PMA: new alerts and articles!

1 March 2002

Kia ora,

this message is to let you know that the PMA office will be open again from next Monday (4 March) and all our services will resume from then. There is rather a backlog of email messages and letters to be sorted, so apologies in advance if there is a delay in getting back to you about something you have sent us in the past six weeks. Thanks to all of you who sent messages following Edwina's car accident, they were much appreciated.

We are hoping to start circulating the national 'whats' on' listings again from early next week - if you or your group has any peace or social justice meeting, protest, march or any other event planned, then please send us the details (as a text message please) if you would like it advertised.

During the past six weeks, work on our website has continued - there are now more than five hundred articles relating to the 'war on terrorism' accessible from the index page at http://www.converge.org.nz/pma/usatresp.htm Thanks to Craig in particular for this.

A number of alerts, updates and articles on other topics have also been uploaded to our website recently, a summary of some of these are listed below with a brief description and link to the relevant webpage.

Alerts you can act on

Support the Maori Internet Society! deadline 8 March 2002

the Maori Internet Society is asking for support to register the second level domain name <maori.nz> It is easy to do - you just need to vote in the straw poll which opened on-line on 22 February and which will close on 8 March. http://www.converge.org.nz/pma/cra0170.htm

Steven Wallace: JPs dismiss murder charge, PMA, 20 February 2002

The depositions hearing on the private prosecution for murder brought against Constable Abbot, the police officer who shot and killed Steven Wallace on 30 April 2000, ended today with the dismissal of the murder charge by Justices of the Peace Bob Moffat and John More. http://www.converge.org.nz/pma/waitara13.htm

Urgent! Support Kobe people against US pressure, PMA on behalf of Hyogo Council Against A&H Bombs / Hyogo Gensuikyo, 27 February 2002.

The people of Kobe urgently need statements of solidarity to support them in their long-standing effort to keep the Port of Kobe nuclear-free. It is especially important at this time when the Japanese government, and in particular the City of Kobe, are under extra pressure from the United States to allow US warships into their ports. http://www.converge.org.nz/pma/cra0173.htm

US/British nuclear weapons test, PMA, 15 February 2002

The US Department of Energy and British Ministry of Defence yesterday detonated a sub-critical nuclear weapons test 'Vito' at the Nevada Test Site which is stolen Western Shoshone land. 'Vito' was the 16th sub-critical nuclear weapons test in the current series conducted there by the US Department of Energy, and the first exploded jointly with the British. http://www.converge.org.nz/pma/cra0172.htm

Articles

Blair and Bush to plot war on Iraq, Kamal Ahmed, 24 February 2002

Tony Blair and the United States President George Bush are to hold a specially convened summit in April to finalise details of military action to overthrow Saddam Hussein. Blair will travel to Washington in six weeks' time in a clear signal that Downing Street fully backs Bush's plans to launch a war against Iraq if Saddam does not agree to deadlines to destroy his arsenal of weapons of mass destruction. 'The meeting will be to finalise Phase Two of the war against terrorism,' a senior Number 10 official said. 'Action against Iraq will be at the top of the agenda.' http://www.converge.org.nz/pma/cra0154.htm

Washington blocks $5bn supplies to Iraq, Reuters (New York), 21 February 2002

The UN's humanitarian programme in Iraq has been hampered by a record $5.3bn (£3.7bn) worth of blocked supplies, mainly by the US, it was revealed yesterday. The contracts include some $4.6bn worth of humanitarian supplies and $703m for oil industry equipment, the UN office of the Iraq programme said in its weekly report. Many of the contracts are approved individually by a security council sanctions committee, any one of whose 15 members can block them. http://www.converge.org.nz/pma/cra0150.htm

The Homegrown Nuclear Threat, Carrie Benzschawel, 26 February 2002

The biggest nuclear threat we now face doesn't come from some rogue nation, but from the radical unilateralists within the Bush administration. John Bolton, Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security, announced Friday that the US has officially dropped its pledge not to use a nuclear weapon against a non-nuclear state (US Drops Pledge on Nukes, The Washington Times, 2/22/02). http://www.converge.org.nz/pma/cra0167.htm

Mystery Metal Nightmare in Afghanistan, Dai Williams, 12 February 2002

This extraodinarily detailed study looks at whether or not Depleted Uranium ammunition has been used in Afghanistan by US and British armed forces. It is available on Dai's website at http://www.eoslifework.co.uk/du2012.htm - if you have problems getting through to that link, go to the front page at http://www.eoslifework.co.uk and click through from there.

Six deaths this week in Vieques, Committee for the Rescue and Development of Vieques, 26 February 2002

The Committee for the Rescue and Development denounced the deaths this past week end of 6 persons, four of them cancer victims. Lung and stomach cancer were the principal causes. The victims were residents of the Monte Santo and Lujan sectors, areas that receive winds directly from US Navy's the bombing zone on the Northeast part of the island. Several scientific studies show how military toxics produced during sixty years of bombing, get to the population through the breezes and the food chain. http://www.converge.org.nz/pma/cra0169.htm

Journalism in Australia has a courageous history, but Murdochism has turned it into a disgrace, John Pilger, 21 February 2002

"Here in Australia, the "threat" of the "flood" of illegal asylum-seekers (no more than 4,000 arrive in a year, most of them genuine) is said to have given Prime Minister John Howard his election victory last November. The decisive moment was when Howard and his ministers accused refugees of throwing their children overboard from a boat in which they were approaching Australia. These were "vile people", who "went against natural instincts". Last week, two official reports confirmed that this was a lie. Ministers knew the story was bogus but they said nothing." http://www.converge.org.nz/pma/cra0168.htm

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