OMNI
UN INTERNATIONAL DAY
AGAINST NUCLEAR TESTS (THIRD ANNUAL) AUGUST 29, 2014. OMNI NEWSLETTER #3.
Compiled by Dick Bennett for a Culture of
Peace. (#1 August 29, 2012; #2 August 29, 2013).
OMNI NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL DAYS PROJECT
Embrace a world free of nuclear
weapons
IMPORTANT
DATES
7-4-45 First
test
12-2-09
UNIDANT declared
May 2010
IDANT commenced
6-2 UN
Nuclear Abolition Day
August 29,
UNIDANT
What’s at stake: the
importance of a ban on nuclear weapons testing for the achievement of a safer
and more secure world.
Here
is the link to all OMNI newsletters: http://www.omnicenter.org/newsletter-archive/ For a knowledge-based peace, justice, and
ecology movement and an informed citizenry as the foundation for change. Here is the link to the Index: http://www.omnicenter.org/omni-newsletter-general-index/
See: OMNI NUCLEAR FREE AND INDEPENDENT PACIFIC
DAY AND MARSHALL ISLANDS
Contents #1 and #2 below.
Contents #3 UN International Day
Against Nuclear Tests Newsletter
August 29, 2014
August 29, 2014
Veterans
for Peace
UNIDANT
2014 Google Search
Space Alert! Global
Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space
Lambert,
US President’s Power and the Danger of Nuclear Weapons, The
War Crimes Times (Summer 2014)
War Crimes Times (Summer 2014)
OMNI’s
Nuclear Weapons Abolition Newsletter
OMNI
Hiroshima-Nagasaki 2014
UNITED NATIONS
International Day against Nuclear Tests (29 August)
Embrace a world free of nuclear weapons
International Day against Nuclear Tests (29 August)
Embrace a world free of nuclear weapons
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Press Release
COMMEMORATING INTERNATIONAL
DAY AGAINST NUCLEAR TESTS
The world-wide observance of
the fifth annual International Day against Nuclear Tests will be on Friday, 29
August 2014. The day highlights the efforts of the United Nations and a growing
community of advocates, including Member States, intergovernmental and
non-governmental organizations, academic institutions, youth networks and media
in informing and educating on the importance of a ban on nuclear weapons
testing for the achievement of a safer and more secure world.
Activities ranging from
symposia and conferences to exhibits are expected to take place throughout the
world to call attention to the dangers of nuclear weapon test explosions, the
threats posed to humans and the environment, and the need to ultimately
eliminate all nuclear weapons and their testing.
The day, August 29, was
chosen by the General Assembly as the annual commemoration date against nuclear
tests because it marks the day in 1991 when Semipalatinsk, in Kazakhstan, one
of the largest test sites in the world, was closed permanently. This year at
the United Nations Headquarters, there will be an observance on 10 September in
the format of an Informal Meeting in the Trusteeship Council Chamber, convened
by the President of the General Assembly, Mr. John Ashe, including a High-Level
Panel organized in cooperation with the Permanent Mission of the Republic of
Kazakhstan to the United Nations.
The President of the General
Assembly and Mr. Ermek Kosherbayev, First Deputy of the Governor of
Eastern Kazakhstan (Semipalatinsk region) are expected to deliver opening
statements at the meeting. The observance will broadly focus on drawing the
world’s attention to nuclear weapons abolition and the goal of a world free of
nuclear weapons.
The opening ceremony will be
followed by a High-Level Panel on the “Path to Zero: The Role of the United
Nations in Nuclear Disarmament and Non-proliferation”. The invited panel of
speakers include, UN High Representative for Disarmament Affairs, Ms. Angela
Kane; Permanent Representative of Philippines to the United Nations Ambassador
Libran Cabactulan; Permanent Representative of Canada to the United Nations
Ambassador Guillermo Rishchynski and Representative of the Director
General of the International Atomic Energy Agency to the United Nations Mr.
Geoffrey Shaw.
The panelists are expected to cover some key issues, such as steps for further progress on nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation, the establishment of further nuclear-weapon-free zones, and confidence building. The Panel will be moderated by the Permanent Representative of Nigeria to the United Nations Ambassador U. Joy Ogwu.
The panelists are expected to cover some key issues, such as steps for further progress on nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation, the establishment of further nuclear-weapon-free zones, and confidence building. The Panel will be moderated by the Permanent Representative of Nigeria to the United Nations Ambassador U. Joy Ogwu.
