Today most of the world is celebrating a new international treaty, now in force, that bans all nuclear weapons. So far, 52 nations have ratified the treaty, and 50 nations ratifying is what is needed to become law. The United States, in case you’re wondering, has not signed the treaty and currently possesses 5,800 nuclear… Read More Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons Becomes International Law
Being the only nation that has actually used a nuclear weapon and the world’s largest democracy. . . the U.S., it seems to me, should be the first of the “nuclear club” nations to sign the TPNW and destroy its nuclear weapons.… Read More No More Nuclear Weapons Testing!
“These are people who had been working hard for months, non-stop for the past week. They had not gone home, they had not seen their families, they had just been working in the hospital to help people… and now they are dead. These people are friends, close friends. I have no words to express this.… Read More “Killing Blindly in the Endless War” by Kathy Kelly
Speaking of perpetual war, the NY Times is reporting that the U.S. war in Afghanistan, which, despite a major withdrawal of troops, was never entirely over, has erupted again as the U.S. launched airstrikes and deployed Special Forces troops after the Taliban captured the city of Kunduz. Though the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan was, after much… Read More More perpetual war: Afghanistan again
Yesterday, at a U.N. summit meeting on women’s rights hosted by, of all nations, China and its president, Xi Jinping, we learned that China will “reaffirm our commitment to gender equality and women’s development,” according to Xi. So far, that reaffirmation has failed to recover the human rights of five Chinese female/feminist activists who were imprisoned… Read More Both China & U.S. need to improve the human rights of women
At Tuesday’s U.N. Climate summit, President Obama spoke of the United States and China, as the world’s two “biggest emitters” of carbon dioxide, as nations that “have to lead” the world on climate change action. A welcome waft of clarity. But the U.S. did not join 73 other countries, (including China, the European Union, Germany,… Read More Special Morning Confusion: U.S. Fails to Support Carbon Pricing at U.N. Climate Summit
An opinion piece worth reading via the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel by Jeffrey W. Sommers of the Institute of World Affairs at UW-Milwaukee. — JK
I’m breaking my summer silence once again to declare, for what it’s worth, my strong opposition– to the United States’ new bombing campaign in Iraq, the return of military hostilities between Hamas and Israel, and the ongoing war in Ukraine which is increasing the likelihood that Putin will order Russian troops to invade Ukraine, possibly… Read More Opposing More U.S. War in Iraq, Middle East and Ukraine
The Pacific 