The AI Doomsday Machine Is Closer to Reality Than You Think
“Most troubling to experts on AI and nuclear weapons is that it’s getting harder and harder to keep decisions about targeting and escalation for nuclear weapons separate from decisions about conventional weapons.”
“There is no standing guidance, as far as we can tell, inside the Pentagon on whether and how AI should or should not be integrated into nuclear command and control and communications,” says Jon Wolfsthal, director of global risk at the Federation of American Scientists.
By Michael Hirsh | September 2, 2025 politico.com
Jacquelyn Schneider saw a disturbing pattern, and she didn’t know what to make of it.
Last year Schneider, director of the Hoover Wargaming and Crisis Simulation Initiative at Stanford University, began experimenting with war games that gave the latest generation of artificial intelligence the role of strategic decision-makers. In the games, five off-the-shelf large language models or LLMs — OpenAI’s GPT-3.5, GPT-4, and GPT-4-Base; Anthropic’s Claude 2; and Meta’s Llama-2 Chat — were confronted with fictional crisis situations that resembled Russia’s invasion of Ukraine or China’s threat to Taiwan.
Director Kathryn Bigelow is Sounding the Nuclear Alarm – Washington Post New Review
“A House of Dynamite” asks: How would the White House respond in the face of a nuclear attack?
Max Boot | October 2, 2025 washingtonpost.com
VIEW MORE: “A House Of Dynamite” Q&A w/ Director Kathryn Bigelow, Tracy Letts, Jared Harris, And More At New York Film Fest —
80th Commemorations of Ban the Bomb – Trinity, Hiroshima & Nagasaki Remembrances in New Mexico
Exchange Monitor: DNFSB makes agency fixes, but needs members, GAO finds
The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) has tackled all but a few third-party recommendations to improve its culture over the past decade but suffers from a depleted board, according to a new report.
| September 5, 2025 santafenewmexican.com
Progress is tough with the five-person board probably…
China Hardens Military Stance Against U.S. With Nuclear Weapons and Tough Talk
Xi positions Beijing as powerful center of new global order as security forum convenes in capital
BEIJING—China played down its rapidly rising military might for years. In the past few weeks, Beijing has broadcast a steady drumbeat of firepower displays and muscular rhetoric, carrying an unmistakable warning for the U.S….
Saudi Arabia signs a mutual defense pact with nuclear-armed Pakistan after Israel’s attack on Qatar
While not specifically discussing the bomb, the agreement states “any aggression against either country shall be considered an aggression against both,” according to statements issued by both Pakistan’s Foreign Affairs Ministry and the state-run Saudi Press Agency.
| September 18, 2025 apnews.com
ISLAMABAD (AP) — Saudi Arabia and nuclear-armed Pakistan have signed a mutual defense pact that defines any attack on either nation as an attack on both — a key accord in the wake of Israel’s strike on Qatar last week.
The kingdom has long had close economic, religious and security ties to Pakistan, including reportedly providing funding for Islamabad’s nuclear weapons program as it developed. Analysts — and Pakistani diplomats in at least one case — have suggested over the years that Saudi Arabia could be included under Islamabad’s nuclear umbrella, particularly as tensions have risen over Iran’s atomic program.
COMMUNITIES FOR CLEAN WATER: LANL Radioactive Tritium Venting Fails to Provide Transparency, Assurance, and Respect for Local Communities
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: September 18, 2025
Santa Fe, NM — As NNSA and LANL continue operations to depressurize Flanged Tritium Waste Containers, Communities for Clean Water (CCW) calls out federal agencies for issuing vague assurances instead of transparent, verifiable data — and for dismissing community concerns with contradictory and incomplete statements that disregard what independent experts have found, the Department of Energy’s (DOE) own legal obligations, and the New Mexico Environment Department’s (NMED) acknowledgment that LANL has a long record of compliance failures.
“How can our communities be expected to trust LANL when they won’t give us access to the raw, real-time monitoring data – independently verified by the EPA,” asks Joni Arends with Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety. “Without this transparency, LANL is continuing a legacy of empty assurances, not accountability.”
Key Concerns:
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Lack of real-time transparency – Since Friday (Sept. 12), the public has been forced to rely on NMED’s Facebook page for piecemeal updates. While LANL’s website provides very brief daily summaries, no near-real-time monitoring dashboard from DOE, NNSA, or LANL has been made available.
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Vague assurances, not real information – NNSA’s updates claim “no tritium was released” while simultaneously telling the public to expect “very low levels of tritium” for subsequent venting. Without numbers, monitoring data, or detection thresholds, these phrases do not provide reassurance.
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Weather risks – LANL has not disclosed thresholds for wind, rain, or humidity that would postpone venting. Communities watch weather shifts in real time but are left in the dark about how safety decisions are being made.
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Dismissal of public health concerns – When asked for plain-language guidance that NMED stated LANL would provide, LANL responded only with “no offsite impact anticipated.” This is not meaningful and reassuring guidance, it’s a blanket dismissal that disregards independent expert findings and fails to meet DOE’s obligations to protect vulnerable populations.
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Ignoring daily lifeways – Avoiding Pueblo Feast Days is not enough. This is harvest season, when outdoor cultural events, youth programs, and farming are in full swing. LANL’s scheduling continues to disregard these realities.
Unanswered Questions
Independent experts and community advocates have raised critical unanswered questions:
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Unclear “depressurization” – LANL said “no internal pressure was found” in a container, but also claimed it was “depressurized.” If no pressure existed, what was released?
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Unanswered helium questions – NMED stated helium was released, but LANL has not explained its origin. Was it introduced at sealing of the outer container, or a decay product of tritium?
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Monitoring limits undisclosed – LANL has not disclosed the detection limits of its monitoring equipment. Readings “indistinguishable from zero” could still mask releases.
DOE NNSA Gives Misleading Statements on Native America Calling
On a recent Native America Calling program, DOE NNSA’s Los Alamos Field Office Deputy Director Pat Moss compared LANL venting to global natural tritium stocks. Independent expert Dr. Arjun Makhijani pointed out this comparison as misleading: “The problem is not global background, but local contamination. If venting occurs in rain and calm winds, local rainfall could exceed U.S. drinking water standards by hundreds to thousands of times.”
In their most recent public meeting, LANL admitted that infants could receive three times the radiation dose as adults. During the interview, Dr. Makhijani pressed this point – if adults are modeled at 6 mrem, that means infants could be at 18 mrem, nearly double the EPA’s 10 mrem compliance limit. Instead of addressing this directly, Mr. Moss provided a stock line, “We will be compliant with the regulatorily imposed release threshold and will be doing the calculations per the regulation.”
That is exactly the problem – hiding behind regulatory caps while ignoring clear evidence that infants, our most vulnerable, face exposures above legal limits.
DOE NNSA also pointed to the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) – an independent federal oversight body created by Congress – as if it had declared the tritium venting operation as “fully protective of the public”. That is misleading. First, the DNFSB has been operating without a quorum for months, limiting its ability to issue independent recommendations. Second, what the Board staff said in its July 2025 presentation was that the overall nuclear safety risk to the public is low if DOE’s proposed controls are followed. The DNFSB has also flagged ongoing safety concerns at LANL including deficiencies in Area G’s safety analysis and risk to workers.
First of four containers of tritium waste at LANL has been vented
The first of four flanged tritium waste containers awaiting removal from Los Alamos National Laboratory has been vented, the New Mexico Environment Department announced Tuesday afternoon.
| September 16, 2025 santafenewmexican.com
The container can now be moved for treatment at LANL and then, eventually, to an off-site disposal area.
No internal pressure was found in the first container, according to the National Nuclear Security Administration, suggesting the inner containers in the flanged tritium waste container hadn’t leaked. Air monitoring did not show an increase of tritium beyond background levels, the federal agency wrote.
No tritium emissions were released, the Environment Department wrote in its Tuesday post on X, formerly Twitter. Both the state agency and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency are monitoring the process.
The depressurization of the containers is set to continue at 7 a.m. Wednesday, although the NNSA noted the schedule is subject to change due to weather. The four containers will be vented one at a time over an estimated two-week period.
*The featured image differs from the article photo due to usage rights.
New Mexicans Can Save the DNFSB; Contact Our Senators Today
From our friends at Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety:
The independent Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board has been dwindling from a five-member board to one member and may disappear if we, the People, do not raise our voices to support its essential nuclear safety work. The Safety Board needs at least two new members. And that needs to get done by Saturday, October 18th. https://www.dnfsb.gov/about
New Mexico U.S. Senators Heinrich and Lujan have key roles to play to ensure the Safety Board’s work continues unimpeded. https://www.heinrich.senate.gov/ and https://www.lujan.senate.gov/ Our voices of support are essential to ensure communities continue to receive the essential services of the Safety Board and its staff.
