_Section

Crossing the frontier and producing synthetic life for the first time, the discovery by a group of U.S. scientists, opens many areas of application while leaving open a new horizon for what we consider typical of the human being: the ability to make life. This is an extraordinary discovery that opens up the hope of better understanding the basic mechanisms that drive all life.

The moment so feared, so desired, so imagined, has arrived; the moment when the human being – by creating life – is transformed into God. The Science Journal of May 20 gives the news of the first synthetic cell, a cell completely controlled by artificial DNA. “A cell that changes the definition of what is meant by ‘life’.”

The NPT conference has come to an end after 4 weeks of intense debate and horse-trading in New York with little progress on disarmament. The Conference calls on Ban Ki-Moon to convene a conference to work on a nuclear weapon free zone in the Middle East. NGOs are disappointed by lack of progress on a convention to ban weapons and by the proliferation of nuclear energy.

As the NPT conference comes to an end with no hope on the horizon for a speedy disarmament, Hillel Schenker, from the Jerusalem-based Palestine-Israel Journal talks about the often talked about Nuclear Weapon Free Zone in the Middle East. “One thing is clear—asking Israel to sign the NPT is a futile exercise, because it will not unilaterally disarm.”

The Non-proliferation Treaty Review Conference is in its fourth and final week. Parallel to the official meetings with delegates of states parties to the NPT, active members of NGOs are in New York to represent the interests of civil society. Diane Perlman of Psychologists for Social Responsibility puts the case for a change of consciousness regarding nuclear power.

In this article renewable energy activist, Alice Slater, points out the dangers of the world advancing in the proliferation of nuclear energy and calls on all countries to join the International Renewable Energy Agency as a way to make redundant article IV of the Non-proliferation Treaty “inalienable right” to nuclear energy.

The 17th of May marked the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia (IDAHO). Events were held in tens of countries around the world to send a strong message that these forms of discrimination should be consigned to the dustbin of history. Portugal legalised same-sex marriage. Malawi sentences 2 gay men for the crime of homosexuality.

The tired old mantra of arms control and incremental steps is still dominating discussions at the NPT Review Conference, despite the growing push for a Nuclear Weapons Convention. Calls by Nuclear Weapons States, for the most part, lack any sense of real urgency — even though it is clear that meaningful action for abolition is needed now, and cannot continue to be postponed.

UN Secretary-General remarks to the Inter-Parliamentary Union and Parliamentarians for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament:
“Ten years ago, the NPT Review Conference described the total elimination of nuclear arsenals as “the only guarantee against the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons”. Ten years on, I urge you to help to make disarmament a truly global cause”.

The last day of the first week of the NPT conference sees space given to civil society organisations to address the delegates and submit papers for consideration by the States, party to the treaty. Nobel Laureate Jody Williams, famous for her work in achieving a Land Mine Treaty says, “Nuclear weapons are not–nor can they be allowed to be–the exception”.