80 Years of the Atomic Bomb!

On the 16th of July, 1945 at 5.30am the US detonated the first atomic weapon in the Jornada del Muerto desert over the lands of the Pueblo, Navajo, and Apache peoples of what's now know as New Mexico.  No one was evacuated from the area and the people living downwind are still suffering to this day due to the intergenerational impacts of exposure to radiation. And whilst their campaigning has seen some compensation delivered it is still not sufficient.The atomic bomb had been developed by the US military at the secret scientific Los Alamos laboratory under the name the Manhattan Project.  Scientists had identified two fissile isotopes for potential use in bombs: uranium-235 and plutonium-239. Uranium-235 became the basis of the 'Little Boy' bomb, first used (without prior testing) in the bombing of Hiroshima on 6 August 1945; and the design used in the Trinity test, and eventually used in the 'Fat Man' bomb dropped on Nagasaki on 9 August 1945, was based on plutonium.There are now over 12,000 nuclear weapons around the world and with the doomsday clock set to 89 seconds to midnight, the closest its ever been, they threaten all our lives.For the last 80 year people around the world have been working to eliminate this terrible invention.  Today we speak with Dr. Margie Beavis from the Medical Association for the Prevention of War and the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) about their current work and events planned to commemorate these horrific events.ICAN is holding a 'Week of Action for Abolition' from August 2-8 and you can find all the details and links to registar for events at icanw.org.au/action.We also bring you part of a speech from nuclear disarmament campaigner and Hibakusha, Setsuko Thurlow who was 13 year old school girl that survived the atomic bombing of Hiroshima on 6 August 1945. This was recorded at the ICAN Nobel Peace Prize celebrations in December 2017.