What if war took a day off… | International Day of Peace September 21
Saturday, 21 August 2010
30 sec produced to promote September 21, “International Day of Peace”
(...more)Tuesday, 31 August 2010
Friday, 20 August 2010
SOMALIA: A day in the life of a Mines Advisory Group (MAG) Project Manager
“The day begins at five o’clock, as mosques call out morning prayer and the sound of traffic and children can be heard filling the streets. The first task is to make some strong coffee and check the online newspapers. We need to keep well abreast of affairs in Puntland State of Somalia in order to ensure that our humanitarian activities do not get caught up in the middle of an altogether separate issue or dispute.
MAG has been operating in Puntland for the last two years and has worked hard to build relations and acceptance within all sectors of society. Our core message when visiting a new areas or communities is that dangerous items of Explosive Remnants of War (ERW) know no clan or religious lines, therefore it is in everyone’s interest to assist and facilitate in our work saving lives and building futures.
(...more)Thursday, 19 August 2010
Price of diplomacy is worth paying
HOW valuable, in today’s world, is Australia’s diplomacy – compared, say, with its military spending or with its official, governmental aid?
How about the former being worth 36 times our spending on diplomacy in the coming few years, and the latter heading towards 11 times? This is an area in which Australia’s priorities have become seriously confused.
China ‘extending military reach’
China has increased spending on its military and expanded the reach of its military operations abroad, according to a new report from the US defence department.
The report (pdf), an annual study sent to the US congress, estimated China’s military spending in 2009 at $150bn, an increase of roughly 7.5 per cent from the previous year.
Some of China’s expanded military efforts have been positive, the report found.
“Some of these missions and associated capabilities have allowed the [Chinese army] to contribute to international peacekeeping efforts, humanitarian assistance and disaster relief,” the report said. “[But] others appear designed to improve the [army's] ability for extended-range power projection.”
(...more)Making the World Safer Through Better Budget Priorities
Today [August 12, 2010] marks the release of a new report that advocates cutting a little over 10% of the country’s post-World War II record military budget. The report, A Unified Security Budget for the United States, proposes shifting at least half of the savings from reductions in Pentagon spending into diplomacy, economic development, fighting the effects of climate change, securing nuclear weapons against theft, and other measures that are far more likely to make us safe than buying more bombs, tanks, or missiles…
But over at the Pentagon, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates is pursuing a different kind of spending shift. Gates’s spending shift — wrongly described as a “cut” in Pentagon spending in most press accounts — involves cutting overhead and reforming wasteful practices to free up funds to spend more on weapons and weapons research.
(...more)Taking Disarmament Seriously
People sometimes forget that the boy who cried wolf ended up being eaten. True, nobody has been killed by a nuclear weapon since the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki 65 years ago this month. And with Cold War tensions long past, it’s all too easy for policy-makers and publics to resist the doomsayers, be complacent about the threats that these weapons continue to pose, and to regard attempts to eliminate them, or contain their spread, as well-meaning but futile.
But the truth is, it’s sheer dumb luck – not statesmanship, good professional management or anything inherently stable about the world’s nuclear weapons systems – that has let us survive so long without catastrophe. With 23,000 nuclear weapons (equivalent to 150,000 Hiroshimas) still in existence, more than 7,000 of them actively deployed and more than 2,000 still on dangerously high launch-on-warning alert, we can’t assume our luck will hold indefinitely.
(...more)Pakistan: As flood waters recede, hidden killers lie in wait
With a real risk of mines and unexploded ordnance being washed down with the floods, people living in previously uncontaminated areas are now at risk.
(...more)Friday, 13 August 2010
Myanmar/Burma: Producer of the World’s Largest Landmine Victims
On 3 August 2010 an elephant injured by a landmine while working in Myanmar/Burma arrived at the Friends of the Asian Elephant (FAE) hospital in northern Thailand.
(...more)Tuesday, 10 August 2010
Friday, 6 August 2010
Use 65th anniversary of Hiroshima bombing to push for a world without nuclear weapons
Aug. 6 and 9 mark the 65th anniversary of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, respectively. This is the first year for representatives from the U.K., the U.S., and France — all three of which possess nuclear weapons — and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to attend the peace ceremony in Hiroshima. The international community is finally beginning to envisage the complete abolition of nuclear weapons as a realistic goal. Our hope is for the ceremonies commemorating the 65th anniversary of the bombings to be held not only to remember those who perished and to pray for peace, but as an occasion in which we solidify our resolution to make “a world without nuclear weapons” a reality.
