Understorey: Banking Bad ~Nukes

In the summer of 1945 Keijiro Matsushima glanced up and saw two beautiful silver planes in the sky.  Within a moment, an atomic bomb detonated, his Hiroshima was destroyed, killing family and classmates.  Within a few days, Nagasaki too experienced civilians being vapourised, burned and irradiated in the tens of thousands.   After these nuclear attacks, the world changed for ever.  But as the US breaches its obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and modernises its nuclear forces, it may surprise you that some Australian banks, superannuation companies, and our national Future Fund, are making profits from their investments in nuclear weapons companies, and don’t think the question is even “controversial.”  The Medical Association for the Prevention of War (MAPWA) and the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) have set up Quit Nukes , to analyse and approach Australian financial institutions which are benefiting from nuclear weapons.  MAPWA’s Dr Margaret Beavis and Quit Nukes’ national director Margaret Peril share what they are finding out, asking us all: does your super fund invest in nuclear weapons? Are you interested in divesting?

Photo: Nagasaki, September 25, 1945 (Cpl. Lynn P. Walker, Jr. at Wikimedia)