Friday, February 28, 2014

NUCLEAR FREE PACIFIC DAY AND MARSHALL ISLANDS NUCLEAR VICTIMS DAY, MARCH 1, 2014

OMNI
NUCLEAR FREE AND INDEPENDENT PACIFIC DAY AND MARSHALL ISLANDS NUCLEAR VICTIMS DAY (now NUCLEAR VICTIMS AND SURVIVORS REMEMBRANCE DAY),  MARCH 1, 2014. NEWSLETTER #3. 
Compiled by Dick Bennett for a Culture of Peace.   (#1 March 1, 2012; #2 March 1, 2013).).


OMNI NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL DAYS PROJECT.

Here is the link to all OMNI newsletters:

http://www.omnicenter.org/newsletter-archive/   For a knowledge-based peace, justice, and ecology movement, enabling an informed citizenry to connect all the dots as the foundation for change.

Index:


Also see:  International Day against Nuclear Tests (29 August), and US Imperialism Westward Movement Pacific/E. Asia

Actively advocate a world free of nuclear weapons.  Is anything you are doing now more urgent?  Yes: actively preparing adaptations to global warming.

Nos. 1 and 2 below.

60 YEARS AGO
Contents of Nuclear Free Pacific and Marshall Islands Nuclear Victims Day,  March 1, 2014
Nuclear Free Independent Pacific Day ('Bikini' Day) (Google search), which marks the anniversary of the US 'Bravo' nuclear bomb detonation at Bikini Atoll, March 1, 1954
Marshall Islands Nuclear Victims Day, Castle Bravo, March 1,  Google Search
   Foregrounded:  National Security Archive Report
Illumination Day Google Search
    Foregrounded:  New Book, Nine Degrees North


Nuclear Free and Independent Pacific Day, Google Search, Feb. 28, 2014

1.                               Nuclear Free and Independent Pacific Day: Time for action | Scoop ...   www.scoop.co.nz › Politics‎ 

22 hours ago - Tomorrow, 1 March, is Nuclear Free and Independent Pacific Day - the 60th anniversary of the largest nuclear weapon detonation, the 'Bravo' ...

2.                             Pacific.scoop.co.nz » Nuclear Free and Independent Pacific Day ...

pacific.scoop.co.nz/.../nuclear-free-and-independent-pacific-day-time-fo...
1 day ago - Tomorrow, 1 March, is Nuclear Free and Independent Pacific Day – the 60th anniversary of the largest nuclear weapon detonation, the 'Bravo' ...

3.                             Nuclear-Free and Independent Pacific Day | Aotearoa Indymedia

www.indymedia.org.nz/events/2056
Nuclear-Free and Independent Pacific Day ... cloud spreading dangerously across more than 18,000 sq km of the Pacific. ... When: 1 March 2014, 10am-1pm

4.                             Nuclear Free and Independent Pacific Day - Converge

www.converge.org.nz/pma/nfipday.htm
Nuclear Free and Independent Pacific Day ('Bikini' Day), 1 March, marks the anniversary of the US 'Bravo' nuclear bomb detonation at Bikini Atoll [*] in 1954.

5.                             Nuclear Free and Independent Pacific Day (Bikini Day) 01 March 2013

tewhareporahou.wordpress.com/.../nuclear-free-and-independent-pacific...
Apr 17, 2013 - Nuclear Free and Independent Pacific Day ('Bikini' Day), 1 March, marks the anniversary of the US 'Bravo' nuclear bomb detonation at Bikini ...

6.                             Nuclear Free and Independent Pacific Day

www.wagingpeace.org/articles/2009/03/05_aotearoa_bikini_day.php
Feb 27, 2009 - March 1st is Nuclear Free and Independent Pacific Day ('Bikini' Day) which marks the anniversary of the US 'Bravo' nuclear bomb detonation at ...

