NH #425: RUSSIA NUKES ITSELF? + Hiroshima, Nagasaki & Peace Activism Today: Tsukuru Fors Lauritsen, Setsuko Thurlow of ICAN

Setsuko Thurlow of the International Campaign for the Abolition of Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) addressing the world upon accepting the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of ICAN.

RUSSIA! BREAKING & ONGOING:

Explosion of a Russian nuclear reactor-powered cruise missile during a test on Thursday, August 8, has killed at least 7 – including 5 high level nuclear scientists. Story continues to develop as details from Russian sources keep changing – hey, it’s Russia. Top of the show has a 7-minute update on what is known, plus a caution to avoid giving credence to pictures and video circulating on the internet purportedly showing a nuclear explosion at the site. Those images are from an explosion at an ammunition depot in the Krasnoyarsk region that started on August 5, and are unrelated to the missile explosion.

This Week’s Feature:

Hiroshima, Nagasaki Commemoration in Los Angeles was held in downtown’s Little Tokyo on August 8, 2019. Audio and interviews with peace activists, a Fukushima survivor, a Hiroshima resident, and those who stand opposed to nuclear weapons and nulcear war to remember the two times atomic bombs have been used — and why such weapons of mass destruction must NEVER be used again:

  • Tsukuru Fors Lauritsen, primary organizer of the event. She is from Hiroshima and during the interview, we discover the profound link she shares with Hibakusha Setsuko Thurlow of the International Campaign for the Abolition of Nuclear Weapons, or ICAN. Tsukuru speaks about the culture of remembering in Hiroshima and what has moved her to her fierce, ongoing anti-nuclear activism.
  • Frances Yasmeen Motiwalla, formerly of Peace Action Los Angeles, currently a candidate for Congress.
  • Denise Duffield of Physicians for Social Responsibility, Los Angeles.
  • Dr. Jimmy Hana, board member of Physicians for Social Responsibility.
  • The music heard in the background of several interviews is by Bicultural Music Samurai Goh Kurosawa, who performs under the name, GOH.

In addition, we hear the Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech by Setsuko Thurlow of the International Campaign for the Abolition of Nuclear Weapons, or ICAN. As a school child, she survived the bombing that killed 350 of her classmates. In this moving account, she admonishes us about nuclear: NEVER AGAIN.

Setsuko Thurlow of the International Campaign for the Abolution of Nuclear Weapons, giving her acceptance speech on behalf of ICAN for the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize.