IPPNW co-president Ira Helfand (second from right, front row) represented the federation at the World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates in Merida, Mexico, along with Drs. Jans Fromow Guerra and Ruby Chirino of the Mexican affiliate.
Nobel Laureates’ statement on the urgent need to prevent nuclear war
[Editor’s note: The 17th World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates, meeting in Merida Mexico on 21 September, has adopted the following statement drafted by IPPNW.]
Since August 1945, when the US detonated the first atomic bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded eight times to individuals and organizations for their work to prevent nuclear war and to rid the world of the scourge of nuclear weapons. Read more…
Devastating effects of nuclear weapons are the highest form of violence
[Editor’s note: On 18 September, IPPNW co-president Arun Mitra gave the following talk—”Humanitarian consequences of nuclear war: possibilities and perspectives for prevention”—at the International Scientific-Practical Conference dedicated to the 30th anniversary of the “Nevada-Semipalatinsk” International Antinuclear Movement.]
Dr. Mitra addressing the “Nevada-Semey” conference on 18 September.
This is my second visit to the country which banned nuclear weapon testing long ago. During my first visit in 2014 to participate in the 21st World Congress of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW), we had the privilege to visit Semipalatinsk. The visit not only enriched our knowledge of the health and environmental impact of nuclear weapon testing, it also reaffirmed the commitment to continue to struggle for a nuclear-weapons-free world. Read more…
IDPD National Conference demands that all nuclear weapons possessing countries join TPNW; expresses concern over health issues in Kashmir
by Arun Mitra
The 11th National Conference of Indian Doctors for Peace and Development was held at Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala on 31 August and 1 September 2019. Among several issues discussed in the conference, it put main thrust on the demand to all the nuclear weapons possessing countries to join Treaty Prohibiting Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) as an opportunity to save the world from nuclear disaster. The conference also expressed concern over health issues in Kashmir. Read more…
Japanese government must take urgent action to protect Japanese people from unacceptable radiation exposure
Now more than eight years after the Fukushima nuclear disaster, IPPNW strongly supports the call by civil society organisations in Japan for the ionising radiation maximum permissible dose limit for members of the public to be promptly reduced from 20 to 1 mSv per year. Read more…
International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW) is calling on the Indian government to restore immediately all communications and freedom of movement in Kashmir and Jammu, and urging all states in the disputed border regions to initiate new diplomatic talks aimed at reducing tensions and negotiating a peaceful settlement to the long-standing conflict. Read more…
Dear moderators of the US Presidential debates: How about raising the issue of how to avert nuclear war?
You mass media folks lead busy lives, I’m sure. But you must have heard something about nuclear weapons―those supremely destructive devices that, along with climate change, threaten the continued existence of the human race.
Yes, thanks to popular protest and carefully-crafted arms control and disarmament agreements, there has been some progress in limiting the number of these weapons and averting a nuclear holocaust. Even so, that progress has been rapidly unraveling in recent months, leading to a new nuclear arms race and revived talk of nuclear war.
Do I exaggerate? Consider the following. Read more…
Nuclear weapons must be rejected
As the Australian government appears at risk of involving us in yet another US war of aggression, a leading strategic thinker has dropped a bombshell. Professor Hugh White, emeritus professor of strategic studies at Australian National University, has suggested that Australia might need to consider acquiring nuclear weapons. He writes in his new book “How to Defend Australia” that, because US influence in our region is waning and Chinese influence is rising, “there are circumstances in which the development of nuclear forces could be justified.”
Professor White claims that in the future we might not be able to rely on US “extended nuclear deterrence” to protect us from adversaries. However his comments carry the potential to severely damage the ever-fragile progress that has been made towards nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament, for several reasons. Read more…
A race against time
Tilman Ruff’s life mission is to help rid the world of nuclear weapons
By Robert Fedele
In 2007, Associate Professor Tilman Ruff and a small group of antinuclear activists founded the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) in Melbourne. In 2017, the global nongovernmental organisation captured the first Nobel Peace Prize born in Australia after years drawing attention to the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of nuclear weapons and driving a historic UN prohibition treaty. In June 2019, Ruff, and fellow ICAN co-founder, Dimity Hawkins, were awarded Order of Australia Honours for their advocacy on nuclear disarmament.
Tilman Ruff’s life’s mission to help end nuclear weapons traces back to growing up in Melbourne in the 1980s living with the genuine fear that nuclear war could strike at any moment.
His family background passed on a profound awareness of the impacts of war.
“My family were German Christians living in communities in…
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Executed for being an anti-nuclear activist
By Maria Arvaniti Sotiropoulou and Panos Trigazis
A surviving portrait of Nikos Nikiforidis (Photo: WikiCommons)
Under present conditions, it seems inconceivable that a 22-year-old fighter for the anti-nuclear movement was arrested, sentenced to death by court martial and executed in Thessaloniki, on a charge of collecting signatures under the Stockholm Appeal for the abolition and prohibition of all nuclear weapons. But Nikos Nikiforidis was the first person (and perhaps also the only one) in the world to suffer such a fate. Read more…
Thinking in terms of the lifetime of humanity
A new article in an American Heart Association journal draws a compelling analogy between preventing sudden cardiac death and preventing nuclear war. That the three authors are long-time members of IPPNW should come as no surprise. In “Cardiac Events and Nuclear War: Prevention by Cardiovascular Specialists,” in the June 4 issue of Circulation, James Muller, John Pastore, and Amir Lerman relate the risks of heart attack to the risks of nuclear catastrophe. Read more…
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