After years of negotiations and pressure from Greenpeace, a global agreement for the elimination of a group of highly toxic and persistent man-made chemicals (Persistent Organic Pollutants or POPs), becOMES a reality in May 2001 when a UN Treaty banning them is adopted.
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‘Stop Star Wars’ is the Rainbow Warrior’s motto when Greenpeace warns of the danger of a new nuclear arms race. Greenpeace is opposing Washington’s satellite-supporter missile defence system, and protests at the US army’s missile test area on the Kwajalein atoll in the north Pacific. In July, activists enter the Vandenburg test site in California and delay the start of a launch.
image 1 Greenpeace campaigner Mike Townsley on the Rainbow Warrior, looking towards the Kwajalein missile base prior to a ‘Stop Star Wars’ action in the Marshall Islands © Greenpeace / Steve Morgan image 2 Inflatable setting out towards Kwajalein missile base in the Marshall Islands © Greenpeace / Steve Morgan image 3 Activists protested in the exclusion zone waters of the Vandenberg airforce base in the US in an attempt to delay the ‘Star Wars’ missile defence system test © Greenpeace / Steve Morgan image 4 Activists chained to each other outside the US embassy in Helsinki, Finland, in support of the Star Wars 17 appearing in federal court in Los Angeles © Greenpeace / Jesse Anttila image 5 Demonstration in support of the Star Wars 17 at the US embassy in Bern, Switzerland; some activists are dressed in old-style prisoner’s suits and their mouths are sealed with tape, while another wears a George Bush mask © Greenpeace / David Adair image 6 Some of the activists arrested for disrupting the test; the so-called Star Wars 17 consist of nine foreign nationals, six US citizens and two independent journalists © Zachary Singer / Greenpeace
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