The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. – Albert Einstein.
As the world is trying to hopefully recover from the tragic effects of COVID-19, it is reminded there is no vaccine for the existential threat for its life support systems posed by global warming, nor for the looming threats of future wars and nuclear wars fueled by warmongers and $trillion preparations by military-industrial complexes.
Between 1740 and 1897 some 230 wars and revolutions in Europe suggested war remained deeply ingrained in the human psyche and civilization. The question is whether the currently approaching catastrophes can be averted.
No one wishes to believe in the projections made in the recent book ‘The Uninhabitable Earth’, except that these projections, made by David Wallace-Wells, are disturbingly consistent with the current shift in state of the climate toward +4 degrees and even +6 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, as indicated by the current trends (Figure 1) and conveyed by leading climate scientists and the International Panel for Climate Change (IPCC).
Figure 1.. Global mean temperature estimates for land areas (NASA).
Facing the unthinkable consequences of global warming is pushing climate scientists into a quandary. In private conversations, many scientists express far greater concern at the trend of global warming than they do in public. However, faced with social and psychological barriers, as well as threats of losing positions and jobs, in business, public service and academia, a majority keeps silent, displaying lesser courage than school children.
According to James Hansen (2012), NASA’s former chief climate scientist: “You can’t burn all of these fossil fuels without creating a different planet”. According to Joachim Schellnhuber (2015), Germany’s chief climate scientist: ‘We’re simply talking about the very life support system of this planet’, and ‘If we don’t solve the climate crisis, we can forget about the rest’.
Referring to a phenomenon he termed “scientific reticence”, James Hansen (2007) states: “I suggest that a “scientific reticence” (namely a reluctance to convey worrying news) is inhibiting the communication of a threat of a potentially large sea level rise”.
According to Bajaj (2019): “when it comes to climate change, the need for excessive caution and absolute certainty of the results is manifesting as silence from the mainstream science on the worst yet probable consequences and the worst-case scenarios that are looking increasingly likely”. A paradox emerges where scientists who experience scientific reticence are still accused of being alarmists.
This is because an evaluation of the probability of a risk needs to be related to the magnitude of the risk. For example, the inspection of the engines of a Jumbo Jet carrying 300 passengers need to be even more rigorous than that of a commuter van, or evaluation of the risk posed by a potential failure of a nuclear reactor even more critical than that of a conventional power plant, as is the absolute safety of a particle accelerator.
By analogy with the dictum “Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it” projections of future climate trajectories need to take account of studies of the past behaviour of the atmosphere-ocean system. The pace of current global warming exceeds those of the last 2.6 million years by an order of magnitude, with calamitous consequences for biological systems.
As indicated by the basic laws of physics, the principles of climate science and empirical observations in nature, under an increase of greenhouse gas concentrations by about 50 percent , global warming is inevitable. While modeled future climate change trajectories may vary, depending whether observations are based on recent measurements, paleoclimate data or models, the consequences of such an increase are inevitably catastrophic. Whereas IPCC models portray linear warming trends to 2300, other models take account of the flow of ice melt water from Greenland and Antarctica into the oceans and thereby irregular warming (Glikson, 2019).
Given the warnings issued by leading climate scientists and the IPCC, while nations keep investing their dwindling $trillions in its military-industrial complexes in preparations for future war/s, our world is losing its last chance to save its planetary life support systems.
Dr Andrew Glikson Earth and Climate scientist
“Hypocrisy can afford to be magnificent in its promise, for never intending to go beyond promise costs nothing.” – Edmund Burke
Joe Biden’s statements on resuscitating the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) has also reignited an old debate inside Iran. With the Rouhani administration clearly siding with those pushing for unconditional return to the ‘deal’ signed with the U.S. and five other world powers, it is important to discuss what is at stake – specifically as it relates to medical isotopes and Iran’s enrichment needs.
While the United States and its western ‘allies’ demand that Iran stop all enrichment of up to 20% for its research reactor and medical isotopes, the US government has continued its efforts to commercialize nuclear medicine.
