By Ramesh Jaura

Photo: Gathering of Stockholm Initiative for Nuclear Disarmament against the backdrop of the city of Stockholm (August 2020) showing the Kastellet, Vasa Museum, and Nordic Museum.

BERLIN | STOCKHOLM (IDN) — The 16-nation Stockholm Initiative for Nuclear Disarmament has urged the upcoming Tenth Review Conference of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) from January 4-28, 2022, "to demonstrate political leadership, honour commitments and achievements made under the Treaty, and set ourselves on a decisive path towards a world free of nuclear weapons, in the interest of preserving humanity". [2021-12-25-22] ITALIAN | JAPANESE TEXT VERSION PDF | NORWEGIAN

Viewpoint by Herbert Wulf

This article was issued by Toda Peace Institute and is being republished with their permission.

Photo: Annalena Baerbock, German Foreign Minister. Photocosmos1/Shutterstock

BONN (IDN) — The new German coalition government will not rock the foundations of German foreign and security policy. It wants to remain a reliable partner in the EU and NATO. But it sends an important signal for disarmament and arms control efforts. The 177-page coalition agreement contains the following passage on the TPNW: [2021-12-22]

Viewpoint by Jonathan Power

Photo: US President Biden met virtually with Chinese President Xi Jinping from the Roosevelt Room of the White House on 15 November 2021. Source: Los Angeles Times.

LUND, Sweden (IDN) — George Orwell, the author of “Animal Farm”, the satire on how a dictatorship can slowly but steadily evolve in a democratic society, and “1984”, a novel about a future dystopian dictatorship, was the first person to use the phrase “Cold War” in a 1945 newspaper article, written just after the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. [2021-12-21]

By Mayors for Peace

The following is the text of an Open Letter Issued by Mayors for Peace to NPT States Parties.

Photo: Protest march in 2015. Credit: Mayors for Peace.

HIROSHIMA (IDN) — On behalf of Mayors for Peace, a global non-governmental organization with 8,059 member cities, we are writing to express our views prior to the NPT Review Conference that will open next January in New York.

We urge all participants to recall the solemn historical circumstances facing this conference. The use of nuclear weapons in Hiroshima and Nagasaki had catastrophic humanitarian consequences. [2021-12-18]

Viewpoint by Norman Solomon*

SAN FRANCISCO, USA (IDN) — Nuclear weapons are at the pinnacle of what Martin Luther King Jr. called “the madness of militarism.” If you’d rather not think about them, that’s understandable. But such a coping strategy has limited value. And those who are making vast profits from preparations for global annihilation are further empowered by our avoidance. [2021-12-16-21] GERMAN | JAPANESE TEXT VERSION PDF | THAI

By Thalif Deen

NEW YORK (IDN) — A longstanding proposal for a nuclear-weapons-free zone in the politically and militarily volatile Middle East remains elusive. Since 1967, five nuclear-weapon-free zones (NWFZ) have been established worldwide—in Latin America and the Caribbean, South Pacific, Southeast Asia, Africa and Central Asia. [2021-12-04-20] ARABIC | ITALIAN | JAPANESE TEXT VERSION PDF