First paragraph (Teaser):

Is the problem weather, or is it war?

BBC plan for surviving nuclear armageddon

UK radiation jump blamed on Iraq shells/Mushrooming depleted uranium (DU) scandal

Rest of the text:

Robert Fisk

Published: 25 February 2006

Back in the Sixties, a great movie was released called The Day the Earth Caught Fire. Leo McKern, I recall, played a Daily Express reporter along with the then real-life editor of the paper, Arthur Christiansen. What the Express discovered was that the British government was erecting showers in Hyde Park to keep people cool when in fact it was still winter. Investigative reporting eventually revealed - and this, remember, was fiction - that the US and Soviet powers had, without knowing of the other's activities, tested nuclear weapons at exactly the same moment at opposite sides of the earth.

I'm not sure that our present-day colleagues on the Express would discover any of this but that's not the point. In the movie, our planet had been blasted off course - and was now heading towards the sun. The governments, of course, tried to cover this up.

Now I remembered this creaky old film early this week when I woke up at my home in Beirut shivering with cold. This is mid-February in Lebanon and early spring should have warmed the air. But it hadn't. Up in the Christian mountain town of Jezzine, it was snowing fiercely. I walked to my balcony over the Mediterranean and a sharp, freezing wind was coming off the sea. Well poor old Bob, you might say. Better install central heating. (Most Lebanese exist like me with a series of dangerous and cheaply made gas heaters.)
But right now, flying around the world to launch my new book - travelling more than the average air crew - I'm finding a lot of odd parallels. In Melbourne last autumn, for example, the Australian spring turned out to be much colder than expected. Yet in Toronto at Christmas, all the snow melted. I padded round the streets of the city and had to take my pullover off because of the sun. It was the warmest winter in the records of a country whose tundra wastes are known for their frozen desolation.

I should add that those Canadians who welcomed this dangerous thaw seem at odds with reality; it's a bit like being cold and then expressing pleasure that your house is burning down on the grounds that you now feel warmer.

Then there are the air crews I was talking about. Out here in the Middle East, for instance, pilots have told me that head winds can now be so fierce at high altitude that they are being forced to request lower altitudes from air traffic control. As a flyer who knows how to be afraid on a bumpy flight - I am - I can tell you that I haven't encountered as much turbulence as I have in the past 24 months.

Now a deviation - but an important one. A British scientist, Chris Busby, has been digging through statistics from the Aldermaston Atomic Weapons Establishment which measures uranium in high-volume air samples. His suspicion was that depleted uranium particles from the two Gulf wars - DU is used in the anti-armour warheads of the ordnance of American and British tanks and planes - may have spread across Europe. I'm not a conspiracy theorist but here's something very odd.

When Busby applied for the information from Aldermaston in 2004, they told him to get lost. When he demanded the information under the 2005 Freedom of Information Act, Aldermaston coughed up the figures. But wait.

The only statistic missing from the data they gave him was for the early months of 2003. Remember what was happening then? A little dust-up in Iraq, a massive American-British invasion of Saddam's dictatorship in which tons of DU shells were used by American troops. Eventually Busby, who worked out all the high-altitude wind movements over Europe, received the data from the Defence Procurement Agency in Bristol - which showed an increase in uranium in high-volume air sampling over Britain during this period.

Well, we aren't dead yet - though readers in Reading will not be happy to learn that the filter system samplings around Aldermaston showed that even they got an increase. Shock and awe indeed.

Back to our main story. I'm tired of hearing about "global warming" - it's become such a cliche that it's a turn-off, a no-read, a yawn-cliche. As perhaps our governments wish it to be. Melting ice caps and disappearing icebergs have become de rigueur for all reporting. After Unesco put the Ilulissat ice fjord on the World Heritage List, it was discovered to have receded three miles. And there's a lovely irony in the fact that the Canadians are now having a row with the United States about shipping lanes in the far north - because the Americans would like to use a melted North West Passage which comes partly under Canadian sovereignty. But I have a hunch that something more serious is happening to our planet which we are not being told about.

So let me remind you how The Day the Earth Caught Fire ended. Russian and American scientists were planning a new and joint explosion to set the world back on course. The last shot in the movie was set in the basement printing rooms (the real ones) of the Daily Express. The printers were standing by their machines with two headlines plated up to run, depending on the results of the detonation.

