Obama’s failure to apologise over Hiroshima will bolster those who don’t want to acknowledge Japan’s role in atrocities in the second world war, according to Martyn Smith, senior teaching fellow at the Japan Research Centre at London’s Soas.
Speaking to Sky News, Smith said: “This [the lack of an apology] will be used to support many of the right wing aspects of Abe’s government and others in the Japanese elite who would rather have a stronger miliary role for Japan in east Asia and would rather forget, and indeed deny, what happened in the 1930s and 1940s.”
He pointed out that the former mayor of Osaka, Toru Hashimoto, tweeted recently: “The best effect of President Obama’s visit to Hiroshima is how Japan will not have to apologise to China and South Korea again. America will show that there is no need to apologise for the past war.”
今回のオバマ大統領の広島訪問の最大の効果は、今後日本が中国・韓国に対して謝罪をしなくてもよくなること。過去の戦争について謝罪は不要。これをアメリカが示す。朝日や毎日その一派の自称インテリはもう終わり。安倍首相の大勝利だね【橋下ゼミ】⇒https://t.co/ZgZeIr5Cc5
— 橋下徹 (@t_ishin) May 12, 2016
Hiroshima survivor Eiji Hattori, says Obama’s remarks count as an apology even if he didn’t say sorry.
“I think it was an apology,” Hattori, who was a toddler at the time of the bombing and now suffers from three types of cancer, told Reuters.
“I didn’t think he’d go that far and say so much. I feel I’ve been saved somewhat ... For me, it was more than enough.”
Shigeaki Mori, the 79 survivor who Obama embraced, spoke to reporters after the ceremony. He said: “The president gestured as if he was going to give me a hug, so we hugged.”
Our world affairs editor, Julian Borger, has more on that awkward newly declassified data showing that Obama has made fewer reductions to the US nuclear weapons stockpile than any president since the end of the cold war.
Obama’s commitment to world without nuclear weapons don’t inoculate him against advocates of nuclear disarmament, writes Sharon Squassoni director Proliferation Prevention Program at the Center for Strategic & International Studies in Washington.
Writing for Guardian she says:
They question US plans for a 30-year, $1tn modernisation of the US nuclear arsenal. Against the risks of criticism of his record on arms control and disarmament, President Obama must see ample rewards in the message of reconciliation this visit will produce.
He may be hoping that this visit belies the necessity of apologies as a prerequisite for valuable collaboration. Although the United States has bilateral defense alliances with several countries in the region, no multilateral mechanisms exist in Asia that could facilitate defense cooperation, in contrast to the Nato alliance in Europe.
More importantly, the enormous efforts to integrate Europe politically and economically in the wake of World War II stand in marked contrast to their absence in Asia. While there has been some limited trilateral defense collaboration between Japan, South Korea and the United States in response to North Korean military aggression, this is in its infancy and not immune to political turbulence.
Obama may emphasise that although the US and Japan are important partners both in nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament, significant progress toward a world without nuclear weapons cannot be achieved in the midst of regional tensions and insecurity. Collaboration is essential to pursue the common goals of peace and security.
Obama is not the first US president to advocate nuclear disarmament, nor is he the first to admit that resolving security issues is vital to the success of the process. By being the first US president to confront the enormity of the consequences of the use of nuclear weapons at Hiroshima, however, he lends credibility to his intentions and to those of the United States. It will likely be up to the next US administration to follow through on Obama’s good intentions.
Obama’s visit spawned a huge queue of well-wishers eager to snap a picture of the white-flower wreath that the president placed in front of a cenotaph to victims at Hiroshima’s Peace Memorial Park, according to AFP.
Some posed beside the wreath inscribed with Obama’s name, including visitors who had been unable to catch a glimpse of the US president because of the huge crowds.
“I couldn’t see him at all so at least I wanted to get a picture of the wreath,” said Hiroshima local Kana Kamioka, a 30-something shop employee.
“I’m going to upload them on my Twitter account so my friends know I was here.”
Megu Shimomura, a 14-year-old schoolgirl, said she was “thrilled” to have seen history in the making.
“He is someone who lives in a very different world than I do, but I felt his humanity,” she said of Obama’s speech.
US National security advisor Ben Rhodes, part of the Obama’s entourage in Japan, has tweeted about how moving it was to see crowds greet the president in Hiroshima.
