Hiroshima mayor wants U.N. chief to attend nuclear disarmament conference in August http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2017/05/09/national/hiroshima-mayor-wants-u-n-chief-attend-nuclear-disarmament-conference-august/#.WRJEbEWGPGg
KYODO VIENNA – Hiroshima Mayor Kazumi Matsui has called on U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres to take part in a peace conference to be held in Nagasaki in August.
Matsui made the request in a Monday meeting with Izumi Nakamitsu, the new U.N. undersecretary general and high representative for disarmament affairs, handing over a letter written jointly with Nagasaki Mayor Tomihisa Taue.
Matsui, president of the nongovernmental organization Mayors for Peace, said he told Nakamitsu that many citizens, including survivors of the U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, hope for progress in the negotiations to ban nuclear weapons.
Mayors for Peace, an organization seeking nuclear disarmament and world peace, involves about 7,300 cities in 162 countries and regions. It is scheduled to convene a general conference in Nagasaki on Aug. 7-10.
Nakamitsu, who took her new posts on May 1, was quoted as saying that the key will be how nuclear powers and non-nuclear nations can work together to make the proposed nuclear ban treaty effective. So far, major nuclear powers have refused to join the negotiations.
Matsui and Nakamitsu met on the sidelines of a meeting in Vienna of the preparatory committee for a 2020 conference to review the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
May 10, 2017
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North Korea’s man-made islands being primed for nuclear attacks, expert warns, NORTH KOREA could be preparing for “evil deeds” on mysterious man-made islands. Express, By JOEY MILLAR, May 9, 2017 North Korea experts are concerned the new lands, which were recently revealed by satellite imagery near the Sohae Satellite Launching Station missile testing site, could be used to launch devastating nuclear attacks.
Gordon Chang, an author of several books on Kim Jong-un’s hermit state, said the islands had set alarm bells ringing in Seoul, Washington and Tokyo. …….
Other North Korea experts, however, urged calm and said the islands could be used for non-violent means – possibly even agriculture.
Dr Bruce Bechtol said: “As far as the islands being something that could present a real imminent threat to the US or South Korea, I’m just not seeing it
“The land mass of those islands is too small to move around missiles.” He said farms, not the “raining fire” promised by Kim earlier this year, is the more likely end result.
Dr Bechtol said: “It’s interesting that they’re developing these islands, but they’re probably mostly for civilian use……http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/802139/north-korea-islands-war-nuclear-usa-kim-jong-un
May 10, 2017
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Pope Francis slams use of ‘mother’ to label US’ biggest non-nuclear explosive, http://www.smh.com.au/world/pope-francis-slams-use-of-mother-to-label-us-biggest-nonnuclear-explosive-20170506-gvznqa.html Milan: Pope Francis has criticised naming the US military’s biggest non-nuclear explosive the “mother of all bombs”, saying the word “mother” should not be used in reference to a deadly weapon.
The US Air Force dropped such a bomb, officially designated the GBU-43 Massive Ordnance Air Blast (MOAB) on suspected Islamic State fighters in eastern Afghanistan last month.
The nickname was widely used in briefings and reporting on the attack.
“I was ashamed when I heard the name,” Pope Francis told an audience of students on Saturday. “A mother gives life and this one gives death, and we call this device a mother. What is happening?”
Pope Francis is set to meet US President Donald Trump on May 24 in a potentially awkward encounter, given their opposing positions on immigration, refugees and climate change.
May 8, 2017
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US military: “We are prepared to use nuclear weapons”
Twice in seven days the United States shot nuclear-capable long-range missiles toward the Marshall Islands, but the same government refused in March to join negotiations for a new treaty banning nuclear weapons.
Tests conducted April 26 and May 3 from Vandenberg Air Force Base launched modernized Minuteman-3 ballistic missiles, and the US Air Force said in a statement that such tests ensure “the United States’ ability to maintain a strong, credible nuclear deterrent as a key element of US national security…”
In late March, US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley explained why the US would boycott the “treaty ban” negotiations that began March 27 at the UN in New York City. Haley said about nuclear weapons, “[W]e can’t honestly say that we can protect our people by allowing the bad actors to have them, and those of us that are good, trying to keep peace and safety not to have them.” North Korean president Kim Jong-un could have said the same thing about his seven nuclear warheads, especially in view of US bombs and missiles currently falling on seven countries — Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, and Libya — and engagement in massive war games off the Korean peninsula.
