Nobel Peace Prize winner is Japanese anti-nuclear weapon group Nihon Hidankyo
The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded Friday to a Japanese anti-nuclear weapon group comprising survivors of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded Friday to a Japanese anti-nuclear weapon group comprising survivors of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Nihon Hidankyo was given the award “for its efforts to achieve a world free of nuclear weapons,” the Norwegian Nobel Committee said. “And for demonstrating, through witness testimony, that nuclear weapons must never be used again.”
The United States dropped nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War II in 1945, killing an estimated 120,000 people in what was the only time such weapons have been used in a conflict. After the ensuing, decadeslong nuclear anxiety of the Cold War, these world-ending armaments are once again causing global unease amid wars in Ukraine and the Middle East.
"The nuclear powers are modernizing and upgrading their arsenals; new countries appear to be preparing to acquire nuclear weapons; and threats are being made to use nuclear weapons in ongoing warfare," the committee said. "At this moment in human history, it is worth reminding ourselves what nuclear weapons are: the most destructive weapons the world has ever seen."
Giving the prize to a little-known Japanese nonproliferation group was something of a surprise, given the scale of active conflicts raging around the world.
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