View allAll Photos Tagged DISARMAMENT
CND Rally - London, 24th October 1981
In 1981 I was an impressionable young man, standing alongside thousands of like-minded people in Hyde Park, London. The march and rally was organised by the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND). Here is another long shot of the crowds.
"More than 250,000 people have marched through London to protest over the siting of nuclear missiles in the UK.
The rally, organised by the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND), took more than five hours to get through the city centre causing massive traffic disruption.
CND officials said they were delighted with the response and had never seen such a crowd.
The marchers, made up mainly of young people, created a festival atmosphere in Hyde Park as speakers took to the stage to address the crowd."
See more here on the BBC archives: news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/october/24/news...
Taken using a Soviet made Zenith TTL SLR camera.
You can see a random selection of my photos here at Flickriver: www.flickriver.com/photos/9815422@N06/random/
15 August 2012. El Fasher: Young women collect bricks for the construction of a community center in Althoura Shemal in El Fasher, North Darfur, as part of a Community Based-Labour Intensive Project (CLIP) sponsored by UNAMID DDR (Disarmament Demobilization Reintegration).
During three months, UNAMID provides training to 80 young people (60 men and 20 women) to construct this building.
Photo by Albert González Farran - UNAMID
Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken participates in NATO Session 1: Arms Control, Disarmament, Non-Proliferation, in Riga, Latvia, on November 30, 2021. [State Department photo by Ron Przysucha/ Public Domain]
Disarmament Conversation Series: Emerging technologies: A blessing or a Curse?
Moderator: Laura Rockwood
Keynote guests: Ulrich Kühn, Malin Oestevik
Photo Credit: UNODA / Laura Skocek
25 July 2011. Kodiel: Distribution of 40,000 liters of water among the local community in El Srief (North Darfur), that includes Shiero, Metwier, Eata Ibrahim, Ahmed, Ali and Kodiel villages. The nearest water point is 15 kilometers away and the women have to spend 6 hours a day to collect the water for their families. Due to the drought, the community leaders report that the lack of water is severe in the area and it specially affects children and sick people.
This water distribution was part of a DDR (Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration) outreach activity, organized by UNAMID, with the support of UNDP, UNICEF, North Sudan DDR Commission and the local NGO Friends of Peace and Development Organization (FPDO). The DDR activity promoted messages of disarmament and security arm control among the population, historically controlled by SLA / Free Will faction and currently with few individual armed actions. Photo by Albert Gonzalez Farran - UNAMID.
Cynthia Walker, Rhoda Evans, Terril Davis, Valerie Gaddis working inside the Mail bus, West Branch Scattergood School, Iowa, 7/28/86.
Great Peace March for Global Nuclear Disarmament, 1986
IAEA inspectors return to the DPRK after a period of absence of more than four years. While inspectors prepare for the resumption of activities in the DPRK, IAEA Director General Dr Mohamed ElBaradei briefed reporters on their imminent return. The IAEA returns to the North Korea to monitor and verify the shutdown of the country's nuclear facility in Yongbyon. (Vienna, Austria, 9 July 2007)
Photo Credit: Dean Calma / IAEA
Gordon Brown (centre, right), Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, converses with Henry Kissinger, former Secretary of State of the United States, on the occasion of the Security Council Summit on nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament.
24/Sep/2009. United Nations, New York. UN Photo/Mark Garten. www.unmultimedia.org/photo/
Collaborating with the new Disarmament Demobilization and Reintegration Commission formed by the transitional government of national unity, United Nations Mission in South Sudan led the joint organization of the workshop with United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund, South Sudan People’s Defense Force and Sudan People Liberation Army in Opposition including Other Armed Alliances.The workshop brought together 50 participants from SSPDF, Pro-Machar SPLA-IO, South Sudan Opposition Alliance (SSOA), and the National DDR Commission.
Dr Kathleen Sullivan chairs a session at the UN Global Forum on Disarmament and Non-Proliferation Education in Nagasaki in August 2012.
