US subcritical nuclear test under fire in Nagasaki, Hiroshima

www.hindustantimes.com...

US subcritical nuclear test under fire in Nagasaki, Hiroshima

A recent US subcritical nuclear test came under harsh fire in the world's only atom-bombed cities of Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Nagasaki Governor, Hodo Nakamura and Nagasaki Mayor Tomihisa Taue yesterday pledged to file protests against the first such US test under President Barack Obama, who has
called for a world without nuclear weapons.

"I deeply deplore it because I had expected President Obama to take leadership in eliminating nuclear weapons," Nakamura said here.

"I fear and am concerned that the test, which runs counter to a march toward a world free from nuclear weapons, will adversely affect the international situation," Taue said in a statement.

"The atom-bombed city will send a letter of protest to the United States and persist in our efforts for the elimination of nuclear weapons," he said.

The first US subcritical nuclear test since August 2006 took place in Nevada on Sept 15, the US Energy Department said.

In protest at the test, Nagasaki and Hiroshima citizens, including atomic bombing survivors, launched sit-ins. At a sit-in in which some 40 people participated at Nagasaki Peace Park, Koichi Kawano, chairman of the Japan Congress against A- and H-Bombs, said the congress opposes any nuclear test and is determined to continue its antinuclear activities until nuclear weapons are eliminated.

About 50 people, including members of the Hiroshima Council of A-Bomb Sufferers Organizations, took part in a sit-in at Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park. ''We cannot tolerate the US action that betrayed the president's promise to pursue a world without nuclear weapons,'' the council's Deputy Director General Yukio Yoshioka said after the sit-in.

I can see their point, to a point.

While subcritical testing does not produce a nuclear chain reaction so isn't really a nuclear test, its purpose is to study the "shelf life" of nuclear weapons. If there were no nuclear arsenal there wouldn't really be any need for subcritical testing.

Funny, I wonder why they didn't request an emergency session of the UN Security Council and impose sanctions on the US like they did after North Korea's nuke test...

www.thebulletin.org...

reply to post by TrueAmerican

Because it isn't nuclear testing and the US is not quite as mental as North Korea.

reply to post by Phage


Well apparently those 50 people thought so enough to stage a sit in and protest!

About 50 people, including members of the Hiroshima Council of A-Bomb Sufferers Organizations, took part in a sit-in at Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park. ''We cannot tolerate the US action that betrayed the president's promise to pursue a world without nuclear weapons,'' the council's Deputy Director General Yukio Yoshioka said after the sit-in.

reply to post by TrueAmerican

Yes.
And I said I can see their point. But it is not the same thing as a nuclear test.

reply to post by Phage

The test, dubbed Bacchus, was conducted at a vault some 300 meters below the earth's surface by scientists from the New Mexico-based Los Alamos National Laboratory, known for coordinating the wartime Manhattan Project to develop the first nuclear weapon, the NNSA said.

The scientists bombarded plutonium with conventional explosives to see how the substance reacted without hiking the quantity of the substance to critical mass, the point at which a self-sustaining nuclear chain fission reaction occurs, and the test was a success, it said.

Bacchus is the first of three planned subcritical tests, with the remaining two to take place in the first and second quarters of the U.S. fiscal year from October 2010 through September 2011.

Washington has argued that subcritical tests are not banned under the CTBT on the grounds that they do not create a nuclear explosion.

The Obama administration has adopted a policy of maintaining its nuclear arsenal as long as nuclear weapons exist in the world while calling for nuclear disarmament. Obama proposed ''a world without nuclear weapons'' in his speech in Prague in 2009.

www.istockanalyst.com...

Funny, for ''a world without nuclear weapons," Obama sure doesn't mind risking a nuclear explosion. Or storing them either. If he's serious then why aren't they being dismantled instead of tested for storage safety?

reply to post by TrueAmerican

There is no risk of a nuclear reaction because there is not enough fissionable material used to reach critical mass.

And again, I said that:

If there were no nuclear arsenal there wouldn't really be any need for subcritical testing.

reply to post by Phage


You mean we actually agree on something?

reply to post by Phage


It's still not acceptable due to the history of both cities and how they were obliterated by our bombs over 60 years ago.

I implore you to see it from this angle. The tests are an insult to those who perished when those bombs went off.

Originally posted by amkia

You have a point here, but why these tests should be executed in Japan..? like there are no other places in whole planet but exactly there..?

According to the article, the September 15 test took place in Nevada, and not Japan.