MAPW Peace e-Script for Wednesday 15 April 2009
Nancy Atkin (MAPW)
Welcome to your
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MAPW
headlines
THANKS FOR DONATING TO MAPW’S ICAN APPEAL
Thanks to all of our supporters for your prompt and generous response to our
appeal to date
The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons has
been funded for 3 years, until June 2009, by the Poola Foundation, who have now
generously offered to match your donations to ensure ICAN can continue its
highly effective work. Contact us at ma...@mapw.org.au
for details or brochures (or if you are a member and didn’t get a
mail-out). Or consider making an immediate online donation at www.mapw.org.au
Perth Friday 8 May
SUPPORT OUR ICAN FUNDRAISER: SOLDIERS FOR PEACE
ICAN is hosting the Perth Premiere of this
star-studded Australian documentary which won Best Feature Film and Best
Documentary Feature Film at the Monaco International Film Festival. We got very
positive feedback from the 170 ICAN supporters who saw the film last night in Melbourne. An
inspiring journey across 5 continents and 14 countries, it shows the
extraordinary peace efforts of ordinary individuals across the globe. and . Please buy now ($20/$15) through www.moshtix.com.au .
MAPW CALLS
ON PM TO SUPPORT PEACE IN AFGHANISTAN
MAPW President Dr Sue Wareham OAM has written to Prime Minister Kevin Rudd,
urging that Australia support a political solution to the conflict in
Afghanistan, together with rebuilding of rebuilding of the
country. Dr Wareham’s letter concludes: “The deaths of thousands
of civilians cannot end terrorism. With the deepest respect, we ask you to
bring our troops home from Afghanistan.
PROMINENT
CITIZENS CALL FOR NUCLEAR WEAPONS CONVENTION
MAPW Vice-President Associate Professor Tilman Ruff is one of six prominent
Australian signatories calling for abolition of nuclear weapons through a
nuclear weapons convention to an article published in last week’s Age and
Sydney Morning Herald. Other in the diverse group of political, health and retired
military leaders were former Liberal PM Malcolm Fraser, General Peter Gration, former
ALP parliamentarian Barry Jones, Lieutenant-General (and former SA Governor) John
Sanderson and Professor Gus Nossal. Following similar groupings of diverse and
prominent public figures, the initiative has sparked discussion including a
news article in the SMH.
http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/imagine-theres-no-bomb-20090407-9zj0.html
(the article, with a great Spooner illustration)
http://www.smh.com.au/national/fraser-backs-rudd-on-nuclear-weapons-20090407-9zlc.html
MAPW: Attend your local
meetings:
Check your branch at: www.mapw.org.au/branches
Melbourne, Saturday 18 April (& Friday to Sunday)
MAPW IN THE HOTHOUSE: MELBOURNE SOCIAL FORUM 2009
MAPW speakers will lead two workshops at this weekend event.
10.30am Saturday: ‘Peace is cool’: Environment
and War, with Dr Ruth Mitchell; 3.45pm Why nuclear
power is no answer to climate change’, with Dr Bill
Williams. MAPW publications will be on display at the Peoples Health
Movement stall (thanks!). Events begin Friday night with a public meeting on
the climate emergency. Come to hear Ruth and Bill, and to participate in lots
more workshops, plus stalls and music, at CERES, by the Merri Creek, Lee Street Brunswick.
Details: www.melbournesocialforum.org
Melbourne , Saturday 18 April
SCARRED LANDS AND WOUNDED LIVES: THE ENVIRONMENTAL FOOTPRINT OF WAR
Hear MAPW's Vice-President, Deputy Chair of the International Physicians to
Prevent Nuclear War, Dr Ruth Mitchell as
guest speaker. The Union of Australian Women are showing this excellent
documentary, together with David Bradbury's
"All that Glitters is not Gold" - an 8min video about uranium mining
and its hazards. Mordialloc Neighbourhood House at 2pm.
Sydney, Tuesday 21 April
MAPW GRAND ROUNDS, ROYAL NORTH SHORE,
MAPW Members and friends are encouraged to attend and hear MAPW President Dr Sue Wareham, an
outstanding speaker, outline peace challenges confronting the world.
Lecture at 1pm (12 noon for lunch.
Norman Nock Lecture Theatre, Reserve Road, Royal North Shore Hospital, Pacific
Highway, St. Leonards.
