A groundbreaking report released today (5 March 2012) by the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) identifies more than 300 banks, pension funds, insurance companies and asset managers in 30 countries with substantial investments in nuclear arms producers. The 180-page study, Don’t Bank on the Bomb: The Global Financing of Nuclear Weapons Producers, provides details of financial transactions with 20 companies that are heavily involved in the manufacture, maintenance and modernization of US, British, French and Indian nuclear forces.

more ...[Study "Don´t Bank on the Bomb"]

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has made a major commitment to confront the horrors of nuclear war, and IPPNW has been actively supporting a new ICRC initiative that will engage the vast global network of national Red Cross and Red Crescent societies in the struggle for the complete elimination of nuclear weapons.

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Nuclear Abolition Day is an annual global day of action for a treaty to outlaw and eliminate all nuclear weapons. It is coordinated by the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons. The date changes from year to year depending on significant events. The first global day of action was held on 25 June 2010 in response to the Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference, which had just concluded.

more ...[More information]

On 28 February, International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War(IPPNW) presented a side panel titled Control the Arms Trade: Improve Human and Environmental Health. Co-sponsored by the country of Zambia. Physicians from the United States, Zambia, and Austria spoke about the human health and environment dimensions of the full cycle of the arms trade and addressed how a robust Arms Trade Treaty can help promote health and reduce environmental contamination. 

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As well as announced, on February, 1st, 2011 the multimediatic initiative "Senzatomica", by Soka Gakkai Italy, sponsored by AIMPGN (IPPNW Italy), PUGWASH, PNND (Parliamentarian Network for Nuclear Disarmament), has been officially represented in Rome, in the Conference Hall of Palazzo Marini, at the House of Deputies, one of the two branches of the Italian Parliament.

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IPPNW’s co-presidents have sent the following letter to the presidents of the US and Russia, to mark the successful ratification of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), under which each country will limit the number of deployed strategic nuclear weapons to 1,550, with additional reductions in deployed and non-deployed launchers to 800 in each country. The treaty was ratified by the Russian State Duma on January 25, 2011 , by the Federation Council of Russia on January 26, and by the US Senate on December 22, 2010. The New START will enter into force in February, when Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton exchange ratification papers.

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International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War praised the US Senate for “doing the right thing” today in ratifying the New START agreement between the US and Russia, and called on the Russian Duma to quickly follow suit and bring the treaty into force.

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IPPNW, the International Association of Lawyers Against Nuclear Arms (IALANA) and the International Peace Bureau (IPB) will receive the John and Chara Haas Award for International Peace and Social Justice on November 8, 2010, at the Nuclear Futures Conference in Philadelphia.

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Sixty-five years ago this month, the United States exploded the first atomic bombs over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the world entered an age of unthinkable peril from which we have yet to free ourselves. A single nuclear weapon can destroy a city; 100 Hiroshima-sized warheads can kill tens of millions of people outright and disrupt the global climate so severely that a billion lives could be lost to famine and epidemic disease; an exchange of the thousands of nuclear weapons still deployed by the US and Russia would make the Earth itself an uninhabitable wasteland.

more ...[Congress blog]

“The danger that nuclear weapons will be used in the future is underestimated” warned Prof. Dr. Andreas Nidecker, President of the Organisation Committee for the Swiss affiliate of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, on the eve of IPPNW’s World Congress, taking place this year in Switzerland. As many as 800 doctors and medical students are expected to meet in Basel to discuss the status of disarmament efforts and debate how to reach a world without nuclear weapons.

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Over twenty years after the Cold War ended,
some 23,000 nuclear weapons remain. The nuclear weapon states cite nuclear deterrence doctrine as the final, indispensable justification for maintaining their nuclear arsenals. This drives the spread of nuclear weapons to paranoid regimes and extremists who are least likely to be deterred. The fallacies of nuclear deterrence must therefore be exposed and alternatives offered if there is to be any serious prospect of eliminating nuclear weapons.

