[CPEO-MEF] Hoya shipments for NIF have NOT RESUMED!

[marylia@earthlink.net]

Dear peace and enviro colleagues:

Here is an article I think you will find interesting on the international
campaign to persuade the Japanese-based Hoya corporation to stop making
glass for the National Ignition Facility (and by extension, for the French
Laser Megajoule). Kudos to Gensuiken and to our own Issac Trotts who is "on
the case" in Japan this week. Read on... Peace, Marylia

Ex-lab worker stumps in Japan

Trotts quit over nuclear research

By Glenn Roberts Jr.
STAFF WRITER

LIVERMORE -- A former Lawrence Livermore Laboratory scientist, who
renounced nuclear weapons work in favor of anti-nuclear activism, is
touring Japan this week to speak with activists, politicians and business
representatives.

On Issac Trotts' itinerary is a meeting with officials at Hoya Corp., a
Japan-based company with a shop in Fremont that is preparing high-tech
glass slabs for the National Ignition Facility laser project at Livermore
Lab.

In February, Hoya officials announced that shipments of glass for the laser
project were being withheld "for the time being." Public protests in Japan
have questioned why Hoya managers would support the construction of NIF, a
U.S. nuclear weapons research tool.

Though the Japan Times reported in late March that Hoya managers planned to
resume the shipments, officials at Lawrence Livermore Laboratory reportedly
have not received a formal statement from the company about resumption of
the shipments.

Lab spokesman Susan Houghton said Monday that "nothing has changed in
relation to Hoya."

"We value our relationship with Hoya and are allowing them to handle this
issue," Houghton said.

Trotts, 25, who worked as a computer scientist and mathematical programmer
at Livermore Lab from October 2000 to March of this year, has said he
resigned after learning that lab scientists continue to develop new
capabilities for nuclear weapons.

Tri-Valley Communities Against a Radioactive Environment, a Livermore-based
nuclear watchdog group, and Gensuikin, a Japanese anti-nuclear group,
combined forces to send Trotts to Japan.

In a paper he prepared for his trip, Trotts states that NIF is "an
instrument for continuing U.S. nuclear weapons research and development."

The paper also says, "As such, it would not be socially responsible for a
Japanese business, or any business for that matter, to directly contribute
to the NIF's construction. Hoya Corporation now has an opportunity to show
its social responsibility to the people of Japan by ending its involvement
with the National Ignition Facility."

Houghton said Trotts "was never affiliated with the National Ignition
Facility and his claims are not credible."

Hoya Corp. is contracted to produce about half of the specialized laser
glass needed for NIF and for a similar nuclear weapons research project in
France called the Megajoule.

Both projects are expected to generate nuclear weapons explosions on a
miniature scale by blasting radioactive fuel pellets with high-power
ultra-violet lasers.

Marylia Kelley, executive director for Tri-Valley CAREs, said Trotts went
to Japan "with a stack of documents to present to Hoya -- so that Hoya
(officials) understand the NIF's role in enhancing and maintaining nuclear
weapons."

She said Trotts also is planning to travel to Hiroshima this week to meet
with its mayor and to visit the atomic bomb museum there.

------------------------------------------------------------

c1999-2001 by MediaNews Group, Inc. and ANG Newspapers

Marylia Kelley
Tri-Valley CAREs
(Communities Against a Radioactive Environment)
2582 Old First Street
Livermore, CA USA 94550

<http://www.igc.org/tvc/> - is our web site, please visit us there!

(925) 443-7148 - is our phone
(925) 443-0177 - is our fax

Working for peace, justice and a healthy environment since 1983, Tri-Valley
CAREs has been a member of the nation-wide Alliance for Nuclear
Accountability in the U.S. since 1989, and is a co-founding member of the
Abolition 2000 global network for the elimination of nuclear weapons, the
U.S. Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons and the Back From the Brink
campaign to get nuclear weapons taken off hair-trigger alert.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~