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Nagasaki calls for worldwide nuclear abolition treaty

Nagasaki calls for worldwide nuclear abolition treaty  Japan Times, 9 Aug 12,  Kyodo NAGASAKI — Nagasaki urged world leaders Thursday to conclude a treaty banning nuclear weapons at a ceremony marking the 67th anniversary of its atomic bombing.

Prayer for peace: Nagasaki atomic-bombing survivor Shigeko Iwamoto prayed for the dead in front of the Peace Statue on Thursday morning as the city marked the 67th anniversary of the attack on Aug. 9, 1945. KYODO
“The international community must act now by taking the first concrete
steps toward concluding the Nuclear Weapons Convention,” Mayor
Tomihisa Taue said during the city’s annual peace ceremony at Nagasaki
Peace Park.

Taue also called on the central government to address the “serious
challenge” presented by North Korea’s nuclear arms threat, while Prime
Minister Yoshihiko Noda declared in a speech that Japan has a
“responsibility” to encourage countries to eliminate their nuclear
arsenals.

The appeals were included in a Peace Declaration that Taue read out at
the ceremony, which was attended by U.S. Ambassador John Roos for the
first time and representatives from about 40 countries, including
nuclear-armed Britain and France. Roos attended Hiroshima’s annual
peace ceremony in August 2010, but not Nagasaki’s.

Tens of thousands in the crowd observed a moment of silence at 11:02
a.m., the precise time at which the “Fat Man” A-bomb detonated above
Nagasaki, ripping it to shreds. Up to 80,000 people were incinerated
in the blast or had died from radiation-related illnesses by the end
of 1945, according to municipal authorities.

The number of officially recognized hibakusha in Nagasaki stood at
39,324 as of March, with an average age of 77½ years, they added.

This year’s service was held as the public increasingly questions the
safety of nuclear power, and as street protests escalate to demand the
abolition of nuclear plants following the March 2011 catastrophe at
the Fukushima No. 1 plant.

“We call on the government to set new energy policy goals to build a
society free from the fear of radioactivity,” Taue said in reference
to the nuclear crisis…..
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/nn20120810a2.html

August 10, 2012 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | general