Nuclear Abolition News . Analysis . Features

Nuclear Abolition News | FAS

By STEVEN AFTERGOOD

WASHINGTON DC - Certain nuclear weapons-related information that has been removed from the category of Restricted Data (RD) and designated as Formerly Restricted Data (FRD) can now be restored to the RD category, under a provision approved by Congress in the FY 2013 national defense authorization act.

Until now, the removal of information from the Restricted Data category was irreversible, being prohibited by the Atomic Energy Act.  That prohibition is nullified by the new legislation.

Nuclear Abolition News | IPS

By CAREY L. BIRON

WASHINGTON (IPS) - Although the United States and Russia have massively reduced their collective number of nuclear weapons since the heyday of the Cold War, the rate of that reduction is slowing, the Federation of American Scientists (FAS) warned on December 17.

Further, these two countries alone continue to account for more than 90 percent of the world’s total nuclear arsenal, 15 times the rest of the seven nuclear weapon states combined. [P] ARABIC | DUTCH | JAPANESE TEXT VERSION PDF | GERMAN | TURKISH

Nuclear Abolition News | IPS

By IRA HELFAND

NORTHAMPTON, U.S. (IPS) - Soon after President Barack Obama was elected in 2008, hundreds of leaders of the global medical community wrote an open letter to him, and to newly elected Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, urging them to make the abolition of nuclear weapons their highest priority:

“You face many urgent crises at this difficult moment, but they all pale in comparison to the need to prevent nuclear war. A thousand years from now no one will remember most of what you will do over the next few years; but no one will ever forget the leaders who abolished the threat of nuclear war…Please do not fail us.”

Unfortunately, as we feared, the demands of the economic crisis crowded out other issues and, so far, the leaders of Russia and the United States have failed us. The re-election of Obama offers him a new chance to move the world down the path to nuclear disarmament. It is an opportunity that must not be wasted. [P] ARABIC | JAPANESE TEXT VERSION PDF | TURKISH

Nuclear Abolition News | IPS

By REBECCA JOHNSON*

LONDON (IPS) - Twenty-five years ago, on Dec. 8, presidents Mikhail Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan signed the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty. This historic agreement eliminated a modern class of land-based “theatre” weapons – the SS20s, cruise and Pershing missiles – that had been brought into Europe in the early 1980s. [P] ARABIC | JAPANESE TEXT VERSION PDF | TURKISH

Nuclear Aboltion News | IPS

By JILLIAN KESTLER-D'AMOURS

JERUSALEM (IPS) - After the cancellation of an international conference to create a nuclear-free Middle East, leading experts have warned that an important opportunity to create stability in the region has been squandered. [P] JAPANESE TEXT VERSION PDF

Nuclear Abolition Viewpoint

By REBECCA JOHNSON*

LONDON - On the 25th anniversary of the first real disarmament agreement of the Cold War, Rebecca Johnson looks back at how the 'people to people' and 'women to women' peace campaigns helped to reframe Europe as our shared home rather than the divided and militarised Cold War blocs

Twenty-five years ago, on 8 December 1987, the Presidents of the United States and Soviet Union met in Washington to sign a breakthrough treaty to eliminate ground-launched US Cruise and Pershing missiles and Soviet SS20s from Europe.

Nuclear Abolition News | IDN

By RAMESH JAURA

BERLIN | VIENNA (IDN) - Before World War II broke out in 1939, German-born Nobel laureate Albert Einstein recommended President Franklin D. Roosevelt to begin research on a nuclear weapon since Germany under Adolf Hitler might be developing such a destructive tool. The result was the Manhattan Project, which culminated in the U.S. dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Einstein deplored use of the new discovery of nuclear fission as a weapon, and signed with the British philosopher Bertrand Russell, the Russell-Einstein Manifesto, highlighting the danger of nukes. [P] ARABIC TEXT VERSION PDF |   JAPANESE TEXT VERSION PDF

Nuclear Abolition News | IPS

By THALIF DEEN

UNITED NATIONS (IPS) - A long outstanding international conference on a nuclear weapons-free zone in the Middle East, scheduled to take place in Finland next month, has been postponed, giving rise to speculation on whether it will ever get off the ground.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, a vigorous opponent of weapons of mass destruction (WMD), remains hopeful the conference will take place sometime next year. [P] ARABIC | GERMAN | JAPANESE TEXT VERSION PDF

Nuclear Abolition News | IDN

By JULIO GODOY

BERLIN (IDN) - Between late 2009 and mid-2010, the German government, represented by its foreign minister Guido Westerwelle, made a case for dismantling B61 atomic bombs on German soil. The actual number of such weapons of mass destruction is a top military secret, but some 20 of these are reported to be stationed in Germany. [P] DUTCH | ITALIAN | JAPANESE TEXT VERSION PDF | NORWEGIAN | PERSIAN | SWEDISH

Nuclear Abolition News | IDN Essay

By FREDERICK N. MATTIS*

ANNAPOLIS, USA (IDN) - A gathering theme in world affairs is the desirability of a treaty [convention] to ban nuclear weapons. Such a treaty would bring the following benefits to all states and people: freedom from nuclear war or nuclear attack, freedom from possible “false-alarm” nuclear missile launch, and freedom from possible acquisition by terrorists of a nuclear weapon from a state’s arsenal.