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Thursday, September 24, 2009
News No more nukes
Posted By Rhiannon Fionn-Bowman on Thu, Sep 24, 2009 at 3:20 PM
Is world peace possible? It's difficult to say, but ridding the world of nukes is one huge step in that direction.
With President Barack Obama presiding over a historic session, the Security Council unanimously approved a U.S.-drafted resolution Thursday aimed at ridding the world of nuclear weapons.Russia, China and developing nations supported the U.S.-sponsored measure, giving it global clout and strong political backing. The resolution calls for stepped up efforts to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons, promote disarmament and "reduce the risk of nuclear terrorism."
It was only the fifth time the Security Council met at summit level since the U.N. was founded in 1945. And Obama was the first American president to preside over a Security Council summit, gaveling the meeting into session and announcing that "the draft resolution has been adopted unanimously."
Just one nuclear weapon set off in a major city could cause major destruction, Obama said.
He said the global effort would seek to "lock down all vulnerable nuclear materials within four years."
"This is not about singling out an individual nation," he said. "International law is not an empty promise, and treaties must be enforced."
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said that "our main shared goal is to untie the problem knots" among nations seeking nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament.
In its opening paragraph, the draft reaffirms the council's commitment "to seek a safer world for all and to create the conditions for a world without nuclear weapons."
Arms control advocates say those elements are interconnected. Some nations might eventually reject the limitations of the Nonproliferation Treaty, for example, if the United States and other nuclear powers don't abide by that treaty's requirement to move toward disarmament by reducing their arsenals, or if they reject the test ban.
All five permanent Security Council members — the United States, Russia, China, Britain and France — have atom bombs.
Read the entire article at MSNBC.com.
Watch these first-hand accounts from Hiroshima:
Remembering the aftermath:
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