(...more)Wednesday, 4 August 2010
UN chief urges Japanese young people to become leaders for disarmament
Stressing that Japan has a unique role to play in the area of nuclear disarmament, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today called on the nation’s young people to lead the way on efforts to rid the world of these deadly weapons.
“Become leaders for disarmament,” Mr. Ban told students at Waseda University in Tokyo. “The international community is looking to you for your leadership and for your vision.”
(...more)Monday, 2 August 2010
Africa’s compelling progress toward peace and prosperity
In the past four years of the Global Peace Index, run by the Institute of Economics and Peace, Africa emerges as the most progressive region in terms of peacefulness. This is not the say it is the most peaceful; it isn’t. But, from a low base, the region is moving toward peace at a much faster pace than any other region as the number and intensity of conflicts decrease, military expenditure is reduced, and access to small arms is lessened.
(...more)Saturday, 31 July 2010
Aid Groups in Asia Hail Start of New Cluster Munitions Treaty
The new international convention banning the use and production of cluster munitions takes effect on Sunday, with more than 30 countries having ratified the treaty. The Convention on Cluster Munitions is seen as a major step in disarmament, even as unexploded ordnance from the Vietnam War 40 years ago still extracts a deadly toll in southeast Asia, especially Laos.
(...more)Wednesday, 23 June 2010
Time to know more about peace than war
The money used to maintain nuclear weapons can be better invested in improving lives. In the age of weapons of mass destruction, mistakes or bad judgment calls can cause widespread devastation. It may be time to start investing in the art of peace instead…
(...more)Saturday, 12 June 2010
GLOBAL: “Much work left to do” on cluster munitions
MADRID – Great strides have been made in getting cluster munitions banned but there is still some way to go, said campaigners at a global conference on the Convention on Cluster Munitions (CCM) that ended on 9 June in Santiago, Chile.
“It’s great to see that more than 100 governments are taking part in the conference, including non-signatories such as Argentina and Vietnam. We’ve also been very pleased with the liveliness of the debate,” Cluster Munitions Coalition (CMC) coordinator Thomas Nash told IRIN.
(...more)Monday, 7 June 2010
World military expenditure increases despite financial crisis
Stockholm- Worldwide military expenditure in 2009 totalled an estimated $1531 billion, according to new figures released today by Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). This represents an increase of 5.9% in real terms compared to 2008 and an increase of 49% since 2000. SIPRI today launches the 2010 edition of its Yearbook on Armaments, Disarmament and International Security. In addition to the release of its much anticipated military expenditure figures, Yearbook 2010 offers an authoritative account and analysis of recent developments in a number of security-related fields. The global financial crisis, the conflict in Afghanistan, and nuclear weapons and disarmament are among some of this year’s cross-cutting security themes
(...more)Tuesday, 11 May 2010
Amnesty calls for ‘bullet-proof’ Arms Trade Treaty
Amnesty International have today joined with campaigners in more than 100 countries to call upon government leaders to develop a “bullet-proof” Arms Trade Treaty. Amnesty’s call came as they published a report [Killer Facts] on abuses fuelled by the trade in weapons.
Their comments come ahead of negotiations between leaders which are expected to begin in July. Some fear that proposals for the treaty will be watered down, while other campaigners have warned against putting too much hope in the treaty without wider political change…
“It beggars belief how no international agreement exists to regulate the global trade of weapons, despite the fact that there are global treaties for items such as bananas or dinosaur bones,” said Amnesty’s Oliver Sprague.
(...more)Sunday, 2 May 2010
Kazakhstan leads the way towards a world free of Nuclear Weapons
President Nazarbayev states that a world free of nuclear weapons is ‘a grandiose goal which cannot be reached in short historical terms’ but can only become a reality ‘through joint efforts of all countries and nations’. This point was firmly underlined on Tuesday 6th April when the UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon visited ‘Ground Zero’ in East Kazakhstan, where the Soviets tested more than 600 nuclear bombs. The UN Secretary General reaffirmed his own commitment to a world free of nuclear weapons and praised Kazakhstan and President Nazarbayev for their leadership role on nuclear non-proliferation.
(...more)Friday, 30 April 2010
Hiroshima mayor backs churches’ bid to end nuclear weapons
Endorsing a campaign by UK churches, Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba of Hiroshima has stressed the crucial role of British citizens in helping to rid the world of nuclear weapons.
(...more)Ban appeals for nuclear-weapon-free zones to spread around the world
On the eve of a major non-proliferation conference to be held at United Nations Headquarters, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today called for the number of nuclear-weapon-free zones to multiply and ultimately span the globe.
(...more)
