A series of meetings started with the goal of banning nuclear bombs. The meetings are being held in the U.N. headquarters in New York. These meetings began on March 27 and will last until March 31, and another set will be held from June 15 until July 7. The efforts to ban nuclear bombs are being led by hundreds of countries that don’t have nukes, Pope Francis, the U.N. secretary General Antonio Gutierrez, and dozens of humanitarian groups. While many countries showed up, thirty boycotted the event, including the United States, Britain, France, Russia, and China, all countries that do possess nuclear weapons.

Jordyn Haessler, senior, said, “It’s going to be hard to get everyone to agree to get rid of nukes. There’s no way of telling if a country actually gets rid of it’s nukes or not, and that could lead to problems in the future.

North Korea also refused to show up to the meeting, saying their nukes are their only defense against the U.S. and South Korea.The opening statement of the meeting was made by Toshiki Fujimori, who survived the atomic bomb at Hiroshima. “Everybody thought I would die, yet I survived. It’s a miracle I am here at the U.N. asking for the abolition of nuclear weapons… this is the mission I am given as a survivor,” he said.

His home country of Japan also refused to attend the meeting. Many countries don’t believe these meeting will make any progress towards a nuclear ban, one reason being that five of the permanent members of the U.N. Security Council that hold veto power are also the 5 nuclear powers of the world: the U.S., Britain, France, Russia, and China.
Cam Peer, senior, said, “It doesn’t seem like these meetings are going to get much done with most of the stronger countries now willing to give up their nukes.”