Nuclear disarmament

The US Envoy for Iran Leaves Just as the US Pushes for a UN Vote on Its Weapons Ban

Brian Hook, the US envoy for Iran, with Prime Minister  Sheikh Sabah Al-Khaled Al-Sabah, Kuwait City, July 27, 2020. Hook has left his job just as the US wants the UN Security Council to vote on a resolution extending the arms ban embedded in the Iran nuclear deal. Elliott Abrams, US envoy for Venezuela, is to replace Hook. 

The IAEA Voices ‘Serious Concern’ Over Blocked Access to Certain Iranian Sites

Rafael Grossi, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, May 2020. One new report from the UN agency expresses concern about Iran’s blocking access to certain sites and another report confirms the country’s increased uranium enrichment activities. DEAN CALMA/IAEA
VIENNA — The International Atomic Energy Agency issued an alarming report on June 5, voicing “serious concern” over Iran’s refusal to allow the agency’s inspectors to investigate two sites where the country is suspected of having conducted undeclared nuclear activities in the past.

Buddhist Leader Calls for Nuclear Weapons Free Security

Photo: SGI president Daisaku Ikeda. Credit: Seikyo Shimbun BERLIN | TOKYO (IDN) – An eminent Buddhist philosopher and nuclear disarmament advocate has tabled four critical initiatives to “contribute to the creation of a sustainable global society where all can live with dignity and a sense of security”. The initiatives cover four major areas: building support for the Treaty on the Prohibition[Read More...]

A Tapestry About Chernobyl and the UN’s Bungled Response to the Nuclear Disaster

The “Chernobyl” tapestry by a Belarusian artist was gifted in 1991 to the United Nations in New York, five years after the cataclysmic nuclear explosion in Ukraine, which also affected Belarus and Russia. Decades later, the world is still unable to fully turn its back on nuclear power in all its forms. 
The third floor of the United Nations headquarters in New York is coveted real estate for member states that have donated art to the organization.

Pompeo Finds Little Appetite at the UN for His Iran Strategy

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, second from left, and his entourage about to attend the UN Security Council meeting on peace and security in the Middle East. He talked about Iran’s role in sowing unrest in the region. MANUEL ELIAS/UN PHOTO
In the middle of a muggy August afternoon in New York, the United Nations Security Council gathered once more to figure out how to “maintain peace and security” in the Middle East. But the recurring topic always leaves conversations wide open for interpretation by the Council’s 15 members.

Against Forgetting: Ground Zero Nagasaki

Landing at Nagasaki Airport last November, I joined a line of Japanese men, women, and children waiting to disembark from our plane. Most were likely returning home on this holiday weekend or arriving to visit family and friends. I wondered how many of them remembered or thought about the nuclear annihilation of this city 73 years ago — within, that[Read More...]