Last Tuesday night (2 am AEDT – 10 am US EST), the Doomsday Clock yet again moved its hands closer than ever towards midnight. ‘Midnight’ in this context means an event sequence that would destroy what we call ‘civilisation’, and probably involve the deaths of all or most humans as well as cataclysmic impacts on global ecosystems. (more…)
John Hallam
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A Christmas truce in Ukraine
There should be a Christmas truce/ceasefire (Orthodox Christmas or western doesn’t matter) in the war between Russia and Ukraine. (more…)
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Australia votes ‘Yes’ on UN nuclear war effects resolution
Australia has voted ‘yes’ to a UN resolution mandating the establishment of a research panel on the effects of nuclear war. The L39 resolution has been adopted by a massive majority in the First Committee of the UN General Assembly, with 144 governments voting in favour, 30 abstentions (including the US India, Ukraine and Israel), and 3 governments – France, Russia, and the UK – voting against it. Interestingly, China has voted ‘yes’ to the resolution.
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Under the shadow of a NATO-Russia nuclear war, Hibakusha awarded Nobel Peace Prize
As Vladimir Putin deploys mobile missile launchers throughout the Siberian Taiga armed with Yars heavy duty ICBMs, while making nuclear threats and claiming that these forces have been placed on a higher level of alert (though this isn’t necessarily so), NATO seems intent on compounding what seems already threatening and dangerous enough with the performance of the annual Steadfast Noon nuclear exercises, in which NATO literally rehearses for the apocalypse. It seems that this year the exercise is more ‘real’ than previously. (more…)
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Placing Russian mobile missile launchers on alert a dangerous game
Newsweek has recently (Oct 7) reported that Russian mobile nuclear missile launchers have been placed on combat alert. This could mean nothing – Russian mobile missile launchers do regularly go on patrol, both for scheduled alerts and for training purposes. However, the way in which the move has been telegraphed does suggest that Russia means to use them to intimidate the west and show resolve. (more…)
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Nagasaki, the forgotten bomb
At 11am Japanese time on 9 August 1945, the second, often forgotten, atomic bomb to be dropped from US B-29 ‘Bockscar’, on a Japanese city exploded in the Urakami Valley, an extension of the city of Nagasaki. The bomb was to have been dropped over downtown Nagasaki, but aim was poor. (more…)
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Remembering the US atomic bomb that demolished Hiroshima, killed 200,000
On 6 Aug, 1945, approximately 200,000 people in the hitherto untouched town of Hiroshima perished in the worlds first use of a nuclear weapon in anger. On 9th Aug, a somewhat smaller number in Nagasaki likewise perished. Only the authority of secretary of state Stimson, who had visited the city of Kyoto, famous for its ancient temples, prevented that city from being bombed, and from further use of nuclear weapons. (more…)
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Our highest national security priority
The purchase of nuclear submarines via AUKUS is turning into an open–ended nightmare in terms of cost that will deliver nothing positive for Australia’s security. Meanwhile, the need for action both on disarmament and on nuclear risk reduction has never been more pressing. Even at the height of the Cold War, the metaphorical hands of the Doomsday Clock have never been at 90 seconds to ‘midnight’, writes John Hallam in an open letter to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. (more…)
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Doomsday clock stays at 90 seconds to midnight: Still poised on the brink, closer than we’ve ever been
Nuclear risk reduction, abolition, more, urgent than ever. (more…)
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World on the brink: Australia must act on Ban Treaty
With the world on the brink, Australia must take new initiatives on Ban Treaty, nuclear risk reduction. (more…)
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Darkness: nuclear winter – fire, ice, famine
The Ukraine conflict, and the nuclear threats uttered by Vladimir Putin have made the risk of nuclear war as high as it has ever been. The current position of the Doomsday Clock hands at 90 seconds to ‘midnight’ is the closest ever. Nuclear Winter, together with tech-ending EMP, is one of a number of civilisation- ending things we’ll have to deal with if the hands ever reach midnight. (more…)
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Australia should show leadership in nuclear disarmament – a resolution in the UN General Assembly on the use of tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine would help
Australia needs to show leadership in the area of nuclear disarmament, and of more immediate importance, (like, ‘….could happen next week’), of nuclear risk reduction. (more…)
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A first-use US nuclear posture would be dangerous for the world and for Australia.
First use confronts Australia and the region with a real possibility of utter catastrophe, and ambiguity is almost as bad. We must base our policies on the truism that a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.
