OMNI
HIROSHIMA -NAGASAKI ANTHOLOGY 2025
July 31, 2025
Compiled by Dick Bennett for a Culture of Peace, Justice, and
Ecology
United
Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs (UNODA)
https://disarmament.unoda.org ›
wmd › nuclear › tpnw
The Treaty on the
Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) is a United Nations
treaty that aims to prohibit all activities related to nuclear weapons,
including development, testing, production, and possession. It was adopted
on July 7, 2017, and entered into force on January 22, 2021, after receiving 50
ratifications. The TPNW is the first legally binding international
agreement to comprehensively ban nuclear weapons, marking a significant step
towards their elimination.
Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons
Activities:.The TPNW prohibits states parties from developing, testing,
producing, manufacturing, acquiring, possessing, stockpiling, transferring,
stationing, deploying, using, or threatening to use nuclear weapons.
Prohibition of Assistance:.The treaty also prohibits states parties from assisting,
encouraging, or inducing anyone to engage in any prohibited activity.
Victim Assistance and Environmental
Remediation:.The TPNW includes provisions for victim assistance,
requiring states parties to provide age- and gender-sensitive support to
individuals affected by nuclear weapons use or testing. It also mandates
environmental remediation of areas contaminated by nuclear weapons
activities.
Cooperation and Implementation:The treaty emphasizes cooperation among states parties to
facilitate its implementation and promote its universalization.
Significance
and Impact:
- Humanitarian
Focus: The TPNW is grounded in the humanitarian consequences of nuclear
weapons, emphasizing the catastrophic and lasting impacts of their use on
health, societies, and the environment.
- Disarmament
Efforts: The treaty is seen as a crucial step towards achieving a world free
of nuclear weapons, reinforcing commitments made in other disarmament
treaties like the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban
Treaty (CTBT).
- International
Norms: The TPNW is shaping international norms and perceptions regarding
nuclear weapons, highlighting the unacceptable humanitarian consequences
of their existence and potential use.
- Criticism and
Opposition:
While
the TPNW is supported by many nations and civil society organizations, it faces
opposition from nuclear-weapon states and their allies, who rely on nuclear
deterrence and have not joined the treaty.
Current
Status:
As of February 2025, 73 states have ratified or acceded to the TPNW, and 94
have signed it, according to UN Press
Releases.
The treaty entered into
force on January 22, 2021, after receiving 50 ratifications.
The first Meeting of States Parties was held in Vienna in June 2022.
CONTENTS
Nuclear Weapons
Nuclear Threat Beneath the Seas By Lynda Williams.
Andre Damon. “In
Major Expansion of Nuclear Weapons….”
Victims
Remembering Nuclear Test Victims 71
Years After the Castle Bravo Test” By Gerry Condon and Helen Jaccard.
Protest,
Resistance
“80
Years Since Nuking of Cities.” World
BEYOND War .
Sacred Peace Walk in Nevada April 12-18. Nevada Desert Experience.
“City Asked To Support Policies To Defuse Threat Of
Nuclear War” by Bill Christofferson.
From Hiroshima
to the Treaty to Nobel Peace Prize
"ICAN" stands for the International
Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons,. This is a coalition of non-governmental organizations that work to
prohibit and eliminate nuclear weapons.
ICAN: LOOKING
AHEAD 9-26-24
ICAN: 10-14-24
Roots Action, 10-22-24
ICAN 11-1-24.
“Tomorrow: Nobel Peace Prize Ceremony for atomic
bomb survivors!” Daniel Högsta, ICAN <admin@icanw.org> 12-9-24.
ICAN 12-13-24
“The True Scale of Modern Nuclear Weapons.”
Noam Chomsky and Nathan Robinson. The
Myth of American Idealism: How U.S. Foreign Policy Endangers the World.
NUCLEAR
POWER
Sit Tsui and Lau Kin Chi.
“Emerging Oceanic Struggles for
No-Nukes in Japan.”
