Banks in Front Line of Nuclear Arms Campaign

Source: Asia Times
Thalif Deen

The world's nuclear weapons industry is being funded - and kept alive - by more than 300 banks, pension funds, insurance companies and asset managers in 30 countries, according to a new study.

And these institutions have substantial investments in nuclear arms producers.

Released by the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), the 180-page study says that nuclear-armed nations spend over US$100 billion each year assembling new warheads, modernizing old ones, and building ballistic missiles, bombers and submarines to launch them.

Much of this work, the report points out, is carried out by corporations such as BAE Systems and Babcock International in the UK, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman in the United States, Thales and Safran in France, and Larsen & Toubro in India.

"Financial institutions invest in these companies by providing loans and purchasing shares and bonds," says the report, described as the first of its kind.

Titled "Don't Bank on the Bomb: The Global Financing of Nuclear Weapons Producers", the study provides details of financial transactions with 20 companies heavily involved in the manufacture, maintenance and modernization of US, British, French and Indian nuclear forces.

A coordinated global campaign for nuclear weapons divestment is urgently needed, it says.

Such a movement could help put a halt to modernization programs, strengthen the international norm against nuclear weapons, and build momentum towards negotiations on a universal nuclear weapons ban, it adds.

Iran Reportedly to Reveal "Very Big New Nuclear Achievements" in Coming Days

Source: Activist Post
Madison Ruppert

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad stated that Iran will reveal “very big new nuclear achievements” in the very near future during a rally in Tehran marking the 33^rd anniversary of the Islamic Revolution.

On Saturday, Iranians celebrated the 33^rd anniversary of the revolution which brought down the Western-backed monarchy; seemingly a great opportunity for Ahmadinejad to make such a landmark announcement.

However, Ahmadinejad would not elaborate on the upcoming announcement, instead just highlighting Iran’s unwillingness to ever give up their uranium enrichment program, according to the Associated Press.

While Iran continually denies the claims that they are working towards producing nuclear weapons – a charge which has also been refuted by United States Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta on no less than two separate occasions – the West refuses to back down from these allegations.

Iran says that they have been forced to domestically produce nuclear fuel rods because international sanctions have blocked them from buying them on foreign markets, and Ahmadinejad said he would never yield to the West if it continued to utilize “the language of force and insult.”

In his speech in Azadi Square in Tehran, Ahmadinejad told a sizeable crowd that “all the needs of the Iranian nation” would be met by Iranian nuclear scientists in the near future.

“God willing, the world will witness the inauguration of great achievements in the nuclear sphere in a few days,” he said.

These are quite bold statements indeed, and it remains to be seen they can be backed up or if it is just hollow boasting in an attempt to show that they are staying strong despite Western sanctions.