PEOPLE FOR NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT

Letter on Missile Defence and Nuclear Disarmament to Presidents Obama and Medvedev/Putin

Dear  ,

The attached Open Letter to Presidents Obama and Medvedev addresses missile defense deployments in Europe, a critical point of ongoing contention between the US and Russia that is capable not only of ending the possibility of nuclear disarmament but of restarting a nuclear arms race between the two countries and others.  NATO deployment of a missile defense system in Europe is a scenario for nuclear disaster, and it is being provoked by US hubris in pursuing a technology that is unlikely ever to be effective, but which Russian leaders must view in terms of a worst-case scenario. 

We invite you to review the statement and to join us in signing it.

PEOPLE FOR NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT NUCLEAR FLASHPOINTS PROJECT

AS UN VOTES TO TAKE NUKES OFF HIGH ALERT, US LOSES CONTROL OF 50 MISSILES

As the UN voted 144 to 3 this week  in favour of taking strategic nuclear warheads off high alert status so that computer error and human panic and miscalculation would have a harder time in bringing about the accidental end of civilisation and 95% of complex land-based life forms, a computer glitch at Warren Airforce Base took 50 minuteman missiles out of control for 45 minutes.

 In spite of the decision by the de-alerting group not to run a
resolution in 2011 first committee, the de-alerting/operational
readiness issue crops up in a number of resolutions, including the
widely supported United Action resolution of Japan/Australia (both
supported and sponsored by the United States and voted for by
virtually all the nuclear weapons states), the Indian 'Reducing
Nuclear Danger', a worthy resolution that ought to attract much more
support than it does, in the New Agenda resolution, (where it is new
and welcome language that helps to focus the resolution more on
disarmament), and in the NAM resolution.

TO UNITED NATIONS SECRETARY-GENERAL BAN KI MOON
RE: ABOLITION OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS

CC
High Representative Sergio Duarte
Randy Rydell,
UN Missions

Dear United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon,