August, 02 2018, 12:00am EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Contacts in Japan:
(Please note that Japan is 13 hours ahead of Washington, D.C.)
Emily Rubino, Grassroots Campaigns Coordinator, Peace Action New York State (PANYS), emily.rubino@panys.org, 1-513-509-6439 (cell)
Hassan El-Tayyab, Policy and Organizing Director, Chicago Area Peace Action, hassan@chipeaceaction.org, 1-508-241-0888 (cell)
Michelle Cunha, Assistant Director, Massachusetts Peace Action, michelle@masspeaceaction.org, 1-781-605-5583 (cell)
Contact in Washington D.C.:
Paul Kawika Martin, Senior Director for Policy and Political Affairs, Peace Action, pmartin@peace-action.org, 1-951-217-7285 (cell)
Peace Action Available for Interview: On 73rd Anniversary of the U.S. Atomic Bombings, Organizers for Nuclear Disarmament in Hiroshima & Nagasaki
With President Trump's dangerous statements and policies regarding nuclear weapons, and heightened tensions with North Korea and Iran regarding nuclear weapons issues, commemorating the 73rd anniversaries of the U.S. Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on Monday, August 6th, and Thursday August 9th is as important as ever.
WASHINGTON
With President Trump's dangerous statements and policies regarding nuclear weapons, and heightened tensions with North Korea and Iran regarding nuclear weapons issues, commemorating the 73rd anniversaries of the U.S. Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on Monday, August 6th, and Thursday August 9th is as important as ever.
Representatives from Peace Action New York State, Chicago Area Peace Action, and Massachusetts Peace Action are currently in Japan to participate in events surrounding the anniversaries of the bombings, and are available for interview.
Topics:
- The significance of the anniversaries of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings
- President Trump's dangerous statements and policies regarding nuclear weapons
- Grassroots efforts in the U.S. to reduce the nuclear threat and advance the goal of a nuclear weapons free world
- President Trump's unilateral withdrawal from the successful Iran nuclear agreement
- The diplomatic process with North Korea
- U.S. plans to spend $1.2 trillion over next 30 years on expanding its nuclear weapons capabilities
- The politics behind all the above issues as they relate to the Trump administration, Congress, and the 2018 midterms
Emily Rubino, Grassroots Campaigns Coordinator, Peace Action New York State (PANYS), emily.rubino@panys.org, 1-513-509-6439 (cell)
Emily Rubino is dedicated to intersectional activism that recognizes the connections between domestic social justice struggles and international human rights struggles. Her background in advocacy and activism includes acting as a Social Justice Leader through Fordham's Dorothy Day Center for Service and Justice and traveling to Nepal, Jordan, and Chile through IHP's Human Rights program to stand with communities of indigenous, refugee, and Palestinian peoples in their human rights struggles. She has been involved with Peace Action New York State in various capacities for the past two years, and looks forward to continuing to advocate for a less oppressive world order. She is a Fordham graduate with a BA in International Humanitarian Affairs and Sociology.
Hassan El-Tayyab, Policy and Organizing Director, Chicago Area Peace Action, hassan@chipeaceaction.org, 1-508-241-0888 (cell)
Hassan El-Tayyab is the Policy and Organizing Director at Chicago Area Peace Action. He leads CAPA's lobbying efforts with the Illinois Congressional delegation to advance diplomacy and legislation to reduce the nuclear threat such as H.R. 669, the Restricting First Use of Nuclear Weapons Act. You can read a feature story about him in the Chicago Tribune, and an op-ed of his in Truthout on nuclear diplomacy with North Korea. He is scheduled to be in Hiroshima from August 3-7 and in Nagasaki from August 8-9.
Michelle Cunha, Assistant Director, Massachusetts Peace Action, michelle@masspeaceaction.org, 1-781-605-5583 (cell)
Michelle Cunha holds a Bachelor's Degree in European History from Franklin Pierce University. A native of Bedford, she focuses on nuclear weapons issues such as Hanscom Air Force Base's roll in the new nuclear arms race.
Paul Kawika Martin, Senior Director for Policy and Political Affairs, Peace Action, pmartin@peace-action.org, 1-951-217-7285 (cell)
Since 1993, Paul Kawika (ca vee' ca) Martin, Peace Action's Senior Director for Policy and Political Affairs, has worked with numerous environmental, peace, animal rights and human rights organizations including the Rainforest Action Network and Physicians for Social Responsibility. Paul worked with a Clinton Presidential Commission and spent a year campaigning in twenty countries on Greenpeace ships including the Rainbow Warrior. His work has appeared in countless international, national and local television, radio and print media outlets including the New York Times, Washington Post, USA Today, Los Angeles Times, Christian Science Monitor, Politico, Nightline, CNN, MSNBC and Democracy Now! Mr. Martin has travelled to nearly 35 countries including Japan, Afghanistan, Iran, Lebanon and Cuba. He received his bachelor's at the University of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB) in Environmental Studies and Global Peace and Security and currently lives in Washington, D.C.
