By Thalif Deen UNITED NATIONS, 12 June 2023 (IDN) — As geopolitics take a turn for the worse—with Russian nuclear threats in Ukraine, the saber-rattling by North Korea and the increasing political confrontation between the US and China—there are rising investments in the world’s expanding nuclear arsenals. Global spending on nuclear weapons increased in 2022 […]
Universalization of Nuclear Weapon Ban Treaty Is Essential
By Ramesh Jaura BERLIN | TOKYO, 11 June 2023 (IDN) — Peacebuilder and Buddhist leader Daisaku Ikeda, who is president of the Tokyo-based Soka Gakkai International (SGI), issued a statement ahead of the meeting of the Group of 7 (G7) countries in Hiroshima May 19-21, calling on the G7 leaders to take bold steps toward […]
US Mayors Call for Urgent Action to Avoid Nuclear War
By J Nastranis NEW YORK, 5 June 2023 (IDN) — “We are living in a time of extraordinary nuclear dangers, with all the nuclear-armed states qualitatively, and in some cases quantitatively, modernizing their nuclear arsenals”, observes the United States Conference of Mayors (USCM) and calls for “urgent action to avoid nuclear war, resolve the Ukraine […]
Need To Undertake a Comprehensive Study of Nuke-free Zones
Growing importance of NWFZs Viewpoint by Dr. J. Enkhsaikhan The writer is Chairman of Blue Banner NGO and Former Permanent Representative of Mongolia to the United Nations ULAANBAATAR, 5 June 2023 (IDN) — Nuclear-weapon-free zones (NWFZs) are important and practical regional measures of non-nuclear-weapon states (NNWSs) in promoting the goals of nuclear non-proliferation and strengthening […]
A United Civil Society Push for Spain to Join the TPNW
By ICAN GENEVA | MADRID, 31 May 2023 (IDN) — Forty-five civil society organisations in Spain have come together to form a coalition with a single mission: to persuade the Spanish government to adhere to the 2017 Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW). The Alianza por el Desarme Nuclear (Alliance for Nuclear Disarmament), […]
A Nuclear-Free World Begins with Young Leaders
By Thalif Deen UNITED NATIONS, 31 May 2023 (IDN) — The United Nations now believes—and perhaps rightly so—that a world free of nuclear weapons should begin primarily with young future leaders. In pursuing this ambitious goal, the UN Office for Disarmament Affairs (UNODA) and the government of Japan are calling on young people to apply […]
G7 Leaders Falter Over Nuclear Disarmament in Hiroshima
By Thalif Deen UNITED NATIONS, 22 May 2023 (IDN) — When leaders of the Group of 7 (G7) countries met in Hiroshima May 19-21, one of the issues on the agenda was nuclear disarmament. The venue of the summit was symbolically stark because the US atomic bombings in 1945 killed over 226,000 people in the […]
The Right to Life: A Missing Perspective on Nuclear Arms
By Thalif Deen UNITED NATIONS, 21 May 2023 (IDN) — The Lawyers Committee on Nuclear Policy (LCNP) has made a new submission to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva in advance of its Universal Periodic Review (UPR) of the Russian Federation. Currently, the tentative schedule of the UPR Working Group, with Russia on its agenda, […]
A 21st Century Freeze on Nuclear Weapons: Will it be a Reality?
By Thalif Deen UNITED NATIONS, 13 May 2023 (IDN) — US Senator Edward Markey (Democrat from Massachusetts) announced plans on May 4 to re-introduce legislation that would establish a 21st century freeze on the testing, production, and deployment of nuclear weapons. A former US army reservist and co-president of Parliamentarians for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament […]
Should We Fear Nuclear Submarine Proliferation?
Evil is in the eye of the beholder By Leonam dos Santos Guimarães Capt. (ret.) Brazilian Navy* RIO DE JANEIRO, 11 May 2023 (IDN) — The potential cause-effect relationship between nuclear attack submarine development and nuclear weapons production by Non-Proliferation Treaty/nonnuclear-weapons states is a subject that has been scarcely discussed in unclassified sources until the […]