Dr Helen Caldicott: The Earth is in the Intensive Care Unit

Posted on March 28, 2008 by dandelionsalad

Dandelion Salad

IndymediaPresents

from www.youtube.com posted with vodpod

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This week we devote the entire episode to Dr. Helen Caldicott, one of the founders of Physicians For Social Responsibility (PSR).

In this piece, edited by PepperSpray’s Patricia Boiko, Dr. Caldicott talks of the nuclear issues and the health of the earth from the perspective of a healer/physician.

Dr. Caldicott was in Seattle a few months back and PepperSpray collective members rallied around with her to radio stations and to the Washington meeting of PSR where she was the keynote speaker.

Physicians for Social Responsibility an organization of 23,000 doctors committed to educating their colleagues and the public about the dangers of nuclear power, nuclear weapons and nuclear war.http://www.psr.org

After being instrumental in the formation of PSR in the US, Dr. Caldecott helped start similar medical organizations in many other countries.

The international umbrella group (International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War) won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1985.

http://www.ippnw.org

She also founded the Women’s Action for Nuclear Disarmament, now Women’s Action for New Directions (WAND) in the US in 1980.

http://www.wand.org

Other professions took up the challenge of “social responsibility,” and the 1980s and 90s saw an array of organizations such as Computer Professionals For Social Responsibility, each with their own focus.

http://www.cpsr.org

Books by Helen Caldicott referenced in the video:

Nuclear Power Is Not the Answer

http://books.google.com/books?id=iEVb…

The New Nuclear Danger: George W. Bush’s Military-Industrial Complex

http://books.google.com/books?id=Diy9…

War in Heaven: The Arms Race in Outer Space

http://books.google.com/books?id=FoJu…

“Indymedia Presents” is a weekly public access program produced on behalf of the Seattle Independent Media Center (IMC) by PepperSpray Productions… now also a weekly podcast available at:

http://indymediapresents.blip.tv

http://miroguide.com/channels/1786

Pubic Access producers, community screeners, and IMCs are encouraged to screen or air “Indymedia Presents.” To obtain the show on a regular basis, please contact us at pepperspray@riseup.net.

Related Free Speech Websites:

Independent Media Center
http://www.indymedia.org/en/index.shtml

Indymedia NewsReal
http://www.newsreal.indymedia.org

Free Speech TV:
http://www.freespeech.org

Democracy Now!
http://www.democracynow.org

see

War in Heaven – The Arms Race in Outer Space

Nuclear Madness - Interview with Dr. Helen Caldicott (must see video)

Slovak police say three accused of trying to sell nuclear material

Ian Traynor in Brussels
Thursday November 29, 2007

The Guardian

Alarms over international nuclear smuggling were raised last night when Slovak police announced that three men had been arrested in Slovakia and Hungary after allegedly trying to sell a kilogram of radioactive material.

A Slovak police spokesman told journalists that the authorities in Slovakia and Hungary had been monitoring the activities of the alleged nuclear traders for several months before arresting them. They were detained in eastern Slovakia and eastern Hungary, near the common borders with Ukraine.

Police declined to provide any details of the radioactive substance, but said they had seized the material and sent it for examination. The location of the operation suggested that the material had been smuggled from the former Soviet Union, either Russia or Ukraine.

Western officials have been concerned for years about the risk of nuclear smuggling from the former Soviet Union, although US-funded safeguarding programmes have been effective in reducing the danger of nuclear trading.

Officials at the UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, said they knew little about the reported incident across Austria's border in Slovakia, but that the agency's nuclear security department would be looking into the matter urgently.

Police said they would supply more details about the case today. The main Slovak news agency reported that the material involved was enriched uranium but there were no indications of the degree of enrichment.

Low enriched uranium is used for nuclear power plant fuel, while weapons-grade uranium is highly enriched. In 2002 it emerged that Iran had been conducting an illicit nuclear programme for 18 years, greatly helped by the disgraced metallurgist Abdul Qadeer Khan's Pakistan-based smuggling racket.

Khan was found to have been privately channelling nuclear materials and equipment to Iran, North Korea, and Libya.

Slovak police said that the detained men had been attempting to sell the radioactive material for $1m (£480,000).