International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons

The urgent need to begin negotiating a Nuclear Weapons Convention

IPPNW and ICAN have called on the United Nations General Assembly to "take up the Nuclear Weapons Convention as its highest disarmament and non-proliferation priority" during its 63rd session, which opened on September 16.

ICAN Australia marked the International Day of Peace with a toy gun burial at a church in Melbourne, organised by Jessica Morrison, Australian director of ICAN.

MEDIA RELEASE

Today's recommendation by a key Parliamentary Committee that Australia postpone and put conditions on plans to sell uranium to Russia has been welcomed by disarmament groups as a dose of good sense for Australia, Russia and the world.

"This recommendation puts front and centre the obligation of nuclear states to disarm" said Associate Professor Tilman Ruff, chair of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons. "The Committee has recognised the risks in continuing business as usual in the nuclear industry".

Pressure is mounting on the Rudd Government to dump a uranium export treaty with Moscow after the White House yesterday set aside a US-Russia deal to share nuclear technology.

"Uranium's long-term radioactivity will long outlast current politics, even another Cold War, if world leaders take us again on this path," said Tilman Ruff, of the Australian (sic) Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons.

ICAN Australia shared dinner and conversations with a group of budding new ICAN activists, Hawkesdale students in Victoria's Western District.

London (ICAN)
With the 2010 review of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) in its sights, a new international nuclear disarmament commission led by two former foreign ministers is scheduled to begin work in October.

Media Release: Nuclear warfare threats should end plans to sell Australian uranium to Russia

The Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) and ICAN's Australian affiliate the Medical Association for Prevention of War (MAPW Australia) say the current conflict in Georgia provides another reason why Australia should scrap plans to sell uranium to Russia.

THE proliferation of nuclear weapons is the single biggest threat facing the world today, former prime minister Paul Keating says.

Mr Keating, who led the government from 1991 to 1996, said the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) entered into in 1970 was on the verge of collapse.

A petition has been prepared by Medact and the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament urging the Government to abandon the Trident weapons replacement and promote a Nuclear Weapons Convention to facilitate the elimination of nuclear weapons by 2020.

Commemorations around the globe were held August 6 and 9, marking the 63rd anniversaries of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki respectively.

"... the only role for nuclear weapons is to be abolished."

- Hiroshima Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba, August 6, 2008.

Early Day Motion 72 asks the UK Government to work to achieve progress on multilateral negotiations for achieving implementation of a Nuclear Weapons Convention by 2020.

Find out here if your Member of Parliament has signed Early Day Motion 72.

The Australian Federal Parliament's Joint Standing Committee on Treaties is inquiring into a treaty to sell uranium to Russia - a nation whose current nuclear arsenal amounts to the equivalent of 200,000 Hiroshima bombs.