Peace Vigil
August 6th at the Peace Pole
11.00-11.30am

The vigil will commemorate the victims of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It will take place at exactly the same time as the ceremonies in Hiroshima. This will be a largely silent vigil except for some poetry readings, a speech by a representative of the Japanese community, as well as the placing of white cranes and a performance by the Dunedin O’Taiko Drummers.

Public Debate: “That New Zealand is Safer out of ANZUS and Nuclear Free”
August 6th in Archway 3
5.15pm

Since 1985, New Zealand has been nuclear free and out of ANZUS, has this made us more or less safe and given us a more independent foreign policy?
The debate will feature Professor Kevin Clements, the Director of the National Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Otago, and Gerald Hensley, a former New Zealand diplomat who served under Rob Muldoon and David Lange as Head of the Prime Minister's department. Professor Clements will argue that New Zealand’s anti-nuclear policy of the 1980s was a rational response to a world of rising nuclear threat, and that although New Zealanders wished to be nuclear free, they also wished to remain within the Alliance. Professor Clements will also argue for the maintenance of NZ as a nuclear weapons-free zone, and highlight ways in which New Zealand can continue to push for the control and abolition of nuclear weapons. Mr Hensley, who recently published Friendly Fire: Nuclear Politics and the Collapse of ANZUS, 1984-1987, will make an argument for prudent support of extended nuclear deterrence. It is expected that he will argue that NZ is safer within ANZUS and should therefore moderate its nuclear free policy to enable a full resumption of alliance ties with the United States.

Everything You Treasure: For a World Free from Nuclear Weapons
Library LINK at the University of Otago, August 5-9

This peace education exhibition was produced by Soka Gakkai International and the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons. It consists of 40 panels covering nuclear weapons issues from 12 perspectives: humanitarian, environmental, medical, economic, human rights, energy, scientific, political, spiritual, gender, generational and security. The exhibition was recently showcased at the UN Office in Geneva during the Second Preparatory Committee for the 2015 Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.

ENDS

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