Very moving to have such crowds greet POTUS on the drive into Hiroshima pic.twitter.com/JR72mApuh9
— Ben Rhodes (@rhodes44) May 27, 2016
Paul Schulte former director arm’s control at the Ministry of Defence and honorary professor of security studies at Birmingham University said Obama’s record on non-proliferation has been mixed.
Asked on BBC Radio 4’s World at One programme about tension in the South China Sea, he said: The big question, and this is the background to the tone that Obama has had to use, is how far the American nuclear guarantee be relied upon. Is America going to live up to its promises of extended nuclear defence of its allies. If it can’t, if that is seen to be crumbling away as a national commitment, then I think we can assume that these very industrially capable and nationalist and worried nations, will begin look for their own ways of dealing with what they see as Chinese ascension or even aggression.”
And Schulte agreed that Obama had failed to nuclear proliferation in North Korea. He said: “Nobody knows how to stop a country like North Korea, short of invasion, which nobody wants. The Chinese could help more, the Americans could press them, but even so there are limits to that.”
“In other areas it is mixed. America has wanted to reduce nuclear numbers in the world, the Russians have blocked that, but the Iran deal is the big experiment in progress. It looks as though there Obama has been successful, but it all depends on how the Iranians live up to their commitments. Conceivably nuclear proliferation, which everyone was worried about, in the Middle East has been stopped and rolled back.”
Here’s video of the most significant moment of Obama’s historic visit to Hiroshima - that hug with survivor Shigeaki Mori.
The New York Times has published the full text of Obama’s speech in Hiroshima. It stretched to 1,460 words. Sorry wasn’t one of them.
Hiroshima survivor Hiroshi Shimizu told McClatchy DC that he has been waiting nearly his whole life for a US president to come witness the horror caused on the city.
Speaking ahead of the visit he said: “I want President Obama to come and see and face. ... this is what America did 71 years ago. I want him to see and feel and realise this is the result of dropping the bomb.”
For all his fine words it was a Obama’s hug of Hiroshima survivor Shigeaki Mori that said the most, according to AP.
Obama may have faced the legacy of Hiroshima most directly with his embrace of a man who survived the devastating atomic blast.
He spoke briefly with two survivors in the audience for his remarks Friday at Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park: Sunao Tsuboi, the 91-year-old head of a survivors group, and Shigeaki Mori, 79, a historian who was just 8 when the bomb detonated on Aug. 6, 1945.
Obama spoke to Tsuboi first. They laughed at one point, the president throwing back his head and smiling broadly. Obama mostly listened, though, holding the elderly man’s hand in his own, an interpreter standing nearby. Tsuboi stamped his cane emphatically while speaking.
Obama then stepped to Mori and shook his hand. He bowed his head briefly and nodded as the man spoke. He patted Mori on the back and hugged him.
The president’s interaction with survivors was highly anticipated ahead of his historic visit. Obama did not apologise for the decision to bomb, but paid tribute to the victims and decried the horrors of war.
The whole visit took little more than 100 minutes, the New York Times points out.
Obama's entire history-making visit to Hiroshima lasted about an hour and 45 minutes https://t.co/LpUQeN64Bq
— The New York Times (@nytimes) May 27, 2016
Here’s a transcript of one of the most thoughtful passages from Obama’s speech.
In the image of a mushroom cloud that rose into these skies we are most starkly reminded of humanity’s core contradiction. How the very spark that marks us as a species, our thoughts and imagination, our language, our tool making, our ability to set ourselves from nature and bend it to our will. Those very things also give us the capacity for unmatched destruction. How often does material advancement or social innovation blind us to this truth: how easily we learn to justify violence in the name of some higher cause.
Daniel Philpott, professor of political science and peace studies at the University of Notre Dame, says Obama should have apologised.
Writing in the New York Daily News he says:
The bombing clearly violated the moral law against intentionally killing innocents as well as the laws of war. An apology from the US president would heal historical wounds, nullify historical rationales for future political crimes and perhaps lead Japan to repent for its crimes against the United States.
Were the world’s lone superpower to apologise for its violations of the law of nations, it could set an example for other nations to follow. It might deprive Japan’s latter-day nationalists of some of their best arguments for rejecting contrition towards their own country’s history and make it easier for Japanese prime ministers to extend apologies to the U.S. as well as to China and Korea.
