Court the republican controlled chamber voted 52 to 48 mostly along party lines them across or against the nomination and wanted it to happen after next months president ial election alan fisher is on capitol hill the democrats have tried everything they possibly could divide argued that this is being rushed through one senator saying its going so fast it would make you seen the olympic sprinter jealous that they have tried Public Opinion by saying look this is going when people are voting theres more than 30000000 people that have cast their early votes in the u. S. President ial election and therefore they should wait until the next president comes in they have argued that its going to be a threat to the Affordable Care act because the Supreme Court will be holding a hearing on that one week after the election but the reality is they simply didnt have the power to stop this. The World Health Organization is warning some countries are on a dangerous track in their battles against new surges of Coronavirus Infections the agency admits a certain level of fatigue has set in but its cautioning against giving up on the fight president of egypt a part of one has called on turks to boycott french goods as tensions rise over emanuel macros plans to reform islam in france has called for tougher laws to prevent what he calls separatism in French Society out of one question to president marcos attitude towards islam and muslims france has recalled its ambassador from turkey now says its found water on the moon man that theres more of that than they 1st thought the u. S. Space agency has unveiled its 1st unambiguous detection of water molecules on the lunar surface. The headlines the news continues here on aljazeera after inside story by for a. A global treaty outlawing Nuclear Weapons has reached its ratification goal and is set to come into force in january but no Nuclear Power has signed it so is the treaty a sign that the world is changing or just an empty gesture this is inside story. Hello and welcome to the program. Its been hailed as a new chapter for Nuclear Disarmament but opposed by the worlds major powers a u. N. Treaty banning Nuclear Weapons has now been ratified by 50 countries and will come into force next january but none of the countries that have approved it actually have a Nuclear Arsenal and no country that has one has approved the treaty all this raises doubts about how much it can achieve the u. N. Secretary general antonio terrace has called ratification the culmination of a Worldwide Movement to draw attention to the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of any use of Nuclear Weapons it represents a meaningful commitment towards the total elimination of Nuclear Weapons which remains the highest disarmament priority of the United Nations well bring in our guests in a moment but 1st some background its formally called the treaty on the prohibition of Nuclear Weapons and the u. N. Opened it up for signatures in 2017 countries signing up promise to never develop test produce manufacture otherwise acquire possess or stockpile Nuclear Weapons or other Nuclear Explosive devices. That commitment is legally binding but critics say theres no real way to enforce it and as we mentioned none of the worlds acknowledged Nuclear Powers have signed it in fact the u. S. Government has spent the last several years trying to get some countries to withdraw their signatures. All right lets bring in our guests in london sahil shah a policy fellow at the European Leadership Network in Geneva Beatrice fen executive director of the International Campaign to abolish Nuclear Weapons or i can the group was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2017 and in Monterey California shot to joshi an associate professor of nonproliferation and terrorism studies at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies a warm welcome to you all beatrice let me start with you just how historic a milestone is this treaty. But we would say that its extremely significant and actually a really historic achievement much in line with you know other huge legal developments of this century the u. N. Charter the geneva conventions the ban on biological weapons the ban on chemical weapons the bottom up mines crust missions and now also the ban on weapons so this treaty follows on all of these legal instrument aimed to constrain states behavior in warfare and protect the world that people shouted how many Nuclear Bombs are there in the world and just how quickly can they be launched. Well i mean the is there are estimates of thousands of warheads that are of a little to. The countries that are both Nuclear Weapons states under the not profession treaty as well as those d countries which are outside the not that they should treaty and or. And possess Nuclear Warheads so i think in total it becomes to several 1000 warheads. They can be launched on warning within a matter of minutes depending on which arsenal youre youre talking about so the risk certainly is pretty pretty high. Yeah so how is disarmament actually possible now or is this treaty just the 21st century version of the Kellogg Brianne pact pact that was signed in 1928 signatories promised not to use war to resolve disputes or conflicts that certainly didnt prevent world war 2 from happening. Well i think all of us would like to think that global disarmament is possible given the immense risks attached to Nuclear Weapons but the main Nuclear Weapon states in the world today believe that the environment is not conducive for Nuclear Disarmament to occur this is their main argument that they use but the t. P. M. W. Will inevitably change discourse on Nuclear Weapons and it will change how we think about them how we speak about them as well as who thinks and speaks about Nuclear Weapons and you know the countries that reject it they have vested interests in the military status quo they have interests in being able to project power and benefit financially and at the end of the day. That maintaining stability and Nuclear Weapons go hand in hand is just based off of sophisticated political academic and military theories and even though some countries have turned them into doctrines at the end of the day they are just theories and the t. P. N. W flips those theories on their heads and it memorializes all those that were affected by the production testing and use of Nuclear Weapons and it calls everybody to be accountable for what theyve done to the planet and to those populations and continue to put us all at rest beatrice all the countries that have ratified the treaty are bound by its requirements how is it going to be enforced. Well i mean International Law is like that you know if it doesnt work theres no world pretty sick comfort to impress that if you violate it but and that gives International Law sometimes an unfair reputation of not be meaningful but we do see that these kind of treaties do constrain governments they do shift behaviors and they work not dollars they of course not all works flawlessly but they do work and we see that based on the conventions that have banned other weapons like the bio weapons conventions like the chemical weapons. And for many of those it has even impacted countries that not joined the treaty or didnt participate in the gauche ations we have seen president pull the u. S. China russia shift their behavior when it comes to landmines they did not join those that treaty weve seen them ship behavior when it comes to cluster bombs they have not joined the treaty either so i think we can see that the is treating him whether or not these countries will join and we do think that eventually roll Countries Nuclear are like States States with us new growth on the territory and eventually nuclear arms that will join this treaty but in the meantime it will also hopefully shift their behavior made to more pressure on production near a start treaty that they see