Harper and Modi, the Nuclear Prime Ministers

Harper and Modi, the Nuclear Prime Ministers

Postby Oscar » Mon Apr 20, 2015 8:13 pm

Uranium deals with India weaken Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, says Greens

[ http://www.greenparty.ca/en/media-relea ... ays-greens ]

Green Party of Canada Press Release April 16, 2015

(OTTAWA) - Elizabeth May, Leader of the Green Party of Canada, expressed serious concern over Stephen Harper’s failure to engage India President Narendra Modi in a discussion on how to gain India’s support for the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NNPT).

“Canada’s trade in nuclear materials with India is a direct violation of the NNPT, yet we resumed trading equipment and fissionable materials with India in 2013,” said Ms. May. “India has indicated a willingness to pursue a comprehensive plan for a nuclear-free world, and has voluntarily adopted a ‘no first use’ policy. I call on Stephen Harper to stop encouraging defiance of the NNPT.”

“Canadians support peace and democracy. Selling uranium to India could cause us to violate the NNPT if India uses it to manufacture weapons, and make us part of the global insecurity problem,” said Lorraine Rekmans, the Green Party’s Indigenous Affairs Critic and candidate for Leeds – Grenville – Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes.

Daniel Green, Deputy Leader of the Green Party of Canada, added, “When India exploded its nuclear device in 1974 using Canadian technology, Canada ceased all exports of nuclear material to India, and India continued to develop a nuclear weapons program. India is not a signatory to the International Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. It would be unacceptable for Canada to renege on its commitments to this treaty, which is indispensable to our global security.”

“Although India has yet to sign the NNPT or the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, Canadian firms began to sell equipment and uranium to them in 2013. Stephen Harper needs to stop violating our international commitments,” said Bruce Hyer, Deputy Leader of the Green Party of Canada and Member of Parliament for Thunder Bay – Superior North.

Lorraine Rekmans continued, “Canada must promote peace and security abroad. In the upcoming review of the NNPT on April 29, we must work with our allies to bring all stakeholder nations into an improved NNPT.”

Ms. May concluded, “The 2015 Conference of the Parties Review of the NNPT will be held from the 29th of April to the 22nd of May 2015 at UN Headquarters in New York. Once again India, Pakistan, and Israel will be absent from this important forum. Instead of violating the treaty, Canada must move to a more active and assertive role in the NNPT Conference Review on April 29.

“We must explore constructive ways to bring India, as well as Pakistan and Israel, into a strengthened NNPT framework.”

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Background: India and the NNPT


India has refused to join the NNPT since it was created in 1970, as the treaty allowed the original five nuclear states to expand their stockpiles of weapons while constraining other signatories.

Canada banned all exports of nuclear materials to India in the 1970s, after India used a CANDU research reactor to develop its first experimental nuclear weapon.

The export ban was lifted with the Canada-India Nuclear Cooperation Agreement in 2013, in violation of Canada's obligations under the NNPT. At the time, Harper's minister Lawrence Cannon simply said, ‘India has been in the penalty box long enough.’ The 2013 agreement allows Canadian firms like Cameco to export and import nuclear materials, equipment and technology to and from India to facilities subject to safeguards applied by the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Increased imports from Canada will enable India to undertake the expansion of its capacity to generate electricity – India’s goal is to increase the generation of electricity from nuclear energy from 3% today to 50% by 2050. Unfortunately, increased uranium imports permit India to continue its nuclear weapons program outside the NNPT structure with its own internal uranium supplies.
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Re: Uranium deals with India weaken Nuclear Non-Proliferatio

Postby Oscar » Tue Dec 29, 2015 9:15 am

Harper and Modi, the Nuclear Prime Ministers

[ http://briarpatchmagazine.com/blog/view ... -ministers ]

by Baijayanta Mukhopadhyay, Lori Hanson • Apr 20, 2015

On the first day of his state visit to Canada last week, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi signed a deal with Prime Minister Stephen Harper in Ottawa to confirm the export of 3,220 tonnes of uranium from northern Saskatchewan to India, a country that has never signed the United Nations Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). That very day in Quebec City, Indigenous activists from all over the world working to end uranium mining were meeting with allies at the World Uranium Symposium. The symposium brought together 200 activists and organisers, physicians, environmentalists, and researchers from the natural and social sciences, all working with the intent to dismantle the nuclear industry and the huge costs associated with it.

Polls suggest that Canadians oppose a nuclear deal with New Delhi, perhaps out of fear of the proliferation of nuclear weapons. [ http://www.thestar.com/business/2015/04 ... isits.html ] But Indigenous activists reminded the symposium that the most obvious costs were already being felt by their communities, even without the immediate threat of nuclear war. Uranium mining, nuclear power generation, and nuclear waste all result in grievous harm to ecological and human health that lasts for countless generations.

Additionally, the social cost is high, in the public subsidies necessary to keep nuclear energy viable, in the diversion of immense amounts of water resources for nuclear industry use, and in the high carbon costs associated with mining, transport, and storage of uranium, which makes nuclear power a dubious choice to fight climate change. The only tangible benefit to Harper’s deal with India is the profit distributed to shareholders of Cameco, the company responsible for uranium mining in northern Saskatchewan. Attendees from Saskatchewan’s Committee for Future Generations suggested that the complicity between government and industry has led to a health system that refuses to acknowledge problems related to the industry. Saskatchewan environmentalist and former MLA Peter Prebble recalled that when it started in 1952, uranium mining was established in the province to provide plutonium for the nuclear arms industry of the USA, and baseline health studies were never done.

- - - SNIP - - -

Meanwhile, Saskatchewan’s premier Brad Wall has welcomed the deal with India, stating that the 4,000 workers, including many Indigenous employees, stand to benefit from the deal.

The struggle against uranium is not over, not across Canada, not in India, nor elsewhere.

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An immigrant who made Montreal home, Baijayanta Mukhopadhyay is currently a rural family doctor in northern Ontario. He is an organizer with the Canadian chapter of the People’s Health Movement and a co-representative for the North America region on its global steering council.

Lori Hanson has a 30-year history as an internationalist, solidarity activist, co-worker, and ally of Nicaraguan revolutionaries and feminist radicals, especially women farmers. She is a professor of community health at the University of Saskatchewan and visits Nicaragua frequently.
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