Credit: Tim Wright/ICAN
Delegates attend the meeting of the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva.
UN Photo/Jean Marc Ferré
2 June 2022
Geneva, Switzerland
Photo # UN7938316
Hundreds of members of Women’s Strike for Peace picket the White House January 15, 1962 demanding disarmament and the end of nuclear testing.
This demonstration was a follow-up to their first protest the previous year.
The group sent shock waves through the U.S. the year before when the group arose spontaneously and held demonstrations in more than 60 cities and staging a march on Washington in November to protest against nuclear testing fallout and the lack of a test ban treaty.
President Kennedy responded to that demonstration by saying, “I saw the ladies myself. I recognized why they were here. There were a great number of them. It was in the rain. I understood what they were attempting to say and, therefore, I considered that their message was received.”
HUAC responded by scheduling hearings into alleged communist domination of the Women’s Strike for Peace and held three days of hearings Dec 11-13, 1962.
Of the 11 witnesses called, nine invoked the Fifth Amendment and refused to testify. The final witness, Dagmar Wilson, founder of the group, gave full testimony in front of 500 supporters in the committee hearing room.
When asked if she would purge communists from the organization, she responded “certainly not” and if asked if she would make the movement equally open to Nazis and Fascists, she replied, “If only we could get them on our side.”
During the hearing, committee counsel Alfred Nittle asked Wilson if she had orchestrated simultaneous demonstrations in 58 American cities on Nov. 1, 1961. Wilson responded that the spontaneity of the feminine peace movement was “hard to explain to the masculine mind.”
As each of the previous women called to testify refused to answer committee questions, each woman was applauded by the partisan audience. Wilson said at the end of the hearing that, “Solid support of the women for those who took the Fifth [Amendment] is an indication that we are simply not concerned with personal points of view.”
Following the HUAC hearing, the women marched to the White House where they picketed with signs reading, “End the Arms Race, Not the Human Race” and “Peace is American.”
For more information and related images, see flic.kr/s/aHsmw1miEv
Photo by Arnold Sachs. The image is courtesy of the D.C. Public Library Washington Star Collection © Washington Post.
A copy of a speech given by David Lange at the 1985 Geneva Conference for Disarmament appears on file. The draft is dated a few days before his famous appearance on the Oxford Union debate. The speech pressed for an end to the nuclear arms race.
Archives New Zealand Reference: ABHS 950 W5422 77 111/12/8/4 part 17
Material from Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga
1 June 2011, Nyala: Former members of the Popular Defense Force (PDF), as more than 1,000 ex- combatants (army and rebel members) of the Darfur conflict participate in a reintegration program held at the National Service Camp in Nyala (South Darfur). The initiative is organized by the North Sudan DDR (Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration) Commission with the support of UNAMID.
The opening ceremony was on 22 May and the activities will continue until 5 June, 2011.
The program provides former combatants (already disarmed) with financial assistance (in the amount of 800 Sudanese pounds), technical support, medical examinations (HIV tests included) and advisory services to restart their life as civilians.
The Popular Defense Force (PDF), formed in 1989 as a dedicated Islamist militia, was the main instrument for mobilization in Darfur, sending tens of thousands of Darfurians to fight against southern rebels. In most parts of Sudan today, the PDF is an inactive reserve force to the regular army.
Photo by Albert Gonzalez Farran / UNAMID
Velislava PETROVA, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Bulgaria addresses the Conference on Disarmament's High-Level Segment 2022, Palais des Nations. 1 March 2022. UN Photo by Violaine Martin
The North Korean regime is probably the biggest threat to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation treaty (NPT), said Ambassador Robert Wood, who will head the U.S. delegation to an important meeting of NPT member states next week in Vienna. “This is a serious issue that needs to be dealt with by the NPT community,” Wood told journalists at the United Nations Office in Geneva April 28. “We need to stand together in denouncing the North Korean regime for its provocations, threats and actions. We will be focused like a laser on dealing with this issue at the PrepCom.” The U.S. is committed to the NPT as a cornerstone of international efforts to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons. The U.S. Delegation heads to next week’s Preparatory Committee (PrepCom) with an open mind and a determination to build consensus within the NPT context, Wood said.
