August 2025
If we continue on this trajectory, we will end up thrusting ourselves into a nuclear war.... I hereby declare that in order to make Nagasaki the last atomic bombing site now and forever, we will go hand-in-hand with global citizens and devote our utmost efforts towards the abolition of nuclear weapons and the realization of everlasting world peace.
Mayor of Nagasaki Shiro Suzuki
August 9. 2025
TOMORROW, Tuesday, August 26, 2025: "Immigration, ICE, and Deportation" 4:30pm PT, 5:30pm MT, 6:30pm CT, 7:30pm ET
The Southeast Regional Group of Veterans For Peace is hosting a discussion of the ongoing efforts by the Trump Administration to criminalize migrants and expand harmful security policies. Featured speakers are Lulu Matute, Organizing Coordinator for the School of the Americas Watch (SOAW), a U.S.-based interfaith organization working to end war and militarization, and to challenge U.S. policies that fuel militarization, extraction, and forced displacement across Latin America; and Jenn Budd a former Senior Patrol Agent and Intelligence Agent with the U.S. Border Patrol, from 1995 to 2002, who resigned to protest the rampant corruption and brutality she witnessed daily. Join the Zoom discussion HERE. (Meeting ID: 838 4033 7260)
"No more Hiroshimas. No more Nagasakis. No more war. No more hibakusha"
Summing up sentiments conveyed at solemn commemorations and international conferences held in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in conjunction with the 80th anniversaries of the U.S. atomic bombings, in his 2025 Nagasaki Peace Declaration, Mayor Shiro Suzuki warned: "On August 9th 1945, an atomic bomb was dropped on this city. Now, 80 years since that day, who could have possibly imagined that our world would become like this?.... Conflicts around the world are intensifying in a vicious cycle of confrontation and fragmentation. If we continue on this trajectory, we will end up thrusting ourselves into a nuclear war. This existential crisis of humanity has become imminent to each and every one of us living on Earth.... I hereby declare that in order to make Nagasaki the last atomic bombing site now and forever, we will go hand-in-hand with global citizens and devote our utmost efforts towards the abolition of nuclear weapons and the realization of everlasting world peace." Read more.
Boston-Hiroshima 80th Anniversary Commemoration Video: Human Beings and Nuclear Weapons Cannot Co-exist
For the 80th anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombing of Hiroshima, the Boston-Hiroshima 80th Anniversary Commemoration Coalition prepared a 70-minute video for repeated display during a major commemoration held on August 6th at Dewey Square in downtown Boston. In three sections it addresses: the meaning of August 6, 1945; the legacy of the hibakusha (survivors of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki); and a plea for disarmament. Please learn from and circulate this unique resource. In conjunction with the August 6th event, on August 4th the coalition ran a full-page signature ad in the Boston Globe, commemorating with sorrow and regret the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings, with more than 250 people listed, from across Massachusetts and beyond. The commemoration concluded with an August 9th Nagasaki anniversary lantern float in Watertown, MA.
Resources for Dismantling the Military-Industrial Complex
The Dismantle the Military Industrial Complex web site has been revised and relaunched. It provides a wide range of educational and organizing resources, including up-to-date information about military spending and to links to organizations working for peace that you can contact to find experts available to speak on war and peace issues. If your organization has research needs regarding the military industrial complex and its impacts, there is a form to ask to be matched up with a researcher who can help. Also available is "Words about War that Matter: a Language Guide for Discussing War and Foreign Policy," identifying dehumanizing language that minimizes the true impacts of war and militarism. Check out the web site today!
"Everything he's doing is anti-humanity" -- Bishop Barber on MSNBC
As federal forces moved through Washington D.C. encampments, part of Trump's takeover of law enforcement in the capital, Bishop William J. Barber II, Co-chair of the Poor People's Campaign, spoke with Ali Velshi on MSNBC. Bishop Barber interprets Trump's move as a display of military power to wow and intimidate the electorate; a distraction from "our moral centerpiece," the communal desire to care for society's least fortunate; and an attempt to stoke a divisive race debate that would overshadow the fact that homelessness affects all races. Asked what a fusion movement looks like mid-2025, Bishop Barber applauds the people protesting and calling out the deadly hypocrisy of Trump's big, ugly, deadly bill. "They were all races, creeds and color." Finally, he describes the Moral Monday plan to confront U.S. senators in their home offices. Watch here.
80 Years of Nuclear Devastation: Remember our History; Reshape Our Future
Around 100 people gathered at the Livermore Nuclear Weapons Lab in California on August 6th to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombing of Hiroshima. A diverse slate of speakers provided compelling historical insights, and participants joined in a "die-in" reenactment of the bombing. They were brought back together, with their ancestors in mind, and led in a traditional Japanese Bon dance to remember the nearly quarter million people killed by the first atomic bombs 80 years ago. Nine people took part in nonviolent direct action, blocking the gate to the Lab after police issued a call to disperse. They were cited and released. The event was one of many across the United States and the world observing the horrors of that day 80 years ago while reflecting on the nuclear threats of today. Read more and watch the video.
