With the future in such a state of uncertainty and political relationships more strained than ever, there is one silent threat that could prove more deadly and dangerous to humanity than a hundred pandemics: nuclear weapons.
In 1945, the United States bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki, effectively ending World War II and killing well over 100,000 people, the majority of whom were civilians. The bombing of Nagasaki was the second and final time a country deployed a nuclear weapon in combat. However, it was not the last nuclear explosion, as controlled testing continued for many years.
On the 75th anniversary of the bombing, Nagasaki Mayor Tomihisa Taue called on Japanese President Shinzo Abe and the central government to sign and ratify the 2017 United Nations Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. However, little, if any, official progress toward an international ban on nuclear weapons has been made since then.
