War and the New Nuclear Danger: Fukushima and Beyond

Global Research News Hour Episode 31

Russia has over a thousand hydrogen bombs on hair-trigger alert. You’re all targeted—every town with a population of 50,000 or more is targeted with at least one bomb. There may be 60 targeted on Washington alone, or on New York.

And America’s got that many targeted on Russia, China, etc…

They’re ready to go with the press of a button by Putin or Obama and they have three minutes to decide whether or not to press the button. Computer errors happen a lot … people are hacking into the early warning system and they could start a nuclear war. Especially as tensions rise in the Middle East, this is very, very dangerous.

– Dr. Helen Caldicott

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Length (59:28)

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One of the most severe industrial accidents in history occurred two and a half years ago when the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear facility in Japan was crippled in the wake of an earthquake and tsunami that struck the island country.

Critically, electric generators which circulate coolant through the facility failed leaving the core vulnerable to a melt down.
There were three meltdowns within a week, four hydrogen explosions, and the release of radioactive material which continues to this day.

Project Censored lists the incident and the under-reported impacts including 14,000 deaths in the US linked to radioactive fall-out as among its top 25 most censored stories of 2011-2012.

One international figure sounding the alarm bells about Fukushima and other looming nuclear threats is Dr. Helen Caldicott. Caldicott is an Australia-born pediatrician who devoted much of her life to extolling the perils of nuclear war and nuclear power becoming the subject of an Oscar award winning documentary in the 1980s. She also became the founding President of Physicians for Social Responsibility. She has likewise founded other associations dedicated to opposing depleted Uranium, nuclear weapons and power, and militarism generally.

Caldicott has been tireless in her commitment and explains on this week’s show why the nuclear danger is just as bad if not worse today, than it was at the height of the Cold War. She further outlines nuclear power, nuclear war along with global warming as the biggest threats facing humankind.

Complementing Caldicott’s presentation, Michel Chossudovsky of the Centre for Research on Globalization contributes his own research into the new nuclear doctrine.

According to Chossudovsky, nuclear weapons are now considered as part of the arsenal of conventional warfare as opposed to a ‘doomsday’ weapon meant as a bluff to scare off a would-be attacker.

Both Chossudovsky and Caldicott agree that the wider public needs greater exposure to today’s nuclear danger which is the theme of this week’s show.

LISTEN TO THE SHOW

Play

Length (59:28)

Click to download the audio (MP3 format)

 

The Global Research News Hour, hosted by Michael Welch, airs on CKUW 95.9FM in Winnipeg Thursdays at 10am CDT. The programme is now broadcast weekly (Monday, 5-6pm ET) by the Progressive Radio Network in the US, and is available for download on the Global Research website.


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