Right now members of the Safety Board’s staff are monitoring the venting of radioactive tritium from Area G at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). Their expertise in the field of nuclear safety and their demonstrated competence and knowledge relevant to their independent investigative and oversight functions are an essential part of the process. They will be part of the follow-up once the venting of the four flanged tritium waste containers is completed. https://tewawomenunited.org/?s=tritium, https://www.ccwnewmexico.org/tritium, https://nuclearactive.org/
Not only does the Safety Board have staff at LANL, but also at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque and at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, the burial site for plutonium contaminated nuclear weapons waste, near Carlsbad. https://ananuclear.org/facilities/
Russia suspected of helping North Korea build nuclear submarines, Seoul investigating
Analysts said such a technology transfer was plausible given Pyongyang’s support for Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine
South Korea is investigating reports that Russia has supplied North Korea with nuclear submarine reactor modules, a move analysts see as highly plausible and one that could mark a breakthrough in Pyongyang’s decades-long push for a nuclear powered navy…
Holy See tells nations at UN to end threat of nuclear weapons, even as deterrence
Amid a global arms race, ending the threat of nuclear war — and even the testing of nuclear weapons — is imperative, said the Holy See’s diplomat to the United Nations.
By OSV News | September 8, 2025 catholicreview.org
Archbishop Gabriele G. Caccia, the Holy See’s U.N. permanent observer, shared his thoughts in a statement he delivered Sept. 4 at U.N. headquarters in New York, during the General Assembly High-level Plenary Meeting to Commemorate and Promote the International Day Against Nuclear Tests, observed that same day.
“The pursuit of a world free of nuclear weapons is not only a matter of strategic and vital necessity, but also a profound moral responsibility,” Archbishop Caccia in his remarks.
He pointed to the introduction of nuclear weapons — first detonated by the U.S. in 1945 over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing an estimated 110,000 to 210,000 people, during World War II — as unveiling to the world “an unprecedented destructive force.”
Historic peace vigil partially dismantled after Trump orders: ‘Take it down’
Law enforcement officials on Sunday removed parts of the White House Peace Vigil, which has sat just outside the White House for decades.
By Marissa J. Lang, The Washington Post | September 8, 2025 washingtonpost.com
But over the past week, it faced a new threat as Trump turned his attention to the vigil and federal officers picked apart the structure that shields protesters and their signs from the elements. The vigil is maintained by a rotating cast of volunteers who keep the protest going 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
On Friday, Brian Glenn, a correspondent for the conservative network Real America’s Voice, told the president during a gathering with reporters that there was “a blue tent” in front of the White House that was “an eyesore.” Trump initially said he was unaware of it, but he then quickly ordered its removal.
Photo by Sig. Chiocciola, Creative Commons: The White House Peace Vigil on March 30, 2025 staffed by volunteers, Philipos Melaku-Bello (left) and Joe Brown (right).
For 80 years, nuclear weapons have been the unused threat
Amid a global arms race, ending the threat of nuclear war — and even the testing of nuclear weapons — is imperative, said the Holy See’s diplomat to the United Nations.
By Matt Kelly, mkelly@virginia.edu, September 3, 2025 news.virginia.edu
In the 80 years since World War II, which ended with the use of two atomic bombs, the world has maintained a tenuous relationship with nuclear weapons.
Philip Potter, professor of public policy at the University of Virginia’s Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy and director of the National Security Data and Policy Institute, said he worries about the current delicate nuclear balance.
“Eighty years of non-use is the product of both good diplomacy and a recognition of the potential consequences,” Potter said. “The fearsome power of nuclear weapons causes countries pause before they use them, but a great deal of work has also gone into nonproliferation and the management of crises to keep them away from the nuclear brink. In some ways the dynamics of the Cold War made managing the potential for nuclear confrontation easier.”
It’s a very different strategic scenario now, where there are nine nuclear powers and less capacity to manage them.
A House of Dynamite review – Kathryn Bigelow’s nuclear endgame thriller is a terrifying, white-knuckle comeback
★★★★★: Amid a global arms race, ending the threat of nuclear war — and even the testing of nuclear weapons — is imperative, said the Holy See’s diplomat to the United Nations.
By Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian | September 2, 2025 theguardian.com
Kathryn Bigelow has reopened the subject that we all tacitly agree not to discuss or imagine, in the movies or anywhere else: the subject of an actual nuclear strike. It’s the subject which tests narrative forms and thinkability levels.
Maybe this is why we prefer to see it as something for absurdism and satire – a way of not staring into the sun – to remember Kubrick’s (brilliant) black comedy Dr Strangelove, with no fighting in the war room etc, rather than Lumet’s deadly serious Fail Safe.
NEW UPDATED INFORMATION: MUST READ!!! PROVIDED BY: THE TULAROSA BASIN DOWNWINDERS CONSORTIUM — WHAT TO KNOW ABOUT THE COMPENSATION AVAILABLE THROUGH THE RECA PROGRAM
SEEKING JUSTICE FOR THE UNKNOWING, UNWILLING, AND UNCOMPENSATED INNOCENT VICTIMS OF THE JULY 16, 1945 TRINITY BOMB
A Message From Tina
The DOJ is now accepting claims and has provided guidance on the claims process. They will only accept mail in claims at this time. They have indicated that an electronic process will be implemented by the end of the year. For more information you can go to the DOJ website at: https://www.justice.gov/civil/reca
Please be careful when supplying documentation via the regular mail. If you decide to file this way you may want to send the documents via certified mail. Once the electronic process begins it will be easier to assure that your documents are safe and being handled properly with little to no risk.
There are organizations/attorneys who are soliciting people to file claims with them. They use all sorts of tactics to get people to believe their services are necessary and often guarantee results. Please be aware that if an entity files a RECA claim on your behalf they will charge a fee. They receive the check, deduct their fee, and then pay you.
There will be Radiation Exposure Screening and Education Program (RESEP) clinics in our State that will assist people with claims. The claims process is not necessarily difficult and we’ll be training people to assist with the application process when needed. We’ll also be looking to government agencies to cooperate in locating necessary documentation for the application process. PLEASE DO NOT TURN OVER YOUR RECORDS TO ANYONE THAT YOU ARE NOT SURE ABOUT. You can remain updated about the application process, the training we’re going to organize or other questions you might have by going to our website at: www.trinitydownwinders.com
What does the expansion of RECA do?
The Radiation Exposure Compensation Act program has been re-authorized and extended through Dec 31, 2028 but the application deadline is Dec 31, 2027.
Downwinders who lived in New Mexico for one year from 1944 through Nov. 1962 will be eligible and family members can apply on behalf of a deceased loved one.
There are 19 cancers that are covered by the expansion.
The cancers covered are:
Leukemia (except chronic lymphocytic Leukemia); Lymphoma (other than Hodgkins); Primary cancers of the Thyroid, Breast, Esophagus, Stomach, Pharynx, Small Intestine, Pancreas, Bile Duct, Gall Bladder, Salivary Gland, Urinary, Bladder, Brain, Colon, Ovary, Liver (unless cirrhosis/Hepatitis B present), and Lung.
Compensation for downwinders will be increased to $100,000 and Downwind coverage is expanded to cover the entire state of New Mexico
Coverage for uranium miners and workers would be expanded:
To workers through Dec 31, 1990
To core drillers and remediation workers
To cover additional kidney disease for uranium miners
To allow for combined work histories
What does this mean?
This is the biggest expansion of RECA in the history of the program and it wouldn’t have happened without the tireless advocacy of Senator Lujan, Representative Leger Fernandez, Senator Heinrich, Representative Stansbury and Representative Vasquez.
While it is a significant win, it still leaves out many impacted communities, including the parts of Nevada and Arizona not previously covered, along with Montana, Colorado, and Guam.
The 2-year extension will likely not be adequate time to get all the people in New Mexico who qualify enrolled and this bill does not have health care benefits for Downwinders. We will continue to fight for a longer extension and the addition of healthcare benefits. This is an important first step because it reinstates the program keeping it operational so people can continue to apply for benefits and get the help they need, and it shows that expansion is possible and provides an opportunity to address concerns raised about the cost of expansion.
We are grateful for the win and consider this a big step in the right direction. We look forward to the day that claims are successfully filed and the people of New Mexico begin to see the benefit of the expansion of RECA. Stay tuned for updates and many thanks to all of you who have stood together with us in this fight!Continue reading
Threads cast and crew suffered ‘trauma’ after film
The creators of a documentary about the making of nuclear apocalypse film Threads say many of the cast and crew had “suffered with the trauma of being involved”.
By Chloe Aslett, BBC News | August 29, 2025 bbc.com
Threads, which tracks the aftermath of a nuclear attack on Sheffield, was first screened on the BBC on 23 September 1984 and fast became a cult classic.
Now filmmakers Craig Ian Mann and Rob Nevitt have spoken to more than 50 people involved in the making of the film for their documentary Survivors: The Spectre of Threads.
Mr Mann said: “[Threads] is a film that more than any I can think of everybody who worked on it it has impacted their lives in some way or another. Sometimes very positively and sometimes somewhat negatively.”