7.                             March 1: Nuclear Free & Independent Pacific Day - NYC Indymedia

nyc.indymedia.org/en/2007/03/83516.html
Independent Media Center
Mar 1, 2007 - March 1: Nuclear Free & Independent Pacific Day. By Lucky Dragon. Call out to all to mark Nuclear Free and Independent Pacific Day on ...

8.                             REMEMBER Bravo, Moruroa - Nuclear-Free and Independent ...

https://www.facebook.com/events/603619789707465/?ref=22
Fri, Feb 28 - ‎AUT University, WG1028, Sir Paul Reeves Building, Upper St Paul St, Auckland City, Auckland, New Zealand 1142
REMEMBER Bravo, Moruroa - Nuclear-Free and Independent Pacific Day. Public · By... Saturday, March 1, 2014. 10:00am until 1:00pm in UTC+13. Get Tickets.

9.                             South Pacific Handbook - Page 124 - Google Books Result

books.google.com/books?isbn=0918373999
David Stanley - 1993 - ‎Oceania
On Nuclear- Free and Independent Pacific Day (1 March), a protest march proceeds from Faaa to Papeete, to commemorate a disastrous nuclear test on Bikini ...

10.                         The long shadow of Bravo - Pacific Islands News Association

www.pina.com.fj/index.php?p=pacnews&m=read&o...
3 days ago - Sixty years ago, on 1 March 1954, Rinok Riklon was a young girl living ....as Nuclear Free and Independent Pacific Day on 1 March each year.


MARSHALL ISLANDS NUCLEAR VICTIMS DAY, GOOGLE SEARCH, FEB. 28, 2014

60th Anniversary of Castle BRAVO Nuclear Test, the Worst Nuclear Test in U.S. History

Blast Had Far Greater Explosive Yield than Expected, Equivalent to 1,000 Hiroshimas
Fallout from the Test Contaminated the Marshall Islands and Japanese Fishermen on theFortunate Dragon (Fukuryu Maru)
Consequences of BRAVO Created Outrage around the World and Pressure to Ban Nuclear Weapons Tests
National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 459
Posted - February 28, 2014
For more information contact:
William Burr - 202/994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu



Washington, D.C., February 28, 2014 – Sixty years ago, on 1 March 1954 (28 February on this side of the International Dateline), on Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands, the U.S. government staged the largest nuclear test in American history. TheBRAVO shot in the Castle thermonuclear test series had an explosive yield of 15 megatons, 1000 times that of the weapon that destroyed Hiroshima and nearly three times the 6 megatons that its planners expected. To recall this shocking event the National Security Archive posts today a selection of documents about the BRAVO shot and its consequences, mainly from State Department records at the National Archives.
 
