U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said Saturday that international military spending continues to far outpace the funding devoted to causes aimed at fostering peace and development, according to a U.N. press release (see GSN, Sept. 10).
He called on world leaders to work with a rising wave of public sentiment to curtail the more than $1 trillion in annual worldwide military spending and to reinvest the funding in peaceful programs.
"The world is over-armed and peace is underfunded," Ban said during a conference in Costa Rica.
He added: "People everywhere are recognizing as never before the tremendous burdens and risks of continuing to invest vast sums and energies in nuclear weapons, weapons of mass destruction, small arms, land mines, cluster munitions and other deadly weapons" (U.N. release, Nov. 9).
Meanwhile, the City Council of Boulder, Colo., is set to weigh next week whether the city should sign on to an international organization whose mission is global nuclear disarmament, the Boulder Daily Camera reported.
The question is whether a committee should be formed to examine the ramifications of Boulder joining Mayors for Peace, which was started in 1982 by the mayors of Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Today the organization has more than 3,200 member municipalities in 134 nations and regions.
The emphasis of Mayors for Peace is its "2020 Vision" which would see the entire planet rid of nuclear arms within 11 years. The group is also carrying out a "Cities Are Not Targets" petition effort which seeks to win promises from nuclear-armed nations that major population centers would not be targeted by their strategic weapons.
Former Boulder Mayor Mark Ruzzin gave his signature in 2004 to a measure supporting international nuclear disarmament efforts. The council is considering joining Mayors for Peace now at the behest of Mayor Matt Appelbaum.
Councilman Ken Wilson said he believes the council has more important things to concern itself with than the possibility of nuclear war.
"I don't think that the council should be using its time on national issues, no matter what or how good they are," Wilson said. "I won't be supportive of spending council time on it" (Heath Urie, Boulder Daily Camera, Nov. 9).