| Eminent Persons Warn Against Any Demonstration Nuclear Test Explosion By Reinhard Jacobsen  Image: More than 300 International Monitoring System (IMS) facilities certified out of the 337 the CTBTO has planned are already in operation. Credit: CTBTO.VIENNA (IDN) – Members of the CTBTO Group of Eminent Persons (GEM) have expressed “deep concern about credible press reports” that senior U.S. officials have discussed the possibility of conducting “a demonstration nuclear test explosion”. [2020–05-30 | 05] JAPANESE TEXT VERSION PDF | PORTUGUESE | SPANISHRead More Multilateralism, The Covid-19 Pandemic and The NPT Review Conference Viewpoint by Sergio Duarte Ambassador, former UN High Representative for Disarmament Affairs. President of Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs.  Collage: Images from Internet of multilateralism, coronavirus and nuclear testing.NEW YORK (IDN) – On April 24, the International Day of Multilateralism and Diplomacy for Peace was observed at the United Nations. At the occasion, Secretary-general António Guterres called for a “networked multilateralism, strengthening coordination among all global multilateral organizations” with the regional multilateral organizations making their vital contributions. His advice is both warranted and timely. [2020–05-28]Read More ‘Abolition 2000’ Warns Against Resumption of Nuclear Testing By Radwan Jakeem  Photo: Nuclear test carried out on 18 April 1953 at the Nevada test site. Source: UN News.NEW YORK (IDN) – “Resumption of nuclear explosive testing is absolutely unacceptable. Even discussing nuclear testing again is dangerously destabilizing,” the Abolition 2000 Global Network to Eliminate Nuclear Weapons has warned. Such testing would, in any case, be in contravention of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBTO), signed by the United States, yet pending entry-into-force, the Abolition 2000 adds in a statement emerging from its annual general meeting (AGM). [2020–05-25]Read More NPT’s 50th Anniversary Encourages 17 Signatories To Remind Five Nuclear-Weapons States of Their Commitments By UN Bureau  Photo: Every five years since it entered into force in 1970, the states parties to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) have held a conference to review its operation and to come to agreement on detailed language assessing the treaty’s various provisions. Credit: Dean Calma CC: BY-SANEW YORK (IDN) – The upcoming 2020 Review Conference of a landmark international treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, presents “a timely opportunity for the States Parties to undertake a comprehensive review and assessment” of its current status, says the Joint Communiqué issued on May 19 by 17 States Party to the NPT. [2020–05-24]Read More The US Seeks Iran Arms Embargo Extension Riling Europe By Kelsey Davenport and Julia Masterson  Photo: The foreign ministers from Iran and the countries of the P5+1, as well as the High Representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, after agreeing the Iran Nuclear deal, 14 July 2015. Courtesy of Dragan Tatic/Wikimedia.While Julia Masterson is research assistant, Kelsey Davenport is the director for non-proliferation policy at Arms Control Association. The Association’s website published this analysis on May 15.WASHINGTON (IDN) – The United States is considering a range of options to prevent the October 2020 expiration of a UN embargo that restricts arms sales to and from Iran. Those options include making a legal case that the United States remains a bona fide participant of the nuclear deal with Iran that it withdrew from in May 2018 in order to use a Security Council provision to block the embargo’s expiration. [2020–05-17]Read More Postponement of NPT Review Conference Offers an Opportunity Antagonisms, Conflicts and Nuclear Risks After the Pandemic A Pugwash Document  Photo: Gustavo Zlauvinen of Argentina, president-designate of the 2020 NPT Review Conference (meanwhile postponed to 20201), addresses the UN Security Council in February. Credit: Evan Schneider/UN).Signed on May 6 by Sergio Duarte (President of Pugwash), Paolo Cotta Ramusino (Secretary-General of Pugwash), Steven Miller (Chair of the Pugwash Executive Committee), and Saideh Lotfian (Chair of the Pugwash Council). Download a copy [PDF]. As of May 10, 135 eminent personalities including ministers had endorsed the document.ROME | GENEVA | WASHINGTON | LONDON (IDN) – The new coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19) has already inflicted great damage on a number of nations and on the world at large, resulting not only in many tens of thousands of deaths but also in economic, financial and social crises. [2020–05-15]Read More Global Civil Society Demands Bolder Action from NPT States Parties By Jamshed Baruah  Image credit: PixabayGENEVA (IDN) – A diverse network of national and international peace and nuclear disarmament non-governmental organisations has in a joint statement urged government leaders, particularly from the nuclear-armed states and their allies, to act with greater urgency and cooperation to meet unfulfilled promises to reduce nuclear risks and advance progress on disarmament, and to realise their commitment to the “complete elimination of nuclear weapons”. The statement coincided with the 25th anniversary on May 11 of the indefinite extension of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). [2020–05-12 | 04] ARABIC | GERMAN | HINDI | JAPANESE TEXT VERSION PDF | THAIRead More 25 Years After the Indefinite Extension of The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty: A Field of Broken Promises and Shattered Visions By Tariq Rauf*  Photo: Opening of the Review and Extension Conference of the Treaty on Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, United Nations Headquarters, New York, 17 April 1995. Seated on the podium from left to right: UN Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali; President of the Conference, Ambassador Jayantha Dhanapala (Sri Lanka); Secretary-General of the Conference, Prvoslav Davinić. Credit: UN Photo by Evan Schneider.VIENNA (IDN) – “I long ago took to heart the words of Omar Bradley, spoken virtually a half century ago, when he observed, having seen the aftermath of the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, thus: ‘We live in an age of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We live in a world that has achieved brilliance without wisdom, power without conscience. We’ve unlocked the mysteries of the atom and forgotten the lessons of the Sermon on the Mount. We know more about war than we know about peace, more about killing than we know about living’.”