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COUNTDOWN TO ZERO is a stunning documentary about the escalating global nuclear arms crisis that premiered at Sundance Film Festival, was shown at TED Conference, screened at Cannes Film Festival and the Global Zero Summit in Paris. Produced by Academy Award winner Lawrence Bender (An Inconvenient Truth, Inglorious Basterds) and written and directed by Lucy Walker (The Devil’s Playground, Blind Sight), COUNTDOWN TO ZERO features an array of important international experts and statesmen and makes a case for worldwide nuclear disarmament.

more ...[Homepage of the film]  [Trailer for the film on YouTube]

In the nineteen sixties there were many who believed that there was a military threat from China against  Europe. “Optimists learn Russian, pessimists learn Chinese” was a common joke. “Whatever you say, China is hell on earth” I heard a respected politician say in 1965. So I went there to see for myself, together with about thirty other young persons, travelling the transsiberian railway. When after five weeks of travel in China I left Beijing, I cried. I cried because I thought I would never see this marvelous city again. I would be destroyed by a nuclear attack.

more ...[Article on peathhealthblog.com]

Beating the Bomb is a documentary charting the history of the British peace movement against the backdrop of the atomic age, framing the nuclear weapons issue within the wider context of global justice. It was produced and directed by Meera Patel and Wolfgang Matt of MADD Movies: www.maddmovies.co.uk

more ...[Donation-page on medact.org]

05/26/2010

Dr. Ira Helfand was interviewed by NPT-TV this month about the health and climate effects of nuclear war. Dr. Helfand was in New York as part of the IPPNW delegation at the 2010 NPT Review Conference, and participated in an expert panel to launch IPPNW's new publication, "Zero Is the Only Option."

more ...[official website of "Zero is the Only Option"]  [videoclips of the interviews on nuclear-zero.org]

05/26/2010

When the five-year review of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) convened in New York from May 3 - 28, 70 IPPNW doctors, medical students, and activists from 20 countries joined hundreds of other civil society representatives to demand fulfillment of the Treaty’s disarmament obligation some 40 years since its entry into force. 

more ...[photos on flickr.com]

05/26/2010

Rutger's University Press has just published Apocalypse Never: Forging the Path to a Nuclear Weapon-Free World, by IPPNW Writing Fellow Tad Daley. US Rep. Dennis Kucinich has called Apocalypse Never "a book that explains in common sense language the process for bringing a nuclear weapon–free world from utopia to reality.”

more ...[review on americanchronicle.com]

05/26/2010

This year's raffle will help a very special cause: youth organizing for a more peaceful world without nuclear weapons.
Support ongoing medical student activism and the 463 mile, 11 city 2010 BAN Tour and buy a raffle ticket before June 24!

more ...[article on ippnw.org]

05/18/2010

PSR has sent the following letter to President Obama, calling on the US to support inclusion of a call for a Nuclear Weapons Convention in the outcome document of the NPT Review Conference.

You can follow all of IPPNW's NPT activities and commentaries on the month-long deliberations at peaceandhealthblog.com.

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04/07/2010

The long-awaited Nuclear Posture Review released yesterday by President Obama is the most important and thorough re-evaluation of US nuclear policy since the Cold War. While it is not a blueprint for rapid nuclear disarmament, it marks the first time the US has made the elimination of nuclear weapons a guiding principle, focusing more on reducing the dangers of nuclear weapons than on finding roles and rationales for them. This is a very welcome and long overdue course correction.

Like the New START agreement with Russia, the NPR begins to anticipate a world in which nuclear weapons no longer exist. Nevertheless, the pace for disarmament set by this review, which is intended to establish the framework for US nuclear policy for 10 years or more, is still too slow.

more ...[article on peaceandhealthblog.com]

IPPNW, a physicians’ organisation distinguished with the Nobel Peace Price in 1985, welcomes the cross-party resolution for a world without nuclear weapons, passed today in the German Parliament. “It is a unique occasion in Germany history that the withdrawal of the US nuclear weapons from Germany and a reduced role of nuclear weapons within Nato finds support from all political parties” said IPPNW chair Dr. Angelika Claußen.

more ...[Extracts from the motion]  [Official Translation of the full Motion]

 03/11/2010

The following text is the translation from an article, which was published in the greek press. The author Maria Arvaniti Sotirpoulou is President of the “Panhellenic Medical Society for the Protection of the Environment and against the Nuclear andBiochemical Threat”, the greek section of the IPPNW.