“There are people who have suffered the trauma of having been in and seen Threads,” he told BBC Radio Sheffield.
“There’s one participant in the documentary who has become a Doomsday prepper.
“He lives in America and has a bunker and canned food and weapons and he is prepared for the end of the world at any moment and that’s because he was in and saw Threads.”
Trump wants to stop nuclear proliferation. STRATCOM could play a major role.
Henry Sokolski, executive director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center, argues that the US needs to carry a new “big stick.”
By Henry Sokolski, Breaking Defense | August 29, 2025 breakingdefense.com
Last Monday, President Donald Trump pronounced, “We can’t let nuclear weapons proliferate.” Two days later, Secretary of State Rubio met with International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi and recommitted the United States to preventing the proliferation of nuclear weapons.
After America’s bombing of Iran’s suspect nuclear sites, there’s cause to take these commitments seriously, but only if it’s more than a one off.
Emphasizing consistency is essential. Historically, America has backed nonproliferation in fits and starts. Under Presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter, the United States opposed the recycling of plutonium for commercial use because it was too close to bombmaking. It blocked reprocessing activities in South Korea, Taiwan, and Brazil.
Full Event Recording: Press Conference & Commemoration – Hiroshima Atomic Bombing 80th Anniversary Event (August 6, 2025)
DOE and LANL Silence Public and Tribal Community Member Voices While Pushing Radioactive Tritium Venting
For Immediate Release: August 22, 2025
Contact: Kalyn Mae Finnell, Coordinator, Communities for Clean Water
Los Alamos, NM — This week’s so-called “public meeting” regarding Los Alamos National Laboratory’s (LANL) proposal to vent radioactive tritium emphasized the persistence of the Department of Energy (DOE) National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) and LANL to disregard communities concerns while prioritizing nuclear weapons projects.
In-person attendees were allotted three minutes to make statements about their concerns. Over 100 online participants—including many Pueblo community members who could not attend the meeting in Los Alamos in-person due to health, distance, or work commitments—were surprised to find that they were not permitted to provide verbal comments and restricted to submitting only one emailed question. DOE/NNSA and LANL gave no prior notice of this change. “This is not meaningful participation. It is exclusion,” said Marissa Naranjo with Honor Our Pueblo Existence.
The stakes are at an all time high. Tritium — produced in the development of nuclear weapons as triated water — is a radioactive isotope of hydrogen that travels quickly through air, water, soil, and food. When exposed to the human body, it can cause cancer, genetic damage, cross the placental barrier, and cause health impacts across generations. DOE/NNSA insists venting is the sole safe option moving forward—however, their own “independent” technical review revealed significant issues with this assertion. The review acknowledged significant deficiencies: the absence of real-time monitoring, a lack of container-specific risk analysis, and insufficient examination of safer alternatives such as filtration or storage until decay occurs. Community members are also asking: How can a review be independent when DOE managed the process, designated the reviewer, and defined the scope? This does not represent independence—it signifies a conflict of interest.
“This is the same broken pattern we’ve seen for decades,” said Joni Arends with Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety. “LANL creates the danger, then tells us radioactive releases are our only option. They force the public and Pueblo communities into what NMED itself has called ‘untenable situations.'”
Local community leaders also noted that DOE has consistently overlooked reports by Tewa Women United, Communities for Clean Water, and scientific experts regarding the risks associated with tritium. These technical reports documented exposure pathways unique to Pueblo communities, including impacts on women, children, and traditional farming lifeways. By sidelining this research, DOE has once again dismissed Indigenous voices and lived experiences—further diminishing trust and perpetuating environmental racism.
“If our gathering here today is to mean anything, it must mean that in fidelity to all those whose lives were destroyed or savagely damaged on August 6, 80 years ago, we refuse to live in such a world of nuclear proliferation and risk-taking. We will resist, we will organize, we will pray, we will not cease, until the world’s nuclear arsenals have been destroyed.”
— Cardinal Bob McElroy of Washington, DC, August 5, 2025, at the World Peace Memorial Cathedral in Hiroshima, Japan.
Nuclear Weapons Issues & The Accelerating Arms Race: August 2025
Nuclear Weapons Budget:
• NNSA’s detailed budget was finally released, the latest ever. $2.8 billion is for “plutonium modernization” (i.e., pit production) projects, of which $1.8 billion for LANL. The Lab’s nuclear weapons programs are having a full billion dollars added to them for FY 2026 (which begins this October 1) on top of the $4 billion they already have. The Lab’s $6 billion FY 2026 budget is now 84% nuclear weapons. Meanwhile cleanup and nonproliferation programs are being cut by 5% and renewable energy research completely eliminated.
• Over for the next four years the “reconciliation” bill adds another $750 million for plutonium modernization (mostly at SRS) and $1 billion “to accelerate the construction of National Nuclear Security Administration facilities.”Continue reading
August 6th U.S. Atomic Bombing of Hiroshima Commemoration in Santa Fe
Nobel Peace Conference: A Message to Humanity – Featuring a Video with Nuclear Watch New Mexico on Our Plutonium Pit Federal Lawsuit to Show What Citizen Action on the Legal Front Can Accomplish for Nuclear Disarmament
The video above shows the entire conference (but begins playing at our portion); to view our video alone on YouTube CLICK HERE or watch below!
Santa Fe New Mexican MY VIEW – 80 years on: The immorality of nuclear weapons
By John C. Wester, SANTA FE NEW MEXICAN | August 5, 2024 santafenewmexican.com
Greetings New Mexicans. The lord’s blessings upon you. I am writing to you from Hiroshima, Japan, on the 80th anniversary of its horrific atomic bombing. All wars are against Christ’s teachings. Two wrongs (including Japanese atrocities in World War II) never make a right.
I am here with Cardinal Blase Cupich of Chicago, Cardinal Robert McElroy of Washington, D.C., Archbishop Paul Etienne of Seattle and our brother Japanese bishops to commemorate the dead and to honor the living Hibakusha (the aging atomic survivors). We especially congratulate the Hibakusha organization, Nihon Hidankyo, for winning the 2024 Nobel Peace Prize.Continue reading
‘End the nuclear cycle’: Antinuclear New Mexicans speak out 80 years after Hiroshima bombing
Organized by Nuclear Watch New Mexico, the event featured speakers from the international campaign — which won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2017 — the Back from the Brink New Mexico Hub and the Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium, a group that advocates for “downwinders” in New Mexico who say they were sickened by fallout from the 1945 Trinity Test southeast of Socorro.
By Cormac Dodd cdodd@sfnewmexican.com, The Santa Fe New Mexican | August 6, 2025 santafenewmexican.com
The face of Archbishop John C. Wester played over the screen as the Catholic leader, on the same day surreal moments of horror unfolded during the bombing of Hiroshima 80 years ago, pleaded for nuclear disarmament.
“Do we pull back from the brink and choose life, or do we continue to play with fire, hoping our luck will hold out?” the leader of the Archdiocese of Santa Fe said in a video, recently recorded before he traveled to Japan with a delegation of U.S. bishops.
Wester has made antinuclear advocacy a central part of his tenure since he was appointed to the post in 2015. A group of about 50 people entered the Center for Progress and Justice on Cerrillos Road on Wednesday evening to commemorate the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki toward the end of World War II.
New Mexico reckons with its role in Japan’s atomic devastation on 80th anniversary of Hiroshima
At a Wednesday evening event organized by Nuclear Watch New Mexico, Archbishop John C. Wester of the Archdiocese of Santa Fe, long an outspoken advocate of nuclear disarmament, is set to celebrate Mass in Japan for victims with some other U.S. Catholic bishops and will participate in commemoration services. The event will be played by video at an event in Santa Fe.
By Cormac Dodd cdodd@sfnewmexican.com, The Santa Fe New Mexican | August 5, 2025 santafenewmexican.com
Wesley Burris remembers waking to a morning of potent, white light and panic as the planet’s first atomic bomb went off in a test in the Jornada del Muerto desert near his family’s Southern New Mexico home in July 1945.
He does not recall, however, hearing the news from Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan over the radio just weeks later. In fact, because the U.S. government did not tell his family what it was they saw that July, it was years before Burris realized how the Trinity Test he witnessed as a child served as a prelude to the world-altering bombings of Japan on Aug. 6 and Aug. 9, 1945.
Eighty years ago, the U.S. dropped a nuclear bomb on Hiroshima near the end of World War II, unleashing immediate death on a sweeping scale and rendering vast corridors in the southwestern Japanese city charred and fragmented, with buildings reduced to rubble with harrowing speed.
Santa Fe Archbishop Wester on RECA, Nuclear Weapons
80 years after nuclear bomb tested in N.M., victims will get reparations
NBC News NOW, July 16, 2025, nbcnewsnow.com
Trinity “downwinders” of New Mexico exposed to the first ever nuclear explosion are receiving recognition and compensation 80 years after the bomb was tested. NBC News’ Aaron Gilchrest spoke with several people who shared their sacrifice and suffering over the years.
