top stories this hour on r.t. the un urges both the syrian regime and the rebels to lay down arms to prevent the country from sliding into a full scale civil war this comes as you and i was visiting the start of the latest massacre near the city of hama. a big day for european football is in euro twenty twelve get set to kick off a fair play has been dealt a blow with boycotts over human rights abuses and claims of racism most recently from the national team. also reporting that the eurozone on a knife edge as experts predict spain could sue moss for a buyout that is powerhouses trying to keep the single currency afloat one parish town is banking on the past to turn a profit. that's in the news team for the moment we'll be back with more in the meantime it's a weapon that endangers our very existence yet some countries choose to boost their

nuclear arsenals instead of fighting for peace that's our special report next on r.t. . the fall out from the french test went beyond the polynesian islands it caused outrage in new zealand which took the lead in the anti-nuclear movement and became a black sheep among western countries yes unlike any other country new zealand refused to rely on nuclear weapons for its security but here nuclear technology is banned it's the law. i think a lot of the young people feel proud about actually for a policy that people of color complacent and feel that that's fine with saif there are these other issues you know i mean a lot of people say people in the peace movement has had be sent out of me gravy it's the sounds of it that's what people like. even in new zealand it's difficult to find young people concerned about this issue they're more sensitive to the

melting of the antarctic and he wants to revitalize the aging pacifist movement when i'm working at the peace foundation and my role is to use outreach coordinator . to the race and they are going to tell he to the pacific he fist of all. us basing all these amazing people from twenty seven different countries in the pacific and i felt for the first time in my life that new zealand was not remote and that we would think we're not compared to. some of the things out of the pacific garden country. i was brought up in the home the peace activist mother she's been around during peace activist the last thirty years so it's in my blood and i feel a responsibility to continue that when. i have this funny memory of mum buying me a green peace sticker that you put on your window and it was of the rainbow warrior and the fit that terrorism and now harbor on a part that was on

a peaceful mission and really sort of shocked my idea of living in a safe country but i think it's the younger generation that teaching the next generation the legacy of hump really that i think that we have given young people are actually a good policy because it's twenty is since we actually passed the law and we want to young people to know about the law because any was only four when the law was passed. on the old tyson's kinds of i could see a fix of just saying i was workers. and that's. what. i have here and this is the right thing for the money and the service people in the family think they knew that he is. listening to stories both people about mum and. peacemakers in israel and the work that they've done gives me hope and i think that all of saying what ordinary citizens can do and

make a difference and i feel that i can try. to prevent the young people from feeling a sense of powerlessness the pacifists remind them of the long who say that made their country nuclear free and either confirm or deny you can feel the pride in me that we had governments and politicians prepared to go on those boats to go out there and actually protest i mean it was something we did as ordinary citizens working with governments you've got a partnership model that is unusual i think right around the world you know with little to notice it took another twelve years to get along a government that actually ran on a nuclear ticket and won. and then it was consolidated by the stupidity of the french in thinking that they would somehow stop this problem by bombing the remember warrior and what it did instead was it absolutely cemented it hope is not just great and it's important to remember that the british and

australia on aboriginal lamed the fallout that came from near actually came over to new zealand not just from what was happening by the french into. the british preceded the french in the pacific beginning in one thousand fifty two they tested their way into the very restricted. by the u.s.s.r. . with the assistance of the australian and new zealand military career is eventis fiction study that's just coming up the results demonstrated the presence of elevated chromosomal disturbances of new zealand veterans in the fifty years ago. so they're basically saying they have suffered any damage. when we spoke recently as a national conference here on disarmament when the daughter of one of the nuclear trends spoke out her father was too old to speak and she talked about growing up with that fear of having a child born deformed even in new zealand because of the effects of radiation from

her father being exposed to nuclear to some of this effect. and i'm lucky. i have three children. and i don't live with the. i was so it was normal until i do i got disco and sit on the merits and go around so it would appear. so and most of the kids would say a mother is a take to her news and then i would say i am i'm i'm trying to stop nuclear weapons because that's how i understood. crane as an external command her now working at the disarmament security center back in the one nine hundred seventy s. when i was in and she submarine helicopters i was required to train my

crew in using this new cadets ball which we were given. if we ever had to release it. from a helicopter we could not escape for it doesn't it and so it was a suicide mission i asked a few questions i was reassured that we probably would never really have to use it if it shocked me but i was ambitious no one else was complaining and we were told that this is the only way that britain could keep independence i realize that. only later many years later. this was completely untrue. as a new convert against nuclear weapons i was looked upon with great school by the. peace movement in britain i tried to explain that i was not a psychopath my friends we are psychopaths and we are professional military men.

