NUCLEAR BOMBS

Press, Volume C, Issue 29672, 16 November 1961, Page 15

NUCLEAR BOMBS

Use ‘ Would Be Crime’

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter —Copyright) NEW YORK, Nov. 15. The use of nuclear weapons would be a crime against mankind and its civilisation, a United Nations committee declared yesterday. The United Nations General Assembly’s Main Political Committee adopted a resolution which condemned the use of nuclear weapons and urged an international convention to prohibit their use. It also approved a further resolution designating the African Continent a “denuclearised zone.” The committee adopted the draft resolution outlawing nuclear weapons, introduced by 12 Afro-Asian nations, by 60 votes to 16, with 25 abstentions.

The Western Powers—including Australia and New Zealand—voted against it after the committee rejected Italian amendments designed to ban nuclear weapons only if they were used contrary to the Charter. The amendments would, in effect, have permitted their use for self-defence. The resolution claimed that the use of nuclear and thermo-nuclear weapons was contrary “to the spirit, letter and aims of the United Nations, and, as such, a direct violation of the United Nations charter.

It added that any state using nuclear and thermonuclear weapons “is to be considered to violate the Charter of the United Nations, to act contrary to the laws of humanity and to commit a crime against mankind and its civilisation.”

Expedition Sails (N.Z. Press Assn.—Copyright) . LENINGRAD, Nov. 14. The seventh Soviet Antarctic expedition sailed from Leningrad today, under Captain Nikolai Svirido, a veteran of the six earlier expeditions. The vessel, the dieselelectric Ob, carried 3000 tons of supplies, including new automatic radio weather stations designed for low temperatures and for wind velocities up to 210 feet a second. The expedition will continue glaciological, meteorological, gravimetric and other studies started by previous Antarctic expeditions, reported the Associated Press.