nuclear-news

Fewer nuclear weapons, but still great nuclear danger

Budget woes curb arms trade but nuclear threat strong: SIPRI  JUNE 05, 2012 RECORDER REPORT   World military spending failed to rise last year for the first time since 1998 in what could herald a major trend break, but the global nuclear threat remains strong, think tank SIPRI said Monday.

As the global economic crisis cuts into defence spending, conflicts around the world are also becoming smaller, shorter and less deadly, and the number of wars between states are at historically low levels, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute said. ….  Nuclear arsenals declined last year, the report said, as the United States and Russia further reduced their inventories of strategic nuclear weapons.

At the start of 2012, eight countries – Britain, China, India, Israel, France, Pakistan, Russia and the United States – held some 19,000 nuclear warheads, compared to 20,530 at the start of 2011, it said. However, long-term modernisation programmes under way in nuclear
states “suggest that nuclear weapons are still a currency of international status and power,” SIPRI researcher Shannon Kile said.

“In spite of the world’s revived interest in disarmament efforts, none of the nuclear weapon-possessing states show more than a rhetorical willingness to give up their nuclear arsenals just yet,” he said. The report noted that Iran and Syria came under intensified scrutiny in 2011 for allegedly concealing military nuclear activities. …

June 6, 2012 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | 2 WORLD, weapons and war