title: Communist Party of Greece

text: Large groups had returned to their partisan hideouts in the mountains and gradually formed smaller partisan units. As most of the ELAS armoury had been surrendered under the terms of the Varkiza treaty, these units armed themselves with weapons seized from attacks on militia units that had been provided arms by the police as well as attacking police stations. By mid-1946, these units forced the KKE leadership to change its neutral position and to plan the formation of a partisan army with the officers and fighters that were still free. On 26 October 1946, KKE militia units attacked the police station in Litochoro, armed their forces and founded the Central Greece Command of the Democratic Army of Greece (DSE). After this successful operation, the remaining scattered groups reorganized the pre-Varkiza Treaty ELAS formations all over the country. KKE's political influence and organization structure helped form units in the Aegean Islands of as Mytilene, Chios, Ikaria, Samos and Crete.


title: Communist Party of Greece

text: The Civil War involved two sides. On the one side was the British and American-backed Greek government, led by Konstantinos Tsaldaris and later Themistoklis Sophoulis, which was elected in the 1946 elections which the KKE had boycotted. On the other side was the Democratic Army of Greece, of which the KKE was the only major political force, backed by the NOF, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia and Albania.


title: Communist Party of Greece

text: In December 1947, KKE and its allies that participated in the Civil War formed the Provisional Democratic Government ("Mountain Government") under the premiership of Markos Vafiadis. After this, the KKE (still legal due to the Treaty of Varkiza) turned illegal.


title: Communist Party of Greece

text: On 29 January 1949, the Greek National Army appointed General Alexander Papagos Commander-in-Chief. In August 1949, Papagos launched a major counter-offensive against DSE forces in northern Greece, code-named "Operation Torch". The plan was for the Greek National Army to gain control of the border with Albania in order to surround and defeat the DSE forces, numbering 8,500 fighters. The DSE suffered heavy losses from the operation, but managed to retreat its units to Albania.


title: Communist Party of Greece

text: Charilaos Florakis, whose "nom de guerre" was Kapetan Yiotis, was a DSE-appointed Brigadier General during this battle. Florakis was ordered by the DSE High Command to re-enter Greece with his battalion via the Gramos Mountains and try to establish connection with all the DSE forces that remained within Greece. The battalion indeed reached small DSE units south of Gramos down to Evritania and retreated thereafter back to Albania. Floriakis later served as General Secretary of KKE from 1972 to 1989.


title: Communist Party of Greece

text: On 28 August 1949, the Civil War in Greece ended with the DSE forces defeated militarily and politically and KKE entered a new phase in its history.


title: Communist Party of Greece

text: After the Civil War, the KKE was outlawed and most of its prominent members had to flee Greece, go underground or provide a signed declaration that they renounced communism to avoid prosecution as under Law 504, issued in 1948, a large number of KKE members were either prosecuted, jailed or exiled. Prominent members of the KKE were tried and executed, including Nikos Beloyannis in 1952 and Nikos Ploumpidis in 1954. The execution of Ploumpidis was the last such execution by the post-Civil War governments. The fear of widespread reaction from left-wing citizens curbed further executions and eventually led to the gradual release of most political prisoners. In 1955, there were 4,498 political prisoners and 898 exiles while in 1962 there were 1,359 prisoners and 296 exiles. However, under the prevailing anticommunist rules the communists and KKE sympathizers were barred from the public sector and lived under a repressive anticommunist surveillance system. Such discrimination against communists was partially relieved with the legalization of KKE in 1974 and the discrimination ended in the 1980s.


title: Communist Party of Greece

text: During this period of illegality, the KKE supported the United Democratic Left (EDA) Party. EDA functioned as the legal political expression of the outlawed KKE. It was not openly communist and attracted moderate voters reaching 70,000 members in the early 60s. Moreover, EDA had a very active youth wing. Historians have argued that the two parties operated parallel paths, something that contributed to the 1968 split between KKE and KKE Esoterikou.


title: Communist Party of Greece

text: Former king Constantine II claims that in 1964 he proposed to George Papandreou (senior) that the KKE be legalized. According to the former monarch, Papandreou refused to comply so as not to lose his party's left-wing supporters. This allegation cannot be verified as it was expressed after Papandreou's death. Moreover, Constantine's public statements regarding communism during the 1960s renders the veracity of this allegation questionable.


title: Communist Party of Greece

text: On 21 April 1967, a group of right-wing Greek Army colonels led by Georgios Papadopoulos successfully carried out a coup d'état on the pretext of imminent "communist threat", establishing what became known as the Regime of the Colonels. All political parties, including EDA, were dissolved and civil liberties were suppressed for all Greek citizens. KKE members were persecuted along with other opponents of the junta.


title: Communist Party of Greece

text: In 1968, a crisis escalated between KKE's two main factions. The crisis was already festering during the 12th plenum of the party's central committee held in Budapest between 5 and 15 February 1968 in which three members of the politbureau (M. Partsalidis, Z. Zografos and P. Dimitriu) were expelled for fractionist activity and was further triggered by the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia. This event led a number of Greek communists who were ideologically leaning with the so-called opportunist faction to break with KKE that was loyal to the Socialist Republic's policy and to follow the nascent Eurocommunist line, which favored a more pluralistic approach to socialism. A relatively large group split from KKE, forming what became the Communist Party of Greece (Interior). The spin-off party forged bonds with Eurocommunist parties such as the Italian Communist Party as well as with Nicolae Ceauşescu's Romanian Communist Party. Its supporters referred to KKE as the KKE (Exterior) ("ΚΚΕ εξωτερικού"), inferring that KKE's policies were dictated by the Politburo of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.


title: Communist Party of Greece

text: Despite the difficulties resulting from the split, KKE continued its opposition to the Greek Junta throughout the next six years. Its political fighting against the regime took the form of labour disruptions and strikes and small demonstrations all over the country. Its power was rising inside the Universities where the newly founded Communist Youth of Greece (KNE) began working underground. KKE underground forces continued to work closely with other political groups of the center and left within Greece and abroad. In many European capitals anti-Junta committees were founded to support the struggle in Greece.


title: Communist Party of Greece

text: After the restoration of parliamentary democracy in 1974, Constantine Karamanlis legalised the KKE hoping to reclaim "a vital part of national memory". In the 1974 elections, the KKE participated with the KKE Interior and the EDA under the name of the United Left, receiving 9.36 per cent of the vote. In the elections from 1977 to 1989, the KKE participated on its own.


title: Communist Party of Greece

text: In 1989, the political consequences of the Civil War were finally lifted. The war was named "Civil War" instead of "War against the gangs" ("συμμοριτοπόλεμος"), that was the official state name for that era up until that point and DSE fighters were named "DSE fighters" instead of "Communist Gangfighters" ("κουμουνιστοσυμμορίτες").


title: Communist Party of Greece

text: In 1944, KKE participated in the national unity government of George Papandreou, holding the positions of Minister of Finance, Minister of Agriculture, Minister of Labor, Minister of National Economy and Public Works and Deputy Minister of Finance.


title: Communist Party of Greece

text: In 1988, KKE and Greek Left (Greek EAP; the former KKE Interior), along with other left-wing parties and organisations, formed the Coalition of the Left and Progress (Synaspismos). In the June 1989 elections, Synaspismos gained 13.1 per cent of votes and joined a coalition with New Democracy to form a short-lived government amidst a political spectrum shaken by accusations of economic scandals against the previous administration of Andreas Papandreou's Panhellenic Socialist Movement. In November of the same year, Synaspismos participated in the "Universal Government" with New Democracy and Panhellenic Socialist Movement which appointed Xenophon Zolotas as Prime Minister for three months. In 1991, KKE withdrew from Synaspismos. Some KKE members left the party and remained in Synaspismos, which evolved into a separate left-wing party that is now an alliance of Synaspismos with other leftist groups called the Coalition of the Radical Left.


title: Communist Party of Greece

text: In the first 2012 legislative election held on 6 May, the party got 8.5% of the vote and increased its parliamentary seats by 5 for a total of 26 seats.


title: Communist Party of Greece

text: However, in the second 2012 legislative election held a month later, on 17 June 2012, the party's support halved, resulting in a loss of 4% and 14 MPs. After the failure of the Hellenic Parliament to elect a new President of State in late 2014, the parliament was dissolved and a snap legislative election was scheduled for 25 January 2015, where the party increased its support by 1 percentage point, to 5.5%. At the fresh elections later that year, the party got a slight increase of 0.1% to reach 5.6% of the vote.


title: Communist Party of Greece

text: Since the 2015 election, the party saw a further increase in its support in opinion polls, overtaking the former major party PASOK to reach 4th place.


title: Communist Party of Greece

text: Although KKE was again overtaken by PASOK (now called Movement for Change – KINAL) in the 2019 election, it nonetheless managed to maintain a fourth-place in the polls, due to the decline of far-right party Golden Dawn.


title: Communist Party of Greece

text: The KKE proposes the nationalization of the means of production and a restructuring centralisation of the economy: consequently, it requires a scientific planning oriented to meet all the needs of the Greek people (for example: jobs, health care, education, culture, sport...).


title: Communist Party of Greece

text: KKE voted against the Civil Partnerships Bill proposed by Syriza in December 2015 responding, among other things:


title: Communist Party of Greece

text: The family is a social relationship, it is an institution for the protection of children, as it was formed in the context of today's society, capitalism. We also believe that civil marriage should be the only, obligatory form of marriage. And whoever wants, let him have the right to the corresponding religious ceremony. But you do not touch upon this urban modernization that has taken place in other countries for years.


title: Communist Party of Greece

text: If the government wanted to introduce a less "bureaucratic" civil marriage, it could propose the necessary amendments to the Civil Code. There is no need for two legal regulations (civil marriage and cohabitation agreement) on the rights and obligations between spouses, the core of which is the potential reproduction, upbringing and upbringing of children.


