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Michael Douglas at Poster for Peace Award Ceremony

May 8, 2016 News, United Nations , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Comments are off
United Nations, New York, USA, May 03 2016 - UN Messenger of Peace Michael Douglas along with Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon and a group of UN dignitaries  promotes peace and abolition of nuclear weapons through art today at the UN Headquarters in New York. Photo: Luiz Rampelotto/EuropaNewswire

United Nations, New York, USA, May 03 2016 – UN Messenger of Peace Michael Douglas along with Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon and a group of UN dignitaries promotes peace and abolition of nuclear weapons through art today at the UN Headquarters in New York. Photo: Luiz Rampelotto/EuropaNewswire

United Nations, New York, USA, May 03 2016 – UN Messenger of Peace Michael Douglas along with Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon and a group of UN dignitaries promotes peace and abolition of nuclear weapons through art today at the UN Headquarters in New York.

By Britta Schmitz

UNITED NATIONS, May 4 2016 – The United Nations honored the winners of the Poster for

Peace Contest with a ceremony attended by academy-award winning actor Michael Douglas.

Between October 24 2015 and January 24 2016 artists could participate in a poster competition

by creating a poster aimed at raising awareness around nuclear disarmament.

“The aim of this poster competition is to raise awareness to spur action, and it has been a great

success. We received over 4,000 entries from 123 countries,“ Secretary General Ban Ki-moon

said.

The Office for Disarmament Affairs (ODA) organized this special event on the abolition of nuclear

weapons through art. The event was held in commemoration of the seventieth anniversary of

the first UN General Assembly resolution adopted on January 24 1946. This resolution

established the goal of eliminating nuclear weapons and all other major weapons of mass

destruction.

Michael Douglas, who has been a UN Messenger of Peace since his designation in 1998,

addressed the media at the event. In his position as a UN Messenger of Peace he focuses on

raising awareness around strengthening peace and security. At the Poster for Peace Award

Ceremony he honored the artists by saying that their posters “instantly create a universal

message of peace.“

Michelle Yeoh, the Secretary General’s wife Ban Soon-taek and several UN dignitaries also

attended the event.

“This competition is a wonderful celebration of creativity, but it has an important purpose: to

reaffirm the United Nations’ historic commitment to nuclear disarmament. It commemorates the

very first General Assembly resolution, which called for the abolition of nuclear

weapons. Disarmament is part of the DNA of the United Nations, which was formed when the

first and last use of nuclear weapons in war was fresh in people’s minds,“ Secretary General Ban

Ki-moon said.

United Nations, New York, USA, May 03 2016 - UN Messenger of Peace Michael Douglas along with Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon and a group of UN dignitaries  promotes peace and abolition of nuclear weapons through art today at the UN Headquarters in New York. Photo: Luiz Rampelotto/EuropaNewswire

United Nations, New York, USA, May 03 2016 – UN Messenger of Peace Michael Douglas along with Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon and a group of UN dignitaries promotes peace and abolition of nuclear weapons through art today at the UN Headquarters in New York. Photo: Luiz Rampelotto/EuropaNewswire

UN Messenger of Peace Michael Douglas along with Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon and a group of UN dignitaries promotes peace and abolition of nuclear weapons through art today at the UN Headquarters in New York. Photo: Luiz Rampelotto/EuropaNewswire

The three winners and nine honourable mentions were chosen in March. Ivan Ciro Palomino

Huamani from Peru won the first place for his contribution Spinning Peace. The American

Michelle Li won the second place for her poster Peace in Our Hands. Anjali Chandrashekar is the

third-place winner with Cutting Barriers through Peace. She also received an honourable

mention from the United States for her poster Break Free.

“All countries have rejected the use of nuclear weapons. But until these weapons are completely

eliminated, they continue to pose a threat to our common well-being. Fears of nuclear terrorism

make disarmament even more urgent and important,“ Ban Ki-moon said.

As the Secretary General pointed out, young people were strongly represented in the poster

competition. While young people did not invent nuclear weapons it might be their task to

eliminate them.

United Nations, New York, USA, May 03 2016 - UN Messenger of Peace Michael Douglas along with Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon and a group of UN dignitaries  promotes peace and abolition of nuclear weapons through art today at the UN Headquarters in New York. Photo: Luiz Rampelotto/EuropaNewswire

United Nations, New York, USA, May 03 2016 – UN Messenger of Peace Michael Douglas along with Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon and a group of UN dignitaries promotes peace and abolition of nuclear weapons through art today at the UN Headquarters in New York. Photo: Luiz Rampelotto/EuropaNewswire

United Nations, New York, USA, May 03 2016 – UN Messenger of Peace Michael Douglas along with Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon and a group of UN dignitaries promotes peace and abolition of nuclear weapons through art today at the UN Headquarters in New York. Photo: Luiz Rampelotto/EuropaNewswire

“Last week, I attended a very important conference in Vienna marking the 20th anniversary of

the singing of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. But twenty years after it was signed,

the treaty has not entered into force,“ the Secretary General expressed his concern. “I urged the

remaining eight countries, whose signing and ratification is required for the treaty to enter into

force, to do so without further delay.“

Source: EuropaNewswire


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