the 56th pugwash conference on science and world affairs opened with a key note address by the italian minister of foreign affairs, massimo d’alema, and the un secretary-general ban ki-moon’s message in bari, italy, on 21 october 2008. in the week-long meeting, the participants discussed a wide array of topics related to regional security issues such as the status of nuclear arms control, the r...

The Secretary-General expressed his intention last year to institute a Steering Group as a successor to the high-level Task Force that was established as a follow-up to the International Conference on Disarmament and Development, held at United Nations Headquarters in September 1987. In line with his intention, the Steering Group held its inaugural meeting in May and agreed on a programme to hi...

Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, in August, 1945. The energy yields were equivalent to 12 500 tonnes and 20 000 tonnes of high explosive. Yields from thermonuclear weapons (H-bombs) range up to several megatons (Mt). Between 1945 and the signing of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty in 1996, over 2000 nuclear tests were carried out by the USA, USSR, Britain, France and China, plus one by India. Mo...

South Africa is the only country in world that successfully acquired a nuclear deterrent capability form of six devices and dismantled them completely. Extant explanations include strategic reasons, i.e.., its security conditions changed subsequent to removal Soviet threat after collapse 1989 an end superpower rivalry Africa; Africa’s increasing isolation on account apartheid; pressure from US,...