The international community must wake up to the threat of nuclear weapons proliferation, the Australian chairman of a new disarmament body says.

"The scale of the havoc and the devastation that can be wreaked by one major nuclear weapon alone puts 9/11 and almost everything else into the category of insignificance." - Gareth Evans.

Commemorations around the globe were held August 6 and 9, marking the 63rd anniversaries of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki respectively.

"... the only role for nuclear weapons is to be abolished."

- Hiroshima Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba, August 6, 2008.

A new poll conducted by CBC shows that when it comes to nuclear weapons, 88% of Canadians believe they make the world a more dangerous place, while just 6% believe they make it safer.

ICAN has been successfully launched on Parliament Hill, Ottawa, co-hosted by the Parliamentary Network for Nuclear Disarmament (PNND) which has over 500 members from 70 countries, all of whom must be active parliamentarians in order to belong. Canada has sixty-one members.