TAKE ACTION to stop nuclear weapons build in the US

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In Kansas City, Missouri, people have lost jobs, schools have closed and hospitals have moved away. Now the government has subsidised a new federal nuclear weapons plant with $815 million in municipal bonds...
 
Things are hard in the heartland. In Kansas City, Missouri people have lost jobs, schools have closed and hospitals have moved away. Now the Kansas City government has subsidised a new federal nuclear weapons production plant with $815 million in municipal bonds.
‘This is the first new nuclear weapons plant being built in the US in 33 years, and two others are proposed. This will enable the US to make new nuclear weapons for decades to come,' says Ann Suellentrop, co-founder of the Kansas City Peace Planters.
The new plant is part of government plans to fund the ‘modernisation' of the country's nuclear weapons arsenal. While the Obama administration has made the dismantling of nuclear weapons a priority with the passage of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), in return the White House struck a deal with conservative members of Congress to spend an estimated $8.6 billion per year over the next 10 years on the nation's existing warheads.

In Kansas City, residents are wondering why the government is building bombs, not schools.

Local activists have collected just under 5,000 signatures for a ballot initiative banning nuclear weapons production at the site and recommending green energy technology production instead. The City Council then voted to keep this initiative off the ballot, the protestors sued to get it back on and it is currently in the hands of a judge.

‘There will be a hearing on August 31st, and we are prepared to continue no matter what happens! Right now things are a bit up in the air, but we'll know more after August 31st,' says Suellentrop.

Kevin Martin, Executive Director of Peace Action says the Kansas City plant, along with two others slated for Los Alamos, New Mexico and Oak Ridge, Tennessee, 'would be a complete renewal of our nuclear complex'.

‘We support the ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, but it doesn't look politically feasible before the elections in 2012. In the meantime the Obama Administration should be taking executive action towards nuclear disarmament. The START treaty capped nuclear warheads at 1,115 - we could go further than that. They should immediately stop plans for this absurd nuclear modernisation'.

TAKE ACTION

Join and support the Peace Planters

Email a message of support to be read out at protests to help ‘keep our spirits up,' says Suellentrop.

More information on Nuke Watch and the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability.

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