Japan admits the obvious
Protest outside Japanese Mission in Geneva. (NHK World screenshot)
When some 50 protesters gathered outside the Japanese Mission to the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva yesterday, questioning that country’s refusal to sign onto a joint statement on the humanitarian consequences of nuclear weapons submitted to the NPT PrepCom by 74 other non-nuclear-weapon states, Ambassador Mari Amano felt obliged to give an answer. Why, after all, would the only country ever to have felt the full effects of atomic bombings find it difficult to condemn their existence on humanitarian grounds and join an appeal for their total elimination? Read more…
74 NPT States issue humanitarian appeal for abolition
The number of countries demanding the elimination of nuclear weapons as a humanitarian imperative grew to 74 today, when South Africa read a joint statement on the humanitarian impact of nuclear weapons on behalf of that many delegations to the 2013 Non-Proliferation Treaty Preparatory Committee in Geneva.
Declaring that “our countries are deeply concerned about the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of nuclear weapons,” the States criticized the NPT for ignoring its very reason for existence “for many years,” even though “the humanitarian impact of nuclear weapons has increasingly been recognised as a fundamental and global concern that must be at the core of all deliberations on nuclear disarmament and nuclear non-proliferation.” Read more…
The legacy of chemical warfare in Iran
Twenty-five years ago, in 1988, Saddam Hussein used chemical weapons against the Kurdish town of Halabja. This atrocity is what we most often talk about when we decry chemical warfare. We do not remember Sadasht and all the other cities in Iran that were also attacked by Iraq. We forget that Iran is a country which has suffered, by far, much more than any other from the terrible effects of mustard gas and nerve gas. This upsets the Iranians today, with good reason. Read more…
That’s where the money goes
According to a report just released by the highly-respected Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), world military expenditures in 2012 totaled $1.75 trillion.
The report revealed that, as in recent decades, the world’s biggest military spender by far was the US government, whose expenditures for war and preparations for war amounted to $682 billion — 39 percent of the global total. Read more…
Irrational generals in Pyongyang?
Whatever anyone says about North Korea and its leaders and its policy, remember: No one understands the country. Unfortunately, that means no one can predict what the leaders will do in a certain situation. So, that applies to what I write, too.
But even if you do not understand there are certain things you must not do. The less you know about the other side, the less provocative you should be. Read more…
Just sign the damn thing!
I did something new last week. I started a petition on change.org for ICAN. Now I have signed many online petitions in my time and I have written quite a few too. But I have never used a large online petitioning platform before.
The title of the petition – as you may already know – was “Prevent a nuclear catastrophe – Back to the negotiating table”. At the start things seemed to be going well enough. I obsessively watched the signatures clocking up and overnight the first 500 were there.
But then it started to slow down. Read more…
Cameron: The North Koreans are coming!
Not even the Tories go that far. Actually, the former Tory Defense Secretary, Michael Portillo, ridicules Cameron.
My father, who was a Lutheran parson sometimes used the term from Martin Luther. The excuse of the unrepentant: If you have decided to continue your wicked ways any excuse, however feeble, will do.
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/politics/article3731486.ece
IPPNW statement on the Korean nuclear crisis
[The co-presidents of IPPNW have sent the following letter to the leaders of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the Republic of Korea, and the United States, in response to the escalating series of nuclear threats over the past several days.]
The use of nuclear weapons on the Korean peninsula must be prevented. Regardless of the reasons for the current escalation in tensions, the recent displays of nuclear force by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and by the US, on behalf of its ally the Republic of Korea, can have only one of two outcomes: either both sides will step back from the precipice or deterrence will fail and millions of people will suffer the fate of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The humanitarian consequences of the detonation of nuclear weapons, regardless of who might use them or where, were examined in depth only one month ago in Oslo, at a conference attended by 127 States. The sobering scientific and medical analysis presented in Oslo—millions dead; millions more suffering from injuries, burns, and radiation sickness without hope of medical treatment; social and economic collapse; and the potential for global climate disruption and nuclear-war-induced famine—compelled the participants to call for accelerated action to delegitimize nuclear weapons and to eliminate them from the world’s arsenals. This has been IPPNW’s core message since 1980. The current crisis only underscores the urgency of negotiating a comprehensive, global treaty to ban and eliminate nuclear weapons.
As long as nuclear weapons exist, adversaries who own them will be tempted to engage in nuclear threats and counter-threats calculated to make the other side back down. This is why nuclear deterrence is already a bankrupt policy. Should this be the moment when deterrence fails, as it eventually must, both North and South Korea will be devastated. Even if the use of nuclear weapons were confined to the Korean peninsula, unlikely as that would be, the repercussions for the rest of the world would be catastrophic.
Expressions of willingness—or even intent—to use nuclear weapons, either preemptively or in retaliation, provide security to no one and increase the risk of mutual self-destruction. IPPNW urges the DPRK, the ROK, and the US to refrain from further rhetorical provocations and inflammatory displays of force, and to reopen diplomatic channels where cooler heads can prevail.
Historic International Arms Trade Treaty passed at UN
An historic and groundbreaking international Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) was approved today at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in New York by a vote of 154 yes, including the US, 3 no, and 23 abstentions! The treaty enshrines in new international law a set of clear rules for all global transfers of weapons and ammunitions.
IPPNW’s delegation has worked tirelessly for years on this issue, and IPPNW representatives Drs. Omolade Oladejo and Emeka Okolo from Nigeria were at the UN today along with many NGO colleagues to witness this landmark event while many of us watched with suspense from afar. Read more…
Dr. Shannon Gearhart, US, medical student Vera Gruner, Austria, and Dr. Emeka Okolo, Nigeria wait to tweet the hoped for good news.
IPPNW representatives were on the edge of our seats last Thursday afternoon as we anxiously awaited the outcome of the long-deliberated Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) negotiations at the UN in New York. So many delegates, NGOs and press attended the final session of the ATT Diplomatic Conference that we spilled over to fill two of the big UN plenary session rooms.
With overwhelming support from the world’s countries, everyone had high hopes for an ATT adoption after the final two weeks of intense discussions took place March 18-28.
But it was not to be. Read more…
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