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[3 reports below ] o o o o #1 The Hindu - Aug 06, 2004 | Life A FIGHT AGAINST NUCLEAR WEAPONS AT 27, the Japanese child rights activist, Mioi Nakayama, is obviously too young to remember Japan's unconditional capitulation ending World War II after the world's first atomic bombs were dropped on that country. Also too young to recall the bombing of Pearl Harbour without any warning or provocation by Japan, which set off the course of events leading to the dropping of the atomic bombs. Now in Bangalore, Nakayama is trying to compare what is happening today in Iraq with the destruction of Hiroshima in Japan on August 6, 1945. That she was born and brought up in Hiroshima makes up for her lack of firsthand knowledge of the events of World War II. "Although 59 years have passed since the Hiroshima tragedy, nuclear weapons still exist in our world. Moreover, we have seen the Iraqi war, which has violated human rights and is against international law. I want to emphasise the importance of this Hiroshima Day as well as the crime that is the Iraq war," Nakayama says. Nuclear weapons Nuclear weapons only escalated with the dawn of the Cold War. "By the late Eighties, 22 billion tonnes of nuclear weapons had been accumulated by the five nuclear powers - the U.S., the U.K., Russia, France, and China. This is equal to 14,70,000 bombs of the type dropped on Hiroshima... enough to kill about 200 billion people! By 2002, seven nations including India and Pakistan possessed 17,150 warheads and they are enough to kill the world's population several times over. Thus far, 2,092 nuclear tests have been conducted all over the world, including those by India," she says. Testing ground The worry among the thinking people of the world, which Nakayama echoes, is whether Iraq is turning out to be another testing ground for a super, advanced military power. There is also another side to all that money being spent on conquering Iraq. "We cannot have nuclear weapons while children are not in school; 115 million of them below 14 years have never attended school. To put them in school, we need the equivalent of Rs. 500 billion to Rs. 750 billion annually. This is equal to three days of global military spending. Let us not be militarised but get educated," she appeals. By K.S. ______ #2. The Daily Times - August 7, 2004 HIROSHIMA, NAGASAKI: DOCUMENTARY SHOWS NUCLEAR FALLOUT By Shahnawaz Khan LAHORE: Hiroshima Day was observed in Lahore on Friday to remember the vitims of the nuclear bombing by the United States of Japanese cities Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The ASR Resource Center, the Lahore Public School and the Citizen's Commission for Human Development commemorated the day at the Lahore Publuc School. The main aim of the programme was to inform children of the adverse effects of atomic warfare. The students watched a documentary "Pakistan, India and the Atom Bomb" produced and directed by Pervaiz Hoodbhoiy. The film highlighted the background of nuclear experiments conducted by India and Pakistan and the atomic bombing of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945 and on Nagasaki on August 9 by America. About 80,000 people died in the bombing. The fallout of that bombing has been damaging human lives for the last 59 years. The film showed that poverty and unemployment in Pakistan could be eliminated to a certain extent if the defence budget was reduced. ASR Resource Center Coordinator Shazia Shaheen conducted a question-answer session at the end of the documentary. The children said they opposed atomic warfare and stressed that the government should focus on the betterment of society instead of competing in nuclear war games. They said India and Pakistan could achieve peace only through de- nuclearisation. Meanwhile, UNICEF Chief Ayman Abulaban opened a photographic exhibition which showed the sufferings of the people of Hiroshima after the nuclear bombing. Maqsad, a non-government organisation working for the rights of children, peace and education, organised the exhibition at Alhamra Gallery. Human Rights Commission of Pakistan Director IA Rehman and Irfan Mufti also watched the exhibition. ______ #3. The Guardian, August 4, 2004 | Tokyo dispatch LEST WE FORGET Nearly six decades after the US dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Justin McCurry reports on efforts to ensure that the horrors of a nuclear strike remain etched on the collective memory On Friday, the people of Hiroshima will come together to remember the morning of August 6th 1945, when their city became the target of the first atomic bomb unleashed on a civilian population. Gathering within sight of the burned out shell of the former industrial promotion hall near the epicentre of the blast, they will remember the 200,000 people who perished in the immediate aftermath or who died later from the effects of exposure to radiation. Remembering the A-bomb, though, is becoming an increasingly local affair. Representatives of just two of the world's seven acknowledged nuclear powers - Pakistan and