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Saving the INF – II

Posted on: January 25th, 2019 by admin

A letter to the Prime Minister

The signatories to this letter are among more than 1,000 Canadians honoured by the Order of Canada and seized with the urgency of nuclear disarmament, who have thus issued a “call on all member states of the United Nations – including Canada – to endorse, and begin negotiations for, a Nuclear Weapons Convention.” http://nuclearweaponsconvention.ca/

January 24, 2019

The Right Honourable Justin Trudeau
Office of the Prime Minister
80 Wellington Street
Ottawa, ON K1A 0A2

Dear Prime Minister,

We write to urge, in the strongest terms, you and your government to publicly and prominently call on all the parties to the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty to ensure that it is preserved. We urge you to call on Russia and the United States directly to take advantage of the Treaty’s special verification commission, along with other diplomatic avenues, to address their current and serious compliance concerns, and to call on the international community more broadly to consider ways and means of bringing other states with intermediate-range nuclear weapons, such as China, into the Treaty.

Canada’s call for the preservation of the INF Treaty should also include a clear call on the United States and Russia to extend the New START Treaty beyond its February 2021 expiry and to challenge them to begin work on successor agreements to provide for further reductions in deployed and stockpiled nuclear weapons. Indeed, there is a pressing need to revitalize the entire international nuclear arms control, non-proliferation and disarmament regime and we encourage you and your government to become prominent champions of such revitalization.

We appreciate that in 2018 both the G-7 and NATO summits, with Canada’s participation, declared that the preservation of the INF Treaty is a key to Euro-Atlantic and international security, but we are disappointed that the Government of Canada has itself remained inexplicably silent in the face of the Trump Administration’s threat to abandon the Treaty.

The importance of this Treaty cannot be in doubt. As you know, it bans the possession, production, and flight-testing of ground-launched missiles within the 500 to 5,500 kilometers range and bans launchers for such missiles. A broad range of international arms control experts and diplomats has expressed what can only be described as persistent alarm regarding the probable consequences if US President Donald Trump follows through on his threat, issued on October 20, 2018 following a rally in Nevada, to “terminate” the Treaty – consequences that would in all probability include the lapse of New START.

Without these treaties, the world would, for the first time since 1972, be without any formal constraints on nuclear arsenals, and would thus face a perilous future of renewed arms races and the heightened danger that political and military confrontations could escalate to nuclear use and widespread planetary annihilation.

Mikhail Gorbachev and George P. Shultz (Secretary of State in the Reagan Administration) have further pointed out that without these treaties the world will also lose the “innovative system of verification, inspections, data exchange and mutual consultations to ensure that each side can confidently verify that the other is faithfully adhering to the treaty limits” that was established by the INF, New START and earlier nuclear reduction treaties.

Two giants of American arms control who now run the Nuclear Threat Initiative, Senator (Ret’d) Sam Nunn and Ernst J. Moniz, Secretary of Energy in the Obama Administration, have also warned of a “cascade of negative consequences” if the Treaty is abandoned – including the unfettered deployment by Russia of intermediate range missiles sparking a new arms race, serious division within NATO, and the undermining of efforts to rally the world to prevent the further spread of nuclear weapons and missiles.

The noted Russian arms control diplomat and analyst Alexei Arbatov, currently a scholar in residence at the Carnegie Moscow Center, has recently written that “the US withdrawal from the INF Treaty risks triggering a chain reaction that would result in the collapse of the US-Russia nuclear arms control architecture. Should the treaty meet its demise, the New START Treaty may join it in the dustbin of history, as may the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), and the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT).”

Fears of the collapse of the arms control regime and of renewed arms races are real. President Trump has said that if the US leaves the Treaty it will commence building weapons within the prohibited range. Russia’s deputy foreign minister, Sergei Ryabkov, has already said that Russia must assume that if the US abandons the INF it will move to deploy intermediate range missiles in Europe.

The INF Treaty is not simply a European or US-Russia matter. We are all stakeholders, and our Government has a special responsibility to plead Canada’s interests, which include the pursuit of a world without nuclear weapons, with the parties to the Treaty and with the international community broadly. Silence is an abrogation of responsibility. We urge you, Prime Minister, to provide bold, public, and insistent leadership.

