Stigmatize and Prohibit: New UN Talks on Nuclear Weapons Start Today
Source: Huffington Post
<snip>
Far removed from headlines regarding North Korea's recent tests or other non-proliferation issues like the Iran deal, a new UN Working Group in Geneva, Switzerland, will start today.
In true UN-style, the Working Group has a blurry and bureaucratic mandate, wrapped inside a Resolution of several pages from the UN General Assembly. However, its task is to work on new legal measures for nuclear disarmament.
Through this Working Group, the 123 states that have endorsed the humanitarian pledge to "fill the legal gap" have an opportunity to start work on a new, legally-binding instrument to prohibit nuclear weapons.
The Working Group might not cause big headlines like the Iran deal, but judging by the strong reaction from the nuclear weapon states and those under the nuclear umbrella, it is clear that they do not see it as just another talking shop.
The nuclear weapon states seem genuinely dismayed about the efforts to stigmatize and prohibit nuclear weapons. They are all boycotting the Working Group and are strong-arming allied states under the US nuclear umbrella and NATO members into representing their interests whilst pretending to be disengaged.
<snip>
Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/beatrice-fihn/stigmatize-and-prohibit-n_b_9287144.html
forest444
(5,902 posts)President Barack Obama will propose spending cuts for many federal programs in the 2016 budget request hell send to Congress on Monday, but not for nuclear weapons. Quite the contrary, Obamas administration is proposing to go on a nuclear weapons spending spree.
The administrations costly plan proposes to rebuild the entire U.S. nuclear arsenal, including the warheads, and the missiles, planes and submarines that carry them. These plans will cost $348 billion over the next 10 years, according to a Congressional Budget Office estimate released last week. The National Defense Panel, appointed by Congress, found that the price tag over 30 years could be as much as a $1 trillion.
http://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2015/02/obamas-trillion-dollar-nuclear-weapons-gamble/104217/
WHEN CRABS ROAR
(3,813 posts)In the long run nothing is more important than the elimination of nuclear weapons, nothing.