In 2011, while the Obama administration was busy talking in secret with the ‘reformist’ groups attempting to influence and undermine Iran’s rights under the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), the U.S. Congress passed the “American Medical Isotopes Production Act of 2011” . The Bill calls for providing uranium to private sector companies to make medical isotopes with U.S. government undertaking the task of waste removal: “The lease contracts shall provide for the Secretary to retain responsibility for the final disposition of radioactive waste created by the irradiation, processing, or purification of leased uranium.” It is important to read the entire Bill here: E:\BILLS\S99.IS (govinfo.gov)
Under Section 6 titled ‘DOMESTIC MEDICAL ISOTOPE PRODUCTION’, the Bill stipulates:
“(a) In General.— Chapter 10 of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954 (42 U.S.C. 2131 et seq.) is amended by adding at the end the following:
“Sec. 112. Domestic Medical Isotope Production.
“a. The Commission may issue a license, or grant an amendment to an existing license, for the use in the United States of highly enriched uranium as a target for medical isotope production in a nuclear reactor, only if, in addition to any other requirement of this Act.”
Clearly not a proliferation concern. America is the arbitrator of international treaties – it would seem with cooperation from other powers. But Iran’s uranium enriched to 19.75% – considered to be LEU and necessary for research reactors and medicinal purposes – has to be halted.
Through National Nuclear Security Administration, the U.S. is monopolizing and handing control over global medical isotope production to profit-driven companies. Here is the statement published on NNSA’s website:
“As part of its mission to minimize the use of highly enriched uranium (HEU), NNSA’s Office of Material Management and Minimization was tasked to lead the Molybdenum-99 (Mo-99) program. Mo-99 is an isotope that is used in over 40,000 medical procedures in the United States each day, but is 100% supplied by foreign vendors, most of which use HEU in the production process.”
It also identifies four private companies currently working with the U.S. government:
NorthStar Medical Radioisotopes, LLC, located in Beloit, Wisconsin
- SHINE Medical Technologies, located in Janesville, Wisconsin Northwest
- Medical Isotopes, located in Corvallis, Oregon
- Niowave, Inc., located in Lansing, Michigan”
Medical isotopes are a lucrative, growing business and one that is essential to human health.
Radiotherapy can be used to treat some medical conditions, especially cancer, using radiation to weaken or destroy particular targeted cells.
- Over 40 million nuclear medicine procedures are performed each year, and demand for radioisotopes is increasing at up to 5% annually.
- Sterilization of medical equipment is also an important use of radioisotopes
The global radioisotope market was valued at $9.6 billion in 2016, with medical radioisotopes accounting for about 80% of the total, and poised to reach about $17 billion by 2021. North America is the dominant market for diagnostic radioisotopes with close to half of the market share, while Europe accounts for about 20%. Hence, 70% of the global medical radioisotopes goes to a population of 778 million people (US 331 and EU 447 million) while 7 billion (global population 7.8 billion less US and EU) are left with only 30%.
Where there is health imperialism, profit, and discrimination, there is Bill Gates. According to the Journal of Economics and Sociology (2015), Bill Gates, the single biggest contributor to World Health Organization (WHO):
“Gates calls for discussion “about which parts of the process [WHO] should lead and which ones others (including the World Bank and the G7 countries) should lead in close coordination.” While the article contains perfunctory nods to U.N. authority, as well as brief lip service to the idea of strengthening public health services in poor countries, there can be little doubt that Gates is advocating a new form of international institution, transcending the United Nations, targeting the developing world, and effectively controlled by the wealthy nations of the West”.
It comes as no surprise therefore that Gates in involved with nuclear medicine. “TerraPower, the nuclear research venture founded by Bill Gates, is joining with Isotek Systems and the U.S. Department of Energy in a public-private partnership aimed at turning what otherwise would be nuclear waste into radiation doses for cancer treatment.”
Such benevolence. But sovereign signatory nations party to the NPT are not permitted to cure their sick.
Furthermore, the more affluent people living in countries with limited access to nuclear medicine, find their way to the US or the EU for treatment, benefiting from their affluence while taking their home country’s wealth to the West. And the gap is only growing.
In the USA there are over 20 million nuclear medicine procedures conducted per year, and in Europe about 10 million. In Australia there are about 560,000 per year, with 470,000 using reactor isotopes. The use of radiopharmaceuticals in diagnosis is growing at over 10% per year.
