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By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS (IDN) — The spiraling crisis in Ukraine has an ominous underlying fact: it is a conflict that involves four of the world’s major nuclear powers: the US, Russia, UK and France, with the remaining five, namely China, India, Pakistan, North Korea and Israel on the sidelines as spectators—at least so far.
Mercifully, the nuclear option is not on the negotiating table—but it is still very much in the air.
By Reinhard Jacobsen
VIENNA (IDN) — The Commonwealth of Dominica announced its decision early February to join the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) that bans nuclear explosions by everyone, everywhere—on the Earth's surface, in the atmosphere, underwater and underground. The Treaty was signed 26 years ago but it has yet to enter into force.
By Daryl Kimball
The writer is executive director, Arms Control Association. This editorial is issued in the March 2022 issue of Arms Control Today.
WASHINGTON, D.C. (IDN) — President Vladimir Putin has chosen the path of destruction instead of diplomacy. His months-long build-up of a massive Russian invasion force encircling Ukraine and his decision on February 21 to order Russian soldiers into the eastern Ukrainian provinces of Luhansk and Donetsk have set in motion a catastrophic war.
By Ramesh Jaura
BERLIN | TOKYO (IDN) — Along with the United Nations, the community-based Buddhist organisation Soka Gakkai International (SGI) offers a beacon of hope particularly when the world is plagued by crises threatening the survival of humankind.
Every year since 1983, SGI President Daisaku Ikeda, a Buddhist philosopher, peacebuilder and educator, has issued a peace proposal. His latest—and the 40th—titled "Transforming Human History: The Light of Peace and Dignity"—was released on January 26.
By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS (IDN) — North Korea, whose economy has been severely undermined by rigid sanctions imposed by the United Nations and the United States, in retaliation for its active nuclear weapons program, has long justified its growing military arsenal on sheer political and ideological grounds.
The invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq, and the ouster of Libyan leader Muammar el-Qaddafi, were perhaps facilitated by one fact: none of these countries either had nuclear weapons or had given up developing them.
Viewpoint by Alice Slater
The writer is a Member of the Board of Directors of World BEYOND War. She is also the UN NGO Representative of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. www.warbeyondwar.org
NEW YORK (IDN) — It seems hard to believe that in these possible end times in the midst of a global pandemic with an endless succession of catastrophic climate disasters and thousands of nuclear weapons poised and pointed in the US and Russia, ready to destroy life on earth, we are beset by a bought, corrupted mainstream media that assaults us with the “wrongdoings” of Russia and China, and most recently North Korea, with barely a mention in their assaultive reporting of how the US might be a cause.
By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS (IDN) — North Korea, long described as a “hermit kingdom”, apparently isn’t living in total political isolation or is cut off from the rest of the world.
Or so it seems, judging by the failure of the US and some of its UN allies to impose sanctions on five North Korean officials—sanctions really aimed at a country that continues to defy the West with its multiple ballistic nuclear tests.
Viewpoint by Sergio Duarte
The writer is President of Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs and former UN High Representative for Disarmament Affairs.
NEW YORK (IDN) — On the eve of the opening of the Tenth Review Conference* of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), the five states recognized as possessors of such armament—China, United States, France, United Kingdom and Russia—issued a Joint Declaration recalling the affirmation by presidents Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev that “a nuclear war cannot be won a should never be fought”, adding that those weapons should serve defensive objectives, prevent aggression and avoid war.
By Ramesh Jaura
BERLIN | PRAGUE (IDN) — On January 24, 1946, the United Nations General Assembly adopted by consensus its very first resolution Resolution 1 (I), which established a commission of the UN Security Council to ensure "the elimination from national armaments of atomic weapons and all other major weapons adaptable to mass destruction". The Resolution is entitled "Establishment of a Commission to Deal with the Problems Raised by the Discovery of Atomic Energy".
By Radwan Jakeem
NEW YORK (IDN) — The Nuclear Posture Review (NPR), issued by the U.S.-based international organization Veterans For Peace, warns that the danger of nuclear war is greater than ever and that nuclear disarmament must be vigorously pursued. NPR also calls for measures that would reduce the risk of nuclear war, such as implementing policies for No First Use and taking nuclear weapons off hair-trigger alert.
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