Adelaide, Thursday 23 April
SA MAPW BRANCH MEETING
7:30pm in the Memorial Hospital board room.
s...@mapw.org.au
Queensland, Thursday 30 April
QUEENSLAND BRANCH MEETING BY PHONE
Are you a Queensland member interested in helping plan
local activities? MAPW will be hosting a phone meeting of Queensland members at 6.00pm on Thursday
30 May. Contact nancy...@mapw.org.au
or on 8344 1637 and we will email you details to dial in.
Hobart, Monday lunchtime 4 May
TASMANIAN MAPW MONTHLY MEETING
This informal monthly meeting is 1pm at the 'Timeless Way'
cafe in the IXL Jam factory area of Hobart's wharves.
Contact t...@mapw.org.au or just come along
at 1pm.
Perth, Friday 8 May
SOLDIERS FOR PEACE: WA PREMIERE AND ICAN FUNDRAISER
The Astor Cinema, 659 Beaufort St, Mt Lawley. 7.30pm. Wine
and nibbles from 6.45pm. Other
details as in headlines above or on our website www.mapw.org.au. Buy now through www.moshtix.com.au
Alice
Springs, Saturday 9 May
NT MAPW BRANCH MEETING
MAPW (NT) next meeting, planning action on climate change, opposition to
mining at Angela Pamela, and indigenous issues related to nuclear industries.
Venue: Olive Pink Botanic Garden, at 1.00pm (1300). Contact: n...@mapw.org.au
Tuesday 12 May
DUEL LOYALTIES: DOCTORS AND THE STATE
Guest speaker MAPW student member Priyal Rama
Asary has written a well-researched paper on this topic, looking
at the Steve Biko case, at doctors under Nazism, and at medical professionals
in Australia’s refugee detention centres. She will speak to our May
meeting, to be held at 6.30 pm at Level 2 of the Alan Gilbert Building, Cnr Barry
and Grattan St, Carlton. *** This
meeting is especially timely given the leaking of a Red Cross report,
documenting medical assistance with CIA torture: see item in global news below***
The latest: More
MAPW news
Our
Newsletter and Annual Report are now available on our website
PHYSICIANS WRITE TO
OBAMA, MEDVEDEV
On the eve of Prime
Minister Rudd’s meeting with US President Barack Obama, more than 300 of
the world’s top physicians have written to the US and Russian Presidents.
Their letter calls for US President Obama and Russian President Dmitri
Medvedev to “end the nuclear weapons era once and for all.”
Prominent Australians to sign the letter include four Australians of the Year,
Professors Fiona Stanley, Sir Gustav Nossal, Nobel laureate Peter Doherty and
Ian Frazer; with former MAPW leaders Professor Ian Maddocks and Professor Fred Mendelsohn also among the 22 Australians to sign. See www.mapw.org.au for details; and http://www.ippnw.org/News/MedicalAppeal.htm
for the full text.
Thanks to all who signed, and to those who facilitated signatures
MAPW
PRESIDENT IN MEDICAL OBSERVER
PALM SUNDAY
PICTURES
See MAPW and ICAN members and banners in these photo and blog
sites: mainly Melbourne, including MAPW Vice-President Ruth
Mitchell speaking; but there is a picture of Sue Wareham speaking in
Sydney. It’s worth a look just to see the beautiful ICAN banners painted
by young supporters:
http://www.icanw.org/news/palm-sunday-peace-rallies-2009.
http://melbourneprotests.wordpress.com/
- includes Ruth Mitchell’s speech.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/takver/sets/72157616293583453/show/
The latest: Australia and the region
FIJI: CONSTITUTION ABROGATED, MILITARY CRACK-DOWN IN
DISSENT
The military take-over in Fiji, following
a Court of Appeal ruling that the military-led government was unconstitutional,
is being reported extensively on Radio Australia’s Pacific
Beat website: http://www.radioaustralia.net.au/pacbeat/
Fiji has long relied on its
military as a major overseas income earner. These recent events again call into
question the role of an army– in this case including officers trained in Australia –
in a small developing nation. If you would like any more detailed information
on Fiji passed on to you as we
receive it please contact ma...@mapw.org.au
INDONESIA BACKS AWAY FROM
NUCLEAR POWER
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono of Indonesia has
announced that nuclear power will not go ahead in the foreseeable future. Concerns
about these plans, and a possible speakers’ tour, were the topic at
MAPW’s Victorian meeting in March, addressed by Professor Richard
Tanter. The Indonesian President, addressing protests against a
proposed nuclear reactor in the crowded, volcanic and earthquake-prone island
of Java, told a pre-election meeting that environmentally friendly power
alternatives would be pursued first (See Age story). We hope to keep you
updated on whether nuclear power plans have really been turned off, or just
moved to the back burner.