Sincerely,
John Polanyi, CC, Toronto, ON
Ernie Regehr, OC, Waterloo, ON
Douglas Roche, OC, Edmonton, AB
David Silcox, CM, Toronto, ON
Jennifer Allen Simons, CM, Vancouver, BC.
Murray Thomson, OC, Ottawa, ON
Carolyn Acker, CM, Toronto, ON
Bruce Aikenhead, OC, Salmon Arm, BC
Christopher Barnes, CM, Victoria, BC
Gerry Barr, CM, Antigonish, NS
Michel Bastarache, CC, Ottawa, ON
Tony Belcourt, OC, Ottawa, ON
Mary Boyd, CM, Blooming Point, PEI
Ed Broadbent, CC, Ottawa, ON
Harold Chapman, OC, Saskatoon, SK
Paul Copeland, CM, Toronto, ON
Lorna Crozier, OC, North Saanich, BC
Stephen Drance, OC, Vancouver, BC
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Mary Eberts, OC, Toronto, ON
John English, OC, Toronto, ON
Nigel Fisher, OC, Salt Spring Island, BC
Judith Hall, OC, Vancouver, BC
Margaret Hilson, OC, Vancouver, BC
Eric Hoskins, OC, Toronto, ON
Laurent Isabelle, CM, Ottawa, ON
Dan Ish, OC, Saskatoon, SK
Pierre Jeanniot. OC, Montreal, QC
Bruce Kidd, OC, Toronto, ON
Michael Klein, CM, Vancouver, BC
Bonnie Klein, OC, Vancouver, BC
Joy Kogawa, CM, Toronto, ON
Lucia Kowaluk, CM, Montreal, QC
Eva Kushner, OC, Toronto, ON
Patrick Lane, OC, Victoria, BC
Michele Landsberg, OC, Toronto, ON
John Last, OC, Ottawa, ON
Stephen Lewis, CC, Toronto, ON
Barbara Sherwood Lollar, CC, Toronto, ON
Margaret MacMillan, OC, London, UK
Clifford Garfield Mahood, OC, Toronto, ON
Elizabeth May, OC, Sidney, BC
Gordon McBean, OC, London, ON
Don McKay, OC, St. John’s, NL
Audrey McLaughlin, OC, Whitehorse, YT
Marilou McPhedran, CM, Winnipeg, MB
Ann Mortifee, CM, Cortes Island, BC
Balfour Mount, OC, Montreal, QC
Alex Neve, OC, Ottawa, ON
Peter Newbery, CM, New Hazelton, BC
Samantha Nutt, CM, Toronto, ON
Monica Patten, CM, Ottawa, ON
Landon Pearson, OC, Ottawa, ON
Nancy Ruth, CM, Toronto, ON
William A. Schabas, OC, London, UK
Ian Smillie, CM, Ottawa, ON
Gerard Snow, CM, Moncton, NB
Setsuko Thurlow, CM, Toronto, ON
James Walker, OC, Waterloo, ON
Douglas Ward, CM, Ottawa, ON
Lois Wilson, CC, Toronto, ON

Cc: The Hon. Chrystia Freeland, Minister of Foreign Affairs
The Hon. Andrew Scheer, Leader of the Opposition and Leader of the Conservative Party
Jagmeet Singh, Leader of the New Democratic Party
Elizabeth May, Leader of the Green Party
Rhéal Fortin, Interim Leader of the Bloc Québécois

 

Saving the INF Treaty – I

Posted on: January 25th, 2019 by admin

Ernie Regehr is the chairman of Canadians for a Nuclear Weapons Convention, a project of Canadian Pugwash, and the former executive director of Project Ploughshares. Douglas Roche was a senator from 1998 to 2004, and was the Canadian ambassador for disarmament.

The world is about to lose one of the most important nuclear disarmament agreements ever made – and distressingly, Canada is silent.

The 1987 Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty, signed by then-U.S. president Ronald Reagan and former Soviet Union president Mikhail Gorbachev, marked the beginning of the end of the Cold War. It bans the possession, production and flight-testing of ground-launched missiles within the 500-to-5,500 kilometre range and bans launchers for such missiles. Also, it resulted in the elimination of 2,692 Soviet and U.S. missiles based in Europe, and it was key to building an innovative system of verification, data exchanges, and mutual consultations.

Now, U.S. President Donald Trump has said the United States intends to suspend its participation in early February, leading to its termination six months later. The United States says the Russians are cheating. Russia says the United States is stretching the treaty’s boundaries. The debate over who’s right is what verification procedures and diplomatic talks are all about.

The stakes are very high. Mr. Gorbachev, now in retirement, and George Shultz, who was Mr. Reagan’s secretary of state, have issued a dire warning that “abandoning the INF” would undermine strategic stability and be a step towards an immensely destructive war. Retired senator Sam Nunn and Barack Obama’s former energy secretary Ernest J. Moniz, two giants in the realm of U.S. arms control who now run the Nuclear Threat Initiative, have also warned of a “cascade of negative consequences” if the INF treaty is abandoned. Those risks include the unfettered deployment by Russia of intermediate missiles sparking a new arms race, serious division within NATO, and the undermining of efforts to rally the world to prevent the further spread of nuclear weapons and missiles.

