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2 months ago | 
countercurrents.org | Bharat Dogra |Alan MacLeod |Bhabani Nayak |Melissa Parke
Although the extremely high risks associated with nuclear weapons are widely recognized, it appears from the conduct of policy by some highly educated policy makers in recent times that they do not appear to give adequate and proper attention to the levels of extreme risks involved here, and this is reflected in their recklessly risky policies which take the world very close to the possibility of nuclear war.
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2 months ago | 
countercurrents.org | Bhabani Nayak |Melissa Parke |Phil Pasquini |Danaka Katovich
Clean energy security is central to India’s economic growth and sustainable development. However, nuclear power plants take 5 to 17 years longer to construct from planning to production. Additionally, nuclear power emits 23 times more carbon per unit of electricity generated than onshore wind power and costs five times more per kilowatt. The operational cost of nuclear power plants is significantly high, making them an expensive and less viable energy source compared to renewable alternatives.
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2 months ago | 
countercurrents.org | Melissa Parke |Phil Pasquini |Danaka Katovich |Lawrence Wittner
GENEVA – This will be a year of anniversaries linked to the end of World War II in 1945, with the most significant being the invention and first use of nuclear weapons. In fact, the development, testing, and use of nuclear weapons continue to shape our lives today, 80 years on.
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Oct 28, 2024 | 
passblue.com | Melissa Parke
The United Nations General Assembly is preparing to vote this week on whether to mandate a new UN scientific study on the effects of nuclear war, something that hasn’t been done by the organization since the 1980s. A resolution sponsored by 24 countries, ranging from those affected by the legacy of nuclear testing, such as Kazakhstan, to NATO members, like Norway, that support the use of nuclear weapons in their defense is being discussed in a UN committee on disarmament.
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Oct 15, 2024 | 
asia-pacificresearch.com | Melissa Parke |Cat Woods
5 March marks the International Day for Disarmament and Non-Proliferation Awareness, LSJ speaks to Melissa Parke, Executive Director of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) about the reasons Australia has not signed the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), and what the consequences may be. *Australia has signed up to both the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and the 1986 Rarotonga Treaty.
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Jul 10, 2024 | 
koreatimes.co.kr | Melissa Parke
By Hon Melissa ParkeSeven years ago this week, 122 countries voted to adopt a landmark treaty that imposes an outright ban on the most destructive and inhumane instruments of war ever created. Known as the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), it is our best hope for making meaningful progress toward global nuclear disarmament. Although none of the nine nuclear-armed states participated in its negotiation, and none have since joined it, the TPNW is still a major step forward.
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Jul 1, 2024 | 
nuclear-news.net | Melissa Parke |Christina MacPherson
The $91 billion wasted on nuclear weapons last year could transform ecosystem restoration (commentary) by Melissa Parke on 28 June 2024, https://news.mongabay.com/2024/06/the-91-billion-wasted-on-nuclear-weapons-last-year-could-transform-ecosystem-restoration-commentary/Nuclear weapons have caused much damage to the environment and are the only devices ever created that have the capacity to destroy all complex life forms on Earth.
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Jun 28, 2024 | 
news.mongabay.com | Melissa Parke
Nuclear weapons have caused much damage to the environment and are the only devices ever created that have the capacity to destroy all complex life forms on Earth. Yet every year, the nine nuclear armed-nations divert vast sums of taxpayers’ money into producing, maintaining and modernizing weapons of mass destruction, approximately $91.4 billion in 2023 alone.
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May 15, 2024 | 
thehill.com | Melissa Parke
Israel is, and has long been, a nuclear-armed state — the only one in the Middle East — though this fact has never been officially acknowledged. For decades, the Israeli government has maintained a policy of “nuclear ambiguity,” neither confirming nor denying it possesses the bomb. And the United States and most western governments, at the expense of their credibility as advocates for non-proliferation, have played along.
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Apr 9, 2024 | 
tandfonline.com | Melissa Parke
ABSTRACTIn January 2024, the newly appointed Executive Director of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), Melissa Parke, visited Hiroshima and Nagasaki for the first time, where she met with atomic bomb survivors (hibakusha), officials, educators and youth. In this commentary piece, she reflects on her time in Japan and the essential role of the hibakusha in the decades-long struggle for a nuclear-weapon-free world.
