more sensitive to the melting of the antarctic annie wants to revitalize the aging pacifist movement well i'm wishing the peace foundation in my role is to use outreach coordinator. for the race and they are going to tell he see to the pacific he's fist of all. it's amazing 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 were big we competed to. sort things out the pacific island countries. i was pushed up on the higher the peace activist mother she's been around during peace activist the last it's 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 greenpeace sticker that you put on your window and it was of the rainbow warrior and the fit that terrorism kidnapped in. on a party that was on

a peaceful mission and really sort of shocked my idea of living in a safe country i think it's the younger generation that teaching the next generation the legacy of hunt's really that i think that we have given young people . twenty is since we actually passed the rule and we want a young people to know about the law because any was only four when the law was passed. on the old haitians as if i could see it it's a taste and this will cause us. nothing and that's. what. i have a feeling this is the best. thing for the. mother and the sickest people in the family to think they knew that he is all right now they're. listening to the stories both people about mum and peacemakers in israel and the work that they've done it gives me hard. and i think that order 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 there that is unusual i think right around the world you notice it took another twelve years to get along a government that actually ran all of the 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 home i just think it's important to remember that the

british and australia on aboriginal lamed for 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. and studied. the results demonstrated the presence of elevated chromosomal disturbances new zealand veterans in the fifty years ago. so they're basically saying they have suffered any damage and we spoke recently as a national conference here on disarmament when the daughter of one of the trends spycatcher father was too ill 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 they exposed to new treaties and the pacific. and i'm lucky. i have three move children. and i don't live with the think that ran. i was so it was normal until i got disco and sit on the mitts and go around so i would appear. and most of the kids would say i'm up as a take to her new face and name. and my mom tries to stop nuclear. 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

air crew in using this new to drop the bomb which we were given. if we ever had to release it true a helicopter we could not escape for it doesn't exist 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 . 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 realized that. only later many years later of. this was completely true. 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 fought for a deeply about what we did but i did agree with them the nuclear weapon aspect was an aberration. and playing bingo. he had a conscience to do something about these and i can imagine a guy around it's. what i just can't imagine and i see him so now so passionate about what he does that it's just said nother rob well it's 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 and others 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 especially with the thousands of nuclear weapons on hair trigger alert in the us and in russia in the united states. i think it's eleven appall make bombs accidentally. we dropped four off of space and we have dropped one nuclear weapon in a marsh here in the united states now still there was never of the nuclear nucular weapons are such a huge issue with such high risks associated with normal that there's a natural tendency to play both sides. the way they say they're coming back but at the same time they maintain extremely high numbers of weapons. given the number of near misses we are lucky to still be here 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 could clean it we've done so and they go in everywhere else in the world could do it by going to the world course we could get the conscience of the ordinary citizen around the world saying these are against the moral conscience of people it's an illegal to use nuclear weapon tomorrow and the dream was that it would be easy to get it through the u.n. and into the world court and that eventually these weapons would be declared illegal as we had done in our own country and thank goodness that we were dreaming is an unrealistic. but that we were both stood by the sense of how this could happen but the real source is our international treaties customary international law and the general principles of law recognized by the legal systems of the world

. that by categorical on the banning of nuclear weapons and the legality of nuclear weapons the fact that nuclear weapons cannot be used by way of a strike threat you know to mislead. threat only use of force by means of nuclear weapons and that he's going trade to article two of the united nations charter and article fifty one is unlawful. nucular deterrence says we have nuclear weapons but our goal is not to use them if they. are goal is to have them at our disposal. 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 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 the nuclear deterrence was legal and he was extremely cynical he said that. it was a mistake to go into the court but governments would ignore it and that's true they have an ns 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 terms is that if they try to claim a level use nuns terrorist doesn't work we're meant we would argue that terence does mean use of it is a use of a nuclear weapon to actually threaten to use them and that is when you read to the will cause the first time you for to get that threat you know and this isn't it it was the south pacific noise 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 but argued well we're only relying on terence which is threat and so we're not going to use them so i waited for him in. return from here is going to go back to the court personnel speech and. at the time the judges agreed unanimously on the requirement for total nuclear disarmament the activists are fighting ted that opinion on and. when i understand that the law

is another's wanting to do is to use the unanimous passing of the opinion and i wanted to say to me is own how can we might that stronger how can we you know what are they doing that state practice that is still illegal. is it your understanding of it as a man that they're looking for some new levi 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 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 the greater war and