Ambassador Haley managed to avoid being two-faced on one level. Joining the ban treaty talks would have been openly hypocritical while her colleagues in the war department were preparing both new nuclear weapons production and a series of test launches. Another April test, at the Tonopah bombing range in Nevada, dropped a so-called “B61-12” the newest US H-bomb now in development and scheduled to go into production after 2022.
Jackie Cabasso, of the Western States Legal Foundation, explained April 20, “In 1997… President Bill Clinton signed Presidential Directive-60, reaffirming the threatened first use of nuclear weapons as the ‘cornerstone’ of US national security.… President Obama left office with the US poised to spend $1 trillion over the next 30 years to maintain and modernize its nuclear bombs and warheads…. Over the past couple of years, the US has conducted a series of drop tests of the newly modified B61-12 gravity bomb…. Each new bomb will cost more than twice its weight in solid gold.” Of the 480 B61s slated to become B61-12s, about 180 are scheduled to be placed at six NATO bases in Europe.
US military: “We are prepared to use nuclear weapons” As it did Feb. 21 and Feb. 25, 2016, the Air Force regularly tests Minuteman-3s. Deputy Pentagon Chief Robert Work explained before the Feb. 25 launch that the US had tested “at least” 15 since January 2011, “And that is a signal … that we are prepared to use nuclear weapons in defense of our country if necessary.” This is a Big Lie. To “use” nuclear weapons produces only massacres, and massacres are never defensive.
Jason Ditz put the rocket tests in context for Antiwar.com: “Everywhere and (mostly) without exception, the test of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) would be angrily condemned by the United States as a dangerous provocation, and the firing of a nuclear-capable rocket would be treated as tantamount to an act of war. Not today [April 26], of course, when the missile in question was test-fired from California by the United States flying some 4,000 miles before hitting a test target near the Marshall Islands. The missile was identified as a Minuteman III, a nuclear-capable weapon of which the US has 450 in service.”
The two times Haley flubbed her March 27 “peace and safety” speech were alarming. Haley stumbled once saying, “We would love to have a ban on nuclear treat… nuclear weapons.” A ban on nuclear treaties is clearly what Haley’s bosses do want. So she didn’t correct herself when she said, “One day we will hope that we are standing here saying, ‘We no longer need nuclear weapons.’” Translation: today the US does not even hope to get rid of nuclear weapons.
Instead, the United States is simultaneously bombing and rocketing across the Middle East, hitting civilians with drones, Cruise missiles, depleted uranium, and even a 21,600-pound “Massive Ordnance Air Blast” or MOAB bomb, also tested April 13, destroying caves in Afghanistan. This giant “thermobaric” or “fuel-air” explosive (FAE) has the mass of five Lincoln Continentals, and reportedly killed 95 people including a teacher and his son. Such is the peace and safety delivered by “those of us that are good.”
One Defense Intelligence Agency report uncovered by Human Rights Watch said that because “shock and pressure waves cause minimal damage to brain tissue…it is possible that victims of FAEs are not rendered unconscious by the blast, but instead suffer for several seconds or minutes while they suffocate.”
On March 29, two days after her UN speech Haley spoke to the Council on Foreign Relations and cleared up any confusion the Pentagon’s bombing spree might cause. Haley declared, “The United States is the moral conscience of the world.” Well, “And I,” Dorothy Parker said, “am Marie of Romania.”
May 8, 2017
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Iran raps US nuclear stance as provocative, warns about arms race, http://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2017/05/06/520793/Iran-US–Dehqani-NPT-Conference-Nuclear-Weapons-Vienna A senior Iranian Foreign Ministry official has criticized the “provocative” nuclear stance adopted by the United States, saying the world is witnessing an arms race among nuclear powers.
