UN Chief Issues ‘Red Alert,’ Calls for Defending Shared Values

By J Nastranis

UNITED NATIONS (IDN) – United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres has issued “a red alert for our world” in his message on the occasion of 2018 New Year. It’s probably the first time ever a UN Chief has done so.

He does not explicitly refer to the nuclear muscle-flexing between the United States and North Korea, but warns: “Global anxieties about nuclear weapons are the highest since the Cold War.”

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Israeli Disarmament Movement Steers Through Nuclear Ambiguity

By Bernhard Schell

AMMAN (IDN) – The Israeli media ignored the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony in honour of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) on December 10, 2017 in Oslo. The Israeli Ambassador to Norway however attended the event.

The silence of the Israeli media, according to observers, was not surprising though ICAN’s eminent partner in the Middle East, the Israeli Disarmament Movement (IDM), founded and chaired by Sharon Dolev, has influenced the Israeli public discourse for the past six years. [P 29] ARABIC |  JAPANESE TEXT VERSON PDF | NORWEGIAN

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Israeli Disarmament Movement Steers Through Nuclear Ambiguity

By Bernhard Schell

AMMAN (IDN) – The Israeli media ignored the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony in honour of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) on December 10, 2017 in Oslo. The Israeli Ambassador to Norway however attended the event.

The silence of the Israeli media, according to observers, was not surprising though ICAN’s eminent partner in the Middle East, the Israeli Disarmament Movement (IDM), founded and chaired by Sharon Dolev, has influenced the Israeli public discourse for the past six years. [P 29] ARABIC |  JAPANESE TEXT VERSON PDF | NORWEGIAN

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UN Chief Expects New Sanctions To Help Make 2018 ‘A Pivotal Year’ for the Korean Peninsula

By J Nastranis

UNITED NATIONS (IDN) – The United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres desires to make 2018 “a pivotal year” for the achievement of sustainable peace on the Korean Peninsula.

In a statement attributable to his spokesperson, following the adoption of a new Security Council resolution (UNSCR 2397), he said: “The only way forward for a comprehensive peaceful and political solution requires de-escalation and open communication channels, now.”

The resolution was approved on December 22 in response to the latest intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) launch by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), widely known as North Korea, on November 28. [P 28] JAPANESE TEXT VERSON PDF | NORWEGIAN | SPANISH | SWEDISH

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UN Chief Expects New Sanctions To Help Make 2018 ‘A Pivotal Year’ for the Korean Peninsula

By J Nastranis

UNITED NATIONS (IDN) – The United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres desires to make 2018 “a pivotal year” for the achievement of sustainable peace on the Korean Peninsula.

In a statement attributable to his spokesperson, following the adoption of a new Security Council resolution (UNSCR 2397), he said: “The only way forward for a comprehensive peaceful and political solution requires de-escalation and open communication channels, now.”

The resolution was approved on December 22 in response to the latest intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) launch by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), widely known as North Korea, on November 28. [P 28] JAPANESE TEXT VERSON PDF | NORWEGIAN | SPANISH | SWEDISH

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In Just Ten Years ICAN Makes It To Nobel Peace Prize

By Alice Slater*

NEW YORK (IDN-INPS) – In Oslo on December 10, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) and was accepted on behalf of the Campaign by its executive director, Beatrice Fihn, and by Setsuko Thurlow, an ICAN campaigner and survivor of the 1945 Hiroshima bombing.

Both spoke for the thousands of campaigners in over 400 organizations and more than 100 countries around the world who succeeded this fall in working with friendly governments to move a majority of states at the United Nations to adopt a treaty to prohibit to ban nuclear weapons, making their possession, use, or threat of use unlawful.

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The Doomsday Machine by a Damascene Convert

Viewpoint by Jonathan Power*

LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) – The nuclear weapon missile business is contradictory, full of missteps, highly dangerous and prepared in its madness (Mutually Assured Destruction, aka MAD, they used to call it in Cold War days) to plunge the world into a nuclear war that will reduce most of the world to dust.

A new book, “The Doomsday Machine” by Daniel Ellsberg tells the whole nuclear bomb story in detail. No one has done it better. The only rival is the movie, “Dr Strangelove”, that got the essentials right without being privy to much of the Ellsberg’s knowledge.

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‘Listen To Our Testimony. Heed Our Warning’

By Setsuko Thurlow

Setsuko Thurlow is a Japanese-Canadian nuclear disarmament campaigner who survived the atomic bombing of Hiroshima in 1945. She is a leading figure in the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), which won the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize. Thurlow accepted the prize on behalf of the campaign at a ceremony in Oslo on 10 December 2017, together with Beatrice Fihn, the executive director of ICAN. Following are extensive excerpts from her Nobel Peace Prize Acceptance Speech. – The Editor JAPANESE

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No More Bluster, A Way Out of North Korean Nuclear Crisis

｜視点｜罵り合いはもういらない―北朝鮮核危機からの出口

【ルンド（スウェーデン）IDN＝ジョナサン・パワー】

大統領選後すぐにバラク・オバマ大統領がドナルド・トランプ氏をホワイトハウスに呼んで何が話されたか、私たちは窺い知ることができない。しかし、知らされたことがひとつだけある。それは、オバマ大統領がトランプ氏に対して、彼が直面する問題の中で北朝鮮問題が最も緊急で最も難しい、と語ったということだ。

これはまさに的を射た指摘だった。しかし端的に言えば、米国は好機を逸してしまった。済んでしまったことはしかたがないが、歴代３人の大統領（クリントン、ブッシュ、オバマ）が躊躇に躊躇を重ね、次々と機会を逃すうちに、北朝鮮は、核兵器を持っていない状態から、少なくとも２０発の核弾頭を保有する状態にまでなってきたのである。１１月２９日未明に実施された大陸間弾道ミサイルの実験は、米国本土を攻撃する能力があったと言われる。現時点では核弾頭は積まれていないが、それも今後２、３年のことであろう。

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Monitoring Dismantlement Key to Eliminating Nuclear Weapons

By Jamshed Baruah

NEW YORK (IDN) – Since the United Nations General Assembly adopted on July 7, 2017 the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, urging the prohibition and complete elimination of the atomic arsenal, the question of verification and the dismantlement of nuclear weapons has acquired particular importance. Because there are several areas where adequate technologies either need to be developed or re-engineered.

Over the past four decades, the United States and the Soviet Union as well as its successor the Russian Federation have used a series of bilateral agreements and other measures to limit and reduce their substantial nuclear warhead and strategic missile and bomber arsenals. [P 27]  JAPANESE TEXT VERSON PDF

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