Nuclear Testing In Australia

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Compare nuclear testing in Australia and the Pacific Islands. What are the significant similarities and differences? Were they due to environmental or political factors? |

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____________Introduction 150 words (do last)

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istory of Nuclear Weapons
Nuclear energy is produced from the splitting of the nucleus of an atom. Physicists throughout history have been aware of the power that can be found in the atom and many tests were conducted and theorys put to practice. Initially fuelled
Although this area was seen as uninhabited, The Tjuntjuntjara people, who lived around the border between South Australia and Western Australia, claimed the tests poisoned large areas of the landscape and its people. Tribal elders have claimed illness and death of their people due to irradiation and are also unable to return to their contaminated homelands after being removed by the government (DeGroot, 2004). There was also an occasion where radioactive strontium and iodine blanketed high population centres including Adelaide. Furthermore, a clean-up of the area after its closure in 1967, named ‘Operation Brumby’, proved to be un-successful. Up to 20 kilograms of plutonium still remain lying in shallow pits and a further 2.2 kilograms of fragments can be found dispersed across the site (Broinowski,
The United states of America were believed to have chosen the Marshall Islands as their nuclear test site due to its low population and minimal political backlash (Firth & Strokirch, 1997). The Marshall Islands were a part of the German protectorate from 1886 until the Japanese invasion during World War I. Under this Japanese mandate, The Islands were used as a military base for the Japanese army during the Pacific War. In 1944, American forces fought Japan for control of the Islands and became the occupying power. The United States became the administrators for the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands which incorporated The Marshall Islands (DeGroot, 2004). In 1979, after negotiations with the United States, The Marshall Islands established their own government based on the constitution of Brittan and America. Although the Republic of Marshall Islands was formed, it still, however, remains financially dependent on America through compensation claims and the three thousand Americans still living in the region (Firth & Strokirch, 1997). Atmospheric tests of atomic bombs were conducted by the Americans on Marshall Islands between the years of 1946 and 1958. This was further compounded when a final series of tests were completed in the pacific on Christmas Island and on Johnston