But in spite of the dire shortage of medical isotopes as reported by IAEA report – April 2020, JCPOA and the signatories, are demanding that Iran not produce this life-saving nuclear medicine.
The degree of double standards and hypocrisy cannot be emphasized enough. Only 10 nuclear reactors, many of which are nearing 50 years of operation, produce over 95% of the world’s supply. In 2007, Poland used HEU to supply medical isotopes – and continued. Why and how is it that the IAEA and other members states have no problem with Poland possessing HEU? “In 2007, during a supply crisis in the molybdenum 99 market (caused by breakdowns at some of the older reactors, particularly the Canadian NRU reactor), Poland’s MARIA reactor increased its HEU-based production of molybdenum 99 to fill the gap. Though the crisis has passed, the Polish reactor does not appear to have reduced its production. It too uses HEU fuel and targets.
One of the main suppliers of medical isotope is the Netherlands using bomb grade/HEU to process. Obviously not an issue with the IAEA or the U.S. or anyone else. South Africa has maintained around 80 kilograms of its HEU according to NTI Civilian HEU: South Africa | NTI Clearly, blessed by America as they are working on producing LEU medical isotopes while the U.S. looks the other way
It is not clear how anyone can accept so much discrimination in applying science, and to enforce not only lawlessness, but health imperialism.
Soraya Sepahpour-Ulrich is an independent researcher and writer with a focus on US foreign policy.
In 2016, a Supreme Court Judge asked the state of Maharashtra, “Do you want to extract a pound of flesh?” The statement was directed against the state for contesting the bail plea of Delhi University Professor G. N. Saibaba. Saibaba was arrested in 2014, a justification for which was to prevent him from committing what the police called “anti-national activities.”
Saibaba, a 90% disabled man, was kept in solitary confinement. Less than a year after being granted bailment by the Supreme Court, he was convicted to life imprisonment, along with five others by Maharashtra District court under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, 1967 for political beliefs and Maoists sympathies. This case revives the question around the UAPA, at the heart of which is “What is a crime?” and “Who is a criminal?”
However, Saibaba’s real “crime” was being one of the people who campaigned against what was known as Operation Green Hunt where the government had created vigilante groups as well as moved paramilitary forces into the forest of Central India where they had signed Memorandum of Understanding for moving indigenous people out of their lands to give it over to the mining companies. There was absolute violence inside those villages, setting them on fire, raping killing, and displacing people. All of this conducted in the garb of an anti-naxalite operation that began in 2009. Despite that, the people protesting displacements are being called anti-nationals. When Arundhati Roy, activist and Booker Prize winner, expressed concerns in an article regarding the prosecution and incarceration of a paraplegic professor, she was charged with contempt of court and had a criminal case against her.
UAPA has been disproportionately targeted against minorities (Muslims, Dalits, Adivasis), activists, human rights defenders and political opponents. According to Prison Statistics of India, while Muslims, Dalits and Adivasis accounted for 39% of Indian Population, they accounted for 53% og prison population. Besides Saibaba, the five people convicted are journalists, social activists, students, and tribals. To quote an excerpt from the judgment, “they hatched criminal conspiracy to wage war against the Government of India and to collect people with the intention of waging war against the Government of India.” The police mentioned that he was found in possession of Maoist literature.
There are several issues with UAPA. There are overly broad and ambiguous definitions of terrorism that fail to satisfy the principle of legality. The 2008 amendment of UAPA follows its precedent POTA by specifying that an unlawful act is one carried out with the intention to “threaten the unity, integrity, security or sovereignty of India or… to strike terror… in the people”. However, the amendments also broaden the previous POTA definition, by specifying that any act “likely to threaten the unity, integrity, security or sovereignty of India” or any act “likely to strike terror in the people…in India or in any foreign country” is also a terrorist act (emphasis added). This leads to incorporating subjectivity into the definition and even extends the definition extra-territorially. So, you don’t actually have to commit a crime to be booked under this law. You could be arrested for attending a protest meeting or reading a book on revolution, or even not standing for the National Anthem. Gautam Navlakha has pointed it out several times that the law essentially punishes people for “thought” crimes, if their ideology differs from the government. The convictions under the act are low. On an average, from 2014 to 2016, 75 percent cases have ended in acquittal/discharge because the arrests were made on flimsiest of evidence.