Russia - will attend. Almost six decades after the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, collective horror at their consequences is being replaced by collective amnesia. And to forget, say those who survived, is to invite the prospect of a disastrous repeat of the radioactive infernos of the summer of 1945. The hibakusha - the Japanese name for those who survived the bombings - are falling victim to the passage of time and shifts in the geopolitical environment that are concentrating minds on terrorism and regime change at the expense of more traditional threats, such as nuclear war. In Japan itself, the anti-nuclear movement has been marginalised. What was once a mass movement - a largely silent but powerful majority committed to upholding the country's pacifist constitution and non-nuclear principles - has become too closely associated with the impotent political parties of the far left. To many, the rallying cry of "No More Hiroshimas!" sounds cloying and hopelessly out of date. It is little wonder, then, that the voices of the hibakusha are being drowned out amid the din of real politik, especially in a region that is coming to terms with a North Korea emboldened by a nuclear weapons programme. Inevitably, age, too, is an obstacle. Most of the survivors are in their 70s, 80s and 90s. Many are in poor health. Yet they are determined not to be written off as mere unfortunates in a singularly tragic event. They still have battles to be won - for recognition and to secure their rightful place in history, lest, they say, it be repeated. "They are not forgotten, but they have been forced to exist in a historical file labelled 'A-Bomb'," said Kazumi Mizumoto, an associate professor at the Hiroshima Peace Institute. "At the same time, they are the only people to have experienced the effects of the military use of nuclear bombs. Whenever the world faces the danger of nuclear weapons, they alone can tell the world what the result will be. In that sense they are still important, and I think the world understands that." The community of atomic bomb survivors is now a diaspora spread between Japan, North and South Korea, China, the United States and Brazil - separated geographically, but united in their experience of coming under nuclear attack and by fear that many are not getting the official assistance that they deserve in their old age. The subjects of numerous books, magazines and recordings, their recollections will survive long after they are gone. In one of the biggest such projects, conducted just over 40 years after the attacks, NHK, Japan's public broadcaster, and the Hiroshima Peace Cultural Centre, asked 100 survivors to talk about the day their world fell apart. Among them was Toshiko Saeki, a 26-year-old-woman who rushed to Hiroshima from her home in the suburbs on the afternoon of August 6 1945 to search for her mother and other family members. Saeki, who lost 13 relatives in the attack, made perhaps the most eloquent case for not allowing the voices of the A-bomb survivors like her to fade into obscurity. "Our experience must not be forgotten," she said. "What we believed in during the war turned out to be worth nothing. I went through hell on earth [so that] Hiroshima should not be repeated again. That is why I keep telling the same old story over and over again. And I'll keep on repeating it." Hers is just one of countless similar experiences that Mizumoto believes will remind the region and the world of what they stand to lose should they ever be pushed to the brink of nuclear war. Simply rationalising the political consequences, he says, is not enough. "People are often motivated more by emotion than by logical discussion," he said. "That is where the meaning behind Hiroshima and Nagasaki plays a part, and will continue to play a part." _________________________________ SOUTH ASIANS AGAINST NUKES (SAAN): An informal information platform for activists and scholars concerned about Nuclearisation in South Asia South Asians Against Nukes Mailing List: archives are available @ two locations May 1998 - March 2002: <groups.yahoo.com/group/sap/messages/1> Feb. 2001 - to date: <groups.yahoo.com/group/SAAN_/messages/1> To subscribe send a blank message to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> South Asians Against Nukes Website: www.s-asians-against-nukes.org -- SOUTH ASIANS AGAINST NUKES (SAAN): An informal information platform for activists &amp; scholars concerned about the dangers of Nuclearisation in South Asia SAAN Mailing List: To subscribe send a blank message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] SAAN Website: http://perso.wanadoo.fr/sacw/saan [OLD URL: http://www.mnet.fr/aiindex/NoNukes.html ] SAAN Mailing List Archive : http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SAAN_/ ________________________________ DISCLAIMER: Opinions expressed in materials carried in the posts do not necessarily reflect the views of SAAN compilers. aterials carried in the posts do not necessarily reflect the views of SAAN compilers. 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