An appreciation of Bob Alvarez, a fearless advocate for those harmed by the US nuclear weapons complex
By Michael Slater – The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists| July 10, 2025, thebulletin.org
SEE ALSO: THIS WONDERFUL TRIBUTE TO BOB ALVAREZ FROM BEYOND NUCLEAR & OTHERS: https://beyondnuclear.org/bob-alvarez-presente/
And view the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability’s Lifetime Achievement Awared given to Bob in 2022: https://ananuclear.org/bob-alvarez/
Nuclear Weapons Issues & The Accelerating Arms Race: June/July 2025
Nuclear Weapons Budget:
• The just passed “reconciliation” bill and Trump’s proposed FY 2026 budget are reverse Robin Hood iniatives, robbing from the poor to give to the rich. While Medicaid is gutted, there are huge tax breaks for the ultra-wealthy and a big bump up for nuclear weapons.
• The following is from the DC-based Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation (https://armscontrolcenter.org/fiscal-year-2026-defense-budget-request-briefing-book/):
Note: the + or – signs result from the “reconciliation” bill.
• Radiation Exposure Compensation Act: Sen. Josh Hawley of MO got RECA extension and expansion attached to the bill, which is really something. Tina Cordova of the Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium has acknowledged that many deserving people have still been left out. See more: https://www.santafenewmexican.com/news/local_news/new-mexico-downwinders-celebrate-bittersweet-victory-in-trumps-big-beautiful-bill/article_9dc4ae5e-d4d0-4689-a255-a83576076963.html Finally, it is good for only two years because it was part of budget “reconciliation” that is supposed to deal only with funding matters (hence is limited to this 2-year term of Congress). We will continue to fight to get RECA permanently extended and expanded.
Nuclear Weapons Update:
The manufacture of new pits has more to do, as per the last Nuclear Posture Review (NPR), with preserving and “modernizing” the infrastructure than it does with the warheads themselves. This is in essence a huge continuing program of institutional preservation that guarantees large inflows of taxpayer dollars and corporate profits.
Further, we are talking about W87-1 pits for the new Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile, which is already 80% over budget before the Air Force admitted it had to build new silos. Moreover, the reported production of ~800 plutonium pits when there are only to be 400 fielded Sentinels may lead to the uploading of multiple warheads per missile (AKA MIRVing for Multiple Independently-targeted Reentry Vehicles). This is regarded as deeply destabilizing since land-based ICBMs are known fixed targets which encourage pre-emptive strikes and/or use them or lose them scenarios.
Accelerating Arms Race
• The U.S. bombed Iranian hardened, deeply buried uranium enrichment sites with B2s carrying 30,000 lb. conventional bunker busters (32 hours roundtrip from Whiteman AFB in Missouri). The U.S. has rushed produced nuclear B61-13s for this kind of job.
Planned Nuclear Weapons Activities Increase to 84% of Lab’s Budget; All Other Programs Cut
The Department of Energy and Los Alamos National Laboratory have released the LANL congressional budget request for the upcoming fiscal year, 2026, which begins on October 1, 2025. The request shows a continued major increase and expansion of the plutonium pit production program (plutonium pits are the triggers of nuclear weapons). LANL is frantically trying to increase its capabilities to begin making 30 pits per year by 2028.
NukeWatch created the attached chart to give a visual of how taxpayer dollars are annually spent at the Lab. LANL’s FY 2026 total budget request is $6 billion, which is a 17% increase over the FY 2025 $5.2 billion total budget. This includes a 24% increase in the nuclear weapons budget over FY 2025.
Nuclear Weapons Activities represent 84% of LANL’s total budget.
Under the headline of “Unleashing a Golden Era of Energy Dominance and Energy Innovation and Protecting the Nation,” the nuclear weapons budget is increasing dramatically. As a baseline, 65% of the Department’s proposed $46 billion budget is earmarked for its semi-autonomous nuclear weapons agency, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA). In turn, more than 80% of NNSA’s proposed FY 2026 funding is for its nuclear weapons research and production programs, with a 25% funding increase over FY 2025.
Due to so-called “reconciliation” funding, “Total Weapons Activities” increase to just under $30 billion. This adds up to a 53% increase above FY 2025 for the nuclear weapons research and production programs across the country. To help pay for this, national nonproliferation and cleanup programs are being cut by 5%, science by 14%, cybersecurity and emergency response by 25%, and energy efficiency and renewable energy programs by 74%.
NukeWatch in DC Lobbying for Nuclear Disarmament and Non-Proliferation
Your Nuclear Watch New Mexico team has just returned from a weeklong trip to Washington D.C. (we went so you don’t have to!). The Alliance for Nuclear Accountability (ANA) hosts an annual “DC Days” conference and following Spring Meeting, and we proudly joined as part of a record number of groups this year. Over 60 individuals from 30+ organizations journeyed to DC to lobby congress on nuclear weapons, energy, and waste policy on behalf of the frontline nuclear communities we represent. Members were present from groups representing the entire U.S. nuclear complex, including sites in Georgia, New Mexico, Tennessee, California, Missouri, Colorado, Idaho, Nevada and beyond. NukeWatch NM brought all three staff members—Jay Coghlan, Scott Kovac, and Sophia Stroud (whose participation was made possible by a youth scholarship from ANA)—to participate in DC Days and the subsequent two-day spring meeting. The ANA DC Days schedule included over 70 meetings with senators, representatives, and other relevant agencies, such as the Department of Energy, the Government Accountability Office, and the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board. Our NukeWatch team attended nearly 30 of these meetings. The Alliance for Nuclear Accountability put together a new report to present our “asks” to congress as a coalition, including analysis and recommendations for nuclear weapons, nuclear waste, and nuclear energy policy and funding. Please click HERE for the full report, and HERE for a short summary.
I was glad to see increased representation from Nevada this year, and especially Indigenous representation. In light of the current administration’s attacks on Environmental Justice, it is more important than ever that ANA as a whole, as well as individual member groups, continue to prioritize uplifting Native American voices, not only because of their deep cultural, spiritual, and social connections to the land, including sacred sites and traditional knowledge essential to religious freedom and access, but also because of the violent legacy and ongoing reality of nuclear colonialism, in which Indigenous lands and peoples have been deliberately and disproportionately targeted in the nuclear industry with uranium mining, nuclear weapons testing and production, and the disposal of radioactive waste. To learn more about Nuclear Colonialism, see: www.networkadvocates.org/downwinders and read Nuclear Nuevo México: Colonialism and the Effects of the Nuclear Industrial Complex on Nuevomexicanos by Myrriah Gómez.
THE ATOMIC BOWL: Football at Ground Zero —and Nuclear Peril Today
First prize, Best Documentary Feature, International Uranium Film Festival, Rio de Janiero
Coming to PBS in July 2025. (53-minute and 27-minute versions).
There have been numerous films on The Bomb, even one or two about Nagasaki, but “The Atomic Bowl: Football at Ground Zero — and Nuclear Peril Today” is unique, and with many lessons and warnings for today–as nuclear dangers proliferate and civilian casualties in wars climb even higher.
This football showdown featured college and pro stars, on January 1, 1946, and in (of all places) Nagasaki, near ground zero for the second atomic bomb, which killed over 80,000 just a few weeks earlier. The film, narrated by Peter Coyote, is not only the first full first-hand account of the game, but a provocative and disturbing story of the decision to drop a second atomic bomb just three days after Hiroshima–and the dangerous message to today’s leaders. Nearly all of the victims of the “forgotten bomb” were women and children and other civilians.
This important film, which includes rare footage and dozens of never published photographs, then offers a convincing argument about the relevance of Nagasaki today as mass civilian casualties in wars surge and nuclear dangers by all estimates grow every year.
Its writer and director Greg Mitchell has been one of the world’s leading authorities on the atomic bombings for several decades, and his recent film, “Atomic Cover-up,” won several awards, including the top prize from the Organization of American Historians and was aired via PBS. His two other recent films, “The First Attack Ads” and the award-winning “Memorial Day Massacre,” also earned PBS distribution (as well as Emmy nods), and like “The Atomic Bowl” were produced by Academy Award nominee Lyn Goldfarb.
Victory! Proposed Tritium Venting by LANL Halted for Now Due to Community Pressure
Proposed Tritium Venting by Los Alamos National Lab Postponed Indefinitely after Community Pressure
THANK YOU to the over 2,500 of you who signed our Petition to Deny LANL’s Request to Release Radioactive Tritium into the Air!
A massive thank you as well to our fellow campaigners we worked alongside on this issue, Tewa Women United and Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety, and of course thank you as well to NMED Secretary Kenney for listening to our community.
From Tewa Women United:
Beloved Community, we have some really good news!
