U.S. To Attend Vienna Nuclear Conference

The United States says it will attend an international conference on the impact of nuclear weapons in Vienna next month.

The U.S. State Department announced on November 7 that a U.S. delegation would go to the Vienna Conference on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons on December 8-9.

The United States is the first of the world's five recognized nuclear powers to announce it would attend the conference.

The goal of the conference is to raise awareness about the consequences of nuclear weapons and promote their elimination.

None of the five official nuclear powers -- the United States, Great Britain, France, China, and Russia -- attended either of the first two conferences.

There are believed to be nine countries in the world with nuclear weapons, possessing a total of some 16,300 nuclear devices.