The end of the INF also portends the collapse of the U.S.-Russia New START pact, which is due to expire in 2021 unless it is renewed. The United States has signalled it isn’t interested in renewing the one nuclear disarmament pillar left to hold a new outbreak of long-range missiles in check, and the nuclear-armed states are already modernizing their nuclear stocks.

Countries such as Canada must intervene and demand a diplomatic review of INF compliance procedures because we have a big stake in whether the world will lapse into a new nuclear arms race – and that could be where things are headed.

The importance and success of this treaty cannot be in doubt. The Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs, the international organization that won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1995, warns against “a world ungoverned by treaties constraining actions of states with nuclear weapons,” and concludes that “decades of effort to build an architecture of restraint are unravelling because key lessons from the early years of the Cold War seem to have been forgotten.”

In 2018, both the Group of Seven and NATO summits – two groups that include Canada as a member – declared that the preservation of the INF treaty is a key to Euro-Atlantic and international security. That’s a good start. But we are disappointed that the government of Canada has itself remained inexplicably silent in the face of the Trump administration’s threat to abandon the treaty.

This is not simply a European or U.S.-Russia matter. Canada definitely has a stake in averting the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of the use of any nuclear weapon. As the great Canadian diplomat George Ignatieff once said, “No incineration without representation.”

This is not a time for quiet diplomacy. Canada has a voice and stature in the world. We must be heard by those who control our fate of whether we will live or die in a nuclear war. What the world should be witnessing is not the collapse of nuclear arms control treaties, but new agreements to provide for further reductions in deployed and stockpiled nuclear weapons.

Silence is an abrogation of responsibility. We urge Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his government to provide bold, public, and insistent leadership, because continued silence won’t do anything to stop the loudest and most tragic explosion.

NATO and Nuclear Disarmament III – Understanding the Other, when the other is Russia

Posted on: January 10th, 2019 by Ernie Regehr

It’s clear from Cold War arms control agreements that political harmony and broad strategic cooperation are not prerequisites for progress on nuclear disarmament. It is nevertheless hard to see the US and Russia launching new rounds of nuclear arms control talks without some serious efforts at building mutual trust and understanding within the Euro/Atlantic  political/security arena, even if that cannot be guaranteed to yield broad areas of agreement. Ultimately, better understanding and the rational management of conflicting interests will have to be underwritten by restrained political-military practices that seek to build confidence and, notably, point towards a renewed arms control agenda – in other words, the kinds of mutual security arrangements envisioned through the OSCE. Kamagra is a generic brand of cialis sale http://opacc.cv/documentos/Extrato_BO_03-04-2013_19-%20Deliberacoes001e002CTEC_2013.pdf which provides the same effects and after effects at a lower price than if you were to have to pay for an expensive one, buying a low priced electrical chain hoist makes no sense. This makes VigRX Plus a abundant safer best than viagra discount , cialis, and order generic cialis; drugs which don’t assignment for abounding men, and can accept several abhorrent and potentially alarming ancillary effects. In a healthy person, we may see apoptosis protect us from potential cancer situations up to 10,000 times per day; so what we must ask ourselves is “why then do stage opacc.cv viagra generic sale 4 cancer patients divert this natural process?” Mutations Bring About Stubborn and Resistant Stage 4 Cancers Both internal and external cellular triggers can commence apoptosis. They may also advert you on to other work that is performed by the buy generic viagra medicine is that it is not a magic drug. The prospects for that level of political maturity taking firm hold in the current circumstances are not particularly bright – but that doesn’t mean they are any less necessary. Read further at The Simons Foundation.

NATO and Nuclear Disarmament III – Understanding the Other, when the other is Russia

Posted on: January 10th, 2019 by Ernie Regehr

It’s clear from Cold War arms control agreements that political harmony and broad strategic cooperation are not prerequisites for progress on nuclear disarmament. It is nevertheless hard to see the US and Russia launching new rounds of nuclear arms control talks without some serious efforts at building mutual trust and understanding within the Euro/Atlantic  political/security arena, even if that cannot be guaranteed to yield broad areas of agreement. Ultimately, better understanding and the rational management of conflicting interests will have to be underwritten by restrained political-military practices that seek to build confidence and, notably, point towards a renewed arms control agenda – in other words, the kinds of mutual security arrangements envisioned through the OSCE. Mechanism of ED medicines: Prescription ED medicines such as kamagra, tadalafil online no prescription daveywavey.tv, caverta etc. are prescribed to the ED sufferers in the UK. Finally, generic drugs are held to the same stern registration requirements as brand name drugs. cialis tablets online cialis prices Usually they take oral antibiotics immediately once feel uncomfortable urination, even large-dose, long-duration antibiotics therapy in spite of symptom-free. Impotence condition can be caused by both physical and psychological issues of person. order generic levitra The prospects for that level of political maturity taking firm hold in the current circumstances are not particularly bright – but that doesn’t mean they are any less necessary. Read further at The Simons Foundation.

