Nobel Peace Prize group urges nuclear powers to adopt ban-the-bomb treaty

The leader of the group that wonthis year's Nobel Peace Prize on Sunday urged nuclear nations toadopt a United Nations treaty banning atomic weapons in order toprevent "the end of us."

The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN)was awarded this year's Nobel Peace Prize by a committeethat cited the spread of nuclear weapons and the growing risk ofan atomic war.

ICAN is a coalition of 468 grassroots non-governmentalgroups that campaigned for a UNTreaty on the Prohibition ofNuclear Weapons, adopted by 122 nations in July.

The treaty is not signed by and would not apply to anyof the states that already have nuclear arms. Beatrice Fihn,ICAN'sexecutive director, urged them to sign the agreement.

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"It provides a choice. A choice between the two endings: theend of nuclear weapons or the end of us," she said in her speechat the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony in Oslo.

"The United States, choose freedom over fear. Russia, choosedisarmament over destruction. Britain, choose the rule of lawover oppression," she added, before urging France, China, India,Pakistan, North Korea and Israel to do the same.

Israel is widely assumed to have nuclear weapons, althoughit neither confirms nor denies it.

"A moment of panic or carelessness, a misconstrued commentor bruised ego, could easily lead us unavoidably to thedestruction of entire cities," she added.

"A calculated military escalation could lead to theindiscriminate mass murder of civilians."

Toronto survivor speaks

Fihn delivered the Nobel lecture together with SetsukoThurlow, an 85-year-old survivor of the Hiroshima atomic bombingand now an ICAN campaigner.

Thurlow, now a Canadian who lives in Toronto,recalled on stage on Sunday some of her memories ofthe attack on Aug. 6, 1945.

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She was rescued from the rubble of a collapsed buildingabout 1.8 kilometresfrom Ground Zero, she said. Mostof her classmates, who were in the same room, were burned alive.

"Processions of ghostly figures shuffled by. Grotesquelywounded people, they were bleeding, burnt, blackened andswollen," she said.

"Parts of their bodies were missing. Flesh and skin hungfrom their bones. Some with their eyeballs hanging in theirhands. Some with their bellies burst open, their intestineshanging out. The foul stench of burnt human flesh filled theair."

The United States, Britain and France sent second-rankdiplomats to the Nobel ceremony, which Fihn earlier told Reuterswas "some kind of protest."