title: Communist Party of Greece

text: Today, this is confirmed by the fact that the Cohabitation Agreement is extended in terms of obligations and rights of both parties, which essentially resembles marriage and especially by the fact that it extends to same-sex couples. Greece's condemnation by the European Court of Justice, cited by the government and the Report, was not a breach of any positive obligation imposed by the European Convention on Human Rights. But it was a negative discrimination against homosexual scales, but in the context of the institutionalization of the Cohabitation Pact. If there was no Cohabitation Pact for heterosexual couples, there would be no question of condemning Greece.


title: Communist Party of Greece

text: The aim of the bill is essentially the institutional recognition of same-sex couples, including – in a process – the acquisition of children by them. And there, is our disagreement.


title: Communist Party of Greece

text: Rights and obligations arise within marriage, which is the legal expression of the social relations of the family. It includes social protection of children, who are biologically the result of sexual relations between a man and a woman.


title: Communist Party of Greece

text: With the formation of a socialist-communist society, a new type of partnership will undoubtedly be formed—a relatively stable heterosexual relationship and reproduction.


title: Communist Party of Greece

text: However, the KKE also supports strengthening legislation to punish homophobic behavior, and has spoken against such discrimination, stating that "Unacceptable and condemnable discrimination and violence against our fellow human beings, based on their sexual orientation and other personal characteristics, are not addressed by cheap declarations of equality and words of sympathy, but by strengthening legislation against perpetrators of sexism, racism and homophobia, with the full social support of those who suffer from such behaviors. A real shield against such discrimination is collectivism, the struggle for modern social rights for all people."


title: Communist Party of Greece

text: KKE opposes decriminalization of drug consumption and drug trafficking. It opposes the division of drugs on more and less harmful, considering harm reduction legislation as "dominant bourgeois policy". It also opposes substitution rehabilitation programs (and endorses "cold turkey" programs) as it believes drug substitutes replace one addiction for another.


title: Communist Party of Greece

text: KKE positions on drug reform are summed up, among other texts, in an article on one of their websites:(KKE).. is opposed both to the current repressive policy that imprisons users and frees traders and to the problem management policies as well as to the efforts to privatize the existing detoxification and prevention services.


title: Communist Party of Greece

text: KKE believes in tackling the drug problem effectively. It supports the only realistic solution which is to strengthen the prevention – treatment – reintegration efforts. It says: No to ALL drugs. It denies the separation of soft – hard (drugs). It does not believe in substitution programs, which maintain drug addiction and do not cure it. The substitution should concern special groups (eg with chronic diseases). NO to the decriminalization of hashish. "Demand reduction" policy not "harm reduction" policy.


title: Communist Party of Greece

text: Unlike the Communist Party of the Soviet Union after 1956, the KKE celebrates the rule of Joseph Stalin and considers him a champion of socialism.


title: Communist Party of Greece

text: The KKE, like other communist parties, supports the separation of church and state. However, religious people are allowed to join the party and it also has religious associates such as Liana Kanelli.


title: Communist Party of Greece

text: Unlike other communist parties , the party considers China an imperialist power and a capitalist country, and considers the Chinese Communist Party to have lost its revolutionary elements.


title: Communist Party of Greece

text: The KKE advocates Greek patriotism and left-wing nationalism alongside proletarian internationalism and considers it its patriotic duty to oppose Greece's EU membership.


title: Communist Party of Greece

text: In 1956, after the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union at which Nikita Khrushchev denounced the excesses of Joseph Stalin, a faction created the Group of Marxist–Leninists of Greece (OMLE), which split from party in 1964, becoming the Organisation of Marxists-Leninists of Greece.


title: Communist Party of Greece

text: In 1968, amidst the Greek military junta of 1967–1974 and the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, a relatively big group split from KKE, forming KKE Interior, claiming to be directed from within Greece rather than from the Soviet Union.


title: Communist Party of Greece

text: In 1988, KKE and Greek Left (the former KKE Interior), along with other left parties and organisations, formed the Coalition of the Left and Progress.


title: Communist Party of Greece

text: Also in 1988, the vast majority of members and officials from Communist Youth of Greece (KNE), the KKE's youth wing, split to form the New Left Current (NAR), drawing mainly youth in major cities, especially in Thessaloniki.


title: Communist Party of Greece

text: In the early 2000s, a small group of major party officials such as Mitsos Kostopoulos left the party and formed the Movement for the United in Action Left (KEDA), which in the 2007 legislative election participated in the Coalition of the Radical Left (Syriza), which was to win the 2015 national elections with a plurality.


title: Communist Party of Greece

text: KKE's youth organization is the Communist Youth of Greece, which closely supports KKE's goals and strategic targets.


title: Communist Party of Greece

text: KKE is a force in the Greek political scene, rallying a significant amount of support within the organized working-class movement. KKE is currently trying to mold a loose and rather disorganised international communist movement along a purely Marxist–Leninist line. Since its 18th congress (February 2009), KKE has opened up a discussion within the ranks and more broadly within the Greek left-leaning community on the future evolution of communism in the 21st century, with a particular emphasis on examining the causes of the collapse of the Socialist system in the former Soviet Union and in Eastern Europe.


title: Communist Party of Greece

text: The KKE stands in elections and has representatives in the Greek Parliament, local authorities and the European Parliament, where its two MEPs sit with the Non-Inscrits. On 3 June 2014, following the 2014 European elections the Central Committee of the KKE announced that it would no longer continue the party's affiliation to the European United Left–Nordic Green Left (GUE/NGL) group in the European parliament.


title: Communist Party of Greece

text: It publishes the daily newspaper "Rizospastis". It also publishes the political and theoretical journal "Komounistiki Epitheorisi" (Communist Review) every two months and a journal covering educational issues, "Themata Paideias".


title: Communist Party of Greece

text: KKE delegations participated in international conferences of Communist and working parties (1957, 1960, 1969, Moscow). KKE approved the documents accepted at the conferences.


title: University of Nottingham

text: The University of Nottingham is a public research university in Nottingham, United Kingdom. It was founded as University College Nottingham in 1881, and was granted a royal charter in 1948. The University of Nottingham belongs to the research intensive Russell Group association.


title: University of Nottingham

text: Nottingham's main campus (University Park) with Jubilee Campus and teaching hospital (Queen's Medical Centre) are located within the City of Nottingham, with a number of smaller campuses and sites elsewhere in Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire. Outside the UK, the university has campuses in Semenyih, Malaysia, and Ningbo, China. Nottingham is organised into five constituent faculties, within which there are more than 50 schools, departments, institutes and research centres. Nottingham has about 45,500 students and 7,000 staff, and had an income of £694 million in 2020–21, of which £114.9 million was from research grants and contracts. The institution's alumni have been awarded 3 Nobel Prizes, a Fields Medal, a Turner Prize, and a Gabor Medal and Prize. The university is a member of the Association of Commonwealth Universities, the European University Association, the Russell Group, Universitas 21, Universities UK, the Virgo Consortium, and participates in the Sutton Trust Summer School programme as a member of the Sutton 30.


title: University of Nottingham

text: The University of Nottingham traces its origins to both the founding of an adult education school in 1798, and the University Extension Lectures inaugurated by the University of Cambridge in 1873—the first of their kind in the country. However, the foundation of the university is generally regarded as being the establishment of University College Nottingham, in 1881 as a college preparing students for examinations of the University of London.


title: University of Nottingham

text: In 1875, an anonymous donor provided £10,000 to establish the work of the Adult Education School and Cambridge Extension Lectures on a permanent basis, and the Corporation of Nottingham agreed to erect and maintain a building for this purpose and to provide funds to supply the instruction.


title: University of Nottingham

text: The foundation stone of the college was duly laid in 1877 by the former Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone, and the college's neo-gothic building on Shakespeare Street was formally opened in 1881 by Prince Leopold, Duke of Albany. In 1881, there were four professors – of Literature, Physics, Chemistry and Natural Science. New departments and chairs quickly followed: Engineering in 1884, Classics combined with Philosophy in 1893, French in 1897 and Education in 1905; in 1905 the combined Department of Physics and Mathematics became two separate entities; in 1911 Departments of English and Mining were created, in 1912, Economics, and Geology combined with Geography; History in 1914, Adult Education in 1923 and Pharmacy in 1925.


title: University of Nottingham

text: The university college underwent significant expansion in the 1920s, when it moved from the centre of Nottingham to a large campus on the city's outskirts. The new campus, called University Park, was completed in 1928, and financed by an endowment fund, public contributions, and the generosity of Sir Jesse Boot (later Lord Trent) who presented to the City of Nottingham in 1921. Boot and his fellow benefactors sought to establish an "elite seat of learning" committed to widening participation, and hoped that the move would solve the problems facing University College Nottingham, in its restricted building on Shakespeare Street. Boot stipulated that, whilst part of the Highfields site, lying south-west of the city, should be devoted to the University College, the rest should provide a place of recreation for the residents of the city, and, by the end of the decade, the landscaping of the lake and public park adjoining University Boulevard was completed. The original University College building on Shakespeare Street in central Nottingham, known as the Arkwright Building, now forms part of Nottingham Trent University's City Campus.


title: University of Nottingham

text: D. H. Lawrence commented on the endowment and the architecture in the wordsIn Nottingham, that dismal town where I went to school and college,they've built a new university for a new dispensation of knowledge.Built it most grand and cakeily out of the noble lootderived from shrewd cash-chemistry by good Sir Jesse Boot.


title: University of Nottingham

text: University College Nottingham was initially accommodated within the Trent Building, an imposing white limestone structure with a distinctive clock tower, designed by Morley Horder, and formally opened by King George V on 10 July 1928. During this period of development, Nottingham attracted high-profile lecturers, including Albert Einstein, H. G. Wells, and Mahatma Gandhi. The blackboard used by Einstein during his time at Nottingham is still on display in the Physics department.


title: University of Nottingham

text: Apart from its physical transfer to surroundings that could not be more different from its original home, the college made few developments between the wars. The Department of Slavonic Languages (later Slavonic Studies) was established in 1933, the teaching of Russian having been introduced in 1916. In 1933–34, the Departments of Electrical Engineering, Zoology and Geography, which had been combined with other subjects, were made independent; and in 1938 a supplemental Charter provided for a much wider representation on the Governing Body. However, further advances were delayed by the outbreak of war in 1939.


