Red Cross and Red Crescent gaining international support towards a Nuclear Weapons Convention
Since 1945, the Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement have consistently voiced deep concerns about these weapons of mass destruction and the need for the prohibition of their use. Its role in developing the International Humanitarian Law led to the creation of the Additional Protocols to the Geneva Conventions, the universal rules of war, in 1977. As many as 194 nations of the world, including Australia, have ratified the four Geneva Conventions.
RED CROSS MOVEMENT WANTS NUKES ABOLISHED By Neena Bhandari IDN-InDepth NewsAnalysis, 10 Dec 11 SYDNEY – Even as Australia’s ruling Labour revoked early December its long standing party policy banning uranium sales to India and Pakistan was swift to stake its claim too, the disarmament movement received a boost with the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement adopting a resolution to work towards a legally binding global convention on nuclear abolition.
The Australian Red Cross (ARC) had worked with the Japanese and Norwegian Red Cross to draft the resolution early 2011, which was passed in Geneva on November 26. The decision to support the initiative was taken by the Council of Delegates of the Movement comprising representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross(ICRC), the 187 Red Cross and Red Crescent National Societies and the International Federation.
“We were overwhelmed by our colleagues in a range of countries from Iran, Jordan and Lebanon to Mozambique, Malaysia and Samoa amongst others, who co-sponsored and supported the Red Cross Movement’s resolution to urge governments to never use these horrible weapons again. It shows that the resolution has traction and there is a global sense that the Red Cross Movement needs to speak out on this vital issue of nuclear abolition,” ARC’s Head of International Law and Principles, Dr Helen Durham, told IDN. Continue reading
Eisenhower warned on the influence of the military-industrial complex
Just like the people of mediaeval Italian city-states, taxpayers today are having their money siphoned off into the business of war.
In 1989, I picked up a magazine for the arms industry. Its editorial was headed ”Thank God For Saddam”. It explained that since the collapse of communism and end of the Cold War, the order books of the arms industry had been empty. But now that there was a new enemy, the industry could look forward to a bonanza.
And now the same war drums… are beating for an attack on Iran. …In the 14th century it was the church that lived in symbiosis with the military. Nowadays it is the politicians.
14th century take on war thriving today, The Age, Terry Jones, December 8, 2011 When politicians and the arms industry get close, an evil genie is freed. IN THE 14th century there were two pandemics. One was the Black Death,
the other was the commercialisation of warfare.
Mercenaries had always existed, but under Edward III they became the mainstay of the English army for the first 20 years of what became the Hundred Years War. Then, when Edward signed the Treaty of Bretigny in 1360 and told his soldiers to stop fighting and go home, many of them didn’t have any homes to go to They were used to fighting, and that’s how they made their money. So they simply formed freelance armies, aptly called ”free companies” that proceeded around France pillaging, killing and raping…..
The nightmare had begun. ….It seemed as if the genie had been let out of the bottle and there was no way of putting him back. …. The Pope made the mistake of paying off the mercenaries with huge amounts of cash, which only encouraged them to carry on marauding. Warfare had suddenly turned into a profitable business; the Italian city states became impoverished as taxpayers’ money was used to buy off the free companies. And since those who made money out of the business of war wished to go on making it, warfare had no foreseeable end.
Wind forward 650 years or so. The US, under George Bush, decided to privatise the invasion of Iraq by employing private ”contractors” like the Blackwater company, now renamed Xe Services….And this year the Obama government agreed to pay Xe Services a quarter of a billion dollars for security in Afghanistan. This is just one of many companies making its profits out of warfare…… Continue reading
NSW Labor opposes uranium mining, Liberal government discussing it
Labor Opposition says NSW uranium ban should stay Big Pond News, 10 Dec 11 The NSW opposition has slammed any move to lift the state’s ban on uranium mining, saying nobody wants a uranium mine in their backyard.
During a question and answer session at the Lowy Institute in Sydney on Friday night, Premier Barry O’Farrell opened the door to the possibility of allowing uranium exploration and mining in NSW…..http://bigpondnews.com/articles/TopStories/2011/12/10/Oppn_says_NSW_uranium_ban_should_stay_695152.html
1 This month
of the week – Disrupting War & Militarism in Oceania. Active solidarity. Radical practice.
Antinuclear 