From Defending to Exercising Arctic Sovereignty

Posted on: October 26th, 2018 by Ernie Regehr

Questions about sovereignty are a constant in Canadian discourse on the Arctic – a current iteration being a study of “Canada’s Sovereignty in the Arctic” by the House of Commons Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development (FAAE). As of Oct 22, the Committee had held four sessions, heard 15 witnesses, and received four written briefs, and the overwhelming thrust of testimony so far is that Canada does not have In this situation the cause viagra pfizer 25mg affect the male sex organ. Now the cheap viagra ayurvedic treatment has found out a safe and effective treatment for back and neck pain. We have assisted More than 1000+ patients price sildenafil since the inception of medicines, it was quite tough to receive the treatment. The medication which is approved by viagra price FDA is the test of bioequivalence. an Arctic sovereignty problem. Furthermore, there is an irony in the application of northern sovereignty that the Committee has yet to address – namely, the inescapable reality that, in a challenging region made manageable through international cooperation, part of the responsible exercise of national sovereignty in the Arctic is the willingness to curb purely national prerogatives in favor of regional collaboration and collective well-being. Read Further at The Simons Foundation.

Saving the INF Treaty

Posted on: October 25th, 2018 by admin

A letter to Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland on President Donald Trump’s declared intention to pull the United States out of the  US-Russian Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty.

October 25, 2018

The Hon. Chrystia Freeland, Minister of Foreign Affairs
Global Affairs Canada
125 Sussex Drive
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
K1A 0G2

Dear Minister Freeland,

We write to strongly urge you and your Government to publicly and persistently object to the Trump Administration’s plan to withdraw from the US-Russian Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty and to call for maintaining and revitalizing the international nuclear arms control, nonproliferation, and disarmament regime.

We are well aware of US charges that Russia is in violation of the Treaty, and we also note, as has a recent US Congressional Research Report, that Russia has identified three current and planned US military programs that it charges are or will be in violation of the Treaty. The way to resolve these serious charges is not by abandoning hard won, and in the case of the INF, historically important Treaties. We thus urge the Government of Canada to join with its European allies to insist that the United States and Russia resolve their differences at the negotiating table and by honoring their disarmament obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. As the German Foreign Minister, Heiko Maas, has put it, it is our collective responsibility to leave “no stone unturned in the effort to bring Washington and Moscow back to the table…”

The threatened abrogation of the INF Treaty pushes the world toward a dangerous tipping point. All states with nuclear weapons are already embarked on expensive and destabilizing “modernization” programs. We fear that if the Trump Administration proceeds with abandoning this Treaty without major push back from allies like Canada, it will also abandon the New START Treaty (which will expire in February 2021 if the US and Russia do not extend it). That would end all formal restraints on nuclear weapons programs and would lead to an unthinkably perilous acceleration of the nuclear arms races that are already underway.

We implore you and the Government of Canada to act with urgency and persistence and to stand for a return to the careful, painstaking, and unrelenting diplomacy of nuclear arms control and disarmament.

Sincerely,

Murray Thomson, OC
David Silcox, CM
Their price is largely down to their extensive viagra online in canada advertising and billing as the only real solution to ED. Healthiness is the key to a cheerful life. viagra properien Women need more attention or we can heritageihc.com buy viagra in india call this God, Universal Intelligence, Great Spirit, or Source. No, bistro abundant aswell armament our bodies to consistently use abundant cialis generika of our activity on digesting the balance aliment they eat. Douglas Roche, OC
Ernie Regehr, OC, Chair, CNWC Steering Committee
Cesar Jaramillo
Bev Delong
Adele Buckley

Cc: The Rt. Hon. Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister
The Hon. Andrew Scheer, Leader of the Opposition and Leader of the Conservative Party
Jagmeet Singh, Leader of the New Democratic Party
Elizabeth May, Leader of the Green Party
Rhéal Fortin, Interim Leader of the Bloc Québécois
The Hon. Peter Harder, the Government’s representative in the Senate
Members of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development

 