The 15-megaton Castle BRAVO nuclear test, 1 March 1954, created a crater a mile wide and spread radioactive fallout around the world. The mushroom cloud rose to 130,000 feet and broadened to more than 25 miles in diameter. Excerpt from U.S. Air Force documentary film, Joint Task Force 7 Commander's Report, Operation Castle.
Castle BRAVO spewed radioactive fallout around the world and gravely sickened nearby inhabitants of the Marshall Islands, then under a U.S. trusteeship, and 236 were evacuated as well as 28 American military personnel on a nearby island. Twenty-three Japanese fishermen were also contaminated, which made the test known to the world and roiled U.S-Japanese relations. While the U.S. government claimed at the time that a shift in the wind spread the fallout far from the test site, a recent U.S. government report demonstrates that it was the volcanic nature of the explosion that dumped the fallout nearby. The adverse health effects for inhabitants of Rangelop Atoll, 110 miles away from the test site, were severe and some islands remained uninhabitable for years. This radiological calamity had a significant impact on world opinion and helped spark the movement for a nuclear test moratorium which ultimately led to the 1963 Limited Test Ban Treaty.
Included in this posting is a U.S. Air Force documentary film on the Joint Task Force 7 commander's report on the Castle Series. It includes footage of the BRAVO shot as well as coverage of the evacuation of U.S. personnel and Marshall Islanders in the wake of the test. The documentary is sanitized at points apparently to protect nuclear weapons design information. A Freedom of Information request by the Archive for a fresh review and a subsequent appeal failed to dislodge more details.
Documents in this posting include:
  • Japanese government accounts of the Fukuryu Maru incident
  • The May 1954 petition by Marshall Islanders for an end to nuclear tests in the area
  • U.S. Embassy Tokyo telegrams on BRAVO's adverse impact for U.S.-Japanese relations
  • Internal U.S. government consideration of compensation to the Japanese government and the Marshall Islands for losses incurred by nuclear testing
  • Decisions to delay the return of the inhabitants to Rongelap Atoll because of unsafe conditions
  • A comprehensive Defense Threat Reduction Agency report from 2013 on Castle BRAVO exposing "legends and lore" about the test
Source: Document 17: Thomas Kunkle and Bryon Ristvet, Castle Bravo: Fifty Years of Legend and Lore: A Guide to Offsite Radiation Exposure, page 35
Source: Document 17: Thomas Kunkle and Bryon Ristvet, Castle Bravo: Fifty Years of Legend and Lore: A Guide to Offsite Radiation Exposure, page 5.
Why and how exactly U.S. scientists miscalculated the yield remains classified but what made the 15-megaton Bravo shot the worst nuclear test in U.S. history is no secret. The device detonated on an islet in a coral reef, producing massive levels of fallout that quickly reached the stratosphere before falling to earth. It is worth comparing BRAVO to the most powerful nuclear test ever, the Soviet Union's 50-megaton "Tsar Bomba" of 30 October 1961. That test's radiological consequences were far less severe because the "Tsar Bomba's" fireball never touched the earth's surface producing significantly less fallout than BRAVO. Historian of scienceAlex Wellerstein has written that Castle BRAVO is a "cautionary tale about hubris and incompetence in the nuclear age — scientists setting off a weapon whose size they did not know, whose effects they did not correctly forecast, whose legacy will not soon be outlived."[i]
While the "Tsar Bomba" was almost immediately known to the world, the architects of the Castle test series worked in secrecy; the Eisenhower administration wanted to keep words like "hydrogen" and "thermonuclear" out of public discourse and only the fact that tests would be held in the Pacific in 1954 went to the public. After the BRAVO shot occurred, the AEC and the Defense Department sought to control what could be known about the event. But the cat was out of the bag when the Fukuryu Maru crew returned to port which gave Washington a serious damage control problem as information about the 1 March test began to reach the public. At the end of the month AEC chairman Lewis Strauss gave a generally misleading press conference about BRAVO but he managed to alarm the public when he acknowledged that hydrogen bombs could be "made large enough to take out a city … any city."[ii]
Until recently, an extensive collection of documents on nuclear testing in the Marshall Islands was readily available on a Department of Energy Web site, The Marshall Islands Document Collection. It no longer has an on-line presence. In the fall of 2013, at the time of the U.S. government shut-down, this important collection disappeared from the Web. It is unclear whether the Department intends to restore it as a distinct Web page. Many documents on the Marshall Islands can be found on the Energy Department's OpenNet but whether they are essentially the same items is also unclear at present. Moreover other documents on nuclear testing in the Marshall Islands that the Energy Department declassified in the 1990s and were once available at the National Archives or on-line were reclassified early in the last decade after the Kyl-Lott amendment went into effect in 1999.[iii]
Unique non-U.S. government documents about the consequences of nuclear testing in the Marshall Islands are also at risk. The case files of the Nuclear Claims Tribunal for the Marshall Islands, which went out of existence in 2010, are an irreplaceable record of the impact of nuclear testing on a vulnerable population. The collection of paper records resides in a building in Majuro, the Marshall Island's capital city, but no arrangements are in place to assure their long-term preservation.[iv]


THE DOCUMENTS

READ MORE


1.                             Largest Nuclear Bomb Victims Honored with Int'l “Illumination Day ...

www.prweb.com/releases/IlluminationDay/.../prweb11566121.htm
Feb 20, 2014 - Former Marshall Islands resident Kim Klein and Michael Bayouth, ...March 1, 2014 as an annual international tribute to the Marshallese people ...

