Lifeboat Foundation

Dr. Robert Floyd, Ph.D. is Executive Secretary of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO — https://www.ctbto.org/), the organization tasked with building up the verification regime of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty, a multilateral treaty opened for signature in 1996 by which states agree to ban all nuclear explosions in all environments, for military or civilian purposes.

Prior to joining CTBTO, Dr. Floyd was the Director General of the Australian Safeguards and Non-proliferation Office (ASNO), where he was responsible for Australia’s implementation of and compliance with various international treaties and conventions including the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty, Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material (CPPNM) and the Chemical Weapons Convention.

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Vladimir Putin confirmed Russia has sent nuclear arms to its ally Belarus, which borders Ukraine. Putin has repeatedly warned that Russia, which has more nuclear weapons than any other country, will use all means to defend itself. Russia has a huge numerical superiority over the united states and the nato military alliance when it comes to tactical nuclear weapons. The united states believe Russia has around 2,000 such working tactical warheads. Reports say, the united states has around 200 tactical nuclear weapons, half of which are at bases in Europe. Remember, Belarus has borders with 3 nato members — Poland, Lithuania & Latvia. The treaty on the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons, signed by the soviet union, says no nuclear power can transfer nuclear weapons or tech to a non-nuclear power.

It is an unsettling moment. Critics argue the rush to AI comes too fast — while competitive pressure— among giants like Google and start-ups you’ve never heard of, is propelling humanity into the future ready or not.

Sundar Pichai: But I think if take a 10-year outlook, it is so clear to me, we will have some form of very capable intelligence that can do amazing things. And we need to adapt as a society for it.

Google CEO Sundar Pichai told us society must quickly adapt with regulations for AI in the economy, laws to punish abuse, and treaties among nations to make AI safe for the world.

South Korea’s giant leap into space started with a small step on the internet.

With treaties banning certain tech transfers, South Korea’s rocket scientists turned to a search service to find an engine they could mimic as the country embarked on an ambitious plan to build an indigenous space program. The nation launched its first home-grown rocket called Nuri in October 2021.

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Putin also said that Russia would suspend its participation in a treaty aimed at keeping a lid on nuclear weapons expansion. The so-called New START Treaty was signed by Russia and the U.S. in 2010. It caps the number of long-range nuclear warheads they can deploy and limits the use of missiles that can carry atomic weapons.

Putin said Tuesday in a major address that Russia was not fully withdrawing from the treaty yet. He said Russia must stand ready to resume nuclear weapons tests if the US does so.

Continue reading “Putin not backing down on Ukraine, insists West is at fault” »

UN hopes to complete revisions to the Law of the Sea governing the protection of marine biodiversity.

In 2017, the members of the General Assembly of the United Nations convened to review the existing Convention on the Law of Sea with the idea to look at providing protection for marine biodiversity and ocean waters beyond marine national government boundaries and exclusive economic zones. Subsequently, there have been meetings at the United Nations to work through outstanding issues with the last in August 2022. A revised Intergovernmental conference is now underway and expected to last two weeks to complete a new High Seas Treaty.

The world’s oceans and seas cover more than 70% of the planet’s surface. The ocean contains 1.35 billion cubic kilometres (324 million cubic miles) of water representing 97% of all the water on the planet. The ocean is where life on Earth first came from and is what makes the continuation of life on this planet possible.

Continue reading “United Nations Meets Today to Finalize Global Treaty for the Ocean” »

A year ago, astronomers discovered a powerful gamma-ray burst (GRB) lasting nearly two minutes, dubbed GRB 211211A. Now, that unusual event is upending the long-standing assumption that longer GRBs are the distinctive signature of a massive star going supernova. Instead, two independent teams of scientists identified the source as a so-called “kilonova,” triggered by the merger of two neutron stars, according to a new paper published in the journal Nature. Because neutron star mergers were assumed to only produce short GRBs, the discovery of a hybrid event involving a kilonova with a long GRB is quite surprising.

“This detection breaks our standard idea of gamma-ray bursts,” said co-author Eve Chase, a postdoc at Los Alamos National Laboratory. “We can no longer assume that all short-duration bursts come from neutron-star mergers, while long-duration bursts come from supernovae. We now realize that gamma-ray bursts are much harder to classify. This detection pushes our understanding of gamma-ray bursts to the limits.”

As we’ve reported previously, gamma-ray bursts are extremely high-energy explosions in distant galaxies lasting between mere milliseconds to several hours. The first gamma-ray bursts were observed in the late 1960s, thanks to the launching of the Vela satellites by the US. They were meant to detect telltale gamma-ray signatures of nuclear weapons tests in the wake of the 1963 Nuclear Test Ban Treaty with the Soviet Union. The US feared that the Soviets were conducting secret nuclear tests, violating the treaty. In July 1967, two of those satellites picked up a flash of gamma radiation that was clearly not the signature of a nuclear weapons test.

WASHINGTON, Nov 8 (Reuters) — The United States and Russia are expected to meet soon and discuss resuming inspections under the New START nuclear arms reduction treaty that have been paused since before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, U.S. State Department spokesperson Ned Price said on Tuesday.

Speaking at a daily press briefing, Price said the bilateral consultative commission (BCC), the mechanism for implementation of the last remaining arms control agreement between the world’s two largest nuclear powers, will meet “in the near future.”

Russia in August suspended cooperation with inspections under the treaty, blaming travel restrictions imposed by Washington and its allies over Moscow’s February invasion of Ukraine, but said it was still committed to complying with the provisions of the treaty.

Nuclear arsenals remain large enough to fundamentally shift the Earth system in the blink of an eye.

The U.S. and Russia have recently agreed to hold talks on the New START Treaty, and the only accord left regulating the two largest nuclear arsenals in the world. While this is undoubtedly good news, we must not allow it to lull us into complacency. Global events this year, most notably in Ukraine, have raised fears of a nuclear conflict to levels not seen since the cold war. More than 10,000 nuclear warheads remain in the world, and the Kremlin’s language regarding weapons of mass destruction has become increasingly threatening in 2022.

Global famine and climate breakdown

Continue reading “Even a small nuclear war could cause global famine — here’s what the data shows” »