Reminder of nuclear insanity - Hiroshima/Nagasaki Day ceremonies

"The Toronto Hiroshima Day Coalition (THDC) cordially invites you to attend the unveiling of the powerful exhibition of photographs from the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the Rotunda inside Toronto City Hall on Wednesday, August 6th, 2008 at 5:30 pm.

THDC is honoured to announce that the City of Toronto has been selected to host the Hiroshima & Nagasaki Photo Exhibit to be held concurrently with 101 cities across the United States. THDC is also very pleased to present Setsuko Thurlow, Member of the Order of Canada and Hibakusha (Hiroshima survivor), who will introduce the exhibition.

Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba of Hiroshima will also offer a personal video greeting to the citizens of Toronto in mutual respect for the decades of work done by the citizens of Toronto and Hiroshima on global peacebuilding and the Mayors for Peace campaign pressing together in solidarity for the abolition of nuclear weapons. “Our goal is to create awareness of the destructive power of nuclear weapons,” says Setsuko Thurlow, “and the 25,000 armed nuclear weapons of which are still threatening humanity today.”

The Hiroshima & Nagasaki Photo Exhibit features pictures and educational facts about the devastation of nuclear war. The exhibit also displays dramatic drawings and paintings from dozens of Hibakusha survivors of their painful memories during the first moments on the ground after the 1945 atomic bombings in Japan with the urgent message “never again”.

The exhibit runs from August 6th -11th, 2008 in conjunction with the “Paths to Hope” Peace Commemoration and Lantern Ceremony on Saturday, August 9th, 2008 at the Toronto Peace Garden, Nathan Phillips Square beginning at 6:30 pm."

For more information on this event and what is happening in other cities please contact,

Anton Wagner: awagner-at-yorku.ca
Barbara Birkett, (Physicians for Global Survival): bbirkett-at-interlog.com www.pgs.ca


We know the argument about 'rogue' states but the main players have started to ratchet up the nuclear threat posturing. Two examples below.


A New Nuclear Weapons Doctrine 2008 Part Two
http://tinyurl.com/6kcgso
“If the recent words of four-star Gen. Yury Baluyevsky, the chief of the Russian General Staff, are heeded, Russia will have to equip all the services of its armed forces with permanently combat-ready nuclear weapons. Nobody can guess who will use them first. Speaking at a meeting of the Academy of Military Sciences in Moscow on Jan. 19, Baluyevsky declared that force should be used not only in the course of hostilities, but also to demonstrate the readiness of leaders to uphold their national interests.
"We are not going to attack anyone," he reassured his audience, "but we want all our partners to realize that Russia will use armed force to defend its own and its allies' sovereignty and territorial integrity. It may resort to a pre-emptive nuclear strike in cases specified by its doctrine."

Pre-Emptive Nuclear Strike a Key Option, NATO Told
by Ian Traynor --http://tinyurl.com/2n2x5b
"The west must be ready to resort to a pre-emptive nuclear attack to try to halt the "imminent" spread of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction, according to a radical manifesto for a new NATO by five of the west's most senior military officers and strategists. Calling for root-and-branch reform of NATO and a new pact drawing the US, NATO and the European Union together in a "grand strategy" to tackle the challenges of an increasingly brutal world, the former armed forces chiefs from the US, Britain, Germany, France and the Netherlands insist that a "first strike" nuclear option remains an "indispensable instrument" since there is "simply no realistic prospect of a nuclear-free world".

The Green Party stands for sanity and peace.

Existing Green Party policy.

Vision Green

Press for the elimination of all nuclear weapons
According to the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, and leading Canadian experts like former Ambassador for Disarmament, the Hon. Douglas Roche, the world has quietly entered a second nuclear age. On January 17, 2007, world scientists moved the hands on the “Doomsday Clock” two minutes closer to midnight in light of the dual threats of climate change and the increasing effort to build nuclear weapons, not in Korea or Iran, but by the United States. This year, the Bush Administration dedicated $6 billion to rebuilding its nuclear arsenal. Not since the bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki has the world been closer to the threat of nuclear war. Canada has simply not been doing its part to stop the spread of nuclear weapons and to protest when allies violate the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Our Vision
The Green Party of Canada is aiming towards global disarmament, and towards contributing to the conversion of all military industries in Canada and worldwide into peaceful industries. We, at the Green Party, realize that it is difficult for a single country to disarm unilaterally under the threat of another arming state, and that disarmament can be best achieved multilaterally, in harmony and communion universally, and at a global level, notably through the UN.

Green Vision
Green Party MPs will:
* Declare Canada a nuclear free zone.
* End subsidies to AECL to promote over-seas reactor sales, refuse to finance such “sales” with tax dollars.
* Strengthen the role of the International Atomic Energy Agency to ensure nuclear reactor fuels never find their way into nuclear weapons.
* Press NATO allies to get out of the nuclear weapons business.