The project was organized and funded, in part, by the NWFZ Commission.
Speakers deliver brief messages before the lanterns are released.
Besides remembering the past, this ceremony reflects on the nuclear proliferation that continues today. In 1998, the Department of Energy requested 4.5 billion dollars for nuclear weapons programs. As the global community shunned India and Pakistan for nuclear weapons tests, ongoing US nuclear weapons research, production and testing have created fear both at home and abroad. This global double-standard must not continue. The recent war in Kosovo has served to re-ingite the arms race by bombing of the Chinese embassy and threatening Russian borders.