The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons took effect yesterday — but the milestone is marred by a lack of signatures from the world’s major nuclear powers.
Despite the missing participants, the occasion was marked by praise from the UN and Pope Francis.
“The treaty is an important step toward the goal of a world free of nuclear weapons and a strong demonstration of support for multilateral approaches to nuclear disarmament,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a statement.
Photo: AFP
He praised the “first multilateral nuclear disarmament treaty in more than two decades,” and called on “all states to work together to realize this ambition to advance common security and collective safety.”
The treaty seeks to prohibit the use, development, production, testing, stationing, stockpiling and threat of nuclear weapons.
The pope heralded the treaty’s enactment during his general audience on Wednesday.
“I strongly encourage all states and all people to work decisively toward promoting conditions necessary for a world without nuclear weapons, contributing to the advancement of peace and multilateral cooperation, which humanity greatly needs today,” Francis said.
By late October last year, 50 countries had ratified the treaty — originally adopted by 122 countries in the UN General Assembly in 2017 — allowing it to take effect yesterday, or 90 days from the 50th signature.
Anti-nuclear advocates still hope that the treaty would become more than symbolic, even without the buy-in of the world’s greatest nuclear powers, by stigmatizing nuclear programs and challenging the mentality of the status quo.
There are nine nuclear-armed nations, with the US and Russia holding 90 percent of such weapons. The others are China, France, Britain, India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea.
Most nuclear powers insist that their arms exist merely as deterrents and those that have refused to sign this treaty say that they remain committed to the earlier nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which seeks to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons.
The Treaty Banning Nuclear Weapons was drafted through an initiative by the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, a non-governmental organization that won the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize.
Japan, the only country to have ever been struck in a nuclear attack, has for the moment also refused to sign the treaty, saying that its effectiveness is dubious without the participation of the world’s nuclear powers.
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
LANDSLIDES POSSIBLE: The agency advised the public to avoid visiting mountainous regions due to more expected aftershocks and rainfall from a series of weather fronts A series of earthquakes over the past few days were likely aftershocks of the April 3 earthquake in Hualien County, with further aftershocks to be expected for up to a year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Based on the nation’s experience after the quake on Sept. 21, 1999, more aftershocks are possible over the next six months to a year, the agency said. A total of 103 earthquakes of magnitude 4 on the local magnitude scale or higher hit Hualien County from 5:08pm on Monday to 10:27am yesterday, with 27 of them exceeding magnitude 5. They included two, of magnitude
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique