What is the nuclear world order and how did we get here?
In the corridor adjacent to the UN General Assembly Hall at UN headquarters in New York, a giant photograph of the mushroom cloud billowing up from the destroyed city of Nagasaki hangs on the wall.
It is part of a permanent exhibition designed to remind passersby of the horrors of nuclear war.
After all, the UN was set up in no small part to prevent it ever happening.
"Nuclear weapons post a threat to our very existence," reads a nearby quote from the UN Secretary General António Guterres.
"The total elimination of nuclear weapons remains the highest disarmament priority of the United Nations," it adds.
One wonders, though, how many delegates have ever paused to ponder the terrifying images on display.
Considering that since the US dropped two atomic bombs on Japan eighty years ago, killing hundreds of thousands of civilians, several more countries have acquired their own nuclear arsenals.
In fact, in that same UN exhibition, a flat screen television monitor shows the number of nuclear tests in the world since World War II.
As the reel begins, isolated flashes in the US and the former Soviet Union first appear.
The number of explosions steadily gathers pace through the Cold War until the grainy screen displays a mesmerising crescendo of detonations across the whole planet.
It's hardly surprising that many historians believe we were miraculously lucky to escape nuclear annihilation in the 20th Century.
So, what is the state of the world nuclear order today?
The International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN's nuclear watchdog, estimates that today 30 nations have nuclear capability.
But only nine have nuclear weapons.
They are, in order of the most nuclear warheads in their possession: Russia, the United States, China, France, the United Kingdom, India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea.
There are an additional six nations that host nuclear weapons namely Italy, Türkiye, Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands for the United States and Belarus for Russia.
There could have been a lot more, according to John Erath, a former US State Department diplomat, now with the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation in Washington DC.
"When the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) was signed in the late 1960s," he told RTÉ News, "the general estimate was that in 10 years, we would have had 20 nuclear powers".
The NPT was a cornerstone UN treaty aimed at curtailing the spread of nuclear weapons and committing member states to nuclear development for peaceful means only.
The treaty recognised only five nuclear powers who were, and still are, the permanent members of the UN Security Council - China, France, Russia, UK and US.
Today, 191 UN member states are signatories to the NPT.
Five are not, namely Israel, North Korea, India, Pakistan and South Sudan.
"There has been some success for non-proliferation, and I credit the NPT for getting us there," he said.
Some countries such as South Africa, Brazil, Argentina, Japan and South Korea had very advanced nuclear capabilities, Mr Erath told RTÉ News.
Brazil had even mastered the entire fuel cycle.
"[These countries] could build nuclear weapons in no time, but they decided their security needs do not require them to do so," Mr Erath said.
Other nations, though, took a different view.
The race for a nuclear deterrent
Nations usually decide to pursue a nuclear deterrent in response to their own security concerns - whether real or perceived - despite the enormous price tag and the risk of international condemnation.
"Nobody likes having nuclear weapons," John Erath said, adding "they're tremendously expensive, very dangerous and very difficult to build and maintain".
He added: "So, the real question is: Why do these threats exist and lead countries to decide to develop and build nuclear weapons?"
A report published earlier this year by the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons found that the nine nuclear-armed states collectively spent $100 billion (€87 billion) on their arsenals in 2024.
The report found that's the equivalent of $3,100 (€2,705) per second.
In 2003, North Korea - one of the poorest countries in the world where 60% of people live below the poverty line - quit the NPT and three years later, carried out its first nuclear test.
It followed a speech by then US President George Bush in the wake of the 9/11 attacks branding North Korea, along with Iran and Iraq, an "Axis of Evil".
In the spring of 2003, the US illegally invaded Iraq on the false pretext that Saddam Hussein was stockpiling "weapons of mass destruction".
"North Korea took [the Axis of Evil speech] to mean that they were next on the list," Mr Erath said.
How much the toppling of Saddam Hussein in neighbouring Iraq fed into Tehran's decision-making over its nuclear programme is hard to assess.
Iran remained in the NPT and claimed it was developing nuclear power for civilian use.
But officials elsewhere, especially hawkish policymakers in the US and Israel, accused Iran of stringing negotiators along while secretly enriching uranium to weapons grade.
It's fair to assume that the successful acquisition of a nuclear deterrent by North Korea - a fellow member of the so-called - won't have been lost on the Iranian leadership.
And there were lessons to be drawn elsewhere too.
At the end of the Cold War, Ukraine was in possession of the world's third largest nuclear arsenal, inherited from the collapsed Soviet Union.
However, the control systems and launch codes remained in Moscow, which limited Ukraine's ability to use them independently.
Nevertheless, under pressure from the Clinton administration in the US, which sought to denuclearise eastern Europe, and in exchange for assurances on territorial integrity from Russia, the UK and the US, Ukraine gave up its nuclear weapons.
It was a key foreign policy decision that former US President Bill Clinton came to regret following Russia's annexation of Crimea in 2014 and full scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
"I feel a personal stake because I got them [Ukraine] to agree to give up their nuclear weapons," Mr Clinton said in an interview with RTÉ's Prime Time, in April 2023.
"And none of them believe that Russia would have pulled this stunt if Ukraine still had their weapons," he said.
Russia's so-called "stunt" coupled with US President Donald Trump's ambivalence about defending Europe reignited the debate in Europe over its own nuclear deterrent.
French President Emmanuel Macron - which is the EU's only nuclear power - floated the idea of extending the French "nuclear umbrella" to cover all of Europe.
That would mean deploying French warheads across the continent like Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands while Türkiye currently hosts American nuclear weapons.
Mr Macron's opening gambit was greeted warmly by leaders in Germany, Poland, Lithuania and Denmark.
But Russia slammed the French president's move as "extremely confrontational".
Mr Trump's 'America First' doctrine also prompted a re-think in South Korea, where opinion polls now show that more than three quarters of South Koreans support the idea of a national nuclear deterrent.
And in south Asia, India, which tested its first bomb in 1974, cited the need for a deterrent against regional rivals China and Pakistan.
In response, Pakistan - with the help of China as well as the clandestine nuclear technology-smuggling network run by Pakistani scientist AQ Khan - became a nuclear power in 1998.
Neither country has signed the NPT and last year Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India said he was reconsidering India's "no first use," policy – a long-standing commitment to a retaliatory strike only.
A sudden outbreak of conventional hostilities between the two regional enemies in April, once again raised the spectre of nuclear war.
Israel and Iran
One of the world's most secretive and controversial nuclear programmes belongs to Israel, centred around the Dimona nuclear reactor in the Negev desert.
Israel is believed to possess 90 plutonium-based nuclear warheads but has never publicly admitted its nuclear capability.
Israel's nuclear ambiguity and its non-membership of the NPT meant it never faced international sanctions over its nuclear programme, unlike North Korea, Iran and for a time, India and Pakistan.
Last week, Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Iran's nuclear programme posed an existential threat to Israel.
Iranian leaders have frequently called for the eradication of Israel.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said that Israel was doing "the dirty work" for other countries, by taking out Iran's nuclear potential.
But while Iran's nuclear programme will likely be set back given recent strikes by Israel, and the US overnight, it's unlikely to be destroyed altogether, Mr Erath told RTÉ News.
"The most important factor in producing a nuclear weapon is knowledge," he said, "and it's very difficult to kill knowledge".
"It's tremendously expensive in terms of resources that both Israel and Iran would be putting into this and most importantly, the cost in human lives," he said.
Before the US targeted three Iranian nuclear faciities, Natanz, Isfahan and Fordo, anti-nuclear campaigners had called Israel's initial airstrikes "illegal and unjust".
"Israel is the only country in the region that has nuclear weapons," Susi Snyder of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons told RTÉ News, "Iran does not".
"Iran was not posing an existential threat to Israel, and that is just a false narrative that Israel is portraying right now in order to justify what is honestly an illegal action," she said.
Mad times
The famous doctrine of MAD – Mutually Assured Destruction – was credited with keeping the peace during the Cold War.
It held that a nuclear strike by the United States or the Soviet Union would trigger retaliation, thereby guaranteeing mutual annihilation.
