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Kazakhstan’s Nuclear Nightmare
During the Cold War, nearly a quarter of all the world’s nuclear testing took place in Kazakhstan, in secret. In 1986, a high-profile disaster in Ukraine changed that. Seventy years ago, an explosion in a far-flung corner of Soviet-ruled Kazakhstan set off an arms race that took the world to the brink of nuclear Armageddon.…
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ATOM Project Honorary Ambassador, Kazakh artist receives Nuclear-Free Future Award in Austria
SALZBURG – The ATOM Project Honorary Ambassador Karipbek Kuyukov received during an Oct. 24 ceremony in Salzburg, Austria the 2018 Nuclear-Free Future Award (NFFA) in the education category for his contribution to the global non-proliferation effort. Kuyukov is among more than 1.5 million Kazakhs impacted by more than 450 nuclear weapons tests conducted by the…
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ATOM Project Honourary Ambassador addresses UN General Assembly Special Session
NEW YORK – The ATOM Project Honorary Ambassador Karipbek Kuyukov addressed a special Sept. 6 session of the United Nations General Assembly devoted to the International Day against Nuclear Tests. “Today is a very important day in my life, and I am grateful to everyone who gave me the opportunity to speak before you…
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ATOM Project calls for August 29 moment of silence to honor nuclear weapons-testing victims
The ATOM Project is urging the international community to observe a moment of silence during the August 29 UN International Day against Nuclear Tests in memory of all nuclear weapons-testing victims. The ATOM Project and its Honorary Ambassador Karipbek Kuyukov would like people around the world to observe 11:05 a.m. their local time as a…
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“We Were The World.” Canadian MDs felt global bond in crowd gathered to protest U.S.S.R. weapon test
“Olzhas! Olzhas!” the crowd roared whenever their hero took the stage. A year ago, Olzhas Suleimenov, a 50-year-old poet, founded a protest movement in Kazakhstan to stop the Soviets from testing their nuclear weapons in the Kazakh Desert. Now his admiring countrymen carry him on their shoulders as they march, and they name their infant…
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Let us recapture the fervour of the first antinuclear weapons activists
On Aug. 29, 1949 in Kazakhstan at the Semipalatinsk Nuclear Test Site at 7 o’clock in the morning, an explosion thundered. This was the first test of nuclear weapons in the USSR. In total, 456 nuclear explosions were conducted at the test site, 116 of which were atmospheric explosions. Experts calculated that the total capacity…
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ATOM Project Honorary Ambassador seeks renewed nuclear disarmament commitment on Hiroshima, Nagasaki anniversaries
Seventy-three years ago this week the world experienced what had previously been unimaginable. The United States exploded two nuclear weapons over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing 129,000 people and marking the dawn of the nuclear-weapons age. “My thoughts and my heart are with the people of Japan,” said The ATOM Project Honorary…
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ATOM Project Hon. Ambassador Kuyukov ‘optimistic’ following historic North-South Korea summit
The ATOM Project Honourary Ambassador Karipbek Kuyukov welcomed with “optimism” the agreements reached during the historic April 27 summit between North and South Korea. “Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula would be a significant step forward in ridding the world of the nuclear weapons threat,” said the artist and global antinuclear weapons activist. “I am optimistic…
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‘Talking about nuclear weapons is not enough, we must shout’, ATOM Project Honorary Ambassador Kuyukov tells Euractiv
“Wherever I have been, I always say with pride that I live in a country that was one of the first to give up nuclear weapons,” Kazakhstan’s famous painter and anti-nuclear activist Karipbek Kuyukov told EURACTIV in an interview. Karipbek Kuyukov was born without arms, as one of the many victims of nuclear radiation in…
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Television spot highlights new Nazarbayev Prize for a Nuclear Weapon Free World and Global Security
A 30-second television spot concerning Kazakhstan’s peace keeping efforts and the Nazarbayev Prize for a Nuclear Weapon Free World and Global Security was produced recently. To watch the spot, click here. Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev announced in October 2016 the establishment of a new prize, the Nazarbayev Prize for a Nuclear Weapon Free World and Global Security.…