The top-secret operation was code named the Manhattan Project in honor of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Manhattan district.
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The ceremony was held in the city’s peace park in front of the Atomic Bomb Dome, the only building near the hypocenter that is still standing. For 70 years, Taniguchi, chairman of the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Survivors Council, has lived a web of wounds covering most of his back.
After the nuclear bombings that are believed to have led to the deaths of around 150,000 in Hiroshima and 75,000 in Nagasaki, but were preceded by fire-bombings of all Japanese main cities beforehand, Japan surrendered.
By the end of the year, 140,000, including tens of thousands of Koreans and other non-Japanese, had died because of the bombing and its after-effects.
“I don’t know why I’m still alive today”, said Tsuboi, who now serves as chairman of the Japan Confederation of Atomic and Hydrogen Bomb Sufferers Organisations.
U.S. Ambassador Caroline Kennedy and representatives from more than 100 countries, including Britain, France and Russian Federation, attended the ceremony.
Fifty-six percent of Americans surveyed by the Pew Research Center in February said using the atomic bomb on Japanese cities was justified, compared to 79 percent of Japanese respondents who said it was not.
Defence Minister Gen Nakatani, however, was quick to add that such a development was in reality impossible because of Japan’s long-standing policy of not possessing or producing nuclear arms and not letting others bring them into the country. Well, a lot of thought was put into the decision about the atomic bomb and what it’s fate would be.
“People like Patrick who is very eager to be here and participate is indicative of the hope we have in young people, that they’re going to be oriented toward peace, and be anti-war”.
The clause remains deeply popular in Japan, where many point to Hiroshima and say, never again to war.
Witnessing the destruction, Robert Lewis, the co-pilot of the U.S. bomber Enola Gay later wrote, “My God what have we done?”
After that, World War II quickly came to an end.
A Peace Bell was rung to mark the Anniversary in Japan on Thursday.
Even so, the Government of Shinzo Abe is now well on the way to passage of new laws that reinterpret Article Nine and widen the circumstances under which Japan could become involved in combat.
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President Vladimir Putin of Russian Federation, which annexed the Crimean Peninsula of Ukraine last year, said later that Russian Federation was ready to put its nuclear forces on alert over the crisis there.