BOOKS SHOW Respect for the Ocean
TEXTS
[I have highlighted phrases and words that enable me to
review the articles rapidly, and might be useful to other readers. I have also shortened many of the articles,
with links. –D]
NUCLEAR WEAPONS
Nuclear Threat Beneath The Seas
By Lynda Williams,
Popular Resistance (4-4-25).. Right now, beneath the world’s oceans, approximately
30 nuclear-armed submarines patrol silently, virtually undetectable. These
submarines represent humanity’s deadliest doomsday machines: stealthy,
always on alert, and capable of launching thousands of nuclear warheads at a
moment’s notice. At any given time, an estimated 10 to 15 of them are
deployed, carrying roughly 500 to 900 warheads—enough to kill hundreds of
millions and trigger a nuclear winter with potentially irreversible global
consequences. With this capacity to destroy life on Earth many times over, the
world’s nuclear... -more-
Andre Damon. “In major expansion of U.S. nuclear
buildup, Trump orders construction of nationwide missile defense system.“
Editor. mronline.org
(2-4-25).
The executive order
“directs implementation of a next-generation missile defense shield for the
United States against ballistic, hypersonic, advanced cruise missile, and other
next-generation aerial attacks.”
Originally published: Defend Democracy Press on January 29, 2025 by Andre Damon (more by Defend Democracy Press) (Posted Feb
03, 2025). Empire, Fascism, Strategy, WarAmericas, United
StatesNewswireExecutive Order, Nuclear Weapons, President Donald Trump, U.S. Iron Dome
On Monday, President Donald Trump ordered the construction
of a new missile defense system covering the United States, the latest move in
a years-long drive spanning multiple administrations to massively expand U.S.
nuclear capabilities. Speaking later on
Monday, Trump said he would “immediately begin the construction of a
state-of-the-art Iron Dome missile defense shield.” Trump added,
We’re going to ensure that we have the most lethal fighting
force in the world.
The executive order “directs implementation of a
next-generation missile defense shield for the United States against ballistic,
hypersonic, advanced cruise missile, and other next-generation aerial
attacks.” Despite the terminology, nuclear
missile defense systems are inherently offensive, not defensive in
character. The purpose is to facilitate nuclear first strikes by allowing the
country building the shield to carry out a nuclear attack on another
nuclear-armed nation, then shoot down the nuclear missiles that are sent in
response to the attack.
The announcement comes amid the stated threats by Trump—in
addition to continuing the U.S./NATO proxy war against Russia in Ukraine and
escalating the military buildup against China—to seize the Panama Canal and
Greenland, a territory of NATO member Denmark, through military force. Trump
has also threatened to wage war against Mexico and turn Canada into an American
state, transforming North America into a battlefield.
The executive order signed by Trump is titled “The Iron
Dome for America,” referencing the Israeli Iron Dome missile defense
system, which has enabled Israel to attack most of its neighbors—including
Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, Yemen and Iran—over the past year, while suffering only
limited damage from counterattacks.
The United States is 40 times larger than Israel, and any
missile defense system covering the whole of the United States would cost, at
minimum, hundreds of billions of dollars—a figure fully in keeping with the
multi-trillion-dollar nuclear modernization program that has been underway for
years.
Commenting on the scale of the plan, The Wall
Street Journal wrote approvingly. . . . MORE
https://mronline.org/2025/02/03/in-major-expansion-of-u-s-nuclear-buildup-trump-orders-construction-of-nationwide-missile-defense-system/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=in-major-expansion-of-u-s-nuclear-buildup-trump-orders-construction-of-nationwide-missile-defense-system&mc_cid=67a619b37c&mc_eid=ab2f7bf95e
VICTIMS
Nuclear Testing Victims Remembrance Day
“Remembering Nuclear
Victims 71 Years After The Castle Bravo Test”
By Gerry Condon and Helen Jaccard, Popular Resistance (3-2-25).
Between 1946 and 1958 the U.S. detonated 67 nuclear weapons in the
Marshall Islands. The blasts vaporized whole islands, carved craters into the
shallow lagoons, and exiled hundreds of people from their homes. The Castle
Bravo blast was the largest of all, sending particulate and gaseous fallout
around the entire planet. We published this article on the 70th anniversary
last year in LA Progressive. What was once called Castle Bravo Day is now
called Nuclear Victims Remembrance Day – a day to remember the
many people who have suffered untold pain... -more-
“80 Years Since Nuking
of Cities.”
|
World
BEYOND War |
As the danger of nuclear
war continues to rise, and awareness of that fact continues to shrink, let's
make good use of the 80th anniversaries of the nuclear bombings of
Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The
anniversaries of the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 and
9, 1945, are opportunities to join in or create educational and
activist events aimed at preventing any more nuclear bombings.
