Never Again – Hiroshima 70th Anniversary Vigil – Aug. 5

Remembering Hiroshima and Nagasaki and Renewing Our Commitment to a Nuclear Weapons Free Future

DATE: Wednesday, August 5
TIME: 4 pm sharp
Please plan to arrive early between 3:30 – 4 pm.
A moment of silence will be observed at 4:15 pm, the exact time the first bomb was dropped over Hiroshima (8:15 am August 6 in Japan local time.)

PLACE: Chain Reaction peace sculpture
1800 block of Main Street, at the Santa Monica Civic Center. Parking is available in the lot at 1821 Main Street (closest), or in the structure at 333 Civic Center Drive. $5 for all day parking.

PROGRAM to include:
Presentation of the Hiroshima Peace Flame by Reverend Ryuzen Hayashi, Koyasan Buddhist Temple of Los Angeles * Remarks by: Junji Sarashina, American Society of Hiroshima-Nagasaki A-Bomb Survivors * Jimmy Hara MD, Physicians for Social Responsibility-LA * Blase Bonpane, Office of the Americas * Alice Soto, Pax Christi * Stephen Rohde, Interfaith Communities United for Justice and Peace * Danny Hall, SGI-USA, Bob Dodge MD, PSR-LA * Robert Scheer, Editor-in-Chief of Truthdig

On August 6, 1945 (August 5 in North America) the United States dropped an atomic bomb over Hiroshima, Japan. Three days later, a second bomb exploded over Nagasaki. Over 230,000 people were killed from both bombs. Thousands more suffered from radiation-induced illnesses that impact some to this day. Other countries developed their own nuclear weapons, and humanity became hostage to the ever-present threat of nuclear war.

Today, there are more than 15,000 nuclear weapons in the global nuclear arsenal, most of which are far more powerful than the bombs that devastated Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Whether by accident or intent, we remain at risk – and all that we hold dear hangs in the balance.

Please join with us on August 5th to remember Hiroshima and Nagasaki, help build awareness of the nuclear threat, and grow the movement for a safer, healthier, nuclear weapons free world.

Sponsored by Physicians for Social Responsibility-Los Angeles, American Friends Service Committee – Los Angeles, Campaign Nonviolence, Interfaith Communities United for Justice and Peace, the International Health and Epidemiology Research Center, Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, Office of the Americas, Palisadians for Peace, Pax Christi, PeaceAction West, Soka Gakkai International – USA, St. Camillus Catholic Center, Veterans for Peace Los Angeles

For more information contact Denise Duffield at [email protected] or 213-689-9170 ext. 104. Click here to download flyer, here for the Facebook page, and here for press release.

NUCLEAR WEAPONS FACTS

The Bad News

• There are over 15,000 nuclear weapons in the world’s arsenals today. Of these, about 1,800 US and Russian warheads are on high alert, ready for use on short notice.
• Equipment failure, human error, and political tensions have caused numerous close calls over the years in which nuclear catastrophe was barely averted.
• Nuclear terrorism is also a real and growing threat.
• A recent report by IPPNW and PSR shows that even a very limited nuclear war, involving just 100 Hiroshima sized bombs – less than half a percent of the world’s nuclear arsenals – would disrupt climate and agriculture across the globe enough to produce a global famine that could kill 2 billion people.
• Statisticians estimate a range between 10 – 30% chance of a nuclear war in the next ten years.
• The U.S. administration plans to spend $348 billion over the next 10 years and $1 trillion over the next 30 years to maintain and modernize the entire American nuclear arsenal.

The Good News

• The movement toward a world free of nuclear weapons is building. At the recent Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty Review Conference, 159 countries (82% of all nations) delivered a Joint Statement demanding that the nuclear-armed countries agree to totally eliminate their arsenals.
• More than 110 countries have signed the “Humanitarian Pledge.” to support a legal ban on nuclear weapons.
• World leaders such as UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, the Dalai Lama, Bishop Desmond Tutu and Pope Francis have joined in the call for nuclear abolition.
• The International Red Cross Council of Delegates adopted a Four-year Action Plan for the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons in November 2013.
• At its annual meeting in Chicago, June, 2015, the American Medical Association adopted a PSR-sponsored resolution urging “the U.S. and all national governments to continue to work to ban and eliminate nuclear weapons.”