09/04/2017 |

Seminar on Nuclear-Free World at Dhaka University

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On April 7th, Parlamentarians for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament (PNND) spoke about this to 350 university students and representatives of youth organisations at a forum on nuclear disarmament and sustainable development at Dhaka University.

Also, on April 4, PNND made an intervention to the 136th Assembly of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (over 140 parliaments participating) calling on parliamentarians to move their governments to cut military spending in order to fund SDGs. The intervention focused on nuclear weapons budgets, and on how parliamentarians in nuclear-armed States could directly cut these while parliamentarians in non-nuclear States could ensure their public funds divest from nuclear weapons corporations. Read more…

Mr Saber Chowdhury, president of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), reinforced this message in presentations he made to the IPU assembly and to a PNND Forum the following day. He also joined other parliamentarians from around the world and members of Physicians for Social Responsibility from Bangladesh in an action for the International Day of Sport for Peace and Development (April 6).

Moreover, UNFOLD ZERO has just circulated an update of the report “Move the Nuclear Weapons Money” with the title: Will the ban treaty prohibit nuclear weapons investments. It reports on the progress on this at the ban treaty negotiations in New York. Note that support from the governments for the proposal is weak at the moment, primarily because many of the participating governments are hesitant to adopt a treaty that will bring them into direct conflict with the nuclear-armed States, especially in the financial sector. However, we do have a few champions, and we have the positive experience of nuclear weapons divestment already undertaken by several countries to help dispel the fears.