About Peace Action:
Founded in 1957, Peace Action (formerly SANE/Freeze), the United States' largest peace and disarmament organization, with over 100,000 paid members and nearly 100 chapters in 36 states, works to abolish nuclear weapons, promote government spending priorities that support human needs, encourage real security through international cooperation and human rights and support nonmilitary solutions to international conflicts. The public may learn more and take action at www.PeaceAction.org.
Peace Action is the United States' largest peace and disarmament organization with over 100,000 members and nearly 100 chapters in 34 states, works to achieve the abolition of nuclear weapons, promote government spending priorities that support human needs and encourage real security through international cooperation and human rights.
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Last September, U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks "asserted that the development of all-domain, attributable autonomy systems (ADA2) is an essential way for the Pentagon to maintain its comparative cutting-edge and keep up with the technological advancements of other states," notes the letter, which was addressed to her and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin.
"However, those comments failed to specify whether or not supporting autonomous weapons systems is one of the key focuses of this initiative," the letter stresses. "When addressing whether or not 'ADA2 means weapons systems,' Secretary Hicks stated: 'That's a serious question to be sure. They are not synonymous. There are many applications for ADA2 systems beyond delivering weapons effects.'"
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Deploying lethal weapons that rely on artificial intelligence (AI) "in battlefield conditions necessarily means inserting them into novel conditions for which they have not been programmed, an invitation for disastrous outcomes," the groups warned. "'Swarms' of the sort envisioned by Replicator pose even heightened risks, because of the unpredictability of how autonomous systems will function in a network. And the mere ambiguity of the U.S. position on autonomous weapons risks spurring a catastrophic arms race."
"We believe the Department of Defense should declare its opposition to the development and deployment of autonomous weapons," the coalition concluded. "However, even if you are not prepared to make that declaration, we strongly urge you to clarify that the Replicator Initiative will not employ autonomous weapons."
In addition to Public Citizen, the coalition included the American Friends Service Committee, Autistic Women & Nonbinary Network, Backbone Campaign, Demand Progress Education Fund, Fight for the Future, Future of Life, National Priorities Project at the Institute for Policy Studies, RootsAction.org, United Church of Christ, the Value Alliance, Women's International League for Peace and Freedom U.S., Win Without War, and World Beyond War.
The letter comes on the heels of Public Citizen releasing a report about the rise of killer robots, AI Joe: The Dangers of Artificial Intelligence and the Military.
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"The United States should state plainly that it will not create or deploy killer robots and should work to advance global treaty negotiations to ban such weapons," Weissman said. "At minimum, the United States should commit that the Replicator Initiative will not involve the use of autonomous weapons."
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Video published on social media shows Palestinians running toward the Mediterranean Sea in Beit Lahia as aid parcels parachute downward. Eyewitness Abu Mohammad toldCNN that the people who drowned "don't know how to swim."
"There were strong currents and all the parachutes fell in the water," Mohammad said. "People want to eat and are hungry. I haven't been able to receive anything."
Ramy Abdu, chair of the Geneva-based group Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor, said that some of the victims died after becoming entangled in parachute ropes.
BREAKING| 9 Palestinians drowned and 5 others missing in the Sea of Gaza while trying to get humanitarian airdrop aid due to falling into the sea. pic.twitter.com/tSPpbrKsTg
— PALESTINE ONLINE 🇵🇸 (@OnlinePalEng) March 26, 2024
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Earlier this month, five children were crushed to death and numerous other Palestinians were injured by U.S.-airdropped parcels on which the parachutes apparently malfunctioned.
The airdrops come amid widespread and increasingly deadly starvation in Gaza, where Israeli forces have been accused of using hunger as a weapon of war. Last month, Michael Fakhri, the United Nations special rapporteur on the right to food, called Israel's forced starvation of Gazans part of "a situation of genocide" in the besieged enclave, where more than 114,000 Palestinians have been killed or wounded by Israeli forces since October 7 and around 2 million people out of a population of 2.3 million have been forcibly displaced.
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Israeli forces have also on several occasions attacked starving Palestinians as they desperately attempt to get food for their families, including in the February 29 "
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Also blocking humanitarian aid from reaching starving Palestinians are Israeli civilians who have camped at border crossings to prevent convoys from entering Gaza. Last month, right-wing extremists set up a giant inflatable children's bouncy castle where aid trucks are meant to pass through the Kerem Shalom border crossing in an effort to lend a festive atmosphere to the action.
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"Since we started organizing, I put in my [Family and Medical Leave Act] leave with management multiple times and every time they said they lost the paperwork," Lakeisha Carter, who works in the company's battery plant, told the UAW. "It's just plain retaliation from Mercedes, but I'm not going to be intimidated."
The U.S. Department of Labor last month recovered $438,625 in back pay, unpaid bonuses, and damages for two people who had formerly worked at the plant in Vance, finding that management had illegally fired the workers when they requested FMLA-protected leave to care for a family member and recover from a serious health condition.
After winning new contracts for workers at the Big 3 automakers last fall following an historic "stand-up strike," the UAW has launched campaigns at non-unionized plants owned by Mercedes, Volkswagen, Hyundai, and Toyota, convincing more than 10,000 autoworkers so far to sign union cards.
Another battery plant worker, Taylor Snipes, told the UAW that managers at the company were forcing him and his coworkers "to attend meetings and watch anti-union videos that are full of lies."
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