In June 72 new members were welcomed. The previous months there was systematic growth of membership as a result of coordinated efforts in Australia, Brazil, Canada, Greece, Italy, Japan, Spain, Sweden and the USA, while a new effort was developed in Ethiopia last month.
Mayors for Peace congratulates the U.S. Conference of Mayors (USCM) for unanimously adopting a groundbreaking resolution last month at the conclusion of its 78th annual USCM meeting in Oklahoma City on June 14, 2010. The resolution is Supporting U.S. Participation in Global Elimination of Nuclear Weapons and Redirection of Nuclear Weapons Spending to Meet the Needs of Cities.
Membership of Mayors for Peace continues to grow at a record pace; with over one thousand cities having joined Mayors for Peace since August 2009. With over half of the one hundred most populous cities of the world and over half of the capital cities of the world now members, the organization represents over three-quarters of a billion people around the world. This unprecedented growth demonstrates the determination of cities around the world to abolish nuclear weapons to protect their citizens from nuclear annihilation.
Last month membership increased significantly in Australia (8), Brazil (1), Canada (2), Ethiopia (4) Germany (1), Greece (2), Italy (1), Japan (39), Macedonia (1), Mexico (1) Spain (5), Sweden (2), Thailand (1), USA (2), Venezuela (1) and Viet Nam (1).
The general distribution of membership remains unchanged form last month. Nearly half of our member mayors are from Europe (1,984 +12); Asia has the second largest number of members (1,171 +41); followed by Latin America and the Caribbean (313 +3); North-America (248 +4), Africa (210 +4) and Oceania (111 +8).
To work with cities around the world, the Mayors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki founded Mayors for Peace at a Special Session on Disarmament at the UN in 1982. In 2003 the organization launched the 2020 Vision, a campaign to abolish nuclear weapons by the year 2020. Mayors for Peace has organized Mayoral Delegations to all the Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conferences and Preparatory Committees meetings since 2004, calling for a commencement of negotiations towards the realization of peaceful world free from nuclear weapons.
In 2008 Mayors for Peace advanced the Hiroshima-Nagasaki Protocol, a clear roadmap towards the total abolition of nuclear weapons by 2020. At the citizen level the organization conducted a Cities Are Not Targets project, a petition drive to support the total abolition of nuclear weapons by 2020. On the occasion of the 2010 NPT Review Conference this past May more than 1 million signatures were submitted to the president of the NPT Review Conference at the UN in New York.
In August 1945, a single atomic bombs dropped on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki instantaneously reduced them to rubble, taking vast numbers of precious lives. To ensure that the atomic tragedy is never repeated anywhere on earth, Hiroshima and Nagasaki have consistently sought to persuade the world that nuclear weapons are inhumane and have continually called for their total abolition.
