• The leader of International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), the group that won this year’s Nobel Peace Prize, on Sunday urged nuclear nations to adopt a UN treaty banning atomic weapons in order to prevent “the end of us”.
• ICAN is a coalition of 468 grassroots non-governmental groups that campaigned for a UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, adopted by 122 nations in July. The treaty is not signed by — and would not apply to — any of the states that already have nuclear arms.
• Beatrice Fihn, ICAN’s Executive Director, urged them to sign the agreement. “The United States, choose freedom over fear. Russia, choose disarmament over destruction. Britain, choose the rule of law over oppression,” she added, before urging France, China, India, Pakistan, North Korea and Israel to do the same.
• Ms. Fihn delivered the lecture together with Setsuko Thurlow, 85, a survivor of the Hiroshima bombing and now an ICAN campaigner, who recalled some of her memories of the attack.
• The Nobel prizes in literature, physics, chemistry, medicine and economics were awarded later on Sunday at a separate ceremony in Stockholm.

Source:TH