many people thought that nuclear weapons disappeared so a lot of the people who were activist under star moment issues moved their activism to. fighting globalization or other issues and no one today is fighting in the streets for disarmament nonproliferation the danger is growing will the anti-nuclear movement wake up. america was not the only western power to consider the pacific islands far enough from home to use for practicing nuclear war in one thousand nine hundred sixty six french polynesia at all the more meaning the great secret became france's marshall islands for thirty years this earthly paradise under nearly two hundred nuclear

explosions but more also became ground zero of the anti-nuclear movement. cannot overcome the fact that our country collaborated in the development of the atomic bomb. general de gaulle's and the french polynesia is proud to be part of what france will become to make that is to say imagine you cleopatra were. but to me that is disgusting and. then moments imposed on us. don't go off it you might in fact she makes as guilty to him yet f.o. we are victims but we are also responsible for what's happening to us and for what might happen if france were to use its nuclear weapons well and i find that on forgivable and. or.

behind this image of paradise lies the secret that surrounds the testing and rips apart the people of french polynesia here the economy is dependent on friends and the subject of nuclear testing remains taboo but this doesn't stop maria. bristow mood right now. that i'm thinking of my children's future. new summoned to protect the. tiny territory a tiny country before but we have a high percentage of people suffering from thyroid long and bladder cancer levy see . and it's frightening to know all that. with the help of her husband the to teacher and mother of two uses the internet to broadcast an image of her country one that is rather different from those in the travel agency brochures. decided to speak out about the

nuclear issue because it's part of our contemporary history and it has disrupted our society since the sixty's. now we suffer from the ills of a modern society yes we tell our son about our country's history but then when he asks us to bury some facts we were just talking about nuclear testing with a lottery yes he was wondering why they did the tests here and not in france. explained that we are in the middle of a big ocean. and there are only two hundred thousand inhabitants. so fewer people are likely to be affected. yes. my father is a vice president of the independence party. and he has been involved in many

anti-nuclear demonstrations. what am i going to say to them when they ask what did you do to get my country into the situation it's on that's what i worry about. the atom bomb generational. battle your boats down it's on have a good time don't worry about anything else we'll look after your country. france is keeping its nuclear arsenal because it needs the nuclear deterrent to discourage various threats to its vital interests. that is the doctrine that was established in the sixty's and it is still valid today. that there are leaders of the church and i've been one since one thousand nine hundred sixty three we have never agreed with nuclear testing. but we cannot agree to weapons of mass

destruction this week so must it's not possible they are to find it's not just since the french tests we were against the american nuclear tests in the marshall islands wash out. long before france in one thousand nine hundred six the united states and then great britain chose the pacific to conduct their testing but their tonic mushroom clouds were poisonous radioactive debris fell on to the surface of the earth and threatened the help of people all over the planet in one nine hundred fifty eight campaign for nuclear disarmament organized the first worldwide grassroots opposition in one thousand nine hundred sixty three under the pressure of the peace movements the two western powers and the u.s.s.r. signed an agreement bad. atmosphere testing france was concerned and continued to detonate bombs suspended from big building. by nine hundred seventy four forty six the atmosphere of french polynesia the word environment was still alien to the

french however this was not the case for greenpeace but the campaign against the french was conceived during the first campaign against the united states because the united states was testing nuclear weapons but was testing them underground and france was still testing weapons in the atmosphere. in one nine hundred seventy one this small thank you for a base group decides to stop all nuclear testing in the pacific soon greenpeace departs from or they find an ally in new zealand where fall from the french testing has been detected on its soil. using. international justice and when. france is forced to renounce atmosphere testing but there is still another option the era of french underground testing begins it will last more than twenty years. you don't actually need to do any tests once you've configured it recently well from a physicist point of view there is no chance that it explodes the problem is therefore

to figure out exactly what conditions it's going to explode and with how much which is a ridiculous justification since the purpose of a bomb is to kill people women and children so to achieve that goal you don't need to be a perfectionist. because i've known him since i was little but i never knew. if i told my superiors i want to be protected why are they protected by. my khaki police uniform shorts i can't be all that. and the military personnel from head to toe. polynesians. it's not the same. but we are tougher. so we can take a dose of radiation i don't know maybe it's from eating tarot or. what

i deplore is when some polynesians play of a card about the french injecting billions here. they say take advantage of it and don't go around talking nonsense. and your association. it's really a very young association two thousand and one wasn't. the president of the association told him on the radio. he was appealing to young people is a church and them to take a greater interest in the nuclear problem. so that's how we joined. the nucular tests here devastated polynesian society not just in terms of health the environment and other things. but the structures of the society were destroyed . what doesn't name to stop the tests no jobs no money no

economy will all starve that was the government's message. and if you were against obama and your father or uncle worked at the site and they didn't want to protest against the bomb. that's a real rift in the family even between father and son want to that is nice i became aware of up when i was about twenty four. my father went sort of crazy. he said take your wife and daughter and get out i don't want to see you anymore. and i was a teenager then. and i said to myself who are the real crazy ones that. are the ones who are against nuclear testing on the ones who support it.

because my classmates for example were saying oh yeah nuclear testing is so it's a bomb that explodes that's it. only when you'd hear about an activist getting arrested by the police and thrown in jail. to get them i think that in her mind she wondered why is it always my father. didn't believe me it's true this when she was in jail it shocked me because i felt that it was too much of a sacrifice to save anything i wondered if it was really worth it to him to make the sacrifice when others would not yes i was a little angry about that. didn't get away on various trips to new zealand with my parents i had the opportunity. to

meet some members of greenpeace no you couldn't if i think that will bring me to cross the ocean to try and stop you clear tests. but it would have been so much better if our people had risen up together is in protest on messages to move. greenpeace irritate the french military july tenth one thousand nine hundred five while the activists prepare to sail again tomorrow on france orders the sinking of their ship the rainbow warrior anchored in new zealand's auckland harbor. the bombing provokes an uproar from the international community and tremendous publicity for greenpeace. ten years later in one thousand and five the french president jacques chirac orders a new series of nuclear tests this time to heat up ballots. actually our first demonstration was in one thousand nine hundred four and in one

thousand nine hundred five we were both in the airport. and we saw the riot police shooting at protesters since it is so it was sitting. there that much of that decided it was weird it was like watching a big movie screen. because if the significance of that was very upsetting it was a feeling of hate. hate. less appallingly asian people rose up together and said you know mr chirac please stop. a bit just brush it away and said something my decision is final. if one person one person decided the entire future of my children. my grandchildren and my great grandchildren. it's in c. and. january nine hundred ninety six france proceeds with this

last nuclear test in polynesia what turns out to be the starting point for a long term research. tests justified an enormous investment to build new equipment new missiles new bombs the laser megajoules a new aircraft so everything is being updated between now twenty and twenty. only interesting thing is the results from countries like the united states. there were strong nations in developing new nuclear weapons that it excites the interest in countries like korea and their round who want to join the nuclear club. two thousand and six is a landmark year the united states the united kingdom france russia and china all we invest in their nuclear arsenals the message is clear it is necessary to their

security on the other hand the same countries keep telling non-nuclear nations that acquiring nuclear weapons is illegitimate leaders would be fooling themselves if they think that this type of a system can continue we are still living in the system that emanates from the end of the second world war five countries in the security council have special powers and it's even more problematic if these five countries are also the five countries with nuclear weapons so in a sense it gives the impression that having nuclear weapons gives them this special status i was going to one last one standard are going to have to class world increasingly countries particularly the developing world are saying that they're not going to live in a two class world. forswear french we are in our passports french but second class citizens yes second right do you remember what i said the

other day. if we had been pulling michigan we'd never have had nuclear tests. if that's what it's called back then. i think that when we have our independence. the whole truth about the tests and their consequences will come out. quality people are taken for you. and that has to stop. and we are not ignorant. today we want the truth and we're going to get it france always maintained that their bombs were clean that they were exploding clean atomic bombs but in two thousand and six they conceded to some follow up throughout french polynesia. i see the camp recording test santoro test which were carried out the year i was born. he. and i know that i've had

a problem for two years now. and i wonder if it's connected to the nuclear tests take any. interest. this shows that one hundred and ninety six radioactive follow its were detected in french polynesia. but we don't know the deuce. they're not telling us but they know. in france it takes time for things to be made public particularly with respect to nuclear testing it's top secret it's a defense secret so there's no information at all. exists in french polynesia either as the collective anxiety brought about by cycles sociological poisoning or in terms of the code of silence that has prevailed over the radioactive fallout. here you know if there is a psychosis it's because the government created it we want to know the radiation

dose of those follow they tell us there were one hundred ninety six of them with no health consequences the truth has to be told after years and years of this atmosphere of secrecy let's call it by its rightful name. lee popular people who live there are worried and rightly so because i think they deserve the truth immediately put campaigning for transparency doesn't necessarily make you a doomsayer. but. in general we have a higher rate of cancer as you compared to some regions it's much higher. if we have a higher incidence of leukaemia than elsewhere it's probably due to the palm missing but that needs to be proved we have to hurry and tick. samples from people who are

