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The US Seeks Iran Arms Embargo Extension Riling Europe
By Kelsey Davenport and Julia Masterson
Photo: The foreign ministers from Iran and the countries of the P5+1, as well as the High Representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, after agreeing the Iran Nuclear deal, 14 July 2015. Courtesy of Dragan Tatic/Wikimedia.
While Julia Masterson is research assistant, Kelsey Davenport is the director for non-proliferation policy at Arms Control Association. The Association’s website published this analysis on May 15.
WASHINGTON (IDN) – The United States is considering a range of options to prevent the October 2020 expiration of a UN embargo that restricts arms sales to and from Iran. Those options include making a legal case that the United States remains a bona fide participant of the nuclear deal with Iran that it withdrew from in May 2018 in order to use a Security Council provision to block the embargo’s expiration. [2020–05-17]
The US Seeks Iran Arms Embargo Extension Riling EuropeRead More »
Postponement of NPT Review Conference Offers an Opportunity
Antagonisms, Conflicts and Nuclear Risks After the Pandemic
A Pugwash Document
Photo: Gustavo Zlauvinen of Argentina, president-designate of the 2020 NPT Review Conference (meanwhile postponed to 20201), addresses the UN Security Council in February. Credit: Evan Schneider/UN).
Signed on May 6 by Sergio Duarte (President of Pugwash), Paolo Cotta Ramusino (Secretary-General of Pugwash), Steven Miller (Chair of the Pugwash Executive Committee), and Saideh Lotfian (Chair of the Pugwash Council). Download a copy [PDF]. As of May 10, 135 eminent personalities including ministers had endorsed the document.
ROME | GENEVA | WASHINGTON | LONDON (IDN) – The new coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19) has already inflicted great damage on a number of nations and on the world at large, resulting not only in many tens of thousands of deaths but also in economic, financial and social crises. [2020–05-15]
Postponement of NPT Review Conference Offers an OpportunityRead More »
Global Civil Society Demands Bolder Action from NPT States Parties
By Jamshed Baruah
Image credit: Pixabay
GENEVA (IDN) – A diverse network of national and international peace and nuclear disarmament non-governmental organisations has in a joint statement urged government leaders, particularly from the nuclear-armed states and their allies, to act with greater urgency and cooperation to meet unfulfilled promises to reduce nuclear risks and advance progress on disarmament, and to realise their commitment to the “complete elimination of nuclear weapons”. The statement coincided with the 25th anniversary on May 11 of the indefinite extension of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). [2020–05-12 | 04] ARABIC | GERMAN | HINDI | JAPANESE TEXT VERSION PDF | THAI
Global Civil Society Demands Bolder Action from NPT States PartiesRead More »
25 Years After the Indefinite Extension of The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty: A Field of Broken Promises and Shattered Visions
By Tariq Rauf*
Photo: Opening of the Review and Extension Conference of the Treaty on Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, United Nations Headquarters, New York, 17 April 1995. Seated on the podium from left to right: UN Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali; President of the Conference, Ambassador Jayantha Dhanapala (Sri Lanka); Secretary-General of the Conference, Prvoslav Davinić. Credit: UN Photo by Evan Schneider.
VIENNA (IDN) – “I long ago took to heart the words of Omar Bradley, spoken virtually a half century ago, when he observed, having seen the aftermath of the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, thus: ‘We live in an age of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We live in a world that has achieved brilliance without wisdom, power without conscience. We’ve unlocked the mysteries of the atom and forgotten the lessons of the Sermon on the Mount. We know more about war than we know about peace, more about killing than we know about living’.”[2020–05-11]
Beware of Weaponizing COVID-19
Viewpoint by Jayasri Priyalal
Image: Collage of images of biomasks and COVID-19 with graphics from Internet.