In the 1980s, scientists predicted that even if humans survived the first round of bombs, the explosions would emit so much smoke and ash into the atmosphere, it would block out the sun, triggering a "nuclear winter" that could kill all life on earth.
That was surely something neither side would be willing to risk.
But on a number of occasions during the 20th Century, the world came perilously close to such a disaster - notably the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 when the USSR positioned nukes in Cuba and NATO's Able Archer war game of 1983, which the Soviets mistook for a real attack and readied their nuclear arsenals to strike back.
Is MAD still relevant today?
Anti-nuclear campaigners argue that more nuclear-armed states make for a more dangerous world, while rising global tensions increase the risk of deliberate or accidental use.
And there's little sign that the world's largest nuclear powers are interested in changing course.
President Vladimir Putin formally announced a revision of the Russian nuclear doctrine last year, lowering the threshold for a nuclear strike.
Under President Xi Jinping, China has rapidly expanded its nuclear arsenal, while the US continues to pour money into the modernisation of its nuclear programme.
"The era of reductions in the number of nuclear weapons in the world, which had lasted since the end of the Cold War, is coming to an end," according to Hans Kristensen, Stockholm International Peace Research.
"Instead, we see a clear trend of growing nuclear arsenals, sharpened nuclear rhetoric and the abandonment of arms control agreements."
Technological advancements have also dramatically increased the potency of modern atomic bombs.
The United States, for example, is building a new bomb designed to be 24 times more powerful than the one dropped on Hiroshima.
At the centre of the UN exhibition stands a charred and mottled statue of St Agnes holding a lamb.
It was found face down in the ruins of a Roman Catholic Cathedral in Nagasaki.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Journal
2 hours ago
- The Journal
Ukraine army chief vows to expand strikes on Russia
UKRAINE'S TOP MILITARY commander vowed to increase the 'scale and depth' of strikes on Russia in remarks made public Sunday, saying Kyiv would not sit idly by while Moscow prolonged its three-year invasion. Diplomatic efforts to end the war have stalled in recent weeks. The last direct meeting between the two sides was almost three weeks ago and no follow-up talks have been scheduled. Russian attacks on Ukraine have killed dozens of people during the interim, including in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv, according to officials. 'We will not just sit in defence. Because this brings nothing and eventually leads to the fact that we still retreat, lose people and territories,' Ukrainian commander-in-chief Oleksandr Syrsky told reporters. Syrsky said Ukraine would continue its strikes on Russian military targets, which he said had proved 'effective'. 'Of course, we will continue. We will increase the scale and depth,' he said. Ukraine has launched retaliatory strikes on Russia throughout the war, targeting energy and military infrastructure sometimes hundreds of kilometres from the front line. Kyiv says the strikes are a fair response to deadly Russian attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure and civilians. Advertisement At least four people were killed in an overnight Russian strike on an apartment building in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk, while a strike on a Ukrainian army training ground later in the day killed three others, officials said. 'They have an advantage' Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, speaks with Russian Defense Minister Andrei Belousov during a wreath-laying ceremony marking the 84th anniversary of the Nazi German invasion into Soviet Union in World War II today. Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo In wide-ranging remarks, Syrsky conceded that Russia had some advantages in drone warfare, particularly in making fibre-optic drones that are tethered and difficult to jam. 'Here, unfortunately, they have an advantage in both the number and range of their use,' he said. He also claimed that Ukraine still held 90 square kilometres of territory in Russia's Kursk region, where Kyiv launched an audacious cross-border incursion last August. 'These are our pre-emptive actions in response to a possible enemy offensive,' he said. Russia said in April that it had gained full control of the Kursk region and denies that Kyiv has a presence there. Moscow occupies around a fifth of Ukraine and claims to have annexed four Ukrainian regions as its own since launching its invasion in 2022 – in addition to Crimea, which it captured in 2014. Kyiv has accused Moscow of deliberately sabotaging a peace deal to prolong its full-scale offensive on the country and to seize more territory. The Russian army said Sunday that it had captured the village of Petrivske in Ukraine's northeast Kharkiv region. Russian forces also fired at least 47 drones and three missiles at Ukraine between late Saturday and early Sunday, the Ukrainian air force said.