title: University of Nottingham

text: University College Nottingham students received their degrees from the University of London. However, in 1903, the university was granted its Royal Charter which endowed it with university status and gave it the power to confer degrees. In 1948 University College Nottingham was incorporated as The University of Nottingham.


title: University of Nottingham

text: In the 1940s, the Midlands Agricultural and Dairy College at Sutton Bonington merged with the university as the School of Agriculture, and in 1956 the Portland Building was completed to complement the Trent Building. In 1970, the university established the UK's first new medical school of the 20th century.


title: University of Nottingham

text: In 1999, Jubilee Campus was opened on the former site of the Raleigh Bicycle Company, one mile (1.6 km) away from the University Park Campus. Nottingham then began to expand overseas, opening campuses in Malaysia and in China in 1999 and 2004 respectively. In 2005, the King's Meadow Campus opened near University Park.


title: University of Nottingham

text: The university has used several logos throughout its history, beginning with its coat of arms. Later, Nottingham adopted a simpler logo, in which a stylised version of Nottingham Castle was surrounded by the text "The University of Nottingham". In 2001 Nottingham undertook a major re-branding exercise, which included replacing the logo with the current one.


title: University of Nottingham

text: University Park Campus, to the west of Nottingham city centre, is the main campus of the University of Nottingham. Set around its lake and clock-tower and with extensive parkland greenery, University Park has won numerous awards for its architecture and landscaping, and has been named the greenest campus in the country in a Green Flag Award.


title: University of Nottingham

text: At the south entrance to the main campus, in Highfields Park, lies the Lakeside Arts Centre, the university's public arts facility and performance space. The D.H. Lawrence Pavilion houses a range of cultural facilities, including a 225 capacity theatre space, a series of craft cabinets, the Weston Gallery (which displays the university's manuscript collection), the Wallner gallery, which exists as a platform for local and regional artists, and a series of visual arts, performance and hospitality spaces. Other nearby facilities include the Djanogly Art Gallery, recital hall, and theatre, which in the past have hosted recordings and broadcasting by BBC Radio 3, the NOTT Dance and NOW festivals, and a series of contemporary art exhibitions.


title: University of Nottingham

text: Jubilee Campus, designed by Sir Michael Hopkins, was opened by Queen Elizabeth II in 1999, and is approximately from University Park. The campus' facilities house the Schools of Education and Computer Science, and The Nottingham University Business School. The site is also the home of The National College for School Leadership. Additional investment of £9.2 million in Jubilee Campus was completed in 2004, with a second building for Nottingham University Business School opened by Lord Sainsbury. The environmentally friendly nature of the campus and its buildings have been a factor in the awards that it has received, including the Millennium Marque Award for Environmental Excellence, the British Construction Industry Building Project of the Year, the RIBA Journal Sustainability Award, and the Civic Trust Award for Sustainability.


title: University of Nottingham

text: The Jubilee Campus won the commendation of the Energy Globe Award judges in 2005. The campus is distinct for its modern and unique architecture, culminating in Aspire, a 60-metre tall artistic structure is the tallest freestanding structure in the UK. The university plans to invest £200 million in a new scheme designed by Ken Shuttleworth, designer of the London 'Gherkin' and founder of Make Architects. However, the architecture of the Jubilee Campus is not admired by all, and the newly completed Amenities Building and YANG Fujia Building have been labelled the second worst new architectural design in Britain in a recent survey.


title: University of Nottingham

text: A fire in September 2014 destroyed the GlaxoSmithKline building which was under construction, but it was rebuilt and officially opened in 2017.


title: University of Nottingham

text: The City Hospital Campus houses staff and postgraduate students specialising in respiratory medicine, stroke medicine, oncology, physiotherapy, and public health. The campus was expanded in 2009 to house a new institute of public health and a specialist centre for tobacco research.


title: University of Nottingham

text: Sutton Bonington Campus houses Nottingham's School of Biosciences and the new School of Veterinary Medicine and Science, and is about to the south of the City of Nottingham, between the M1 motorway, Ratcliffe Power Station, and the Midland Main Line railway. The campus is centred on the historic manor of Sutton Bonington and retains many of its own botanic gardens and lakes. The University Farm, including the Dairy Centre, is at the Sutton Bonington Campus.


title: University of Nottingham

text: King's Meadow Campus was established in 2005 on the former Central Independent Television Studios site on Lenton Lane. It mainly accommodates administrative functions, but also the Department of Manuscripts and Special Collections. A functioning television studio remains at the site, that continues to be rented to the film and television industry.


title: University of Nottingham

text: Castle Meadow Campus is a 3.75-hectare site below Nottingham Castle, purchased by the university in 2021, having been previously owned by HMRC (HM Revenue and Customs). Existing buildings are to be refurbished with the campus planned to open from 2023


title: University of Nottingham

text: Nottingham has introduced overseas campuses as part of a growth strategy. The first stage in this strategy was the establishment in 1999 of a campus in Semenyih, Selangor, Malaysia, a short distance from Kuala Lumpur. This was followed in 2004 by a campus in Ningbo, Zhejiang Province, China.


title: University of Nottingham

text: The Malaysia campus was the first campus of a British university in Malaysia and one of the first anywhere in the world, earning the Queen's Award for Enterprise 2001 and the Queen's Award for Industry (International Trade) 2006. In September 2005, the Malaysia campus moved to a purpose-built campus at Semenyih, south of Kuala Lumpur city centre.


title: University of Nottingham

text: The £40 million Ningbo campus was completed in 2005, and was officially opened by John Prescott, the UK's Deputy Prime Minister, in February 2006. Like the Malaysia Campus, Ningbo Campus builds on the University Park in the UK and includes a lake, its own version of Nottingham's famous Trent Building, and the Centre for Sustainable Energy Technologies (CSET), China's first zero-carbon building.


title: University of Nottingham

text: In November 2012, the university launched a new joint venture in collaboration with the East China University of Science and Technology: the Shanghai Nottingham Advanced Academy (SNAA). The SNAA will deliver joint courses in Shanghai including periods of study in Nottingham, with teaching and research at undergraduate, postgraduate, and doctoral levels.


title: University of Nottingham

text: The university is made up of a number of schools and departments organised into five faculties: Arts, Engineering, Medicine and Health Sciences, Science, and Social Science. Each faculty encompasses a number of schools and departments.


title: University of Nottingham

text: The chief officer is the Chancellor, elected by the University Court on the recommendation of the University Council. The chief academic and administrative officer is the Vice-Chancellor, who is assisted by Pro-Vice-Chancellors. The governing body is the University Council, which has 35 members and is mostly non-academic. The academic authority is the Senate, consisting of senior academics and elected staff and student representatives. The largest forum is the University Court, presided over by the Chancellor.


title: University of Nottingham

text: The office of Chancellor is currently vacant, following the retirement of Sir Andrew Witty. Witty, who became incumbent on 1 January 2013, announced his retirement in November 2017, and the role has been vacant since. He succeeded Yang Fujia, who had been installed in July 2001.


title: University of Nottingham

text: Nottingham is a research-led institution, and two academics connected with the university were awarded Nobel Prizes in 2003. Clive Granger was jointly awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics. Much of the work on Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) was carried out at Nottingham, work for which Sir Peter Mansfield received the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 2003. Nottingham remains a strong centre for research into MRI. The university has contributed to a number of other significant scientific advances. Frederick Kipping, Professor of Chemistry (1897–1936), made the discovery of silicone polymers at Nottingham. Major developments in the in vitro culture of plants and micropropogation techniques were made by plant scientists at Nottingham, along with the first production of transgenic tomatoes by Don Grierson in the 1980s. Other innovations at the university include cochlear implants for deaf children and the brace-for-impact position used in aircraft. In 2015, the Assemble collective, of which the part-time Architecture Department tutor Joseph Halligan is a member, won the Turner Prize, Europe's most prestigious art award. Other facilities at Nottingham include a 46 teraflop supercomputer.


title: University of Nottingham

text: Nottingham was ranked joint 23rd in the UK amongst multi-faculty institutions for the quality (GPA) of its research and 8th for its Research Power in the 2014 Research Excellence Framework. More than 80 per cent of research at the university was described as "world-leading" or "internationally excellent" in the UK Funding Councils' 2014 Research Excellence Framework, with 28 out of 32 returns having at least 75 per cent of impact that was either "outstanding" or "very considerable" – ranking the university 7th in the UK on this measure. Nottingham is also in the top seven universities in Britain for the amount of research income received, being awarded over £40 million in research contracts for the 2015–2016 academic year by UK Research Councils, and £159 million in total research awards income.


title: University of Nottingham

text: The university is home to the Leverhume Centre for Research on Globalisation and Economic Policy (GEP). GEP was established in the Nottingham School of Economics in 2001, and conducts research activities structured on the theme of globalisation.


title: University of Nottingham

text: According to the latest statistics () compiled by the Higher Education Statistics Agency, Nottingham is the UK's largest university based on total student enrolment with students; from more than 130 countries. 20% of Nottingham's undergraduates are privately educated, the 17th highest proportion among mainstream British universities. In the 2016–17 academic year, the university had a domicile breakdown of 78:5:17 of UK:EU:non-EU students respectively with a female to male ratio of 55:45.


title: University of Nottingham

text: The university gives offers of admission to 78.5% of its applicants, the joint 15th lowest amongst the Russell Group. According to "The Times" and "The Sunday Times" League Table 2015, the university received 7.3 applications for every place available, placing it joint 14th in the UK (tied with Edinburgh Napier University) for the 'Most Competition for Places'. For the 2013–14 admissions cycle, the average successful applicant attained 426 UCAS points (the equivalent of ABB at A Level and BB at AS Level), ranking it as the 22nd highest amongst higher educational institutes.


title: University of Nottingham

text: The university was named "Times Higher Education" "University of the Year" in 2006, "Times Higher Education" "Entrepreneurial University of the Year" in 2008, and finished runner up in the 2010 "Sunday Times" "University of the Year". In 2016–17, Nottingham was named 'University of the Year' for graduate employment by "The Sunday Times". Nottingham is described by the Fulbright Commission as "one of the UK's oldest, largest, and most prestigious universities". In 2019, it ranked 126th among the universities around the world by "SCImago Institutions Rankings".


title: University of Nottingham

text: In the 2014 Research Excellence Framework (REF), which assesses the quality of research in UK higher education institutions, Nottingham is ranked 26th by GPA and 8th for research power. The 2016 CWUR University Ranking placed Nottingham University 139th globally and 10th nationally.


title: University of Nottingham

text: Nottingham is ranked 2nd in the UK (after Oxford) and 13th in the world in terms of the number of alumni listed among CEOs of the 500 largest companies worldwide. The 2015 Global Employability University Ranking places Nottingham 78th in the world and 11th in the UK. In 2017, Nottingham was ranked Europe's 71st 'Most Innovative University'.


title: University of Nottingham

text: More recently in the 2019 "Complete University Guide" national rankings, Nottingham placed 1st for Agriculture & Forestry, 2nd for Pharmacology & Pharmacy, 3rd for Social Work and Veterinary Medicine and 4th for American Studies and Physiotherapy. 19 subjects were ranked in the top ten.


title: University of Nottingham

text: The University of Nottingham Students' Union is heavily involved with providing student activities at the university and has more than 190 student societies affiliated to it. A further 76 clubs are affiliated to the Students' Union's Sports Committee. Nottingham participates yearly in the Varsity Series, a number of sporting events between the students and staff of the university and traditional rivals Nottingham Trent University.


title: University of Nottingham

text: The student newspaper "Impact" is published regularly during term time. The Students' Union radio station is University Radio Nottingham. A range of student theatre takes place at The New Theatre. The Students' Union also operates a student-run professional sound and lighting company, TEC PA & Lighting, who provide services for many events such as graduation, balls, and many other events, both within the university and to external clients.


title: University of Nottingham

text: The Students' Union also organises a number of activities and events involving students and staff with the local community. The Student Volunteer Centre sees more than 4500 students each year volunteering in local schools and community organisations, as well as a range of other projects throughout the city of Nottingham. The Union has the largest student-run RAG organisation outside of the US, "Karnival" (abbreviated to "Karni"), which raised £1.61 million in 2012. The Students' Union also runs an international volunteering project, InterVol, which sends student volunteers to work in rural African communities.


title: University of Nottingham

text: Karnival also ran "RAG raids" a format of charity fundraising in other cities, which proved to be one of the most profitable charity sources for the university with notably a single RAG raid in 2014 raising £66,552.72 for the Poppy Appeal. However, in April 2017 the raids were controversially banned by the students' union over the fears for the safety on students.


title: University of Nottingham

text: The University of Nottingham has a system of halls located on its campus. The halls are generally named either after counties, districts, or places in the East Midlands or significant people associated with the university.


title: University of Nottingham

text: On 14 May 2008, Hicham Yezza, a member of staff, and Rizwaan Sabir, a postgraduate student, were arrested at the University of Nottingham and were detained for six days under the Terrorism Act 2000. The university informed the police after finding an edited version of the al-Qaeda training manual the student was using for his research. Both were released without charge from terrorism offences. In September 2011, Rizwaan Sabir was awarded £20,000 compensation for false imprisonment by Nottinghamshire Police.


title: University of Nottingham

text: The university came under criticism after the only professor involved in terrorism studies at the institution, Rod Thornton, decided that, because of the university's lack of guidance to him regarding their position over possession of terrorist publications, he was no longer willing to risk possible arrest by teaching terrorism studies at the university, although he would continue in his other responsibilities. As a result, terrorism studies are no longer being taught at the University of Nottingham.


title: University of Nottingham

text: For a 2011 conference of the British International Studies Association, Thornton prepared a paper which alleged the university had engaged in systematic persecution against Yezza, Sabir, and junior academics in the department. One of Thornton's colleagues at Nottingham complained to BISA about alleged defamatory content of Thornton's paper, and a spokesman for the university called it "highly defamatory of a number of his colleagues". The paper was later removed from BISA's website.


title: University of Nottingham

text: In early May 2011, Thornton was suspended by the university for the "breakdown in working relationships" caused by the paper. In an open letter published in "The Guardian", 67 international researchers including Noam Chomsky asked for Thornton's reinstatement and an independent examination of the university's actions, saying that Thornton's paper "carefully details what appear to be examples of serious misconduct from senior university management over the arrest of two university members".


title: University of Nottingham

text: In 2011, a campaign was launched calling for the reinstatement of Rod Thornton and for a public inquiry into the university's actions. In March 2012 it was announced that Thornton was leaving his job as a lecturer at Nottingham, and that, "for his part, Dr Thornton accepts that the article which he published on the BISA website in April 2011 contained a number of inaccuracies." Thornton apologized for any offence he might have caused.


title: University of Nottingham

text: In the 2020–21 academic year, students of the University of Nottingham organised large-scale campaigning against the university management team and specifically the Vice-Chancellor, Shearer West, for wider academic, welfare, and financial support for studentake, due to the on-going COVID-19 pandemic.


title: University of Nottingham

text: As of 4 February, the university administration initiated a safety net policy, for a variety of assignment types, in partial compliance with student demands. However demands for a wider university policy to support students with welfare support have yet to be made, with further complaints arising due to minimal financial support being provided to home students and additional issues arising for international students - resulting in a number of go-fund me pages being created to help international students pay their tuition.


title: University of Nottingham

text: At the start of the 2021–22 academic year, Patrick McKinney, Bishop of Nottingham, appointed Fr David Palmer to position of Catholic Chaplain to the university. The university actively blocked his appointment on the basis of his views on abortion and euthanasia. This triggered mass international criticism, including from Ann Furedi, a former chief executive of the British Pregnancy Advisory Service with strongly pro-choice views, who described the decision as "stupid" and stated "I disagree with his views on abortion but as a Catholic priest he’s expressing a mainstream Catholic view. Universities can’t tell chaplains what religious beliefs to express".


title: University of Nottingham

text: Fr Palmer's criticism of abortion and euthanasia were entirely in line with the Catholic Church's teaching.


title: University of Nottingham

text: The university are yet to comment on the development of this situation or the media coverage which it has generated.


title: University of Nottingham

text: The university has been associated with a range of notable alumni and staff in a number of disciplines:


title: University of Nottingham

text: Nobel prize or Fields medal winners; Sir Clive Granger – Nobel Prize in Economics, Sir Peter Mansfield – Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for contributions to Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Andre Geim – Nobel Prize–winning physicist, and Caucher Birkar – Fields medal-winning mathematician.


title: Mauretania

text: Mauretania (; ) is the Latin name for a region in the ancient Maghreb. It stretched from central present-day Algeria westwards to the Atlantic, covering northern present-day Morocco, and southward to the Atlas Mountains. Its native inhabitants, seminomadic pastoralists of Berber ancestry, were known to the Romans as the Mauri and the Masaesyli.


title: Mauretania

text: In 25 BC, the kings of Mauretania became Roman vassals until about 44 AD, when the area was annexed to Rome and divided into two provinces: Mauretania Tingitana and Mauretania Caesariensis. Christianity spread there from the 3rd century onwards. After the Muslim Arabs subdued the region in the 7th century, Islam became the dominant religion.


title: Mauretania

text: Mauretania existed as a tribal kingdom of the Berber Mauri people. In the early 1st century Strabo recorded "Maûroi" (Μαῦροι in greek) as the native name of a people opposite the Iberian Peninsula. This appellation was adopted into Latin, whereas the Greek name for the tribe was "Mauroúsii" (Μαυρούσιοι). The Mediterranean coast of Mauretania had commercial harbours for trade with Carthage from before the 4th century BC, but the interior was controlled by Berber tribes, who had established themselves in the region by the Iron Age.


title: Mauretania

text: King Atlas was a legendary king of Mauretania credited with inventing the celestial globe. The first known historical king of the Mauri, Baga, ruled during the Second Punic War of 218–201 BC. The Mauri were in close contact with Numidia. Bocchus I ([fl.] 110 BC) was father-in-law to the redoubted Numidian king Jugurtha.


title: Mauretania

text: After the death of king Bocchus II in 33 BC Rome directly administered the region from 33 BC to 25 BC. Mauretania eventually became a client kingdom of the Roman Empire in 25 BC when the Romans installed Juba II of Numidia as their client-king. On his death in AD 23, his Roman-educated son Ptolemy of Mauretania succeeded him. The Emperor Caligula had Ptolemy executed in AD 40. The Roman Emperor Claudius annexed Mauretania directly as a Roman province in AD 44, placing it under an imperial governor (either a "procurator Augusti", or a "legatus Augusti pro praetore").


title: Mauretania

text: In the 1st century AD, Emperor Claudius divided the Roman province of Mauretania into Mauretania Caesariensis and Mauretania Tingitana along the line of the Mulucha (Muluya) River, about 60 km west of modern Oran:


title: Mauretania

text: Mauretania gave the empire one emperor, the equestrian Macrinus. He seized power after the assassination of Caracalla in 217 but was himself defeated and executed by Elagabalus the next year.


title: Mauretania

text: Emperor Diocletian's Tetrarchy reform (293) further divided the area into three provinces, as the small, easternmost region of Sitifensis was split off from Mauretania Caesariensis.


title: Mauretania

text: The "Notitia Dignitatum" (c. 400) mentions themas still existing, two being under the authority of the Vicarius of the diocese of Africa:


title: Mauretania

text: During the crisis of the 3rd century, parts of Mauretania were reconquered by Berber tribes. Direct Roman rule became confined to a few coastal cities (such as Septem in Mauretania Tingitana and Cherchell in Mauretania Caesariensis) by the late 3rd century.


title: Mauretania

text: Historical sources about inland areas are sparse, but these were apparently controlled by local Berber rulers who, however, maintained a degree of Roman culture, including the local cities, and usually nominally acknowledged the suzerainty of the Roman Emperors.


