NI 412 - June, 2008

Dropping the bomb

A note from the editor

The lorry carrying the warheads stopped in a lay-by so the driver could go to McDonald’s. So Russell, who’d been following the convoy, ran in after him and shouted: “Hey everybody, want to see what Britain’s weapons of mass destruction look like? They’re parked just outside!”

I’m in a café round the corner from the NI Oxford office, chuckling away at Nigel and Margaret’s story. They are die-hard anti-nuke activists, part of a network called Nukewatch which doggedly follows the bombs as they are transported up and down the country. They have documented brake failures, crashes and one hair-raising incident where a lorry carrying two warheads skidded on ice and rolled on to its side in Wiltshire. They show me photos of just how close a nuclear convoy comes to my house on a regular basis.

I had no idea. Before editing this issue of the magazine, I’d mainly thought about nuclear weapons in the abstract. The revelation that the Government is making new bombs all the time and driving them round the Oxford ring-road came as quite a shock.

If the powers-that-be had their way, we’d never know about any of this. The fact that we do is down to people like Nigel and Margaret, who sacrifice their time – and in some cases their liberty – to watch, track, bear witness and resist.

Jess Worth for the New Internationalist co-operative.
www.newint.org

The big story

Illustration: Nick Purser

NI 412 - June, 2008

Dropping the bomb

A note from the editor

The big story

With nuclear weapons multiplying again, now is the time to seize the moment and ban them, argues Jess Worth.

Features

There are over 27,000 nuclear weapons in the world. Thousands are deployed on land, at sea and in the air, posing the constant threat of nuclear war and radioactive contamination.

Wayward warheads, mid-air collisions and dangerous detonations.

Activist Angie Zelter celebrates a year-long blockade of Britain’s weapons of mass destruction.

What are the West’s weapons actually for? asks Paul Rogers.

From the Manhattan Project and Hiroshima, to the Cold War, North Korea and beyond, nuclear fission has changed everything.

Anti-nuke action across the world

David Ransom finds a likeness between the addictions of gambling and the speculative impulses of capitalism.

Pakistani physicist Pervez Hoodbhoy explores his country’s rocky relationship with nukes.

Opinion

View from New Delhi by Urvashi Butalia

Currents

Nanotechnology

Climate negotiations

Fossil Fools Day

West Papua’s push for independence

say hello to water called Ethos

Nike workers in Vietnam go on strike

Regulars

Egypt’s rising food prices have hit the headlines. Maria Golia steps back and looks at how the process of provision itself is undergoing headlong change.

A quote from his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech

Seriously.. true tales of a mixed-up world

Polyp takes aim at transport

Acrobatic extravagance in Tehran, as seen by Iranian photographer Kian Amani.

on the need for Christians to engage with the real world

Horatio Morpurgo supplies an environmental missing link.

In the heart of Central Asia, enclosed by the Pamir mountains to the southeast and desert in the northeast, Uzbekistan was once the seat of vast wealth and influence.

by Mitchell & Richardson

Film, Book & Music Reviews

A new collection of poems by one of Britain's most significant poets

Steve Reich’s tribute to murdered journalist Daniel Pearl

Ma Jian has undertaken his most ambitious project yet; a sweeping panorama of China in the years before and after the Tiananmen Square massacre of 4 June 1989.

Thoroughly researched and with heart-warming personal accounts, Tom Fawthrop’s Swimming Against the Tide is an inspiration.

Colm Meaney is Tommy, an Irishman in London who plans to kill himself. Directed by Jonathan Gershfield

A yowl of fury against the Pop Idol-type mediocrity that seems so often to fuel cultural commerce these days.

Every family has its secrets. So does every nation. But Turkey’s official secret remains extraordinarily potent because public references to the massive event that occurred 93 years ago are forbidden.

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