Knowing that such lethal weapons are more than their weight in gold, the “Nuclear Nine,” as we will call this overreaching political and ideological bunch of game changers and rule breakers, expectedly did not take part in the negotiations or the vote for a global agreement banning nuclear weapons. “It stops states with nuclear weapons from being able to hide behind the idea that they are not illegal,” Moyes reportedly said. The NPT, which is actually decades-old, dating back to the 1970s, as only its adoption took longer, provides for a total ban on developing, stockpiling or threatening to use nuclear weapons. But it lost its teeth ab initio because the Nuclear Nine that had been expected to also sign it but unsurprisingly did not, simply distrust each other, the NPT being a death sentence for their unquenchable thirst for nuclear weapons. The NPT is a joke partly because it only prohibits developing and stockpiling of nuclear weapons; it does not carry a provision for recall or destruction of such weapons that at present may be in the nuclear depots of the Nuclear Nine.

Source: Manila Times July 14, 2017 16:30 UTC