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Dec 7, 2024 | 
johnmenadue.com | John Hallam
There should be a Christmas truce/ceasefire (Orthodox Christmas or western doesn’t matter) in the war between Russia and Ukraine. Last Western AND Orthodox Christmas, there was discussion of the possibility of a truce or ceasefire over one of the Christmases. The precedent quoted was of course, the spontaneous ceasefire that took place over December 1914, between German and allied troops.
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Nov 26, 2024 | 
johnmenadue.com | John Hallam |Frank Doorenbosch Eric Hutchinson
A nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought. As things now stand, the world is trembling on the brink of the abyss. Instead of going over the edge, we need to step back, lower the temperature and the tension, and move to a position in which it is possible to negotiate a secure future for everyone.
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Nov 6, 2024 | 
johnmenadue.com | John Hallam
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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Oct 16, 2024 | 
nuclear-news.net | John Hallam |Christina MacPherson
Under the shadow of a NATO-Russia nuclear war, Hibakusha awarded Nobel Peace Prize By John Hallam, Oct 15, 2024, https://johnmenadue.com/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...
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Oct 14, 2024 | 
johnmenadue.com | John Hallam
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.
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Oct 10, 2024 | 
johnmenadue.com | John Hallam
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. Nor is it the first time nuclear missiles have been used to intimidate others.
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Aug 14, 2024 | 
johnmenadue.com | John Hallam
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. The Bockscar mission was plagued by difficulties from the start.
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Aug 6, 2024 | 
johnmenadue.com | John Hallam
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.
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Apr 3, 2024 | 
johnmenadue.com | John Hallam
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.
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Jan 27, 2024 | 
johnmenadue.com | John Hallam
Nuclear risk reduction, abolition, more, urgent than ever. With the iconic ‘Doomsday Clock’, curated by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists founded in 1947 by Einstein and others associated with the Manhattan Project, seemingly stuck at 90 seconds to ‘midnight’ (midnight being the catastrophic end of civilisation) for at least another 12 months, we are not only closer to doomsday than we have ever been, but we will have been poised on the brink of the abyss for longer than we have ever been.
