Category: nuclear weapons

  • Time for nuclear sharing to end

    It is a little known fact: Germany (and four other European countries) host nuclear weapons as part of NATO “nuclear sharing”. This means that in a nuclear attack the US can load its bombs onto German (or Belgian, Italian, Turkish and Dutch) aircraft and the pilots of those countries will drop them on an enemy…

  • Been there, done that…

    Looking through my old scraps from the eighties before going to the blockade at Büchel, I came across this newspaper cutting of me handing a letter to the duty officer at RAF Cottesmore. Not sure of the date of this action, but I also – digging deeper into my boxes – found a flyer for…

  • Pushing the States to the Negotiating Table

    In Helsinki at this time of year, the sun rises just after 9am and sets again at 3pm. Our Finnish hosts told us that we were lucky that the snow had come already, to lighten up the all-pervading darkness by reflecting what little light there is. Already, after only a short time, the snow was…

  • Destroyed Islands

    50th anniversary of last atmospheric nuclear test “Tightrope” Fifty years ago today, “Tightrope” the last of 215 US atmospheric nuclear tests took place. This was the final blast in one of the worst chapters in nuclear history that began sixty years ago, on November 1st 1952, when the first hydrogen bomb was tested on an…

  • The Bigger Picture

    Yesterday I did a press conference on behalf of the Congress organisers on the subject of nuclear disarmament. Christian Schönenberger from the Swiss Foreign Office joined us, as did Rebecca Johnson, Vice-Chair of ICAN. Christian Schönenberger referred not only to the excellent speech by Micheline Calmy-Rey, the Swiss Foreign Minister in the plenary that morning,…

  • Cutting the Gordian Knot

    “Turn him to any cause of policy, The Gordian Knot of it he will unloose, Familiar as his garter” (Shakespeare, Henry V, Act 1 Scene 1. 45–47) Before you all physically or mentally traipse off to New York – volcanic ash allowing – I’d like to say something. Nuclear weapons do have a purpose. What…