What You Can Do To Prevent Nuclear War (NAPSA)—According to the Center for Defense Information, there were approximately 14,300 strategic nuclear weaponsin the world as of April 2002. Even with proposed American and Russian disarmaments, the number will stand at about 7,500. For somepeople, the threat of a nuclear war is very real. The Nuclear Control Institute explains that the plans for atomic bombs are available to all countries and terrorist groups, and that the only limiting factor is the availability of plutonium—a material that the nuclear power industry manufactures by the ton. A new book, however, proposes that fear is not the answer. In Choose Hope: Your Role in Waging Peace in the Nuclear Age (Middleway Press, $23.95), authors David Krieger and Daisaku Ikeda provide knowledge and ideas on what the individual can do to create a future free of the “nuclear menace.” Throughout the book, Krieger and Ikeda have a dialogue for peace with each other, exchanging their ideas about prominent peace activists, abolishing nuclear weapons, their own personal experiences with war and how hope can be a powerful means to create a nuclear-weapons-free 21st century. “The biggest challenge is to awaken people everywhere to the dangers for humanity as a whole and to each individual,” the authors write. “But encouraging people to act and demanding DAVID KRIEGER & DAISAKU IKEDA CHOOSE HOPE NG PE IN THE NL change are not easy tasks and may haveto be carried out personto-person. Such activities may be disheartening at times and certainly demand perseverance. A strong will, together with hope— driven by a powerful spirit—are supremely important.” The Dalai Lama calls Choose Hope “an inspiring book,” one that “shows that dialogue is good not only between opponents but is also creatively stimulating among advocates of peace.” Meanwhile, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Mairead Corrigan Maguire praises the work as it “gives us all hope because it reminds us that in addition to the gift of life, we are each also given the gift of choice.” Choose Hope is available at bookstores and at Amazon.com.
