Push to ban weapons advertising at Canberra Airport
by Sue Wareham, vice-president Medical Association for Prevention of War, convenor of No Airport Arms Ads 
Opinion piece reprinted with author’s permission from the Canberra Times 25 July
Have you been to Canberra Airport lately? If not, you would not yet have seen the very welcome images promoting our city – specifically our 100 per cent renewable energy target and our leading educational institutions – that have replaced some of the advertisements depicting Australia’s readiness to go to war. A much better welcome home or welcome to visitors.
The airport must be congratulated, but unfortunately not yet in the “full marks” category. Significant weapons promotions remain, inside and outside the terminal, and with them the question: just who are advertisements for fighter jets, armed drones and submarines aimed at? Most travellers are not really in the market for any of them. Read more…
Executive director Michael Christ (left) welcomes NHK film crew to IPPNW central office.
A team from NHK World TV in Tokyo recently visited IPPNW in connection with a one-hour special they are producing to mark the 71st anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. The program will trace the steps of Hiroshima’s legacy and share the experiences of the Hibakusha—those who survived that infamous day. The show will air on August 6 to audiences in 150 countries. Read more…
The superpowers are violent powers
If asked to identify the world’s superpowers today, most people would name the United States, Russia, and China. Although many citizens of these countries maintain that this status is based on the superiority of their national way of life, the reality is that it rests upon their nations’ enormous capacity for violence. Read more…
[The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has published a special edition of its flagship publication, The International Review of the Red Cross (IRRC), on the human cost of nuclear weapons. The issue contains interviews with Hibakusha, including one with Dr. Masao Tomanaga, IPPNW’s regional vice president for North Asia, former director of the Japanese Red Cross Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Hospital, and a survivor of the US atomic bombing of Nagasaki. The following excerpts are reprinted with the permission of the IRRC. The full interview and the entire issue of the journal are available on the IRRC website.]
Masao Tomonaga
Dr Tomonaga, you were a small child at the time the atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. What was your personal experience of the atomic bombing and its immediate aftermath?
I was born on 5 June 1943. At the time of the bombing, I was two years and two months old. That morning, I was sleeping on the second floor of our Japanese-style wooden house in a Japanese-style bed, when suddenly the blast from the atomic bomb crushed our house. Read more…
The human cost of nuclear weapons
A comprehensive, carefully documented study of the humanitarian consequences of nuclear testing in the Pacific region, written by IPPNW co-president Tilman Ruff, is one of the highlights of an important new issue of the International Review of the Red Cross (IRRC) on the human cost of nuclear weapons. The 468-page thematic edition of the flagship journal of the International Committee of the Red Cross chronicles the ICRC’s long history of engagement with the nuclear weapons issue, from the first Red Cross report on the effects of the US atomic bombing of Hiroshima, through ICRC participation at the recent series of international conferences on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons. Read more…
Will the US increase military spending yet again?
At the present time, an increase in US military spending seems as superfluous as a third leg. The United States, armed with the latest in advanced weaponry, has more military might than any other nation in world history. Moreover, it has begun a $1 trillion program to refurbish its entire nuclear weapons complex. America’s major military rivals, China and Russia, spend only a small fraction of what the United States does on its armed forces―in China’s case about a third and in Russia’s case about a ninth. Read more…
A passionate abolitionist turns 100
Dr. James Yamazaki (right) with PSR-LA board member Jimmy Hara
I got a phone call in the early spring of 1995 from a doctor in California who introduced himself as Jim Yamazaki. Dr. Yamazaki had just written a book about the US atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and wondered if I’d be interested in reviewing it in Medicine & Global Survival. Read more…
Gun Runners, Poaching and Armed Violence Prevention Featured at Nairobi Strategy Session on #ArmsFreeAfrica
By Dr. Peter Mburu, IPPNW-Kenya
On the 17th of June 2016, I had the privilege of representing IPPNW-Kenya at an #ArmsFreeAfrica NGO strategy meeting in Nairobi hosted by the Control Arms coalition. The working meeting was preceded by an evening premiere screening of the movie “Gun Runners” featuring former Kenyan cattle-rustler- turned-peace activist and elite professional runner Julius Arile.
Gun Runners star Julius Arile (l) and Dr. Peter Mburu of IPPNW Kenya
More than 450 units of blood collected during “Don’t Shed Blood, Donate Blood” drives
IPPNW’s affiliate Indian Doctors for Peace and Development (IDPD) has launched a year-long series of creative activities in cooperation with student and state chapters under the banner of “Health through Peace.” They are engaging medical students, colleagues and communities in innovative initiatives to prevent violence and promote peace and sustainability. Read more…
Shadows of doom
Soviet MIG-21s at Rumbula airfield in Latvia, abandoned at the end of the Cold War
Peter Handberg, a writer and translator, has in the years since the end of the Cold War traveled many times in the Baltic states, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. He has visited many sites where nuclear weapons were kept, ready to destroy the world. Handberg has also spoken to military officers who once watched over these instruments of Armageddon. He has written an important book on the subject, Undergångens skuggor (Shadows of Doom). The book is not translated but a documentary film is planned.
Recently he led a group from Sweden to some of these bases, abandoned since 1987. Read more…
Bimal Khadka
Bjorn Hilt
Charles K. Johnson
Dr. Ghassan Shahrour
Gunnar Westberg
IPPNW
John Loretz
Lawrence Wittner
Maria Valenti
mollymcgint
Sue Wareham
Tilman Ruff
Tim Wright
Xanthe Hall