The director general for political and international security affairs at Iran’s Foreign Ministry, Gholam-Hossein Dehqani, made the remarks in an address to the first session of the Preparatory Committee for the 2020 Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) in the Austrian capital of Vienna on Saturday.
“The existing nuclear weapons have already endangered international peace and security and the current world cannot deal with the beginning of a new round of arms race,” Dehqani said.
“That is the reason why any attempt at [unleashing] an arms race must be ended,” he added.
He said lack of real progress towards disarmament over the past 50 years was the “biggest challenge” to the NPT implementation.
The Iranian official expressed concern about the persistence of such a situation and warned that NPT’s credibility would be undermined if no immediate action was adopted to that effect.
According to the NPT, countries that possess nuclear weapons must fulfill their legal commitments to slash their atomic arsenals “completely, immediately, with goodwill and without any precondition,” he said.
It is estimated that there are more than 15,000 nuclear weapons in the world, which is “a big threat to the survival of humanity,” Dehqani added.
US President Donald Trump said in February that he wants to ensure the US nuclear arsenal is at the “top of the pack,” saying the United States has fallen behind in its weapons capacity.
Under Article VI of the NPT, all parties to the treaty undertake to pursue good-faith negotiations on effective measures related to nuclear disarmament and the cessation of nuclear arms race.
The preparatory committee, which opened in Austria on May 2 and will conclude on May 12, is responsible for addressing substantive and procedural issues related to the NPT.
May 8, 2017
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The deadly industry – this is a brief section from Nuclear Power and the Collapse of Society 
The story of how nuclear generated power came to be starts in the 1950s. After WWII, the US, UK, France, Russia, and China set out to build arsenals, but required more plutonium than could be furnished by their respective military programs. A US Atomic Energy Commission study concluded that commercial nuclear reactors for power were not economically feasible because of costs and risks. Dr. Charles Thomas, an executive at Monsanto, suggested a solution: A “dual purpose” reactor that would produce plutonium for the military and electric power for commercial use.
Companies profited from these dual markets, while leaving the public to assume responsibility for research, infrastructure, and risk: Privatise the profits, socialise the costs. The real purpose of a “nuclear power” industry was to provide plutonium for weapons and profit for a few corporations.
This deadly industry has now left dead zones and ghost towns around the world. The Hanford nuclear storage site in the US, Acerinox Processing Plant in Spain, The Polygon weapons test site in Kazakhstan, the Zapadnyi uranium mine in Kyrgyzstan, and countless other uranium mines, decommissioned plants, nuclear waste dumps, and catastrophes like Fukushima and Chernobyl. http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/news/Blogs/makingwaves/nuclear-weapons-power-Chernobyl-Fukushima-danger/blog/59326/ by Rex Weyler, 5 May 17,
May 6, 2017
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Why North Korea is testing nuclear weapons Pyongyang accuses Washington of plotting a ‘decapitation strike’, and sees in nuclear weapons a powerful deterrent, Aljazeera, 5 May 17
………….Why is North Korea testing nuclear weapons?Analysis of North Korea’s government statements suggests that the leadership in Pyongyang sees in nuclear weapons the following benefits:
1. Guaranteeing security of the state
2. Economic development and prosperity
3. Gaining respect and prestige in the international arena
On April 14, North Korea’s Vice Foreign Minister said: “We’ve got a powerful nuclear deterrent already in our hands, and we certainly will not keep our arms crossed in the face of a US pre-emptive strike.”
North Korea’s deputy ambassador to the United Nations, Choe Myong-nam, referred to the annual joint drills between the US and South Korea to justify his country’s nuclear pursuits: “It is because of these hostile activities on the part of the United States and South Korea that we strengthen our national defence capability, as well as pre-emptive strike capabilities with nuclear forces as a centrepiece.”
North Korea is publicly stating that it is going ahead with its nuclear weapons programme, while the International Atomic Energy Agency on May 4 said it has “concrete information” that this is indeed the case, and points out that security risks would apply beyond the region.
New satellite images of the Punggye-ri site in North Korea have shown workers pumping out water at a tunnel believed to have been prepared for a forthcoming nuclear test, US monitors said.