There could be no better conjunction!  Just as the American President, who was honored with the nobel prize also for his promises with regard to a nuclear-free world, announces the construction of the first nuclear power station since thirty years, we hear from France about their nuclear experiments on soldiers. These soldiers were not only watching the atmospheric nuclear test in Algeria, but also ordered to enter "Ground Zero", so that the effects of radioactivity on fighting men could be subjected to scientific scrutiny.

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March 5th marked the 40th anniversary of the entry into force of the Non-Proliferation Treaty. It was an opportunity for governments and civil society to reflect on the current challenges facing the treaty before the Review Conference in May, and to consider ways to fulfil the promise at the core of the NPT — a nuclear-weapon-free world.

more ...[Remarks by Dr. John Burroughs, IALANA]  [Remarks by Tim Wright, ICAN]  [ICAN’s press release to mark the anniversary]

 03/09/2010

IPPNW has produced a major new briefing paper summarizing current medical and scientific knowledge about nuclear war and its consequences. Zero is the only option: Four medical and environmental cases for eradicating nuclear weapons draws extensively from the work of climate scientists including Alan Robock, O. B. Toon, and Michael Mills, who have documented the climate effects of regional nuclear war.

more ...[link to nuclear-zero.org]

 03/06/2012

When the five-year review of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) convenes in New York on May 3, 70 IPPNW doctors, medical students, and activists from 20 countries will join hundreds of other civil society representatives to demand fulfillment of the Treaty’s disarmament obligation some 40 years since its entry into force. In the months leading up to the Review Conference, IPPNW affiliates and ICAN activists have been bringing a clear message to their governments – that NPT member states should call for work on a Nuclear Weapons Convention to begin as soon as the conference ends.

more ...[article from peaceandhealthblog.com]

CND's International Conference took place on October 10th at Mary Ward House in Central London. The day focused on the 2010 nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and how campaigners can make an impact on negotiations towards abolition.

more ...[Link to ICAN-article]

One of the hallmarks of IPPNW’s work is engaging with nuclear decision makers about the medical consequences of nuclear war and the urgency of ridding the world of nuclear weapons. In pursuit if this kind of physician diplomacy, IPPNW held a seminar on nuclear disarmament with European Parliamentarians on October 13, 2009 in Brussels.

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The new conservative-liberal government in Germany declared yesterday in their newly published coalition agreement that they would advocate the withdrawal of the remaining nuclear weapons in Germany. This means that the national campaign "our future – nuclear weapon-free" has reached an important milestone. The german section of IPPNW is one of a coalition of 50 German peace organisations and groups running this campaign.

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As they did 24 years ago, when they awarded a group of physicians the Nobel Peace Prize for their work to stop the nuclear arms race, the Nobel Committee has once again used their power to leverage action on nuclear disarmament.  In attaching "special importance to Obama's vision of and work for a world without nuclear weapons" the Nobel Committee understands the significance of the transformational change that is necessary.

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President Barack Obama’s decision to cancel US missile defense deployments in the Czech Republic and Poland ends a controversial and wasteful program that never should have been started in the first place. As a remnant of the Reagan-era ballistic missile defense scheme that came to be known as Star Wars, the proposed array of radars and interceptors was technically unsound, had become an obstacle to negotiations on strategic arms reductions with Russia, and was an unfortunate symbol of a domineering attitude in foreign affairs that President Obama had pledged to correct. On all three counts, he has done the right thing.

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In March 2009, just before the historic first meeting between US President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War sent the two leaders a letter signed by more than 300 of the world’s top physicians, appealing for leadership toward a world without nuclear weapons. Our hopes and expectations were raised by the statements issued from the London meeting, and by President Obama’s speech in Prague a few days later, when he pledged “America's commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons” and added that “as the only nuclear power to have used a nuclear weapon, the United States has a moral responsibility to act.”

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International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War regrets the nuclear test conducted by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK). As an organization of doctors, we deplore the squandering of scarce resources of all the nuclear powers in the time of world wide economic recession on the development of weapons — especially weapons of mass destruction — instead of investing in health, education, economic development and other social needs that provide true security.