Summary
Here’s a summary of what’s just happened.
- Barack Obama has become the first sitting US president to visit Hiroshima, 71 years after the Japanese city became the target of the world’s first atomic bombing. “On a bright cloudless morning death fell from the sky and the world was changed ... We stand here, in the middle of this city and force ourselves to imagine the moment the bomb fell,” he said.
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As expected, Obama did not offer an apology for the decision by his predecessor, Harry Truman, to unleash an atomic bomb over the city. But in a gesture of reconciliation he hugged Mori Shigeaki one of the survivors of the blast.
- Japan’s president Shinzo Abe praised Obama’s “courage” in coming to Hiroshima. He also thanked those in America and Japan who have been committed to reconciliation over the last 70 years.
- Earlier Obama hailed the “great alliance” between the United States and Japan. “We are reaffirming one of the greatest alliances in the world between Japan and the United States,” he told troops at a base in Iwakuni.
Before Obama spoke a small group of protesters gathered near the memorial park in Hiroshima. They could be heard demanding that he make an apology, according to Reuters.
Updated
The White House have told reporters that this is what Obama wrote in the guest book at Hiroshima museum:
“We have known the agony of war. Let us now find the courage, together, to spread peace and pursue a world without nuclear weapons.”
WH says Pres Obama inscribed these words in the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Guest Book: pic.twitter.com/BBpwnCqHeP
— Mark Knoller (@markknoller) May 27, 2016
YouGov polling finds that Americans still think it was right for the US to drop the Atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The poll of more than 2,000 people found that almost half of Americans (45%) think the US was right to use the atomic bomb. Only one in four think it was wrong.
Some 70% also thought it would be wrong to apologise.
Keni Sabath, the granddaughter of a Hiroshima survivor, says she was not expecting Obama to make an apology.
Speaking to BBC News from Connecticut she said: “My family doesn’t feel an apology is necessary. For me the fact that President Obama was visiting this place was enough of an acknowledgement of the past and the pressing need to prevent another Hiroshima in the future.”
POTUS gets aboard Marine One to leave Hiroshima. pic.twitter.com/8BhI2BRhox
— Gardiner Harris (@GardinerHarris) May 27, 2016
As Obama leave Hiroshima here’s AFP’s first take on his remarks.
In a soaring speech watched by survivors of the atomic blast, Obama said the bomb that rent the city on August 6, 1945 “demonstrated that mankind possessed the means to destroy itself”.
“71 years ago, death fell from the sky and the world was changed,” he said after laying a large floral wreath.
Obama, whose predecessor Harry Truman made the decision to launch the world’s first nuclear strike, greeted ageing survivors and embraced one elderly man who appeared overcome with emotion.
He also chatted with a smiling Sunao Tsuboi, 91, who had earlier said he wanted to tell the US president how grateful he was for his visit.
Obama, wearing a dark suit, looked sombre as he offered a wreath at the cenotaph, in the shadow of a wrecked building that stands in silent tribute to the dead.
The president lowered his head and closed his eyes as he paused for a moment’s contemplation, before withdrawing and watching Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe do the same.
“Why did we come to this place, to Hiroshima? We come to ponder a terrible force unleashed in the not-so-distant past. We come to mourn the dead,” Obama said to the assembled crowd.
“Their souls speak to us, they ask us to look inward, take stock of who we are,” he said.
“Technological progress without equivalent progress in human institutions can doom us. The scientific revolution that led to the splitting of the atom requires a moral revolution as well.
“This is why we come to this place, we stand here, in the middle of this city and force ourselves to imagine the moment the bomb fell.
“We force ourselves to feel the dread of children confused by what they see. We listen to a silent cry.”
“The world was forever changed here but, today, the children of this city will go through their day in peace,” the US president said. “What a precious thing that is.”
Updated
Obama hugs Hiroshima survivor
This photograph captures the moment Obama hugged Hiroshima survivor Mori Shigeaki.
Updated
Barack Obama has become the first sitting US president to visit Hiroshima, 71 years after the Japanese city became the target of the world’s first atomic bombing and ushered in a nuclear age he has vowed to bring to an end, writes Justin McCurry in Hiroshima
In a scene many survivors of the US bombing believed they would never live to see, Obama laid flowers at a memorial to the dead before paying tribute to the people of Hiroshima and calling on humanity to learn the lessons of the past to make war less likely.
