Former world leaders and arms-control negotiators have joined British entrepreneur Richard Branson and Jordanian Queen Noor to launch a project aimed at eliminating the world’s nuclear weapons over the next 25 years.
The group wants to reach the impossible-sounding goal by reviving nuclear disarmament efforts that have lagged since the end of the Cold War.
It is proposing deep cuts in US and Russian nuclear arsenals, a worldwide verification and enforcement system and phased reduction leading to elimination of all stockpiles.
“We have to set an example,” Branson said on Tuesday.
The group, called Global Zero, wants to start with US-Russian negotiations to cut back nuclear stockpiles. Then a second phase would bring in countries such as China, Britain and France. Finally, it hopes to attract other countries such as Iran — which the West fears is seeking nuclear arms. Tehran insists its nuclear program is aimed at generating electricity.
The US-born Queen Noor is the widow of Jordan’s King Hussein.
Delegations from the group were to go to Moscow for talks with Russian officials yesterday and to Washington today.
“For the past 18 years, the issue of nonproliferation was neglected,” said Mikhail Margelov, chair of the foreign affairs committee in the Russian upper house of parliament.
“Any step forward would be great” for Russian-US relations, because the level of partnership today is “very low,” Margelov said.
Richard Burt, a former US arms negotiator, said the group has no firm commitment from governments yet and acknowledged the challenges it faces.
But he said what not long ago sounded like a “radical, unrealistic idea is ... entering the political mainstream.”
US president-elect Barack Obama said in July: “We will make the goal of eliminating all nuclear weapons a central element in our nuclear policy.”
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon last month urged new negotiations on eliminating nuclear weapons, and French President Nicolas Sarkozy floated an ambitious European disarmament plan on Monday.
There are more than 20,000 nuclear weapons in the world’s declared nuclear-armed nations: the US, Russia, Britain, France, China, India, Pakistan and North Korea. Israel also is believed to possess nuclear weapons.
More than 100 political, military, business, religious and civic leaders have lent their support to the campaign, including former US president Jimmy Carter, former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and former top officials from India and Pakistan.
Planners hope to stage a world summit in January 2010.
The Philippines yesterday said its coast guard would acquire 40 fast patrol craft from France, with plans to deploy some of them in disputed areas of the South China Sea. The deal is the “largest so far single purchase” in Manila’s ongoing effort to modernize its coast guard, with deliveries set to start in four years, Philippine Coast Guard Commandant Admiral Ronnie Gil Gavan told a news conference. He declined to provide specifications for the vessels, which Manila said would cost 25.8 billion pesos (US$440 million), to be funded by development aid from the French government. He said some of the vessels would
CARGO PLANE VECTOR: Officials said they believe that attacks involving incendiary devices on planes was the work of Russia’s military intelligence agency the GRU Western security officials suspect Russian intelligence was behind a plot to put incendiary devices in packages on cargo planes headed to North America, including one that caught fire at a courier hub in Germany and another that ignited in a warehouse in England. Poland last month said that it had arrested four people suspected to be linked to a foreign intelligence operation that carried out sabotage and was searching for two others. Lithuania’s prosecutor general Nida Grunskiene on Tuesday said that there were an unspecified number of people detained in several countries, offering no elaboration. The events come as Western officials say
A plane bringing Israeli soccer supporters home from Amsterdam landed at Israel’s Ben Gurion airport on Friday after a night of violence that Israeli and Dutch officials condemned as “anti-Semitic.” Dutch police said 62 arrests were made in connection with the violence, which erupted after a UEFA Europa League soccer tie between Amsterdam club Ajax and Maccabi Tel Aviv. Israeli flag carrier El Al said it was sending six planes to the Netherlands to bring the fans home, after the first flight carrying evacuees landed on Friday afternoon, the Israeli Airports Authority said. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also ordered
Former US House of Representatives speaker Nancy Pelosi said if US President Joe Biden had ended his re-election bid sooner, the Democratic Party could have held a competitive nominating process to choose his replacement. “Had the president gotten out sooner, there may have been other candidates in the race,” Pelosi said in an interview on Thursday published by the New York Times the next day. “The anticipation was that, if the president were to step aside, that there would be an open primary,” she said. Pelosi said she thought the Democratic candidate, US Vice President Kamala Harris, “would have done
RSS