Has North Korea declared war in 2017?
North Korea has not officially declared war on any country since 1950, but has threatened to launch a “great war of justice for national reunification” and to strike the US mainland in “full-out war… under the situation where the US hurts the DPRK by force of arms,” using the alternative name for North Korea.
In 1950, North Korea invaded South Korea, starting the three-year Korean War which ended in 1953 with an armistice, not a peace treaty. This mean that North Korea is still technically at war with South Korea.
The US has 28,500 troops stationed in South Korea, while the Korean Peninsula has been divided by a 4km-wide demilitarised zone stretching 250km along the border.
The US has been performing the annual Foal Eagle military drills with South Korea, imposed sanctions on North Korea and has deployed the Terminal High-Altitude Area Defence system, designed to intercept and destroy ballistic missiles fired at South Korea.
From its side, North Korea has defiantly carried out missile test launches despite regional and US condemnation, and continues to develop its nuclear weapons capability.
How did North Korea get nuclear weapons?…….
How many nuclear weapons does North Korea have?
It was estimated that North Korea may have produced up to 20 nuclear bombs by the end of 2016, although the true nuclear capability of the isolated and secretive North Korean state could not be verified.
Meanwhile, North Korea asserts it will keep building up its nuclear arsenal in “quality and quantity”.
In September 2016, Siegfried Hecker from Johns Hopkins University in Washington toured North Korea’s main Yongbyon nuclear facility in 2010 and estimated that North Korea produced enough highly enriched uranium to make additional six nuclear bombs a year.
Experts and governments estimate plutonium production levels from tell-tale signs of reactor operation in satellite imagery. http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/05/north-korea-testing-nuclear-weapons-170504072226461.html
May 6, 2017
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A North Korean Nuclear EMP Attack? … Unlikely, http://38north.org/2017/05/jliu050517/ By Jack Liu
05 May 2017, Recent press articles warn about the possibility of the North Koreans launching an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack on the United States, and there are even suggestions that the recent missile test failures may represent a thinly veiled EMP threat. However, such an attack from North Korea is unlikely, as it would require the North to have much larger nuclear weapons and the missile capability to deliver them.
EMP Concerns
The Report of the Commission to Assess the Threat to the US from EMP Attack[1] states:
When a nuclear explosion occurs at high altitude, the EMP signal it produces will cover the wide geographic region within the line of sight of the detonation. This broad band, high amplitude EMP, when coupled into sensitive electronics, has the capability to produce widespread and long lasting disruption and damage to the critical infrastructures that underpin the fabric of U.S. society.
The effects of the pulse can be transferred directly to sensitive devices or as an electrical surge over power lines.
The generic diagram below [on original] shows an EMP to consist of three phases (E1, E2 and E3) occurring over vastly different time scales.[2] Of these, E1 is the most damaging. The others are 100 times (at minimum) less damaging than the first.
The E1 component of an EMP is a very brief but powerful electromagnetic field that can induce very high voltages in electrical conductors. Damage occurs by causing voltage limits in equipment to be exceeded and happens so fast that ordinary surge protectors cannot effectively protect computers and communications equipment. However, special transient protectors fast enough to suppress this part of an EMP exist and there has been significant progress in hardening critical systems against EMP.
The E1 component is produced when gamma radiation during the first 10 nanoseconds (1 nanosecond = 1 billionth of a second) from the nuclear detonation rips electrons out of the atoms in the atmosphere. The electrons travel at relativistic speeds (more than 90 percent of the speed of light) to illuminate the area beneath the blast. The Earth’s magnetic field acts on these electrons to change the direction of electron flow to a right angle to the geomagnetic field that may cause downward electron flow to produce a very large, but quick, electromagnetic pulse over the affected area.
The E2 component is generated by scattered gamma rays and gamma emissions produced by neutron collisions from the explosion. This component lasts from about one microsecond to one second after the beginning of the electromagnetic pulse and is similar to the electromagnetic pulse produced by lightning. Because of the similarities to lightning-caused pulses and the widespread use of lightning protection technology, the E2 pulse is generally considered to be the easiest to protect against.[3]
The E3 component of the pulse is a slow pulse, lasting tens to hundreds of seconds. It results from the nuclear detonation distorting the Earth’s magnetic field, followed by its restoration. This component is quite similar to a geomagnetic storm caused by a very severe solar flare. Like a geomagnetic storm, it can induce currents in long electrical conductors, with the potential to damage power line components.