“On a bright cloudless morning death fell from the sky and the world was changed,” he said, adding that mankind had shown it had the means to destroy itself.
“Why did we come to this place, to Hiroshima? We come to ponder a terrible force unleashed in the not so distant past. We come to mourn the dead,” he said.
Here’s a clip from Obama’s speech.
Obama has now left memorial park in the presidential limo.
Here’s AP’s first take on his speech:
“Death fell from the sky and the world was changed,” Obama said, after laying a wreath, closing his eyes and briefly bowing his head before an arched monument in Hiroshima’s Peace Memorial Park.
The bombing, Obama said, “demonstrated that mankind possessed the means to destroy itself.”
Obama did not apologise, instead offering, in a carefully choreographed display, a simple reflection on the horrors of war and his hope the horror of Hiroshima could spark a “moral awakening.”
As he and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe stood near an iconic bombed-out domed building, Obama acknowledged the devastating toll of war and urged the world to do better.
“We stand here in the middle of this city and force ourselves to imagine the moment the bomb fell ... we listen to a silent cry.” Obama said.
“We must have the courage to escape the logic of fear and pursue a world without them,” Obama said of nuclear weapons.
Reuters has more from Obama’s speech:
“We come to ponder the terrible force unleashed in a not-so-distant past,” Obama said after laying a wreathe at a peace memorial. “We come to mourn the dead.”
Before laying the wreath at a peace memorial, Obama visited a museum where haunting displays include photographs of badly burned victims, the tattered and stained clothes they wore and statues depicting them with flesh melting from their limbs.
Aides had said Obama’s main goal in Hiroshima was to showcase his nuclear disarmament agenda, for which he won the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize.
“We remember all the innocents killed in the arc of that terrible war,” a solemn Obama said.
“We have a shared responsibility to look directly in the eye of history. We must ask what we must do differently to curb such suffering again.”
Here’s audio of the speeches by Obama and Abe.
After their speeches Obama and Abe greet Atomic bomb survivors.
Japan and the United States will be come a light for hope of people in the world, Abe says. This is the only way to remember the victims.
Even today there are people suffering unbearably from the bombings, Abe says. This tragedy must not be repeated again. It is the responsibility of us who live in the present. We are determined to have a world free of nuclear weapons.
Abe said Obama “historic” visit gives great hope to people around the world who want to see a world without nuclear weapons. He praises the “courage” of Obama for coming to Hiroshima.
Shinzo Abe starts to speak. He expresses gratitude to those in America and Japan who have been committed to reconciliation over the last 70 years. He describes it as an “alliance of hope”.
Those who died were like us. Ordinary people understand that. They don’t want more war. They want the advance of science to improve life not end it. What a precious thing peace is.
Persistent effort can roll back the possibility of catastrophe, Obama says.
And yet that is not enough. We must re imagine our connection to one another as one human race. We can learn, we can chose, we can tell our children a different story, one that make cruelty less acceptable.
Obama adds: We stand here in the middle of this city and force ourselves to imagine the moment the bomb fell. Mere words cannot give voice to such suffering.
Someday the voices will no longer be with us to bare witness, but the memory must never fade. That memory fuels our imagination. It allows us to change. Since that fateful day we have made choices that give us hope.
The US and Japan have forged not only an alliance but a friendship.
Updated
In the span of a few years, some 60 million people would die, Obama says of the second world war. Men women and children, no different from us. Shot, beaten, bombed, and gassed.
The image of a mushroom cloud reminds us of humanity’s contradiction, Obama says.
How easily we learn to justify violence in the name of some higher cause, he adds.
The same discoveries of science can be turned into ever more efficient killing machines, Obama says.
Obama says 71 years ago death fell from the sky. Mankind showed that it had the means to destroy itself, he adds. The souls of the dead speak to us, Obama says.
It is not the fact of war that sets Hiroshima apart, Obama says.
Abe also laid a wreath and he then shook hands with Obama.
Obama lays a wreaths at the memorial. He bowed his head and closed his eyes for half a minute or so after laying the wreath.
