Please join us for the reception held at Mills College on January 18, 2011, 6 pm – 8 pm. The exposition will last from January 18 to March 11, 2012. For more details, please see: http://mcam.mills.edu/events/

To learn more about future Reykjavik productions, visit: http://www.richardrhodes.com/appearances.html

To listen to her interview log-in to an hour long interview for the last twenty minutes here: http://www.kpfa.org/archive/id/71838

The moderator for the panel discussion was Philip Taubman, who worked at the New York Times as a reporter and editor, specializing in national security issues, including defense policies. Mr. Taubman brought an interesting perspective to the panel discussion, when he noted that such “Cold War worriers” as George Shultz and William Perry set aside their past concerns and party interests to promote nuclear disarmament from a nonpartisan perspective.

George Shultz highlighted several goals for the United States as a leading nation in reducing the global nuclear weapons stockpile. Among those goals: ratification of CTBT and START, haulting production of HEU and PU at the global level, and nuclear materials security. Dr. Sidney Drell, Head of SLAC, agreed with Shultz especially on the CTBT ratification, explaining that from the technical standpoint the ban on testing nuclear weapons will be beneficial to the United Sates national security and not the opposite. Dr. Drell, expert in nuclear phisics and nuclear weapons, further noted that the international monitoring system and the US technological capabilities make it impossible for other contries to conduct a secret nuclear test without being noticed. Therefore, there is a way to control nuclear testing and prevent other countries develop such technologies unnoticed. CTBT calls for ban on any nuclear weapon testing, which naturally leads to haulting nuclear weapons production.

Tyler Wigg Stevenson, the founding director of the Two Futures Project, and Edmund Rennolds, the CTNT President, elaborated on concrete steps toward creating the nessesary nonpartisan consesnus and strategy for engaging business community to address nuclear security and nuclear disarmament.

The breifing of this sort is one of the first of its kind in the Bay Area. The attending business leaders were shocked, intrigued and interested in purusing the steps needed to help promote nuclear weapons reduction and strengthening nuclear nonproliferation. About 30-40% of the Silicon Valley companies are young professionals in their 30s, for whom fear of «nuclear exchange» and devastating Cold War reality is a text in a history book. One of the main outcomes of the meeting was a decision and agreement to focuse efforts on educating younger generations via viral message.

The NPT is a landmark international treaty whose objective is to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and weapons technology, to promote cooperation in the peaceful uses of nuclear energy and to further the goal of achieving nuclear disarmament and general and complete disarmament. The NPT represents the only binding commitment in a multilateral treaty to the goal of disarmament by the nuclear-weapon States.

The Center for Nonproliferation Studies of the Monterey Institute have produced a very useful resource on everything one needs to know about the NPT (Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons Treaty). To read the full text or download a pdf file, please click here.

“US President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev have agreed a new nuclear arms reduction treaty after months of negotiations.

The treaty limits both sides to 1,550 warheads, about 30% less than currently allowed, the White House said.

The deal replaces the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty. The leaders will sign the pact in Prague on 8 April.

President Obama hailed the treaty as the most comprehensive weapons control agreement in nearly two decades.

“With this agreement, the United States and Russia – the two largest nuclear powers in the world – also send a clear signal that we intend to lead,” he said at the White House.

“By upholding our own commitments under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, we strengthen our global efforts to stop the spread of these weapons, and to ensure that other nations meet their own responsibilities,” he said.

In Russia, President Medvedev’s spokeswoman told the Interfax news agency: “This treaty reflects the balance of interests of both nations.”

The treaty must be ratified by the US Senate and the Russian Duma.”