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.

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.

'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

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

Nobel Peace Prize for ICAN Puts Pressure on Norway to Sign the UN Treaty

By Nina Berglund

The writer is editor and publisher of Norway's news site, newsinenglish.no. This report, which originally appeared with the headline Peace Prize puts squeeze on Norway, is being reproduced courtesy of the news site. – The Editor

OSLO (IDN-INPS) - Nobel Peace Prize Day in Oslo dawned with clear and sunny skies on Sunday, but not everyone was celebrating. The Norwegian Nobel Committee’s decision to award this year’s Peace Prize to the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) challenges Norwegian leaders to finally support a ban themselves, and now pressure is building on them to do so.

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

Viewpoint by Jonathan Power*

LUND, Sweden (IDN) - When, soon after the election, President Barack Obama invited Donald Trump to the White House we didn't learn much about their conversation. But we were briefed on one thing: Obama had told Trump that North Korea would be the most pressing and difficult issue on his agenda.

How right that was. But the Americans have missed the boat. It's as simple as that. What’s done is done. While Washington has dithered and dithered through three successive presidencies, missing opportunity after opportunity, North Korea has gone from zero nuclear weapons to an arsenal of at least 20. Its test of an Inter-Continental Ballistic Missile, in the early hours of November 29, is said to be capable of striking the U.S. It doesn't have a nuclear tip yet but that will come sometime in the next two or three years. [P 26] | JAPANESE TEXT VERSON PDF

Youth Pleads with World Leaders to Reduce Risk of Nuclear War

By Jamshed Baruah

BERLIN (IDN | UNFOLD ZERO) – Amid menacing tensions between the United States and North Korea in the aftermath of Pyongyang testing a long-range missile that is potentially capable of hitting the entire mainland U.S., young academics and activists from around the world are asking world leaders to reduce the risks of nuclear weapons being deployed and to support United Nations initiatives for nuclear disarmament, including the High-Level Conference on Nuclear Disarmament to take place in 2018.

The appeal – Reach High for a Nuclear-Weapons-Free World – was issued at the conclusion of a three-day conference (November 27-29) in Prague, the capital city of the Czech Republic. It was organised by the Youth Network of Abolition 2000, a global civil society network to eliminate nuclear weapons.

Reducing the Risk of Nuclear Miscalculation

By Daryl G. Kimball

Daryl G. Kimball is Executive Director of the Arms Control Association. This article first appeared with the caption 'Step Back From the Nuclear Brink'.

WASHINGTON, D.C. (IDN-INPS) - Over the past year, cavalier and reckless statements from President Donald Trump about nuclear weapons and his threat to unleash “fire and fury” against North Korea have heightened fears about Cold War-era policies and procedures that put the authority to launch nuclear weapons in his hands alone.

Decode Trump To Halt His Access To U.S. Nuclear Codes

Viewpoint by David Krieger*

SANTA BARBARA | USA (IDN-INPS) - The future of the world and of humanity is at the mercy of a lunatic. His name is Donald Trump, and he alone has access to the U.S. nuclear codes. Before he does something rash and irreversible with those codes, it is imperative to decode Donald, taking the necessary steps to remove this power from him.

Trump tweeted on December 16, 2016: "The United States must greatly strengthen and expand its nuclear capability until such time as the world comes to its senses regarding nukes."

Progress Toward Nuclear Weapons Abolition

Viewpoint by David Krieger*

SANTA BARBARA | USA (IDN-INPS) - The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation has been working to end the nuclear weapons threat to humanity and all life for 35 years.  We were one of many nuclear disarmament organizations created in the early 1980s, in our case in 1982. Some of these organizations have endured; some have not.

We were founded on the belief that peace is an imperative of the Nuclear Age, that nuclear weapons must be abolished, and that the people of the world must lead their leaders to achieve these goals. As a founder of the organization, and as its president since its founding, it now seems an appropriate time to look back and reflect on the changes that have occurred over the past 35 years.