nuclear-news

Nuclear Disarmament Panel’s plans – too little, too slow

A-Bomb Victims, NGOs Dissatisfied With Nuclear Panel’s Action Plans HIROSHIMA, Oct 23 (Bernama)— Nuclear arms reduction plans crafted this week by an international panel in Hiroshima will take too long to bring about a world free of nuclear arms, atomic bomb survivors and anti-nuclear non-governmental organisations say. According to Japan’s Kyodo news agency, the International Commission on Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament agreed on the action plans after a three-day meeting in the world’s first atom-bombed city to discuss recommendations to world leaders on concrete steps for nuclear arms reduction.A report compiled by the commission contains a three-phase action agenda for the short, medium and long terms covering the periods to 2012, 2025 and beyond 2025 to reduce nuclear weapons in the world to zero.
Kazuo Okoshi, 69, of the Hiroshima Council of A-Bomb Sufferers Organisations, said: “Hiroshima Mayor (Tadatoshi) Akiba and the Mayors for Peace set the goal of abolishing nuclear weapons by 2020 while the ICNND called for reducing the number of nuclear arms only to a certain level by 2025.”

“We, the survivors, would like to see the goal (of a nuclear-free world) while we are alive,” he said.
It is not good to lag behind the current momentum for nuclear abolition,” Okoshi said, referring to hopes fueled following the award of the Nobel Peace Prize to United States President Barack Obama, who outlined a vision for a world without nuclear weapons in a speech in April.

In Hiroshima, commission members agreed to drastically reduce the number of nuclear warheads in the world from the current more than 20,000 to an unspecified level. The level is presumed to be higher than the initial target of 1,000 or fewer stipulated in an earlier draft report by the commission.

Behind the ICNND’s change of heart was strong opposition from some nuclear-armed states to reducing their nukes at the same rate as Russia and the United States, according to sources close to the commission. Such states insisted their stockpiles are already kept at minimum levels…………….

Philip White, international liaison officer of Citizens’ Nuclear Information Centre, recommended the Japanese government declare its support for the no-first-use doctrine and encourage the United States to adopt the doctrine before the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty review conference in May…………….
The ICNND is an independent global initiative established under the leadership of Australia and Japan in 2008.

BERNAMA – A-Bomb Victims, NGOs Dissatisfied With Nuclear Panel’s Action Plans

October 24, 2009 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | 1, Japan, weapons and war