Helsinki+50 NGO Forum

​ Cooperation for Peace in the Joint Baltic H abitat   A PEACE MESSAGE FROM RUSSIA: Dear friends! Colleagues! Unfortunately, I am not in Helsinki today. A double iron curtain created by politicians separates us. This iron curtain divides our common Baltic Sea.  Politicians have announced preparations for a new big war in Europe. According to one of the scenarios published by NATO, the Russian naval base in Kaliningrad will be destroyed first. The remaining naval forces will be blocked in the St. Petersburg area.   Russian admirals also have a winning scenario in case of a conflict in the Baltic. Thus, NATO and Russian military plan to make the Baltic Sea an arena of military operations.  There will be more than 30 nuclear reactors and thousands of tons of nuclear waste in temporary storage facilities in the theater of military operations. In case of a big war in the Baltic, the nuclear power plants and temporary storages of the nuclear waste will be destroyed. ...

Greetings and peace from Kyiv. I will start with a story of tyranny and courage. When the Helsinki Final Act was concluded, ten human rights defenders created Ukrainian Helsinki Group in 1976 and were immediately arrested and repressed. And yet, even from Gulag, from a Soviet concentration camp, they managed to write an open letter to signatories of Helsinki Accords, advocating nuclear disarmament and release of prisoners of conscience to comply fully with the Helsinki commitments. The letter said: "The war of ideologies gives rise to a senseless arms race, so the disarmament of hearts and souls is necessary". I am here today to say the same, that disarmament in international relations starts from the disarmament of hearts, that could have miraculous power: millions on streets in Europe protesting against nuclear sharing. The will of the people  ended the cold war; hundreds of thousands of conscientious objectors refusing to fight imperialist wars in Vietnam and in Afganistan...

Presenter: Al Mytty, USA, World Beyond War: Spending money on the military is not an efficient way to create jobs. The research shows that 35% more jobs would be created if we allowed taxpayers to spend the money themselves. 50% more jobs would be created if that money were spent on clean energy. 54% more jobs would be created by spending the money on health care, and 138% more jobs would be created by spending the money on education rather than the military.   Here’s the documentation: THE U.S. EMPLOYMENT EFFECTS OF MILITARY AND DOMESTIC SPENDING PRIORITIES: 2011 UPDATE Robert Pollin & Heidi Garrett-Peltier Political Economy Research Institute, University of Massachusetts, Amherst December 2011   Input-output analytic framework first developed in the 1930s by Nobel Laureate economist Wassily Leontief       Direct Jobs Indirect Jobs Direct + Indirect Jobs Induced Jobs Total Job Creation Job Creation Relative to Defense Spending Military 6,800 1,800 8,600 2,6...