title: Mauretania

text: In an inscription from Altava in western Algeria, one of these rulers, Masuna, described himself as "rex gentium Maurorum et Romanorum" (king of the Roman and Moorish peoples). Altava was later the capital of another ruler, Garmul or Garmules, who resisted Byzantine rule in Africa but was finally defeated in 578.


title: Mauretania

text: The Byzantine historian Procopius also mentions another independent ruler, Mastigas, who controlled most of Mauretania Caesariensis in the 530s. In the 7th century there were eight Romano-Moorish kingdoms: Altava, Ouarsenis, Hodna, Aures, Nemenchas, Capsa, Dorsale and Cabaon.


title: Mauretania

text: The last resistance against the Arab invasion was sustained in the second half of the 7th century mainly by the Roman-Moorish kingdoms -with the last Byzantine troops in the region- under the leadership of the Christian king of Altava Caecilius, but later ended in complete defeat in 703 AD (when the queen Kahina died in battle).


title: Mauretania

text: The city of Hippo Regius fell to the Vandals in 431 after a prolonged siege, and Carthage also fell in 439. Theodosius II dispatched an expedition to deal with the Vandals in 441, which failed to progress farther than Sicily. The Western Empire under Valentinian III secured peace with the Vandals in 442, confirming their control of Proconsular Africa. For the next 90 years, Africa was firmly under the Vandal control. The Vandals were ousted from Africa in the Vandalic War of 533–534, from which time Mauretania at least nominally became a Roman province once again.


title: Mauretania

text: The old provinces of the Roman Diocese of Africa were mostly preserved by the Vandals, but large parts, including almost all of Mauretania Tingitana, much of Mauretania Caesariensis and Mauretania Sitifensis and large parts of the interior of Numidia and Byzacena, had been lost to the inroads of Berber tribes, now collectively called the "Mauri" (later Moors) as a generic term for "the Berber tribes in the province of Mauretania".


title: Mauretania

text: In 533, the Roman army under Belisarius defeated the Vandals. In April 534, Justinian published a law concerning the administrative organization of the newly acquired territories. Nevertheless, Justinian restored the old administrative division, but raised the overall governor at Carthage to the supreme administrative rank of praetorian prefect, thereby ending the Diocese of Africa's traditional subordination to the Prefecture of Italy (then still under Ostrogoth rule).


title: Mauretania

text: The emperor Maurice sometime between 585 and 590 AD created the office of "Exarch", which combined the supreme civil authority of a praetorian prefect and the military authority of a "magister militum", and enjoyed considerable autonomy from Constantinople. Two exarchates were established, one in Italy, with seat at Ravenna (hence known as the Exarchate of Ravenna), and one in Africa, based at Carthage and including all imperial possessions in the Western Mediterranean. The first African exarch was the "patricius" Gennadius.


title: Mauretania

text: Mauretania Caesariensis and Mauretania Sitifensis were merged to form the new province of Mauretania Prima, while Mauretania Tingitana, effectively reduced to the city of Septem, was combined with the citadels of the Spanish coast (Spania) and the Balearic islands to form Mauretania Secunda. The African exarch was in possession of "Mauretania Secunda", which was little more than a tiny outpost in southern Spain, beleaguered by the Visigoths. The last Spanish strongholds were conquered by the Visigoths in 624 AD, reducing "Mauretania Seconda" opposite Gibraltar to only the fort of Septem.


title: Mauretania

text: Christianity is known to have existed in Mauretania as early as the 3rd century. It spread rapidly in these areas despite its relatively late appearance in the region. Although it was adopted in the urban areas of Mauretania Caesariensis, the hinterlands retained the Romano-Berber religion.


title: Mauretania

text: Ancient episcopal sees of the late Roman province of Mauretania Sitifensis, listed in the "Annuario Pontificio" as titular sees:


title: Psychrolutes marcidus

text: Psychrolutes marcidus, the smooth-head blobfish, also known simply as blobfish, is a deep-sea fish of the family Psychrolutidae. It inhabits the deep waters off the coasts of mainland Australia and Tasmania, as well as the waters of New Zealand.


title: Psychrolutes marcidus

text: Blobfish are typically shorter than . They live at depths between , where the pressure is 60 to 120 times greater than that at sea level, which would likely make gas bladders inefficient for maintaining buoyancy. Instead, the flesh of the blobfish is primarily a gelatinous mass with a density slightly less than that of water; this allows the fish to float above the sea floor without expending energy on swimming. The blobfish has a relative lack of muscle, but this is not a disadvantage, as its main food source is edible matter that floats in front of it, such as deep-ocean crustaceans.


title: Psychrolutes marcidus

text: Blobfish are often caught as bycatch in bottom trawling nets. It was first discovered around the Norfolk and Lord Howe islands, which are located between Australia and New Zealand. The discovery was made by a team of two dozen scientist during their exploration of submarine habitats. The team towed gear on the ocean floor in order to net and study different species. Among the new species the caught was the psychrolutes marcidus.


title: Psychrolutes marcidus

text: The popular impression of the blobfish as bulbous and gelatinous is partially an artifact of the decompression damage done to specimens when they are brought to the surface from the extreme depths in which they live. In their natural environment, blobfish appear more typical for their superclass Osteichthyes (bony fish).


title: Debate over the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

text: Substantial debate exists over the ethical, legal, and military aspects of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on 6 August and 9 August 1945 at the close of World War II (1939–45).


text: On 26 July 1945, United States President Harry S. Truman, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and President of China Chiang Kai-shek issued the Potsdam Declaration, which outlined the terms of surrender for the Empire of Japan as agreed upon at the Potsdam Conference. This ultimatum stated if Japan did not surrender, it would face "prompt and utter destruction". Some debaters focus on the presidential decision-making process, and others on whether or not the bombings were the proximate cause of Japanese surrender.


text: Over the course of time, different arguments have gained and lost support as new evidence has become available and as new studies have been completed. A primary and continuing focus has been on whether the bombing should be categorized as a war crime or as a crime against humanity. There is also the debate on the role of the bombings in Japan's surrender and the U.S.'s justification for them based upon the premise that the bombings precipitated the surrender. This remains the subject of both scholarly and popular debate, with revisionist historians advancing a variety of arguments. In 2005, in an overview of historiography about the matter, J. Samuel Walker wrote, "the controversy over the use of the bomb seems certain to continue". Walker stated, "The fundamental issue that has divided scholars over a period of nearly four decades is whether the use of the bomb was necessary to achieve victory in the war in the Pacific on terms satisfactory to the United States."


text: Supporters of the bombings generally assert that they caused the Japanese surrender, preventing massive casualties on both sides in the planned invasion of Japan: Kyūshū was to be invaded in November 1945 and Honshū four months later. It was thought Japan would not surrender unless there was an overwhelming demonstration of destructive capability. Those who oppose the bombings argue it was militarily unnecessary, inherently immoral, a war crime, or a form of state terrorism. Critics believe a naval blockade and conventional bombings would have forced Japan to surrender unconditionally. Some critics believe Japan was more motivated to surrender by the Soviet Union's invasion of Manchuria and other Japanese-held areas.


text: Those who argue in favor of the decision to drop the atomic bombs on enemy targets believe massive casualties on both sides would have occurred in Operation Downfall, the planned Allied invasion of Japan. The bulk of the force invading Japan would be American although the British Commonwealth would contribute three divisions of troops (one each from the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia).


text: The U.S. anticipated losing many combatants in Downfall, although the number of expected fatalities and wounded is subject to some debate. U.S. President Harry S. Truman stated in 1953 he had been advised U.S. casualties could range from 250,000 to one million combatants. Assistant Secretary of the Navy Ralph Bard, a member of the Interim Committee on atomic matters, stated that while meeting with Truman in the summer of 1945 they discussed the bomb's use in the context of massive combatant and non-combatant casualties from invasion, with Bard raising the possibility of a million Allied combatants being killed. As Bard opposed using the bomb without warning Japan first, he cannot be accused of exaggerating casualty expectations to justify the bomb's use, and his account is evidence that Truman was aware of, and government officials discussed, the possibility of one million casualties. However, other estimates were lower. For example, on June 18, 1945, General Douglas MacArthur, the commander of the invasion force, predicted 95,000 casualties (a third of those deaths) in the first 90 days of the invasion.


text: A quarter of a million casualties is roughly the level the Joint War Plans Committee estimated, in its paper (JWPC 369/1) prepared for Truman's 18 June meeting. A review of documents from the Truman Library shows Truman's initial draft response to the query describes Marshall only as saying "one quarter of a million would be the minimum". The "as much as a million" phrase was added to the final draft by Truman's staff, so as not to appear to contradict an earlier statement given in a published article by Stimson (former Secretary of War). In a study done by the Joint Chiefs of Staff in April 1945, the figures of 7.45 casualties per 1,000 man-days and 1.78 fatalities per 1,000 man-days were developed. This implied the two planned campaigns to conquer Japan would cost 1.6 million U.S. casualties, including 380,000 dead. JWPC 369/1 (prepared June 15, 1945) which provided planning information to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, estimated an invasion of Japan would result in 40,000 U.S. dead and 150,000 wounded. Delivered on June 15, 1945, after insight gained from the Battle of Okinawa, the study noted Japan's inadequate defenses resulting from a very effective sea blockade and the Allied firebombing campaign. Generals George C. Marshall and Douglas MacArthur signed documents agreeing with the Joint War Plans Committee estimate.


text: In addition, a large number of Japanese combatant and non-combatant casualties were expected as a result of such actions. Contemporary estimates of Japanese deaths from an invasion of the Home Islands range from several hundreds of thousands to as high as ten million. General MacArthur's staff provided an estimated range of American deaths depending on the duration of the invasion, and also estimated a 22:1 ratio of Japanese to American deaths. From this, a low figure of somewhat more than 200,000 Japanese deaths can be calculated for a short invasion of two weeks, and almost three million Japanese deaths if the fighting lasted four months. A widely cited estimate of five to ten million Japanese deaths came from a study by William Shockley and Quincy Wright; the upper figure was used by Assistant Secretary of War John J. McCloy, who characterized it as conservative. Some 400,000 additional Japanese deaths might have occurred in the expected Soviet invasion of Hokkaido, the northernmost of Japan's main islands, An Air Force Association webpage states that "Millions of women, old men, and boys and girls had been trained to resist by such means as attacking with bamboo spears and strapping explosives to their bodies and throwing themselves under advancing tanks." The AFA noted that "[t]he Japanese cabinet had approved a measure extending the draft to include men from ages fifteen to sixty and women from seventeen to forty-five (an additional 28 million people)".


