August 4-6th. Hiroshima, Nagaaki Photo Exhibit & Survivors Artwork returns to Toronto City Hall at the Rotunda. View dozens of unique artwork, drawings and photos depicting before and after the atomic bombings of 1945. Learn about the effects of radiation and what people around the world are doing to bring peace and help abolish nuclear weapons. For details contact Helen Chilas, h-chilas(at)r o g e r s.com

Read More: www.hiroshimadaycoalition.ca

Wednesday, May 5, 2010 at 5:15 PM - 8:00 PM
Toronto Peace Garden, Nathan Phillips Square: Minute of Silence at 5:15 PM
Toronto City Hall Council Chamber: Public Meeting starts at 5:30 PM

Toronto Mayor for Peace, David Miller, will be greeting fifty A-bombing survivors and peace activists from the Japan Council Against Nuclear & Hydrogen Bombs for an extraordinary Public Event to be held inside the Toronto City Council Chamber.

The event will also feature a panel of prominent Toronto peace activists with a lively audience strategizing session for a citizens’ appeal to Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Toronto City Council to take an active part in the growing world-wide nuclear weapons abolition movement.

Returning from the 2010 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference at the United Nations Headquarters in New York City, the Japanese anti-nuclear weapons activists will also be reporting back to Toronto citizens on the May 2nd gathering where tens of thousands of people rallied international heads of states: “Never Again!”

Toronto’s rich history in the nuclear weapons abolition movement includes becoming one of the first cities to join the “Mayors for Peace” campaign. Adopted in 1983 by Toronto City Council, this “Inter-City Solitary Program” for the abolition of nuclear weapons was founded by the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Today, Mayors for Peace boasts 3,880 member cities from 143 countries and regions.

This year marks the 65th Anniversary of the 1945 Hiroshima, Nagasaki A-Bombings in Japan.

For More Information

Please Visit Online: www.hiroshimadaycoalition.ca or www.hiroshimadaycoalition.ca/may5event.html

Contact Toronto Hiroshima Day Coalition: Helen Chilas 416-473-8238, h-chilas(at)rogers(dot)com or Anton Wagner 416-863 1209, awagner(at)yorku(dot)ca

For more information:

Please visist:

w: www.clintonfranciscans.com
e: sisters(at)clintonfranciscans(dot)com

At our 11.30am lunch meeting a representative from the County Commission was there to read out a Proclamation to our group, it is good to see that the county commission is open enough to discus these issues with us; and declare publicly their support for nuclear disarmament. A big thanks to Jean Westerman who has organised most of this, she has done an incredible amount of work to get the county commissioners to support our walk and also organised some public meetings for us.
After finishing our 16 miles we had a great dinner and then we were straight of to the university for a public discussion. One of the County Commissioners was there to read their proclamation again and then the Mayor welcomed us.

Mayor Spossey then read out a proclamation declaring March 27th; (the day we entered his area) Footprints for Peace day.

We have had many meetings along the way and it is becoming quite clear that here is so much more work that needs to be done in regard to nuclear disarmament in this country, and even more on the issues of uranium mining, nuclear power and the waste issues.

But we can get there if we work together and create a Nuclear Free Future for the next generation.

For more information:

Marcus Atkinson
e: marcus (at) footprintsforpeace (dot) net
w: www.footprintsforpeace.net

Saturday, Feburary 13

The International Peace Walk Towards a Nuclear Free Future, which is organized by Footprints for Peace will begin a journey of more than 700 miles, stepping off from the Scarboro Road gate of the Y12 Nuclear Weapons Complex in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, on Saturday, February 13 at 9:00am. Over the next three months, walkers will follow a route through Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York, arriving at the United Nations in New York City on May 1, 2010.

