On March 1st 2010, membership of Mayors for Peace reached 3,680 with 118 new registrations since February 1st 2010. Membership in Latin-America is growing rapidly. Nicaragua now has 98% of all Mayors on board. In February we also welcomed the first two Latin-American cities in our leadership. Both Mexico City and Montevideo joined the political leadership of Mayors for Peace through Associate Membership. They join Bastogne (Belgium), Fongo-Tongo (Cameroon) and Montreal (Canada) who also accepted very recently to join as Associate Members.
As the NPT Review Conference in New York this May grows closer, the membership is increasing considerably in Japan (42), Nicaragua (31) and Germany (22). Numbers are also steadily rising in Spain (7), Austria (2), Canada (2), USA (2), UK (2), Bosnia and Herzegovina (1), Italy (1), Kazakhstan (1), Netherlands (1), Russia (1), Seychelles (1), Sweden (1) and Switzerland (1). Click the URL to view the detailed list of new members published on March 1st 2010
Today 150 (98%) out 153 Nicaraguan Mayors have joined Mayors for Peace thanks to the outstanding efforts through AMUNIC, the Association of Nicaraguan Municipalities. In addition to the 150 Mayors, one prefecture (Chontales) and one district (Bilwi) have also joined. These latest developments in Nicaragua illustrate the strategic importance of the Latin-American and the Caribbean region to push forward our agenda to eliminate nuclear weapons by 2020. This was the first region to declare a Nuclear Weapon Free Zone through the Treaty of Tlatalolco. For decades Latin-America has been on the fore-front to lead humanity to a world free of nuclear weapons. Mayors for Peace now counts 263 members in the region and expectations are high to see this number rise rapidly.
New leading cities in Latin-America
In February we also welcomed the first Latin-American cities in the leadership of Mayors for Peace. Both the capital of Mexico and Uruguay have accepted to join the political leadership of Mayors for Peace.
On February 11th Mayor Ebrard from Mexico City accepted the invitation to join the leadership of Mayors for Peace through Associate Membership. Mexico City is not only the place where the first NWFZ Treaty was signed, it is also the host of OPANAL. OPANAL is the intergovernmental Agency for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in Latin America and the Caribbean..
Two days later, on February 13th, during a visit of Peace Boat to Montevideo, Mr. Luis Polakoff, Director General of the Dept. of Economic Development and Regional Integration announced during a press conference that Montevideo, also accepts the invitation to join the leadership of Mayors for Peace through Associate Membership. As a first step they are now working through the Congress of Mayors from Uruguay to invite to other Mayors to join Mayors for Peace.
Montevideo will also invite the members of Mercociudades to join Mayors for Peace before the NPT Review Conference in New York next May. Mercociudades has members in Argentina, Bolivia,Brazil, Chile, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela. Mayor Ehrlich has also invited the Mayor of Hiroshima to visit Montevideo to meet with the other Mayors of Uruguay.
Top 10 and new overview
The overall top 10 is as follows: Japan (612), Belgium (348), Germany (337), Italy (314) and Spain (285), followed by the USA (156), Nicaragua (152), Iraq (119), France (115) and Norway (86). A new overview of membership in your country and region can be found on the updated Mayors for Peace website
As of March 1st 2010, Europe remains the region with most members (1,926 – 52,34%), followed by Asia (993 – 26,98%), Latin America and the Caribbean (263 – 7,15%), North-America (236 – 6,41%), Africa (165 – 4,48%) and Oceania (97 – 2,64%).
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