Breaking News English Lesson: Nuclear Weapons

This year's Nobel Peace Prize was won by Nihon Hidankyo. This is a group set up in 1956 by survivors of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The group has spent decades lobbying governments to abolish nuclear weapons. The Nobel committee said Nihon Hidankyo won, "for its efforts to achieve a world free of nuclear weapons". Hiroshima and Nagasaki are the only places on Earth where such weapons have been used on civilians. Wikipedia says the atomic bombings killed up to 166,000 people in Hiroshima and 80,000 in Nagasaki, around half on the first day.

Reuters wrote about the legacy of Nihon Hidankyo. It said: "For decades – thanks in large part to the work of Nihon Hidankyo – the destruction unleashed on the two Japanese cities was widely seen as a lesson from history that using nuclear weapons again was too appalling to contemplate." However, today we are closer to nuclear war than ever before. Russia has warned that the USA's support of Ukraine increases this risk. There are fears that Iran is developing nuclear weapons. Meanwhile, North Korea has said it is accelerating efforts to become a nuclear power.