nuclear weapons

The Obama administration is reportedly mulling a change in its nuclear arms policy that would rule out using them first in a conflict. Such a move is not only unlikely – it would also be little more than symbolism. In…

Human Wrongs Watch I6 August 2016 (ICAN)* – In June Setsuko Thurlow was awarded the Arms Control Person of the Year Award and a group of us travelled to Washington DC to celebrate with her.  During this time she met…

Human Wrongs Watch With global tensions rising and progress on nuclear disarmament hard to find, “the world needs the Hibakusha spirit more than ever,” United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on 6 August 2016 said, citing the determination and perseverance of…

By Greg Mello of the Los Alamos Study Group. On the eve of the August meeting of the 2016 Open-Ended Working Group (OEWG) in Geneva.  We very much hope that the siren songs advocating meaningless “alternatives” to banning nuclear weapons…

Late on Monday 18 July, the British parliament voted in favour of building four new nuclear-powered submarines to carry US Trident missiles armed with modernized nuclear warheads for the next half century. The vote gives permission to the government to…

The British public are tired of simplified, polarising campaign messages, and are fast losing faith in their elected representatives, setting the stage for a renewal of Trident by default. By Christopher Lockyear 16 July 2016 for openDemocracyUK On July 18,…

David Cameron has used a speech at the NATO summit in Warsaw to announce that the long-awaited vote on Trident replacement will take place on Monday 18th July. It isn’t yet known whether MPs will be asked to support replacement…

Dear Friends, Against a backdrop of alarming new developments in nuclear weapons modernization, led by the United States and Russia, I and four other former Canadian Ambassadors for Disarmament, issued an urgent call for the Justin Trudeau government to take…

The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) today launches its annual nuclear forces data, which highlights the current trends and developments in world nuclear arsenals. The data shows that while the overall number of nuclear weapons in the world continues…

President Obama last week became the first sitting US president to visit the site of the first nuclear bomb dropped on a defenceless civilian population.  Over 140,000 people were killed on the 6th of August 1945, or thereafter as a…