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By Kester Kenn Klomegah
MOSCOW (IDN) – President Donald Trump's surprise decision to withdraw from the 1992 Open Skies Treaty has posed unprecedented challenges, generated extensive debates among Russian politicians and experts. Equally worried are leaders in Europe and Asia.
Trump administration notified international partners on May 21 that the US was pulling out of a treaty that permits 30 plus nations to conduct unarmed, observation flights over each other's territory.
By Reinhard Jacobsen
VIENNA (IDN) – Members of the CTBTO Group of Eminent Persons (GEM) have expressed "deep concern about credible press reports" that senior U.S. officials have discussed the possibility of conducting "a demonstration nuclear test explosion".
They warn that if carried out, it would break the global moratorium on nuclear weapon test explosions and severely undermine the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban (CTBT) regime, established to help detect and deter nuclear weapon test explosions anywhere in the world.
Viewpoint by Sergio Duarte
Ambassador, former UN High Representative for Disarmament Affairs. President of Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs.
NEW YORK (IDN) – On April 24, the International Day of Multilateralism and Diplomacy for Peace was observed at the United Nations. At the occasion, Secretary-general António Guterres called for a "networked multilateralism, strengthening coordination among all global multilateral organizations" with the regional multilateral organizations making their vital contributions. His advice is both warranted and timely.
By Radwan Jakeem
NEW YORK (IDN) – "Resumption of nuclear explosive testing is absolutely unacceptable. Even discussing nuclear testing again is dangerously destabilizing," the Abolition 2000 Global Network to Eliminate Nuclear Weapons has warned. Such testing would, in any case, be in contravention of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBTO), signed by the United States, yet pending entry-into-force, the Abolition 2000 adds in a statement emerging from its annual general meeting (AGM).
By UN Bureau
NEW YORK (IDN) – The upcoming 2020 Review Conference of a landmark international treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, presents "a timely opportunity for the States Parties to undertake a comprehensive review and assessment" of its current status, says the Joint Communiqué issued on May 19 by 17 States Party to the NPT.
A total of 191 States have joined the Treaty, including the five nuclear-weapon States – USA; Russia, China, Britain and France – which entered into force in 1970. More countries have ratified the NPT than any other arms limitation and disarmament agreement, which analysts perceive as a testament to the Treaty's significance.
By Kelsey Davenport and Julia Masterson
While Julia Masterson is research assistant, Kelsey Davenport is director for nonproliferation 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.
Antagonisms, Conflicts and Nuclear Risks After the Pandemic
A Pugwash Document
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.
By Jamshed Baruah
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 coincides with the 25th anniversary on May 11 of the indefinite extension of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
By Tariq Rauf*
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'."
Viewpoint by Jayasri Priyalal
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.
They found neither any evidence of WMD nor chemical weapons for justifying the invasion. Will the COVID-19 too, become an invisible WMD with the ongoing global pandemic which has locked down nearly the entire world economy?
This interactive WHO dashboard/map provides the latest global numbers and numbers by country of COVID-19 cases on a daily Basis.
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