Our Environmental Justice team has finally received the response from the New Mexico Environmental Department regarding the LANL/DOE/NNSA request for temporary authorization to begin venting tritium this summer. The short story: **Secretary Kenney (NMED) says that NMED will not act on the temporary authorization request** until the following criteria is met:
1. independent technical review
2. public meeting
3. tribal consultation (in addition to NMED tribal consultation)
4. compliance audit
These criteria must be met and LANL/DOE/NNSA must submit an updated request before NMED will revisit and make a decision.
TELEVISION EVENT Trailer
Television Event is a documentary that follows the dramatic (and sometimes humorous) making and impact of the film The Day After. The 1983 film played a pivotal role in shifting public consciousness around nuclear weapons and, ultimately, President Reagan’s policies. It’s a reminder on the power of art and storytelling to create meaningful change.
The documentary was also reviewed in The New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/30/movies/the-day-after-documentary-television-event.html
More:
In 2023 a book was publishedd about the making of “The Day After”, read the review in Arms Control Today: https://www.armscontrol.org/act/2024-03/book-reviews/apocalypse-television-how-day-after-helped-end-cold-war
As well as: “‘The Day After’: The Arms Control Association’s Forgotten Role.” <https://www.armscontrol.org/act/2019-03/features/day-after-arms-control-associations-forgotten-role> It is a reminder that a few people can, with some luck and good timing, put big things into motion.
Full Recording: Second Scoping Hearing for NNSA’s Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement on Plutonium Pit Production
Operation Crossroads: “The World’s First Nuclear Disaster”
“With Trump back in office, the recurring question of the need for nuclear weapons testing has resurfaced in the national security debate. Project 2025’s directive that the US return to ‘immediate test readiness’ raises further alarm, given the primacy of that document in Trump’s circle. The general uncertainty around current U.S. nuclear posture gives added weight to the historical importance of the atmospheric and underwater nuclear weapons tests conducted on the Bikini Atoll, recounted here by one of the leading advocates for public safety in the nuclear age. —Ed.”
By Robert Alvarez | Washington Spectator, National Security | May 29, 2025, washingtonspectator.com
Beginning in the late 1970’s, I was working for the Environmental Policy Institute around the time when atomic veterans started to descend on the nation’s capital. I would arrange meetings with Congressional offices, and the offices of both the Defense Nuclear Agency and Veterans Affairs, to enable the veterans to share their experiences and seek justice for being sent in harm’s way. About 250,000 soldiers, sailors, Marines, Coast Guard men, and airmen took part in atmospheric nuclear weapons tests from 1945 to 1963.
John Smitherman and Anthony Guarisco were 17- and 18-year-old sailors, respectively, in July of 1946, when they took part in “Operation Crossroads”—the first two nuclear weapons tests following World War II. These tests were conducted on the Bikini Atoll of the Marshall Islands and codenamed “Able” and “Baker.”
As a result of this extraordinary indifference to lethal danger, some 200 U.S. Navy ships were contaminated, and ships carrying radioactive fallout subsequently sailed to home ports in California. These ports are still being cleaned up today, nearly 80 years later. Glenn Seaborg, the chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission from 1961 to 1971, described the Baker test as “the world’s first nuclear disaster.”
Anthony and John were part of the U.S. Navy’s Pacific fleet involving 40,000 service men and 2,000 civilians. They along with others swam in the heavily contaminated Bikini Lagoon. When I met them in 1980, John was suffering from lymphatic cancer and Anthony from a severe form of spinal arthritis.
In March 1983, Anthony and his wife Mary showed up at my cluttered office and ceremoniously handed me a large stack of documents. They had just visited the UCLA library in Los Angeles and found boxes of forgotten, declassified documents belonging to Dr. Stafford Warren, the chief safety officer during both the Manhattan Project and the 1946 Crossroads tests.
Full Recording: First Scoping Hearing for NNSA’s Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement on Plutonium Pit Production
NEW Report on Plutonium Pit Production from the Union of Concerned Scientists
Today, UCS is releasing a comprehensive report on plutonium pit production. It includes a technical assessment of plutonium aging, a critical look at the weapons programs that new pits are slated for, and suggestions for alternatives, including pit re-use.
The final chapter of the study is on the human and environmental impacts of pit production and is intended as a tool for local advocacy groups to deepen their own work around issues such as the programmatic environmental impact survey that has just kicked off.
Links to the report:
https://www.ucs.org/resources/plutonium-pit-production
Spanish language executive summary:
https://es.ucs.org/recursos/la-produccion-de-nucleos-de-plutonio
Nuclear News Archive – 2022
SC Gov. McMaster objects to plutonium settlement and the $75 million in attorneys fees
BY JOHN MONK & SAMMY FRETWELL thestate.com
The day before South Carolina’s attorney general announced a settlement that will bring $600 million to the state and start the process of removing deadly plutonium stores, Gov. Henry McMaster said he couldn’t support paying private lawyers in the deal $75 million or waiting two decades for the waste to be gone.
In a letter to S.C. Attorney General Alan Wilson written Sunday, McMaster said the roughly $75 million in fees the state will pay four S.C. law firms that worked on the deal — orchestrated by Wilson, the state’s members of Congress and Trump administration lawyers — is grossly excessive for the work they did.
“I simply cannot endorse the payment of $75 million in attorneys’ fees under the circumstances,” McMaster, a former state attorney general, told Wilson in a letter written Sunday.
In his letter, McMaster also said Wilson’s settlement agreement doesn’t give enough assurances that the U.S. Department of Energy will remove the deadly plutonium from South Carolina “in a timely manner.” The plutonium is stored at the Savannah River Site.
SC settles lawsuit over plutonium waste for record $600M
“According to a release, under the terms of the settlement, the Dept. of Energy remains obligated to remove the plutonium by 2037.”
BY: Alexx Altman-Devilbiss | wpde.com
FILE – In this Sept. 29, 1994 file photo, a CSX Train with spent nuclear fuel passes through Florence, S.C., on its way to Savannah River Site Weapons Complex near Aiken S.C. Nevada and South Carolina are jostling for a home-field advantage of sorts in a federal court battle that could result in a metric ton of weapons-grade plutonium being stored 70 miles from Las Vegas. (Jeff Chatlosh/The Morning News via AP, File)COLUMBIA, S.C (WPDE) — Attorney General Alan Wilson Monday announced the federal government will pay South Carolina $600 million and clean up weapons-grade plutonium to end six years of litigation.
“This settlement is the single largest settlement in South Carolina’s history. It is important to me that the people of South Carolina know of our long-term commitment to preventing South Carolina from becoming a dumping ground for nuclear waste,” said Wilson. “Additionally, the more than half a billion dollars in settlement money could not come at a better time as our state government and economy work to overcome the revenue shortfalls caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. It has been a long, difficult road but I am proud of the leadership displayed by our state’s elected officials and the expertise of my legal team.”
Nuclear War Makes a Comeback
It’s time to revisit the old fear that kept your parents up at night
On websites where policymakers, scholars, and military leaders gather, concern about the possibility of nuclear war has been rising sharply in recent months as China, the United States, and Russia develop new weapons and new ways of using old ones.
On War on the Rocks, an online platform for national security articles and podcasts, Tong Zhao, a senior fellow at the Carnegie-Tsinghua Center for Global Policy, reported August 11 on public calls in China “to quickly and massively build up its nuclear forces” on the theory that only a “more robust nuclear posture” would prevent war with the United States.
The biggest nuclear arms budget ever is nearing approval in the US Congress, and the Trump administration has raised the possibility of resuming nuclear tests. President Trump has pulled the United States out of the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty with Russia, while the New Start Treaty capping Russian and US nuclear warheads and delivery systems is set to expire next February if the two countries don’t agree to extend it.
Vatican representative calls on U.S. to sign nuclear-test-ban treaty
“The treaty is a critically important step toward creating a world without nuclear weapons…Each of the remaining eight states should strongly back up its words in favor of peace by being the first to sign.”
BY: Cindy Wooden | catholicnews.com
Pope Francis delivers a message about nuclear weapons at Atomic Bomb Hypocenter Park in Nagasaki, Japan, Nov. 24, 2019. (CNS photo/Paul Haring)VATICAN CITY (CNS) — The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the absurdity of “pouring valuable resources into the maintenance of weapons of destruction while so many on this planet are struggling to survive,” a Vatican representative told a U.N. meeting to commemorate and promote the International Day Against Nuclear Tests.
It is impossible to make a moral case for continued nuclear weapon testing,” said Msgr. Fredrik Hansen, charge d’affaires at the Permanent Observer Mission of the Holy See to the United Nations.
“There should never be another nuclear test explosion,” he told the online meeting Aug. 26.
The United Nations has designated Aug. 29 as the International Day Against Nuclear Tests, and Msgr. Hansen used the occasion to call on China, Egypt, India, Iran, Israel, North Korea, Pakistan and the United States to ratify the 1996 Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty.