Golden Rule Voyage, San Francisco Bay, August 2025: 22,000+ Miles Voyaging for Nuclear Disarmament and Environmental Justice
The original nuclear protest boat, the Golden Rule, is sailing again to promote a nuclear free future, to educate about the dangers of radiation to humanity and the environment, and to support peaceful alternatives to war. In 1958, anti-nuclear weapons activists set sail aboard her to protest U.S. atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons in the Marshall Islands. In 2010 Veterans For Peace discovered and began restoring the boat, which had been abandoned in Humboldt Bay, and have been sailing to promote peace since 2015. The Golden Rule is now wrapping up her August 2025 San Francisco Bay Voyage, which included speaking at the Hiroshima day commemoration at the Livermore Nuclear Weapons Lab, premiering a new documentary, Golden Rule: The Journey for Peace, sailing, and doing media and educational events with groups around the Bay area. Read more.
Environmental Review Begins of Massive Project to Produce Plutonium Cores of Nuclear Weapons
Plutonium pits are at the core of all U.S. nuclear weapons. The United States has not mass-produced plutonium pits since 1989, but is now planning to establish an infrastructure capable of producing at least 80 pits per year. An initial goal is production of pits for new-design warheads for the new land-based missile ("Sentinel") under development and for submarine-launched ballistic missiles. In the current approach, facilities for this purpose would be located at Los Alamos National Laboratory, in New Mexico, and the Savannah River Site, in South Carolina. In a settlement of a lawsuit brought by activist groups, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) agreed to conduct programmatic environmental review of this major project. This summer the NNSA accepted public comments on the scope of the review. Read more.
New Resource: Beginner's Guide to Nuclear Weapons
The extraordinarily devastating force and deadly toxicity of nuclear weapons sets them apart from all other weapons. This month we honored the survivors of the U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki who continue to suffer the horror of nuclear weapons inflicted on them 80 years ago. To help those who are interested in nuclear weapons issues but aren't sure where to start, the Back from the Brink campaign has launched a new Beginner's Guide to Nuclear Weapons. The guide digs deep into the facts to expose the risks, myths, and real-life impacts of nuclear weapons. Most importantly, it conveys how those concerned can be part of building a safer, saner world. The guide breaks down the jargon and conveys the facts needed to become more confidently informed and to take action.
Introducing UFPJ Intern Kathleen Caldwell
We would like to introduce UFPJ's new intern, Kathleen Caldwell. She is is currently attending Middle Tennessee State University for her master's degree in international affairs, with a focus on human rights. She has previously interned with Physicians for Social Responsibility in their Nuclear Weapons Abolition Program. Kathleen was initially drawn to UFPJ because of our Palestine resources. She shares UFPJ's values and is committed to combating institutional racism, imperialism, and systemic injustices here at home and abroad. Kathleen will be graduating in December and hopes to pursue a role in human rights advocacy. She has been assisting George Friday with the next session of UFPJ's Seeding Young Peacekeepers project, which is set to launch in mid-September.
9/11 Case Splinters as Proceedings Go Forward in Three Different Legal Venues
How, or whether, the government's prosecution of the five men accused of planning and supporting the 9/11 terrorist attacks will ever conclude is more uncertain than ever. Three of the defendants, including 9/11 "mastermind" KSM, who signed plea agreements that were overturned in a 2-to-3 ruling by D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, will next seek an en banc hearing before all 11 appellate judges. A fourth defendant decided not to sign a plea agreement but to pursue suppression of his confessions to the FBI, which he won due to his earlier CIA torture. The prosecution is appealing that decision in the Court of Military Commissions Review. The fifth defendant will begin proceedings before a new judge in a separate military commission in November. The prosecution asserts, that two years after being found mentally incompetent to participate in his defense, he is now competent. The defense is demanding further evidence, since the defendant never received treatment and the psychiatrist who ruled him competent, never examined him.
Past All Limits -- Israel's War and International Law: UFPJ Israel-Palestine War Resources
The Government of Israel continues its assault on Gaza, deploying tanks and strike aircraft indiscriminately against a starving population. International authorities have declared a full-blown famine exists and that Israel is in clear violation of its obligations as an occupying power. The Israeli military's own data suggests at least of 83% of those killed in Gaza are civilians. In the West Bank, Israeli settlers and security forces are killing Palestinians, blowing up their houses, and driving them off their land. Israel's government recently approved further expansion of illegal West Bank settlements. As one observer notes, all of this reveals "the complete erosion of international humanitarian law" and "the double standards that govern the rhetoric of human rights." Find more resources at the UFPJ Israel-Palestine War resources page.
Image: Rousseau Diderot, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
The Ever-Receding Prospect of Peace: UFPJ Ukraine War Resources
The Trump-Putin summit raised hopes in some that a path to peace might be in sight. Yet the evidence suggests that the Russian Government has little interest in stopping its war anytime soon. Intense fighting continues, with both countries attacking fuel and energy infrastructure. The Russian military launched one of its largest air attacks, hitting among other targets a U.S.-owned factory. The Russian government has squelched rumors of compromise, rejecting any presence of European troops as part of security assurances and demanding cession of unconquered land in Donetsk that includes key Ukrainian fortifications and logistics hubs. It has denied Trump's suggestion that he had obtained agreement for a Putin -- Zelensky meeting, with Foreign Minister Lavrov stating that there is no such meeting planned. Find more resources here.
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