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IPPNW was one of more than 75 non-governmental organizations (NGOs) participating in the 2009 Preparatory Committee meeting for the 2010 Review Conference of the Non-Proliferation Treaty at UN Headquarters in New York. The two-week PrepCom made important strides toward strengthening the disarmament and non-proliferation "pillars" of the NPT, which had come under enormous strain during the eight years of the Bush administration in the US.

more ...[IPPNW peace and health blog]

The IPPNW joint European – Russian /CIS meeting and Symposium "Nuclear Weapons, Violence and Health" took place in Helsinki, Finland from 23.-26.4.2009. The Particpants from Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark, Germany, Poland, Netherlands, UK, France, Portugal, Switzerland, Russia, Georgia, Kyrgyz Republic, Kazakhstan and Ukraine discussed a common European-Russia-CIS campaign on nuclear disarmament as part of the IPPNW ICAN campaign.

more ...[View the conference on video]

Most of the world is already finished with the idea of nuclear weapons. Public opinion polls in country after country—even in the nuclear-weapon states—reflect broad and growing support for a nuclear-weapons-free world. Serious mainstream politicians and diplomats, including US President Barack Obama, have embraced the goal of zero nuclear weapons, though they mostly advocate near-term— though important — incremental steps such as dealerting and making deeper cuts in the US and Russian arsenals, and stop short of calling for negotiations on a comprehensive, universal agreement—a nuclear weapons convention similar to the treaties that already ban chemical and biological weapons.

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During its first week in office, the new US administration of President Barack Obama published its foreign policy agenda on the revamped White House website. A summary of steps that Obama took as a US Senator to address the nuclear threat is followed by a series of explicit pledges to stop the development of new nuclear weapons, to take existing weapons off hair trigger alert, and to strengthen the Non-Proliferation Treaty.

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After eight dark years of neo-con rule, the American people voted for hope and change, backed by global demand for progressive new US leadership. It feels like a new dawn. The election of President Barack Obama brings newfound hope that the United States will become a champion for peace. During the campaign, President-Elect Obama pledged to end the Iraq war, to restore the rule of law, to close Guantánamo Bay, to reaffirm the Geneva Conventions, to pursue diplomacy, and to respect and participate in the United Nations.

more ...[What you can do]

63 years have passed since the nuclear bombings on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which must be remembered for the excruciating human agony and devastating destruction of a kind never seen before. The “Global Voyage for a Nuclear-Free World – Peace Boat Hibakusha Project” has brought 102 Hibakusha (survivors of the atomic bombings) to Piraeus, Greece as part of the worldwide voyage to share their testimonies and the universal message of the Hibakusha that nuclear weapons must be abolished in order to never again allow their use. To this end, we join the global civil society call for a world free from nuclear weapons, underpinned by a Nuclear Weapons Convention.

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Although few people are aware of it, there has been considerable progress over the past decade toward a treaty to abolish nuclear weapons. For many years, there had been a substantial gap between the pledges to eliminate nuclear weapons made by the signatories to the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty of 1968 and the reality of their behavior.

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“How close we came to extinction, and it is forgotten now.” So begins Nobel Prize-winner Bernard Lown’s story of his fight against the nuclear symptom of what he calls “the disease of militarism.” It is still active and highly contagious, as witnessed by events in Iran, North Korea, Pakistan, and all too many other places. And it can only be stopped, as this extraordinary memoir vividly demonstrates, by concerned citizens working together.

more ...[Flyer of the book]

The US-India Deal Working Group of the international disarmament network, ABOLITION 2000,  in which IPPNW is involved, deplores the decision of the 45-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) to approve a special exemption for India from its nuclear trade rules.
The exemption will allow India to participate in international nuclear trade, but, contrary to the claims of its advocates, it will not bring India further into conformity with the nonproliferation behavior expected of the member states of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

more ...[Letter to Ambassador Lüdeking, January 2008]  [Letter to Minister Steinmeier, August 2008]

I am happy to be here at the inauguration of the 18th World Congress of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War. The pioneering work of the organisation and its efforts for peace, health and development need no mention here; it has been awarded the Noble Peace Prize. Conferences of this nature help in better understanding of the causes of armed conflict, especially from a public health perspective, and build grassroots awareness of the immense health and environment consequences of nuclear war.