Smith and Menendez Statement on the Immense Costs of Allowing the New START Treaty to Expire
Already exorbitant nuclear weapons costs will only go up if the New START treaty expires.
“Extending the New START Treaty for a full five years is clearly the right financial and national security choice. America cannot afford a costly and dangerous nuclear arms race, particularly in the middle of our current economic, political, and health crises.”
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: August 26, 2020
Contact:
Smith: Monica Matoush // 202-226-5048
Menendez: Juan Pachon // 202-224-4130
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Representative Adam Smith (D-Wash.), Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, and Senator Bob Menendez (D-NJ), Ranking Member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, today issued the following statement after the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) published a new report regarding the potential costs of expanding U.S. strategic nuclear forces if the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) Expires:
“CBO’s nonpartisan report is clear: The Trump administration’s unwillingness to continue the decades of strategic arms control by failing to extend the New START Treaty is driving the United States toward a dangerous arms race, which we cannot afford. While this report only begins to account for the costs of the Administration’s preposterous claims that we can ‘spend the adversary into oblivion,’ it is further proof of why New START is essential to U.S. and international security.
Catholics Against Nukes: Archbishop Wester’s Hiroshima Vigil
As long as nuclear deterrence, that most unmeasured of strategies, remains, it keeps company with the prospect of use and annihilation. Coghlan, in his rebuke to the editors also penned in the Albuquerque Journal, gave an acid summation: “the US arsenal has always been about nuclear war fighting, starting with the simple fact that we were the first to use it.” Only “sheer luck has kept us from nuclear catastrophe.”
BY: Binoy Kampmark | scoop.com/nz
In what is a turn-up for the books, a senior voice of the Catholic Church made something of an impression this month that did not incite scandal, hot rage, or the commencement of an investigation. It did, however, agitate a few editors. Archbishop John C. Wester of San Fe, in speaking at the online Hiroshima Day vigil, had put up his hand to defy the validity and morality of nuclear weapons and, along with them, the idea of nuclear deterrence. One of the organisers of the event, the veteran peace activist Rev. John Dear, claimed it had “never happened before.”
Dear had a point. There has been a shift within Catholic ranks urged along by Pope Francis on that most fatuous of strategic doctrines, nuclear deterrence. Before the United Nations General Assembly in June 1982, Pope John Paul II chose to argue that nuclear “‘deterrence’ based on balance, certainly not as an end in itself but as a step on the way toward a progressive disarmament, may still be judged morally acceptable.”
America’s Ageing Nuclear Fleet Underprepared For Climate Change
Last year, Bloomberg conducted a review of “correspondence between the commission and owners of 60 plants” and made some terrifying discoveries. According to their own risk assessments, “54 of their [60] facilities weren’t designed to handle the flood risk they now face.”
The United States is not only one of the first and foremost nuclear powers of the world, it has also long been the nuclear powerhouse of the planet, being responsible for a whopping two thirds of global nuclear energy production. Domestically, the United States’ nuclear power plants account for approximately 20 percent of the nation’s total electricity and produce over 50 percent of the entire country’s carbon-free energy generation. But these superlatives, both global and domestic, won’t last. As nuclear energy grows around the world, the industry is in deep trouble in the U.S., where the aging nuclear fleet has been battered by a flood of cheap shale oil and natural gas, and is now barely clinging to life thanks to hefty government subsidies and leaving the shockingly high cost of radioactive waste maintenance to the taxpayers.
New Video Shows Largest Hydrogen Bomb Ever Exploded
A Russian nuclear energy agency released formerly classified footage of the Soviet Union’s 1961 Tsar Bomba test.
BY: | nytimes.com
Russia Releases “Tsar Bomba” Test Footage Of The Most Powerful Nuclear Bomb Blast Ever
This previously classified film provides a new and fascinating glimpse into the 50-megaton Cold War nuclear test that occurred nearly six decades ago.
Don’t Preach Nuclear Arms to Archbishop
“That $2 trillion nuclear weapons modernization will do nothing to protect us against the global pandemic impacting Americans now. Further, the Sandia and Los Alamos labs may actually degrade national security with planned new nuclear weapons designs that can’t be tested because of the global testing moratorium. Or worse yet, this may prompt the U.S. back into testing, throwing more gas on the fire of the new nuclear arms race.”
BY: JAY COGHLAN / NUCLEAR WATCH NEW MEXICO, SANTA FE
Monday, August 24th, 2020 at 12:02am
In response to (the Aug. 13) editorial “Archbishop’s nuclear weapons view needs a homily on reality,” I was one of the speakers at the 75th anniversary commemoration of the Hiroshima atomic bombing, organized by Fr. John Dear, at which Santa Fe Archbishop John Wester eloquently spoke. The editorial declared “neither Wester nor Dear appear to accept the premise there is any deterrent benefit to the nuclear arsenal.”
To the contrary, the Journal perpetuates the delusion that the U.S. nuclear arsenal is just for deterrence, a premise fed to American taxpayers since the beginning of the Cold War. Instead, the U.S. arsenal has always been about nuclear warfighting, starting with the simple fact that we were the first to use it. This continues to this day, as the Pentagon made clear in a 2013 nuclear policy declaration: “The new guidance requires the United States to maintain significant counterforce capabilities against potential adversaries. The new guidance does not rely on a ‘counter-value’ or ‘minimum deterrence’ strategy.”
NOTE: This study has notable implications since the New Mexico congressional delegation touts expanded nuclear weapons programs as an economic engine for northern New Mexico.
Study: Neighboring counties lose money due to LANL
BY: KYLE LAND Copyright © 2020 Albuquerque Journal
SANTA FE — A study conducted by University of New Mexico researchers found that Los Alamos National Laboratory has a negative economic impact on nearby communities, despite employing many people in the area.
Of the seven counties included in the study, governments in six of them were found to be losing money due to LANL’s impact, with the exception of Los Alamos. Those counties include Santa Fe, Rio Arriba, Sandoval, San Miguel, Taos and Mora.
The study, conducted by UNM’s Bureau of Business and Economic Research, found Los Alamos County gained $13 million from economic activity created by the lab, while all other counties lost an average of $1.25 million.
Santa Fe and Rio Arriba counties, home to 40% of the Lab’s employees, had the largest losses, at more than $2 million.
In a Friday presentation of the findings to the Regional Coalition of LANL Communities, Bureau Director Jeff Mitchell said his team calculated how much revenue LANL employees produce for an area versus what it costs a local government to provide services for them.
The study, Mitchell said, found that LANL and its employees tend to spend their money in only a few places.
Thirty-eight percent of the Lab’s spending actually goes to Bernalillo County, with another 42% staying within Los Alamos County, according to the study.
Trump Administration Sends Mixed Signals on Nuclear Weapons Budgeting
“A Senate-passed proposal would grant the Nuclear Weapons Council new authority to edit NNSA’s budget request after the Energy Department crafts it and before the request is submitted to the White House budget office.”
BY:
WASHINGTON ― Defense hawks in Congress are pushing a contentious plan to give the Pentagon a stronger hand in crafting nuclear weapons budgets, but the Trump administration has been sending mixed messaging over recent weeks about whether the change is needed.
The Senate-passed version of the annual defense policy bill would give the Pentagon-led Nuclear Weapons Council a say in the budget development of the National Nuclear Security Administration, a semi-autonomous agency within the Department of Energy that’s responsible for the stockpile’s safety, security, and effectiveness.
NOTE: This article is illustrative of the absolutely key role New Mexico plays in the new nuclear arms race, far beyond just the Los Alamos and Sandia Labs. The Air Force Nuclear Weapons Center is on Kirtland Air Force Base which shares runways with the Albuquerque, NM airport. The new nuclear arms race will be increasingly dangerous with likely hypersonic and cyber weapons.
US Air Force May Have Accidentally Revealed Interest in Hypersonic Nuke
BY: Valerie Insinna
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Air Force has issued, and quietly revoked, a solicitation to industry seeking technologies that would support a hypersonic glide vehicle capable of traversing intercontinental ranges, potentially signaling the military’s interest in a hypersonic nuclear weapon.
According to an Aug. 12 request for information first reported by Aviation Week, the Air Force Nuclear Weapons Center sought ideas for potential upgrades to intercontinental ballistic missiles, including a “thermal protection system that can support [a] hypersonic glide to ICBM ranges.”
USAF Rethinks Relationship Between Conventional, Nuclear Weapons
“What we’re trying to prepare ourselves to do is to respond with whatever force is necessary in a nuclear environment. It’s not so much to fight tactically. Really, the ultimate goal here is to deter. We want to raise that threshold of using nuclear weapons, whether strategic or non-strategic … to the highest level possible.”
To do that, Clark argues the Air Force needs ways to stop others from using nuclear weapons in the first place, and options to retaliate if deterrence fails. Technology, training, and command-and-control requirements all need to be updated to support that approach.
BY: Rachel S. Cohen
The Air Force is crafting new policy that envisions more fluidity between conventional and nuclear weapons, as well as a broader range of options to keep others from using their own nuclear weapons.