text: The great loss of life during the battle of Iwo Jima and other Pacific islands gave U.S. leaders an idea of the casualties that would happen with a mainland invasion. Of the 22,060 Japanese combatants entrenched on Iwo Jima, 21,844 died either from fighting or by ritual suicide. Only 216 Japanese POWs were held at the hand of the Americans during the battle. According to the official Navy Department Library website, "The 36-day (Iwo Jima) assault resulted in more than 26,000 American casualties, including 6,800 dead" with 19,217 wounded. To put this into context, the 82-day Battle of Okinawa lasted from early April until mid-June 1945 and U.S. casualties (out of five Army and two Marine divisions) were above 62,000, of which more than 12,000 were killed or missing.


text: The U.S. military had nearly 500,000 Purple Heart medals manufactured in anticipation of potential casualties from the planned invasion of Japan. To date, all American military casualties of the 60 years following the end of World War II, including the Korean and Vietnam Wars, have not exceeded that number. In 2003, there were still 120,000 of these Purple Heart medals in stock. Because of the number available, combat units in Iraq and Afghanistan were able to keep Purple Hearts on hand for immediate award to wounded soldiers on the field.


text: Supporters of the bombings argue waiting for the Japanese to surrender would also have cost lives. "For China alone, depending upon what number one chooses for overall Chinese casualties, in each of the ninety-seven months between July 1937 and August 1945, somewhere between 100,000 and 200,000 persons perished, the vast majority of them noncombatants. For the other Asian states alone, the average probably ranged in the tens of thousands per month, but the actual numbers were almost certainly greater in 1945, notably due to the mass death in a famine in Vietnam."


text: The end of the war limited the expansion of the Japanese controlled Vietnamese famine of 1945, stopping it at 1–2 million deaths and also liberated millions of Allied prisoners of war and civilian laborers working in harsh conditions under a forced mobilization. In the Dutch East Indies, there was a "forced mobilization of some 4 million—although some estimates are as high as 10 million—"romusha" (manual labourers) ... About 270,000 romusha were sent to the Outer Islands and Japanese-held territories in Southeast Asia, where they joined other Asians in performing wartime construction projects. At the end of the war, only 52,000 were repatriated to Java."


text: Supporters also point to an order given by the Japanese War Ministry on August 1, 1944, ordering the execution of Allied POWs, "when an uprising of large numbers cannot be suppressed without the use of firearms" or when the POW camp was in the combat zone, in fear that "escapees from the camp may turn into a hostile fighting force".


text: The "Operation Meetinghouse" firebombing raid on Tokyo alone killed 100,000 civilians on the night of March 9–10, 1945, causing more civilian death and destruction than either of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. A total of 350,000 civilians died in the incendiary raids on 67 Japanese cities. Because the United States Army Air Forces wanted to use its fission bombs on previously undamaged cities in order to have accurate data on nuclear-caused damage, Kokura, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and Niigata were preserved from conventional bombing raids. Otherwise, they would all have been firebombed. Intensive conventional bombing would have continued or increased prior to an invasion. The submarine blockade and the United States Army Air Forces's mining operation, Operation Starvation, had effectively cut off Japan's imports. A complementary operation against Japan's railways was about to begin, isolating the cities of southern Honshū from the food grown elsewhere in the Home Islands. "Immediately after the defeat, some estimated that 10 million people were likely to starve to death", noted historian Daikichi Irokawa. Meanwhile, fighting continued in the Philippines, New Guinea and Borneo, and offensives were scheduled for September in southern China and Malaya. The Soviet invasion of Manchuria had, in the week before the surrender, caused over 80,000 deaths.


text: In September 1945, nuclear physicist Karl Taylor Compton, who himself took part in the Manhattan Project, visited MacArthur's headquarters in Tokyo, and following his visit wrote a defensive article, in which he summarized his conclusions as follows:


text: Lee witnessed his home city being invaded by the Japanese and was nearly executed in the Sook Ching Massacre.


text: Supporters of the bombings have argued the Japanese government had promulgated a National Mobilization Law and waged total war, ordering many civilians (including women, children, and old people) to work in factories and other infrastructure attached to the war effort and to fight against any invading force. Unlike the United States and Nazi Germany, over 90% of the Japanese war production was done in unmarked workshops and cottage industries which were widely dispersed within residential areas in cities and thus making them more extensively difficult to find and attack. In addition, the dropping of high explosives with precision bombing was unable to penetrate Japan's dispersed industry, making it entirely impossible to destroy them without causing widespread damage to surrounding areas. General Curtis LeMay stated why he ordered the systematic carpet bombing of Japanese cities:


text: For six months prior to the combat use of nuclear weapons, the United States Army Air Forces under LeMay's command undertook a major strategic bombing campaign against Japanese cities through the use of incendiary bombs, destroying 67 cities and killing an estimated 350,000 civilians. The "Operation Meetinghouse" raid on Tokyo on the night of 9/10 March 1945 stands as the deadliest air raid in human history, killing 100,000 civilians and destroying of the city that night. The attack caused more civilian deaths and damage to urbanized land than any other single air attack, including the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined.


text: Colonel Harry F. Cunningham, an intelligence officer of the Fifth Air Force, noted that in addition to civilians producing weapons of war in cities, the Japanese government created a large civilian militia organization in order to train millions of civilians to be armed and to resist the American invaders. In his official intelligence review on July 21, 1945, he declared that:


text: Supporters of the bombings have emphasized the strategic significance of the targets. Hiroshima was used as headquarters of the Second General Army and Fifth Division, which commanded the defense of southern Japan with 40,000 combatants stationed in the city. The city was also a communication center, an assembly area for combatants, a storage point, and had major industrial factories and workshops as well, and its air defenses consisted of five batteries of 7-cm and 8-cm (2.8 and 3.1 inch) anti-aircraft guns. Nagasaki was of great wartime importance because of its wide-ranging industrial activity, including the production of ordnance, warships, military equipment, and other war material. The city's air defenses consisted of four batteries of 7 cm (2.8 in) anti-aircraft guns and two searchlight batteries. An estimated 110,000 people were killed in the atomic bombings, including 20,000 Japanese combatants and 20,000 Korean slave laborers in Hiroshima and 23,145–28,113 Japanese factory workers, 2,000 Korean slave laborers, and 150 Japanese combatants in Nagasaki.


text: On 30 June 2007, Japan's defense minister Fumio Kyūma said the dropping of atomic bombs on Japan by the United States during World War II was an inevitable way to end the war. Kyūma said: "I now have come to accept in my mind that in order to end the war, it could not be helped (shikata ga nai) that an atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki and that countless numbers of people suffered great tragedy." Kyūma, who is from Nagasaki, said the bombing caused great suffering in the city, but he does not resent the U.S. because it prevented the Soviet Union from entering the war with Japan. Kyūma's comments were similar to those made by Emperor Hirohito when, in his first ever press conference given in Tokyo in 1975, he was asked what he thought of the bombing of Hiroshima, and answered: "It's very regrettable that nuclear bombs were dropped and I feel sorry for the citizens of Hiroshima but it couldn't be helped (shikata ga nai) because that happened in wartime."


text: In early July 1945, on his way to Potsdam, Truman had re-examined the decision to use the bomb. In the end, he made the decision to drop the atomic bombs on strategic cities. His stated intention in ordering the bombings was to save American lives, to bring about a quick resolution of the war by inflicting destruction, and instilling fear of further destruction, sufficient to cause Japan to surrender. In his speech to the Japanese people presenting his reasons for surrender on August 15, the Emperor referred specifically to the atomic bombs, stating if they continued to fight it would not only result in "an ultimate collapse and obliteration of the Japanese nation, but also it would lead to the total extinction of human civilization".


text: Commenting on the use of the atomic bomb, then-U.S. Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson stated, "The atomic bomb was more than a weapon of terrible destruction; it was a psychological weapon."


text: In 1959, Mitsuo Fuchida, the pilot who led the first wave in the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, met with General Paul Tibbets, who piloted the "Enola Gay" that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, and told him that:


text: Former U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, who worked as a USAAF statistic bomber analyst under LeMay's command at the time, stated in the documentary "The Fog of War" that brute force was sometimes necessary to quickly end the war:


text: Some historians see ancient Japanese warrior traditions as a major factor in the resistance in the Japanese military to the idea of surrender. According to one Air Force account,


text: Japanese militarism was aggravated by the Great Depression, and had resulted in countless assassinations of reformers attempting to check military power, among them Takahashi Korekiyo, Saitō Makoto, and Inukai Tsuyoshi. This created an environment in which opposition to war was a much riskier endeavor.


text: The United States Department of Energy's history of the Manhattan Project lends some credence to these claims, saying that military leaders in Japan


text: While some members of the civilian leadership did use covert diplomatic channels to attempt peace negotiation, they could not negotiate surrender or even a cease-fire. Japan could legally enter into a peace agreement only with the unanimous support of the Japanese cabinet, and in the summer of 1945, the Japanese Supreme War Council, consisting of representatives of the Army, the Navy, and the civilian government, could not reach a consensus on how to proceed.


text: A political stalemate developed between the military and civilian leaders of Japan, the military increasingly determined to fight despite all costs and odds and the civilian leadership seeking a way to negotiate an end to the war. Further complicating the decision was the fact no cabinet could exist without the representative of the Imperial Japanese Army. This meant the Army or Navy could veto any decision by having its Minister resign, thus making them the most powerful posts on the SWC. In early August 1945, the cabinet was equally split between those who advocated an end to the war on one condition, the preservation of the "kokutai", and those who insisted on three other conditions:


text: The "hawks" consisted of General Korechika Anami, General Yoshijirō Umezu, and Admiral Soemu Toyoda and were led by Anami. The "doves" consisted of Prime Minister Kantarō Suzuki, Naval Minister Mitsumasa Yonai, and Minister of Foreign Affairs Shigenori Tōgō and were led by Togo. Under special permission of Hirohito, the president of the Privy council, Hiranuma Kiichirō, was also a member of the imperial conference. For him, the preservation of the "kokutai" implied not only the Imperial institution but also the Emperor's reign.


