Global Security Newswire

Cuba assumed the rotating presidency of the international Conference on Disarmament on Tuesday, taking over from North Korea, whose monthlong leadership caused Canada to briefly abandon the 65-member body, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, Aug. 5).

Ottawa refused to participate in the conference while it was led by the North, which faces multiple U.N. Security Council resolutions related its nuclear-weapon efforts and other proliferation activities. While Canada has now returned, the years-long stalemate in developing a work agenda continues at the principle international forum for negotiating disarmaments treaties.

The conference's presidency changes on a monthly basis.

Cuban Foreign Affairs Vice Minister Rodolfo Reyes Rodriguez in assuming the presidency said it was intolerable that there are still nearly 23,000 nuclear bombs in the world, 7,560 of which are primed for launch.

Almost 50 years ago, Cuba was at the heart of a Cold War missile crisis -- the closest the planet has ever come to an exchange of nuclear weapons (Associated Press/Google News, Aug. 23).