| Kazakhstan Honours Advocates of a Nuclear-Free World By Ramesh Jaura with reports from Katsuhiro Asagiri  Photo (left to right): Ms Zerbo, her husband Nazarbayev Prize laureate CTBTO Executive Secretary Lassina Zerbo, Kazakh President Tokayev, First President Nazarbayev, Ms Yukika Amano, widow of late IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano, Nazarbayev Prize laureate and his brother Mari Amano. Credit: akorda.kz.BERLIN | NUR-SULTAN (IDN) – Kazakhstan, widely acknowledged as a leader in nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation, has availed of this year’s International Day against Nuclear Tests to honour two eminent advocates of a world free of nuclear weapons. The Central Asian republic was one-time holder of the world’s fourth nuclear arsenal as a part of the Soviet Union, defunct since 1991, [2019-08-31 | 13] | JAPANESE TEXT VERSION PDF Read More Kazakh Capital Hosts Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone Delegates By Ramesh Jaura  Photo (L-R): The ATOM Project Honorary Ambassador Karipbek Kuyukov, Kazakh Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Yerzhan Ashikbayev and UNODA Deputy High Representative Thomas Markram. Photo credit: inform.kz.BERLIN | NUR-SULTAN (IDN) – Representatives of five Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zones (NWFZs) and Mongolia have been exploring ways of inter-zonal cooperation and further coordination at a seminar in the Kazakh capital, co-organized by the Government of Kazakhstan and the United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs (UNODA). [2019-08-31] Read More Need for Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty’s Entry into Force Reiterated By Reinhard Jacobsen  Photo: Participants in Vienna ceremony to mark International Day against Nuclear Tests 2019. Credit: CTBTO.VIENNA (IDN) – Urgent calls to bring the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) into force as a key pillar of the international non-proliferation and disarmament framework marked the International Day against Nuclear Tests 2019 commemorated around the world on August 29 with ceremonies to remember the devastating consequences of nuclear tests. The Day will also be marked by a high-level UN plenary meeting at United Nations Headquarters in New York on September 9. [2019-08-30] Read More Kazakh Ratification Marks One Step Closer to Banning the Bomb By J Nastranis  Photo: Kazakhstan officially hands over to UN document on ratification of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapon. Credit: Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Kazakhstan.NEW YORK (IDN) – Kazakhstan, the country where the Soviet atomic bomb was first tested exactly 70 years ago, has become the 26th State party by depositing with the United Nations Secretariat the ratification instrument to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) thus marking one step closer to the prospect of the entry into force of the landmark Treaty, which establishes a legal ban on nuclear weapons. [2019-08-29]Read More Grave Concern About US-Russian Actions Evoking Cold War By Santo D. Banerjee  Photo: A wide view of the Security Council meeting on threats to international peace and security. 22 August 2019. United Nations, New York. Credit: UN Photo/Manuel Elias.NEW YORK (IDN) – While nuclear experts and peace advocates have expressed heightened concern about the collapse of the landmark Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, the United States and Russia are trading accusations over breaching commitments and taking actions evoking Cold War era. [2019-08-28 | P12] GERMAN | JAPANESE TEXT VERSION PDFRead More UN Outreaches Youth with Dialogue on Artificial Intelligence By Belen Bianco, UNODA  Photo (l to r): Mary Soliman, Chief of the Regional Disarmament, Information and Outreach Branch, UNODA; Thomas Markram, Director and Deputy to the High Representative for Disarmament Affairs, UNODA; Emilia Javorsky, Scientists Against Inhumane Weapons, Future of Life Institute; Chris King, UNODA; and Eleonore Pauwels, the United Nations University. Photo by Nyoki Malafa.NEW YORK (IDN-INPS) – The United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs (UNODA) launched its youth outreach initiative on August 16. The first activity organized under this initiative brought together young people from across the New York area to UN Headquarters to join an expert-led discussion on the implications of artificial intelligence for international peace and security. The event was also organized in celebration of International Youth Day (August 12). [2019-08-25] Read More Nuclear Arms Race Is HereBy Jessica Corbett *Photo: The U.S. Defense Department conducted a flight test of a conventionally configured ground-launched cruise missile at San Nicolas Island, California on August 18, 2019. Credit: Scott Howe | DVIDS – The Defense Visual Information Distribution Service.MAINE, USA (IDN) – Nuclear experts and disarmament advocates are warning that the world is witnessing a new arms race after the Pentagon tested a new missile August 18 that would have violated a Cold War-era