Free Republic

Activist: Fight nuclear power Disarmament advocate talks at IWU, ISU By Michele Steinbacher msteinbacher@pantagraph.com BLOOMINGTON -- Nuclear arsenals still point at the world's cities more than a decade after the Cold War, and atomic power plants like the one in Clinton dot the nation's landscape. That should terrify Americans into action, one of the world's leading advocates for nuclear disarmament told Central Illinois residents Thursday. "Why do you have all these missiles if Russia is now your best friend?" Dr. Helen Caldicott asked a crowd gathered at an Illinois Wesleyan University lecture hall Thursday. Later that night she spoke at...

Ex-Iraqi official touts war Iraq's former nuclear chief speaks at IWU By Kelly Josephsen Pantagraph Staff BLOOMINGTON -- Khidhir Hamza was a member of the Iraqi elite -- part of Saddam Hussein's inner circle and the top official in the country's nuclear weapons program. Yet he and millions like him left their native land because they saw no hope. "We gave up," Hamza said. Now, Hamza is preparing to go back to Iraq in a month. His return will probably be during wartime, and he goes back a defector who had to escape through the mountains of Turkey in 1994....