U.S. Mission Photo/Eric Bridiers
Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken participates in NATO Session 1: Arms Control, Disarmament, Non-Proliferation, in Riga, Latvia, on November 30, 2021. [State Department photo by Ron Przysucha/ Public Domain]
Stop The War Coalition rally : "End the Siege on Gaza" 14.05.2011
Called by Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Stop the War Coalition, British Muslim Initiative, CND and the Palestinian Forum in Britain, around 500 people gathered outside the fortress-like gates of Downing Street to call for the Israeli government to end its illegal seige on Gaza, seen as collective punishment for the occupants, and condemned by the United Nations.
There were many speeches from representatives of various organisations and trade unions, and the protest was all the more urgent because in early June 2011 the next Gaza Peace Flotilla sets sail to try and break the seige, consisting of 14 ships carrying humanitarian aid supplies and medicines desperately needed in the impoverished territory crippled by the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) during "Operation Cast Lead" in December 2008, which saw the Israeli Army, Air Force and Navy bombing Mosques, Schools, Hospitals, Health Centres, Police Stations, residential districts and also targeting crucial infrastructure - Water, Sewerage, Electricity and Gas - which has never been adequately repaired because the Israelis will not allow most construction materials to enter Gaza. They have also prevented medicines, medical equipment, food and many other essential goods, even though they claim publicly that they have eased the blockade.
Gazan fishermen are regularly harassed, physically attacked, imprisoned, occasionally killed by the Israeli Navy. Their boats are impounded or just blown up in the water, well within the boundaries of the sea blockade illegally set by the Israelis.
One and a half million people are crammed into the small territory of Gaza, half of them children, many of them permanently short of food. Their economy is shattered, unemployment is massive, there is starvation and deprivation, and the continuing illegal blockade has been responsible for the further deaths of many, many residents who desperately need medical help from the outside world, but who are turned back from the border by Israeli forces. Israel completely controls the supply of water into Gaza.
The last Gaza Peace Flotilla in May 2010 was attacked in International waters by the Israeli Defence Force, who, in an outrageous act of piracy murdered nine participants and wounded many more on one ship, the Turkish-registered MV Mavi Marmara. Several other ships were impounded. The world is waiting to see if the Israelis will be just as violent and murderous this time around...
"End The Seige On Gaza" rally was upported by: Amos Trust, Association of the Palestinian Community in the UK, Communications Workers Union (CWU), Fire Brigades Union (FBU), Friends of Lebanon, Friends of Al-Aqsa, GMB, The Green Party, ICAHD UK, Jews for Justice for Palestinians, Lib Dem Friends of Palestine, Pax Christi, Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS), The Russell Tribunal on Palestine, Twinning with Palestine, UNISON, Unite the union, University Colleges Union (UCU), War on Want, and Zaytoun.
All photos © 2011 Pete Riches
Do not reproduce, alter or reblog my images without my written permission.
Rose Gottemoeller, Acting Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security, addressed the Conference on Disarmament at the United Nations Office at Geneva on February 4, 2014. In her statement, the Under Secretary urged the CD to begin negotiations on a Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty (FMCT), "an essential prequisite for global nuclear disarmament."
Text of the Under Secretary's Statement
geneva.usmission.gov/2014/02/04/acting-under-secretary-go...
U.S. Mission Geneva / Eric Bridiers
Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken participates in NATO Session 1: Arms Control, Disarmament, Non-Proliferation, in Riga, Latvia, on November 30, 2021. [State Department photo by Ron Przysucha/ Public Domain]
"Stop Bombing libya" demand the Stop the War Coalition - London, United Kingdom 12.07.2011
Protesters representing Stop the War, Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and Libyan nationalists protested on Tuesday 12th of July 2011 opposite the Houses of Parliament, calling for an immediate end to the bombing of Libya by UK forces operating under NATO command.