One said "World Doomed", the other "World Saved", As that great populist columnist John Gordon of the Sunday Express used to write: makes you sit up a bit, doesn't it?

http://mparent7777.livejournal.com/6615658.html

Is the British press trying to tell us something? Consider the U.K. gag law used frequently on the press at this time.

Why did someone in the admistrative section of the UK government release the following secret documents at this time?

Don't mention the war: BBC plan for surviving nuclear armageddon
By Robert Verkaik, Legal Affairs Correspondent
Published: 25 February 2006

In the event of all-out nuclear war, the BBC was to distract the nation by broadcasting a mix of music and light entertainment shows, secret papers released by the Home Office reveal.

Hundreds of security-vetted BBC staff and a select band of unnamed radio artistes were to be clandestinely dispatched to transmission sites across the country at the first signs of international tension.

Just before the first missiles had reached Britain, the BBC was to use regional centres in Birmingham, Sheffield, Bristol and Middlesbrough to broadcast a national service that the Government hoped would create "a diversion to relieve strain and stress".
By 1960 the BBC had stockpiled thousands of recordings of "war" programmes and records for possible broadcast at the height of an attack.

How much of a boost to Britain's morale these programmes would have really been is highly questionable. Another set of secret documents detailing the horrors of nuclear warfare reinforces the huge challenge facing the BBC.
In a military briefing held at the BBC on 18 February 1955, senior staff were told by a General Kirkman of the War Office that, if a BBC building took a direct hit, "even those within a distance of about 30 miles downwind who escaped the blast would die from radiation effects."

Staff who lived within a 50-mile radius from the burst would develop serious radiation sickness.
General Kirkman concluded: "If one were to envisage half a dozen hydrogen bombs falling on the United Kingdom, very large numbers of people might be infected by radiation and it would be essential for those who had escaped to keep themselves free from contamination, in order both to rescue the victims of the fall-out ... and to restore life to the country."

With these survivors in mind the BBC and the government set out a strategy for broadcasting programmes that would boost morale and help the public cope with nuclear catastrophe. A BBC briefing paper written in 1957 declares the objectives of the broadcasts were to provide "instruction, information and encouragement".
The paper adds: "The only practicable means of providing programmes in war for the purpose of 'diversion to relieve strain and stress' would be by records and recorded programmes. To enable such programmes to be added to during the course of the war, the necessary artistes, facilities and staff should be dispersed to ... [existing] BBC premises [outside of London]."

Long before war was declared the BBC hoped to have dispersed 1,500 staff and artistes around the country. The remainder of the corporation's employees would be evacuated just before the first bombs fell, leaving a small nucleus in London "until it becomes untenable, or the seat of government leaves London". Preparations were begun on building fall-out bunkers in BBC buildings such as Broadcasting House.
The advent of television brought a new means of communication with the public during a nuclear war. But memos and letters, written in the early 1960s and originally deemed too sensitive for publication until 2015, indicate tensions between the BBC and War Office over who should have control of these facilities.

The military wanted to take over as soon as a nuclear threat became imminent, a plan resisted by the BBC. This issue was drawn to the attention of the Home Office and led to one minister observing: "An abrupt discontinuance of the television service in the preparatory period would have considerable effect on public morale and it would be desirable that the television service should continue, as far as possible, up to the outbreak of the war."

1955: The BBC's scenario
* THE KILLING ZONE: Staff living within a distance of about 30 miles downwind who escaped an initial blast would die from radiation effects.
* RADIATION SICKNESS: Gamma rays would gradually destroy individuals' white corpuscles. Cuts or bruises would become septic and colds would not get better. The only cure was careful nursing.
* BUILDINGS: Full protection would be provided by two to three feet of earth or equivalent screening by bricks, concrete or sandbags. A well-built house would provide only 20 to 40 per cent protection as rays would penetrate roofs.
* LENGTH OF TIME IN HIDING: BBC staff were told to stay in shelters for 14 days before it was safe to leave. It was estimated that it took this long for radioactive particles to decompose.
* EVACUATION: It was doubted whether evacuation before fallout arrived would have been possible.

