Indonesia is setting a fine example that the US Senate should follow. At the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference, Indonesia announced it plans to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) to ban all nuclear test explosions. The Project for the CTBT reports:

Indonesian Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa told the Indonesian House of Representatives yesterday that he will officially announce the ratification during the NPT Review Conference next month in New York. “We have been holding off the ratification process since 2002 as we expected the US and other nuclear weapons states to ratify first,” said Natalegawa. “However, we decided there was no point in delaying it. We do not want our policy to be steered by the US’ decisions. We can move it forward with a note that there must be a move to push the US to ratify…The US needs a template it can take as an example when dealing with the [S]enate on ratification.”

The Washington Post has a very moving series of photos today highlighting the human suffering in Kazakhstan as a result of the Soviet Union’s nuclear weapons tests there from 1949 to 1989. With the Cold War long over, nuclear weapons can sometimes seem like a distant problem; I urge people to take a look at the photos to be reminded of just how dangerous these weapons are to human life and why banning nuclear testing makes sense.

Here are two of the captions for the photos:

The widespread contamination of soil and water prevents the land from being farmed, and most residents face unemployment because of the lack of opportunity….

Vice President Biden gave a major policy speech today on nuclear weapons (full text here), discussing the administration’s nuclear weapons agenda, their funding request for nuclear weapons, and key steps towards a nuclear weapons free world, like ratification of the New START agreement and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.

Much of the speech reaffirmed the Obama administration’s commitment to steps toward a nuclear weapons free world. Biden noted the bipartisan support for this nuclear security agenda:

Our goal of a world without nuclear weapons has been endorsed by leading voices in both parties. These include two former Secretaries of State from Republican administrations, Henry Kissinger and George Shultz; President Clinton’s Secretary of Defense Bill Perry; and my former colleague Sam Nunn, for years the Democratic Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.