On February 15th 2011 the United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 1973 which authorized an internationally organised no-fly zone in Eastern Libya specifically for the protection of civilians there who were being attacked by Gadaffi's forces. Without warning on March 18th, Barack Obama announced that NATO was taking over the operation from the United Nations, and it is now admitted freely by the USA, NATO and our own William Hague that the mission is actually to kill Colonel Gaddafi - in flagrant violation of International Law, regardless of where one's sympathies lie. It is yet another illegal war launched by the USA, Britain and France against yet another (strangely coincidentally) oil-rich sovereign state which was posing no threat to the USA whatsoever - unless, of course, you include Gadaffi's announced plans to stop trading oil in US dollars and Euros and to move onto a gold standard.
www.alhayatwadounia.com/?p=1386
It is a good indicator of the degree to which we have been lied to as a nation by David Cameron, his ministers and "special advisors" in the concentrated media propaganda storm of distortions, myths and blatant lies neccessary to convince the British Public that this illegal war has some kind of moral justification. We were initially told this "humanitarian" mission would be over in weeks and would be a bargain at "tens of millions of pounds". Over four months later the government has admitted that the cost so far has been "About a quarter of a billion pounds", from which we can safely assume we're probably looking at closer to half a billion pounds at the very least, with no end in sight.
It was announced by the Ministry of Defence today that another four RAF Tornado fighter bombers would be joining aerial missions over Libya, which is additional to the four extra Tornados deployed in April. It is now discovered - but not admitted in public by the government, even in Parliament - that the UK has commenced aerial Drone operations over Libya. I fear the true scale, costs and consequences of UK involvement in this dispute may take many years to uncover by which time, of course, all the main players will all be safely retired from government and will be reaping their rewards in the form of lucrative directorships of banks, oil and armaments companies which is the time-honoured British way.
As Tariq Ali so eloquently pointed out later that evening in the Parliamentary Afghanistan Withdrawl Group public meeting in the Houses of Parliament, support for the end of NATO bombing in Libya does not in any way imply sympathy for the Gadaffi regime any more than wanting to end the war against Iraq implied support for Saddam Hussein.
All Photos © 2011 Pete Riches
Sergey Lavrov Minister of Foreign Affairs of Russia delivers speech at the Conference on Disarmament UN Photo / Emmanuel Hungrecker
Former Burundian child soldiers undergoing a disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration (DDR) program near Gitega, Burundi, in 2004. The children came from a mix of rebel and militia groups.
Today private persons could pass their weapons to the police in order to dispose of. As was expected the action was unspectacular. There were mainly older people which brought old military weapons and ammunition. Police station Buriet, Switzerland, July 7, 2009.
The Biological Weapons Convention entered into force on 26 March 1975. This year therefore marks the 40th anniversary of this landmark Convention, the first to effectively prohibit an entire category of weapons of mass destruction. On 30 March 2015, a commemorative event was held in the Council Chamber in the Palais des Nations in Geneva, the same room in which the Committee of the Conference on Disarmament negotiated the BWC from 1969 to 1971.
Ambassador Robert, Wood, U..S. Representative to the Conference on Disarmament and U.S. Special Representative for Biological and Toxin Weapons (BWC) Convention Issues, delivered remarks for the United States, which along with the UK and Russia is one of the three depository governments for the BWC treaty.
Other speakers at the event included: Michael Møller, Acting Director-General, United Nations Office at Geneva, Ambassador Mazlan Muhammad, Permanent Representative of Malaysia to the CD, Chairman of the 2015 Meeting of States Parties to the BWC, Angela Kane, High Representative for Disarmament Affairs, Mr Mikhail Ulyanov, Director, Department for Non-Proliferation and Arms Control, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, Dr John R. Walker, UK Foreign and Commonwealth, Ambassador Masood Khan, Director-General of the Institute for Strategic Studies Islamabad, Pakistan and President of the Sixth BWC Review Conference (2006), Dr Caitriona McLeish, Senior Fellow, University of Sussex.