still vivid the easiest way to find the people who worked on moore is to tour the halls outside the oncology department in the hospital of people. he worked in. a repair facility for navy ships returning from the states. and now i have lung cancer he has cancer in his left lung. he worked for a very short time only six months and the second time they brought him home because he was having trouble breathing. you know he had three brothers who were in all three died yes. yes yes they died. so this is his wife she has it's my time. and it's starting to get bigger look and later it will be here. but i'm not saying it's because of moral or no i can't we don't

have scientific proof but we have lots and lots of questions about it that's all i don't want to say that we should be criticizing. also in addition to the serious nature of their illness if you say anything they insult you they tell you all you want is to benefit from french money. i'd prefer my husband to mind. his illness has gotten worse and i'm going to lose him so it hurts i don't care about money. yes that's the way. he the four years they have been checking me. they couldn't figure out that i had a kidney tumor. i am waiting for someone to say clearly your illness was caused by eating too much pork too much of

this or that. because of the nuclear testing. what have we done it has to stop and so we give you a load of nonsense and then just say. don't worry you can eat fish you can grow food and there's no problem. well yes there is a small problem but it's not serious it's clean. all the plutonium is used a lot of it is just left behind so that's what we're talking. most of that so long as it remains under grow. is not a problem when it gets into the water and when it gets to plants then it could be a problem. what is the legacy of one hundred fifty to undergo nuclear tests six seven hundred kilos of plutonium

underneath more rula what does that mean. one tenth of a millionth of a gram of plutonium can cause cancer. so it's radioactive half life is twenty four thousand four hundred years. that means it will take more than two hundred forty thousand years before it can be considered harmless. this assumption that plutonium will not go anywhere which is held by testing authorities i think in more than one country turns out to be not quite right. recent research done by the u.s. government about it indicates that in one. has migrated quite far already. one of the additional problem that had been discovered in the last fifty years turned out to be

a very complicated substance chemical behavior is very difficult to characterize. my great foster and water. before. we have to worry about that. you know we have seven hundred kilos down there. nobody knows if it's stabilised. is beginning to cave in that's the legacy we're left with and they want us to close the book. no no never. said to seven hundred kilos of plutonium batteries are now soiled. and i ask myself is because i wonder what it's worth having children will see poor when they're faced with a tragedy. and it could indeed happen. to them. is

to feel it goes through then all it would take would be a tsunami to light up. when i heard him talking about the legacy. i saw my daughter. in an increasingly. human and i thought if i don't do anything and she would have me one day she'll blame me that's what motivates me to find the nuclear threat through none struggle for my country sin dependence. issues that so much of the taxpayers' money i mean it was it never really created a currency crisis european finance ministers central bankers and politicians remain

at odds on how to rescue the euro as pressure mounts.

in the czech republic he's available insists the hotel is central. full stop. him a taste in bosnia and herzegovina. children of each. in serbia multis available in. india in the movie joint the hotel. the gateway hotel the grand imperial true and. the socialist

see don't need to go and. read this and the colonel was hotel retreat. over thirty countries including the u.s. officially recognized the libyan rebel council. to give up power. as the u.k. phone hacking scandal puts the future of the media empire at risk questions arise as to why it's taken a long action to be taken despite knowing about many of the allegations figures. country to be hit by the financial crisis as the expected to prove. the final strike.

news twenty four seven. while the u.s. along with my. thirty other countries have decided to recognize libya's rebels as the legitimate government of the country the libyan a contact group convening in turkey has also declared that colonel gadhafi regime is no longer legitimate recognition by the u.s. will allow washington now to sponsor libyan rebels with more than thirty billion dollars of khadafi frozen assets to discuss this development i joined i by mark allman a modern history lecturer at oxford university i thank you for joining us today so who are these rebels that the west now is agreeing to work with do we do we know anything about them why should we side with them and now we're getting reports that the al qaeda may have infiltrated the ranks. the rebels are of a mixed group. some of them ministers into the his government his former minister of interior minister of justice who some people called it was a hunger. in prosecuting his opponent and then there are people who apparently

forty in iraq for instance against the american occupation then there are people who have been abroad living in an america some of them were former intern khadafi in the eighty's and early ninety's who come out with and others are being the next are a long time they were members of families that supported the ngo in libya interest who was overthrown in a military coup back ago in one hundred sixty nine so they're remarkably crude and i think what is quite interesting perhaps in countries like britain which played a leading role in supporting the intervention in libya is how little has been put out by the british government to give names and faces to who is running this transitional national council now regarded by the british government to as the legal government of libya because i think many people in britain might be a little bit alarmed to see that some of those people were perhaps involved in the terrorist acts that cut off he was a fuse to committing like lockerbie in film or the murder of p.c. fletcher in london back in the period when he was a pariah before he became.