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At a press conference in Hiroshima, Japan, Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba announced that the 2020 Vision Campaign of Mayors for Peace is successful in preparing for the Decisive Decade for Nuclear Disarmament. Mayor Akiba, also President of Mayors for Peace, declared, "An ambitious membership drive which begun last January has come to fruition: we now have 2,028 Mayors in 127 countries rallying for the 2020 Vision!". Over 400 new members joined Mayors for Peace during 2007.

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ICAN-UK is a new consortium of groups facilitated by Medact as the UK affiliate of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War. ICAN´s aim is to draw attention to the feasibility of nuclear abolition through the model treaty outlined in Securing our Survival, the Case for a Nuclear Weapons Convention (NWC), and to generate political will for nuclear disarmament through educating and engaging the public and policy makers.

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On Sunday the 18th of November the Mayor of Hiroshima Hadatoshi Akiba visited Stockholm, Sweden. For his visit Swedish students in IPPNW arranged the first "Nuclear Weapon Free - my cup of tea" event. This is a new activity that can be done all over the world in IPPNW as a contribution to the ICAN campaign. There are still 27.000 nuclear weapons in the world. The purpose of each and every one of them is their potential of causing a major disaster. But in fact, they are causing disaster every day.

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From September 28th-30th of 2007, a group of more than 30 medical students, doctors and political activists cycled the English countryside from Dover to London in order to reach this conference, informing the public on their way about the dangers of nuclear weapons, holding Target X installations and meeting with mayors and media on the way. Background of the tour was the decision of the British parliament to renew the Trident nuclear weapons program for an estimated cost of £25 billion.

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Even a limited, regional nuclear war, such as an exchange between India and Pakistan, would cause world wide climate disruption and lead to global famine. This was one outcome of the international conference "Nuclear Weapons: The Final Pandemic -Preventing Proliferation and Achieving Abolition" of IPPNW in partnership with the Royal Society of Medicine. Dr Helfand and Professor Alan Robock and Dr Owen Toon, demonstrated that debris ejected into the atmosphere from the nuclear explosions and subsequent fires would cause sudden global cooling and decreased precipitation for up to 10 years.

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In Rhodes was created a new terenean Antinuclear link named Mediterranean No Nuclear Neighbourhood (MN³). In the Secretariat Maria Arvaniti Sotiropoulou was elected representing the Greek Affiliate of IPPNW. Following you find the declaration of MN³. "We, the Organizations from 9 countries of the wider area of the Mediterranean gathered in Rhodes, September 27-29 2007, and signed the Protocol of Cooperation for the Creation of the Mediterranean No Nuclear Neighbourhood, address the citizens of our countries with a hopeful dream..."

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The German affiliate of IPPNW has signed a letter from the global network "Abolition 2000" asking member states of the Nuclear Suppliers Group to veto the proposed US-India nuclear deal. The signatories of the letter view the deal as "deeply flawed" and regard the consequences for the internation non-proliferation regime to be so severe, that only the next Review Conference of the Non-Proliferation Treaty should take a decision on it.

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More than 60 years ago, the world was put on notice by the US atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that we were living on borrowed time. More than 40 years ago, physicians and scientists described in frightening and comprehensive terms how a nuclear war would kill tens of millions of people indiscriminately, destroy entire societies and ecosystems, and cause cancers and genetic damage in unborn generations. In time we learned that, at its worst extreme, a nuclear exchange involving thousands of warheads could cause a nuclear winter that would lead to the extinction of humankind.

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On the 6th of August 2007 at the anniversary of Hiroshima massacre Derman Boztok (general secretary and international councilor of NUSED) and his colleague Dr. Mehmet Kum (deputy health director and president of locally active NGO) declared to press the Igdir Appeal of NUSED and several local NGOs of Igdir Province (the most eastern province) condemning the use and development of nuclear weapons, reminding IPPNW´s ICAN efforts globally and pointing out the very imminent threat posed locally by the Metsamor nuclear plant at the Armenian border.