Irish Times
2 hours ago
- Irish Times
US-Iran: Alarm in Middle East amid fears of widening conflict
Countries in the Middle East and beyond responded with alarm after US strikes on Iranian nuclear sites as the EU and the UN called for immediate diplomacy. Gulf states, which historically have been regional rivals with nearby Iran and critical of its nuclear ambitions, expressed serious concern amid the risk of retaliation against US military bases hosted in their countries. The United Arab Emirates (UAE), Qatar and Oman criticised the US attack and urged de-escalation. Qatar, which hosts the biggest US military base in the Middle East, said it feared serious repercussions regionally and internationally. READ MORE 'The current dangerous escalation in the region may lead to catastrophic consequences at both the regional and international levels,' its foreign ministry said in a statement. It said it was calling on all parties 'to exercise wisdom, restraint, and to avoid further escalation'. [ US attack on Iran 'not about regime change', says defence secretary after Trump hails 'spectacular military success' ] Gulf leaders including the UAE president, the emir of Qatar and the crown prince of Saudi Arabia discussed the serious implications of the escalation for international and regional security, the UAE state news agency reported. Saudi Arabia was on a high security alert, expressing 'great concern' and stressing the 'need to exert all efforts to exercise restraint ... and avoid escalation'. UN secretary general António Guterres said he was 'gravely alarmed'. He said 'at this perilous hour' it was crucial to 'avoid a spiral of chaos'. 'There is no military solution. The only path forward is diplomacy. The only hope is peace,' he said. Iraqi government spokesperson Basim Alawadi said: 'This military escalation constitutes a grave threat to peace and security in the Middle East and poses serious risks to regional stability.' Pakistan, the only nuclear-armed Muslim country and a long-time Washington ally, said the US attacks 'violate all norms of international law'. Russia 'strongly condemned' the strikes, calling these 'irresponsible', a 'gross violation of international law' and a 'dangerous escalation'. EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas called for a return to negotiations. She said Iran must not be allowed to develop a nuclear weapon, describing the possibility as 'a threat to international security'. French president Emmanuel Macron also called for dialogue, saying he had urged Iran to 'exercise the utmost restraint in this dangerous context to allow a return to the diplomatic path'. Germany's chancellor, Friedrich Merz, said Iran must 'immediately enter into negotiations with the US and Israel and to find a diplomatic solution to the conflict'. British prime minister Keir Starmer said in a statement: 'We call on Iran to return to the negotiating table and reach a diplomatic solution to end this crisis.' But Ukraine said the US and Israeli strikes on Iran were justified to prevent Tehran developing nuclear weapons, praising the military intervention as a 'clear signal'. – Guardian
RTÉ News
5 hours ago
- RTÉ News
What is the nuclear world order and how did we get here?
In the corridor adjacent to the UN General Assembly Hall at UN headquarters in New York, a giant photograph of the mushroom cloud billowing up from the destroyed city of Nagasaki hangs on the wall. It is part of a permanent exhibition designed to remind passersby of the horrors of nuclear war. After all, the UN was set up in no small part to prevent it ever happening. "Nuclear weapons post a threat to our very existence," reads a nearby quote from the UN Secretary General António Guterres. "The total elimination of nuclear weapons remains the highest disarmament priority of the United Nations," it adds. One wonders, though, how many delegates have ever paused to ponder the terrifying images on display. Considering that since the US dropped two atomic bombs on Japan eighty years ago, killing hundreds of thousands of civilians, several more countries have acquired their own nuclear arsenals. In fact, in that same UN exhibition, a flat screen television monitor shows the number of nuclear tests in the world since World War II. As the reel begins, isolated flashes in the US and the former Soviet Union first appear. The number of explosions steadily gathers pace through the Cold War until the grainy screen displays a mesmerising crescendo of detonations across the whole planet. It's hardly surprising that many historians believe we were miraculously lucky to escape nuclear annihilation in the 20th Century. So, what is the state of the world nuclear order today? The International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN's nuclear watchdog, estimates that today 30 nations have nuclear capability. But only nine have nuclear weapons. They are, in order of the most nuclear warheads in their possession: Russia, the United States, China, France, the United Kingdom, India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea. There