2.                             60th Anniversary of Castle BRAVO Nuclear Test, the Worst Nuclear ...

www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/nukevault/ebb459/
George Washington Univ...
7 hours ago - "Nuclear Victims Remembrance" at Majuro, Capital of the Republic of the ... Washington, D.C., February 28, 2014 – Sixty years ago, on 1 March ..... "immediately" after the test, but that did not occur until two days later, after ...

3.                             Marshall Islands Memorial and Nuclear Victims Day: Information ...

www.answers.com › ... › Festivals & Special Events
March 1 The Republic of the Marshall Islands is comprised of 29 atolls in the North Pacific Ocean. An atoll is a group of coral islands that form a ring.

4.                             Abolition 2000 » March 1, Nuclear Remembrance Day (Bikini Day)

www.abolition2000.org/?p=3204
Feb 20, 2014 - Commemorations in Marshall Islands, Japan and at the Clinton ... bomb tested by the United States, Nuclear Remembrance Day 2014 is a date to reflect on our shared nuclear legacy, honour survivors and victims, educate the ...

5.                             Nuclear Remembrance Day 2014 - Marshallese Educational ...

www.meius.org/news-2/
Marshallese Educational Initiative, Inc. ... detonation in the Marshall Islands, NuclearRemembrance Day 2014: Reflect. ... Bravo Detonation, March 1, 1954 ... the space to reflect on our shared nuclear legacy, honor survivors and victims, and ...

6.                             Mar 1, 2014 - Encyclopedia - The Free Dictionary

encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/Mar+1,+2014
Information about Mar 1, 2014 in the Columbia Encyclopedia, Computer Desktop ...March 1, 2014 ... Marshall Islands Memorial and Nuclear Victims Day.

7.                             March Day definition of March Day in the Free Online Encyclopedia.

encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/March+Day
Alahamady Be (First new moon in March) Mar 1, 2014 · American Birkebeiner ... inMarch) Mar 1, 2014 · Marshall Islands Memorial and Nuclear Victims Day.

8.                             March 1, 2014 - Encyclopedia - The Free Dictionary

encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/March+1,+2014
Information about March 1, 2014 in the Columbia Encyclopedia, Computer Desktop Encyclopedia, ... Marshall Islands Memorial and Nuclear Victims Day.


ILLUMINATION DAY


NINE DEGREES NORTH is Released

February 20
6:20 2014
On March 1, 1954, the United States detonated the largest nuclear bomb in its history on the Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands. Sixty years later, former Marshall Islands resident Kim Klein and her partner Michael Bayouth, are calling upon the world to commemorate â€Å“Illumination Day,â€' and bring worldwide attention to this atrocity on humanity that should never be forgotten and should never happen again.
On March 1, 2014, people from all countries are asked to join together online and in their communities to educate, pay respect, and honor the Marshallese people affected by the Castle Bravo test, which was 1000 times more powerful than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima.
Klein and Bayouth's social media campaign on Facebook for â€Å“Illumination Dayâ€' hopes to collect 60,000 shares of their Illumination Day candle through March 1, 2014, in honor of this yearâ€s 60th anniversary.
To help bring awareness to this global issue, Klein and Bayouth, authored the novel Ã¢€Å“Nine Degrees Northâ€', a coming-of-age story which chronicles the dramatic â€Å“fall-outâ€' of six teenagers†lives while living on Bikini Atoll in 1969. The book is available in both e-book and paperback here on Amazon.com.
Understanding firsthand how the blast affected Marshall Islandâ€s residents, the authors felt compelled to share their unique perspective with the world and write their novel as a think-piece to bring awareness to the long-term physical and emotional consequences and devastation left by nuclear bombs.
ILLUMINATION DAY GOOGLE SEARCH FEB. 28, 2014

1.                             Largest Nuclear Bomb Victims Honored with Int'l “Illumination Day ...

www.prweb.com/releases/IlluminationDay/.../prweb11566121.htm
Feb 20, 2014 - Former Marshall Islands resident Kim Klein and Michael Bayouth, authors of ... 2014 as an annual international tribute to the Marshallese people. The public is encouraged to "share" their online "Illumination Day" candle in ...

