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Indonesia Ratifies the CTBT

IN THIS ISSUE: Indonesia ratifies CTBT, Australian Labor says yes to uranium exports to India, has the war with Iran already begun?, China's nuclear fears could lift US firms, US sticking to missile shield regardless of Moscow, Turki al-Faisal says Saudi Arabia may join nuclear arms race.

Published on December 6, 2011
 

Indonesia Ratifies Nuclear Test Ban Treaty

Global Security Newswire

Tibor Toth

The legislature of Indonesia on Tuesday ratified the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, leaving eight nations that must fully sign off on the accord before it can become the global rule of law.

"By this historic decision, the gap keeping the treaty from entering into force has been narrowed down to eight countries," according to Tibor Tóth, executive secretary of the Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization.

Indonesia is one of 44 "Annex 2" states that must gain legislative approval for the global prohibition on nuclear test blasts before it can enter into force. The remaining holdouts from that group are China, Egypt, India, Iran, Israel, North Korea, Pakistan and the United States. Egypt is the only nation on that list that is not known or widely suspected of having a nuclear-weapon program. With the consensus decision by the Indonesian House of Representatives, 156 nations have ratified the pact.    Full Article



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Neena Bhandari | Business Standard
The ruling Australian Labor Party (ALP) national conference Sunday passed amendment 665 with a thin margin of only 21 votes to overturn the long standing party policy banning uranium sales to India. Thus far, the party policy has dictated that uranium can only be sold to countries which are signatory to Nuclear non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and India has not signed the NPT.     Full Article

 
 
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