to be coming into for us and other steps and i think would also give you know much more political pressure on these countries it took china strong almost 20 years to sign up to the treaty stopping proliferation of Nuclear Weapons the Nuclear Nonproliferation treaty and we believe that they will go faster with this one sided there are those who make the argument that Nuclear Weapons as terrible as they are actually have been a key element in preserving global peace for the last 75 years what do you say to that so that so thats a debate between. The perforations after this versus the proliferation best interests but to dispel a lot of the. Search which has shown that even during the korean war there were near misses there were. Accidents the risk was fairly high it throughout the cold war period and its now that we are getting access to classified documents or. Test of early as from people who are in both of those cases we realize that it wasnt as stable as much it was made out to be silent let me. Let me ask you to expand on a point something that shattered just mentioning because you talked about the middle east so theres been concern growing for a while now about the threat of Nuclear Proliferation in the middle east but the only signatories to the treaty from the immediate region are sudan algeria and palestine thats not going to alleviate worry about what could happen in the middle east Going Forward is it. No but what it will do is that for a very long time theres been a discussion on middle east weapons of mass destruction free zone and this has been an issue that has been in gridlock for for many many decades and what the t. P. N. W. Will do is help generate a conversation that could help positively contribute towards that effort as well as just you know socializing these issues more to populations in the middle east and the wider global south who dont necessarily hear about it on a day to day basis like we do in the United States in europe in russia where our president s are currently in the middle of trying to quickly come to an agreement on whether or not to extend the only remaining arms control agreement that limits the Nuclear Arsenals of 2 of these major countries and these 2 countries will over 90 percent of the worlds Nuclear Weapons so i think that while its you know its where you get to see how many countries from the middle east and north africa join the t. P. N. W. The point is if its part of it right now these treaties dont do their job the moment theyre adopted or entered into force they do it over time and all of them play an Important Role but they dont ever solve the problem on its own and i dont think that beatrice and all of the thousands and thousands of supporters across the world that have generated be energy needed to get the t. V. M. W. Under the finish line argued that that theyre doing it on their own its part of a constellation of efforts and if we truly want to see the middle east wm d. Free zone come to fruition i hope that the t. P. M. W. Will positively contribute about and beatrice from from your Vantage Point which is more worrying which is more concerning the fact that the us has threatened countries that have signed on to this treaty have asked them to rescind their commitments or the fact that none of the acknowledged Nuclear Powers have signed up to begin with. Well i mean as an immediate step we are obviously very concerned that the United States is asking countries to withdraw from a multilateral instrument regulating into a i mean we havent seen a withdrawal from the multilateral Nuclear Weapons since that north korea and the n. P. T. And to develop its Nuclear Weapons and thats certainly nothing that anyone should support or want to see again so thats extremely concerning but the real threat of course is the continued modernization as a new sort of Nuclear Arms Race the threats progress to make with them all the 9 nuclear arms states that are continuing to invest you know trillions of dollars into this weapon even doing out a full blown ton damage. So i think thats really the key challenge now that we need to use this treaty to leverage pressure on the nuclear arms states and i think that the letter asking countries to withdraw is a clear sign that the United States government fully recognize the impact of this treaty i mean they are they have recognized in other documents that this threatens the legitimacy of nuclear the terrorist this question the legitimacy of these weapons and it will have an impact on them even if they dont join it and thats why they are trying to stop it but luckily these 50 countries have moved forward and obviously it doesnt stop at the 50 countries were going to continue working we are putting a lot of effort into to bring in more countries in the middle east for example on to the treaty and we hope to increase that number but also the Nuclear Allies states countries in europe with Nuclear Weapons on their territory and of course eventually also the nuclear arms that sylar saw you nodding to somewhat beatrice was saying do you want to do you want to add to the point she was making. I dont want to add but actually i would be very keen to hear more from beatrice on the effort to get europe on board because as everybodys aware europeans host american Nuclear Weapons and also are caught in the middle between the us and russia as you know a nuclear risk paradigm where right now we dont know what the fate of the new strategic arms reduction or new start treaty is going to be when it potentially may expire in early february of next year so it would be really interesting to hear about what europeans are thinking and saying about the t p n w especially now that it is going to enter into force beatrice would you like to respond to that question from song. Absolutely i think thats the really key the group of countries that are going to be very important in the coming years one of the real benefits for the treaty on the prohibition under go up with is that it has kind of exposed some countries that have been hiding behind the new plans that like so many issues you know you have the problem countries the one you kept arms states of course but are they the Key Countries with the weapons that we want to change but around them theres a whole like circle of around 3040. 00 other countries that protect them and protect them uphold this structural problems of Nuclear Weapons and that is the nato countries in the nuclear ally countries like south korea japan or strain the effort samples that are participating in exercises hosting them to up and and at that their military would be part of using weapons of mass destruction on civilian population and these are countries a very often also have this that reputation of being humanitarian superpowers theyre committed to human by the u. N. Peace loving countries in that way but this is an extreme double standard when it comes to Nuclear Weapons and mistreated puts a lot of pressure on them so what were going to do you know in order to get to the nuclear arms states we have to get through these countries that protect the legitimacy of Nuclear Weapon and weve seen positive things that that for example the latest the new sultan government for example doesnt hold us new grew up on its territory the new belgian government declaration has a positive reference to the t p n w in sort of platform and were going to work with that we see an annex in coming in germany made in next year which we see going to change the Political Landscape there we have lots of other programs in these countries to get them to take a stronger position and help push the nuclear arms states to assignment shut how worried are you that the proliferation of Nuclear Weapons could spin out of control or that the situation is already spinning out of control. Well i mean youve got both vertical and horizontal proliferation trends going on youve got existing Nuclear States whi