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Dutch TV 080702. - A US Air Force investigation has found that most military bases in Europe that store nuclear bombs do not meet the most basic Defense Department security regulations. The report reveals some startling deficiencies in nuclear security in Europe in the wake of nuclear safety concerns and a historic Air Force leadership shake-up. The report stated that each site had "unique security challenges." "Inconsistencies in personnel, facilities, and equipment provided to the security mission by the host nation were evident as the team traveled from site to site," the study reads. "Examples of areas noted in need of repair at several of the sites include support buildings, fencing, lighting, and security systems." - The US has removed its nuclear weapons from Britain, ending a contentious presence spanning more than half a century, a report will say today. According to the study by the Federation of American Scientists, the last 110 American nuclear weapons on UK soil were withdrawn from RAF Lakenheath in Suffolk on the orders of President Bush. The report's author, Hans Kristensen, one of the leading experts on Washington's nuclear arsenal, said the move had happened in the past few years, but had only come to light yesterday. - The Dutch Government has rejected the findings of the USAF's Blue Ribbon Review, saying the safety and security at the nuclear weapons base at Volkel Air Base in the Netherlands "are in good order." - http://tinyurl.com/5fwagk - The great upsurge of anti-nuclear activism during the early 1980s is usually traced to either the dangerous Soviet-US nuclear confrontation of that era, or to Nato's December 1979 decision to deploy cruise and Pershing missiles in Western Europe. In reality, however, the nuclear disarmament campaign began in the preceding years. Despite two earlier waves of anti-nuclear agitation, the once-vigorous citizens' movement for nuclear disarmament was dormant by the early 1970s. But, from 1975 to 1978, a variety of factors converged to awaken disarmament activists from their torpor, and to spark their return to anti-nuclear agitation. These included: the end of the Vietnam War, which enabled peace activists to turn their attention elsewhere; the rise of environmental concerns, especially the growing fear of nuclear power; the 1978 UN Special Session on Disarmament, which focused movement and popular attention upon the nuclear arms race; and the erosion of SU-US détente. Significantly, this blend of factors included a number that went beyond the reviving SU-US nuclear arms race of the 1970s. In this context, the nuclear disarmament movement began to emerge as a political force once again in Western Europe, North America, and the Pacific. It also showed stirrings of life in Eastern Europe and elsewhere. Consequently, although the movement would grow far larger and more effective subsequently, by late 1978 it had created much of the structure that enabled it, in the early 1980s, to pose a substantial challenge to the nuclear policies of the great powers.