To 10 May – the week in nuclear news
Growing number of Asian countries ravaged by fresh coronavirus waves. World Health Organisation updates its coronavirus advice, acknowledging aerosol transmission as the major source of infection. Covid-19: hopes for ‘Herd Immunity’ fade as virus hurtles toward becoming endemic. Biden’s proposal to waive patent rights for vaccine production has raised quite a storm.
Climate change: how bad could the future be, if we do nothing?
And now – to nuclear issues. There have been a number of important articles this week, on nuclear weapons in space – the militarisation of space. It’s ironic that a big news discussion has also gone on, about an ”out-of-control” Chinese rocket, that could have hit land and caused havoc. Ever ready to put a comforting Western spin on the news, this incident was used by the media to show how very safe U.S. rockets are, in comparison with those reckless Chinese efforts.
Amid Widespread Disease, Death, and Poverty, the Major Powers Increased Their Military Spending in 2020 https://www.commondreams.org/views/2021/04/28/amid-widespread-disease-death-and-poverty-major-powers-increased-their-military?utm campaign=shareaholic&utm medium=Social&utm source=twitter The existence of widespread poverty in the world's mightiest military powers raises the question of what could have been done to alleviate or eliminate it, if during 2020 they had not poured nearly $1.1 trillion into preparations for war. byLawrence Wittner …
Disasters of 2020
April 30, 2021
The disasters of 2020 were not shocking enough to jolt the world’s most powerful nations out of their traditional preoccupation with enhancing their armed might, for once again they raised their military spending to new heights.
During 2020, world military expenditures increased to $1,981,000,000,000 – or nearly $2 trillion – with the outlays of the three leading military powers playing a major part in the growth. The US government increased its military spending from $732 billion in 2019 to $778 billion in 2020, thus retaining its top spot among the biggest funders of war preparations. Meanwhile, the Chinese government hiked its military spending to $252 billion, while the Russian government raised its military outlay to $61.7 billion.