Reporting on Conflict | Media Watch Blog

• News source:
• The NGO Committee on Disarmament, Peace and Security

For more than thirty years, the Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) Committee on Disarmament, Peace and Security has provided services and facilities to hundreds of citizens’ groups concerned with the peace and disarmament activities of the United Nations. Because of its distinguished efforts as conference organizer, network clearing house, newspaper publisher, and year-round UN liaison, the NGO Committee is viewed as a primary ally of the international movement for arms control, peace and disarmament, and the continuing body designated to serve this worldwide constituency.

• News source:
• published October 2010
• UNODA
• link to full document

Non-governmental Organization Presentations at the 2010 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference

• News source:
• 19 november 2010
• Otago Daily Times
• By John Gibb

New Zealand can do more to help rid the world of the threat posed by nuclear weapons, Swedish politician and peace campaigner Maj Britt Theorin says.

During a visit to the University of Otago campus this week, Ms Theorin, a Social Democratic politician who was one of Sweden’s first Ambassadors for Disarmament, noted that Sweden and New Zealand had a long history of promoting nuclear disarmament.

New Zealand had put itself on the world map when it had earlier banned nuclear weapons and nuclear-powered vessels from the country.

• News source:
• 18 November 2010
• CNN
• Vice President Joe Biden weighs in on the GOP's control of the House and his role in shaping Iraq's future on "Larry King Live," 9 ET tonight on CNN.
• By Alan Silverleib

WASHINGTON – President Obama urged the lame duck Senate to quickly ratify the new arms control treaty with Russia, arguing that United States cannot “afford to gamble” on the need to effectively monitor that country’s nuclear stockpile.

• News source:
• 18 November 2010
• Sydney Morning Herald
• By Julian Borger

LONDON – Barack Obama’s hopes of reshaping US foreign policy stood on the brink of failure, after two of his most cherished initiatives – nuclear disarmament and better relations with Moscow – were dealt serious setbacks.

According to a NATO document, a move to withdraw US tactical nuclear weapons from Europe has been omitted from the alliance’s draft strategic doctrine, due to be adopted by a summit this weekend in Lisbon.

And in Washington, a Republican Senate leader signalled that the nuclear arms control treaty Mr Obama signed in April with the Russian President, Dmitry Medvedev, is unlikely be ratified this year during the so-called lame duck session of Congress.

• News source:
• 16 November 2010
• Financial Times
• By Quentin Peel and Gerrit Wiesmann in Berlin

Germany is insisting on the NATO alliance adopting strong language on the importance of nuclear disarmament in its new strategic concept this week, in spite of misgivings by France…

Germany would like to establish an arms control committee within Nato, in order to give disarmament all the more emphasis in its activities, according to officials in Brussels. France is deeply opposed to any move that would turn the Atlantic alliance into an “arms control organisation”.

• News source:
• 12 November 2010
• Reuters

VIENNA – The U.N. nuclear watchdog said on Friday it protects the confidentiality of information gathered during inspections, indirectly rejecting an Iranian accusation it would feed sensitive information to Washington.

Relations between Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) have become increasingly strained over the last year, with the Vienna-based agency voicing frustration over what it says is lack of Iranian cooperation with its inspectors…

The IAEA wants Iran to implement what it calls the Additional Protocol, which permits unfettered inspections beyond declared nuclear sites to ferret out any covert atomic activity.

• News source:
• originally published 29 Septmeber 2010
• IPS
• By Pavol Stracansky interviews Czech analyst Tomas Karasek

PRAGUE – More than a year ago U.S. President Barack Obama came to Eastern Europe to announce his vision of a world without nuclear weapons. One year later, in the same place, the Czech capital Prague, he signed a deal slashing nuclear weapons stocks with his Russian counterpart Dmitri Medvedev.

Many commentators saw the choice of location as symbolic — one of the most prominent capitals in a region where nuclear weapons had been deployed in the depths of the Cold War when the world was thought to be its closest yet to nuclear war.

But its choice also stood at odds with what analysts say is a societal indifference to the debate on nuclear abolition matched only by its leaders’ diffidence in committing to fully backing a Global Zero plan for nuclear weapons. Prominent Czech international relations analyst Tomas Karasek of the Association for International Affairs in Prague explained to IPS the reasons why full nuclear disarmament is unlikely to ever get the region’s political support…

• News source:
• originally published 11 November 2010
• NTI: Global Security Newswire

Shortly after U.S. President Obama gave a high-profile 2009 speech on his dream of seeing global nuclear disarmament, a Canadian defense document offered a sharply pessimistic assessment about the prospects of attaining such a world, the Canadian Press reported yesterday (see GNS, Aug. 3).

Military analysts from the Arms and Proliferation Control Policy Directorate wrote the classified memo for Defense Minister Peter MacKay the day after North Korea conducted its second nuclear test blast in May 2009…

When Obama gave his April speech in the Prague, he said ““I’m not naive. This goal will not be reached quickly — perhaps not in my lifetime. It will take patience and persistence.”

• News source:
• originally published 10 November 2010
• Sydney Morning Herald
• By Alain Jean-Robert

Iran has proposed a resumption of its long-stalled nuclear negotiations with major world powers in Istanbul on November 23 or December 5, a European diplomatic source said.

• News source:

International Peace Art Competition
Harmony For Peace Foundation
1st International Juried Peace Art Competition & Exhibition
Grand Prize $1,000
Details

• News source:
• 15 November 2010
• CNW
• By Family Mediation Canada (press release)

WATERLOO, ON – Family Mediation Canada is celebrating 25 years as the national association for family mediators with a two-day conference, a wine and cheese event, and an Annual General Meeting in our nation’s capital. FMC, OAFM and CCER are proud to present “The Crossroads of Conflict: A Journey into the Heart of Dispute Resolution”, on November 18th and 19th, featuring Kenneth Cloke. Kenneth Cloke is well known internationally as a mediator, trainer, speaker and writer. He is the recipient of numerous awards and founder of Mediators Beyond Borders. Our Annual General Meeting takes place on Saturday, November 20th at 1:00 p.m.

FMC is hosting a Wine and Cheese Event on Thursday, November 18th, 2010 at 5:30 p.m.

All events take place at The Centurion Conference and Event Centre, Agora Hall 3 & Adriatic Hall 4, 170 Colonnade Rd. South, Ottawa, ON.

The press is welcome to attend the wine and cheese event.