Category Archives: Nuclear weapons

Joe Biden should end the US pretence over Israel’s ‘secret’ nuclear weapons | Desmond Tutu

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The cover-up has to stop – and with it, the huge sums in aid for a country with oppressive policies towards Palestinians

  • Desmond Tutu is a Nobel peace laureate and a former archbishop of Cape Town

Every recent US administration has performed a perverse ritual as it has come into office. All have agreed to undermine US law by signing secret letters stipulating they will not acknowledge something everyone knows: that Israel has a nuclear weapons arsenal.

Part of the reason for this is to stop people focusing on Israel’s capacity to turn dozens of cities to dust. This failure to face up to the threat posed by Israel’s horrific arsenal gives its prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, a sense of power and impunity, allowing Israel to dictate terms to others.

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How Joe Biden’s cold war experience will shape his approach to Russia

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President-elect’s formative years of going toe-to-toe with the USSR on arms control hint at how he may deal with Putin

It was 1988, near the end of the cold war, when then-senator Joe Biden made yet another visit to the Soviet Union for talks on arms control. By that time, he felt comfortable enough in Moscow to bring a guest into the room: his teenage son.

“Would you mind my son, Hunter Biden, sitting in and listening? The gentleman is interested in international affairs and diplomacy,” he said, according to Victor Prokofiev, the Soviet foreign ministry interpreter at the meeting.

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Iranian nuclear chief’s body prepared for burial as anger focused on Israel and US

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Newspaper publishes comment urging retaliation with strike on Haifa that ‘causes heavy human casualties’

The body of Iran’s most senior nuclear scientist has been prepared for burial as anger at Israel and the US boiled over in the country following his assassination last week.

Mohsen Fakhrizadeh’s coffin, draped in the Iranian flag and topped with flowers, was transported to a Muslim shrine for prayers and last tributes, the country’s state news reported.

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Iran’s supreme leader calls for ‘definitive punishment’ of scientist’s killers

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Ayatollah threatens retaliation after president blames Israel for assassination of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh

Iran’s supreme leader has called for the “definitive punishment” of those behind the killing of one of the country’s most senior scientists, who was identified by Israel as having headed a secret nuclear weapons programme.

Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, the architect of Tehran’s nuclear strategy, was killed on Friday on a highway near the capital in a carefully planned assassination that has led to a serious escalation of tensions in the Middle East.

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Iran scientist’s assassination appears intended to undermine nuclear deal

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Analysis: shooting of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh will do more harm to diplomacy than it does to Iran’s nuclear programme

The assassination of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh may not much have impact on the Iranian nuclear programme he helped build, but it will certainly make it harder to salvage the deal intended to restrict that programme, and that is – so far - the most plausible motive.

Israel is widely agreed to be the most likely perpetrator. Mossad is reported to have been behind a string of assassinations of other Iranian nuclear scientists – reports Israeli officials have occasionally hinted were true.

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Iranian scientist’s death only the latest in long line of attacks blamed on Israel

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The Middle East is on edge as the Trump administration enters its final weeks

Mohsen Fakhrizadeh may be the most senior Iranian nuclear scientist to have been assassinated but he is certainly not the first, joining at least four others during the past decade.

In killings Iran said were aimed at sabotaging its nuclear energy ambitions – it does not acknowledge using the technology for weapons – the country has consistently pointed the finger at Israel, its regional arch-foe.

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Mohsen Fakhrizadeh: key figure in Iran’s nuclear efforts who avoided limelight

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Analysis: engineer was identified by UN report as central figure in work to develop atomic bombs

Outside of the circles who closely watch Iran’s nuclear programme in Israel, the US and at the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, who has been shot dead in Tehran, was not a household name.

But for two decades the nuclear engineer – once a familiar sight to his students at Tehran’s Imam Hossein University, where he lectured in physics – was of interest to nuclear proliferation experts owing to the suspicion that he was a key figure in Iran’s nuclear efforts.

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Iranian president upbeat about relations with Biden-led US

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Hassan Rouhani tells Tehran cabinet he hopes US will ‘condemn Trump policies against Iran’ and lift sanctions

Iran’s president, Hassan Rouhani, said on Wednesday it would be easy to solve the country’s problems with the US so long as Joe Biden stuck to the commitments he made on the campaign trail.

Rouhani’s optimistic remarks to a weekly cabinet contrasted with a speech the day before by the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, which sketched out a more difficult path to normalisation and the lifting of sanctions.

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Iran admits breach of nuclear deal discovered by UN inspectorate

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Iran uses advanced uranium-enriching centrifuges in underground plant in breach of 2015 nuclear agreement

Iran has admitted a further breach of the 2015 nuclear deal by firing up advanced uranium-enriching centrifuges installed at its underground plant at Natanz.

The finding was made by the UN nuclear weapons inspectorate, the International Atomic Energy Association, and confirmed by the Iranian ambassador to the IAEA.

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Iran warns of ‘crushing response’ if Trump targets nuclear site

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Outgoing president reported to have looked at military options against Tehran and its allies

Iran has warned of a strong response if Donald Trump goes ahead with plans to use the twilight of his presidency to mount a strike on Iran or its allies in the region.

It was reported that Trump last week looked at options for striking Iran’s main nuclear site, but was dissuaded from taking action after his advisers warned it might lead to a larger conflict in the Middle East. The report was sourced to four US officials by the New York Times.

