Overview

• Representatives from a record 120 countries and territories gathered in Hiroshima’s Peace Memorial Park and at Nagasaki’s ceremony to mark the 80th anniversary of the only wartime use of nuclear weapons.
• Mayor Kazumi Matsui urged world leaders to visit Hiroshima’s Peace Memorial Museum to witness the devastation firsthand and press for the elimination of nuclear arsenals.
• A government report confirms just 99,130 hibakusha remain alive with an average age of 86, underscoring the race to preserve survivors’ testimonies before they are lost.
• Experts report that the United States and Russia together hold about 90 percent of the world’s more than 12,000 nuclear warheads, driving renewed arms race fears that keep the Doomsday Clock at 89 seconds to midnight.
• Nobel Peace Prize laureate Nihon Hidankyo and other survivors’ groups have launched international campaigns to convey hibakusha experiences and advocate Japan’s accession to the UN treaty banning nuclear weapons.