COMING TO SASKATCHEWAN!!! TWO EVENTS to commemorate Atomic B

[Oscar]

COMING TO SASKATCHEWAN!!! TWO EVENTS to commemorate Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

----- Original Message -----
From: Elaine Hughes
To: SK Premier Wall ; Council of Canadians ; Breitkreuz, G. MP
Cc: Steven Staples, Ceasefire.ca ; SK Liberal - Leader - Ryan Bater ; SK Green - Leader - Larissa Shasko ; SK Party Caucus ; SK NDP Caucus ; May, E. GPC ; Layton, J. NDP ; Duceppe, G. Bloc ; Ignatieff M. - Lib. ; Goodale, Ralph ; Dr. Gordon Edwards ; Dr. Stuart Houston
Sent: Sunday, August 01, 2010 3:50 PM

COMING TO SASKATCHEWAN!!!

TWO EVENTS to commemorate Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki


1) No more nuclear war: Hiroshima and Nagasaki commemoration – Saskatoon – Aug. 6 & 9

Around the world, August 6th and 9th mark the days of the 1945 atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Every year, people around the world come together to remember.

We say never again.

Join us . . . .
…

Friday August 6, 2010 - 7:00 pm - SaskatoonRotary Peace Pole Park
Saskatchewan Crescent between Traffic Bridge and the Senator Sid Buckwold Bridge

In the event of rain:
St. David’s-Trinity United Church
3318 Merritt Street, Montgomery Place

Sponsored by
Saskatoon Peace Coalition
Project Ploughshares
Seniors Against Nuclear Arms

For more information, call 384-4134 or email mj.crawford@sasktel.net

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/eve ... 4779921946
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Keep up to date on peace news and events with the Saskatoon Peace Coalition Blog www.saskatoonpeace.tk

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2) MAKING PEACE VIGIL August 5 2010 - Regina

Bearing witness to our society’s involvement in violence and injustice

Committing ourselves to creative action for change

EVERY THURSDAY until PEACE breaks out

FROM 12:00 noon to 12:30 pm
ON SCARTH STREET AT 11TH AVENUE, Regina

EVERYONE IS WELCOME

The vigil takes a stand on a range of issues, including:

- The deployment of Canada’s military in Afghanistan
- Canadian Pension Plan investments in corporations making weapons
- Saskatchewan’s involvement in the uranium industry
- The suspension of human and civil rights in the name of national security
- The Canadian government’s failure to honour treaties signed with First Nations
- Social inequity in housing and employment in Regina
- Racism in Canada and elsewhere
- Violence against women in Canada and world wide
- The lack of a national early learning and child care system
- The unequal distribution of wealth both in Canada and world wide
- Canadian Pension Plan investments in the tar sands industry
- War against the earth systems that give us life

For further information please contact

Florence Stratton at 522-2310 or florence.stratton@uregina.ca

Catherine Verrall at 569-7699 or cfverrall@yahoo.ca

On the web: http://makingpeace.wordpress.com

REMEMBERING HIROSHIMA 65 YEARS AFTER

On August 6, 1945, the United States dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, a city of 350,000. The bomb instantly killed a third of the population, most of them civilians. Another third would be dead by the year’s end, as a result of injuries or radiation poisoning. It was the single most brutal act of violence in human history.

CANADA AND THE NUCLEAR WEAPONS INDUSTRY

Canada has never produced an atomic bomb itself, despite having the technical ability to do so. However, Canada’s nuclear record is not innocent. Indeed, Canada has been very much involved in the nuclear arms industry from the beginning.

1942–1969: TRADING ATOMS

Canada started trading atoms in 1942 when it joined the US nuclear bomb effort known as the Manhattan Project, providing scientific skill and uranium to US weapons laboratories.

Canada was the primary source of the uranium used in making the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. The uranium came from Port Radium, North West Territories.

Between 1945 and 1969, Canada was the main supplier of uranium for the Cold War atomic arsenals of the US and Britain. According to one estimate, Saskatchewan uranium alone was used to produce 27,000 American nuclear weapons.

In 1970, Canada signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Officially, Canada now exports uranium exclusively for the generation of electricity. However, much of that uranium, whether exported raw or as fuel in a nuclear reactor, ends up being used in the manufacture of nuclear weapons.

1970–2010: REACTOR EXPORTS AND ATOMIC BOMBS

In 1974, India used a Canadian nuclear reactor to produce plutonium for its first atomic bomb. The reactor, a forerunner of the CANDU reactor, was a gift to India from Canada. India now has between 40 and 95 nuclear weapons.

India’s nuclear success set off a nuclear arms race with Pakistan. In 1998, Pakistan was able to detonate its first atomic explosion also using plutonium from a Canadian nuclear reactor. The on-going tension between India and Pakistan poses one of the greatest risks of nuclear war in the world today.

Canada has already sold CANDU nuclear reactors to Argentina, China, India, Pakistan, Romania, and South Korea. CANDU produces larger volumes of plutonium than other commercial reactors. Every CANDU reactor sold is heavily subsidized by the Canadian taxpayer.

1990-2010: RAW URANIUM EXPORTS AND WMDs

Canada exports 7.3 million kilograms of uranium annually, all of it coming from Saskatchewan and the majority of it going to the US.

This uranium is the initial source of much, if not all, of the depleted uranium currently being used by the US military for the production of depleted uranium weaponry, bullets and rockets coated with depleted uranium, making them dense enough to penetrate tank armour and concrete underground bunkers.

On impact, depleted uranium bursts into flame, releasing tiny radiation particles that contaminate all living things and the environment with deadly radiation with a half-life of 4.5 billion years.

A form of low-level nuclear warfare, depleted uranium weapons are classified as weapons of mass destruction under international law. Their demonstrated public health effects include cancer, immune system failings, kidney damage, infertility, and birth defects.

The US has used depleted uranium weaponry in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Iraq, and Kosovo.

The only way to stop the manufacture and use of nuclear weapons is to stop the trade in uranium. Without uranium there can be no nuclear weapons.


THE ELM DANCE: HEALING THE WORLD

With us at the vigil today are the Singers of the Sacred Web.

We invite you to join in the Elm Dance.

The Elm Dance took form in Germany in the 1980s, and in the 1990s moved eastward to areas poisoned by the Chernobyl disaster, the worst nuclear power plant accident in history. There, and especially in Novozybkov, the most contaminated of inhabited cities, the dance became an expression of the will to live. This simple beautiful dance has now spread around the planet as people gather to work together for the healing of our world.