In the event of all-out nuclear war, the BBC was to distract the nation by broadcasting a mix of music and light entertainment shows, secret papers released by the Home Office reveal.

Hundreds of security-vetted BBC staff and a select band of unnamed radio artistes were to be clandestinely dispatched to transmission sites across the country at the first signs of international tension.

Just before the first missiles had reached Britain, the BBC was to use regional centres in Birmingham, Sheffield, Bristol and Middlesbrough to broadcast a national service that the Government hoped would create "a diversion to relieve strain and stress".
By 1960 the BBC had stockpiled thousands of recordings of "war" programmes and records for possible broadcast at the height of an attack.

How much of a boost to Britain's morale these programmes would have really been is highly questionable. Another set of secret documents detailing the horrors of nuclear warfare reinforces the huge challenge facing the BBC.
In a military briefing held at the BBC on 18 February 1955, senior staff were told by a General Kirkman of the War Office that, if a BBC building took a direct hit, "even those within a distance of about 30 miles downwind who escaped the blast would die from radiation effects."

Staff who lived within a 50-mile radius from the burst would develop serious radiation sickness.

General Kirkman concluded: "If one were to envisage half a dozen hydrogen bombs falling on the United Kingdom, very large numbers of people might be infected by radiation and it would be essential for those who had escaped to keep themselves free from contamination, in order both to rescue the victims of the fall-out ... and to restore life to the country."

With these survivors in mind the BBC and the government set out a strategy for broadcasting programmes that would boost morale and help the public cope with nuclear catastrophe. A BBC briefing paper written in 1957 declares the objectives of the broadcasts were to provide "instruction, information and encouragement".

The paper adds: "The only practicable means of providing programmes in war for the purpose of 'diversion to relieve strain and stress' would be by records and recorded programmes. To enable such programmes to be added to during the course of the war, the necessary artistes, facilities and staff should be dispersed to ... [existing] BBC premises [outside of London]."

Long before war was declared the BBC hoped to have dispersed 1,500 staff and artistes around the country. The remainder of the corporation's employees would be evacuated just before the first bombs fell, leaving a small nucleus in London "until it becomes untenable, or the seat of government leaves London". Preparations were begun on building fall-out bunkers in BBC buildings such as Broadcasting House.

The advent of television brought a new means of communication with the public during a nuclear war. But memos and letters, written in the early 1960s and originally deemed too sensitive for publication until 2015, indicate tensions between the BBC and War Office over who should have control of these facilities.

The military wanted to take over as soon as a nuclear threat became imminent, a plan resisted by the BBC. This issue was drawn to the attention of the Home Office and led to one minister observing: "An abrupt discontinuance of the television service in the preparatory period would have considerable effect on public morale and it would be desirable that the television service should continue, as far as possible, up to the outbreak of the war."

1955: The BBC's scenario
* THE KILLING ZONE: Staff living within a distance of about 30 miles downwind who escaped an initial blast would die from radiation effects.
* RADIATION SICKNESS: Gamma rays would gradually destroy individuals' white corpuscles. Cuts or bruises would become septic and colds would not get better. The only cure was careful nursing.
* BUILDINGS: Full protection would be provided by two to three feet of earth or equivalent screening by bricks, concrete or sandbags. A well-built house would provide only 20 to 40 per cent protection as rays would penetrate roofs.
* LENGTH OF TIME IN HIDING: BBC staff were told to stay in shelters for 14 days before it was safe to leave. It was estimated that it took this long for radioactive particles to decompose.
* EVACUATION: It was doubted whether evacuation before fallout arrived would have been possible.

http://mparent7777.livejournal.com/6598023.html

Fisk is a very straight veteran reporter considered expert on Middle East issues. His article is seemingly a great departure from his articles on the war beat. Or is it?

Today's newswire:

http://mparent7777.livejournal.com/2006/02/25/

UK radiation jump blamed on Iraq shells/Mushrooming depleted uranium (DU) scandal

http://mparent7777.livejournal.com/6616162.html

MARC PARENT

CRIMES AND CORRUPTIONS OF THE NEW WORLD ORDER NEWS
http://mparent7777.livejournal.com/
http://www.dailykos.com/user/ccnwon