the signing sign or states they agree to take a good faith effort to a limited nuclear weapons none of them lived up to that and now of course we focus on regulations by others those who like policemen on the word scene i'm talking of the nuclear powers they are violating this very little which they want other countries to observe now what if a policeman violates the law he cannot expect the rest of the village 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 applied 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. so that i will stand in iraq was a friend of the west. of tripoli understood that intelligence agencies knew the invasion of iraq would spur the. nuclear proliferation and terror for good reasons these are the only means of deterrence to the other side. and nobody's going to turn to the united states where the us spends about as much as the rest of the world. through spending so the only reason for turning a. nuclear weapons inter. 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 who is attacking the united kingdom so i 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 that it will that not be rather like shooting musk eaters with camels i think the british would make a much bigger splash in the history of the world if they decided that they let the program expire we are still fighting the public war between britain and france because when i finally cora 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 disneyland if they're going to be free there will be. of no consequence in the world. even though i do this work i constantly get underwhelmed i mean the discussion that we have to have talking about the reality of needs here we've been so in the streets sometimes i just want i just i've had enough. and lose heart but at the same time i think. something has to be done and if i have the position that i can do something i will. now commence generation's i go out the middle of the woods and. he says now you know i don't know man you guys amongst the young

people. are moving i go out there. and i think they also included some names on the interesting that i am so new engines online now if you can sign up which is and i've got a shambles at the backbone. and there's as much comes from that live sort of active projects go on and people solidarity emerges from it which i think exists so much among so young people not a lot it just. keeps before the invasion of iraq there were millions of people protesting and still you know there's a million people around and i'm here just went to washington so i mean it's not necessarily it's you go to convince the public sitting maybe five or pub sides i knew we were going to be side you know we're going to be here and what i think we really doing to our country and i think they mobilize action that would have to would be huge many said feel like no one's going anywhere because it's kind of the feeling is still there the kind of pace down. there. but i also think that

a lot of young people that i speak to might be interested in some of these issues but it's not that complex and they're overwhelmed by all of us here isn't what the made them and what do don't. need to divide 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 every. 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 tried to drum up public interest in nuclear disarmament world wide 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 anti nuclear movement of the early nineteen eighties was probably the most 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 was forced 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 of that's where star wars comes from and we're not planning to tack anyone richest planning to eliminate nuclear weapons if you measured 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 and took significantly but the lesson there is very clear

a mass violent political movement can change rooms. and the importance of nuclear proliferation is very much one. are even aware of or concerned with one is surprised to discover a fifteen year old concerned by the outcome of the nonproliferation treaty is name is rafael even though. i'd just like to say that you and your speech is now serving part of my school. and i like to play. the right one so i actually found out how bad it was on three different people who really made it clear to me speakers. and research which. i watched its national were very last stage to have a speaker all the way from new york. she is an activist nuclear disarmament educator producer and your advisor and let's just keep going there's never

a 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 madness 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 the small level of enrichment very far away from a nuclear weapon capability but the technology for enrichment nonetheless is the same we sometimes for for to it as a 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 late we used to be

leading the world in the battle against nuclear proliferation and we were little 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 nature and nature is a neutral lots just like matthew that you've signed on to which clearly named in foreign policy that the best policy military policy is going to change dramatically and we canadians are big trouble in terms of birth historical commitment to peace and disarmament. every. thing is in place to proceed with disarmament one hundred eighty eight countries committed to disarm they said the 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 bond between. one.

well. technology innovation all the developments around russia. the future of.

u.n. monitors investigating reports of a massacre in your home on syria find evidence of human remains and birth home this is pressure builds on both sides of the conflict to lay down their arms with antiviolence rallies across the country and increasing condemnation of pro broad. brush or crushes the czech republic for one its first game as the euro two thousand and twelve football championship kicks off but there's also been controversy as host nations ukraine and poland have been accused of human rights abuses and racism . the euro zone on a knife edge experts predict spain could ask for a bailout this weekend but is a huge powerhouse to try and keep the single currency afloat one irish town is banking on the past to turn a profit. cross-talk next stay with us here on r.t. . if you.

follow in a welcome to crossfire computer all about crunch time for the euro with the greek economy in tatters and spain on the financial brain the future of the monetary union looks anything but bright world leaders are calling for quick and decisive action to avoid a doomsday scenario while the european central bank has come out and said the fate of the currency is not in its hands. and if you. start. to cross out what seems to be the never ending euro calamity i'm joined by rodney shakespeare in london he is one of the founders of the global justice movement in brussels we have used and usually he is president of the e.s.e. europe two thousand and twenty steering committee and in new york we cross to stephen foley he is an associate business editor of the independent all right gentlemen crosstalk roles in effect that.