332 *********************************** - To unsubscribe to $LIST, send an email to "majordomo@xmission.com" with "unsubscribe $LIST" in the body of the message. For information on digests or retrieving files and old messages send "help" to the same address. Do not use quotes in your message.