are an additional six nations that host nuclear weapons namely Italy, Türkiye, Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands for the United States and Belarus for Russia. There could have been a lot more, according to John Erath, a former US State Department diplomat, now with the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation in Washington DC. "When the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) was signed in the late 1960s," he told RTÉ News, "the general estimate was that in 10 years, we would have had 20 nuclear powers". The NPT was a cornerstone UN treaty aimed at curtailing the spread of nuclear weapons and committing member states to nuclear development for peaceful means only. The treaty recognised only five nuclear powers who were, and still are, the permanent members of the UN Security Council - China, France, Russia, UK and US. Today, 191 UN member states are signatories to the NPT. Five are not, namely Israel, North Korea, India, Pakistan and South Sudan. "There has been some success for non-proliferation, and I credit the NPT for getting us there," he said. Some countries such as South Africa, Brazil, Argentina, Japan and South Korea had very advanced nuclear capabilities, Mr Erath told RTÉ News. Brazil had even mastered the entire fuel cycle. "[These countries] could build nuclear weapons in no time, but they decided their security needs do not require them to do so," Mr Erath said. Other nations, though, took a different view. The race for a nuclear deterrent Nations usually decide to pursue a nuclear deterrent in response to their own security concerns - whether real or perceived - despite the enormous price tag and the risk of international condemnation. "Nobody likes having nuclear weapons," John Erath said, adding "they're tremendously expensive, very dangerous and very difficult to build and maintain". He added: "So, the real question is: Why do these threats exist and lead countries to decide to develop and build nuclear weapons?" A report published earlier this year by the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons found that the nine nuclear-armed states collectively spent $100 billion (€87 billion) on their arsenals in 2024. The report found that's the equivalent of $3,100 (€2,705) per second. In 2003, North Korea - one of the poorest countries in the world where 60% of people live below the poverty line - quit the NPT and three years later, carried out its first nuclear test. It followed a speech by then US President George Bush in the wake of the 9/11 attacks branding North Korea, along with Iran and Iraq, an "Axis of Evil". In the spring of 2003, the US illegally invaded Iraq on the false pretext that Saddam Hussein was stockpiling "weapons of mass destruction". "North Korea took [the Axis of Evil speech] to mean that they were next on the list," Mr Erath said. How much the toppling of Saddam Hussein in neighbouring Iraq fed into Tehran's decision-making over its nuclear programme is hard to assess. Iran remained in the NPT and claimed it was developing nuclear power for civilian use. But officials elsewhere, especially hawkish policymakers in the US and Israel, accused Iran of stringing negotiators along while secretly enriching uranium to weapons grade. It's fair to assume that the successful acquisition of a nuclear deterrent by North Korea - a fellow member of the so-called - won't have been lost on the Iranian leadership. And there were lessons to be drawn elsewhere too. At the end of the Cold War, Ukraine was in possession of the world's third largest nuclear arsenal, inherited from the collapsed Soviet Union. However, the control systems and launch codes remained in Moscow, which limited Ukraine's ability to use them independently. Nevertheless, under pressure from the Clinton administration in the US, which sought to denuclearise eastern Europe, and in exchange for assurances on territorial integrity from Russia, the UK and the US, Ukraine gave up its nuclear weapons. It was a key foreign policy decision that former US President Bill Clinton came to regret following Russia's annexation of Crimea in 2014 and full scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. "I feel a personal stake because I got them [Ukraine] to agree to give up their nuclear weapons," Mr Clinton said in an interview with RTÉ's Prime Time, in April 2023. "And none of them believe that Russia would have pulled this stunt if Ukraine still had their weapons," he said. Russia's so-called "stunt" coupled with US President Donald Trump's ambivalence about defending Europe reignited the debate in Europe over its own nuclear deterrent. French President Emmanuel Macron - which is the EU's only nuclear power - floated the idea of extending the French "nuclear umbrella" to cover all of Europe. That would mean deploying French warheads across the continent like Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands while Türkiye currently hosts American nuclear weapons. Mr Macron's opening gambit was greeted warmly by leaders in Germany, Poland, Lithuania