The Abolition Flame, which travelled with the Global March for Peace and Non Violence will continue its journey to the Nuclear Nonprolferation Treaty review conference with people from around the globe who will converge at the Y-12 Complex in Oak Ridge on Saturday morning. Y12 enriched the uranium that was used in the atomic bombs that destroyed Hiroshima, Japan, in August 1945 and is currently upgrading and refurbishing the United States nuclear arsenal. Footprints for Peace, an Ohio based organization, has drawn together people from Australia, Japan and Europe, along with people from across the United States including Indigenous peoples, religious leaders, Buddhist monks, students, artists and families—all who are joining in the Walk to demonstrate their commitment to a nuclear free world for future generations.

The Peace Walk will travel to the United Nations carrying a letter from Tadatoshi Akiba, Mayor of Hiroshima and Director of Mayors for Peace endorsing the walk and encouraging mayors along the walk’s route to become a part of Mayors for Peace campaign and join the effort to create a nuclear weapons free world.

Footprints for Peace Australian organizer Marcus Atkinson: “While nuclear disarmament is something the world must achieve, we can only do it if we all work together to demand our leaders fulfil the promises made decades ago in the Nonproliferation Treaty. We also need to use this time to look at the whole cycle of the nuclear industry. Nuclear weapons are the final product of an industry that has destroyed Indigenous people’s lands throughout the world, caused the evacuation of hundreds of thousands of people and left whole cities uninhabitable. There is no “Peaceful Use” of nuclear power, as the process from the very beginning of the cycle is so destructive. This walk will bring attention to all aspects of the nuclear industry and will be demanding progress on negotiations to create a nuclear weapons free world, while also creating debate on the nuclear industry as a whole.”

Footprints for Peace will be holding public meetings along their three-month walk to the United Nations and are encouraging all those who believe in a nuclear free world to come out and walk with them for an hour a day or the entire walk. The Walk will arrive in New York City for the opening of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty review conference that will begin on the 2nd of May at the United Nations.

OREPA’s Ralph Hutchison said, “Our leaders are incapable of building a world without nuclear weapons. It won’t happen without pressure being put on them by all of us. It is our responsibility to create a peaceful world for future generations, and if we are unwilling to take a stand, we can be sure our leaders won’t.”

Additional information

A benefit circus and potluck dinner will be held in support of the Walk Toward a Nuclear Free Future on Friday, February 12 at the Birdhouse, 800 N. Fourth St, Knoxville, TN. Potluck dinner to start at 6:30; circus at 8:00pm. Donations will be accepted to support the Walk.

For more information

Marcus Atkinson
e: marcus (at) footprintsforpeace (dot) net
w: www.footprintsforpeace.net

“Après le Nobel d’Obama, quel avenir pour le désarmement nucléaire ?” avec JM Collin, auteur de “La bombe, l’univers opaque du nucléaire”.

Présence toute la semaine du parcours-expo : “La non-violence, une force pour agir !”, conçue par le MAN (Movement pour une Alternative Non-violente)

Information: http://nonviolence.fr/spip.php?rubrique70

Le comité de Laragne-Montéglin et de la Vallée du Buëch organise une Conférence-débat le samedi 28 novembre de 15h à 16h30

“Abolir l’arme nucléaire : pourquoi ? comment ?”

Salle Pluriactivités - Eyguians

Avec la participation de Pierre Villard, co-président du Mouvement de la Paix, coordinateur de la Campagne internationale pour abolir l’arme nucléaire.

Infos : laragne@mvtpaix.org

le 12 Novembre 2009 à CARCASSONNE

13h : Accueil de la Flamme SQUARE GAMBETTA, formation du cortège avec fanfare jusqu’à la place CARNOT,

13h30-14h : Place Carnot: discours, musique, lecture de poèmes sur la Paix, distribution de tracts,

14h - 20h : Visualisation du Film “Désarmer pour vivre!” de l’ACDN et actions auprès des scolaires.

Veuillez contacter le Collectif Carcassonnais de la Marche Mondiale pour la Paix au hacquard.gerard@wanadoo.f.

