The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists will tomorrow announce whether the danger of a nuclear cataclysm has moved closer since last year. The minute hand of the Bulletin’s Doomsday clock, which has measured since 1947 how close the world stands from catastrophic destruction through its symbolic proximity to midnight, has stood at six minutes to midnight since January 2010.
North Korea
Charles Guthrie on prosepects for nuclear disarmament under new US leadership
BASIC Trident Commissioner, Lord Guthrie of Craigiebank, discusses multilateral disarmament and the prospects of nuclear disarmament under new US leadership. Film courtesy of TalkWorks, January 2010.
News Backgrounder: North Korea and Nuclear Weapons
The sudden death of North Korea’s dictator, Kim Jong-Il, from a heart attack has naturally raised questions about the transition in the isolated nuclear-armed state as power is handed to his youngest son Kim Jong-Un believed to be in his late twenties.
BASIC News: July-November 2011
BASIC has been making fresh tracks to advance dialogue on nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation, including at seminars in Malta and Moscow, and moving the London office to Whitehall.
This Week: Hope for North Korea Talks?
It’s election season in the United States, and the US delegation at talks in Geneva this week with North Korean officials will have one priority in mind – to avoid a provocation by nuclear-armed North Korea
Testing Times for the Test Ban
This Friday, at the United Nations, foreign ministers from 100 countries will adopt a declaration promoting concrete actions to ensure the entry into force of the global treaty banning nuclear tests.
Getting to Zero Update
Although implementation of the New START nuclear arms control treaty between Russia and the United States was moving along, disagreement over missile defense continued to pose a serious blockage in the relationship. Diplomatic efforts around North Korea were at an uptick, and India and Pakistan have managed to revive stalled peace talks.
MAY – JUNE 2011
Nuclear diplomacy in London and Paris
Whilst the momentum in intergovernmental negotiations on nuclear disarmament has not been maintained into 2011, the pace of non-governmental activity continues, with a flurry of meetings over the summer. The BASIC Trident Commission met with George Shultz and others from NTI prior to the top level NTI-ELN-Hoover seminar on deterrence in Lancaster House the following day (May 20). Discussion ranged around the tensions of showing movement on disarmament whilst maintaining for now a robust nuclear deterrent.