Category News

A nuclear-armed bully is resuming testing of atomic weapons, according to Araghchi in a post on X late on Thursday.

He claimed that the same bully has publicly demonized Iran’s peaceful nuclear program and threatened further strikes on our secure nuclear facilities, all in flagrant violation of international law.

Trump made the surprise announcement in a Truth Social post on Thursday before a meeting with Xi Jinping, the leader of China, in South Korea. on the sidelines Summit of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC).

Trump claimed that he had given the Pentagon an ultimatum to resume nuclear weapons testing “on an equal basis” with other nations like China and Russia, whose nuclear arsenal, according to Trump, will match that of the US in “five years.”

Instead of Trump’s decision, according to Ankit Panda, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a nuclear security expert, being a response to recent actions by Russia and China, as opposed to Washington’s ongoing nuclear dispute with Iran.

Russian President Vladimir Putin announced this week that Moscow had tested its Poseidon nuclear-powered super torpedo after testing new Burevestnik cruise missiles separately earlier this month, according to the Reuters news agency.

China also recently unveiled its nuclear prowess at a military parade in September, which featured both new and modified nuclear weapons, including the intercontinental ballistic missile (NCIS) capable of China.

A nuclear-armed bully is resuming atomic weapon testing now that its “Department of Defense” has been changed to the “Department of War”. The same bully has threatened further attacks on our safe nuclear facilities and demonizes Iran’s peaceful nuclear program, all in… Twitter . ft4ZGWnFiw

The United Nations has not conducted a nuclear test, defined as a nuclear explosion above ground, underground, or underwater, in spite of these public displays of firepower, as the two countries have in decades.

The Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban-Treaty of 1996 forbids nuclear testing. The original treaty was signed by the US, China, and Iran, but Russia withdrew its ratification in 2023.

China conducted its final nuclear test in 1996, while Moscow was still the Soviet Union, according to the UN. The United Kingdom conducted its final nuclear test in 1991, followed by the US in 1992 and France in 1996. The only nation to have conducted nuclear tests in the last 20 years, with the most recent test being in 2017.

According to Trevor Findlay, a professor of nuclear security and honorary professor at the University of Melbourne, it was unclear what kind of testing Trump was referring to in his position.

He probably means missile launches of nuclear-capable missiles, as North Korea and Russia have done in a very public manner. He claimed that these don’t produce nuclear explosions nor do they actually have nuclear warheads (though they’re probably just a dummy).

The US regularly tests its own missiles, both current and developing ones, splashing down in the Pacific. Like North Korea and Russia, it does make a big deal of them, he said, but it does not tend to do so.

Trump, in contrast, has called for Iran’s nuclear program to be completely destroyed and says he doesn’t want Tehran to acquire nuclear weapons. Iranian military and nuclear facilities were targeted by US and Israeli air strikes in June, which in turn slowed its progress.

According to the Carnegie Endowment’s Panda, Tehran has maintained that its nuclear program is only for civilian purposes.

On Friday, Radio Free Asia (RFA) announced that its news operations would be suspended due to the government-funded news outlet’s dire financial situation, which was brought on by funding cuts under President Donald Trump’s administration and the ongoing US government shutdown.

According to Bay Fang, president and CEO of RFA, the outlet has been “forced to suspend all remaining news content production.”

RFA is taking additional steps to responsibly shrink its already diminuted footprint, she said on Wednesday in an effort to conserve the scarce resources on hand and prevent the possibility of restarting operations if consistent funding is available.

Fang added that RFA would officially start closing its overseas offices and will begin terminating its furloughed staff. She claimed that since March, numerous staff members have taken unpaid leave of absence due to the US Agency for Global Media’s (USAGM) unlawful termination of RFA’s Congressionally Apportioned Grant.

Aside from USAGM, an independent US government agency established in the mid-1990s to provide information to areas with weak press freedom records, Trump signed an executive order effective on March 14th.

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE) and Voice of America (VOA) are also featured on USAGM along with RFA.

RFA was forced to terminate most of its overseas contractors and put three-quarters of its US-based employees on unpaid leave following the executive order in March.

In May, a second round of widespread layoffs, as well as the termination of several RFA language services, including Tibetan, Burmese, and Uighur, were also announced.

In March, Trump signed another executive order authorizing the organization’s nearly 1,400 employees to take paid leave of absence, which he called the “total left-wing disaster” (total left-wing disaster) to go on. Since then, it has only been operating on a limited basis.

Trump has alleged that government agencies like RFA, RFE, and VOA are biased against his administration and that they are a waste of money.

RFA has provided English- and local-language online and broadcast services to residents of region’s most oppressive regimes since its founding in 1996.

Its main initiatives include the publication of events inside the hermit state, North Korea, and the world’s only independent Uyghur-language outlet covering the oppressed ethnic group in western China.

Make no mistake, authoritarian regimes are already ecstatic about the potential demise of RFA, according to an announcement penned by RFA executive editor Rosa Hwang, which was published on the outlet’s website on Wednesday.

RFA’s core values include independent reporting. That voice is in danger, according to Hwang for the first time since RFA’s founding almost 30 years ago.

“We still think strongly about the urgency of that task and the extraordinary journalists’ perseverance. We’ll return once our funding is secured, she continued.

RFE/Radio Liberty, which went through its own round of furloughs earlier this year, announced this week that its news services are currently in use and have received its final round of federal funding.

It stated that “we intend to continue providing our audiences with this service for a while.”