U.S. Mission Photo/Eric Bridiers
Rose Gottemoeller, Acting Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security, addressed the Conference on Disarmament at the United Nations Office at Geneva on February 4, 2014. In her statement, the Under Secretary urged the CD to begin negotiations on a Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty (FMCT), "an essential prequisite for global nuclear disarmament."
Text of the Under Secretary's Statement
geneva.usmission.gov/2014/02/04/acting-under-secretary-go...
U.S. Mission Geneva / Eric Bridiers
ICAN campaigners on the final day of the UN open-ended working group on nuclear disarmament, which recommended the start of negotiations in 2017 on a treaty prohibiting nuclear weapons.
Geneva, August 2016
Credit: ICAN
The Biological Weapons Convention entered into force on 26 March 1975. This year therefore marks the 40th anniversary of this landmark Convention, the first to effectively prohibit an entire category of weapons of mass destruction. On 30 March 2015, a commemorative event was held in the Council Chamber in the Palais des Nations in Geneva, the same room in which the Committee of the Conference on Disarmament negotiated the BWC from 1969 to 1971.
Ambassador Robert, Wood, U..S. Representative to the Conference on Disarmament and U.S. Special Representative for Biological and Toxin Weapons (BWC) Convention Issues, delivered remarks for the United States, which along with the UK and Russia is one of the three depository governments for the BWC treaty.
Other speakers at the event included: Michael Møller, Acting Director-General, United Nations Office at Geneva, Ambassador Mazlan Muhammad, Permanent Representative of Malaysia to the CD, Chairman of the 2015 Meeting of States Parties to the BWC, Angela Kane, High Representative for Disarmament Affairs, Mr Mikhail Ulyanov, Director, Department for Non-Proliferation and Arms Control, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, Dr John R. Walker, UK Foreign and Commonwealth, Ambassador Masood Khan, Director-General of the Institute for Strategic Studies Islamabad, Pakistan and President of the Sixth BWC Review Conference (2006), Dr Caitriona McLeish, Senior Fellow, University of Sussex.
U.S. Mission Photo/Eric Bridiers
Leaving NYC via the Brooklyn Bridge. Raining all day as we walk to Staten Island, 10/26/86
Great Peace March for Global Nuclear Disarmament, 1986
Rose Gottemoeller, Acting Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security, addressed the Conference on Disarmament at the United Nations Office at Geneva on February 4, 2014. In her statement, the Under Secretary urged the CD to begin negotiations on a Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty (FMCT), "an essential prequisite for global nuclear disarmament."
Text of the Under Secretary's Statement
geneva.usmission.gov/2014/02/04/acting-under-secretary-go...
U.S. Mission Geneva / Eric Bridiers
Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken participates in NATO Session 1: Arms Control, Disarmament, Non-Proliferation, in Riga, Latvia, on November 30, 2021. [State Department photo by Ron Przysucha/ Public Domain]
Statement by H.E. Mr Andrej Benedejčič, Special Envoy of the Foreign Minister for Arms Control, Disarmament and Non-Proliferation, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Slovenia, Ljubljana to the OPCW at the 24th Session of the Conference of States Parties to the Chemical Weapons Convention.
The Conference is held at the World Forum, The Hague, the Netherlands, from 25-29 November 2019.
Sergei Lavrov Russian Minister Foreign Affairs speaks during the press conference after the Desarmement Conference.
(UN Photo/Jean-Marc Ferre)
"Stop Bombing libya" demand the Stop the War Coalition - London, United Kingdom 12.07.2011
Protesters representing Stop the War, Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and Libyan nationalists protested on Tuesday 12th of July 2011 opposite the Houses of Parliament, calling for an immediate end to the bombing of Libya by UK forces operating under NATO command.
