Tokyo – This August, 69 years after the atomic bombings, NHK’s international service NHK World will relay scenes of the peace ceremonies in Hiroshima and Nagasaki and various special programmes on the themes of nuclear weapons and peace. NHK World will report on how people of the afflicted places are working for the abolition of nuclear weapons and convey their thoughts on peace to the world.
· NHK World TV
Newsline: The 30 minute news programme on the hour every hour around the clock
Special Edition: Remembering Hiroshima
August 6, 8am to 8.57am
The broadcast from 8am will be extended as a special edition to coincide with the peace ceremony in Hiroshima.
There will be a relay from the ceremony and pre-recorded items introducing basic knowledge about the atomic bombing for foreign viewers and local initiatives in the afflicted area aimed at abolishment nuclear weapons.
All of that will be interwoven with interviews with experts, studio analysis etc.
Other Newsline editions on August 6 will also use relay links to Hiroshima and report on the day’s events as they unfold.
Daily Reports: Remembering Hiroshima and Nagasaki
August 4 – 9
Newsline will broadcast a series of special reports from Hiroshima and Nagasaki made especially for the international audience. The topics will range from efforts to pass on the experience of the bombings to future generations to calls to the people of the world for the abolition of nuclear weapons.
On August 9, the day of the Nagasaki bombing, there will be an English version of the domestic Japanese broadcast from the peace ceremony and NEWSLINE will carry detailed updates and reports on the day’s events.
Dr. Junod: Putting Humanity First
August 9, 9.10am -10am etc. (At 6 hour intervals, 4 times in all)
Swiss doctor Marcel Junod arrived in Hiroshima in September, 1945, shortly after the bombing. He came as a representative of the International Red Cross, supplying 15 tons of medical supplies to the Allied Forces and helping people injured in the bombing for one week. Modern Japanese junior high school girls follow their footsteps in this cartoon film, which also introduces his life of helping the afflicted with strict neutrality in the Ethiopian War and elsewhere.
The Bikini Incident: 60 Years of Unspoken Pain
August 10, 9.10am – 9.53am etc. (At 6 hour intervals, 4 times in all)
Sixty years have now passed since a Japanese tuna fishing boat from Shizuoka Prefecture, the Dai-Go Fukuryu-maru, was exposed to radiation by a U.S. hydrogen bomb test at the Bikini Atoll in the Pacific Ocean in March, 1954. With Shizuoka residents and others finally starting to speak, this documentary describes how the incident affected the local community.
Downwinders
August 16, 9.10am – 9.59am etc. (At 6 hour intervals, 4 times in all)
Radioactive materials from repeated nuclear tests in Nevada in the United States reached a town several kilometres away and residents are demanding studies and damages. Now, a more detailed report that local residents knew nothing about has been found. This documentary turns its gaze on a still unresolved case of radiation exposure in the United States.
· NHK World Radio Japan
Radio Japan Focus: The 69 Years of Radiation Victims Living Abroad
August 7 – 9
About 4,500 people in 35 countries and regions who left Japan after experiencing the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings have been formally recognised as radiation victims. Most were Koreans who returned home after the war or Japanese emigrants to South America. This three-part special series introduces radiation victims in South Korea and Brazil. We meet victims who have been calling for peace on and on over the years around the world and deliver their messages in 17 languages worldwide.