Here are . . .
·
events happening all over the world that you can join, and
how to add events to the calendar;
·
banners and shirts and signs to use;
·
ideas for events you can easily plan;
·
the factual history of the nuclear bombings;
·
the case for nuclear abolition;
·
actions you can take online and off;
·
social media post graphics and text you can use;
·
news articles, films, videos, etc.
Take a look!
World BEYOND War is a global network of volunteers, chapters, and affiliated
organizations advocating for the abolition of the institution of war.
Donate to support our people-powered movement for peace.
"The
Fierce Urgency of Now!" - Sacred Peace Walk in Nevada April 12-18. Nevada Desert Experience
Info via uark.onmicrosoft.com
4-10-25
to James
TABLE OF CONTENTS: Sacred
Peace Walk. April 12-18
,
•TO USE A MOUNTAIN - yucca mountain documentary
•"The Only Sane Solution" Resisting Nuclear Weapons in Europe
Sacred Peace Walk. April
12-18 When Martin Luther King
Jr. referenced "The fierce urgency of now" in his speech delivered at
the Lincoln Memorial on August 28, 1963, he was speaking to times like the
present. NDE recognizes the urgency of the moment as we prepare our
annual pilgrimage in the desert from Las Vegas to the nuclear test site. .
. .MORE 
1420 West Bartlett
Avenue Las Vegas, NV 89106 (702) 646-4814 info@NevadaDesertExperience.org NevadaDesertExperience.org
City Asked To Support Policies To
Defuse Threat Of Nuclear War By Bill Christofferson, Shepherd
Express. Popular
Resistance.org (4-4-25). From start to
finish, a nuclear war could last only 72 minutes, killing five billion people,
destroying the climate and civilization, perhaps the entire planet. It’s a
chilling thought, which explains why most people choose not to think about it.
Others are moved to do something to try to prevent that, no matter how uphill
the struggle or how long the odds of eliminating nuclear weapons and the
existential threat they pose. In Milwaukee, a coalition of 18 peace,
justice, environment, religious and community organizations is urging the
city’s government to take a stand and call for some common-sense... -more-
FROM THE VICTIMS TO THE TREATY AND NOBEL PEACE PRIZE
Nihon Hidankyo, also known as the Japan Confederation of A-
and H-Bomb Sufferers Organizations, is a group representing survivors
of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Founded in 1956, it was
formed by Hibakusha (atomic bomb survivors) to advocate for their social and
economic rights and to work towards a world free of nuclear weapons. In
2024, Nihon Hidankyo won the Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts in promoting
nuclear disarmament and raising awareness about the humanitarian consequences
of nuclear weapons.
For decades, the hibakusha have been tireless advocates
for the elimination of nuclear weapons. No one will ever be able to measure
how many people’s lives were forever altered by hearing, first hand, a
survivor tell their story of that summer morning in Hiroshima or Nagasaki.
Most often, the person telling the story was a child at the time- and lost
their parents, their siblings, their best friends. It takes incredible bravery to re-live such a horrific
trauma, over and over, for audiences around the globe. The courage to do so
has led people to the conclusion that nuclear weapons are so horrific, they
must never be used again. It has helped the public and world leaders to see
nuclear weapons for what they truly are. These stories, and the willingness to share them, helped
us achieve the adoption and entry-into-force of the UN treaty that bans
nuclear weapons forever, the TPNW. And of course, they have inspired -
and continue to inspire- people all around the world who work on nuclear
abolition to keep pushing until the job is done. |
|||||||||||||||
|
Terumi Tanaka, co-chair of Nihon
Hidankyo, speaking against nuclear weapons in 2011. Photo: ICAN | Tim Wright.
Read his story here. |
|
This global recognition of everything the hibakusha have
done to protect us all from the nuclear war is also an opportunity to make
the world hear their urgent calls to end the nuclear threat once and for all.
