ecoglobe news (22 April 1999)

Radioactive ammunition used by NATO in Yugoslavia On 31 March we quoted "Victims of a war they never saw - Since the Gulf war in 1991, the number of Iraqi children born with debilitating congenital deformities has soared." from "Features" in the Guardian Weekly of 10 January 1999, page 21. Today we have the sad duty to report that the same depleted Uranium has been deployed by NATO in Yugoslavia: [transcript from German News Date: Thu, 22 Apr 1999 05:39:05 +0200 Reply-To: "What's going on in Germany - a summary of daily news from Germany (in English)"] - NATO confirms use of radioactive munitions NATO has confirmed that it is using munitions with radioactive housing in its attacks on Yugoslavia. A NATO spokesman in Brussels said, however, that the amount of uranium present did not pose any health dangers to civilians. The ARD television news program "Monitor" had reported that A10 attack planes and Apache helicopters were equipped with radioactive munitions which could cause radiation damage to soldiers and civilians. According to military experts, munitions with a housing containing enriched uranium-238 are especially hard, and capable of breaking through even massive armouring. [End of part transcript.] Can we imagine what lies ahead now that radioactive Depleted Uranium will probably also get in the food chain in Europe? We consider the claim that "the amount of uranium present did not pose any health dangers to civilians" to be contradicting empirical and scientific evidence. Therefore the downscaling of risks and the use of the weapons are irresponsible. ecoglobe will supply more details on request. Compare: Depleted uranium and radioactivity in the food chain ecoNews 31 March 1999

ecoglobe news (22 April 1999)
ecoNews list | previous | next | top | ecoglobe front page | site index & keywords

this site: http://www.ecoglobe.org.nz/news1999/22439news.htm