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The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) was founded on July 29th, 1957. On the occasion of this 50th anniversary IPPNW-Germany has created an electronic birthday card to the IAEA that criticizes the agency's role in promoting so-called peaceful uses of nuclear energy. The e-card can be viewed, personalized, and signed at www.iaea.ippnw.de. According to its founding statute, the aim of the IAEA is to prevent nuclear weapons proliferation while, at the same time, enlarging the peaceful use of nuclear energy. IPPNW believes that this is a self-contradictory mission.

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SLMK - the Swedish affiliate of IPPNW sent a delegation of 3 students and 1 doctor to Pyongyang, Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK). The delegation aimed at strengthening the relationship with the DPRK affiliate of IPPNW, spreading awareness on nuclear weapon issues to medical students and doctors, increasing our knowledge about the health care situation in DPRK.

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On April 30 ICAN was launched at the Vienna nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT) meeting, along with the book Securing our Survival (SOS): the Case for a Nuclear Weapons Convention with a panel featuring Mayor Akiba of Hiroshima, Dr. Ron McCoy of IPPNW, Dr. Carlos Vargas of Costa Rica, as well as co-authors of the Nuclear Weapons Convention, Alyn Ware, Jurgen Scheffran and Felicity Hill.

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Upon invitation of the Swiss chapter of the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, an international conference on the topic of "Nuclearisation in Europe and the Middle East" took place on Monte Verità, Ascona, Switzerland from March 22nd to 25th 2007. In a time of high international tension in the Middle East, participants focused on the absolute necessity for high-level constructive dialogue between all the parties. Respect for mutual fears as well as the overcoming of misunderstandings due to cultural and historical differences should inherently be part of such dialogue.

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On Tuesday, April 17, 2007 you killed a man who was apparently an obstacle to your criminal enterprises. We wonder if you have any idea what you have taken from the world. Mayor Iccho Itoh was born only two weeks before the atomic bombing of Nagasaki by the United States on August 9, 1945. Defined by that monstrous act of war along with the other hibakusha of Nagasaki and Hiroshima, Mayor Itoh devoted his life to making sure that nuclear weapons would never be used again. Without rancor or ill will, he quietly and persistently went about the business of campaigning for the elimination of nuclear weapons from the world.

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On Tuesday July 1st 2008 12:00 noon at the EP in Brussels a cross-party group representing 69 Members of the European Parliament from 19 EU member states launched a "Parliamentary declaration in support of the Nuclear Weapons Convention". Their support marked the 40th anniversary of the nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT), and the unfulfilled promise of the official Nuclear Weapon States to move towards total elimination of their nuclear arsenals.

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Medact doctors join others at the Faslane submarine base in Scotland to protest against new nuclear weapons. Dr Trevor Trueman said: "The proposed replacement of Trident, when we have ratified a non-proliferation Treaty and are encouraging other countries to remain non-nuclear, is the height of hypocrisy. Nuclear weapons are indiscriminate and therefore illegal under international law."

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Nuclear weapons today present tremendous dangers, but also an historic opportunity. U.S. leadership will be required to take the world to the next stage -- to a solid consensus for reversing reliance on nuclear weapons globally as a vital contribution to preventing their proliferation into potentially dangerous hands, and ultimately ending them as a threat to the world. Nuclear weapons were essential to maintaining international security during the Cold War because they were a means of deterrence. The end of the Cold War made the doctrine of mutual Soviet-American deterrence obsolete. Deterrence continues to be a relevant consideration for many states with regard to threats from other states. But reliance on nuclear weapons for this purpose is becoming increasingly hazardous and decreasingly effective.

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The Co-Presidents of IPPNW issued a statement today condemning the nuclear test by North Korea. "The test explosion of a nuclear weapon, announced today by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, was an irresponsible and dangerous action that can only be seen as a giant step backward for the people of North Korea and for the entire North Asian region" they said. The Co-Presidents strongly urged restraint by all parties.

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Jack Straw Leader of the UK House of Commons announced on Friday 21st July that the House of Commons would vote on the issue of maintaining the Trident Missile System before the end of the year. The vote will be a 'three line whip vote' meaning MPs are expected to vote with the party leadership rather than with their conscience. Parliament is now in summer recess until October, which implies that the vote will occur in November or December this year.

