The atomic bomb dome at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park in Japan was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1996. Credit: Freedom II Andres_Imahinasyon/CC-BY-2.0
At the opening of the CTBT exhibition in the Vienna International Centre’s Rotunda: Karipbek Kuyukov (right), Honorary Ambassador of The ATOM Project, Kazakhstan’s campaign to end nuclear testing./ CTBTO
IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano at the IAEA Headquarters in Vienna, Austria. 28 May 2014./ By IAEA Imagebank – Danilo Türk & Yukiya Amano (01910499), CC BY-SA 2.0
Deputy Foreign Minister Roman Vassilenko explains at length Kazakhstan’s modernization plans aimed, among others, at developing the Kazakh language, making the young generation trilingual, and switching over from the Cyrillic to the Latin alphabet by 2025.
The ambitious plan includes getting 100 eminent books translated from foreign languages into Kazakh, showing 100 new faces of people working for the good of the country, and establishing dynamic political, economic and communications links with Central Asian neighbours. Vassilenko also explains the “legacy” of the three month-long EXPO 2017 Astana – “an event of the year” – which closed its doors on September 10, 2017 after attracting some four million visitors.
Former UN Under-Secretary-General and outgoing Pugwash Conference President Jayantha Dhanapala explains ‘old’ and ‘new’ nuclear dangers the world is confronted with.
In an interview with IDN-INPS Editor-in-Chief Ramesh Jaura, he commends Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev for his commitment to resolving global issues, and proposes ‘Astana peace process’ – as in the case of Syria – to revive six-party talks on Korea. Venue of the interview during the Pugwash Conference on ‘Confronting New Nuclear Dangers’ (August 25-29, 2017) was the Radisson Hotel in Astana, Kazakhstan.
Tariq Rauf, former Director of SIPRI’s Disarmament, Arms Control and Non-proliferation Programme, explains in an interview with IDN-INPS Editor-in-Chief the ‘old’ and ‘new’ nuclear dangers confronting the world, and reveals how and why the 65-nation UN Conference on Disarmament in Geneva remains blocked for nearly two decades.
Because each of the 65 members exercises veto, the CTBT has not entered into force after 21 years. He also looks at North Korea and describes the difficulties on way to the Middle East becoming a nuclear weapons and WMD free zone. Venue of the interview during the Pugwash Conference on ‘Confronting New Nuclear Dangers’ (August 25-29, 2017) was the Radisson Hotel in Astana, Kazakhstan.
Honorary Ambassador of the ATOM Project and non-proliferation activist Karipbek Kuyukov talks to IDN-INPS about the success of the broad-based movement for the closing down of the nuclear testing site independent Kazakhstan inherited from the Soviet Union after its collapse. He urges North Korea to end nuclear tests and appeals to the international community to help usher in a world free of nuclear weapons.