On February 15th 2011 the United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 1973 which authorized an internationally organised no-fly zone in Eastern Libya specifically for the protection of civilians there who were being attacked by Gadaffi's forces. Without warning on March 18th, Barack Obama announced that NATO was taking over the operation from the United Nations, and it is now admitted freely by the USA, NATO and our own William Hague that the mission is actually to kill Colonel Gaddafi - in flagrant violation of International Law, regardless of where one's sympathies lie. It is yet another illegal war launched by the USA, Britain and France against yet another (strangely coincidentally) oil-rich sovereign state which was posing no threat to the USA whatsoever - unless, of course, you include Gadaffi's announced plans to stop trading oil in US dollars and Euros and to move onto a gold standard.
www.alhayatwadounia.com/?p=1386
It is a good indicator of the degree to which we have been lied to as a nation by David Cameron, his ministers and "special advisors" in the concentrated media propaganda storm of distortions, myths and blatant lies neccessary to convince the British Public that this illegal war has some kind of moral justification. We were initially told this "humanitarian" mission would be over in weeks and would be a bargain at "tens of millions of pounds". Over four months later the government has admitted that the cost so far has been "About a quarter of a billion pounds", from which we can safely assume we're probably looking at closer to half a billion pounds at the very least, with no end in sight.
It was announced by the Ministry of Defence today that another four RAF Tornado fighter bombers would be joining aerial missions over Libya, which is additional to the four extra Tornados deployed in April. It is now discovered - but not admitted in public by the government, even in Parliament - that the UK has commenced aerial Drone operations over Libya. I fear the true scale, costs and consequences of UK involvement in this dispute may take many years to uncover by which time, of course, all the main players will all be safely retired from government and will be reaping their rewards in the form of lucrative directorships of banks, oil and armaments companies which is the time-honoured British way.
As Tariq Ali so eloquently pointed out later that evening in the Parliamentary Afghanistan Withdrawl Group public meeting in the Houses of Parliament, support for the end of NATO bombing in Libya does not in any way imply sympathy for the Gadaffi regime any more than wanting to end the war against Iraq implied support for Saddam Hussein.
All Photos © 2011 Pete Riches
Protestors demonstrate outside the Chilcot Inquiry as Tony Blair is cross-examined for a second time. London, UK 21.01.2011
All photos © Pete Riches 2011, and must not be used without the express permission of the copyright owner.
This is part a large set which I shot at the protest yesterday outside the Iraq War Inquiry headed by Sir John Chilcot, where ex-prime minister Tony Blair was recalled to re-examine his original evidence in the light of new revelations which conflict with what Blair stated at his first interrogation in 2010.
Though not as large in numbers this time, the protestors were enthusiastic and high-spirited, and several photo-friendly stunts took place along side impassioned speeches to the crowd by Andrew Murray from stopwar.org.uk, Jeremy Corbyn MP who is a leading light in the cross-parliamentary anti-war group, veteran peace campaigner and chair of the Campaign For Nuclear Disarmament Bruce Kent, and others including Peter Brierley whose son Shaun (Sean?) was killed in Iraq fighting Blair's illegal war.
On 16 June, Presidents Putin and Biden will meet in Geneva for their first summit. The talks will cover a wide range of issues, including reportedly nuclear weapons. The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) took to the streets of Geneva to showcase the support for the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.
Photos: ICAN | Aude Catimel
Jessie Jackson, about to speak at the UN day rally in NYC. He spoke to the GPM on 4 seperate occasions. 10/24/86
Great Peace March for Global Nuclear Disarmament, 1986
"Stop Bombing libya" demand the Stop the War Coalition - London, United Kingdom 12.07.2011
Protesters representing Stop the War, Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and Libyan nationalists protested on Tuesday 12th of July 2011 opposite the Houses of Parliament, calling for an immediate end to the bombing of Libya by UK forces operating under NATO command.