www.theage.com.au/world/indonesia-goes-cold-on-nuclear-power-20090405-9t8z.html
For
background see Nautilus: www.globalcollab.org/Nautilus/australia/reframing/aust-ind-nuclear/ind-np
RUDD, OBAMA TALKS: DISAPPOINTS ON NUCLEAR
DISARMAMENT
Before leaving for the USA two weeks ago,
Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said he would discuss cooperation on our
“great shared challenges” including nuclear disarmament and
non-proliferation. However reports of the Rudd-Obama March meeting do not seem
to reflect either this intention, or the ALP’s pre-election promise to
“drive the international agenda for a Nuclear Weapons Convention”.
The PM’s office referred us to the joint media interview with President
Obama and Mr Rudd, after their meeting, but this contains no reference to
nuclear issues. The Sydney Morning Herald’s Jonathon Pearlman appears to
be the only journalist to report that the topic was discussed.
Global news
RED CROSS FINDS DOCTORS
PRESENT DURING CIA TORTURE.
The Red Cross has slammed medical personnel who allegedly supervised
interrogations and the torture of terror suspects by Red Cross report: A Red
Cross report intended for discussion with governments, was leaked and published
last week:. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=102851813
See the ABC’s PM transcript for comment by the journalist who revealed
the report: http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2008/s2538812.htm
** The responsibilities and behaviour of medical personnel will be the
subject of MAPW’s Victorian meeting in March – see listing above**
OBAMA HIGHLIGHTS NUCLEAR
ABOLITION IN MAJOR SPEECH
President Obama has called for strong action against nuclear proliferation in a
major speech in Prague on Sunday 4
April. He has pledged to press the US Senate to ratify the Comprehensive Test
Ban Treaty; to work towards a renewal of the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty
with Russia; and to
work towards a treaty ending production of fissile materials for weapons. The US will also
convene a global summit to prevent on nuclear security. Earlier last
week, President Obama and Russia’s
President Medvedev had agreed to renegotiate a treaty to reduce strategic arms,
by the end of the year.
See BBC news story: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7983963.stm
US ANTI-NUKE
GROUPS’ PROPOSED 95% WEAPONS REDUCTION
A US anti-nuclear watchdog coalition, which calls itself the “Nuclear
Weapons Complex Consolidation Policy Group,” has issued a report that
calls on the U.S. to reduce its nuclear stockpile across the board from 9,400
warheads to 500 warheads – a 95-percent decrease from the current number
of nuclear weapons.
http://www.cnsnews.com/public/content/article.aspx?RsrcID=46460
BUSH OFFICIALS INVESTIGATED
FOR TORTURE
Lawyer Philippe Sands in his book, “Torture
Team,” offered a scathing critique of officials in the Bush
Administration, accusing them of complicity in acts of torture.
A Spanish court has now taken the first steps toward starting a criminal
investigation of the six former Bush Administration officials named by Sands,
weighing charges that they had enabled and abetted torture by justifying the
abuse of terrorism suspects. Among those the court singled out was Feith, the
former Under-Secretary of Defense for Policy, along with former Attorney
General Alberto Gonzales; John Yoo, a former Justice Department lawyer; and
David Addington, chief of staff and principal legal adviser to Vice-President
Dick Cheney. Source from the New Yorker: http://www.newyorker.com/talk/2009/04/13/090413ta_talk_mayer?ref=fp5
Information sources
CLUSTER BOMBS
REPORT: RUSSIA AND GEORGIA
Human Rights Watch have released “A
Dying Practice: Use of Cluster Munitions by Russia and Georgia in August 2008.” This
report is available at their website on www.hrw.org/node/82158.
More events and
activities
Hobart, Sunday 19 April – Saturday 16 May
KURUNAVANUA: FIJIAN BODIES AND THE GLOBALISED ECONOMY OF WAR
Solo photographic exhibition by Hobart-born artist Torika Bolatagici. In Kurunavanua
(the trembling of the earth) Bolatagici investigates representations of Pacific Island
masculinity, Fiji and the economy of war. Her ongoing
research is concerned with neo-colonial encounters between the US, Australia, Britain and Pacific Island nations.
This exhibition is informed compares the participation of Fijian soldiers in
the nuclear tests at Christmas Islands in the
1950s to the current recruitment of Fijians to work for Private Security
Military Companies in the Middle East. Red Wall
Gallery, Republic Bar & Café, 299 Elizabeth Street, North Hobart. Web: www.torika.net
Sydney, Tuesday 21 April
BREAK THE NUCLEAR CHAIN: NUCLEAR IS NO SOLUTION TO CLIMATE CHANGE.