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The 17th IPPNW World Congress took place in Helsinki, Finland from 7th to 10 September 2006. The motto of the Congress was War or Health? Themes of the congress were: nuclear abolition; small arms and the public health impact of war; and energy security. A statement was issued at the close of the congress.

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Solange Fernex, a French pacifist and politician born in 1934 and resident in Biederthal (Alsace), died of cancer on 11 September at around 3pm. After living through some difficult stages and a recent short remission, she slipped away gently.

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IPPNW physicians and medical students participated in a new round of Dialogues with Decision Makers in Brussels and Moscow this March and April.

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IPPNW played over many, many years the leadership role in advocating testing moratoria, and end to testing, and adoption of a CTBT. IPPNW's "CeaseFire" campaign generated thousands of letters of protest after each nuclear weapons test explosion. As you know, while full scale underground testing has been stopped - at least for now - testing does in fact continue - in the laboratory. The United Kingdom, in conjunction with the US, conducted a subcritical nuclear test at the American underground test site in Nevada on February 23.

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IPPNW condemns unequivocally any use or threatened use of nuclear weapons for any reason. We are therefore appalled at your statement on January 19 that France has reconfigured its nuclear forces in preparation for a tactical nuclear strike against any country that your government concludes had sponsored an act of terrorism against France. IPPNW does not condone terrorism in any form, nor would we deny the right of any government to use legitimate means to defend its people against acts of terrorism. The use of nuclear weapons, however, is not a legitimate means under any circumstances.

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An IPPNW delegation met for two hours with policy staff of the FCO Department of Counter Proliferation and the Ministry of Defence in the UK. The following day, another IPPNW delegation visited the Ministry of Defense and the Foreign Office in Paris and talked to officials there.

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On November 17, 2005 the plenary of the EU parliament gathered in Strasbourg adopted a resolution called "European Parliament resolution on non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction: A role for the European Parliament (2005/2139(INI)) " The resolution refers to The World Court opinion on Nuclear Weapons from June 1996, and gives a clear recognition from the Parliament that the governing bodies of the European Union has to integrate this advisory opinion in its strategy on nuclear weapons.

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The IPPNW Board of Directors released the following letter to Dr. Mohamed ElBaradei following his 2005 Nobel Peace Prize: "Congratulations to you personally and all your colleagues at the IAEA who have laboured so hard to stop the proliferation of nuclear weapons on our planet. IPPNW also wishes to express particular gratitude for your commitment to preventing the invasion of Iraq. You provided the international community with factual information on the monitoring of Iraq's weapons programmes and took a strong stand against the false allegations made by a few nations. We hope that you can bring the facts to bear on the current crisis over Iran's nuclear intentions and that the call for multilateral solutions will prevail."

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Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR) mourns the death of Professor Sir Joseph Rotblat on August 31, in London, UK at the age of 96. Professor Rotblat, a 1995 Nobel Peace Laureate, and one of the first nuclear weapons opponents, was the only scientist to quit the Manhattan Project for moral reasons, when he learned from that Adolf Hitler and Germany were not developing a nuclear weapon. From that point on, he turned his immense talents and energy to nuclear medicine and a life-long campaign against nuclear weapons and war.

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The flame from Hiroshima has now been returned to its place of origin and extinguished. A flame was lit in 1945 from the members of the fires in Hiroshima that the atomic bomb started. The flame has been kept in a temple close to Nagasaki. Every year monks have walked from Hiroshima to Nagasaki, and there walked in circles to symbolize that this should be the last bomb. Now the monks have brought the flame across to California and walked through the desert to the place of the first atomic bomb explosion, called Trinity, near Alamogordo in New Mexico.

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I was privileged to meet Mordechai Vanunu, the dissident anti-nuclear Israeli who was released from 18yrs imprisonment last year for his advocacy on Israel's nuclear weapons, when staying in St George's guest house in Jerusalem in July. Although he is not supposed to meet foreigners or the press he was happy to talk about his views and indeed this is one of the reasons why he is staying in this particular setting.

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The International Atomic Energy Agency, which I will herafter refer to as IAEA, is best known by the general public for its inspections and subsequent discovery of secret nuclear programmes. But little is known about its actual mandate as an organisation and how it plays a significant role in the promotion of the so-called peaceful uses of nuclear energy.

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