Nuke Test Makes Nuclear Abolition More Important Than Ever North
Korea’s test-firing of a short-range missile heightens and
underlines the dangers of a world in which nuclear arms are
spreading. The news media treats the North Korea’s nuclear
weapons program as a story of a bad actor threatening
international security, giving it the sort of attention rarely
given to calls for constructive action to eliminate the danger
of nuclear weapons. In particular, the frayed Nuclear
Nonproliferation Treaty is seldom mentioned, nor the obligation
contained in the treaty for the nuclear powers, including the
United States, to eliminate nuclear stockpiles. The contrast
hits home in Hiroshima, Japan, the first city attacked with an
atomic bomb. Just eight days before the North Korean test, the
city’s daily newspaper, the Chugoku Shimbun, released an appeal
from 17 Nobel Peace Prize laureates for citizens and governments
to act for the elimination of nuclear weapons. Outside of Japan,
the laureates’ Hiroshima-Nagasaki Declar