Public meeting. Speakers include Muckaty Traditional Owners from the NT-
Dianne Stokes and Mark Lane, Senator Scott Ludlam (Australian
Greens), Dave Sweeney (Australian Conservation
Foundation). 6pm, Old Geography Lecture Theatre,
Sydney Uni, near Parramatta Road footbridge.
***On display - photo exhibition: We are not no-one, this is not nowhere***
Sydney, Wednesday April 22
PROTEST THE 2009 WORLD NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE CONFERENCE
Speakers as above Featuring Ohms not Bombs sound system for some nuclear free
beats. 8am, Sheraton on the Park, 161
Elizabeth Street, Sydney (Near St James
Station) Contact: Natalie Wasley 0429 900 774 www.beyondnuclearinitiative.wordpress.com
Sydney, Thursday 30 April
FILM SCREENING AND TALK ON TALISMAN SABRE WAR GAMES
Film: “Scarred Lands and Wounded
Lives:The Environmental Footprint of War” This powerful and disturbing
film is dedicated to breaking the silence about the environmental impact of
war. The environment remains war’s silent casualty. Speaker:
Dr Hannah Middleton, from the Sydney Peace Foundation and the Australian
Anti-Bases Campaign Coalition, will talk about Talisman Sabre, the joint
US-Australian military exercises held every two years in central Queensland, their
environmental and other impacts and the peace convergence being organised to
oppose them. 7 – 9pm Room 107, Centre for
Peace and Conflict Studies Mackie Building, Arundel
Street, Glebe (near footbridge). Details (02) 9351 4468 or 0418
668 098
29 May –
4 June 2009
GLOBAL WEEK OF ACTION TO BAN CLUSTER BOMBS
The Global Week of Action to Ban Cluster Bombs is an
opportunity for campaigners across the world to call on all governments to join
the Convention on Cluster Munitions by signing and ratifying it as soon as
possible. The Week of Action takes place exactly one year after the
historic negotiations and formal adoption of the Convention in Dublin, Ireland on 30 May 2008.
http://www.stopclustermunitions.org/gwoa2009/
Sydney, 28 May to 20 June
MY NAME IS RACHEL CORRIE
In 2003, 23 year old Rachel Corrie left her USA hometown
and went to Palestine as a part of peaceful
demonstrations in the Gaza Strip against the demolition of civilian homes by
the Israeli Defence Forces. In March that year she was killed by an IDF bulldozer.
Don’t miss this powerful true story, told as a play at the Seymour Centre
this May/June. Tickets from $20. http://www.seymourcentre.com.au
May-July, Sydney – enrolments close this week
PEACE AND ACTIVISM COURSE
A new Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies (University of Sydney) certificate training
course intended to provide students with theoretical understanding and
practical experience of the techniques of peace activism. Five intensive
Fridays from May 15 to July 4 plus a field trip (July 9- 14) to the Queensland
Peace Convergence around the Talisman Sabre military exercises. Enquiries arts....@usyd.edu.au
June 30 to July 2
ARMS FAIR IN ADELAIDE
This is not the one we stopped last year: but it’s an exhibition where
the Federal Government has invited anyone who wants to sell weapons to come and
show them. More details next time!. www.defenceandindustry.gov.au
Queensland, July 6-26
TALISMAN SABRE MILITARY EXERCISES
See details of action, festival and other protests in Central
Queensland
www.peaceconvergence.com
(Dis) Information sources
CHOCOLATE IN NUCLEAR
SPIN: WILL APPLE PIE BE NEXT?
The Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation, ANSTO, tells us here
that the Lucas Heights reactor is
helping make tastier chocolate: www.psnews. com.au/Page_
psn1648.html The item does not mention that synchrotrons, like the one at Monash
University, research chocolate without the
associated issues of nuclear wastes, spent fuels shipped under cover of night,
or reactor safety. www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2004/09/29/1208940.htm
MAPW thank you list
Thanks to this week’s
contributors, including Jim Green, Christina MacPherson, Dale Hess, Dimity
Hawkins, Nic Maclellan, Adam Dempsey, Lynn Saville, and many others
– thanks!
Written by Nancy Atkin, for the Medical Association for Prevention of
War (Australia)
Email comments and contributions to: nancy...@mapw.org.au
www.mapw.org.au