A New Cold War Between Russia and The West Is Unnecessary

Viewpoint by Jonathan Power

Photo: US President Biden met virtually with Chinese President Xi Jinping from the Roosevelt Room of the White House on 15 November 2021. Source: Los Angeles Times.

LUND, Sweden (IDN) — George Orwell, the author of “Animal Farm”, the satire on how a dictatorship can slowly but steadily evolve in a democratic society, and “1984”, a novel about a future dystopian dictatorship, was the first person to use the phrase “Cold War” in a 1945 newspaper article, written just after the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. [2021-12-21]

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Mayors for Peace Say the Danger of Nuclear War Is Real and Growing

By Mayors for Peace

The following is the text of an Open Letter Issued by Mayors for Peace to NPT States Parties.

Photo: Protest march in 2015. Credit: Mayors for Peace.

HIROSHIMA (IDN) — On behalf of Mayors for Peace, a global non-governmental organization with 8,059 member cities, we are writing to express our views prior to the NPT Review Conference that will open next January in New York.

We urge all participants to recall the solemn historical circumstances facing this conference. The use of nuclear weapons in Hiroshima and Nagasaki had catastrophic humanitarian consequences. [2021-12-18]

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Elimination of ICBMs Would Greatly Reduce the Chances of a Global Nuclear Holocaust

Viewpoint by Norman Solomon*

SAN FRANCISCO, USA (IDN) — Nuclear weapons are at the pinnacle of what Martin Luther King Jr. called “the madness of militarism.” If you’d rather not think about them, that’s understandable. But such a coping strategy has limited value. And those who are making vast profits from preparations for global annihilation are further empowered by our avoidance. [2021-12-16-21] GERMAN | JAPANESE TEXT VERSION PDF | THAI

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Middle East Nuclear-Weapons-Free Zone, Long Elusive, is Making Progress, say Experts

By Thalif Deen

NEW YORK (IDN) — A longstanding proposal for a nuclear-weapons-free zone in the politically and militarily volatile Middle East remains elusive. Since 1967, five nuclear-weapon-free zones (NWFZ) have been established worldwide—in Latin America and the Caribbean, South Pacific, Southeast Asia, Africa and Central Asia. [2021-12-04-20] ARABIC | ITALIAN | JAPANESE TEXT VERSION PDF

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It Is High Time to End Reliance on Nuclear Armaments

Viewpoint by Jonathan Power

LUND, Sweden (IDN) — It’s almost twenty-five years since General George Lee Butler made his confessional statement before the National Press Club in Washington—that as commander in chief of the US Strategic Command, which controls all army, navy and air force nuclear weapons, he’d had moral qualms and profound doubts about America’s possession of nuclear weapons. [2021-11-30]

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The NPT Will Probably Endure, But Its Longevity May Be at Stake

Viewpoint by Sergio Duarte

The writer is President of Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs and former UN High Representative for Disarmament Affairs.

NEW YORK (IDN) — The NPT turned 50 in 2020. The anniversary should have coincided with the Tenth Review Conference, but unfortunately, it had to be postponed due to the COVID 19 pandemic. President-designate Gustavo Zlauvinen wisely used the delay to deepen his consultations with states parties in an effort to ensure the success of the Conference. [2021-11-27-19] HINDI | JAPANESE TEXT VERSION PDF | SPANISH

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The Challenge of Nuclear Submarine Proliferation

By J Nastranis and Tariq Rauf

NEW YORK (IDN) — While many well-meaning experts have written legal, policy and technical tomes on how to verify naval nuclear fuel and to convert such fuel from weapons-grade highly-enriched uranium (HEU) to low enriched uranium (LEU), the unfortunate reality remains that none of the nuclear navies using HEU is interested in converting to LEU fuel or to allow International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) or any other inspectors within a Scandinavian mile of their nuclear fleets—that is a generous 10 kilometres. [2021-11-27-18] CHINESE | JAPANESE TEXT VERSION PDF | KOREAN

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Driving Nuclear Submarines Through IAEA Safeguards!

By Tariq Rauf*

VIENNA (IDN) — Let me start with giving the “bottom line” of this assessment. While many well-meaning experts have written legal, policy and technical tomes on how to verify naval nuclear fuel and to convert such fuel from weapon-grade highly-enriched uranium (HEU) to low enriched uranium (LEU); the unfortunate reality remains that none of the nuclear navies using HEU are interested in converting to LEU fuel or to allow International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) or any other inspectors within a Scandinavian mile of their nuclear fleets—that is a generous 10 kilometres. [2021-11-25]

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The High Stakes of the U.S.-Russia Confrontation over Ukraine

Viewpoint by Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J. S. Davies*

NEW YORK (IDN) — A report in Covert Action Magazine from the self-declared Donetsk People’s Republic in Eastern Ukraine describes grave fears of a new offensive by Ukrainian government forces, after increased shelling, a drone strike by a Turkish-built drone and an attack on Staromaryevka, a village inside the buffer zone established by the 2014-15 Minsk Accords. [2021-11-23]

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Achieving The Possible Against the Odds: “A Middle East Nuclear and WMD Free Zone”

Viewpoint by Tariq Rauf[1]

VIENNA (IDN) — In normal times, the second session of the “United Nations Conference on the Establishment of a Middle East Zone Free of Nuclear Weapons and Other Weapons of Mass Destruction”, scheduled to take place from 29 November to 3 December 2021, would have been an in-person event at the United Nations in New York. [2021-11-22]

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More Articles...

• 1. The Challenge of Nuclear Submarine Proliferation
• 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