who thought free deeply about what we did but i did agree with them the nuclear weapon aspect was an aberration. a big. playing finger on the phone he had a conscience to do something about these and i can imagine you going around its merits. and i just can't imagine and i see him so now so passionate about what he does that i just said nother rob well it is the ultimate cautionary tale but what they say is nothing like that. the always tend to overdo it because you really understand you know which of what is being proposed the pentagon . will say oh don't worry we have everyone well trained we have plenty of safety systems there can not be a accidental start of

a nuclear war but no through weapons are built to be used the risk is not zero that something might be going off by mistake specially with the thousands of nuclear weapons on hair trigger alert in the us and in russia in the united states there was rob i think it's eleven atomic bombs accidentally. we dropped four off of spain we have dropped one nuclear weapon in a marsh here in the united states now and still there was never a fall that the nuclear nucular weapons are such a huge issue with such high risks associated with them that there's a natural tendency to play both sides. they say they're coming back but at the same time they maintain extremely high numbers of weapons. and i was given the number of near misses we are lucky to still be here right the activists are convinced that an

accident is pending ok and that the only valid security system is the total abolition of nuclear weapons in ninety six when we began the swell project idea there was this dream if you say i'm going to clean it we've been selling go in everywhere else in the world could do it by going to the world court we could get the conscience of the ordinary citizen around the world saying these are against the moral conscience of people it's illegal to use nuclear weapon tomorrow and the dream was that it would be easy to get it through the u.n. and. they were of course and that eventually these weapons would be declared illegal as we had done in our country and thank goodness that we were dreamers and i'm realistic and say that that we were both stood by the sense of hope that this could happen but the real sources of international law apart from treaties customary international law and the general principles of law recognised by the

legal systems of the world. that quite categorical on the banning of nuclear weapons and the legality of nuclear weapons the fact that nuclear weapons cannot be used either by way of a strike or by way of threat you know the most. threat or use of force. by means of nuclear weapons and that he's going to read through article two of the united nations charter and article fifty one is unlawful. nucular deter and says we have nuclear weapons but our goal is not to use them if they. use our goal is to have them at our disposal and. this means that we are not in the realm of the real we are in the realm of the virtual need don't know what you're going to add it is

contrary to international law or even to have in one's acidulous this weapon because the purpose of the weapon is to use it as a threat or as an actual weapon the nuclear powers are alliances like nato still rely on nuclear deterrence which is threat and so the fight continues i was on a panel with a senior advisor to the british government about nuclear policy and he's pro nuclear and we were debating. about. the world court opinion and whether nuclear deterrence was legal and he was extremely cynical he said that . it was a mistake to have gone to court but governments would ignore it and that's true they have. and he of the he relied on all the time was he said and of course we never actually will have to use them and this to me is the heart of the problem for

the people who brought you to terence is that they try to claim a level use nun's terms doesn't work that were meant you would argue that terence does mean use absolute is a use of a nuclear weapon to actually threaten to use them and that's when you went to the work or the first time you fought to get that threet yeah and this isn't it it was the south pacific noirs and the activists that i get to have threesome clued in their original question is if you have included threats then the. nuclear states could valued well we're only relying on terence which is threat and so we're not going to use so i waited for him. to from here is going to go back to the court house rules which are. at the time the judges agreed unanimously on the requirement for total nuclear disarmament the activists are fighting ted that opinion on and is based on. what i understand that the

lawyers and others wanting to do is to use the unanimous part of the opinion and i wanted to say to new zone how can we make that stronger how can we you know what are they doing that state practice that is still illegal. is that your understanding of it is i mean that they're looking for some new lever to put more pressure on the liquid states to comply and design completely not just to reduce. yes on nuclear weapons in fact it's reverse since the world court says and the americans particularly have come out and said that. they see new roles for nuclear weapons and so we're back to almost like a sort of cold war situation again but with the war on terror instead and so it's going to be far more difficult to get governments to put their heads over the parapet of the nonproliferation treaty does provide a framework for ending the threat of destruction species for nuclear war and the

signing signer states they agreed to take a good faith effort to a limited nuclear weapons none of them lived up to that and of course we focus on revelations by others those who like policemen on the word scene i am talking of the nuclear powers they are violating this very law which they want other countries to observe now what if a policeman violates the law he cannot expect the rest of the hood to complain but the law of the only system that would work would be one that is perceived to be nondiscriminatory and fair and equally applying to all countries one approach that has followed these days is you know dividing the worry between friends court and court good countries and court and court bad or rogue countries or evil to do with that approach doesn't work it doesn't take too much to remember

that in the one nine hundred eighty s. dabbles and in iraq was a friend of the west. presumably still an intelligence agency was that the invasion of iraq would spur nuclear proliferation and terror. for good reasons these are the only means of deterrent to the others. and nobody is going to turn to the united states where the us spends about as much as the rest of the world. spending so the only ways of deterring. nuclear weapons and target. the activists are understandably anxious as a result of the nuclear posture review in this classified u.s. military document the security guarantees that protected countries without nuclear weapons against a nuclear offensive are cancelled a strategy of action is being adopted in addition to deterrence so the arsenals must be upgraded to make them easier to use france and britain have responded with

surprising enthusiasm to this nuclear renaissance that the united kingdom is going to pretend that it needs nuclear weapons for its survival or its security it was attacking the united kingdom some have got the very strange idea that because there's terrorists in the world we need to have nuclear weapons can they use nuclear weapons against terrorists but it would that not be rather like shooting musk eaters with chemicals i think the british would make a much bigger splash in the history of the world if the decider that they let the program expire we're still fighting the polio a war between britain and france because when i finally cornered. any senior british military man these days and ask him why do you need nuclear weapons they say every time it's nothing to do with security it's nothing to do with the

