Global Outlook

Amid the nightmare of a global pandemic and the crumbling pillars of nuclear arms control, the leadership of one of the few stars in the nuclear firmament still shining bright is due for vote in Vienna on 25–27 November.

The fiftieth ratification by Honduras a few weeks ago that will soon bring the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons into effect is a momentous occasion. It does not eliminate a single nuclear warhead, but it strengthens the principle that nuclear weapons are ethically indefensible and contrary to international law.

On October 24, 75 years after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Honduras became the 50th country to ratify the nuclear ban treaty. It will enter into force on January 22.

In a subtle diplomatic move, the Government of Canada has ceased its opposition and now “acknowledges” the reason for the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, which will enter into force on January 22, 2021. The new treaty, which has been ratified by 50 states, has been denounced by the Trump administration and also rejected by NATO.

COVID-19 has changed the global landscape. One of the side effects is that air pollutants and greenhouse gas emissions have been reduced as a result of restrictions on economic activity and the movement of people around the world. This has led to an advocacy to create a more sustainable and healthy society through the recovery process, in other words, a "green recovery”.

How accurate is it to call the current Sino–US hostility Cold War Two? Could it tip the world into a shooting war in which neither emerges victorious and everyone loses? In an agenda-resetting speech at the Hudson Institute in October 2018, US Vice President Mike Pence outlined a thick catalogue of predatory practices and aggressive behaviour by China.