200 people, from 31 departments and from 8 countries, representing 32 organisations, launched  Sunday 18 October, in front of the Peace Memorial in Caen, “6 months of actions for nuclear weapon abolition” to rally public opinion within sight of the NPT Review Conference on May 2010 in the ONU, New York.

Replying to the appeal of French fields of the international networks Abolition 2000 and ICAN –international campaign to abolish nuclear weapons—, people taking part in the workshop exchanged their ideas on the nuclear disarmament state, after the positive international evolutions of the last months, and decided coordinating their actions to discuss the French implication on the multilateral nuclear disarmament process.
The awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to Barack Obama has been interpreted as a support to action for nuclear weapons abolition, essential to save the planet and the mankind from a disappearance planned by the atomic weapon.

For more information, please click here or read the rest of the article below the jump.

The strong point of this workshop has been the support to the Nuclear Weapons Convention, which was started by the NGOs as a complement to NPT weaknesses, brought to the UN by Malaysia and Costa Rica and currently supported by 127 countries.

This 4th Nuclear disarmament days has welcomed partners from other nuclear powers that have come from the US, Russia and UK, as well as from Belgium, Germany, Japan and Australia. Amongst them, Sergueï Kolesnikov, representative of the Russian Duma and Jérémy Corbyn, British member of Parliament.

Based on a new international context that makes atomic weapons more useless and dangerous than ever, the 200 delegates decided to commit themselves to a campaign of interpellation of the French president in order to make France support the Model Nuclear Weapons Convention and a series of decentralized initiatives that form the “Abolition Tour de France”. The beginning of the Tour was the arrival of the “Abolition Flame”, that came from Hiroshima, and its transfer to the representatives of the 31 departments. They decided to participate massively in the events that will take place before the NPT Revision Conference and the conference work. They have set themselves the minimal goal of 100 French people in the UN, New York, on May 2010.

This 4th Nuclear Disarmament Days has reached its double objective: revitalising the action for nuclear weapons abolition in France and increasing the number of partners of the social field that commit.

Maynie Thompson, Krystal Boyes and Rafael de la Rubia with the nuclear abolition torches

A flame promoting the abolition of nuclear weapons kicked-off the World March for Peace and Nonviolence in Wellington on 2 October the 140th anniversary of Gandhi’s birthday. The Nuclear Abolition Flame will be carried around  the world on special torches designed in New Zealand and made from native New Zealand wood. The flame will be used to inspire people to support the United Nations Secretary-General’s five-point plan for nuclear disarmament which includes a call for negotiations on a treaty to prohibit and eliminate nuclear weapons entirely.

Following the end of the World March in Punta de Vacas, Argentina, the Nuclear Abolition Flame will be carried to New York for the 2010 Non-Proliferation Treaty meeting, to encourage governments at the meeting to start nuclear abolition negotiations. The physical flame is supported by a virtual flame which anyone can spread to friends, family and acquaintances, and which includes action ideas and contacts to promote nuclear abolition.

The flame was brought to New Zealand by Mayors for Peace Vice-President Bob Harvey, and used on preliminary Peace Marches in Auckland, Waiheke Island, Tauranga and Whanganui before kicking off the World Peace March in Wellington on 2 October. One of the torches was carried 207 kilometers by foot on a peace march from Whanganui to arrive in Wellington in time to join the World Peace March opening events. The Peace Flame was also used in the 3 October Christchurch Peace Walk in support of the World Peace March.

In Wellington, the Nuclear Abolition Flame was presented to World Peace March leader Rafael de La Rubia by Krystal Boyes (one of the  Whanganui–to-Wellington peace marchers) and Maynie Tompson (one of the Waiheke Island peace marchers). 90-year-old Maynie Thompson also walked on the Wellington Peace Heritage Walk launched on 2 October by the World Peace March, and in 1996 walked across the United States in the Great USA Peace March.

Photo: 90-year-olds Maynie Thompson and Kit Nelson carry the Nuclear Abolition Flame in Waitkere, New Zealand

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