[ RadSafe ] Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs to fund the research projects by ICBUW (International Coalition to Ban Uranium Weapons)

Tue Apr 7 01:49:49 CDT 2009

Honorable Minister Store,

Please, find out who within your Ministry is involved with this.  The
ICBUW deals extensively in false and misleading information.  They are
very effective at disseminating it, but it is still false and
misleading and a number of key proponents of the anti-depleted uranium
crusade that they wage are pseudoscientist con artists.  I do not want
your Ministry to fall prey to their lies and would at least like to be
able to communicate with the right person and help them find accurate
information.

Thank you, very much.

Roger W Helbig

I am a US veteran who absolutely detests lies and liars - I do not
work for anyone (the same liars who feed the ICBUW claim that I do,
but I never have) and I have no personal stake in depleted uranium
other than preventing the liars from winning

The projects could be valuable in exposing the ICBUW's lies to the
world, but only if they do not have control of the project - your
Ministry funding them would not be of value in that regard unless you
insist on an international scientific team that has no connection to
the pseudoscientists like Dr Chris Busby of the United Kingdom

Each of the ICBUW projects ignores the substantial work that has
already been done by the UN Environment Programme (which they do not
like because it has found no long term health or environmental effects
from the US/UK use of depleted uranium to kill tanks) -- I expect that
they may have gotten to Norway because of the recent false statements
by a Norwegian Physician in Gaza, Dr Mads Gilbert, who functioned more
as a Palestinian spokesman than as a Physician obligated to abide by
the Hippocratic Oath - his false claims about DU in Gaza were proven
to be wrong by UNEP's visiting 32 sites in Lebanon after similar false
claims in Lebanon in 2006.

The responsible office within your Ministry should carefully evaluate
the UNEP findings in the Balkans and Southern Iraq and the IAEA
findings in Kuwait before helping ICBUW (their name is even false -
they made up the term "Uranium Weapons" when the only "weapon" is a
titanium-depleted uranium alloy bullet that was fired at tanks in the
Gulf War, in the Balkans against Serbian tanks before they could
slaughter refugees, and in 2003 during the attack on Baghdad).   All
other claims by the ICBUW that DU has been used elsewhere are false.

The UNEP Reports are at

Capacity-building for the Assessment of Depleted Uranium in Iraq
UNEP Technical Report, August 2007
http://postconflict.unep.ch/publications/Iraq_DU.pdf

Depleted Uranium in Bosnia and Herzegovina - Postconflict Assessment
March 2003
http://postconflict.unep.ch/publications/BiH_DU_report.pdf

UNEP Final Report: Depleted Uranium in Serbia and Montenegro -
Post-Conflict Environmental Assessment in the Federal Republic of
Yugoslavia, 2002.
http://postconflict.unep.ch/publications/duserbiamont.pdf

UNEP Final Report: Depleted Uranium in Kosovo - Post-Conflict
Environmental Assessment, 2001.
http://postconflict.unep.ch/publications/uranium.pdf

The IAEA Report on Kuwait is at

Radiological Conditions in Areas of Kuwait With Residues of Depleted Uranium
Includes Appendix III - Experiments to Examine Resuspension
http://www-pub.iaea.org/MTCD/publications/PDF/Pub1164_web.pdf

The UNEP Report on Lebanon

Lebanon Post-Conflict Environmental Assessment, January 2007.
http://postconflict.unep.ch/publications/UNEP_Lebanon.pdf

--- On Wed, 4/1/09, Kazashi <nkazashi at yahoo.com> wrote:

From: Kazashi <nkazashi at yahoo.com>
Subject: [NoMoreDU] Fw: Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs to fund
the research projects by ICBUW=International Coalition to Ban Uranium
Weapons
To: NoMoreDU at yahoogroups.com
Date: Wednesday, April 1, 2009, 8:27 PM

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: ICBUW Office <office at bandepleteduranium.org>
Date: 2009/4/2
Subject: Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs to fund ICBUW research
projects
To:

Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs agrees to fund ICBUW research
projects

The Norwegian government has agreed to fund three ICBUW research
projects in an effort to increase the international community’s
understanding of the impact and proliferation of uranium weapons.

More here: http://www.bandepleteduranium.org/en/a/267.html

--
*International Coalition to Ban Uranium Weapons*
Bridge 5 Mill
22a Beswick Street
Ancoats
Manchester
UK
M4 7HR

Telephone: +44 (0)161 273 8293 / 8283
Fax: +44 (0)161 273 8293
Email: info at bandepleteduranium.org <mailto:info at bandepleteduranium.org>
Web: www.bandepleteduranium.org <http://www.bandepleteduranium.org>

Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs agrees to fund ICBUW research projects
The Norwegian government has agreed to fund three ICBUW research
projects in an effort to increase the international community’s
understanding of the impact and proliferation of uranium weapons.

1 April 2009 - ICBUW
 The Norwegian government has had a long running interest in
supporting human rights, peace building and disarmament and their
foreign policy aims include a world free of nuclear weapons,
strengthening controls on conventional weapons and banning weapons
that cause undue suffering.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs funds a diverse array of humanitarian
projects around the world but is perhaps best known in the sphere of
conventional arms control for funding the work of the Cluster Munition
Coalition.

ICBUW was invited to bid for funding in late 2007 during a visit to
New York. The rapidly developing campaign during 2008 highlighted
several key areas where we needed more data. The three most pressing
areas for research were then developed into projects, these are:

The Basra Epidemiology Survey: a long-term study investigating the
impact of uranium munitions on the civilian population of Basra, Iraq.

Uranium weapons proliferation, manufacture and trade: this three year
research post based in Manchester, UK, will investigate which states
have uranium weapons, the size of their stocks and assess trade and
proliferation routes. Research will also be undertaken on the
environmental impact of alternatives and issues of military utility
and policy.

Balkan research survey: a survey trip to the Balkans to document the
legacy of NATO’s use of uranium weapons during the late 90s.

(See the three UNEP team reports - all of which are not accepted by
ICBUW or by Serb Nationalist activists and their supporters like some
Italians, all of which claim that non-existent cancers have resulted
from DU use.  Page 23 of the UNEP report on Bosnia-Herzegovina shows
an intact 30mm DU kinetic energy penetrator round (the only use of DU
in the Balkans; there was no bombing with DU because there are no
bombs that contain DU, but ICBUW and their anti-DU crusade supporters
constantly refer to "bombing"); this intact round is still encased in
its aluminum shroud and no DU from this round ever reached the
environment.  Hundreds of rounds such as this were recovered intact
and removed from the Balkan sites where DU had been fired)

This research work has been made all the more urgent by the upcoming
discussions on uranium weapons at the UN General Assembly in autumn
2010.

"This is a reflection of the rapidly changing political climate
surrounding this issue," said an ICBUW spokesperson. "Governments
around the world are re-assessing the effect that these weapons have
on civilian populations and there is a real thirst for reliable data
on their impact and proliferation. The outcome of these projects will
add enormously to the debate over the use of DU and we look forward to
a fruitful relationship with the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign
Affairs."

Notes:
http://www.regjeringen.no/en.html?id=4