40 years on, world interfaith peace body petitions for 'arms down'

Ecumenical News International News Highlights
4 October 2010

40 years on, world interfaith peace body petitions for 'arms down'

Tokyo (ENI). A world interfaith organization marked its 40th anniversary
with a conference aimed to inspire "mahoroba", the ancient Japanese concept
of harmony and unity. The Religions for Peace and its youth network were
also concluding a global petition for "shared security," which calls for a
reduction in nuclear weapons and the reallocation of the world's military
spending by 10 percent to help achieve the United Nations Millennium
Development Goals. The network has collected more than 13.5 million
signatures, many of them in Japan, which are to be presented to U.N.
Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, the permanent members of the Security
Council, as well as to world leaders. The Mahoroba Statement was adopted on
28 September in Japan's ancient capital city of Nara, where the New
York-based organization, known as Religions for Peace, held its first world
assembly in 1970. [324 words, ENI-10-0670]

ENI Online - www.eni.ch