This year's Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to Nihon Hidankyo - grassroots group established in 1956 by survivors of atomic bombings of Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The group has spent decades lobbying governments worldwide for abolition of nuclear weapons. The Nobel committee said Nihon Hidankyo won the award, "for its efforts to achieve world free of nuclear weapons". Hiroshima and Nagasaki are the only places on Earth where such weapons have been used on civilian populations. Wikipedia says: "The effects of atomic bombings killed 90,000 to 166,000 people in Hiroshima and 60,000 to 80,000 people in Nagasaki; roughly half occurred on first day."
The news agency Reuters praised ongoing legacy of Nihon Hidankyo. It wrote: "For decades - thanks in large part to work of Nihon Hidankyo - the destruction unleashed on the two Japanese cities was widely seen as lesson from history that using nuclear weapons again was too appalling to contemplate." However, rising tensions in the world today mean we are closer to brink of nuclear war than ever before. Russia has warned that USA's support of Ukraine increases the risks of nuclear conflict. There are fears that Iran is developing nuclear weapons. Meanwhile, North Korea has declared it is accelerating efforts to become " military superpower and nuclear power".
