we've come a bit complacent and feel that it's fine we're safe there are these other she says i mean a lot of people say people in the peace movement has had beaten out of me gray beards this sounds awful but that's what people say. 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 ageing pacifist movement well i'm wishing peace foundation in my role is to use outreach coordinator. but recently i mean to tell he seems to be 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 compared to. some of the things out of the pacific garden country. i was pushed up on the higher 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 a greenpeace sticker that you put on your window and it was of the rainbow warrior and the fake terrorism kidnapped by in harbor on a part 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 now teaching the next generation the legacy of hump really that i think that we have given young people especially on a policy because twenty is since we actually passed the rule and we want a young people to know about the war because any was only four when the law was passed. and the old patients had survived the bad effects of chasing most workers. and there is a sense. i have a feeling. it is. that they will think that this this

whole thing here that if all this. listening to the stories of people like mum and peacemakers and israel and the work that they've done is make it hard and i think that all of same what ordinary citizens can do bike 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 an unusual i think right around the world. larry to notice it took another twelve years to get along a government that actually ran on 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 remember warrior and what it did instead was it absolutely cemented it hope and i just think it's important to remember that the british and australia on aboriginal named the fallout that came from near actually came over to new zealand not just from what was happening by the french into even. the british preceded the french in the pacific beginning in one thousand fifty two they tested their way into the very restricted nuclear one by the u.s.s.r. united with the assistance of the australian and new zealand military. whose eventis fiction study that's just come up the results demonstrate that the presence of elevated disturbances of 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 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 uneasy and because of the effects of radiation from her father being exposed to new cities in the pacific. and i'm lucky. i have three children. and i don't live with the if it's a rat. 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 or ness and they're not. 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. true 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 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 of sam this was completely untrue. as a new converts 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 for a 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 imagine a guy around its merits. i just carried her and i see him so now so passionate about. what he does that i just said nother rob well it's the ultimate cautionary tale but what they say is nothing like call of it. 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 or 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 the nuclear weapons on had trigger alert in the us and in russia in the united states they have dropped i think it's eleven apollo 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 and still there are a number of nuclear nuclear weapons are such

a huge issue with such high risks associated with on that there's a natural tendency to play both sides. the way they say they're cutting 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 and ninety six when we began the swell project idea there was this drain if you say i'm going to clean it with friends and legal then everyone else in the world could do it by going to the world of 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 dreamers and i'm realistic and say that that we were both stood by the sense of how this could happen but the real sources are international treaties customary international law and the general principles of law recognized by the legal systems of the world. that quite categorical on the batting 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 to lead 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. 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 argue it is contrary to international law even to have in one's acidulous this rippon because the purpose of the weapon is to use it as a threat or as an actual weapon the nuclear powers or 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 courts but governments would ignore it and that's true they have 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 terms is that if they try to claim a level use nun's terms 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 into the will cause the first time you've fought 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 you clearly 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 it so i waited for him. literally from here

is it going to go back to the court 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 another's wanting to do is to use the unanimous parts 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 signer states they agreed 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 well asians by others those who are like policemen on the word scene and i'm talking of the nuclear power as they are violating this very little which they want other countries to observe now you know 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 won 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 even to do with that approach doesn't work it doesn't take too much to remember that in the one nine hundred eighty s. daboll sand in iraq was a friend of the west. president bush stood by 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. through spending so the only way to turn it over for 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 some 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

pollie 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 they will be of no consequence in the world. even though i do this work i constantly get overwhelmed i mean the discussion that we were having talking about the reality of needs here we pins on 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 time and if i haven't a position that i can do something i what. now currents generations go out the middle of the woods and pretty soon but now i mean i don't know maybe you guys but none of the young people i speak to a movie night go out there in person. and ninety three also for different names also interesting that it was funny engines if you can sign it and i got a shame. that belonging because yes which 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 a lot it just. 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 because i went to washington so i mean it's not necessarily it's you've got to convince the public so you may have all the

parts right suddenly we're going to be excited you know we're going to be here and what i'm going to be really doing trying to trace and i think they mobilize action that would occur would be huge many said yeah like no one's turning you or anything like that because it's kind of the feeling is still there the kind of place down. there. but i also think that a lot of young people that are much more interested in something but complacent and they're overwhelmed by all of this terrorism and what the made them and what do you doing and you're going to guard 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 everybody up 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 ninety's 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 the government was forced to back down and 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 playing attack anyone or just 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 we're going to. talk significantly but the lesson there is very clear a mass violent political movement can change rooms. and the importance of nuclear proliferation and very much it was. even aware of or concern was surprised to discover a fifteen year old concern 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 the school. right and. i like to play. the rights to it once i actually found out how bad it was on three different people

who really made it clear to me speakers. and the search 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 this give 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 zones they've kind of surmised that all the weapons used in the second world war are equivalent to say 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 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 a small level of richmond very far away from a nuclear weapon capability but the technology for enrichment nonetheless is the same we sometimes for for to work 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 or 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 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 nature and nature is a neutral lots just like matthew that you've signed on to which clearly named for paul said 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. everything. thing is in place to proceed with disarmament when one

hundred eighty eight countries committed to disarm they sent 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 be 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 on. may the bombing be with.

the latest news in the week's top stories here on r.t. the un says it's. in the firing line after and other gruesome massacre at international peace and pressure efforts are both. a big deal in beijing russia and china sign up for more trade and pledge to top last year's record breaking eighty billion dollars worth of business. spain is to seek up to one hundred billion euros to help salvage its stumbling banks may have the fourth country to ask for a bailout. and thousands of egyptians protest that their former leader wasn't sentenced to death and that his last prime minister has made it to their runoff in the presidential poll.

you're watching are going to live from moscow it's ten am in the russian capital i'm marina josh welcome to the program our u.n. observers in syria are still trying to determine just how many people were massacred there on wednesday and who's to blame top u.n. officials admit the peace plan is being flouted by both sides of the conflict dozens have reportedly been killed across the country in the past twenty four hours alone while foreign calls for intervention are being ramped up as brief and often are reports duquesne budgies lain side by side we mean children among them death was indiscriminate and bloody the pictures from syria this week have brought shock around the globe and also a worrying sense of deja vu just weeks before another massacre came to light this time in the village of houla and the world was quick.