[2020–05-11]Read More Beware of Weaponizing COVID-19 Viewpoint by Jayasri Priyalal  Image: Collage of images of biomasks and COVID-19 with graphics from Internet. SINGAPORE (IDN) – Weapons of Mass Destructions (WMD) were something that USA and UK coalition forces were trying to find in the armouries of Saddam Hussain in Iraq in March 2003. Anglo-Saxon media was painting the fears of death, destruction and sufferings to humankind unless those weapons were destroyed – justifying the illegal invasion of the allied forces into a sovereign Iraq, violating all international laws and order. [2020–05-10]Read More Russia’s Victory in WWII Changed the World but War Drums Continue Viewpoint by Somar Wijayadasa*  Photo: Veterans in a letter called for Putin to “take a difficult but, as we see it, fair decision to hold the military parade on another date”. Putin has meanwhile agreed to defer the military parade. Credit: Sergei Kiselyov/Moskva News AgencyNEW YORK (IDN) – On May 9, 1945, after four years of violent battles inside Russia, recorded as the bloodiest and most destructive military conflict in the whole history of humanity, the Russians defeated Nazi Germany in World War II. It is the single most important day in Russian history that elicits a strong feeling of pride and patriotic fervour that binds the nation together. [2020–05-06]Read More World Conference Calls for Abolition of Nuclear Weapons and Reversing Climate Change By Santo D. Banerjee  Image credit: World ConferenceNEW YORK (IDN) -– In a dramatic warning from 13 Nobel Prize winners about the existential dangers of nuclear weapons and climate crisis, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists on January 23 set the hands of its iconic ‘Doomsday Clock’ to 100 seconds to midnight. [2020–04-30 | 03] CHINESE | JAPANESE TEXT VERSION PDF | KOREAN | RUSSIANRead More Proposal to Convene NPT Review Conference in January 2021 Why Peaceful Vienna Is More Suitable than Toxic New York Viewpoint by Tariq Rauf *  Photo: Vienna Hofburg, the former principal imperial palace of the Habsburg dynasty rulers; which and today serves as the official residence and workplace of the President of Austria. It is located in the center of Vienna and was built in the 13th century and expanded several times afterwards. Credit: Robert Fischer, PixabayVIENNA, (IDN) – In my previous posts on IDN InDepthNews, Update: Postponed 2020 NPT Review Conference, Challenge for the NAM: Move the NPT Review Conference to 2021 in Vienna, and Postpone the NPT Review Conference to 2021 and Convene in Vienna, I had provided information and perspectives on the Review Conference of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty scheduled at the United Nations in New York from 27 April to 22 May that had to be postponed due to the global COVID-19 pandemic. [2020–04-20]Read More An Unexpected Chance for the Success of Postponed NPT Review Conference Viewpoint by Sergio DuarteThe writer is Former UN High Representative for Disarmament Affairs and current President of Pugwash.  Photo: US President Lyndon Johnson addresses the UN General Assembly during the signing of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, 1968. Eventually, 188 countries signed the treaty, which was made into law in 1970. Photo credit: Screen capture from the documentary ‘Good Thinking, Those Who’ve Tried To Halt Nuclear Weapons’.NEW YORK (IDN) – It took patience from the President-designate of the 2020 NPT Review Conference, a sober assessment of the situation by a number of states, particularly from the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) and help from the UN Office for Disarmament Affairs (UNODA). In the end, the parties to the Treaty agreed to postpone the Conference to next year, “as soon as circumstances permit, but no later than April 2021”. [2020–04-12 | 02] ARABIC | CHINESE | JAPANESE TEXT VERSION PDF | SPANISHRead More Update: Postponed 2020 NPT Review Conference Viewpoint by Tariq Rauf *  Photo: Collage from images on www.un.org/en/conferences/npt2020VIENNA (IDN) – On 30 March 2020, IDN-InDepthNews published my article, Challenge for the NAM: Move the NPT Review Conference to 2021 in Vienna, in which I had noted the announcement of the postponement of the 2020 review conference of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), scheduled to be held in New York from 27 April to 22 May, due to the global COVID-19 pandemic. [2020–04-03]Read More A Nobel Peace Laureate Calls for Slashing Military Spending and Investing in Healthcare By Jutta Wolf  Image credit: IPBBERLIN (IDN) – The world’s oldest peace NGO, the 1910 Nobel Peace Prize-winning International Peace Bureau (IPB), is calling for a “dramatic reduction” of military spending in favour of healthcare and meeting social needs. A petition launched on March 27 and signed by all interested will be submitted to the United Nations General Assembly on the first day of the next session opening on September 15, 2020. [2020–04-02 | 01] ITALIAN | JAPANESE TEXT VERSION PDF | RUSSIAN Read More |
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