Hundreds of physicians and health professionals from all over the world came together at the 20th World Congress in Hiroshima, Japan to dialogue and strategize for the elimination of nuclear weapons and the threat of nuclear war. Read more »
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Today, 10 years later, I remember the fear, the uncertainty, and those who lost their lives on September 11th. I wish I could say the fear and the uncertainty has disappeared. On Thursday, after President Obama’s address to Congress, information of a “specific, credible, but unconfirmed” threat were made public. Living in Washington DC, I am worried about what someone may do on the anniversary of September 11th. Mixed in that worry is no longer simply the fear of an attack but, also, how our country may change in the shadow of another act of terrorism. Read more »

On March 15, 2006, American troops approached a house around 2:30 AM in Ishaqi to apprehend a potential Al Qaida in Iraq suspect. Read more »

Yesterday, McClatchy reported on a cable from the recent WikiLeaks release of diplomatic cables. In the cable is evidence that disputes the United States official story. U.S. trained Iraqi police, neighbors, and a doctor’s inspection of the 10 civilians present a very different picture. Read more »

The Aug. 29th Washington Post article “Syrian unrest raises fears about chemical arsenal” by Pulitzer Prize winning author Joby Warrick raises a key national security question for the United States. Will we pursue an arms control or arms proliferation foreign policy in the 21st century? Read more »
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Yesterday afternoon, like many people in DC (and up and down the East Coast), I experienced the jarring reality of a moderate earthquake. It was a scary moment up high in our office tower. Sadly, at that same moment, many people feared that instead of a natural disaster, we were facing a man-made tragedy. Read more »
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Over the weekend, the New York Times reported on General Electric’s successful attempt at using laser enrichment to create nuclear fuel. They now seek support for a $1 billion facility that would cover 100 acres in Wilmington, NC. Read more »

Over the weekend, the New York Times reported on General Electric’s successful attempt at using laser enrichment to create nuclear fuel. They now seek support for a $1 billion facility that would cover 100 acres in Wilmington, NC. Read more »

Sen. Hatfield was a true statesman - a public servant who worked across party lines to pursue peace. When I was in junior high school and first learning about international issues, he inspired me through his powerful words and by matching his actions with his rhetoric. Read more »
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Iowa PSR recently sponsored a workshop on the interconnections between militarism, climate and environmental degradation from a health and human rights perspective. Read more »

What is happening now in North Africa and the Middle East should give people in the region and around the world a reason to hope. Read more »
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As we are nearing the end of the 19th IPPNW World Congress, I cannot help but reflect on all that has been discussed here in Basel. There are several plenaries and workshops that standout in my mind and inspire me to stay involved in PSR/IPPNW’s work. On Friday, during the plenary on violence prevention we heard from Ms. Kidist Bartolomeos from the WHO Department of Violence and Injury Prevention. After giving a brief overview of the issue of small arms violence worldwide, she proposed four “best buys” for decreasing the consequences of violence. Read more »
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In his first State of the Union address, President Barack Obama eloquently described the threat of nuclear weapons as the “greatest danger to the American people.” Invoking the arms control legacy of President John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan, the President also repeated his earlier promise to pursue a strategy that reverses the spread of nuclear weapons and seeks a world without them. Read more »

At tonight's Nobel Dinner the vice chair of the Nobel Committee delivered a great speech in which she stressed the theme of this year's Nobel Prize as a "Call to Action". She cited a passage in Obama's first book where he describes a bus ride during an early community organizing effort and the ongoing impact it had sustaining his commitment to the work he was doing in Chicago. She expressed the wish that the ride to Oslo would have the same effect on him now, and spoke plainly of the enormous hopes the world invests in him and of the "audacity" of the Nobel Committee in challenging him further to meet those hopes. Read more »
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I, like many people, spent the early part of this morning in bed watching President Obama receive the Nobel Peace Prize. I was struck by the contrasts and conflicting aspects of his speech. I was only a medical student working for IPPNW when I attended the Nobel ceremonies in 1985. Read more »
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President Obama's Nobel address was not the speech that many of us had hoped for. He did state again his commitment to nuclear disarmament but he certainly did not use the address to build the case for eliminating nuclear weapons nor to lay out a plan for achieving this aim. Read more »
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