Nuke weapons spending swelled $1.4b amid pandemic

Even as the pandemic raged and economies around the world were devastated, nuclear-armed countries last year increased spending on atomic weapon arsenals by 1.4 billion dollars, campaigners said yesterday. In a fresh report, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) detailed how the world's nine nuclear-armed states continued to swell their spending on such weapons. "While hospital beds filled up with patients, doctors and nurses worked over hours and basic medical supplies ran scarce, nine countries found they had more than $72 billion on hand for their weapons of mass destruction," the report said.