MEDIA ADVISORY - CTBTO Executive Secretary
Tibor Toth to address Parliamentary
Assembly of the Mediterranean (PAM) in
Rabat, Morocco, 28 October 2010

Vienna, 25 October 2010

Journalists are invited to a press opportunity following the keynote address by Tibor Tóth, Executive Secretary of the Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test Ban-Treaty Organization (CTBTO). Tóth will make the address at a meeting of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Mediterranean (PAM), in the Parliament of Morocco in Rabat on 29 October 2010. The press point will be outside the Parliamentary chamber at 11:15 am, where Tóth will brief journalists.

The meeting of the Assembly will be open to the press and continues until 30 October 2010. A number of concerns to the Mediterranean region, such as peace and security, the environment, the economy and trade, and the alliance of civilizations, will be addressed by speakers at the Assembly. It is the first time that the CTBTO is invited to participate in a PAM meeting.

PAM was founded in 2006 following fifteen years of cooperation among Mediterranean states focused on political, socio-economic and environmental issues, under the auspices of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU). PAM seeks to strengthen political, economic and social cooperation among its members, Albania, Algeria, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Cyprus, Egypt, France, Greece, Israel, Italy, Jordan, Lebanon, Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, Malta, Monaco, Montenegro, Morocco, Palestine, Portugal, Serbia, Slovenia, Syria, The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Tunisia and Turkey.

Tóth will also speak at the start of a two-day regional CTBTO workshop in Rabat on 28 October 2010. The workshop will address representatives of African States with an aim to increase awareness about the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban-Treaty (CTBT). The two-day workshop will cover a number of topics including the civil and scientific benefits of the Treaty’s verification regime for monitoring earthquakes and volcanoes and providing tsunami warning.

Morocco, together with France, has led the entry-into-force process since 2009.  Having presided over the most recent conference to facilitate the entry into force of the Treaty, which took place in 2009 in New York, Morocco and France continue to promote the Treaty and coordinate outreach activities.

Background

The CTBT bans all nuclear explosions by everyone, everywhere: on the Earth’s surface, in the atmosphere, underwater and underground. It makes it very difficult for countries to develop nuclear bombs for the first time, or for countries that already have them, to make more powerful bombs. It also prevents the huge damage caused by radioactivity from nuclear explosions to humans, animals and plants.

The Treaty has been signed by 182 States and ratified by 153. It will enter into force and become a legally binding norm when China, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Iran, Israel, Pakistan and the United States have ratified it.

The CTBTO is tasked to promote signatures and ratifications, and to establish a global verification regime capable of detecting nuclear explosions underground, underwater and in the atmosphere. Its verification system will consist of 337 monitoring facilities and is already 80 per cent complete, providing information to the International Data Centre at the CTBTO’s headquarters in Vienna, Austria. On-site inspections to collect information on the ground in the case of a suspected nuclear explosion complement the system.

For further information please contact:
Ms Kirsten Haupt
[email protected]
+43 699 1459 6127

---

For further information on the CTBT, please see www.ctbto.org – your resource on ending nuclear testing,
or contact: Annika Thunborg, Spokesperson and Chief, Public Information  
T    +43 1 26030-6375 
E    [email protected]
M    +43 699 1459 6375      
I    www.ctbto.org Connect with CTBTO on facebook, twitter, flickr and  youtube.