Nuclear disarmament is the act of reducing or eliminating nuclear weapons. It can also be the end state of a nuclear-weapons-free world, in which nuclear weapons are completely eliminated. The term denuclearization is also used to describe the process leading to complete nuclear disarmament.
A weapon of mass destruction (WMD) is a nuclear, radiological, chemical, biological, or any other weapon that can kill and bring significant harm to numerous humans or cause great damage to human-made structures, natural structures, or the biosphere. The scope and usage of the term has evolved and been disputed, often signifying more politically than technically. Originally coined in reference to aerial bombing with chemical explosives during World War II, it has later come to refer to large-scale weaponry of other technologies, such as chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear warfare.
Hiroshima is the capital of Hiroshima Prefecture in Japan. As of June 1, 2019, the city had an estimated population of 1,199,391. The gross domestic product (GDP) in Greater Hiroshima, Hiroshima Urban Employment Area, was US$61.3 billion as of 2010. Kazumi Matsui has been the city's mayor since April 2011.
Hans Martin Blix is a Swedish diplomat and politician for the Liberal People's Party. He was Swedish Minister for Foreign Affairs (1978–1979) and later became the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency. As such, Blix was the first Western representative to inspect the consequences of the Chernobyl disaster in the Soviet Union on site, and led the agency response to them. Blix was also the head of the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission from March 2000 to June 2003, when he was succeeded by Dimitris Perrikos. In 2002, the commission began searching Iraq for weapons of mass destruction, ultimately finding none. On 17 March 2003, U.S. President George W. Bush delivered an address from the White House announcing that within 48 hours, the United States would invade Iraq unless Saddam Hussein would leave. Bush then ordered all of the weapons inspectors, including Blix's team, to leave Iraq so that America and its allies could invade Iraq on 20 March. In February 2010, Blix became head of the United Arab Emirates' advisory board for its nuclear power program. He is the former president of the World Federation of United Nations Associations.
The Halabja massacre, also known as the Halabja chemical attack, was a massacre of Kurdish people that took place on 16 March 1988, during the closing days of the Iran–Iraq War in the Kurdish city of Halabja in Iraqi Kurdistan. The attack was part of the Al-Anfal Campaign in Kurdistan, as well as part of the Iraqi Army's attempt to repel the Iranian Operation Zafar 7. It took place 48 hours after the capture of the town by the Iranian Army. A United Nations (UN) medical investigation concluded that mustard gas was used in the attack, along with unidentified nerve agents.
Hibakusha is a word of Japanese origin generally designating the people affected by the 1945 atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Veterans for Peace is an organization founded in 1985. Initially made up of US military veterans of World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Gulf War, and other conflicts, as well as peacetime veterans and non-veterans, it has since spread overseas and has an active offshoot in the United Kingdom. The group works to promote alternatives to war.
Sardasht is a city in and the capital of Sardasht County, West Azerbaijan Province, Iran. At the 2006 census, its population was 68165, in 8,224 families.
Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park is a memorial park in the center of Hiroshima, Japan. It is dedicated to the legacy of Hiroshima as the first city in the world to suffer a nuclear attack, and to the memories of the bomb's direct and indirect victims. The Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park is visited by more than one million people each year. The park is there in memory of the victims of the nuclear attack on August 6, 1945, in which the United States dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. The Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park was planned and designed by the Japanese Architect Kenzō Tange at Tange Lab.
A peace museum is a museum that documents historical peace initiatives. Many peace museums also provide advocacy programs for nonviolent conflict resolution. This may include conflicts at the personal, regional or international level.
The Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum is a museum located in Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park, in central Hiroshima, Japan, dedicated to documenting the atomic bombing of Hiroshima in World War II.
Ōkunoshima is a small island in the Inland Sea of Japan. It is considered to be part of the city of Takehara, Hiroshima Prefecture. It is accessible by ferry from Tadanoumi and Ōmishima. There are campsites, walking trails and places of historical interest on the island. It is often called Usagi Shima because of the numerous rabbits that roam the island. The rabbits are rather tame and will approach humans.
Iran convened a conference titled "International Disarmament and Non-proliferation: World Security without Weapons of Mass Destruction" on 17 and 18 April 2010 in Tehran. The theme of the conference was Nuclear Energy for All, Nuclear Weapons for No One.
On 9 January 1987, at the beginning of the Battle of Shalamcheh, in the midst of the Iran–Iraq War, the Iranian Behbehan Battalion came under a heavy aerial chemical bomb attack by Iraqi forces. The Behbahan Battalion was positioned near Shalamcheh, in the south of Iran, about 10 km from the port of Khorramshahr.
The Ribbon International is a United Nations non-governmental organization that created a large decorated cloth promoting nuclear disarmament and care and protection of the earth. In an event held on August 4, 1985, panels were connected in an 18 miles (29 km) long strip stretching from the Pentagon into Washington D.C. The event was covered in the film The Ribbon Starts Here by Nigel Noble (1988). Individual sections of the Ribbon are exhibited internationally. In 1991, The Ribbon International became a United Nations Non Governmental Organization. Ribbon events can be held for special designated days such as the International Day of Peace, Earth Day, special prayer days or other events. Panels from the Ribbon were displayed at the United Nations Decade for Women international conference in Nairobi in 1985, and others were used by members of Women for a Meaningful Summit at their demonstration at the Geneva Summit (1985). Ribbons were used at peace demonstrations at the Nevada Nuclear Test Site, and the Horse Creek Missile Silo near Cheyenne, Wyoming, and the Great Peace March for Global Nuclear Disarmament in 1986.
Disabled Iranian veterans, called janbaz in Iran, mostly constitute the disabled veterans of the Iran–Iraq war. According to Mohammad Esfandiari, director of communications and public relations of Iran's Martyrs and Disabled Veterans’ Organization, there are 548,499 disabled veterans of the Iran–Iraq War living in Iran as of June 2014, a number which includes the victims of Iraq's chemical weapon attacks on Iran, called "chemical janbaz". Among the disabled veterans are more than 10,000 veterans with foot and ankle injuries related to war.
Ahmad Zangiabadi was an Iranian veteran. He undertook the control and defense of Arvand Rud during the Iran-Iraq war. He was injured in the Tala’ie region of Majnoon Island by sulfur mustard from chemical bombing by Iraqi forces.
The chemical bombing of Sardasht took place on June 28, 1987. On that day, Iraq dropped what Iranian authorities believed to be mustard gas bombs on Sardasht, West Azerbaijan, in two separate bombing runs on four residential areas. It was initially estimated that 110 civilians died and 8000 civilians were injured in the bombing.
The 2017 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) "for its work to draw attention to the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of any use of nuclear weapons and for its ground-breaking efforts to achieve a treaty-based prohibition on such weapons," according to the Norwegian Nobel Committee announcement on October 6, 2017. The award announcement acknowledged the fact that "the world's nine nuclear-armed powers and their allies" neither signed nor supported the treaty-based prohibition known as the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons or nuclear ban treaty, yet in an interview Committee Chair Berit Reiss-Andersen told reporters that the award was intended to give "encouragement to all players in the field" to disarm. The award was hailed by civil society as well as governmental and intergovernmental representatives who support the nuclear ban treaty, but drew criticism from those opposed. At the Nobel Peace Prize award ceremony held in Oslo City Hall on December 10, 2017, Setsuko Thurlow, an 85-year-old woman Who survived the 1945 atomic bombing of Hiroshima, and ICAN Executive Director Beatrice Fihn jointly received a medal and diploma of the award on behalf of ICAN and delivered the Nobel lecture.
