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France and Getting to Zero

On March 21, speaking at Cherbourg with the new French atomic submarine, Le Terrible, as a backdrop, President Nicolas Sarkozy announced a reduction in the number of nuclear warheads in France’s arsenal to fewer than 300, half the maximum that France possessed during the Cold War.

A world without nuclear weapons: The international dimension

BASIC joined with The US Institute of Peace (USIP), and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace to co-sponsor a March 6 debrief on the recent meeting of the Hoover Group in Oslo. Ambassador Max Kampelman, Ambassador James Goodby, and Dr George Perkovich, all participants in the Oslo meeting, discussed the means of revitalizing the international disarmament movement.

Oslo meeting

George Shultz and Sam Nunn are addressing the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG, clerked by BASIC) in London on Thursday after the International Conference on Nuclear Disarmament that is underway now in Oslo, Norway.

From the International Conference on Nuclear Disarmament website:

The Government of Norway, in cooperation with the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI) and the Hoover Institution, is convening an international conference on Achieving the Vision of a World Free of Nuclear Weapons, in Oslo 26-27 February 2008.

Congressmen, Reagan administration policy experts, and activists call for reducing US nuclear arsenal

US Rep James McGovern (D, Massachusetts) hosted a briefing titled 'Global Security Priorities in the 21st Century' on February 6, 2008, in Washington, DC. Panelists who participated in the briefing called for the United States to reduce its nuclear weapons arsenal and use the savings to increase funding for non-proliferation programs and international assistance for children as a means of strengthening US national security.

The panelists included:

Des Browne’s speech

UK Secretary of Defence Des Browne addressed the Conference of Disarmament on February 5, announcing the call to fellow nuclear weapon states to send technical experts to a conference in London to discuss how they might cooperate to develop verification methods for future disarmament agreements.

In a particularly interesting paragraph he said: