recently i mean he seemed to be pacific a feast of all. 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 were big compared to. sort of things out of the pacific garden country. i was brought up in the higher the peace activist mother she's been around during peace activist lost some 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. terrorism. 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. twenty is since we actually passed the rule and we want a young people to know about the war because any was only for when that law was passed. and the old kinds if i could see if it's a sign was worth is. not and that's. what. i have a feeling this is the right thing for the. mother and the service and that they really think they knew that the it's all over. listening to stories oath people about mum and peacemakers and new zealand in the work that they've done it gives me heart and i think that order of say more ordinary citizens can make a difference and i feel that i can contribute to prevent the young people from feeling a sense of powerlessness the past. sophists remind them of the long crusade 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 around the world. to notice it took another twelve years to get along a government that actually ran on a new clear 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 rainbow warrior and what it did instead was it absolutely cemented it hurt i just think it's important to remember that the british and australia on aboriginal lamed for that 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 nine hundred fifty two they tested their way into the very restricted nuclear one by the u.s.s.r. . with the assistance of the australian and new zealand military thing you see anticipate and study that's just come up the results demonstrate that the presence of elevated chromosomal disturbances of new zealand fictions 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 spoke out her father was too ill to speak and she talked about growing up with that fear of having a child born deformed even and you see a man because of the effects of radiation from his father being exposed to new t.t.s. in the pacific. and i'm lucky. i have three in with two hundred. and

i don't live with the if it's a red. i was so it was normal until i got disco and with this on the mitts and go around so it would appear. and most of the kids would say i'm up as a take to her new face and then i. and my mom tries to stop nuclear. because that's how i understood. crane as an extra. 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 try to helicopter we could not escape before it doesn't exit 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 thought free deeply about what we did but i did agree with them the nuclear weapon aspect was an aberration.

i'm trying to think. he had a conscience to do something about these and i can't imagine a guy around its merits. that i just can't imagine and i see him suck now so passionate about what he does that i just said nother alb well i think 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. 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 an open air 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 thousands of nuclear weapons on head trigger alert in the us and in russia in the united states. i think it's eleven atomic bombs accidentally. we dropped four off of spain we have dropped one no player weapon in a marsh here in the united states now and still there was never a foul that their nuclear nuclear 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. 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 weakens and legal then everyone 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 would dream of this and i'm realistic and say that that we were both stood by the sense of how this could happen but the real sources of international treaties customary international law and the general principles of law recognized 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 by way of

a strike threat you know to mislead. the threat or use of force by means of nuclear weapons and that he's going to lead to article two paragraph four 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. your 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 or even to have in one's ass it is 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 go into the court but governments would ignore it and that's true they have an ns and he of that 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 if they try to claim a level use nun's terms doesn't work that 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 into 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 give to have threesome clued in their original question if you have included threats then the. nuclear states could valued well we're only relying to terence which is threat and so we're not going to use so i waited for him. return from here is going to go back to the court throws region. at the time the judges agreed unanimously on the requirement for total nuclear disarmament the activists are fighting ted that opinion on and. this is. what i understand that the law is 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 it your understanding of it as a man that they're looking for some new leiva to put more pressure on the equip 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 of the species for the greater work and the signing sign or states they agree to take a good faith effort to eliminate nuclear weapons and none of them lived up to that

and now of course we focus on revolutions by others those who are like policemen on the word scene and 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 but it's the law he cannot expect the rest of the village to comply 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 world or between friends court and court good countries and court on 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 sand in iraq was a friend of the west. understood the intelligence

agencies that the invasion of iraq would spur. 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. literally spending so the only way to turning a. nuclear weapons and turn. 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 be used nuclear weapons against terrorists but it would that not be rather like shooting musky just with chemicals 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 corner. 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

president if they're going to be free there will be. of no consequence in the world . even though i do this work i constantly keep in mind that discussion that we have to have talking about the reality of needs here we pinson three sometimes i just want i just. had enough. and lose heart but at the same time i think. something has to be done and if i haven't a position that i can do something i will. now commence generation they go out the middle of the woods and doing. that now and i don't know many of you guys but none of the young people i speak to a movie night go out there in person. and i think they are also from different names also interesting that i am so new engines online now if you can sign up which

is and i do have a shame but i think the only interview as much comes from that live sort of projects yes go on and people solidarity emerges from it which i don't think exists so much among young people not it might be just as. before the invasion of iraq there were millions of people protesting and still you know there's a million people around and i'm curious i went to washington so i mean it's not necessarily you go to convince the public so you may find all the pub sides i knew we were going to be sorry and yet we're going to be here and with i'm going to be ready to eat into our country and i think they mobilize action that would occur would be huge many said yeah i know it's turning into a piece of my work because it's kind of the feeling is still there to kind of pace down. there. but i also think that a lot of young people that aspect might be interested in some of these issues but it's not that complex and overwhelmed by all of us here isn't one of the main them

in what do you do it isn't going to be hard the peace movement can say to humanity you know if you keep spending a trillion dollars a year on weapons of benchley you're going to blow every. yeah 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 a man of the united states was moving towards sharp increase in offensive nuclear capacities and it girl 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 and that's where the stormers comes from and we're not playing attack anyone were 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 their 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 roots 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 thousand are even aware of or

concerned with if 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. right through it once i actually found out how bad it was three different people who really made it clear to me speakers. and search. and i watched it smash were very like stage you have a speaker all the way from new york. she is an activist disarmament educator producer your advisor let's just keep going there's going to 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 into nuclear test songs they've kind of surmised that all the weapons used in the second world war are equivalent to see 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 full 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 country sets said why should they be left behind canada is interested in the small level of richmond very far away from a nuclear weapons 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 and 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 mafia that have signed on to us clearly canadian for bullshit because policy military policy has been changed 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 upon being with. us.

wealthy british scientists. margetts. scandal. find out what's really happening to the global economy cause a report on. russia

calls for an international conference to resolve the syrian crisis moscow insists that both sides are to blame and the only way forward is to back kofi and peace plan. spain confirms it will seek one hundred billion euros to help shore up the country's beleaguered banking system this after emergency talks with euro zone ministers. russian tennis star maria sharapova completes a career grand slam by winning the french open. six am in moscow as a good to have you with us here on r t our top story moscow says it will not consent to military action in syria at the u.n.

security council foreign minister sergei lavrov says external players are provoking the syrian opposition to keep fighting with a country now on the brink of a full scale civil war this despite the efforts of the un's own on boy kofi annan trying to implement his peace plan or he's peter all over has more. russia wants to see a peaceful solution achieved through negotiations to the situation in syria. rob said this russia wouldn't accept any measures put through the united nations that could lead or be interpreted to allow any kind of outside military intervention so he loved off saying that kofi annan six point peace plan was still the only viable option for the government must in syria mustn't be blamed totally for toppling in the country and said that the rebels have some responsibility to shoulder as well. i mean when we hear reports of another massacre in syria another it's.