text: Japan had an example of unconditional surrender in the German Instrument of Surrender. On 26 July, Truman and other Allied leaders—except the Soviet Union—issued the Potsdam Declaration outlining terms of surrender for Japan. The declaration stated, "The alternative for Japan is prompt and utter destruction." It was not accepted, though there is debate on Japan's intentions. The Emperor, who was waiting for a Soviet reply to Japanese peace feelers, made no move to change the government position. In the PBS documentary "Victory in the Pacific" (2005), broadcast in the "American Experience" series, historian Donald Miller argues, in the days after the declaration, the Emperor seemed more concerned with moving the Imperial Regalia of Japan to a secure location than with "the destruction of his country". This comment is based on declarations made by the Emperor to Kōichi Kido on 25 and 31 July 1945, when he ordered the Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal of Japan to protect "at all cost" the Imperial Regalia.


text: It has sometimes been argued Japan would have surrendered if simply guaranteed the Emperor would be allowed to continue as formal head of state. However, Japanese diplomatic messages regarding a possible Soviet mediation—intercepted through Magic, and made available to Allied leaders—have been interpreted by some historians to mean, "the dominant militarists insisted on preservation of the old militaristic order in Japan, the one in which they ruled." On 18 and 20 July 1945, Ambassador Sato cabled to Foreign Minister Togo, strongly advocating that Japan accept an unconditional surrender provided that the U.S. preserved the imperial house (keeping the emperor). On 21 July, in response, Togo rejected the advice, saying that Japan would not accept an unconditional surrender under any circumstance. Togo then said that, "Although it is apparent that there will be more casualties on both sides in case the war is prolonged, we will stand as united against the enemy if the enemy forcibly demands our unconditional surrender." They also faced potential death sentences in trials for Japanese war crimes if they surrendered. This was also what occurred in the International Military Tribunal for the Far East and other tribunals. Further diplomatic cables suggest the Japanese ambassador in Moscow thought the Foreign Ministry in Tokyo had an unrealistic view of events.


text: Maddox also wrote, "Even after both bombs had fallen and Russia entered the war, Japanese militants insisted on such lenient peace terms that moderates knew there was no sense even transmitting them to the United States. Hirohito had to intervene personally on two occasions during the next few days to induce hardliners to abandon their conditions." "That they would have conceded defeat months earlier, before such calamities struck, is far-fetched to say the least."


text: Even after the triple shock of the Soviet intervention and two atomic bombs, the Japanese cabinet was still deadlocked, incapable of deciding upon a course of action due to the power of the Army and Navy factions in cabinet who were unwilling to even consider surrender. Following the personal intervention of the emperor to break the deadlock in favour of surrender, there were no fewer than three separate coup attempts by senior Japanese officers to try to prevent the surrender and take the Emperor into 'protective custody'. Once these coup attempts had failed, senior leaders of the air force and Navy ordered bombing and "kamikaze" raids on the U.S. fleet (in which some Japanese generals personally participated) to try to derail any possibility of peace. It is clear from these accounts that while many in the civilian government knew the war could not be won, the power of the military in the Japanese government kept surrender from even being considered as a real option prior to the two atomic bombs.


text: Another argument is that it was the Soviet declaration of war in the days between the bombings that caused the surrender. After the war, Admiral Soemu Toyoda said, "I believe the Russian participation in the war against Japan rather than the atom bombs did more to hasten the surrender." Prime Minister Suzuki also declared that the entry of the USSR into the war made "the continuance of the war impossible". Upon hearing news of the event from Foreign Minister Togo, Suzuki immediately said, "Let us end the war", and agreed to finally convene an emergency meeting of the Supreme Council with that aim. The official British history, "The War Against Japan", also writes the Soviet declaration of war "brought home to all members of the Supreme Council the realization that the last hope of a negotiated peace had gone and there was no alternative but to accept the Allied terms sooner or later". However, others have argued the Soviet declaration of war would not have come as a large shock to the Japanese leadership unlike the atomic bombings as they were aware of a Soviet military buildup in the Far East for months anticipating an eventual attack at a later date.


text: The "one condition" faction, led by Togo, seized on the bombing as decisive justification of surrender. Kōichi Kido, one of Emperor Hirohito's closest advisers, stated, "We of the peace party were assisted by the atomic bomb in our endeavor to end the war." Hisatsune Sakomizu, the chief Cabinet secretary in 1945, called the bombing "a golden opportunity given by heaven for Japan to end the war".


text: During the war, and 1945 in particular, due to state secrecy, very little was known outside Japan about the slow progress of the Japanese nuclear weapon program. The US knew that Japan had requested materials from their German allies, and of unprocessed uranium oxide was dispatched to Japan in April 1945 aboard the submarine "U-234", which however surrendered to US forces in the Atlantic following Germany's surrender. The uranium oxide was reportedly labeled as "U-235", which may have been a mislabeling of the submarine's name; its exact characteristics remain unknown. Some sources believe that it was not weapons-grade material and was intended for use as a catalyst in the production of synthetic methanol to be used for aviation fuel.


text: If post-war analysis had found that Japanese nuclear weapons development was near completion, this discovery might have served in a revisionist sense to justify the atomic attack on Japan. However, it is known that the poorly coordinated Japanese project was considerably behind the US developments in 1945, and also behind the unsuccessful German nuclear energy project of WWII.


text: A review in 1986 of the fringe hypothesis that Japan had "already" created a nuclear weapon, by Department of Energy employee Roger M. Anders, appeared in the journal "Military Affairs":


text: Post-World War 2 Japan, under the circumstance that the United States did not drop the two atomic weapons on Japan, could have seen a state of existence comparable to that of Korea and Germany, in the years of Russian/communist occupation on one side and Western occupation on the other. This would not be completely unthinkable due to the Proposed Soviet invasion of Hokkaido, a planned invasion of the northernmost island of the Japanese home islands, which was supposed to start two months before the American Invasion of Kyushu (the southernmost island). Had the Soviets actually commenced the aforementioned invasion and, for that matter, succeeded, they would gain a foothold in an island of immense strategic relevance. In that respect, the United States' (as well as their allies') plan, known as Operation Downfall, may have become a gambit in a situation that could be dangerous or perhaps deadly for the interests of the United States, her allies, and maybe even the world.


text: While valid projections or viable predictions for such a situation are scarce, a detailed analysis of similar, empirically observed situations provides legitimate reasons to consider Soviet interference a valid concern. In many cases under the criteria that Soviet/communist influence/occupation is observed on part of the country or region and Western influence seen on another, conflict erupted. A few examples of this would include: The Korean War, where a Soviet-backed North Korea invaded the pro-Western South Korea, and ultimately resulted in a multinational war with a UN Coalition, primarily consisting of American forces, versus a joint DRPK-Chinese Communist Party force; The Berlin Blockade, where the USSR sought to starve the pro-Western West Berlin into submission, but ultimately failed due to the Berlin Airlift; The Vietnam War, a Cold War proxy-conflict between the U.S. and USSR, which pitted the pro-Communist North Vietnam against the American-backed South, and so on so forth. In fact, the vacuum left after Japan's surrender in contested areas of China became a shady duel between communism and democracy, as Eugene Sledge writes in the book "The Cold War: A Military History": "In northern China at this time were many different armed groups: Japanese, Japanese-trained and -equipped Chinese puppet-government soldiers, Chinese Communists, Chinese Nationalists, Chinese bandits, and U.S. Marines... In Lang Fang and many other areas, even the surrendered Japanese were allowed to retain their arms, under U.S. supervision, in order to help fight the Communists".


text: Oppenheimer and Bohr, who played central roles in the development of the weapons, along with many others working at Los Alamos, had ethical reservations about helping develop the weapon but ultimately found developing the weapon for its use on Japan to be justified. Robert Willson, referring to a conversation with Oppenheimer in late 1944, said "We did have a pretty intense discussion of why it was that we were continuing to make a bomb after the war had been [virtually] won." The book American Prometheus, notes that while "no official records were kept of these sensitive discussions" and only post hoc accounts from the scientists there are available, it is contended that "Oppenheimer argued with his usual eloquence that, although they were all destined to live in perpetual fear, the bomb might also end all war...Such a hope, echoing Bohr’s words, was persuasive to many of the assembled scientists."


text: Truman felt that the effects of Japan witnessing a failed test would be too great of a risk to arrange such a demonstration.


text: It emerged after the war that Japanese biological warfare unit had a plan to attack the United States with biological weapons in September, though not approved by higher authorities before the end of the war.


text: Assistant Secretary Bard was convinced that a standard bombardment and naval blockade would be enough to force Japan into surrendering. Even more, he had seen signs for weeks that the Japanese were actually already looking for a way out of the war. His idea was for the United States to tell the Japanese about the bomb, the impending Soviet entry into the war, and the fair treatment that citizens and the Emperor would receive at the coming Big Three conference. Before the bombing occurred, Bard pleaded with Truman to neither drop the bombs (at least not without warning the population first) nor to invade the entire country, proposing to stop the bloodshed.


text: The 1946 United States Strategic Bombing Survey in Japan, whose members included Paul Nitze, concluded the atomic bombs had been unnecessary to win the war. They said:


text: This conclusion assumed conventional firebombing would have continued, with ever-increasing numbers of B-29s, and a greater level of destruction to Japan's cities and population. One of Nitze's most influential sources was Prince Fumimaro Konoe, who responded to a question asking whether Japan would have surrendered if the atomic bombs had not been dropped by saying resistance would have continued through November or December 1945.


text: Historians such as Bernstein, Hasegawa, and Newman have criticized Nitze for drawing a conclusion they say went far beyond what the available evidence warranted, in order to promote the reputation of the Air Force at the expense of the Army and Navy.