The vague definitions are used by authorities to label Muslims as aiding and abetting activities of SIMI (organization banned since September 2001). Cases in point are the withdrawal of money from own savings account being treated as financing SIMI, member of masjid committee being treated as hosting SIMI, and so on. Similarly, political dissenters (including members of Dalit and tribal communities) are lumped together as members of banned Maoist groups. Cases in point are Sudhir Dhawale, Surendra Gadling, Shoma Sen, Mahesh Raut, and Rona Wilson – all Dalit activists – allegedly for being associated with the “Elgar Parishad.” (Bhima Koregaon). The vagueness also creates a barrier of judicial review, where the judiciary has failed to differentiate the cases of law and order and national sovereignty. The judge in Saibaba’s case said, “In my opinion, the life imprisonment is also not the sufficient punishment to the accused.”
The pretrial investigation and detention procedures infringe upon due process and personal liberty. The recharge detention of 180 days without bail, provides enough time to the authorities to gather adverse evidence against the accused. In addition, there is an assumed presumption of guilt in the special law, and the burden of proof falls on the accused. There is a lack of sufficient oversight of police and prosecutorial decision making, which leads to arbitrary, discriminatory, and dis-uniform application. There are broad immunities from prosecution of government officials. The act provides extensive power to national and state governments, military & police to set up special courts in “terrorist affected” areas, allow extra-judicial criminal procedures like stop, search, use force, and preventively detain individuals.
The other issue is that the law does not have the provision for anticipatory bail. Bail is difficult because you have to prove that prima facie there is no case. All of these provisions make sure that the process of going through a trial is itself torturous. The earlier versions of the anti-terror legislations used to have a “sunset” clause, under which the law ceases to have effect after a fixed point of time. In contrast, the UAPA is a permanent statute, which means it does not need to be sent to Parliament for a new life.
Dr. Saibaba’s health condition requires constant and immediate medical care and is reaching the point of a life-threatening, according to UN Special Rapporteurs. The Indian Prison system presents severe hardships, especially for the elderly. Despite his physical challenge Saibaba was locked up in the “Anda” cells, poorly ventilated with very little space to move. The insufficient medical aid and lack of support from prison authorities create an extremely inhospitable infrastructure of prisons. There are instances like human rights activist Gautam Navlakha being denied a pair of spectacles, Father Stan Swamy, suffering from Parkinson’s disease, not receiving minimal support, and dependent on help from prison inmates. Safoora Zargar was charged under UAPA a Northeast Delhi riots case and had been in jail until recently for over a month without the prospect of bail. This was despite her pregnant condition and the risk of being exposed to the coronavirus due to the overcrowded prison in Delhi. Recently, she was allowed to visit her maternal home for two months for proper nursing of her child, postpartum care and other customs.
The costs of UAPA are not limited to individuals, but extend to entire communities and villages. There are evidences of towns with Muslims-majority community being described as breeding grounds for terrorism, on the pretext of “large, uneducated Muslim youths.” For example, Azamgarh (UP) and Bhatkal (Karnataka) remain in the institutional memory as terror models. This leads to linking cases in any part of India to these towns. Bhatkal (94.1% literacy rate) has become synonymous with Yasin Bhatkal (associated with Indian Mujahidin). As a result, despite its premier education facilities and more than a few hospitals, there was a severe shortage of professionals, such as doctors (especially gynaecologists) and teachers.
Such unforgivable laws like UAPA raise questions on the constitutionality of such special acts, and their impact on civil liberties.
References:
The ideas are based on conversation with Pushpa Achanta, activist and journalist
The Wire, Preventing Justice, https://thewire.in/politics/preventing-justice-g-n-saibaba-and-the-forced-exceptions-of-the-uapa
OutlookIndia, Professor P.O.W., https://magazine.outlookindia.com/story/professor-pow/294265
The Hindu, Green Hunt, https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/Green-Hunt-the-anatomy-of-an-operation/article16812797.ece
Article-14, Lost lives of Muslim terror suspects, https://www.article-14.com/post/the-lost-lives-of-india-s-muslim-terror-suspects
Kunal Pant, Second year student at IIM Ahmedabad
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