The U.S. has long treated conventional and nuclear warfare as separate concepts, but that’s beginning to change, said Lt. Gen. Richard M. Clark, the Air Force’s deputy chief of staff for strategic deterrence and nuclear integration.
DOE Issues Draft RFP for the Oak Ridge Reservation Cleanup Contract
Cincinnati – Today, the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management (EM) issued a Draft Request for Proposals for the Oak Ridge Reservation Cleanup Contract (ORRCC) procurement at the Oak Ridge Reservation (ORR), in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.
Media Contact:
Toni Rutherford
(513) 246-1374
Toni.Rutherford@emcbc.doe.gov
The purpose of the Draft RFP is to solicit input from interested parties to assist DOE in developing a Final RFP for this procurement. DOE invites all interested parties to thoroughly examine the Draft RFP and the accompanying procurement website in their entirety and to submit comments to DOE.
DOE anticipates an Indefinite-Delivery/Indefinite-Quantity (IDIQ) contract with a ten-year ordering period from which Firm-Fixed-Price and/or Cost-Reimbursement-type task orders may be issued, with an estimated contract ceiling of approximately $8.3 billion over the ordering period. It is anticipated that task order performance may extend up to five years beyond the end of the ordering period.
None of the Above Podcast
The Atomic Bomb’s First Victims – Beata Tsosie-Pena & Jay Coghlan on Downwinders
"There's this misconception that Hiroshima & Nagasaki were the first victims of the atomic bombing when really it was the people of New Mexico."
Our latest episode commemorates the #75thanniversary of the world's first nuclear attack.
Listen here: https://t.co/3YV9xPl3NV pic.twitter.com/JetubewTNJ
— Eurasia Group Foundation (@EGFound) August 18, 2020
REMEMBERING HIROSHIMA: This Hiroshima survivor returned to the site of the atomic bombing 75 years later.
Hiroshima to a Healthy Tomorrow: Embracing Our Common Humanity in a Virtual Rally
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OREPA challenges NNSA’s “Final Supplement Analysis.”
The Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance, along with Nuclear Watch New Mexico, has challenged the National Nuclear Security Administration’s latest justification for the Uranium Processing Facility bomb plant under construction at the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. In a letter to the Secretary of Energy and the Administrator of the NNSA, OREPA and NWNM pointed out that the Final Supplement Analysis, released in July, falls far short of the “hard look” required by the National Environmental Policy Act.
See OREPA Comments
The Final Supplement Analysis is NNSA’s attempt to comply with the order of the federal court in Knoxville, Tennessee. The court, in September of last year, ruled in favor of OREPA, NWNM, the Natural Resources Defense Council and four individual plaintiffs who argued that NNSA is in violation of NEPA, the law that requires federal agencies to consider the environmental impacts of their actions.
SEE ALSO:
[ILLINOIS] ComEd, Madigan Sued for $450M in Racketeering Suit
Illinois electric customers filed a federal civil racketeering lawsuit against ComEd and state House Speaker Michael Madigan, seeking more than $450 million in damages.
Breaking news update: Today, August 10, a putative class of Commonwealth Edison customers filed a civil racketeering lawsuit against Illinois Speaker of the House Michael Madigan, Commonwealth Edison Company (“ComEd”), ComEd’s parent Exelon Corporation, and several other defendants. Read all the details here.
BY: Michael Yoder | rtoinsider.com
The recent Illinois lobbying corruption scandal involving Exelon Corporation, its subsidiary Commonwealth Edison and Democratic House Speaker, Michael Madigan, demonstrates the extent to which nuclear “power” is about more than electrons.
The FBI arrests of the Ohio House Speaker and five others in a $60 million bribery/corruption scheme; the $10 billion Exelon nuclear bailout in New York; the questionable circumstances surrounding Exelon’s 2016 PepCo merger; and the South Carolina $9 billion SCANA fraud case, suggest that this may be a national pandemic.
DARK CIRCLE: The Sundance Grand Prize-winning classic doc about the dangers of the atomic age – newly restored!
Dark Circle – Official Trailer from First Run Features on Vimeo.
It’s been 75 years this month since the start of the Atomic Age, with the U.S. nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki killing hundreds of thousands of civilians, but its trail of destruction has never ended.
Public Interest Group Requests DOE Prepare “Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement” on Plutonium Disposition, in Support of Recommendation by National Academies of Sciences Pane
Plutonium Disposition via “Dilute & Dispose” to Bring at Least 22.5 Metric Tons More of Plutonium to Savannah River Site, On Top of 11.5 MT of Pu Already at SRS, Must Not be Stranded if Project Changes
Link to SRS Watch’s August 11 Letter to DOE on Plutonium Disposition and Need for PEIS
Savannah River Site Watch
https://srswatch.org/
Columbia, South Carolina
For immediate Release
August 12, 2020
Contact: Tom Clements, Director, SRS Watch, tel. 803-834-3084, cell 803-240-7268
Columbia, SC – The U.S. Department of Energy must prepare an overarching environmental analysis of slow-moving plans to process and dispose of surplus weapons plutonium at Savannah River Site and other DOE sites, according to a request made by Savanna River Site Watch, a public interest group providing oversight of SRS and DOE.
The August 11, 2020 letter to key DOE officials highlights reasons for preparation of a “Programmatic Environmental Impact Statements” (PEIS) on plutonium disposition and affirmed support for a recent recommendation by a panel of the National Academies of Sciences (NAS). A PEIS, prepared under the National Environmental Policy Act, would review the need for the project, assess DOE system-wide plutonium-disposition impacts and would analyze various sites to be utilized, including SRS, Los Alamos National Lab in New Mexico and the Pantex site in Texas (where more than 15,000 plutonium pits removed from weapons are stored).
New Mexico is still waiting for justice 75 years since the Manhattan Project
The state also faces coronavirus on this anniversary.
BY: Bernice Zamora Gutierrez & Paul Lopez Pino | thehill.com
While our nation struggles to survive the COVID-19 pandemic, New Mexicans are already engaged in a deadly health crisis that has cost the lives of thousands of our beloved family and community members for the past 75 years. This crisis is the overexposure to radiation from the world’s first nuclear bomb detonation at Trinity Site in south central New Mexico on July 16, 1945. In the process it made many New Mexicans the first “Downwinder” communities exposed to radiation from nuclear weapons. The Trinity test in New Mexico was followed by the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki three weeks later and we are all memorializing our dead on this 75th anniversary of the nuclear age. And just as the country is waiting for a pandemic recovery plan, New Mexicans are still waiting to be included in the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA) found in U.S. House Bill 3783.
Obscure agency writing off state politician’s debt
““…Romero and various board members charged taxpayers for lunches in and around Santa Fe. These meals for a select group in no way furthered the public interest. They only benefited coalition insiders.”
BY: | santafenewmexican.com
You miss a few payments on the $7,800 you owe on your car. A repo agent will take away your ride and your pride while the neighbors watch.
You fail to make payments on a years-old $7,800 credit card bill. The lender will make certain you suffer from the worry of being sued. All the while your debt will balloon with interest charges and late fees.
That’s the real world. Life isn’t as hard in the echelon of state Rep. Andrea Romero and her former employer, the Regional Coalition of LANL Communities.
The coalition’s board claims Romero still owes it $7,800 for impermissible expenses accrued during her tenure as its executive director from March 2016 to February 2018. It asked Romero in May to pay the bill.
Nuclear Power goes South in South Carolina
“It looks like crime might well pay after all.”
That was the weary and only slightly tongue-in-cheek conclusion drawn by longtime anti-nuclear campaigner, Tom Clements recently, after a former South Carolina nuclear utility executive pled guilty to fraud in federal court.
BY: Linda Pentz Gunter | beyondnuclear.org
Clements is the director of Savannah River Site Watch, but his activism has, for decades, extended well beyond the perimeter of that vast nuclear site.
For years, Clements and others have followed — and attempted to stand in the way of — the forced march of South Carolina ratepayers toward nuclear fiasco. When it finally unraveled in late July, there was only cautious cause for celebration.
On July 23, Stephen Byrne, the former COO of SCANA, the South Carolina utility originally in charge of the construction of two new nuclear reactors in the state, pled guilty in a massive nuclear conspiracy that defrauded ratepayers, deceived regulators and misled shareholders.
Hiroshima survivor Dr. Hideko Tamura Snider, August 9, 2020
On August 9, 2020, Dr. Hideko Tamura Snider, author of “One Sunny Day” and “When A Peace Tree Blooms,” joined WILPF US Disarm/End Wars Committee and #HiroshimaNagasaki75 in describing her experiences before, during and after the Hiroshima bomb, and appealing to us all, “I depend on all of your energy, please continue what you are doing to rule out violent means, especially this inhumane, horrible weapon…. We are not barbarians, we are humans, and let us be truly and fully human….”
https://youtu.be/KYzuoGuqg34
75th Anniversary Timeline webinars at the WILPF US Disarm Committee YouTube channel – https://bit.ly/wilpfus-disarmyoutube
Jay Coghlan on The Richard Eeds Show August 3, 2020
The Richard Eeds Show. 8/3 – Jay Coghlan of Nuclear Watch New Mexico on The Event Commemorating the 75th Anniversary of the Bombing of Hiroshima.
