Annan to discuss nuclear disarmament today
Outgoing U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan is set to deliver a major policy address on campus this afternoon, focusing on the dangers of nuclear proliferation and the need for decisive global nuclear disarmament.Annan, who will speak in Richardson Auditorium, ascended to the top position at the United Nations in 1997, when the Cold War had been over for nearly a decade but Soviet-era nuclear material was still not completely accounted for, about a year before India and Pakistan conducted nuclear tests."I think he has made [the issue of nuclear proliferation] a centerpiece of his tenure, and there have been several useful things that have happened at the [United Nations] because of that," said Laura Holgate '87, a vice president at the Nuclear Threat Initiative, an organization that works to prevent the spread of weapons of mass destruction.Accordingly, Annan will focus his remarks on moves to restrict proliferation, reiterating that "the current paralysis ? with each side insisting that the other go first ? is fraught with danger for humanity," Edward Mortimer, director of communications for the Secretary-General, said in an email.