How to ban nuclear bombs and save the planet  

With just 50 of the world's 27,000 nuclear weapons having the capacity to kill an amazing 200 million people, you'd reckon that nations would thump their parliamentary tables and ban those bombs completely. After all, only nine countries have nuclear bombs. Yet despite active campaigns involving millions of people, five decades after the first nuclear bomb was dropped on Hiroshima in Japan, an international convention to ban the bomb has still not been successfully negotiated. But things are about to change. Now that Henry Kissinger and some of the other most aggressive advocates for US world military domination are arguing that the US should get rid of its nuclear weapons, the doors of Governments across the world are opening-up to disarmament. New Internationalist magazine co-editor, Jess Worth, is fresh from producing a magazine called ‘Dropping the Bomb: how to ban nukes and save the planet'. She joins today's guests for a tour of nuclear weapons; whose got them, where they're pointing, and how the people of the world are mobilizing to get rid of them.

• The theory is that no country would dare damage a country with nuclear arms. Yet Professor Pervez Hoodbhoy - the Chairman of the Department of Physics at Quaid-e-Azam University Islamabad - argues that in practice nuclear weapons make Pakistan less secure.
• The international campaign to abolish nuclear weapons is mushrooming. Felicity Hill - from the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom - spotlights some inspirational developments, and the politics behind them.
• Where there's bucks to be made, there's marketing managers to spin the issues. Two media watchdog groups have just launched a new online resource to profile who's spinning nuclear power and weapons issues. Bob Burton - the managing editor of SourceWatch - spotlights some of the star performers.

As the dangers of nuclear weapons reach from one end of the planet to the other, today's CD is an international showcase of musical styles and performers from Spain to the Pacific; from Latin America to a range of African countries - Rhythm of the River.

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