This is the First Podcast Interview With the 2017 Recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize Mark Leon Goldberg October 23, 2017 Exactly two weeks to the day before this interview, Beatrice Fihn received a phone call from Norway. It was the Nobel Committee informing her that the NGO she leads, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, was awarded the 2017 Nobel Peace Pr...
Podcast: Former Senator Sam Nunn Explains How a New “Fuel Bank” Can Curb Nuclear Proliferation Mark Leon Goldberg August 28, 2017 The world may just have gotten a little bit safer. In Kazakstan this week, the International Atomic Energy Agency is opening a new facility that will serve as a bank for Low Enriched Uranium. If it works at intended, fewer countries around the world wil...
Congress REALLY Shouldn’t Threaten to Cut Funding for Nuclear Explosion Monitors Around the World Mark Leon Goldberg August 9, 2016 News broke late last week that the Obama administration is planning a Security Council resolution that would effectively ban the testing of nuclear weapons. The move is being billed as a legacy issue for President Obama, who leaves office with a strong non-pro...
WATCH: A UN Team Installs a Nuclear Detection System in one of the Most Remote Places on Earth Mark Leon Goldberg August 3, 2016 The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty bans all countries that have ratified it from testing nuclear weapons. It also created a UN entity known as the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization which monitors for nuclear detonations around the world, in theory to e...
The Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Turns 20. It’s an anniversary worth celebrating Mark Leon Goldberg June 16, 2016 I caught up with my guest today, Arms Control Association president Daryl Kimball from his hotel in Vienna. Daryl, along with hundreds of diplomats around the world were gathered for the 20th anniversary of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. This is a t...
How a Former Secretary of Defense Learned to Loathe the Bomb Mark Leon Goldberg December 21, 2015 William Perry was the 19th Secretary of Defense, serving in the Clinton administration from 1994 to 1997. But in 1962, he was a 35 year old mathematician working in the defense industry and living in California. One day in October, his phone rang. It wa...
The IAEA Faces Big Budget Pressures Mark Leon Goldberg July 20, 2015 Despite it's high profile, the International Atomic Energy Agency suffers from some of the same funding challenges as many UN agencies. Now that it is at the heart of the Iran nuclear deal, will its member states ease up on the budgetary pressure under which t...
5 Things About the IAEA That May Surprise You Alexandra Van Dine July 15, 2015 Ed note. A nuclear deal with Iran has been struck! This post originally appeared in April, after the framework agreement was signed which lead to yesterday's diplomatic breakthrough. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has been in the news rece...
Here’s How the IAEA Will Keep Tabs on Iran Mark Leon Goldberg July 14, 2015 An Iran nuclear deal has been struck. It's a highly technical agreement that asks a great deal from the United Nations--specifically from the International Atomic Energy Agency. If the IAEA is able to verify compliance, sanctions will be lifted. If the IAE...