The International Day
against Nuclear Tests, established by General Assembly resolution 64/35, then
presented at the initiative of the President of Kazakhstan, was first observed
in 2010, to promote the idea that “every effort should be made to end nuclear
tests in order to avert devastating and harmful effects on the lives of people…
and, that the end of nuclear tests is one of the key means of achieving the
goal of a nuclear-weapon-free world.”
See the full programme
of events.
Contacts:
- United Nations Department of Public Information, Patricia Romualdez Lopez;
- United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs, Ewen Buchanan.
VETERANS FOR PEACE
Barry Ladendorf
UN International Day Against Nuclear Tests August 28, 2014
END ARMS RACE, ABOLISH NUCLEAR WEAPONS
On December 2, 2009, the United Nations General
Assembly unanimously passed a resolution declaring August 29 to be the
International Day Against Nuclear Tests. It was hoped that the
resolution would increase the public’s awareness and educate people everywhere
“about the effects of nuclear weapons test explosions . . . and the need for
their cessation as one of the means of achieving the goal of a
nuclear-weapons-free world.”
In 1996, the United Nations General Assembly
adopted the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). This multilateral
treaty requires states to ban all nuclear explosions in all environments, for
military and civilian purposes. The treaty has not gone into force
because eight nations, the United States, Israel, North Korea, China, India,
Pakistan, Iran and Egypt, have either not ratified or not signed the treaty.
And, yet it is fitting that the UN set aside a day to encourage its
member states, NGOs and other institutions and the media to “inform, educate
and advocate the necessity of banning nuclear weapons tests as a valuable
step towards achieving a safer world.”
While the banning of nuclear weapons testing can
move us toward a “safer world,” Veterans For Peace believes there is even a
better way to a “safer” world and that is to eliminate nuclear weapons
altogether. Hence, VFP continues to support the Marshall Islands lawsuits
filed on April 24, 2014, in the United States District Court in San
Francisco. The lawsuits seek to compel the United States to comply with
its obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). VFP
also supports the companion lawsuits filed in the International Court of
Justice against all nine nuclear-armed countries for breaching their
obligations under the NPT.
The NPT went into force in 1970, signed and/or
ratified by 189 States Parties, making it the largest, legally binding, arms
control treaty in the world. The three pillars of the NPT call for (1)
nuclear armed states to negotiate in good faith for the reduction and
ultimate elimination of nuclear weapons; (2) nations without nuclear weapons
not to acquire them; and (3) all nations to have access to the peaceful use
of nuclear energy.
While there have been significant reductions in
the nuclear arsenals of the nuclear states, there are still more than 10,000
nuclear warheads in the possession of the nine nuclear-armed states with 90%
of those weapons in the possession of the United States and Russia.
Moreover, the world’s nuclear armed nations continue to modernize their
nuclear arsenals and seem unwilling to consider the total elimination of such
weapons. In the last two decades the United States has moved to upgrade
and modernize its nuclear weapons and has spent $8 billion dollars on its
Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles to extend their service life until 2030.
According to the US Congressional Budget Office, the United States will spend
$365 billion on the maintenance and modernization of its nuclear arsenal over
the next 10 years with a projected cost of $1 trillion dollars over the next
30 years. This trend of modernization and the concurrent failure to
eliminate nuclear weapons makes the Marshall Island lawsuits all the more
important.
The Republic of the Marshalls, a nation that
signed the NPT, has a particular and unique perspective on the issues of
nuclear testing and nuclear disarmament. First, as a signatory nation
to the NPT it is bound by the treaty’s constraints and obligations.
Second, perhaps as much as any nation on Earth except Japan, the Marshall
Islands have suffered directly from the effects of nuclear weapons.
Between 1946 and 1958, the United States conducted 67 nuclear tests in
the Marshall Islands. It is estimated that the explosive power of these
tests was the equivalent of 1.7 Hiroshima bombs dropped daily for 12 years.
The testing has had a devastating impact on the health and environment
of the people of the Marshall Islands. Who better than the Marshall
Islanders to bring to task the United States and the other nuclear armed nations?
In an already dangerous world, we continue to be held hostage to the
whims, miscalculations, bluffs and errors of judgment of those who are the
keepers of these weapons and presumedly are prepared to use them.
As Veterans For Peace, we seek to “end the arms
race and to reduce and eventually eliminate nuclear weapons.” Let
us continue to support the Marshall Islanders and call upon the United States
government to accept the jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice
and the Federal District Court so that this issue can be decided on the
merits. Let us also call on the United States to cast aside the
modernization of nuclear weapons, and begin the process of negotiating in
good faith to end the arms race and eliminate nuclear weapons. Without
the presence of nuclear weapons, rather than set aside August 29 as the
International Day Against Nuclear Testing, this day can become a day for the
peoples of the world to join together to commemorate the day when nuclear
weapons no longer exist. This is the day we must always strive to
achieve.
Categories: Actions Article
by Member
August 28, 2014
Submitted by Board member, Barry Ladendorf of VFP
Hugh Thompson Memorial Chapter 91 in San Diego, CA.
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www.greeningtheblue.org › Events
PEACE ALERT! (Summer/Fall 2014), Edited
and Compiled by Bruce Gagnon, Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power
in Space. (Bruce was OMNI’s guest around
2001 or 02.)
This number has two articles on
nuclear war preparation in space: one by
a whistleblower about intercontinental ballistic missiles, the other about the
US vs. Russia and the space arms race. You will enjoy being at the front on space
news from an anti-war perspective. www.space4peace.org, globalnet@mindspring.com,
207-443-9502.
NUCLEAR
WEAPONS ARE UNGOVERNABLE
Craig Lambert, “:Nuclear
Weapons or Democracy.” The War Crimes Times (Summer 2014),
WarCrimesTimes.org. Pays special
attention to Elaine Scarry’s book Thermonuclear
Monarchy: Choosing Between Democracy and Doom.
Another book you will want to read on this subject is Garry Wills’ Bomb Power on how possession of the
bomb has steadily increased the power of the presidency in a Security State. In 1970 President Nixon said: “I can go into
my office and pick up the telephone, and in 25 minutes 70 million people will
be dead.”
OMNI
NUCLEAR WEAPONS ABOLITION NEWSLETTER # 20, July 20, 2014.
OMNI Building a Culture of PEACE, Justice, and
Ecology.
Compiled by
Dick Bennett.
https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2151229136087998997#allposts,
or see OMNI’s newsletters in reverse chronological order http://www.omnicenter.org/newsletter-archive/
(See #1, June 14, 2007; #2, January 8, 2008; #3 May
16, 2008; #4 June 10; 2009, #5 July 23,
2009, ; #6 Sept. 21, 2009; #7 August 29, 2010; #8 April 11, 2011; #9 August 4,
2011; #10 Feb. 27, 2012; #11 April 4, 2012; #12 June 27, 2012; #13 July 27,
2012; #14 August 11, 2012; #15, Dec. 4, 2012; #16 July 20, 2013; #17 Dec. 17,
2014; #18 Feb. 8, 2014; #19, May 25, 2014)
OMNI
HIROSHIMA-NAGASAKI
NEWSLETTER, AUGUST 6 AND 9, 2014, 70TH ANNIVERSARY.
Compiled by Dick
Bennett for a Culture of Peace and Justice.
For full newsletter:
http://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/2014/08/hiroshima-nagasaki-remembrance.html
What’s
at stake: The official and dominant US explanation of
the annihilations of the civilian cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki has been
that they prevented the necessity of an invasion and saved US soldiers’
lives. But many other cogent
explanations are available which together make a powerful case against the
bombings. What’s at stake is that the
official explanation has provided the US with a justification for repeated
resorts to “shock and awe” instead of diplomacy since 1945. We must stop invading, bombing, and occupying
“enemies,” and acknowledging the atomic bombings as unacceptable war crimes
will help end the US foreign policy of violence and wars.
Forward to your social media. Send to Facebook as an Event. Go to: http://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/2014/08/hiroshima-nagasaki-remembrance.html
OMNI
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL DAYS PROJECT
See:
Nuclear Free Future Month Newsletter
Nuclear Abolition Day June 2
Nuclear Free and Independent Pacific
Day
Three newsletters for H-N Remembrance
2013
Contents #1, August 29, 2012
History
of Nuclear Tests
Contents #2, August 29, 2013
UNIDANT: Ban Nuclear Testing
UNIDANT 2013 Events
Google Search, Ban Nuclear Tests
END UN INTERNATIONAL DAY
AGAINST NUCLEAR TESTS NEWSLETTER #3
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