Obama is making his way through from the museum to the cenotaph at the Hiroshima memorial park. He is accompanied by Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe.
Newly declassified figures show that the Obama administration has reduced the US stockpile less than any other post-Cold War administration, the Guardian’s world affairs editor Julian Borger points out.
The figures also show that the number of warheads dismantled in 2015 was lowest since President Obama took office.
Updated
Obama arrives at the Hiroshima memorial museum
Obama’s has arrived at the Hiroshima memorial. He briefly greeted awaiting officials with a handshakes and polite bows before heading into the museum.
.@POTUS in Hiroshima. #VOAalert pic.twitter.com/wWNhbxMzP8
— Steve Herman (@W7VOA) May 27, 2016
Updated
Here’s video of Obama’s remarks to troops in Iwakuni.
Obama arrives in Hiroshima
Obama has flown into Hiroshima but has yet to reach the memorial park where the media are gathered.
Pres Obama has arrived in Hiroshima, approx 15mins drive from here. @yjochi先生が撮って下さった中継写真！オバマ大統領が広島に到着しました。 pic.twitter.com/EzZW21cHPI
— Mariko Oi 大井真理子 (@BBCMarikoOi) May 27, 2016
The world’s media await Obama’s arrival in Hiroshima. pic.twitter.com/5Q4TKl5zPR
— justin mccurry (@justinmccurry) May 27, 2016
Updated
Obama hails 'great alliance' with Japan
Obama has hailed the “great alliance” between the United States and Japan ahead of his visit to Hiroshima.
“We are reaffirming one of the greatest alliances in the world between Japan and the United States,” he told troops at a base in Iwakuni in the west of the country, AFP reports.
The US has around 47,000 personnel stationed in Japan as part of a security alliance that arose from American occupation in the aftermath of World War II.
“We can never forget that we have to honour all of those who have given everything for our freedom,” he told a crowd of uniformed men and women to huge cheers. “I am very proud of you.”
“This is an opportunity to honour the memory of all who were lost in WWII,” he said.
“It’s a testament to how even the most painful divides can be bridged. How two nations can become not just partners but the best of friends.”
China has raised more questions about Obama’s visit to Hiroshima, AFP reports.
Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi said that the massacre of civilians by Japanese troops in the city of Nanjing deserved greater reflection.
“Hiroshima is worthy of attention. But even more so Nanjing should not be forgotten,” the ministry’s website cited him as saying.
“Victims deserve sympathy, but perpetrators should never shirk their responsibility,” he told a huddle of reporters, state broadcaster CCTV showed.
Richard Nelsson has been trawling through the archives to see how the Manchester Guardian reported the first use of nuclear weapons against Hiroshima on 6 August 1945
And here’s how the New York Times covered it.
Here is our front-page report of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima on Aug. 8, 1945. https://t.co/yDX7SUvEIe pic.twitter.com/yq75zl5IHC
— New York Times World (@nytimesworld) May 27, 2016
Updated
Obama spoke about his planned visit to Hiroshima at a press conference on the first day of the summit.
He was asked: “Mr. President, eleven of your predecessors decided against going to Hiroshima. What do you know that they didn’t? What were they worried about that you aren’t?”
Obama replied:
I won’t characterise how other Presidents were thinking about these issues. I can tell you how I’m thinking about it, and that is that the dropping of the atomic bomb, the ushering in of nuclear weapons was an inflection point in modern history. It is something that all of us have had to deal with in one way or another.
Obviously, it’s not as prominent in people’s thinking as it was during the Cold War, at a time when our parents or grandparents were huddling under desks in frequent drills. But the backdrop of a nuclear event remains something that I think presses on the back of our imaginations.
I do think that part of the reason I’m going is because I want to once again underscore the very real risks that are out there and the sense of urgency that we all should have.
So it’s not only a reminder of the terrible toll of World War II and the death of innocents across continents, but it’s also to remind ourselves that the job is not done in reducing conflict, building institutions of peace, and reducing the prospect of nuclear war in the future.
In some ways, we’ve seen real progress over the last several years. The Iran nuclear deal is a big piece of business -- because without us having to fire a shot, we were able to persuade a big, sophisticated country that had a well-developed nuclear program not to develop nuclear weapons. The START II Treaty that I negotiated in my first couple years in office with the Russians has reduced our respective stockpiles. The Nuclear Security Summit and all the work that we’ve done on that score has made it less likely that nuclear materials fall into the hand of terrorists or non-state actors.