Size Matters
This is an instance where size does matter: the larger the nuclear explosion, the larger the affected area. While technical reports and papers on EMP from nuclear detonations are mostly classified, there is a paper by D. Hafemeister of California Polytechnic Institute that provides sufficient detail to derive a simple rule of thumb on the relationship between affected distance and nuclear device yield. The paper makes some simplifying assumptions:
- The detonation is spherically symmetric (which may not always be the case);
- The Earth’s magnetic field is not accounted for;
- Prompt gamma rays account for 0.3 percent of the total energy of the explosion and are emitted within the first 10 nanoseconds of detonation;
- About 0.6 percent of the prompt gamma rays produce relativistic electrons that constitute the E1 component of the EMP; and
- The electric field damage threshold is 15,000 volts/meter or higher in the E1 component.
Plugging in the numbers and presuming these assumptions are appropriate, the rule of thumb is surprisingly simple: D = Y, where D is the maximum damage distance expressed in kilometers and Y is the yield of the blast in kilotons. So, a 20 KT bomb detonated at optimum height would have a maximum EMP damage distance of 20 km; a 1 MT (1,000 KT) bomb would damage out to 1,000 km. The largest North Korean test to date has been estimated to be about 20 KT.
Conclusions
Considering the physics behind EMP and the status of North Korea’s nuclear program to date, doomsday headlines in the press regarding the North’s potential EMP threat are grossly overstated.[4] North Korea’s nuclear tests have not yet demonstrated sufficient yield to cause damage to large areas through EMP. Moreover, with only a limited arsenal, it would not make sense for the North Koreans to conduct nuclear tests simply to develop EMP weapons.
[1] John Foster, et al., Report of the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Attack—Critical National Infrastructures, April 2008.
[2] Edward Savage, James Gilbert, William Radasky. The Early-Time (E1) High-Altitude Electromagnetic Pulse (HEMP) and Its Impact on the U.S. Power Grid, Meta-R-320, Prepared for Oak Ridge National Lab., Jan 2010.
[3] According to the US EMP Commission, “In general, it would not be an issue for critical infrastructure systems since they have existing protective measures for defense against occasional lightning strikes. The most significant risk is synergistic, because the E2 component follows a small fraction of a second after the first component’s insult, which has the ability to impair or destroy many protective and control features. The energy associated with the second component thus may be allowed to pass into and damage systems.”
[4] In the early 1950s, above ground nuclear tests of a size similar to what the North Koreans have demonstrated were conducted at the Nevada Test Site just 65 miles from Las Vegas. There were no reports of power outages. The casinos continued to operate. Nuclear fallout was the bigger issue.
May 6, 2017
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Meanwhile satellite images indicate activity has resumed at North Korea’s nuclear test site, US-based analysts said Tuesday, as tensions remain high over fears of an sixth atomic test by the reclusive state.
Monitor group 38 North warns North Korea is ready to conduct another nuclear weapons test, news.com.au 4 May 17 Beijing regularly calls for parties to avoid raising tensions — remarks that can apply to both Washington and Pyongyang — and in February it announced the suspension of coal imports from the North for the rest of the year, a crucial foreign currency earner for the authorities.
Chinese state-run media have called for harsher sanctions against the North in the event of a fresh atomic test, urged Pyongyang to “avoid making mistakes”, and spoken of the need for it to abandon its nuclear programmes.
The KCNA commentary denounced the People’s Daily, the official mouthpiece of the Chinese Communist party, and the Global Times, which sometimes reflects the thinking of the leadership, as having “raised lame excuses for the base acts of dancing to the tune of the US”.
Chinese suggestions that the North give up its weapons crossed a “red line” and were “ego-driven theory based on big-power chauvinism” said the article, bylined “Kim Chol” — believed to be a pseudonym.
