NEWS RELEASE FROM THE OFFICE OF JEAN LAMBERT

PROMINENT PEACE ACTIVIST TO VISIT LONDON

8 March 2005

Jean Lambert, London's Green MEP is hosting a landmark visit to the UK by Greg Mello, one of the US's most prominent peace activists, especially around the area of US nuclear weapons plans and policies. In the USA, Greg Mello is well known for conducting citizens' inspections of nuclear facilities, demanding greater transparency and accountability from the nuclear industry.

The European Parliament will vote today on whether to accept measures on nuclear disarmament ahead of a conference on New York in May of this year.

Jean Lambert said; "We want more money for weapons inspectors and a UN backed body to oversee nuclear disarmament, as well as restating the EU's commitment to the elimination of all nuclear weapons."

Mr. Mello's trip to London and Brussels next week stems from his view that American nuclear policy needs a closer review by leaders in other democracies. "You can't understand what's going on in U.S. nuclear policy by reading the U.S. newspapers, or even by following the debates in Congress, such as they are. On the one hand, U.S. nuclear policies are substantially driven by institutional factors which are poorly understood in the capital, and on the other, they are expressions of military imperatives which are seldom if ever openly discussed in those places," said Mello.

"As a result, there is a widespread, serious misapprehension that identifies Bush Administration rhetoric and programs with some kind of dramatic change in U.S. nuclear policy. There has been no such change, only a gradual intensification and ripening of programs and imperatives already in place and at work."

"We need help from western democracies less given over to the imperial thinking. The direction of U.S. nuclear policy is quite dangerous, and the state of debate in the U.S. is utterly incapable of restraining these
dangers."

Jean concluded, "It is essential that peace campaigners across the globe co-operate to explain and expose the reality of WMDs. Greg's trip will bring new information in this important 60th anniversary year."

Press Contact Alex Rowe 020 7407 6280 alexrowe@greenmeps.org.uk

Notes to Editors

1) Mr. Mello lives and works in New Mexico, where the world's two best-funded nuclear weapons facilities (Los Alamos and Sandia laboratories) are to be found. A former engineer, for the past decade thirteen years, he has directed the Los Alamos Study Group, a nongovernmental organization devoted to nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation.

2) This year is the 60th anniversary of the nuclear bombs being dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

3) Both Jean Lambert and Greg Mello are available for interview in the UK from Saturday 12 March and in Brussels on 16th and 17th March.