and Denmark. But Russia slammed the French president's move as "extremely confrontational". Mr Trump's 'America First' doctrine also prompted a re-think in South Korea, where opinion polls now show that more than three quarters of South Koreans support the idea of a national nuclear deterrent. And in south Asia, India, which tested its first bomb in 1974, cited the need for a deterrent against regional rivals China and Pakistan. In response, Pakistan - with the help of China as well as the clandestine nuclear technology-smuggling network run by Pakistani scientist AQ Khan - became a nuclear power in 1998. Neither country has signed the NPT and last year Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India said he was reconsidering India's "no first use," policy – a long-standing commitment to a retaliatory strike only. A sudden outbreak of conventional hostilities between the two regional enemies in April, once again raised the spectre of nuclear war. Israel and Iran One of the world's most secretive and controversial nuclear programmes belongs to Israel, centred around the Dimona nuclear reactor in the Negev desert. Israel is believed to possess 90 plutonium-based nuclear warheads but has never publicly admitted its nuclear capability. Israel's nuclear ambiguity and its non-membership of the NPT meant it never faced international sanctions over its nuclear programme, unlike North Korea, Iran and for a time, India and Pakistan. Last week, Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Iran's nuclear programme posed an existential threat to Israel. Iranian leaders have frequently called for the eradication of Israel. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said that Israel was doing "the dirty work" for other countries, by taking out Iran's nuclear potential. But while Iran's nuclear programme will likely be set back given recent strikes by Israel, and the US overnight, it's unlikely to be destroyed altogether, Mr Erath told RTÉ News. "The most important factor in producing a nuclear weapon is knowledge," he said, "and it's very difficult to kill knowledge". "It's tremendously expensive in terms of resources that both Israel and Iran would be putting into this and most importantly, the cost in human lives," he said. Before the US targeted three Iranian nuclear faciities, Natanz, Isfahan and Fordo, anti-nuclear campaigners had called Israel's initial airstrikes "illegal and unjust". "Israel is the only country in the region that has nuclear weapons," Susi Snyder of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons told RTÉ News, "Iran does not". "Iran was not posing an existential threat to Israel, and that is just a false narrative that Israel is portraying right now in order to justify what is honestly an illegal action," she said. Mad times The famous doctrine of MAD – Mutually Assured Destruction – was credited with keeping the peace during the Cold War. It held that a nuclear strike by the United States or the Soviet Union would trigger retaliation, thereby guaranteeing mutual annihilation. In the 1980s, scientists predicted that even if humans survived the first round of bombs, the explosions would emit so much smoke and ash into the atmosphere, it would block out the sun, triggering a "nuclear winter" that could kill all life on earth. That was surely something neither side would be willing to risk. But on a number of occasions during the 20th Century, the world came perilously close to such a disaster - notably the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 when the USSR positioned nukes in Cuba and NATO's Able Archer war game of 1983, which the Soviets mistook for a real attack and readied their nuclear arsenals to strike back. Is MAD still relevant today? Anti-nuclear campaigners argue that more nuclear-armed states make for a more dangerous world, while rising global tensions increase the risk of deliberate or accidental use. And there's little sign that the world's largest nuclear powers are interested in changing course. President Vladimir Putin formally announced a revision of the Russian nuclear doctrine last year, lowering the threshold for a nuclear strike. Under President Xi Jinping, China has rapidly expanded its nuclear arsenal, while the US continues to pour money into the modernisation of its nuclear programme. "The era of reductions in the number of nuclear weapons in the world, which had lasted since the end of the Cold War, is coming to an end," according to Hans Kristensen, Stockholm International Peace Research. "Instead, we see a clear trend of growing nuclear arsenals, sharpened nuclear rhetoric and the abandonment of arms control agreements." Technological advancements have also dramatically increased the potency of modern atomic bombs. The United States, for example, is building a new bomb designed to be 24 times more powerful than the one dropped on Hiroshima. At the centre of the UN exhibition stands a charred and mottled statue of St Agnes holding a lamb. It was found face down in the ruins of a Roman Catholic Cathedral in Nagasaki.