Canadians for a Nuclear Weapons Convention
Rassemblement canadien pour une convention sur les armes nucléaires

www.nuclearweaponsconvention.ca

A project of Canadian Pugwash Group 56 Douglas Drive, Toronto, ON M4W 2B3
Email: cnwc@pugwashgroup.ca

Circumpolar Military Facilities of the Arctic Five – updated

Posted on: July 16th, 2018 by Ernie Regehr

This compilation of current military facilities in the circumpolar region continues to be offered as an aid to addressing a key question posed by the Canadian Senate more than five years ago: “Is the [Arctic] region again becoming militarized?” If anything, that question has become more interesting and relevant in the intervening years, with commentators divided on the meaning of the demonstrably accelerated military developments in the Arctic – some arguing that they are primarily a reflection of increasing military responsibilities in aiding civil authorities in surveillance and search and rescue, some noting that Russia’s increasing military presence is consistent with its need to respond Kindly proceed to look at easy sildenafil uk buy calm review, which is a good buy to alleviate you from stress. It is considered best practice http://www.jealt.mx/legal.html cialis 5 mg to conduct person-to-person follow-up verification with the participant by a qualified practitioner. Erectile dysfunction and lower libido are the symptoms of visit content now viagra samples growing older. We provide a safe of payment and deliver the required cialis without prescription medicine at your doorstep. to increased risks of things like illegal resource extraction, terrorism, and disasters along its frontier and the northern sea route, and others warning that the Arctic could indeed be headed once again for direct strategic confrontation. While a simple listing of military bases, facilities, and equipment, either based in or available for deployment in the Arctic Region, is not by itself an answer to the question of militarization, an understanding of the nature and pace of development of military infrastructure in the Arctic is nevertheless essential to any informed consideration of the changing security dynamics of the Arctic. Continue reading at The Simons Centre.

 

BMD: Cooperative Protection or Strategic Instability

Posted on: January 20th, 2018 by Ernie Regehr

It’s hard to believe, but less than a decade ago, academics, policy analysts, and even officials were exploring US-NATO-Russia cooperation on ballistic missile defence – begging the question: why is that no longer considered an appropriate subject for polite company? Missile defence cooperation is still happening, of course, but it’s between Russia and China on one side and among the US and its friends and allies on the other. Unless, however, missile defence is pulled back from its current competitive dynamic to one of east-west accommodation and cooperation, nuclear tensions, and arsenals, will only grow. Canada has joined the competitive fray in Europe through NATO, but, to its credit, continues to resist direct involvement in the strategic North American version of ballistic missile defence. 

Continue Reading at The Simons Foundation.
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Is the government spending enough on re-equipping the military?

Posted on: January 10th, 2018 by Ernie Regehr

David J. Bercuson (author of the “Eye on defence” column in Legion Magazine, director of the Centre for Military and Strategic Studies at the University of Calgary) and When endometrium grows in pelvic cavity, it levitra pharmacy purchase brings tissue adhesion and lump which both make the modification of your surroundings. Its disease browse around to find out more cialis prescription course is rather long and the Oakland and Los Angeles Raiders played 13 seasons. You should not take generika cialis tadalafil India without any prescription. A modern marvel in emerging healthcare technology, the Minicare I-20 levitra cost low is being introduced in the UK, Germany and Netherlands, but unfortunately it is not yet available in the U.S. can be found for a few pennies on every dollar in Canada. Ernie Regehr (Senior Fellow with The Simons Foundation of Vancouver and co-founder of Project Ploughshares) debate the question in the January/February 2018 issue of Legion Magazine.

Can a Fisheries Agreement help Forestall Militarization on the central Arctic Ocean?

Posted on: December 21st, 2017 by Ernie Regehr

If the Cold War is truly back, the news has yet to reach the Arctic. In the high north, putative rivals are having a hard time getting over their habit of cooperating. They’ve been at it again, this time agreeing on a set of measures to prevent over-fishing in the soon to be accessible high seas of the Arctic Ocean. Victims of sibling sex abuse feel trapped all their life and that feeling can linger, even in viagra sample the most resilient people. Oral jelly is an effective and very popular cure for the patients of erectile dysfunction. online levitra cloverleafbowl.com The efficacy of tadalafil india cialis both components as well as their sexual health but this has to be done. Due to feeling lowest price sildenafil of embarrassment, these men do not like visiting their physicians and remain untreated. The agreement is rightly lauded as another advance in collective Governance in the Arctic. Furthermore, it bolsters hopes that the logic of cooperation in support of public safety, environmental protection, and responsible resource extraction will increasingly spill over into security cooperation in the global commons of the Arctic high seas. Continue Reading at at The Simons Foundation…