62 Years After Hiroshima

WASHINGTON, Aug 6 (OneWorld) - In the history of warfare, nuclear weapons have been used twice, and though it has been 62 years since an atomic bomb has been employed in a conflict, the threat of a nuclear attack remains as present as ever, say arms control advocates.

Both nuclear attacks targeted Japan during the closing days of World War II. On August 6, 1945 Hiroshima was destroyed by a single atomic bomb. Three days later, on August 9th, a second atomic weapon was dropped over Nagasaki.

This week marks the anniversary of these bombings.

Currently there are nine nuclear-weapons-wielding countries: the United States, Russia, UK, France, China, Israel, India, Pakistan, and North Korea. According to reports from the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, these countries maintain approximately 27,000 nuclear weapons, 12,000 of which are currently deployed.

Although most of the world's nations are party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), an international agreement forged in 1968 to limit the spread of nuclear weapons, four key states that have since developed nuclear arsenals are not: Israel, India, Pakistan, and North Korea.

She was just a junior high school girl, only 14 years old....

The NPT obligates the nuclear weapons states that are parties to the treaty to engage in good-faith negotiations for nuclear disarmament. The International Court of Justice has interpreted this to mean that negotiations must be concluded ''leading to nuclear disarmament in all its aspects.''

However, in a deal finalized last week, the United States government agreed to transfer nuclear technology to India. Although India has assured the world community that the imported technology would be used only for non-military purposes, critics fear the agreement could result in the escalation of a nuclear arms race in a politically volatile region of the world.

Critics have described the U.S. acceptance of India's nuclear weapons program as amounting to ''a major concession'' for a country that has refused to join the NPT.

''As the world's only remaining superpower, the United States can lead the way" in promoting nuclear disarmament, David Krieger of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation said last week. ''[But] it has failed to do so.''

''It is perhaps the least talked about and most worrying irony of our time. The United States has a massive defense budget, but spends relatively little addressing the most immediate danger to humanity,'' Krieger said, referring nuclear weapons.

If your country has a possibility bombing the atomic one in the future, just think it over..... 500,000 of our lovely grandparents died in the flash with Radioactive Heat.....Thousands of bodies were evaporated.....

Other survivors, after 50 years, are still suffering from the effects......

''U.S. nuclear policy undermines the security of its people,'' Krieger added. ''The more the U.S. relies on nuclear weapons, the more other countries will do so.''

The non-profit group Citizens for Global Solutions agrees. "We've told the world that we will reduce our stockpiles of nuclear weapons and not develop new ones. Doing our part will help us convince others to do theirs," the group said in a message to its 35,000 members and supporters last week, adding that U.S. leaders should work with other governments to "revitalize and strengthen" the NPT, which it called "outdated."

But as U.S. voters prepare to choose a new president next year, there are indications that George W. Bush's successor may stay the course set by the current U.S. president on nuclear weapons. Indeed, four Republican presidential candidates have so far been unwilling to take the nuclear weapons option off the table against Iran.

And Democratic presidential hopeful Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton recently objected to Senator Barack Obama's statement that the use of nuclear weapons in Afghanistan or Pakistan would be a "profound mistake."

"Presidents should be careful at all times in discussing the use and nonuse of nuclear weapons," Senator Clinton remarked.

Leonor Tomero from the Washington, DC-based Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation called Clinton's approach ''reckless.''

"The United States should not recklessly threaten to use nuclear weapons, particularly against states that do not have these weapons....There is currently no justification for lowering the threshold for the use of nuclear weapons," Tomero said.


TBoth nuclear attacks targeted Japan during the closing days of World War II. On August 6, 1945 Hiroshima was destroyed by a single atomic bomb. Three days later, on August 9th, a second atomic weapon was dropped over Nagasaki.

This week marks the anniversary of these bombings.

Currently there are nine nuclear-weapons-wielding countries: the United States, Russia, UK, France, China, Israel, India, Pakistan, and North Korea. According to reports from the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, these countries maintain approximately 27,000 nuclear weapons, 12,000 of which are currently deployed.

Although most of the world's nations are party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), an international agreement forged in 1968 to limit the spread of nuclear weapons, four key states that have since developed nuclear arsenals are not: Israel, India, Pakistan, and North Korea.

The NPT obligates the nuclear weapons states that are parties to the treaty to engage in good-faith negotiations for nuclear disarmament. The International Court of Justice has interpreted this to mean that negotiations must be concluded ''leading to nuclear disarmament in all its aspects.''

However, in a deal finalized last week, the United States government agreed to transfer nuclear technology to India. Although India has assured the world community that the imported technology would be used only for non-military purposes, critics fear the agreement could result in the escalation of a nuclear arms race in a politically volatile region of the world.

Critics have described the U.S. acceptance of India's nuclear weapons program as amounting to ''a major concession'' for a country that has refused to join the NPT.

''As the world's only remaining superpower, the United States can lead the way" in promoting nuclear disarmament, David Krieger of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation said last week. ''[But] it has failed to do so.''

''It is perhaps the least talked about and most worrying irony of our time. The United States has a massive defense budget, but spends relatively little addressing the most immediate danger to humanity,'' Krieger said, referring nuclear weapons.

''U.S. nuclear policy undermines the security of its people,'' Krieger added. ''The more the U.S. relies on nuclear weapons, the more other countries will do so.''