2.                             Illumination Day | Facebook

https://www.facebook.com/illuminationday
Join the event as we honor & pay respect to the Marshallese people, their culture & the islands they call home by reposting this candle on March 1, 2014 ~ ... To Honor Victims of Largest US Nuclear Blast - Now Thru 3/1/14 Illumination Day.

3.                             Energy – ABC Environment (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

www.abc.net.au/environment/?topic=energy
Australian Broadcasting...
(has related video). Stateline NT 28 Feb 2014 ... Youth gather in Marshall Islands forNuclear Survivors project. Pacific Beat Stories 28 Feb 2014. Illumination DayFacebook campaign to highlight Marshallese nuclear le. Pacific Beat Stories 28 ...

4.                             Illumination Day - Evensi

https://www.evensi.com/illumination-day-the-world/110204415
On March 1, 1954, the United States detonated the largest nuclear bomb in its history on the Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands. The nuclear fallout produced ...

5.                               Main story page - Marshall Islands JournalL ww.marshallislandsjournal.com/Main-story-page.html

7 days ago - ... holiday in the Marshall Islands marking the day the Bravo hydrogen bomb ... This year's 60th anniversary is being marked in Majuro — and other ... to reflect on the fact that the US nuclear weapons test legacy has left ... Read more about this in the February 28, 2014 edition of the Marshall Islands Journal.

6.                             Pacific Beat | ABC Radio Australia

www.radioaustralia.net.au/international/radio/.../pacific-b...
Radio Australia
Updated 28 February 2014, 19:03 AEST. Communities in central ... Illumination Daycampaign to highlight Marshallese nuclear legacy. Updated 28 February ...

7.                             Illumination day Video - YouTube

www.youtube.com/watch?v=7h-GaA5fJwU
YouTube
Feb 4, 2014 - Uploaded by Michael Bayouth
Published on Feb 3, 2014. On March 1, 1954, the United States detonated the largest nuclear bomb in its ...

8.                             Marshall Islands News

www.onenewspage.us/topic/marshall_islands.htm
Marshall Islands news, photos, videos • Follow the latest Marshall Islands ... Largest Nuclear Bomb Victims Honored with Int'l “Illumination Day” and Book “Nine ... of "Illumination Day", seek world support to commemorate March 1, 2014 as an.

9           NucNews

nucnews.com/whatsnew.php
3 and 4, Pages 11469 - 11472 [FR DOC #: 2014-04409]; Veterans Affairs ... Radio Australia - Illumination Day campaign to highlight Marshallese nuclear legacy ...



Recent Related OMNI Newsletters 2014
US Westward Imperialism 2-26, 2-3
Nuclear Weapons, Nuclear Abolition 2-8
US War on (War OF) Terror 1-16
Pentagon 1-14

Contents #1, March 1, 2012
MARSHALL ISLANDS NUCLEAR VICTIMS DAY: (now NUCLEAR VICTIMS AND SURVIVORS REMEMBRANCE DAY),  International Day against Nuclear Tests (29 August), and US Imperialism Westward Movement Pacific/E. Asia


Contents #2,  March 1, 2013
History
Remembrance Day
Ambassador Campbell, Nuclear Victims’ Remembrance Day 2012



END NUCLEAR FREE PACIFIC DAY AND MARSHALL ISLANDS NUCLEAR VICTIMS DAY, MARCH 1, 2014




Dick's Wars and Warming KPSQ Radio Editorials (#1-48)

Dick's Wars and Warming KPSQ Radio Editorials (#1-48)