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Now that nuclear weapons are illegal, the Pacific demands truth on decades of testing | Dimity Hawkins

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With a 50th nation ratifying it, the treaty outlawing nuclear weapons for all countries will come into force in 90 days

Nuclear weapons will soon be illegal. Just over 75 years since their devastation was first unleashed on the world, the global community has rallied to bring into force a ban through the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.

Late on Saturday night in New York, the 50th country – the central American nation of Honduras – ratified the treaty.

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Even if Biden wins US election, time is running out to save Iran nuclear deal

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Events in the US are being watched closely as Iran’s presidential election looms in early 2021

Even if Joe Biden triumphs at the polls, Iran’s weakened government may only have a few months to negotiate a revived nuclear deal before facing its own electoral challenge by hardliners who oppose any engagement with the west.

The narrow window has prompted calls for Biden to offer a phased approach to rejoining the Iran nuclear deal abandoned by Donald Trump in 2018, in order to show progress before the Iranian presidential election.

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Trump and Biden offer starkly different visions of US role in world

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The world is anxiously watching the election, with the candidates far apart on issues such as the climate crisis and nuclear weapons

Foreign policy barely gets a mention in this US election, but for the rest of the world the outcome on 3 November will arguably be the most consequential in history.

All US elections have a global impact, but this time there are two issues of existential importance to the planet – the climate crisis and nuclear proliferation – on which the two presidential candidates could hardly be further apart.

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‘Poisoning the Pacific’: New book details US military contamination of islands and ocean

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More than 12,000 pages of US government documents show military operations contaminating the Pacific with radioactive waste, nerve agents, and chemical weapons like Agent Orange

In 1968, Leroy Foster was a master sergeant in the US Air Force, assigned to the Anderson Air Force Base in Guam, a United States island territory in the Pacific. The day after he arrived on the island, he recalled being ordered to mix “diesel fuel with Agent Orange”, then spraying “it by truck all over the base to kill the jungle overgrowth”.

Soon after, Foster suffered serious skin complaints and eventually fell sick with Parkinson’s and ischemic heart disease. Later, his daughter had cancer as a teenager, and his grandchild was born with 12 fingers, 12 toes, and a heart murmur. Foster died in 2018.

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Revealed: Saudi Arabia may have enough uranium ore to produce nuclear fuel

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Confidential Chinese report seen by the Guardian intensifies concerns about possible weapons programme

Saudi Arabia likely has enough mineable uranium ore reserves to pave the way for the domestic production of nuclear fuel, according to confidential documents seen by the Guardian.

Details of the stocks are contained in reports prepared for the kingdom by Chinese geologists, who have been scrambling to help Riyadh map its uranium reserves at breakneck speed as part of their nuclear energy cooperation agreement.

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Japan PM sparks anger with near-identical speeches in Hiroshima and Nagasaki

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‘It’s the same every year. He talks gibberish and leaves,’ says one survivor after plagiarism app detects 93% match in speeches given days apart

Survivors of the atomic bombings of 75 years ago have accused Japan’s prime minister, Shinzo Abe, of making light of their concerns after he delivered two near-identical speeches to mark the anniversaries of the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

A plagiarism detection app found that Abe’s speech in Nagasaki on Sunday duplicated 93% of a speech he had given in Hiroshima three days earlier, the Mainichi Shimbun reported.

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Imperial War Museum unveils film marking 75 years since Hiroshima bomb

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Video by Es Devlin and Machiko Weston tells story of nuclear bombing in Hiroshima and Nagasaki

A powerful 10-minute video artwork marking the 75th anniversary of the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki has been released by the Imperial War Museum in London.

The museum commissioned stage designers Es Devlin, who is British, and Machiko Weston, who is Japanese, to make the piece, which tells the stories and explores the impact of the bombings from different perspectives.

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Japan recognises dozens more survivors of Hiroshima in landmark ruling

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More than a dozen ‘black rain’ plaintiffs died during legal battle to prove people living further away also suffered radiation exposure in 1945

A court in Japan has for the first time recognised dozens of people who were exposed to radioactive “black rain” as survivors of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, even though they lived outside the area hit hardest by the attack in August 1945.

The Hiroshima district court said the 84 plaintiffs, who are suffering from illnesses linked to radiation exposure, were entitled to the same medical benefits as survivors who lived closer to where the bomb struck.

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Iran admits incident at Natanz nuclear site caused major damage

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Country says suspected attack could slow production of advanced centrifuges, which Israel and US see as threat

Iran has admitted an incident at one of its main nuclear sites last week caused major damage and could slow down the country’s production of advanced centrifuges, technology Israel and the US see as a threat, intensifying suspicions there may have been a deliberate attack on the facility.

Newly released satellite imagery showed the damage from what Iranian authorities attributed to a fire at the Natanz nuclear facility was far more extensive that previously disclosed.

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Rise of Iran hardliners threatens nuclear diplomacy, Europe warned

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Improved economic deal could strengthen hand of Tehran’s reformists, says report

European diplomats are being urged to restart shuttle diplomacy with Iran after the US presidential election in November or risk Tehran hardliners gaining still wider control of Iran’s many layers of government and its economy.

The European 3 (E3) – Germany, France and the UK - managed to maintain their unity at a meeting on Friday at which they agreed to keep the nuclear deal alive, oppose a US plan for the snapback of sanctions and possibly limit the lifting of the UN conventional arms embargo on Iran due to take place in the autumn.

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