May 14, 2010
On May 8th, the 65th anniversary of the end of the Second World War in Europe, the United Nations held a commemoration for all victims of the war. The victory by the Allies set the stage for almost all nations to work to end war forever through the formation of the United Nations. The current Secretary General of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon, said at the special session of the General Assembly that that the United Nations was "founded on that most human of hopes, an end to the 'scourge of war'."
Citing the five-year review conference of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which is currently underway at the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon, said "It is fitting, today, that we commemorate the war's end at a moment when nations are gathered to advance the cause of peace."
He continued, "The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty is also a document of hope, a vision for a nuclear-weapon-free world. Thank you for helping us to remember the past, so that we may better shape our future."
Earlier in the week, representatives of the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability presented a panel entitled, "Nuclear Weapons Production in the Age of Obama: Community Experts Reporting on Continuing U.S. Nuclear Weapons Production." www.ananuclear.org Members of directly affected communities discussed environmental, health, legal, and the international security impacts of warhead production in the U.S. Three of the speakers were from communities that are home to nuclear weapons production facilities, including Jay Coghlan of Nuclear Watch New Mexico. Ann Suellentrop, of Physicians for Social Responsibility and Kansas City Peace Works, based in Kansas City, Missouri, and Marylia Kelley, of Tri-Valley Communities Against a Radioactive Environment, or Tri-Valley CAREs, based in Livermore, California, joined him.
Kelley described the U.S. nuclear weapons laboratories at Livermore, Sandia and Los Alamos as the driving force behind the Obama administration's plan to increase funding for nuclear weapons and build new bomb factories. She described the laboratories as the "taproot of funding" for nuclear weapons and asserted that their survival is linked to continuing nuclear weapons work. Kelley added that the nuclear weapons laboratories confuse "personal security with national security."
You can view the presentation at a new source of information about the NPT, which is NPT TV. It is a project of a Heidelberg-based grassroots organization, called the Student Peace Bureau, which is working on issues of peace and development. Since 2007, it has produced almost 250 interviews with non-governmental organizations and diplomats reporting on the NPT proceedings. The presentation may be viewed through the website http://npt-tv.net; Facebook-presence http://ho.io/NPT; or Tweets on http://twitter.com/NPTtv
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