The abolition of nuclear weapons is an essential part of respecting and protecting all living things
A conversation with ICAN Executive Director Melissa Parke
[Melissa Parke is a lawyer and parliamentarian who has worked with the United Nations on international humanitarian and human rights issues in several conflict areas. She’s a former Minister for International Development and a former member of Parliament for the Labour Party in Australia. She was the Australian chair of Parliamentarians for Global Action and was founding chair of the Australia United Nations Parliamentary Group. She’s been deeply involved with nuclear issues since the 1990s, campaigning against the establishment of a global nuclear waste dump in her home state of western Australia. More recently, Ms. Parke has served as an ambassador for ICAN Australia, promoting the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) since its adoption by the UN in 2017. On 1 September, Ms. Parke took a new position as executive director of ICAN, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons.
Read more…World peace and security require a stronger United Nations
Addressing the UN Security Council on September 20, 2023, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky delivered a heartfelt plea “to update the existing security architecture in the world, in particular, to restore the real power of the UN Charter.”
This call for strengthening international security under the aegis of the United Nations makes sense not only for Ukraine―a country suffering from brutal military invasion, occupation, and annexation by its much larger, more powerful neighbor, the Russian Federation―but for the nations of the world.
Read more…Australia’s AUKUS nuclear submarine plans are bad for nonproliferation and increase the risk of nuclear war
by Tilman Ruff
Two years ago this week, the AUKUS pact was announced. When US President Joe Biden, UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese stood together in San Diego on March 14, 2023, to announce arrangements for the Australian acquisition of nuclear-powered submarines (SSNs), many Australians were dumbstruck. They were as dumbstruck as they were when the initial announcement was made 18 months earlier by Biden and past prime ministers Boris Johnson and Scott Morrison in the dying stages of a discredited Australian government. Their dismay was shared by many of Australia’s neighbors in Asia and the Pacific.
Read more…From the Partial Test Ban Treaty to a nuclear weapons-free world
This September is the sixtieth anniversary of US and Soviet ratification of the world’s first significant nuclear arms control agreement, the Partial Test Ban Treaty. Thus, it’s an appropriate time to examine that treaty, as well as to consider what might be done to end the danger of nuclear annihilation.
Read more…Hiroshima and me
by Kati Juva
When I was a child I saw an advertisement of a movie called Hiroshima, mon amour and asked my parents “who is Hiroshima?” They said they were actually glad I did not know, but then explained what had happened there in 1945.
In the 1970s the fear of a nuclear war was very real, and we children and young people thought we may not live long enough to become adults. We knew what had happened in Hiroshima and Nagasaki and feared it could happen in our home town. Later in medical school there were courses about radiation and it causing cancer and malformations. Most of the knowledge of the impacts of ionizing radiation to humans are derived from the experiences of the atomic bombing, so Hiroshima and Nagasaki were always in the background of these lectures. Humankind and medical science could easily have lived without this experiment.
Read more…The world needs brave and responsible decision making
[Co-president Carlos Umaña delivered the following statement on behalf of IPPNW at the NPT PrepCom in Vienna on August 2. The PrepCom ended in stalemate when States Parties were unable to reach consensus on the chair’s factual summary of the two-week meeting. As a result, there is no official UN record of what was discussed. The draft statement and other PrepCom documents and presentations are available at Reaching Critical Will.]
IPPNW remains committed to helping create a world free from the threat of annihilation by nuclear war. We call for evidence-based policymaking to be the mainstay in all decisions regarding nuclear weapons and nuclear energy, placing science at the service of the people and people at the center of all discussions regarding nuclear weapons.
Read more…Students reflect on Mombasa Congress: “it gave me strength, power and new faith in humanity”
by Stella Ziegler
On Saturday, 12 August, we held the first online international student meeting since the World Congress in Kenya, Mombasa, in April 2023. In total, 26 students were present from different regions of the world, including the USA, Zambia, Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria, France, India, Pakistan, and Germany. The meeting was hosted by the new ISRs; Walusungu and Stella.
We need to re-motivate and reconnect people
An interview with student reps Stella Ziegler and Walusungu Mtonga
[Stella Ziegler of Germany and Walusungu Mtonga of Zambia were elected as IPPNW’s new International Student Representatives (ISRs) at the 23rd World Congress in Mombasa, Kenya. Stella is a medical student at the faculty of Charité Berlin, and is active with the IPPNW-Germany student chapter. Walusungu is in his final year of clinical clerkship at the University of Zambia, pursuing a Bachelor’s degree in Medicine and General Surgery. He is the son of former IPPNW co-president, the late Robert Mtonga.]
Read more…A conversation with filmmaker Robert Frye
[Robert E. Frye is an Emmy Award-winning producer and director of news and documentaries. His most recent film, “In Search of Resolution,” is the third in a series on the continuing challenge of dealing with nuclear weapons. It was preceded by “In My Lifetime” in 2013 and “The Nuclear Requiem” in 2016. Earlier in his career, Mr. Frye produced broadcasts at ABC News, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, and Public Television in the United States. He was executive producer of ABC World News. Tonight with Peter Jennings, executive producer of Good Morning America, and the creator of World News This Morning. He founded his own independent production company in 1988.
Following are edited excerpts from a conversation that can be seen in its entirety on IPPNW’s YouTube channel.]
This is your third film about the dangers posed by nuclear weapons. What compelled you to take up this issue more than a decade ago, and what keeps you at it?
Well, I think what keeps me at it is this story isn’t over. It continues and is much more complex in many ways today, in part because of the war in Ukraine. I think it’s a challenge for all of us to understand the dangers that nuclear weapons themselves create and to change the dynamic, both in terms of their use and also in terms of the attitudes of people around the world.
Read more…by Olga Mironova
June 10 is the date of birth of one of the founders of IPPNW, Dr. Eugene Chazov. He was always the example of kindness, courage, professionalism and wisdom. Dr. Chazov was equally open and friendly to his colleagues, patients and important politicians, showing that there are no borders, when you are struggling for peace and health worldwide.
So, his family got together in the morning of June 10. But I was already meeting my friend and colleague from Boston, the US, Joe Hodgkin, board member of GBSPR. Just after arriving from the airport, we met each other and headed to the dinner with my Baku colleagues to honor my grandfather’s memory and legacy.
The US and Russian students from IPPNW have monthly calls together to maintain the sense of unity and get to know each other better. The Russian students sometimes feel shy, while talking to foreigners in English, but these online meetings help a lot. And matter a lot. The US students and young doctors learn something new about medical system, advocacy work and traditions in Russia. The most magical thing during the Baku visit was to see Joe Hodgkin and me on the same screen, as we haven’t seen each other in person since Dr. Hodgkin’s first visit to Russia back in 2021.
Hope that this post is going to be the opening of the new category of posts written by IPPNW co-presidents each month and giving some updates from all around the world.
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IPPNW peace and health blog 