Anti-nuclear protests at Kings Bay
“Our mission is to stop the arms race…it’s a security risk and phenomenally expensive. This has become a business model and it’s deadly.” – Glenn Carroll, coordinator of Nuclear Watch South
ST. MARYS / Organizers of an annual protest against nuclear weapons at Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay expected a large crowd to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the first atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, to help hasten the end of World War II.
Five people ended up standing outside a base gate Thursday holding signs with anti-nuclear weapons messages.
Glenn Carroll, coordinator of Nuclear Watch South, said the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic compelled many who were planning to attend to stay home for health concerns. But Carroll said her trip from Atlanta to join others with concerns about nuclear weapons Thursday was worth the time.
How New Tech Raises the Risk of Nuclear War
75 years after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, some experts believe the risk of the use of a nuclear weapon is as high now as it has been since the Cuban missile crisis.
BY: BRYAN WELSH | axios.com
The big picture: Nuclear war remains the single greatest present threat to humanity — and one that is poised to grow as emerging technologies, like much faster missiles, cyber warfare and artificial intelligence, upset an already precarious nuclear balance.
75 years after Hiroshima, should U.S. president have authority to launch nuclear attack?
On August 6, 1945, the United States dropped the first atomic weapon on Hiroshima, Japan. Seventy-five years later, [PBS] NewsHour revisits how the president became the sole authority on when nuclear weapons are used. Nick Schifrin reports and talks to former Secretary of Defense William Perry, co-author of “The Button: The New Nuclear Arms Race and Presidential Power from Truman to Trump.”
BY: Nick Schifrin | pbs.org
Judy Woodruff:
On August 6, 1945, the United States dropped the first atomic weapon on Hiroshima, Japan. In the coming days, we will examine this 75th anniversary, the bomb’s immediate aftermath and its lasting legacy. Today, Nick Schifrin looks at the president’s sole authority to launch such a weapon and how that authority came to be.
The 75th Anniversary of Hiroshima and Nagasaki: A Renewed Call for Our Day
“A world of peace, free from nuclear weapons, is the aspiration of millions … ” — Pope Francis, Address at Atomic Bomb Hypocenter Park (Nagasaki), November 24, 2019.
PEOPLE OF GOD – Santa Fe Archdiocese, August 2020
PRAY
Pray with your community for the causes of peace and nuclear disarmament to be made a reality.
- Sample bulletin announcements and prayers of the faithful for use on August 2nd and 9th, 2020.
- Share this prayer (en Español) with your networks, or other prayers for peace on August 9th.
LEARN
Learn about what the Church teaches regarding nuclear weapons.
- Nuclear Weapons and Our Catholic Response: A Catholic Study Guide for use with the filmNuclear Tipping Point, revised June 2020.
- Statements of the U.S. bishops on Nuclear Weapons
- Pope Francis on Nuclear Weapons at Atomic Bomb Hypocenter Park (Nagasaki), November 24, 2019.
ACT
Put what your faith into action by raising your voice to support nuclear disarmament.
- Tell Congress to support extension of the New START Treaty and a continued U.S. moratorium on nuclear testing.
- Ask your friends and family to join you in taking action.
On 75th Anniversary of Japan Nuclear Bombings, Sierra Club Continues Calls for Elimination of Nuclear Weapons
Today, the Sierra Club rises with the survivors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki nuclear bombings in continuing our call for an elimination of all nuclear weapons worldwide. The creation and storage of nuclear weapons is inherently risky, and accidents, testing, and use of nuclear weapons are recklessly and unnecessarily dangerous for communities — particularly low income and communities of color — and our environment.
“The Sierra Club calls on Congress to resist the current renewal of the nuclear arms race and to ban the use of nuclear weapons.”
WASHINGTON, D.C. — To commemorate the 75th anniversary of the WW II nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Sierra Club has joined with the Hibakusha Survivors in calling for the elimination of all nuclear weapons globally. Since 1945, nearly 100,000 nuclear weapons have been manufactured, costing trillions of dollars and destroying communities and the environment through the mining, refining, and weaponizing of uranium.
The Sierra Club opposes the creation and testing of nuclear weapons and supports the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW).
Urgency to bear witness grows for last Hiroshima victims
“We must work harder to get our voices heard, not just mine but those of many other survivors,” Lee [ Jong-keun] said in an interview Tuesday at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum. “A nuclear weapons ban is the starting point for peace.”
HIROSHIMA, Japan
For nearly 70 years, until he turned 85, Lee Jong-keun hid his past as an atomic bomb survivor, fearful of the widespread discrimination against blast victims that has long persisted in Japan.
But Lee, 92, is now part of a fast-dwindling group of survivors, known as hibakusha, that feels a growing urgency — desperation even — to tell their stories. These last witnesses to what happened 75 years ago Thursday want to reach a younger generation that they feel is losing sight of the horror.
The knowledge of their dwindling time — the average age of the survivors is more than 83 and many suffer from the long-lasting effects of radiation — is coupled with deep frustration over stalled progress in global efforts to ban nuclear weapons. According to a recent Asahi newspaper survey of 768 survivors, nearly two-thirds said their wish for a nuclear-free world is not widely shared by the rest of humanity, and more than 70 percent called on a reluctant Japanese government to ratify a nuclear weapons ban treaty.
Atomic-bomb survivors seek new ways to keep their memories alive
Around the world, non-proliferation efforts are faltering
For seventeen year-old Takeoka Chisako, August 6th, 1945 was supposed to be a day off. She had planned to meet two girlfriends at 8:15 that morning, at a train station on the west side of Hiroshima. She was running late, and as she stepped outside her house she lifted a pocket mirror to her face. Then she saw a flash and heard a bang. When she regained consciousness she found herself lying in a potato field 30 metres away, a mushroom cloud rising in the sky. People with charred skin dangling from their arms came rushing over a nearby hillside. They cried for help, but were too feeble to speak their names and too weak to drink the water Ms Takeoka brought them. “Then one by one, they died,” says Higashino Mariko, Ms Takeoka’s daughter.
Hiroshima after 75 years: Walking the path of the atomic bomb
74-year-old [Kosei Mito] turns to a page in one of his binders with a large quote Pope John Paul II made during a visit to Hiroshima in 1981, one that’s inscribed on a memorial inside the Hiroshima Peace Museum.
“To remember the past is to commit oneself to the future.”
“You’re walking the path of the atomic bomb.”
Unlike the pandemic, nuclear war can be stopped before it begins
Seventy-five years after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the anti-nuclear movement is taking big steps toward abolition.
BY: MARINA MARTINEZ | wagingnonviolence.org
Nuclear weapons have been posing a threat to humanity for 75 years — ever since the U.S. bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945.
These days, our focus is understandably on the COVID-19 virus and the threat it poses to human life. But as we commemorate the anniversary of these bombings, it is important to acknowledge that unlike the coronavirus, nuclear weapons can only be remediated with prevention. Millions of people could be killed if a single nuclear bomb were detonated over a large city, and the added threats of radiation and retaliation could endanger all life on Earth.
U.S. LAUNCHES MINUTEMAN III MISSILE TEST LESS THAN 48 HOURS BEFORE 75TH ANNIVERSARY OF HIROSHIMA ATOMIC BOMBING
“The unnecessarily provocative test by the U.S. today is an important reminder that the nuclear threat remains very real, and that there are people in this country – along with a few other countries – who are willing to sacrifice us all in a battle that can never be won and must never be fought.”
For Immediate Release Contact: Sandy Jones (805) 965-3443; sjones@napf.org
Rick Wayman (805) 696-5159; rwayman@napf.org ragingpeace.org
Santa Barbara, CA – The U.S. Air Force launched an unarmed Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile Tuesday morning, August 4, at 12:21 a.m. PDT from Vandenberg Air Force Base. The missile traveled over 4,200 miles to the Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands.
While Air Force Global Strike Command asserts that missile tests are scheduled years in advance, it is difficult to ignore the timing of this test – less than 48 hours before the 75th anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombing of Hiroshima.
Rick Wayman, CEO of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, a non-profit based in Santa Barbara committed to solving the most dangerous technological, social, and psychological issues of our time, including the abolition of nuclear weapons, commented on the missile test. He said, “This week, the majority of the world is solemnly remembering the 75th anniversaries of the U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and vowing that such a thing will never happen again. Hundreds of thousands of our fellow human beings were indiscriminately slaughtered by two primitive U.S. atomic bombs in August 1945. The weapon that was tested this morning is designed for far greater damage.”