Skip to main content

The Middle East free of WMD?

The Bertrand Russell Peace Russell Foundation supports an important initiative from Greece (see below). A nuclear-weapons-free zone in the Middle East would enhance security in the region and the wider world. For decades, Israel's large nuclear arsenal has created instability, with Saudi Arabia now identified as the latest regional power seeking its own nuclear weapon. A nuclear arms race in the Middle East is of direct concern to the European Union, which abuts the region in the Eastern Mediterranean. So, as Greece prepares to assume the rotating Presidency of the EU in January 2014, it is vital that the Greek Government keeps in mind the interests and concerns of the wider Union and ensures these are represented at the proposed conference in Finland, initiated by the UN under the auspices of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, whenever it takes place. Greece has a vital role to play in securing Europe's peace and security. This cannot be done in absentia, and we trust that the Greek Government will attend in Helsinki.          


http://ippnwgr.blogspot.gr/2013/11/blog-post_9.html

COMMON DECLARATION ABOUT IRAN


The Hellenic Medical Society against Nuclear and Biochemical Threat (Greek Affiliate of IPPNW) and the Observatory for International Organizations and Globalization (PADOP) consider as a positive development the progress in talks between Iran and the Group 5 +1 countries - the five permanent members of the UN Security Council (U.S., Russia, China, France, UK ) and Germany.

We applaud the historic agreement about the Iranian nuclear program and the lifting of some sanctions imposed on that country in the Middle East that have serious consequences for the life and health of people.

This development is a crucial first step for peace in the troubled Middle East. It creates better conditions for flourishing, and promotes the UN initiative to transform the region into a zone free of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction, with the participation of all countries in the region and for the benefit of all the peoples (Israelis and Palestinians included).

In the light of this development we believe that the absence of Greece in the international initiatives for peace in the Middle East is a big mistake. Finland has again stirred the initiative for an international conference in mid December 2013 on the conversion of the Middle East zone free of nuclear and other WMD.

We suggest that Greek government should participate in this conference, even if only as an observer.


Panos Trigazis, President of PADOP  
Maria Arvaniti Sotiropoulou, President of the Greek affiliate of IPPNW
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Keywords: Art, Culture and Society in 1980s Britain

Tate Liverpool: Exhibition 28 February – 11 May 2014 Adult £8.80 (without donation £8) Concession £6.60 (without donation £6) Help Tate by including the voluntary donation to enable Gift Aid Keywords: Art, Culture and Society in 1980s Britain , is a new take on how the changes in the meaning of words reflect the cultural shifts in our society. This dynamic exhibition takes its name and focus from the seminal 1976 Raymond Williams book on the vocabulary of culture and society. An academic and critic influenced by the New Left, Williams defined ‘Keywords’ as terms that repeatedly crop up in our discussion of culture and society. His book contains more than 130 short essays on words such as ‘violence’, ‘country’, ‘criticism’, ‘media’, ‘popular’ and ‘exploitation’ providing an account of the word’s current use, its origin and the range of meanings attached to it. Williams expressed the wish some other ‘form of presentation could be devised’ for his book, and this exhibition i...
58 comments
Read more

'Not as dumb as he looks' - Muhammad Ali on Bertrand Russell

In his autobiography The Greatest: My Own Story , Muhammad Ali recounts how Bertrand Russell got in contact with him, and their ensuing correspondence: *** For days I was talking to people from a whole new world. People who were not even interested in sports, especially prizefighting. One in particular I will never forget: a remarkable man, seventy years older than me but with a fresh outlook which seemed fairer than that of any white man I had ever met in America. My brother Rahaman had handed me the phone, saying, ‘Operator says a Mr. Bertrand Russell is calling Mr. Muhammad Ali.’ I took it and heard the crisp accent of an Englishman: ‘Is this Muhammad Ali?’ When I said it was, he asked if I had been quoted correctly. I acknowledged that I had been, but wondered out loud, ‘Why does everyone want to know what I think about Viet Nam? I’m no politician, no leader. I’m just an athlete.’ ‘Well,’ he said, ‘this is a war more barbaric than others, and because a mystique is built up ...
25 comments
Read more

James Kirkup

James Kirkup has died, aged 91. In 2004 he sent us a copy of No More Hiroshimas . He had originally collected together this volume of hia A-bomb poems in 1983, but it took twenty years before we published it 'as a real book'. James recounts 'My A-Bomb Biography' in his preface. Here are the opening lines of the title poem, No Mor e Hiroshimas . At the station exit, my bundle in hand, Early the winter afternoon's wet snow Falls thinly round me, out of a crudded sun. I had forgotten to remember where I was. Looking about, I see it might be anywhere - A station, a town like any other in Japan, Ramshackle, muddy, noisy, drab; a cheerfully Shallow impermanence: peeling concrete, litter, 'Atomic Lotion, for hair fall-out', a flimsy department store; Racks and towers of neon, flashy over tiled and tilted waves Of little roofs, shacks cascading lemons and persimmons, Oranges and dark-red apples, shanties awash with rainbows Of squid and octopus, shellfish, slabs o...
Post a Comment
Read more