A United Nations-backed panel has publicly released a draft treaty banning the possession and use of all nuclear weapons. The draft treaty is the culmination of a sustained campaign, supported by more than 130 non-nuclear states frustrated with the sclerotic pace of disarmament, to prohibit nuclear weapons and persuade nuclear-armed states to disarm. Nine countries are known or believed to possess nuclear weapons: the US, UK, Russia, China, France, India, Pakistan, North Korea and Israel. None has supported the draft plan. The draft treaty obliges state parties to “never under any circumstances … develop, produce, manufacture, otherwise acquire, possess or stockpile nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices … use nuclear weapons … [or] carry out any nuclear weapon test”. States would also be obliged to destroy any nuclear weapons they possess and would be forbidden from transferring nuclear weapons to any other recipient.
Guardian 23rd May 2017 read more »
In the wake of the “WannaCry” cyberattack which resulted in widespread disruption of the UK’s National Health Service (NHS), attention has now turned to other forms of infrastructure. One security expert has warned Britain’s nuclear weapons are at risk of being targeted. The UK nuclear deterrent, known as Trident, consists of four Vanguard-class submarines which can carry up to 16 ballistic missiles, each armed with up to eight warheads. Most of its computers, however, reportedly run on a legacy variant of the under-supported Windows XP operating system.
IB Times 22nd May 2017 read more »