Ambient office = 126 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient outside = 130 nanosieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = 126 nanosieverts per hour

Watermelon from Central Market = 122 nanosieverts per hour

Tap water = 118 nanosieverts per hour

Filter water = 100 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient office = 130 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient outside = 95 nanosieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = 97 nanosieverts per hour

Vine ripened tomato from Central Market = 80 nanosieverts per hour

Tap water = 103 nanosieverts per hour

Filter water = 92 nanosieverts per hour

Dover Sole from Central = 100 nanosieverts per hour

Part 2 of 2 Parts (Please read Part 1 first)
     Evans said that Joe Biden, the U.S. president, and the former president Barack Obama were “both personally attracted to going down the path of “no first use” or making a “sole purpose” declaration that may have a similar effort. However, he said that both presidents “were dissuaded from doing so by their nervous East European and Asia-Pacific allies, Australia included”. He added that the fact that the Biden administration moved away from such a position in its October 2022 nuclear posture review “should be seen not as the end of the argument, but the beginning – an advocacy challenge for us”.
      China has publicly committed to a “no first use” policy. However, it is on track to deploy more than a thousand nuclear warheads by 2030 as part of its rapid military modernization.
      The U.S. is reported to have three thousand seven hundred and fifty active nuclear warheads. It has made no such declaration. The U.S. pledged to use nuclear weapons only in “extreme circumstances”.
      Kim Jong-un is the leader of North Korea. Last year he called for an exponential increase” in the regime’s nuclear arsenal.
      Evans issued a stark warning about the international security environment. He said that the risk of nuclear weapons being used through human error, miscalculation or system error was “greater than ever, not least given new developments in AI and cyber-offence capability”. In addition to seeking universal support of “no first use”, Evans also mentioned other potential risk-reduction measures including cutting the number of nuclear weapons ready for immediate use.
      Evans said, “The case for the Albanese government getting back on the front foot in this space and articulating a principled but realistic agenda that is capable of having a positive international impact, and giving some comfort to ALP members and voters that we are really serious about nuclear arms control, seems overwhelming.”
      Gareth Evans was foreign minister of Australia from 1988 to 1996 under the Keating and Hawke administrations. His concern about nuclear weapons use will probably carry some weight within the Australian government.
     The current foreign minister of Australia is Penny Wong. She has praised Evans for his “very proud record” on disarmament and non-proliferation. In the joint letter to the current Prime Minister before his trip to China, Evans and fourteen other arms control advocates and political figures said that the Indo-Pacific was now the “the epicenter of global nuclear threats. Potential flashpoints form an arc ranging from north-east Asia through East Asia to the South China Sea and on to south Asia. “However, in contrast to the many structures that evolved to manage cold war nuclear relations, our region has yet to develop such mechanisms. Urgent action is required to address this situation.”
     The APLN letter was supported by high-powered experts including John Carlson, the former head of the Australian Safeguards and Non-Proliferation Office, and Ramesh Thakur, a former UN assistant secretary general, John Tilemann, a former diplomat and international civil servant with the International Atomic Energy Agency, and Gary Quinlan, a former Australian ambassador to the UN, the leader of the Greens in the Senate, Larissa Waters.

Ambient office = 113 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient outside = 65 nanosieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = 67 nanosieverts per hour

Tomato from Central Market = 87 nanosieverts per hour

Tap water = 67 nanosieverts per hour

Filter water = 59 nanosieverts per hour

Part 1 of 2 Parts
     Former foreign minister of Australia, Garth Evans, has urged Australia to lobby the U.S. to promise “no first use” of nuclear weapons. He warned that global arms control agreements “are now either dead or on life support”.
    AUKUS is a trilateral security partnership between Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States. It was announced on September 15, 2021 for the Indo-Pacific region. The partnership will focus on military capability, distinguishing it from the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing alliance that also includes New Zealand and Canada. Under the partnership, the US and the UK will assist Australia in acquiring nuclear-powered submarines for the Royal Australian Navy. The partnership also includes cooperation on advanced cyber mechanisms, artificial intelligence and autonomy, quantum technologies, undersea capabilities, hypersonic and counter-hypersonic, electronic warfare, innovation, and information sharing.
     The creation of the partnership spelled the end of a French–Australian submarine deal. On 17 September 2021, France recalled its ambassadors from Australia and the US; French foreign minister Jean-Yves Le Drian called the partnership a “stab in the back” following Australia’s cancellation of the deal worth 69 billion dollars without notice.
     Some southeast Asian nations have expressed concern that the AUKUS deal may destabilize the international security situation in the eastern Pacific.
     Evans said that following the signing of the AUKUS nuclear-powered submarine deal, the Albanese administration should give “some comfort to ALP members and voters that we are really serious about nuclear arms control”. He added that it was “sheer dumb luck” that the world had avoided a nuclear attack since the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. “It is utterly wishful thinking to believe that this luck can continue in perpetuity”.
     The Asia-Pacific Leadership Network for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament (APLN) is a network of over 110 political, military, and diplomatic leaders from countries across the Asia-Pacific tackling security and defense challenges with a particular focus on addressing and eliminating nuclear weapons risks. The APLN was founded in 2011 to bring together individuals who have held high executive or advisory positions around the Asia Pacific region, from South Asia and East Asia to Australasia; who share a common belief that nuclear weapons pose an existential threat to all nations and peoples; and who have resolved to work together to promote policies in our region and beyond to effectively contain, diminish and eliminate them, and to create a security environment conducive to those goals.
     Evans joined arms control experts and former senior diplomats in a sending a letter from the APLN urging Anthony Albanese, the Australian Prime Minister, to take “a leadership role in addressing the rising nuclear threats in our region”. Evans went on to say that “The most immediately useful step we could take would be to support the growing international movement for the universal adoption of No First Use doctrine by the nuclear-armed states.”
     By making a public commitment not to use nuclear weapons first, a country can send a political message that its arsenal for deterrence.
Please read Part 2 next

Ambient office = 91 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient outside = 100 nanosieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = 98 nanosieverts per hour

Serano pepper from Central Market = 78 nanosieverts per hour

Tap water = 93 nanosieverts per hour

Filter water = 80 nanosieverts per hour