On February 15th 2011 the United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 1973 which authorized an internationally organised no-fly zone in Eastern Libya specifically for the protection of civilians there who were being attacked by Gadaffi's forces. Without warning on March 18th, Barack Obama announced that NATO was taking over the operation from the United Nations, and it is now admitted freely by the USA, NATO and our own William Hague that the mission is actually to kill Colonel Gaddafi - in flagrant violation of International Law, regardless of where one's sympathies lie. It is yet another illegal war launched by the USA, Britain and France against yet another (strangely coincidentally) oil-rich sovereign state which was posing no threat to the USA whatsoever - unless, of course, you include Gadaffi's announced plans to stop trading oil in US dollars and Euros and to move onto a gold standard.
www.alhayatwadounia.com/?p=1386
It is a good indicator of the degree to which we have been lied to as a nation by David Cameron, his ministers and "special advisors" in the concentrated media propaganda storm of distortions, myths and blatant lies neccessary to convince the British Public that this illegal war has some kind of moral justification. We were initially told this "humanitarian" mission would be over in weeks and would be a bargain at "tens of millions of pounds". Over four months later the government has admitted that the cost so far has been "About a quarter of a billion pounds", from which we can safely assume we're probably looking at closer to half a billion pounds at the very least, with no end in sight.
It was announced by the Ministry of Defence today that another four RAF Tornado fighter bombers would be joining aerial missions over Libya, which is additional to the four extra Tornados deployed in April. It is now discovered - but not admitted in public by the government, even in Parliament - that the UK has commenced aerial Drone operations over Libya. I fear the true scale, costs and consequences of UK involvement in this dispute may take many years to uncover by which time, of course, all the main players will all be safely retired from government and will be reaping their rewards in the form of lucrative directorships of banks, oil and armaments companies which is the time-honoured British way.
As Tariq Ali so eloquently pointed out later that evening in the Parliamentary Afghanistan Withdrawl Group public meeting in the Houses of Parliament, support for the end of NATO bombing in Libya does not in any way imply sympathy for the Gadaffi regime any more than wanting to end the war against Iraq implied support for Saddam Hussein.
All Photos © 2011 Pete Riches
9-10 March 2023
On the occasion of the ICAN Act on It Forum in Oslo, 19 parliamentarians from 8 European countries followed ICANs invitation to attend a parliamentary conference on nuclear disarmament and the TPNW. The conference was co-hosted by the Norwegian Christian-Democratic Party, the Norwegian Liberal Party and the Socialist Left Party.
Read more about the conference and find the summary statement: www.icanw.org/parliamentarian_conference_oslo
Photo: ICAN | Alex Baker
Rose Gottemoeller, Acting Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security, addressed the Conference on Disarmament at the United Nations Office at Geneva on February 4, 2014. In her statement, the Under Secretary urged the CD to begin negotiations on a Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty (FMCT), "an essential prequisite for global nuclear disarmament."
Text of the Under Secretary's Statement
geneva.usmission.gov/2014/02/04/acting-under-secretary-go...
U.S. Mission Geneva / Eric Bridiers
Rose Gottemoeller, Acting Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security, addressed the Conference on Disarmament at the United Nations Office at Geneva on February 4, 2014. In her statement, the Under Secretary urged the CD to begin negotiations on a Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty (FMCT), "an essential prequisite for global nuclear disarmament."
Text of the Under Secretary's Statement
geneva.usmission.gov/2014/02/04/acting-under-secretary-go...
U.S. Mission Geneva / Eric Bridiers
This unidentified photograph tagged Washington, D.C. is probably the an antiwar march by the April 20 Coalition that drew about 25,000 people to march from the U.S. Capitol to the White House in a demonstration against intervention in Nicaragua and for a freeze on nuclear weapons in 1985.
The march was timed for 10-year anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War.
The Rev. Jesse Jackson knelt in the middle of Pennsylvania Avenue and offered a prayer for the "oppressed" of Central America, the hungry in the United States and peace from "Bitburg to Johannesburg." Bitburg is the site of a World War II German military cemetery that U.S. Reagan was scheduled to visit the following month.
The nuclear freeze campaign exploded in the early 1980s with towns, cities and even states across the country passing resolutions supporting a freeze on the production, testing and deployment of nuclear weapons by the United States and the Soviet Union.
