As far as I can monitor, not one British national paper or TV or Radio station has mentioned a single world about the most important ( five-yearly ) conference  of 190 nations dealing with the  world’s  nuclear insecurity –  the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT) –  starting today in New York at the UN. And this  despite the key importance of Trident in the UK General Election. What an absolute  shocking  reflection on the insular, personality-obsessed and trivializing British media….
Dr David Lowry
former director, European Proliferation Information Centre (EPIC)

PS I have pasted details of this crucial conference below, including highlighting (I  yellow) several specialist side meetings being hosted by the UK delegation, one of  which is a meeting promoting civil nuclear power by DECC

The Ninth Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty

on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons

http://www.un.org/en/conf/npt/2015/pdf/press%20release.pdf

New York. The 2015 Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) will meet at the United Nations in New Yorkfrom 27 April to 22 May 2015. The President-designate of the Conference is Ambassador Taous Feroukhi (Algeria).

Article VIII, paragraph 3 of the NPT provides for a review of the operation of the Treaty every five years. States parties reaffirmed and strengthened the implementation of this provision at the 1995 NPT Review and Extension Conference and at the 2000 NPT Review Conference.

At the 2015 NPT Review Conference, States parties will evaluate the implementation of the Treaty’s provisions since 2010, and identify the areas and means through which further progress can be made.

The NPT is a landmark international treaty whose objective is to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and weapons technology, to promote co-operation in the peaceful uses of nuclear energy and to further the goals of achieving nuclear disarmament and general and complete disarmament. The NPT represents the only binding commitment in a multilateral treaty to the goal of nuclear disarmament by the nuclear-weapon States.

Opened for signature in 1968, the Treaty entered into force in 1970. The NPT has demonstrated its effectiveness as the cornerstone of the global nuclear non-proliferation regime. With 189 States parties, including the five nuclear-weapon States, the Treaty is the most widely adhered to multilateral disarmament agreement.

The Review Conference is expected to consider a number of issues, including: universality of the Treaty; nuclear disarmament; including specific practical measures; nuclear non-proliferation; including compliance with Treaty provisions, the promoting and strengthening of safeguards, measures to advance the peaceful use of nuclear energy; safety and security; regional disarmament and non-proliferation; implementation of the 1995 resolution on the Middle East; measures to address withdrawal from the Treaty; measures to further strengthen the review process; and ways to promote engagement with civil society in strengthening NPT norms and in promoting disarmament education.

Media Contacts for the 2015 NPT Review Conference

Mr. Ewen Buchanan
United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs
UN Secretariat, Room S-3185
Telephone: (212) 963 3022
Email: buchanane@un.org

Permanent Mission of Algeria 326 East 48th Street

New York, N.Y. 10017

Telephone: (212) 750-1960, 1962,1965,1966

Pre- NPT conference in New York details

5pm Registration Opens
6:30pm Opening Ceremony and Messages

• Angela Kane (United Nations High Representative for Disarmament Affairs)
• Sumiteru Taniguchi (Nihon Hidankyo, 2015 Nobel Peace Prize Nominee)
• Setsuko Thurlow (2015 Nobel Peace Prize Nominee)
• Daniel Ellsberg (Whistleblower, Publisher of the Pentagon Papers)

7:30 Opening Plenary – Connecting the Struggles for a Nuclear-Free, Peaceful, Just, and Sustainable World

• Walden Bello (Founding and Executive Director of Focus on the Global South; Professor at University of the Philippines)
• Jo Comerford (Campaign Director for MoveOn.org)
• Zia Mian (Director of the Project on Peace and Security in South Asia at the Program on Science and Global Security, Princeton University)
• Manuel Pino (Professor at Scottsdale College; Co-Founder of the Acoma-Laguna Coalition for A Safe Environment; Board President of the Indigenous Environmental Network)
• Reverend Osagyefo Sekou (Freeman Fellow with the Fellowship of Reconciliation)