russians it's to do with the french we cannot allow france to be the only european nuclear power. and there is this fear that britain will become like resilient if they're going to be free they will be of no consequence in the world. even though i do this work i constantly get overwhelmed i mean that discussion that we were having talking about the reality of next year we pinson three sometimes i just want to. just have had enough. and lose heart but at the same time i think. something has to be done in a five minute position that i can do something i what. now parents generation go out. but now. the young people

i speak to a movie night go out there in person. also for different names are interested in the song your position if you can sign up because in a way. that belongs. in the pages in which comes from but live sort of projects go on and people solidarity emerges from it which i don't think exists so much among young people that it cannot it just as possible. before the invasion of iraq there were millions of people protesting and still you know there's a million people around and your person went to washington so i mean it's not necessarily it's you got to convince the public so you may have all the pubs are suddenly we're going to be. here we're going to be here and what i think we really are doing to our country and i think they mobilize action that would occur would be huge massive here like no one's going anywhere anything at moment because it's kind of the feeling is still there to kind of pace. it so there. and i was so i think

a lot of young people that are much more interested in some. complex and they're overwhelmed by all of us here but the maybe. we don't listen to the guards the peace movement can say to humanity you know if you keep spending a trillion dollars a year on weapons of venture you're going to blow everybody up you you know people are dying from these weapons but until we actually see it people don't don't wake up to it. in two thousand and six canadian activists trying to drum up public interest in nuclear disarmament worldwide military expenditures had risen to more than one trillion dollars this was a traumatic event for those who took to the streets during the cold war. the nuclear early night was probably. the largest and most effective nonviolent peace movement in history and successful men of the united states was moving

towards sharp increase in offensive nuclear capacities and it the government was forced to back down in fact of the reagan administration was forced to adopt the rhetoric of the peace movement in order to continue with their programs that's where star wars comes from and we're not playing attack anyone or just planning to eliminate nuclear weapons if you measure the peace movement by the number of people who march in one thousand nine hundred two there were one million marched in central park in new york at the height of the cold war . last year there were forty thousand who marched at the review conference of the nonproliferation treaty well the big difference in numbers true is the peace movement lost its organization totally significantly but the lesson there is very clear a mass nonviolent political movement can change. and the

importance of nuclear proliferation is very much one. or even aware or concerned with what a surprise to discover a fifteen year old concerned by the outcome of the nonproliferation treaty is name is rafael even though. i just like to say that you and your speech is now serving part of my school. and i like to play. right through it once i actually found out how bad it was. three different people who really made it clear to me speakers. and research which shocked me and i watched it smash were very last stage to have a speaker all the way from new york. she is an activist disarmament educator producer your advisor on the list just keeps going there's different warm welcome

for kathleen. ok the effectiveness of a social movement is sometimes very surprising and hard to track but it also depends on the creativity of the of the social movements themselves in the activists involved with ideas and images and stories and that's why we sailed boats in the nuclear test songs they've kind of surmised that all the weapons used in the second world war are equivalent to three megatons that includes the two nuclear weapons used on hiroshima and nagasaki all the bombs in the bullets. that represents all of the firepower of the second world war ok so now i'm going to give you another sound and this second sound is the equivalent firepower of the world's nuclear arsenal today.

the only way forward that would make sense and would stop this mad the rush for seeking the capability to make nuclear weapons is for those countries that have nuclear weapons to find

a way to give them up and to rely for security on non-nuclear means. and when i say a mad rush over the past couple of weeks five or six countries have indicated that they might be interested in developing a capability to enrich uranium australia canada ukraine kazakhstan south africa. these countries that's sad why should they be left behind canada is interested in a small level of richmond very far away from a nuclear weapon capability but the technology for enrichment nonetheless is the same we sometimes refer to it as latent proliferation you put in place all the technologies to make nuclear weapons but you stop at a much lower level. orders to use part in all this we were third world good at our dedication to peacekeeping as a percentage of gross domestic product is now dropped down to like. we used to be

leading the world in the battle against nuclear proliferation and we were the leading countries in the world in the battle against the weaponization of space canada has very little space in which to. make progress because. it's a member of nato and later is a neutral lots just like matthew that have signed on to us clearly name in foreign policy because policy military policy is going to change dramatically and we canadians are big trouble in terms of are historical commitment to peace and disarmament. everything is in place to proceed with disarmament one hundred eighty eight countries committed to disarm they sent a shining message that goodwill could prevail but so far the governments choose to spend billions perfecting this terminal threat rather than fighting poverty or global warming. will future generations heirs to the thousands of bombs be as lucky

as their parents will be live without seeing a nuclear explosion either by accident or by design maybe maybe not. but until the treaties and international law are. made the bomb didn't work and. there hasn't been anything yet on t.v. . it is to get the maximum political impact false.

before the source material is what helps keep journalism honest when. we want to present. something else.