SINGAPORE (IDN) – Weapons of Mass Destructions (WMD) were something that USA and UK coalition forces were trying to find in the armouries of Saddam Hussain in Iraq in March 2003. Anglo-Saxon media was painting the fears of death, destruction and sufferings to humankind unless those weapons were destroyed – justifying the illegal invasion of the allied forces into a sovereign Iraq, violating all international laws and order. [2020–05-10]
Beware of Weaponizing COVID-19Read More »
Russia’s Victory in WWII Changed the World but War Drums Continue
Viewpoint by Somar Wijayadasa*
Photo: Veterans in a letter called for Putin to “take a difficult but, as we see it, fair decision to hold the military parade on another date”. Putin has meanwhile agreed to defer the military parade. Credit: Sergei Kiselyov/Moskva News Agency
NEW YORK (IDN) – On May 9, 1945, after four years of violent battles inside Russia, recorded as the bloodiest and most destructive military conflict in the whole history of humanity, the Russians defeated Nazi Germany in World War II. It is the single most important day in Russian history that elicits a strong feeling of pride and patriotic fervour that binds the nation together. [2020–05-06]
Russia’s Victory in WWII Changed the World but War Drums ContinueRead More »
World Conference Calls for Abolition of Nuclear Weapons and Reversing Climate Change
By Santo D. Banerjee
Image credit: World Conference
NEW YORK (IDN) -– In a dramatic warning from 13 Nobel Prize winners about the existential dangers of nuclear weapons and climate crisis, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists on January 23 set the hands of its iconic ‘Doomsday Clock’ to 100 seconds to midnight. [2020–04-30 | 03] CHINESE | JAPANESE TEXT VERSION PDF | KOREAN | RUSSIAN
World Conference Calls for Abolition of Nuclear Weapons and Reversing Climate ChangeRead More »
Proposal to Convene NPT Review Conference in January 2021
Why Peaceful Vienna Is More Suitable than Toxic New York
Viewpoint by Tariq Rauf *
Photo: Vienna Hofburg, the former principal imperial palace of the Habsburg dynasty rulers; which and today serves as the official residence and workplace of the President of Austria. It is located in the center of Vienna and was built in the 13th century and expanded several times afterwards. Credit: Robert Fischer, Pixabay
VIENNA, (IDN) – In my previous posts on IDN InDepthNews, Update: Postponed 2020 NPT Review Conference, Challenge for the NAM: Move the NPT Review Conference to 2021 in Vienna, and Postpone the NPT Review Conference to 2021 and Convene in Vienna, I had provided information and perspectives on the Review Conference of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty scheduled at the United Nations in New York from 27 April to 22 May that had to be postponed due to the global COVID-19 pandemic. [2020–04-20]
Proposal to Convene NPT Review Conference in January 2021Read More »
An Unexpected Chance for the Success of Postponed NPT Review Conference
Viewpoint by Sergio Duarte
The writer is Former UN High Representative for Disarmament Affairs and current President of Pugwash.
Photo: US President Lyndon Johnson addresses the UN General Assembly during the signing of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, 1968. Eventually, 188 countries signed the treaty, which was made into law in 1970. Photo credit: Screen capture from the documentary ‘Good Thinking, Those Who’ve Tried To Halt Nuclear Weapons’.
NEW YORK (IDN) – It took patience from the President-designate of the 2020 NPT Review Conference, a sober assessment of the situation by a number of states, particularly from the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) and help from the UN Office for Disarmament Affairs (UNODA). In the end, the parties to the Treaty agreed to postpone the Conference to next year, “as soon as circumstances permit, but no later than April 2021”. [2020–04-12 | 02] ARABIC | CHINESE | JAPANESE TEXT VERSION PDF | SPANISH
An Unexpected Chance for the Success of Postponed NPT Review ConferenceRead More »
Update: Postponed 2020 NPT Review Conference
Viewpoint by Tariq Rauf *
Photo: Collage from images on www.un.org/en/conferences/npt2020
VIENNA (IDN) – On 30 March 2020, IDN-InDepthNews published my article, Challenge for the NAM: Move the NPT Review Conference to 2021 in Vienna, in which I had noted the announcement of the postponement of the 2020 review conference of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), scheduled to be held in New York from 27 April to 22 May, due to the global COVID-19 pandemic. [2020–04-03]
Update: Postponed 2020 NPT Review ConferenceRead More »
More Articles...
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- 2. Mayors for Peace Say the Danger of Nuclear War Is Real and Growing
- 3. Middle East Nuclear-Weapons-Free Zone, Long Elusive, is Making Progress, say Experts
- 4. Die Eliminierung von Interkontinentalraketen würde die Chancen eines globalen nuklearen Holocaust erheblich verringern
- 5. Elimination of ICBMs Would Greatly Reduce the Chances of a Global Nuclear Holocaust
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