nuclear weapons

Kumi's blog was originally published by IPS, before the Istanbul summit took place.

Disruptive diplomacy may be the only way out of the Iran-Israel nuclear crisis, the only way to pierce the hegemony of hypocrisy dominating the power politics of nuclear weapons control, of those who have them, and of those who are accused of developing them.

Otherwise, this weekend's meeting on Iran's nuclear programme is likely to be yet another missed opportunity, yet another exercise in futility.

A while back I got a letter from the Lib Dems telling me "Trident will not be renewed this parliament - not on a Liberal Democrat watch”.

This ran though my mind today as I watched Defence Secretary Liam Fox stand up in parliament to pronounce ‘thunderbirds are go’ on the next phase of building a replacement for Trident.

At the mention of nuclear today our thoughts turn to the situation in Japan and all of those affected by the earthquakes, tsunami and nuclear emergency. I can only hope that the situation at Fukushima is soon contained and the risks minimised for everyone affected.

Here in the UK, there is another nuclear issue that is silently inching forward without parliamentary approval or public awareness – nuclear weapons replacement.

Remember the defence review? The one that left us marvelling at the Alice in Wonderland world we inhabit - where we build two giant aircraft carriers we don’t actually want because building them is actually cheaper than cancelling them? The one that said we can’t actually afford to buy any planes to put on those carriers?

In a letter in today’s Guardian 36 science professors are calling on the Prime Minister to protect core science funding - by cutting government investment in developing new nuclear weapons. We asked Stuart Parkinson, co-ordinator of the letter, to tell us what it’s all about...

As the announcement of the government’s spending review gets ever closer, the lobbying to defend this or that area of public spending is becoming more and more intense.