Interesting piece in the Aberdeen Press and Journal

Full article here

With an interesting link to an online petition.

Church leaders are urging people to sign an online petition calling for controversial plans to spend £100billion on replacing the Trident nuclear system to be scrapped.

The Church of Scotland has teamed up with faith groups including the Church of England, the Methodist Church and the United Reformed Church to lobby politicians at Westminster not to replace the submarine missile at its base on the Clyde.

The campaign, Now is the Time, joins the World Council of Churches and others in pushing for governments to put all bomb-grade material under international control and commit to making the use and possession of nuclear weapons illegal through a new Nuclear Weapons Convention. It is being backed by Baroness Shirley Williams who advises Prime Minister Gordon Brown on nuclear proliferation.

UK Government representatives are meeting at the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Review Conference in New York in May.

Campaign organisers want people to write to their MPs to persuade the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office delegation to argue the case.

The Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, the Right Rev Bill Hewitt, said: "We have long held the conviction that nuclear weapons serve no useful purpose for humanity.

"At a time when voters are asking difficult questions about the best use of tax revenues for the benefit of the maximum number of citizens we have to consider the financial implications as well as the moral. The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty is an opportunity to make that difference and to save lives for generations to come."

Last year the UN Security Council unanimously approved a resolution aimed at ridding the world of nuclear weapons.

Mr Brown has offered to reduce Britain's nuclear deterrent from four submarines to three but SNP Westminster defence spokesman Angus Robertson wants him to go further and scrap the lot.

Obscene

He said it would be "unforgivable" for a UK Government to press on with plans to renew Trident at a time of massive budget cuts to public spending. "On moral, economic or political grounds, replacing these obscene weapons of mass destruction is indefensible," said Mr Robertson, MP for Moray.

But former Scotland Office minister David Cairns, a Labour MP, said: "In a dangerous world where countries like Iran are actively trying to acquire nuclear weapons, it would be foolish for us to unilaterally abandon our nuclear deterrent."

For more information log on to www.endnuclearweapons.org.uk