SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2008 DISARM UPDATE
FOCUS ISSUE: Keep Space for Peace Week
OCTOBER CALENDAR
(also note September Calendar below which has useful information on disarmament issues)
October 4 to 12: Keep Space for Peace Week! We hope all Branches can participate with at least one event, however small. And Bravo for the U.S. Branches that reported 17 events last year, all shared with wider WILPF and the world in the UN annual publication for World Space Week.
The UN General Assembly established this week in 1999. Aerospace corporations soon took over promotion of the week for the UN agencies (COPUOS and UNOOSA) and soon turned it into a "youth recruitment tool" for the space industry, much of which is now military. Global Network and WILPF tried pariticipation in the week, but found this especially difficult in the United States where the Space Foundation(bringing together Strat Com, the Space Command and the space industry) became a major U.S. promoter. In 2006, however, WILPF and GN began submitting our KS4P event reports to the annual UN report. Happily our attempt at dialogue was welcomed by WSWA which adminsiters the week for the UN. See details on Keep Space forPeace Week resource page.
October 6 to November 4. Follow the General Assembly First Committee annual debates on disarmament issues on WILPF Reaching Critical Will. We expect this to be a DISARM UPDATE Focus Issue during that period. Read the First Committee Monitor edited by Ray Acheson of WILPF Reaching Critical Will.
SEPTEMBER CALENDAR
September 1: The end of Nuclear Free Future Month. All petitions calling on Congress should be in the Philadelphia office by Thursday, September 10 for pick up Friday morning. You and your friends and relatives everywhere can also sign on line. If you have not yet sent a report on your Hiroshima-Nagaski event or other actions during the month please send it now to DISARM UPDATE for posting on the web. Photos and copies of fliers are also welcome to inspire us for next year.
September 2: DISARM team member Linda Richards spends an evening in the Linus Pauling House informing Portland, Oregon engineers, chemists, scientists and computer geeks (and Carol Urner's fourteen year old grand daughter) about the work of the Paulings to stop nuclear testing and abolish nuclear weapons. Both were WILPF members so WILPF was much mentioned. Linda's talk was enthusiastically received and she is invited back to talk just about Ava Pauling, former WILPF Vice President. Explore the web site of the complete Linus and Ava Pauling papers at Oregon State University. In fact the gentlemen offered to campaign for special pages on the web site devoted to our Ava.
September 2: U.S. opposes Russian-Chinese draft treaty on banning weapons in space. The WILPF Reaching Critical Will (RCW) report on the Conference on Disarmament (only official treaty negotiating body) tells us that " Last week, the CD circulated the US analysis of the draft “Treaty on the prevention of the placement of weapons in outer space and of the threat or use of force against outer space objects (PPWT),” which the delegations of the Russian Federation and China submitted to the CD in February 2008. " Download the RCW fact sheet on the PPWT.
September 5: Suggested deadline for mailing petitions to Philadelphia. If you can't get them to the office by September 10 then collect as many signatures as you can, photo-copy and deliver to any or all of your own Congressional delegation and candidates for Congressional office.
September 9 to 14: DISARM team member Ellen Barfield will join the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability planning retreat in Nashville, Tennessee. She also expects to join in the ANA tour of the controversial Oakridge nuclear facility. Ellen will be representing WILPF on the Peace Pod, the group of professional nuke watchers concentrating on stopping the current U.S. nuclear weapons programs and abolishing those weapons to save life on earth. We need someone -- it can be a Jane Addams member -- with a passion for ending the new nuclear power plant building spree to join the potent new ANA Power Pod. We also hope many more WILPFers can join us for the effective ANA D.C. lobby days in April.
September 15 to 17: Margaret Harrington Tamulonis of Burlington Vermont WILPF Branch of the DISARM! Dismantle the War Economy leadership team will deliver WILPF petitions calling for August 6 to become Nuclear Disarmament Day. Cheryl Diersch, also from Burlington, and Carol Urner will join her. Watch for a WILPF blog report!
September 15 to 26: WILPF asks Congress to support PAROS. WILPF members will visit offices of progressive members in Congress to urge support of negotiations on Prevention of an Arms Race in Outer Space and on banning weapons in space. The U.S. has resisted negotiating such treaties for twenty years and the past three years has been the only nation to vote NO on the annual General Assembly PAROS resolution. Every other UN member nation supports it except Israel, which abstains. Download the RCW fact sheets on Prevention of an Arms Race in Outer Space (PAROS) and on Outer Space and the United Nations.
September 21: UN International Day of Peace. This is one we should be celebrating in USA WILPF (as do other WILPF Sections). It has grown out of the UN decade for a Culture of Peace and Non-Violence for the Children of the World ( 2000 to 2010), very important in most other countries, but virtually ignored by the USA. Please report any WILPF September 21 Peace Day events to DISARM UPDATE!
September 23: UN General Assembly debates begin. We will be able to track debates on disarmament on Reaching Critical Will.
