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UN Votes to convene conference on Nuclear Weapons Ban!

Historic United Nations vote sets stage for a showdown

 

The United Nations took a step toward a future free of nuclear weapons today when the First Committee of the General Assembly voted, 123-38 (with 16 abstaining), to begin negotiations in 2017 on a treaty to ban nuclear weapons.

 

The vote signals the frustration of non-nuclear states with the failure of nuclear armed states to fulfill the obligations they accepted when they signed the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty in 1969. As a result, in March 2017 a UN conference will be convened to negotiate “a legally binding instrument to prohibit nuclear weapons, leading toward their total elimination.”

 

The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), a civil society coalition active in 100 countries, hailed the adoption of the resolution as a major step forward, marking a fundamental shift in the way the world tackles the threat of nuclear weapons.

 

Fifty-seven nations co-sponsored the resolution. Five of the nine nuclear-armed states voted “No,” including the United States of America and Russia, who have the lion’s share of the world’s 15,000 nuclear weapons. North Korea voted for the resolution; China, Pakistan and India abstained.

 

A more detailed report, links to the resolution and the vote can be found on ICAN’s web site: http://www.icanw.org/campaign-news/un-votes-to-outlaw-nuclear-weapons-in-2017/UN

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Sunday Vigil at Y-12 in Oak Ridge Tennessee

Sunday Vigil

OREPA has held Sunday vigils every week for more than 22 years at the main entrance to the Y-12 Nuclear Weapons Complex (intersection of Scarboro Rd and East Bear Creek Road) at 5:00pm ET. We are outdoors and space our chairs; when covid numbers are up, we encourage people to wear masks. Bring your own chair, we have some umbrellas for sun shade or rain.

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