The Cold War rhetoric espoused by U.S. President Ronald Reagan raised fears of a global conflict to heights not seen since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.
The movement swept Europe as well and a 1983 demonstration in New York City drew over 750,000 people.
In a public relations campaign that may ring familiar to contemporary observers of the presidency, U.S. President Ronald Reagan denounced the protests as “inspired by not the sincere, honest people who want peace, but by some who want the weakening of America and so are manipulating honest people.”
He told a press conference that “foreign agents” had helped “instigate” the freeze campaign. There was “plenty of evidence” for this, the president declared, although he did not produce any.
Challenged on his allegations, Reagan said that he had leaned heavily for his freeze information on two Reader’s Digest articles and cited a report by the House Intelligence Committee.
However, the committee chairman, Representative Edward Boland (D-Mass.), declared that according to FBI and CIA officials, there was “no evidence that the Soviets direct, manage, or manipulate the nuclear freeze movement”—a contention confirmed when a declassified version of the FBI report was released in March 1983.
Reagan stubbornly continued to insist that “the originating organization” for the freeze was the Communist-dominated World Peace Council and that the first person to propose it was Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev.
Nevertheless, the momentum built.
Meeting frequently with leaders of the Western peace and disarmament movement, including leaders of the freeze campaign, new Soviet premier Mikhail Gorbachev followed their advice by agreeing to the removal of medium-range nuclear missiles from Europe, removing short-range nuclear missiles from Eastern Europe, negotiating major reductions in strategic weapons, and unilaterally halting Soviet nuclear testing.
The result was an important victory for freeze activists and other anti-nuclear campaigners. Boxed in by the movement and Gorbachev, Reagan and his successor, George H.W. Bush, were drawn into the most substantial burst of nuclear arms control and disarmament ventures in history. By the early 1990s, the United States and the Soviet Union had ceased the testing, development, and deployment of nuclear weapons and had reduced their nuclear arsenals.
[Background partially excerpted from “The Nuclear Freeze and its Impact,” by Lawrence. S. Witner.]
For more information and related images, see flic.kr/s/aHsjDjYsZp
The photographer is unknown. The original source is unknown. The image was obtained via an Internet auction.
Mr. Ruediger Bohn, Deputy Federal Government Commissioner for Disarmament and Arms Control, Germany, speaking at OPCW's Fourth Review Conference.
The Conference is held at the World Forum, The Hague, the Netherlands, from 21-30 November 2018.
Disarmament Conversation Series: Emerging technologies: A blessing or a Curse?
Moderator: Laura Rockwood
Keynote guests: Ulrich Kühn, Malin Oestevik
Photo Credit: UNODA / Laura Skocek
The Biological Weapons Convention entered into force on 26 March 1975. This year therefore marks the 40th anniversary of this landmark Convention, the first to effectively prohibit an entire category of weapons of mass destruction. On 30 March 2015, a commemorative event was held in the Council Chamber in the Palais des Nations in Geneva, the same room in which the Committee of the Conference on Disarmament negotiated the BWC from 1969 to 1971.
Ambassador Robert, Wood, U..S. Representative to the Conference on Disarmament and U.S. Special Representative for Biological and Toxin Weapons (BWC) Convention Issues, delivered remarks for the United States, which along with the UK and Russia is one of the three depository governments for the BWC treaty.
Other speakers at the event included: Michael Møller, Acting Director-General, United Nations Office at Geneva, Ambassador Mazlan Muhammad, Permanent Representative of Malaysia to the CD, Chairman of the 2015 Meeting of States Parties to the BWC, Angela Kane, High Representative for Disarmament Affairs, Mr Mikhail Ulyanov, Director, Department for Non-Proliferation and Arms Control, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, Dr John R. Walker, UK Foreign and Commonwealth, Ambassador Masood Khan, Director-General of the Institute for Strategic Studies Islamabad, Pakistan and President of the Sixth BWC Review Conference (2006), Dr Caitriona McLeish, Senior Fellow, University of Sussex.
U.S. Mission Photo/Eric Bridiers