May 5, 2017
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Projectile blasts off just after midnight from Vandenberg Air Force Base, 150 miles northwest of Los Angeles – the second in a week, The Independent, Tom Batchelor @_tombatchelor , 5 May 17 The US has test-fired a nuclear-capable intercontinental ballistic missile from a site in California, the second such launch in a week, amid rising tensions with North Korea.
The unarmed Minuteman 3 missile has a range of around 8,000 miles, putting it within striking distance of Pyongyang.
It blasted off just after midnight from Vandenberg Air Force Base, 150 miles northwest of Los Angeles, and delivered a single projectile to a target approximately 4,200 miles away at Kwajalein Atoll in the Pacific Ocean, US Air Force Global Strike Command said……..
Meanwhile, China has called on all parties in the standoff to stay calm and “stop irritating each other”.”We again urge all relevant parties to remain calm and exercise restraint, stop irritating each other, work hard to create an atmosphere for contact and dialogue between all sides, and seek a return to the correct path of dialogue and negotiation as soon as possible,” said Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang,
Rising tensions are also pushing Japan to consider dropping its pacifist charter.http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-nuclear-missile-tests-north-korea-range-reach-pyongyang-california-site-a7715331.html
May 5, 2017
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Stephen King: Trump’s nuclear ability ‘worse than any horror story I ever wrote’, The Hill, BY BRANDON CARTER – 05/03/17 Author Stephen King slammed President Trump on Wednesday, saying Trump’s tweets show that “he’s an almost textbook case of personality disorder.” King also signaled fear over Trump’s ability to launch a nuclear attack.
“That this guy has his finger on the nuclear trigger is worse than any horror story I ever wrote,” King said…..King’s comments come as lawmakers are pushing a bill that would deny Trump the authority to launch a first strike with a nuclear weapon without congressional approval. http://thehill.com/blogs/in-the-know/in-the-know/331865-stephen-king-trumps-nuclear-ability-worse-than-any-horror-story
May 5, 2017
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Nuclear Experts Team Up to Advise World Leaders on Avoiding Nuclear War Veritable who’s-who of “nuclear priesthood” say they have grown concerned over Trump and Putin’s rhetoric, https://www.commondreams.org/news/2017/05/04/nuclear-experts-team-advise-world-leaders-avoiding-nuclear-war May 04, 2017, byCommon Dreams, by Nadia Prupis, staff writer
Nuclear experts are creating a global coalition to advise President Donald Trump and other world leaders on preventing nuclear war,
Politico reported Thursday.
The Nuclear Crisis Group is expected to launch in Vienna on Friday. The coalition assembled in response to Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin’s rhetoric, which the experts say is increasing the risk of a nuclear conflict.
One of the group’s leaders is Richard Burt, former U.S. ambassador to Germany and chief negotiator of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty. He said Thursday, “Not only is the U.S.-Russia relationship on much more shaky ground but the whole political environment has deteriorated.”
“The issue of nuclear weapons has strangely kind of receded from people’s consciousness,” Burt said. “We must remind people in these different crisis situations that there is a nuclear danger and it needs to be addressed.”
According to Politico, the coalition includes “nearly two-dozen members of the nuclear priesthood of at least eight major nations—including a former commander of the U.S. atomic arsenal; the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Pakistan; a retired admiral who was in charge of India’s nukes; the ex-heads of the Chinese military’s strategic studies and science institutes; and Russia’s former foreign minister and chief atomic weapons designer.”
The group came out of Global Zero, a disarmament campaign organization.
Global Zero’s executive director Derek Johnson said the chill in U.S.-Russia relations required the anti-nuclear movement to change its focus to “what we can do to stop one of these things from going off.”
Trump has advocated for expanding America’s nuclear stockpile and hinted that a conflict with North Korea could happen. His rhetoric, and volatile temperament, prompted lawmakers to introduce legislation that would prohibit the president from launching a nuclear strike without approval by Congress. A petition in support of the bill acquired nearly half a million signatures.
May 5, 2017
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Vatican: Nuclear weapons give “false sense of security”, Crux, Charles Collins, May 3, 2017 Monsignor Janusz Stanisław Urbańczyk, says the efforts of the international community to utilize the Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons to make the world safer “have not been sufficient.” The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is preparing for the review conference on the treaty, which happens every five years.
The Vatican representative to the world’s nuclear body on Tuesday said nuclear weapons “provide a false sense of security” and added he is “concerned” about the situation on the Korean peninsula.
Monsignor Janusz S. Urbańczyk, the Vatican representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), was speaking at the first meeting preparing for the 2020 Review Conference of the Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) taking place in Vienna.
The treaty, considered the main international nonproliferation tool, went into effect in 1970, and a review process is conducted every 5 years.
Urbańczyk said the Vatican, which signed the NPT in 1971, was taking part in the preparatory meeting “to lend its moral authority” to the process.
“The Holy See cannot but lament the fact that the potential devastation caused by the use of nuclear weapons so clearly identified over 40 years ago has not been relegated to history,” the diplomat said. “In other words, the efforts of the international community to utilize the NPT to make the world safer have not been sufficient.”
He said the preparatory meetings and the 2020 review conference itself should “make concrete and consensus-based progress” to stop the spread of nuclear weapons, and work towards “the ultimate goal of abolishing all nuclear weapons……
- In March, the United Nations General Assembly hosted a conference in New York to work towards a treaty banning nuclear weapons, which was boycotted by all the nuclear powers.Francis wrote a personal letter to that conference, offering his support, and calling for a “collective and concerted multilateral effort to eliminate nuclear weapons,” adding that international peace and stability “cannot be based on a false sense of security, on the threat of mutual destruction or total annihilation, or on simply maintaining a balance of power.”
Urbańczyk on Tuesday acknowledged nations have “a right and an obligation” to protect their own security, but said this is “strongly linked” to the promotion of collective security, the common good, and peace…….https://cruxnow.com/vatican/2017/05/03/vatican-nuclear-weapons-give-false-sense-security/
May 5, 2017
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http://www.gulf-times.com/story/546881/Qatar-calls-for-nuclear-free-zone-in-Middle-East
May 04 2017 Qatar has expressed concern over the worsening international situation, and has called for establishing a nuclear weapons-free zone in the Middle East.
Speaking at the First Preparatory Committee for the 2020 Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) in Vienna on Tuesday, Qatar’s ambassador and its permanent representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency, Sheikh Ali bin Jassim al-Thani, called for placing all nuclear facilities in the region under comprehensive safeguards of the agency in compliance with the resolution of the 1995 NPT Review Conference and in accordance with the mechanisms agreed upon at the 2010 Review Conference.
Sheikh Ali bin Jassim said the situation was very grave with international and regional crises posing many challenges. He said the increased emphasis on nuclear weapons in the military and security doctrines of many countries, and the escalation of cyber wars are a major concern for the international community.
He noted Qatar’s support for the initiative to prepare a binding international instrument for a nuclear weapons-free world, which the United Nations General Assembly is considering at its current session, as well as its support for the international conferences on the humanitarian impact of nuclear weapons, the last of which was a conference held in Vienna in 2015, which aimed at developing a greater awareness of the catastrophic consequences of use of nuclear weapons.
The ambassador also supported the position taken by the Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) member-states at the meeting.
Sheikh Ali bin Jassim highlighted the need to avoid a repeat of the failed 2015 Review Conference.
At every relevant international forum Qatar has warned of the long-term humanitarian consequences of nuclear weapons and stressed that the consolidation of peace, security and stability in the world requires nuclear disarmament and investing instead in social and economic development.
Despite that nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation efforts have remain stalled.
Qatar has argued that the threats posed by nuclear weapons require more efforts to create favourable conditions towards a nuclear-free world in accordance with the objectives of the NPT.
It has pointed out that the risk of nuclear proliferation in the Middle East represents one of the key factors that haunt the people of the region in the absence of real international efforts for the elimination of nuclear weapons and in light of the ongoing turmoil in the region and the potential risks that terrorist groups could acquire these weapons.
May 5, 2017
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nuclear-news 