good to have you with this is this is r t the weekly and top stories now at half past the hour in the russian capital deadly clashes in syria as you and officials admit the envoy's peace plan has been broken on both sides dozens of reportedly been killed across the country of the weekend phone calls for intervention of being ramped up. madrid also the euro zone for one hundred billion euros to shore up its struggling banks and becomes the largest economy to seek paid so far is that spain avoid additional costs imposed from the outside as happened in the case of greece

ireland and portugal. also boosting trade in tackling the crisis in the middle east because countries of cemented their partnership this week as russian president vladimir putin visited china. so it is a moment here on our part with the news team in half an hour as the news continues in the meantime as promised an insight into what it takes to protect the world from a full blown nuclear war our special report next. the follow up from the french test went beyond the polynesian islands they caused outrage in new zealand which took the lead in the n.t. 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 new zealand nuclear free policy but people will come of complacent and feel that as foreign we're safe there are these

other issues you know i mean a lot of people don't say people in the peace movement has had beaten out of me as graveyards resounds and 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 when i'm working at peace foundation in my role as the youth outreach coordinator. in the race and they are going to tell you see to the pacific you fist of all and 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. so things out the pacific garden country. i was brought up in 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 work. 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 fact that terrorism could come out and harbor on a party that was on a peaceful mission and really sort of show choir here living in a safe. trey i think it's the younger generation that teaching the next generation a legacy of hope really that i think that we have given young people especially on our policy because twenty is it's 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. and the old hands of the existing was with us. and that's. what. i feel is. that they were.

the first. thing they knew that if. listening to the stories of people like mum and peacemakers in israel and in the work that they've done it gives me hope and i think that i've seen 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 crusade that made their country nuclear free and under neither 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 and you unusual i think right around the world you would be able 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. but doubling the robot warrior what it did instead was absolutely cemented it hope it's 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 even. 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. museum to spiritual study that's just come up the results demonstrate the presence of elevated disturbances of new zealand veterans in the fifty years ago so they're

basically saying i have suffered damage and we spoke recently as a national conference here on disarmament when the daughter of one of the nuclear test veterans spoke out her father was too old to speak and she talked about growing up with that fear of having i transformed food even in new zealand because of the effects of radiation from. exposed to nuclear tests on the pacific. and i'm lucky. i have three children. and i don't live with these. and i was so it was normal until i got disco and sit on the met and go around so it would appear. and most of the kids would say i'm up as a teacher. and they're not. in my mind trust start nuclear. because

that's how i understood. crop 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 the submarine helicopters i was required to train my air crew in using this new to a depth bomb which we were given. if we ever had to release it. from a helicopter we could not escape before 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 her independence but i realize that.

only later many years later that. this was completely untrue. as a new convert against nuclear weapons i was looked upon with great score 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 very deeply about what we did but i did agree with them the nuclear weapon aspect was an aberration. or a big. and they had planes finger on the phone he had a conscience to do something about these and i can't imagine you going around its. largest carrier major 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 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 a nuclear war but no other weapons are built to be yours the risk is not zero that something might be going off by mistake especially with the thousands of nuclear weapons on had trigger alert in the us and in russia in the united states there's rob i think it's eleven atomic bombs accidentally. we dropped four off of spain we have dropped one note their weapon in a marsh here in the united states now still there are a number of 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. away and 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 but i 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 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. 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 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 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 brother of all 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. 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 in here to and 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 either 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 court but governments would ignore it and that's true they have. and the other thing 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 they try to claim a level usenet terrorist doesn't work that we're meant he would argue that appearance does mean use of so it is a use of a nuclear weapon to actually threaten to use them and that's when you into the will cause the first time you've fought to get that threet yeah and this isn't and it was the south pacific lawyers and the activists that argued to have threesome clued in the 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 where to from here in the. winter 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 equip states to comply and disarm 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 the greater work and the signing signer states they agreed to take good faith effort to a limited nuclear weapons none of them lived up to that and of course we focus on regulations by others those who like policemen on the word scene i'm talking of the nuclear powers they're 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 village to complain a lot 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 call them god 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. probably understood by intelligence agencies that the invasion of iraq would spur nuclear proliferation and terror. for good reasons these are the only means of deterrent on 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. north korea spending so the only way it isn't deterring. if we reckon enter. 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 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 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 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 here we pins on the streets sometimes i just want to i just i've had enough. and lose heart but at the

same time i think. something has to be time and a fireman a position that i can do something i what. now parents generation go out. but now. the young people i speak to move when i go out there in person. they are also going to say names of. people can sign just in a way. that belongs. in the pages in which comes from but lives sort of projects go on and people solidarity emerges from it which i don't think exists so much among young people that it might if it were 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 i'm curious and went to washington so i mean it's not necessarily it's you've got to convince the public so you may get all the parts

certainly 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 mobilization that would occur would be huge massive here like no one's taking away any piece moment because it's kind of the feeling is still there the kind of pace that it can be so there. and i was so i think a lot of young people that aspect might be interested in some of these issues but not complacent and overwhelmed by all of us here but the maybe. we don't listen to the words 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 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. and the nuclear early ninety's he probably did. the largest and most effective nonviolent peace movement in history and successful and 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 we're 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 its organization totally significantly but the lesson there is very clear a mass nonviolent political movement can change of. state the importance of nuclear proliferation is very much one. or even aware or concerned one is surprised 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'm like ok. let's do it once i actually found out how bad it was on 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 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 sail to folks in the nuclear test songs 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 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 had said 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 or 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 one of 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 number of major later is a nuclear alliance just like matthew that you've signed on to which clearly canadian foreign policy the best policy military policy is going to change dramatically and we canadians are big trouble in terms of or historical commitment to peace and disarmament. everything is in place to proceed with disarmament

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 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 on. the bomb be with.

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