It marks a new opportunity to re-energise the movement, and call on everyone
to stand in solidarity with the hibakusha, particularly as next year will
mark 80 years since the atomic bombings. We hope you will join us in thanking Nihon Hidankyo and
all the hibakusha. Will you please read and share these pieces that feature
some of their incredible work? |
Hear more hibakusha testimonies
|
Thank you, Susi Snyder, Programme Coordinator, ICAN |
|
Noam Chomsky and Nathan Robinson. The Myth of American Idealism: How U.S.
Foreign Policy Endangers the World. Penguin, 2024.
“On
August 6, 1945, the United States demonstrated that human intelligence would
soon be capable of destroying virtually all life on Earth. Things didn’t quite reach that point until
1953, with the development of thermonuclear weapons, but the trajectory was
clear: nuclear weapons gave states staggering new destructive capabilities and
plunged the whole world into unprecedented danger.
The
dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was not terribly different
from the firebombing of Tokyo, in terms
of their savagery and disregard for innocent lives. Atomic weaponry merely made the mass murder
of civilians more efficient. But the
bombings did demonstrate how far human technological capacities had outstripped
human moral capacities. They showed how
the godlike power to smite whole cities could be unleashed by a country that
saw itself as humane and righteous.”
(207).
Typical Chomsky: clearly perceiving
implications of world events, evaluating those trajectories ethically and
accurately, and never whitewashing reality, never calling mass murder strategic
necessity or hypocrisy righteous.
NUCLEAR POWER
Sit Tsui and Lau Kin Chi.. “Emerging Oceanic Struggles for
No-Nukes in Japan.” Monthly Review (February, 2025).
In this deeply stirring
account, Sit Tsui and Lau Kin Chi share their field research, conducted over
years of travel and relationship-building, into the Japanese antinuclear
movement. As the people and environment of Fukushima continue to be
impacted by the disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant in March 2011,
the No-Nukes movement has grown in response, encompassing aspects of society
ranging from artists and monks to fisherfolk and intellectuals. | more… Source
The authors recount
the ”No Nukes” struggle to stop the radioactive pollution of the ocean by the
continuing release of radioactive water impounded following the Fukushima
disaster, by the continuing poisoning by the remaining nuclearized rods, and by
the threatening continuation of nuclear power plants elsewhere in Japan. It is both an arresting story and a
meditation on the difficulty of abolishing a dangerous technology. Their conclusions: “The Japanese government
did not learn the lesson of the Fukushima catastrophe.” A significant context expounded in the
essay is the connection of Fukushima to the US Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings
and the US Marshall Islands bomb tests.
They describe the “Monument of Regrets…about Nuclear Power” and the
adjacent “Hiroshima-Nagasaki-Bikini-Fukushima Lamp” which pass on the No Nukes
message to the future. (--Dick)
BOOKS SHOW Respect for the Ocean
Since the Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2011, we have
closely followed the grassroots’ response in Japan. We conducted field research
in Fukushima in 2012 and 2015. In the South-South Forums hosted by the Global
University for Sustainability and Lingnan University in 2011, 2019, and 2021,
we gathered scientists, scholars, journalists, and movement activists to
discuss the Fukushima nuclear disaster and nuclear war.1 Lau
Kin Chi, Huang Xiaomei, and He Zhixiong co-authored a book in both
simplified and traditional Chinese characters: Fukushima After 10 Years (福岛/辐岛: 十年回首诘问), and Fukushima:
Is Nuclear Power a Blessing or Impending Doom? (福島/輻島—核電是福是禍). More recently, an English version of
the author’s more recent book, The Fukushima Catastrophe: To
What End?, was published by Palgrave MacMillan in 2023.2 In
addition, Fukushima: A Monument to the Future of Nuclear Power, edited by
Sit Tsui and Lau Kin Chi, was published in September 2024.https://monthlyreview.org/2025/02/01/emerging-oceanic-struggles-for-no-nukes-in-japan/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=emerging-oceanic-struggles-for-no-nukes-in-japan&mc_cid=a91cece3d0&mc_eid=ab2f7bf95e . . .
END H-N 2025 ANTHOLOGY
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