The non-profit group Citizens for Global Solutions agrees. "We've told the world that we will reduce our stockpiles of nuclear weapons and not develop new ones. Doing our part will help us convince others to do theirs," the group said in a message to its 35,000 members and supporters last week, adding that U.S. leaders should work with other governments to "revitalize and strengthen" the NPT, which it called "outdated."

But as U.S. voters prepare to choose a new president next year, there are indications that George W. Bush's successor may stay the course set by the current U.S. president on nuclear weapons. Indeed, four Republican presidential candidates have so far been unwilling to take the nuclear weapons option off the table against Iran.

And Democratic presidential hopeful Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton recently objected to Senator Barack Obama's statement that the use of nuclear weapons in Afghanistan or Pakistan would be a "profound mistake."

"Presidents should be careful at all times in discussing the use and nonuse of nuclear weapons," Senator Clinton remarked.

Leonor Tomero from the Washington, DC-based Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation called Clinton's approach ''reckless.''

"The United States should not recklessly threaten to use nuclear weapons, particularly against states that do not have these weapons....There is currently no justification for lowering the threshold for the use of nuclear weapons," Tomero said.


This year, on August 9, these organizations will celebrate their thirteenth annual Sadako Peace Day, and they have invited individuals to submit their own messages for peace to be sent to the White House.

In a statement commemorating the world's only nuclear attacks to date, Nuclear Age Peace Foundation's David Krieger said: "The anniversaries of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are reminders of the continued peril that humanity faces. This peril is far too serious to be left only in the hands of government leaders."

"Citizens must demand more of their governments," he added. "Their very lives and those of their children could depend upon ending the delusions that nuclear weapons protect us and that nuclear double standards will hold indefinitely."

- Nicole Olsen
OneWorld US

Egypt-Leading woman novelist condemned for ‘insulting Islam’

Barely a week after an Egyptian blogger was sentenced to four years for inciting hatred towards Islam, the distinguished novelist Nawal El Saadawi faces similar threats from the

Al Azhar, one of the leading religious centres in the Muslim world, is threatening legal action against the celebrated Egyptian writer and activist Nawal El Saadawi.

At a meeting this week, the Islamic Research Council agreed to present a petition against El Saadawi to the prosecutor general for her attacks on ‘God, the prophets and the heavenly religions’, according to the Egyptian newspaper Al Misry al Yom.

Dr El Saadawi is one of Egypt’s most celebrated writers and activists. She was a candidate in the last presidential election and believes that the current action against her is politically motivated. Al Azhar’s threats are just the latest in a number of attempts to intimidate the author.

The head of Al Azhar, Sheikh Mohammed Sayyid Tantawi has condemned El Saadawi’s play God Resigns at the Summit Meeting for allegedly offending Islam. Five of El Saadawi’s books – including the play - were banned at the Cairo bookfair in January. All copies of the play have been destroyed.

‘Political groups want to threaten writers and freethinkers,’ El Saadawi told Index on Censorship. ‘It’s a backlash. The whole of Egyptian society is going backwards.’

Nawal El Saadawi told Index that she was summoned to the prosecutor general’s office in January, with her daughter, the writer Mona Helmi, following a case lodged against her in 2006 - also on the grounds that she had insulted Islam.

El Saadawi believes that religious groups were particularly incensed by interviews she had given to the Egyptian press, in which she said that God was a spirit and therefore neither male nor female.

She was previously accused of apostasy in 2001, when an attempt was made to force her to divorce her husband on the grounds that she had insulted Islam. Both cases were filed against her under the Sharia law of hisba.

In the wake of the accusations, El Saadawi has decided to leave the country for the next six months. She has not yet been charged. She told the Egyptian newspaper Al Misry al Yom that she was fed up with the complacency and cowardice of Egyptian intellectuals and their unwillingness to stand up to intimidation.

On 22 February a court in Alexandria handed down a four-year prison sentence on blogger Abdel Kareem Nabil Suleiman for 'inciting hatred of Islam' and insulting President Hosni Mubarak. Known on line under the pseudonym of 'Kareem Amer', he had been in detention since November.



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Egyptian Feminist’s Book is Recalled and Destroyed for ‘Offending Religion’


All copies of Egyptian feminist writer, activist and medical doctor Nawal Al Saadawi's latest book, God Resigns in the Summit Meeting, were removed from circulation and destroyed last week by her publisher Mahmoud Madbouli, according to German news service Deutsche Press Agenter. Madbouli said he withdrew the book once he learned it "offended readers' religious sensitivities." Claiming his decision to remove and shred all copies of the text was not political, Madbouli admitted to Deutsche Press Agenter that security police witnessed the destruction.

"My book contains nothing offensive to religion," Saadawi said to Gulf News. "A work of art should be judged by the critics, not religious clerics or government bureaucrats." According to Saadawi, the book examines current socio-economic and religious issues in Egypt.

Saadawi, a former political prisoner who lived in exile in the US for five years before returning to Egypt, is currently being prosecuted for supporting her daughter's suggestion last year that children be named after their mothers, not fathers. Saadawi and her daughter, Dr. Mona Helmi, were interrogated by a general prosecutor on January 28 after being accused of renouncing religion, according to an essay published on her website.

The author of over 30 books - many banned - Saadawi was the Director General of Public Health in Egypt until being dismissed in 1972 for authoring Women and Sex, a groundbreaking discussion of the sexual exploitation of women, including prostitution, the trauma of female circumcision, incest and sexually transmitted diseases.
(Source: Feminist Digest)


Egypt Nawal El Saadawi Kareem Amer