And although we have not seen the kind of progress that I would have liked to have seen with respect to North Korea, what we have been able to do is mobilise the international community so that their proliferation activities are scrutinised much more carefully, and they have far fewer countries that are tolerant of potential actions by North Korea outside of their own program.
Having said that, North Korea is a big worry for all of us. They’re not at the point right now where they can effectively hit US targets, but each time that they test -- even if those tests fail – they learn something. And it is clear that ideologically they are still convinced that – and Kim Jong-un in particular seems to be convinced that his own legitimacy is tied up with developing nuclear weapons.
I’m now handing the live blog over to my colleague Matthew Weaver, who’ll continue to bring you updates on Barack Obama’s historic visit to Hiroshima.
Thanks for reading.
This is the Marine Corps air station in Iwakuni, where Obama is speaking before he moves to the Hiroshima memorial park to lay a wreath:
Iwakuni hanger where POTUS will soon speak. pic.twitter.com/JRuB0jraQw
— Gardiner Harris (@GardinerHarris) May 27, 2016
North Korea is not the only country to have criticised Barack Obama’s visit to Hiroshima this afternoon.
While officials in South Korea – a key US ally in the region along with Japan – said they “understood” the reasons for Obama’s historic trip to the city, a major South Korean newspaper provoked outrage in Japan by claiming the attack was a form of divine punishment.
“God often borrows the hand of a human to punish the evil deeds of men,” the JoongAng Ilbo said this week, in a reference to experiments the Japanese army’s notorious Unit 731 conducted on civilians in occupied China.
“The cries [of the unit’s victims] reached heaven and the bombs were dropped on Tokyo and the atomic weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.”
Japan’s chief cabinet secretary, Yoshihide Suga, called the editorial “unforgivable”.
China, meanwhile, cautioned against allowing the visit to reinforce what it said was the sense of victimhood felt by some Japanese. The foreign ministry in Beijing said Japan should not forget the “grave suffering” it inflicted on its neighbours during the war.
“We hope Japan can take a responsible attitude toward its own people and the international community, and earnestly take history as a mirror to avoid a recurrence of the tragedy of the war,” ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told reporters.
The state-run China Daily said the “atomic bombings of Japan were of its own making” in an editorial on Thursday, and accused Japan of “trying to portray Japan as the victim of world war two rather than one of its major perpetrators”.
The bombing of both Hiroshima and Nagasaki was justified, the China Daily said, as “a bid to bring an early end to the war and prevent protracted warfare from claiming even more lives”.
It added: “It was the war of aggression the Japanese militarist government launched against its neighbours and its refusal to accept its failure that had led to US dropping the atomic bombs.”
Hiroshima’s peace memorial park has been cleared of visitors in preparation for the US president’s visit.
But there were plenty of morning visitors to the park, and all some spoke to Associated Press about their reasons for coming:
Kinuyo Ikegami, who is 82, came to light incense and chant a prayer. Long lines of schoolchildren took turns bowing and praying beside her.
Retiree Tsuguo Yoshikawa took a walk in the park, and said it was time for the US and Japanese people to move forward without grudges.
Actor Kanji Shimizu says he wished a US president could have come earlier. But he was glad that the time has come and was hoping Obama’s visit would help promote world peace.
This Guardian editorial reflects on what Obama’s visit to Hiroshima might symbolise:
While Mr Obama will use his visit to Hiroshima to revisit his anti-nuclear ideals, the substantive US-Japanese dialogue will be concerned with nuclear deterrence in the face of China’s military build-up.
The US commitment to nuclear military power will not have been reduced in any way under the Obama presidency: this year, his administration released budget proposals which include plans to spend an estimated $1tn over 30 years on modernising the nuclear arsenal.
Those who hoped for substantive gestures towards disarmament will be left just as disappointed as those who had hoped that a 2010 US-Russia agreement on limiting the number of deployed nuclear warheads would be followed by further efforts.
Mr Obama’s abolitionist message strikes, at best, a discordant note with current policies, and at worst may sound like outright hypocrisy.