text: Other U.S. military officers who disagreed with the necessity of the bombings include General of the Army Douglas MacArthur, Fleet Admiral William D. Leahy (the Chief of Staff to the President), Brigadier General Carter Clarke (the military intelligence officer who prepared intercepted Japanese cables for U.S. officials), Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz (Commander in Chief of the Pacific Fleet), Fleet Admiral William Halsey Jr. (Commander of the US Third Fleet), and even the man in charge of all strategic air operations against the Japanese home islands, then-Major General Curtis LeMay:


text: Stephen Peter Rosen of Harvard believes that a submarine blockade would have been sufficient to force Japan to surrender.


text: Historian Tsuyoshi Hasegawa wrote the atomic bombings themselves were not the principal reason for Japan's capitulation. Instead, he contends, it was the Soviet entry in the war on 8 August, allowed by the Potsdam Declaration signed by the other Allies. The fact the Soviet Union did not sign this declaration gave Japan reason to believe the Soviets could be kept out of the war. As late as 25 July, the day before the declaration was issued, Japan had asked for a diplomatic envoy led by Konoe to come to Moscow hoping to mediate peace in the Pacific. Konoe was supposed to bring a letter from the Emperor stating:


text: Hasegawa's view is, when the Soviet Union declared war on 8 August, it crushed all hope in Japan's leading circles that the Soviets could be kept out of the war and also that reinforcements from Asia to the Japanese islands would be possible for the expected invasion. Hasegawa wrote:


text: Ward Wilson wrote that "after Nagasaki was bombed only four major cities remained which could readily have been hit with atomic weapons", and that the Japanese Supreme Council did not bother to convene after the atomic bombings because they were barely more destructive than previous bombings. He wrote that instead, the Soviet declaration of war and invasion of Manchuria and South Sakhalin removed Japan's last diplomatic and military options for negotiating a "conditional" surrender, and this is what prompted Japan's surrender. He wrote that attributing Japan's surrender to a "miracle weapon", instead of the start of the Soviet invasion, saved face for Japan and enhanced the United States' world standing.


text: A number of notable individuals and organizations have criticized the bombings, many of them characterizing them as war crimes, crimes against humanity, and/or state terrorism. Early critics of the bombings were Albert Einstein, Eugene Wigner and Leó Szilárd, who had together spurred the first bomb research in 1939 with a jointly written letter to President Roosevelt.


text: A number of scientists who worked on the bomb were against its use. Led by Dr. James Franck, seven scientists submitted a report to the Interim Committee (which advised the President) in May 1945, saying:


text: Mark Selden writes, "Perhaps the most trenchant contemporary critique of the American moral position on the bomb and the scales of justice in the war was voiced by the Indian jurist Radhabinod Pal, a dissenting voice at the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal, who balked at accepting the uniqueness of Japanese war crimes. Recalling Kaiser Wilhelm II's account of his duty to bring World War I to a swift end—"everything must be put to fire and sword; men, women and children and old men must be slaughtered and not a tree or house be left standing." Pal observed:


text: Selden mentions another critique of the nuclear bombing, which he says the U.S. government effectively suppressed for twenty-five years, as worth mention. On 11 August 1945, the Japanese government filed an official protest over the atomic bombing to the U.S. State Department through the Swiss Legation in Tokyo, observing:


text: Selden concludes, "the Japanese protest correctly pointed to U.S. violations of internationally accepted principles of war with respect to the wholesale destruction of populations".


text: In 1963, the bombings were the subject of a judicial review in "Ryuichi Shimoda et al. v. The State" in Japan. On the 22nd anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor, the District Court of Tokyo declined to rule on the legality of nuclear weapons in general, but found, "the attacks upon Hiroshima and Nagasaki caused such severe and indiscriminate suffering that they did violate the most basic legal principles governing the conduct of war."


text: In the opinion of the court, the act of dropping an atomic bomb on cities was at the time governed by international law found in the Hague Regulations on Land Warfare of 1907 and the Hague Draft Rules of Air Warfare of 1922–1923 and was therefore illegal.


text: In the documentary "The Fog of War", former U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara recalls General Curtis LeMay, who relayed the Presidential order to drop nuclear bombs on Japan, said:


text: As the first combat use of nuclear weapons, the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki represent to some the crossing of a crucial barrier. Peter Kuznick, director of the Nuclear Studies Institute at American University, wrote of President Truman: "He knew he was beginning the process of annihilation of the species." Kuznick said the atomic bombing of Japan "was not just a war crime; it was a crime against humanity."


text: Takashi Hiraoka, mayor of Hiroshima, upholding nuclear disarmament, said in a hearing to The Hague International Court of Justice (ICJ): "It is clear that the use of nuclear weapons, which cause indiscriminate mass murder that leaves [effects on] survivors for decades, is a violation of international law". Iccho Itoh, the mayor of Nagasaki, declared in the same hearing:


text: Although bombings do not meet the definition of genocide, some consider the definition too strict, and argue the bombings do constitute genocide. For example, University of Chicago historian Bruce Cumings states there is a consensus among historians to Martin Sherwin's statement, "[T]he Nagasaki bomb was gratuitous at best and genocidal at worst".


text: The scholar R. J. Rummel instead extends the definition of genocide to what he calls democide, and includes the major part of deaths from the atom bombings in these. His definition of democide includes not only genocide, but also an excessive killing of civilians in war, to the extent this is against the agreed rules for warfare; he argues the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were war crimes, and thus democide.


text: Rummel quotes among others an official protest from the US government in 1938 to Japan, for its bombing of Chinese cities: "The bombing of non-combatant populations violated international and humanitarian laws." He also considers excess deaths of civilians in conflagrations caused by conventional means, such as in Tokyo, as acts of democide.


text: In 1967, Noam Chomsky described the atomic bombings as "among the most unspeakable crimes in history". Chomsky pointed to the complicity of the American people in the bombings, referring to the bitter experiences they had undergone prior to the event as the cause for their acceptance of its legitimacy.


text: In 2007, a group of intellectuals in Hiroshima established an unofficial body called International Peoples' Tribunal on the Dropping of Atomic Bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. On 16 July 2007, it delivered its verdict, stating:


text: Historical accounts indicate the decision to use the atomic bombs was made in order to provoke a surrender of Japan by use of an awe-inspiring power. These observations have caused Michael Walzer to state the incident was an act of "war terrorism: the effort to kill civilians in such large numbers that their government is forced to surrender. Hiroshima seems to me the classic case."


text: This type of claim eventually prompted historian Robert P. Newman, a supporter of the bombings, to say "there "can" be justified terror, as there can be just wars".


text: Certain scholars and historians have characterized the atomic bombings of Japan as a form of "state terrorism". This interpretation is based on a definition of terrorism as "the targeting of innocents to achieve a political goal". As Frances V. Harbour points out, the meeting of the Target Committee in Los Alamos on 10 and 11 May 1945 suggested targeting the large population centers of Kyoto or Hiroshima for a "psychological effect" and to make "the initial use sufficiently spectacular for the importance of the weapon to be internationally recognized". As such, Professor Harbour suggests the goal was to create terror for political ends both in and beyond Japan. However, Burleigh Taylor Wilkins believes it stretches the meaning of "terrorism" to include wartime acts.


text: Historian Howard Zinn wrote that the bombings were terrorism. Zinn cites the sociologist Kai Erikson who said that the bombings could not be called "combat" because they targeted civilians. Just War theorist Michael Walzer said that while taking the lives of civilians can be justified under conditions of 'supreme emergency', the war situation at that time did not constitute such an emergency.


text: Tony Coady, Frances V. Harbour, and Jamal Nassar also view the targeting of civilians during the bombings as a form of terrorism. Nassar classifies the atomic bombings as terrorism in the same vein as the firebombing of Tokyo, the firebombing of Dresden, and the Holocaust.


text: Richard A. Falk, professor Emeritus of International Law and Practice at Princeton University has written in detail about Hiroshima and Nagasaki as instances of state terrorism. He said that "the explicit function of the attacks was to terrorize the population through mass slaughter and to confront its leaders with the prospect of national annihilation".


text: Author Steven Poole said that the "people killed by terrorism" are not the targets of the intended terror effect. He said that the atomic bombings were "designed as an awful demonstration" aimed at Stalin and the government of Japan.


text: Alexander Werth, historian and BBC Eastern Front war correspondent, suggests that the nuclear bombing of Japan mainly served to demonstrate the new weapon in the most shocking way, virtually at the Soviet Union's doorstep, in order to prepare the political post-war field.


text: The Vatican newspaper "L'Osservatore Romano" expressed regret in August 1945 that the bomb's inventors did not destroy the weapon for the benefit of humanity. Rev. Cuthbert Thicknesse, the Dean of St Albans, prohibited using St Albans Abbey for a thanksgiving service for the war's end, calling the use of atomic weapons "an act of wholesale, indiscriminate massacre". In 1946, a report by the Federal Council of Churches entitled "Atomic Warfare and the Christian Faith", includes the following passage:


text: The bombers' chaplain, Father George Benedict Zabelka, would later renounce the bombings after visiting Nagasaki with two fellow chaplains.


text: American historian Gabriel Kolko said certain discussion regarding the moral dimension of the attacks is wrong-headed, given the fundamental moral decision had already been made:


text: The second atomic bombing, on Nagasaki, came only three days after the bombing of Hiroshima, when the devastation at Hiroshima had yet to be fully comprehended by the Japanese. The lack of time between the bombings has led some historians to state that the second bombing was "certainly unnecessary", "gratuitous at best and genocidal at worst", and not "jus in bello". In response to the claim that the atomic bombing of Nagasaki was unnecessary, Maddox wrote:


text: Jerome Hagen indicates that War Minister Anami's revised briefing was partly based on interrogating captured American pilot Marcus McDilda. Under torture, McDilda reported that the Americans had 100 atomic bombs, and that Tokyo and Kyoto would be the next atomic bomb targets. Both were lies; McDilda was not involved or briefed on the Manhattan Project and simply told the Japanese what he thought they wanted to hear.