International

(OneWorld.net) – Marking the 64th anniversary of the U.S. nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki that killed over 100,000 civilians, a disarmament group celebrated a day of peace last week. The annual Sadako Peace Day ceremony was inspired by a young girl who died from leukemia as a result of the atomic bomb that hit Hiroshima in 1945.

Was I dreaming? It looked like I was inside a spacecraft. It was leaving, but something was holding back the launch. Everything started trembling . And, suddenly I woke up. Yes, I realized that I was dreaming and yet something was going wrong. I looked up to the roof and I noticed chandelier swinging overhead. There was noise of plates and objects were shaking and bouncing.

This talk was given by Dario Ergas on July 18th, 2009, to the Laura Rodriguez Foundation. It deepens on nonviolent responses, as a way of life, a search for the sacred, and the manifestation of what is truly human. It is mainly a moral act. Nonviolence is the force that will transform the world because I will transform myself in order to not become those with whom I struggle.

The opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi has been sentenced to further 18 months home imprisonment which would prevent her from participating in Myanmar’s elections in May 2010. Ms Suu Ky won the Peace Nobel Price in 1991. In 1990 she had won the right to be Prime Minister when her coalition won 59% of the votes but a military junta prevented her from assuming office.

The Copenhaguen conference calls for Arctic nuclear-weapon-free zone to be demilitarized as Antarctica. It was attended by parliamentarians, academics, scientists, indigenous representatives and activists from Arctic countries and from established nuclear-weapon-free zones. Participants are flying to Thule military base, Greenland – site of B52 nuclear bomber crash in 1968.

On August 9, at a widely attended annual commemoration ceremony held to honor the victims of the atomic bombings of 1945, the Mayor of Nagasaki, Tomihisa Taue, issued an invitation urging leaders of all countries currently possessing or developing nuclear weapons to visit Nagasaki, a city which has suffered nuclear destruction.

Speaking in a public forum in Nairobi, Hillary Clinton signaled a potential shift in US opposition to the International Criminal Court. Clinton said she feels “great regret” the US is not a signatory. A number of states, including China, Russia, India and the United States, have not joined the present 108 member states. Chile to be 109th as of September.

Rafael de la Rubia exposed the World March proposals during an event gathering some of the main representatives from NGOs for the abolition of nuclear weapons. The conference took place yesterday, August 6, in Hiroshima. The central issue was the role of organizations in the revision of the Treaty of Non-Proliferation of atomic weapons.

It’s encouraging that U.S. and Russia leaders have once again put nuclear disarmament on the negotiating table, but we cannot forget that we live in a highly dangerous moment. The danger stems also from the madness of violent groups with possible access to nuclear material and the real risk of accident that could set off a devastating conflict.

Read the complete address “Peace Declaration, 2009” of Tadatoshi Akiba at Hiroshima’s bomb ceremony on 6th August. The mayor of Hiroshima and president of the NGO Mayors for Peace declare that “we support President Obama when he said in Prague in April of this year ‘the only role for nuclear weapons is to be abolished’.