treaty the Trump administration ditched earlier this month- [2019-08-22] Read More The Devastating Arms Race Rages Unabated Viewpoint by Somar Wijayadasa*  “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.” – U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower in ‘The Chance for Peace’ address in April 1953.NEW YORK (IDN) – The arms race has reached a new dimension as the United States President Donald Trump withdrew from the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty. [2019-08-10 | P11] JAPANESE TEXT VERSION PDF | SPANISHRead More Europeans Should Refuse to Go MAD Again Viewpoint by Jonathan Power  LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) – If MAD was Mad then the decision of President Donald Trump to renounce the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) is MADDER.MAD is Mutually Assured Destruction, a concept which underlay the nuclear deterrence of the Cold War. Presidents Mikhail Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan began the hard work of dismantling MAD with the INF, a treaty affecting the land-based missiles of Europe. It abolished missiles with a range of 500 to 2000 kilometres. [2019-08-07]Read More Australia Urged to Sign & Ratify the Nuclear Weapons Ban Treaty By Neena Bhandari  SYDNEY (IDN) – Australia must sign and ratify the United Nations Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), says a new report released here by the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), the Australian-founded initiative which won the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize. [2019-08-07 | P10] ARABIC | JAPANESE TEXT VERSION PDF | THAIRead More Hiroshima Unlearned: Time to Tell the Truth About US-Russia Relations and Finally Ban the Bomb Viewpoint by Alice Slater Author and nuclear disarmament advocate, Alice Slater is a member of the Board of World Beyond War, UN NGO Representative of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, and a longtime member of CODEPINK.  NEW YORK (IDN) – August 6 and 9 mark 74 years since the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, where only one nuclear bomb dropped on each city caused the deaths of up to 146,000 people in Hiroshima and 80,000 people in Nagasaki. Today, with the U.S. decision to walk away from the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Force (INF) negotiated with the Soviet Union, we are once again staring into the abyss of one of the most perilous nuclear challenges since the height of the Cold War. [2019-08-06]Read More CEND Is Creating the Conditions to ‘Never Disarm’ – 74 Years Since Hiroshima, Nagasaki Viewpoint by Tariq Rauf  The writer is a Vienna-based nuclear arms control specialist, who was Head of Verification and Security Policy Coordination, Office reporting to the Director General at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) from 2002—2011/2012, in which capacity he was the Alternate Head of the IAEA NPT Delegation. The views expressed in this paper are purely personal. [2019-08-05]Read More Nuclear Disarmament Through the Vortex of Global Concern Viewpoint by A.L.A. Azeez  The writer, Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Sri Lanka to the UN in Geneva, is concerned about the security landscape in most regions as well as globally. He pleads for all feasible measures to resume discussions on substantive matters. Nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation are the foremost among them, he adds. The following are extensive extracts from his remarks made in his personal capacity as a member of the panel on nuclear disarmament at plenary meeting of the Conference on Disarmament on 30 July 2019 in Geneva. [2019-08-04]Read More China Holds Firm on No First Use of Nuclear Weapons, Misses U.S. AssurancesViewpoint by Gregory Kulacki  The writer researches the cross-cultural aspects of nuclear arms control negotiations between the United States, China and Japan. He is China project manager and senior analyst at the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS). The following was first published at UCS’s blog on July 24, 2019.CLAREMONT, CA, USA (IDN | UCS) – Ever since I took this job 17 years ago U.S. colleagues of all political and intellectual persuasions have been telling me that sooner or later China would alter, adjust, amend or qualify the policy that China will never, under any circumstances, use nuclear weapons first. [2019-08-03]Read More INF Treaty’s Demise Opens Door to a Dangerous Arms Race Viewpoint by Daryl G. Kimball The writer is Executive Director of the Arms Control Association. The following is the text of his statement issued on August 2.  WASHINGTON, DC (IDN | Arms Control Association) – The loss of the landmark INF Treaty, which helped end the Cold War nuclear arms race, is a blow to international peace and security. Russian noncompliance with the INF Treaty is unacceptable and merits a strong response. But President Trump’s decision to terminate the treaty will not eliminate Russia’s noncompliant 9M729 missiles — and is a mistake. [2019-08-02]Read More |
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