.
UNITED NATIONS – With President Barack Obama presiding over a historic session, the U.N. Security Council unanimously approved a U.S.-sponsored resolution committing all nations to work for a nuclear weapons-free world.
Russia, China and developing nations supported the measure, giving it global clout and strong political backing.
The resolution calls for stepped up efforts to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons, promote disarmament and “reduce the risk of nuclear terrorism.” It calls for better security for nuclear weapons materials and underscores the Security Council’s intention to take action if such material or nuclear weapons get into the hands of terrorists.
It was only the fifth time the Security Council met at summit level since the U.N. was founded in 1945 and 14 of the 15 chairs around the council’s horseshoe-shaped table were filled by presidents and prime ministers. Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi’s name was on the U.N.-circulated list as attending but he was a no-show. Libya’s U.N. ambassador spoke for his country.
The U.S. holds the rotating council presidency this month and Obama was the first American president to preside over a Security Council summit, gaveling the meeting into session and announcing that “the draft resolution has been adopted unanimously.”
President Obama speaks about UNSC Resolution 1887. Read the Speech [pdf]
Also read White House’s News Release [pdf]
Watch a UN webcast of the UN Security Council Summit [RealPlayer]
VIENNA (Sept. 19, 2009) – Arab states in the UN nuclear assembly yesterday won narrow approval of a resolution urging Israel to put all its atomic sites under UN inspection and join the Non-Proliferation Treaty. The Jewish state deplored the measure for singling it out while many of its neighbors remained hostile to its existence, and said it would not cooperate with it.
The non-binding resolution, which passed for the first time in 18 years of attempts thanks to more developing nation votes, voiced concern about “Israeli nuclear capabilities” and urged the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to tackle the issue. Israel is one of only three countries worldwide along with India and Pakistan outside the nuclear NPT and is widely assumed to have the Middle East’s only nuclear arsenal, though it has never confirmed or denied it.
The ‘other states’, which were not named in the landmark resolution, were a clear reference to Pakistan and India, which have not signed the NPT but are known to have atomic arsenals, and Israel, which neither confirms nor denies having nuclear arms but is believed to have a sizeable stockpile of warheads.
The resolution also calls for talks on drafting a treaty to ban the production of fissile material for nuclear weapons.
The mandate of the council came when it approved the resolution 1887, which calls on countries that have not signed the nuclear the Non-Proliferation Treaty “to comply fully with all their obligations.”
(Haaretz) – According to the lawsuit, Malick was “asked by his superiors to take part in an experiment on five workers. In the framework of the experiment, Mr. Malick and the other workers drank uranium. The experiment was conducted without medical supervision and no explanation was given as to the health risks to participants.
The lawsuit also notes that, while the workers did not receive the results of the experiment, an article about it appeared in the scientific journal Health Physics. According to the suit, the article, written by a number of researchers – headed by Drs. Zeev Karpas and Avi Lorber, the directors of the Dimona facility’s analytical chemistry lab – included the subjects’ names without their permission.
The subjects were given grape or grapefruit juice containing uranium to drink and were then asked for a urine sample, which was then analyzed to determine how uranium is excreted from the body through urine.
Secret IDF anthrax experiment participants develop illnesses
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."
