Thẻ: Nuclear weapon threat

Who decides who can have nuclear arms?

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Al Jazeera English
The US and Israel attacked Iran – saying it cannot have nuclear weapons – while the Islamic Republic denies trying to build one. The two are among nine countries armed with such weapons. So who decides who can have nuclear arms? And have the Israeli and US attacks increased the risks that more countries will want them?

Presenter: Adrian Finighan

Guests: Tariq Rauf, former head of verification and security policy coordination at International Atomic Energy Agency. Laicie Heeley, nuclear arms control and non-proliferation specialist, editor-in-chief of Inkstick Media in Washington DC. Tariq Ali, historian, editor at New Left Review journal in London.

Atomic Bomb Survivors Win Nobel Peace Prize, Say Gaza Today Is Like Japan 80 Years Ago

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Nobel Peace Prize Winner Toshiyuki Mimaki: “I thought the prize would go to those working hard in Gaza. In Gaza, bleeding children are being held by their parents. It’s like Japan 80 years ago.” 36,000 tons of explosives were dropped on Hiroshima/Nagasaki 82,000 tons have been dropped on Gaza

A Japanese group of atomic bomb survivors, Nihon Hidankyo, has won the Nobel Peace Prize as fears grow of a new nuclear arms race. The head of the group has compared Gaza today to Japan 80 years ago when the U.S. bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki. We feature a Democracy Now! interview with Setsuko Thurlow, a survivor of the U.S. atomic bombing of Hiroshima and an anti-nuclear activist, and get response from Joseph Gerson, president of the Campaign for Peace, Disarmament and Common Security, a U.S. nuclear disarmament activist who has spent decades working closely with the group.

Global nuclear weapons: downsizing but modernizing

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Pie chart showing gloal share of nuclear weapons in January 2016

SPIRI_(Stockholm, 13 June 2016) 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 to decline, none of the nuclear weapon-possessing states are prepared to give up their nuclear arsenals for the foreseeable future.

At the start of 2016 nine states—the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, France, China, India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea—possessed approximately 4,120 operationally deployed nuclear weapons. If all nuclear warheads are counted, these states together possessed a total of approximately 15,395 nuclear weapons compared with 15,850 in early 2015 (see table 1).

 

Table 1. World nuclear forces, 2016 Tiếp tục đọc “Global nuclear weapons: downsizing but modernizing” →

UN warns of nuclear material falling into terrorist hands

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Associated Press

VIENNA (AP) — The head of the U.N. nuclear agency warned Monday of the dangers of nuclear material falling into the hands of terrorists and urged world nations to apply an agreement meant to minimize such dangers.

Two-thirds of the 89 countries agreeing with the Amendment to the Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material must ratify it for it to enter into force. Yukiya Amano of the International Atomic Energy Agency says ratification by 11 more nations is needed.

Its application would “reduce the likelihood of terrorists being able to detonate a …’dirty bomb,'” which can spread radioactivity over a wide area and also reduce the risk of an attack on a nuclear power plant, said Amano.

 He noted that nearly 2,800 incidents of radioactive material going missing have been reported to his agency since 1995.
 Some are of serious concern. Moldovan police working with the FBI last year stopped four attempts by smugglers to sell nuclear material to extremists in the Middle East over the past five years. In one instance a year ago, undercover agents were offered a large amount of radioactive cesium.

In the most recent reported case, the agency said last week that it had been informed by Iraq of the theft of an industrial radiography device in the city of al-Zubair in November.

Experts say the amount of the substance is too small to pose a terrorist threat. But if mismanaged, it could be fatal on exposure over several days, or in some cases as little as a few hours.