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June e-news

Posted June 7th, 2007 by carol.disarm

JUNE, 2007

WILPF International Peace and Security Working Group

  • Scroll down for access to other Peace and Security web sites including Peace Women, Human Rights, Reaching Critical Will and international WILPF Disarmament news.
  • Details on Disarmament and other Peace and Security issues are accessible from links in this email or from this URL: http://disarm.wilpf.org/MayJune07/E-NewsJune.htm

    • DISARMAMENT AND DEMILITARIZATION ISSUES:

  1. Coming to the Bolivia Congress? Some thoughts on advance preparation.
  2. Action request from WILPF in Geneva re ending the ten year block on progress on disarmament treaty negotiations.
  3. A treaty banning cluster bombs in 2008?
  4. Time to plan for Hiroshima/Nagasaki days
  5. Time to plan for Keep Space for Peace week
    Coming to the Bolivia Congress? Some thoughts on advance preparation for those interested in Peace and Security issues, including disarmament. You can read relevant documents including proposed resolutions, Section reports and the Disarmament Working Group report. You can also read two workshop proposals submitted by Carol Urner, Peace and Security Disarmament working group co-convener. Familiarize yourself with the 2004-2007 international Peace and Security Working Group program. How do we propose to proceed on these issues in 2007-2010? If you haven't explored them yet check out international WILPF web pages on Human Rights, Racial Justice, Peace Women, Disarmament and Reaching Critical WIll. Bring specific concerns from your own Section. Peace and Security is a very broad area, and so is disarmament and demilitarization. We work on different aspects in different ways but need to find ways we can communicate with each other, listen, learn, support each other, and cooperate to reach our shared goal of a world without war and human rights for all.

Action request from WILPF: At last there is a glimmer of hope for ending the ten year block on disarmament treaty negotiations in the Conference on Disarmament. Your help is needed to fan the flame! Click here:

    • Please send your reports on disarmament and Peace and Security issues to carol.disarm@gmail.com and pma@xtra.co.nz.
    • To unsubscribe or add additional subscribers click here . If you do not want to receive this newsletter please find someone in your Section who is interested in Peace and Security Issues including Disarmament and Human Rights. Let's build this into a real working group.

    • 1.For a report on the June 12 session of the CD
    2. An Action Alert with background information
    3. A News Release
    4. A letter you can send to officials in your own country

    A Treaty Banning Cluster Bombs in 2008? Read great news from Peru where 68 nations met in May, determined to take "next steps" in negotiating such a treaty.

    Time to plan for Hiroshima Nagasaki days, August 6 to 10. Some Sections use this as a time to highlight nuclear issues and say Never again. Read reports received from 2006 observances in the U.S.. Continue to help us enlist Mayors for Peace worldwide in the 2020 Vision Campaign for nuclear weapons abolition led by Mayor Akiba of Hiroshima and the new Mayor of Nagasaki (We continue to grieve for Mayor Itoh, 12 years vice President of Mayors for Peace, who was assassinated in April 2007 during his re-election campaign ). Use fact sheets from Reaching Critical Will on The Dirty Dozen: Partners in Mass Destruction to locate corporations promoting and profiting from nuclear weapons production in your Section. Mitsubishi in Japan, Siemens in Germany and BAE Systems and British Nuclear Fuels are part of this corporate complex, as well as subcontractors and wealthy investors everywhere. Fact sheets on Bechtel, Raytheon and other major U.S. nuclear weapons profiteers have been recently updated.

    Time to plan for Keep Space for Peace week September 29 to October 7, 2007. Read the reports on 2006 Keep Space for Peace week submitted by WILPF to UNOOSA and UNCOPUOS, the agencies responsible for monitoring the UN space treaties. Reaching Critical Will now has newly updated fact sheets on the aerospace and other corporations promoting and profiting from space militarization. Find the military base or contractor near you. Reaching Critical Will has extensive information on UN space treaties and Prevention of an Arms Race in Outer Space.

    FROM THE LINKS BELOW ACCESS OTHER WILPF WEB PAGES ON PEACE AND SECURITY ISSUES:

    WILPF Peace Women Tri-lingual web site on UNSCR 1375 with e-newsletters, etc. The latest issue (May) focuses on gender and paarticipation, governance and elections, all emphasized in SCR 1325.. Read articles on women and the election process in Timor-Leste, and women's election initiatives in Fiji, Kenya, Syria and Nigeria. There are rich resources for those who encourage women rising as peacemakers, peace builders and peace keepers.

    WILPF International Human Rights Web Pages let WILPF members follow actions in the UN Human Rights Council. Julia Federico is the Human Rights Fellow for WILPF in Geneva. She offers rich resources and tools for local Human Rights work. Read a draft report to the June session of the Council by a UN Special Rappateur on military toxics in warfare that violate human rights law.

    WILPF Reaching Critical Will, Peace and Security DISARM issues in depth with a special emphasis on nuclear and space treaty negotiations at the United Nations, but there is also extensive information on all other disarmament treaties.

    WILPF International Peace and Security Working Group with program guidelines. WILPF Geneva International Office Disarmament web pages with resources on cluster bombs, bio-weapons, nukes, space, small arms and more. From here also access Resolutions on Disarmament that lay out WILPF's disarmament policies since 1915.

    WILPF DISARM E-News is a service of the WILPF Peace and Security Working Group. It focuses on the DISARM issues covered by that working group, which also includes Peace Women and Human Rights issues. Edwina Hughes (New Zealand) and Carol Urner (USA) are co-conveners of this group.

    Monthly editions are edited by Carol Urner. Please send your reports, comments and suggestions for improvement to her at carol.disarm@gmail.com and copy to Edwina Hughes, co-convener of the group, at pma@xtra.co.nz