"International Peace Day" is September 21

The United Nations' International Day of Peace - marked every year on September 21 - is a global holiday when individuals, communities, nations and governments highlight efforts to end conflict and promote peace. Established by U.N. resolution in 1982, "Peace Day" has grown to include millions of people around the world who participate in all kinds of events, large and small.  Please consider creating an event to mark this important day and sharing it with others around the world.

Entire African continent is nuclear weapons-free zone

The entire continent of Africa is officially a nuclear weapons-free zone, after Burundi signed the African Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone Treaty last month. The treaty, which covers the entire African continent as well as its surrounding islands, ensures that nuclear weapons are not developed, produced, tested, or otherwise acquired or stationed in any of the countries on the continent.

Protest United States Missile Launch

The US arsenal is poised for another launch from Vandenberg AFB in Southern California in the early morning hours of August 23. Our government lectures and threatens Iran and North Korea about the evils of nuclear weapons and then arrogantly continues to fire nuclear missiles from California into the Pacific Ocean. The US will launch the high speed, hair trigger Minuteman III nuclear weapon delivery system from Vandenberg Space Command to Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands. The launch will be an operational test to verify the weapon system's reliability and accuracy. There will be protests at Vandenberg AFB, as well as at the Air Force Space and Missile Command in El Segundo, CA, at the time of the launch. We urge people around the world to hold solidarity protests on either August 22 or 23 to expose the hypocrisy of this US nuclear test. Why UN sanctions against North Korea or Iranbut not the US? We can't let theworld's biggest nuclear power get away with this "say one thing, but do another" politics any longer.This call is supported by the Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space, Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, and the War Resister's League. Your organization's support is also requested. You may email the California protest organizer MacGregor Eddy or call her at 831-206-5043.The Minuteman III is built by Boeing, Thiokol, United Technologies, and Aerojet-General weapons corporations.

Rembering Hiroshima and Nagasaki

Read more about the anniversaryof the August 6 and 9 bombings, 64 years ago, on TomDispatch.com.

Just what India needs - more weapons and reactors

U.S. Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, during a visit this week to India, has agreed on a deal that will allow the U.S. to market "sophisticated weaponry" to that country. Building on the deal made under the former Bush administration, Clinton further discussed arrangements for U.S. companies to build nuclear power plants in India. What does a country of 1.2 billion people need with sophisticated weaponry, a space program and cancer-causing nuclear reactors when it is struggling to feed its people and provide clean, safe drinking water? It was bad enough that the Bush administration basically forgave India its nuclear weapons program and avoidance of membership of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Now the Obama administration will aid and abet the further proliferation of nuclear materials and technology in one of the most volatile and dangerous regions of the world, plus sell arms to a country whose resources need to be spent on meeting fundamental human needs.