Friday, May 8, 2009

Day Five at the NPT - one week down, one week to go!

Well folks, the weekend is nearly here. Our morning NGO caucus meeting was a little longer this morning and included a strategy session. We set ourselves the task of making a short list of demands to focus on in the year before the Review Conference. We identified an overarching human security theme which unites all our demands. I will post these demands once we've had a chance to finesse the wording and discuss them further. This work will be continued in tomorrow's Abolition 2000 Annual General Meeting. 

In the official debate, today's big news today has been the release by the Chair of the PrepCom, Ambassador Chidyausiku of Zimbabwe, of his draft recommendations to the 2010 Review Conference. None of us have had a chance to digest these entirely but then neither have the official delegates.

Two weeks is a long time, and while your faithful blogger will be here for the duration, some people have had to leave to get back to their vital work elsewhere. IPPNW's Canadian affiliate, Physicians for Global Survival, have been well represented in the last few days by both the president, Michael Dworkin, and the executive director, Kim Kroeber, but both are now returning home, to host a wonderful PGS/ICAN event next Tuesday. If you are in the Ottawa area, RSVP quickly!

Listening to the debate in Conference Room 1 the temptation to stand up and say something is at times overwhelming. Don't worry, I haven't misbehaved yet. But what I'd really like to say is something like the words of the Russell-Einstein Manifesto, which brings focus to any debate about the things that divide us. In 1955, their words to us were "We appeal as human beings to human beings: Remember your humanity, and forget the rest. If you can do so, the way lies open to a new Paradise; if you cannot, there lies before you the risk of universal death."

Yours from New York
Ruth Mitchell

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