Obama's visit to Hiroshima
As the US president prepares to visit the city, here’s what we know so far:
- Obama will not offer an apology for the US’s decision to drop an atomic bomb on Hiroshima on 6 August 1945, killing more than 140,000 people in the city by the end of the year. Japanese officials have made clear they do not expect an apology, while the 183,000 survivors of the attack have conflicting expectations of Obama’s visit.
- Four A-bomb survivors will attend the ceremony and may get to chat briefly with Obama after the ceremony. They will probably include Sunao Tsuboi.
- The president – who will be accompanied in Hiroshima by the Japanese prime minister, Shinzo Abe – will also visit the Hiroshima peace memorial museum and view the harrowing exhibits.
- Like US secretary of state John Kerry, who was in Hiroshima in April for the G7 foreign ministers’ meeting, Obama will lay a wreath at the cenotaph in the peace memorial park. He will then make brief remarks in which he is expected to repeat his desire to bring about a world without nuclear weapons, reaffirm the US-Japan security alliance, and pay tribute to the people of Hiroshima and other victims of war.
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Obama will not visit Nagasaki, where 74,000 people died in a US nuclear attack three days after Hiroshima. The New York Times interviewed survivors of the Nagasaki attack who are unhappy about being bypassed by the US president.
Barack Obama has landed at the Marine Corps air station in Iwakuni, where he will speak before moving on to Hiroshima.
David Cameron has said he will not withdraw his claim that the UK could thrive outside the EU. “Britain is an amazing country. We can find our way whatever the British people choose,” he told reporters at a press conference at the G7 summit in Japan.
“But the question for us is not are we a great country, have we got a brilliant economy, have we got talented businesses, have we got great entrepreneurs, have we got amazing universities, brilliant scientists? Can we go on as we have in the past breaking new boundaries in all these areas?
“The question is: how do we do best?”
He said that it wasn’t just him making the argument but “it is now a pretty large consensus that includes people of impeccable independence and academic standing”.
Cameron also argued that net migration was rising in Britain because the country’s economic success was attracting migrants, and said freedom of movement was a price worth paying for freedom of trade within the EU.
Summary: Cameron press conference
Speaking to the press at the conclusion of the G7 talks, David Cameron instead found himself talking almost exclusively about Britain’s future within – or outside – the European Union.
- While he conceded Thursday’s near-record high net migration figures were “disappointing”, the British prime minister said controlling immigration would not be something that was worth “wrecking our economy” over.
- Cameron denied being a “closet Brexiteer”, after comments made this week by his former election adviser Steve Hilton that he would back leaving the EU if he were not prime minister.
- And in the wake of the declaration by G7 leaders that Brexit would pose a “serious risk” to global growth – he said the UK should “listen to our friends” on the issue of EU membership.
Britain is an amazing country – we can find our way whatever the British people chose.
But the question is not: are we a great country? … The question is how do we do best.
And it is not just me saying that there are economic risks from Britain leaving the EU – it is now a pretty large consensus that includes people of impeccable independence and academic standing.
- He said G7 leaders agreed it was not enough to tackle the “symptoms” of terrorism but must focus on “root causes”.
- And he hailed agreement among the leaders to implement anti-corruption measures and steps to combat antimicrobial resistance.
- Cameron said he was “always happy” to meet US presidential candidates – including Donald Trump – but added:
I’m not going to get involved at all in the American election; it is a matter for the American people. I believe the special relationship will work whoever is in whichever jobs in the UK or in the US.
Meanwhile, No 10 is issuing tweets on the conclusions of the G7 talks. No huge surprise that leaders have agreed to tackle the threat of Isis:
PM: Daesh is its current form. We’ve agreed that the international community must keep up the pressure to defeat this terrorist death cult.
— UK Prime Minister (@Number10gov) May 27, 2016
And on Russia/Ukraine:
PM: On Russia, the #G7 has agreed on the vital importance of sanctions rollover in June.
— UK Prime Minister (@Number10gov) May 27, 2016
PM: The G7 is clear that existing sanctions must remain in place until the Minsk agreement is fully implemented.
— UK Prime Minister (@Number10gov) May 27, 2016
Cameron reiterates that he believes it is worth having freedom of movement to enable freedom of trade. Controlling immigration should not come at the expense of “wrecking” the economy.
Quizzed on Thursday’s immigration figures – Cameron earlier said his lack of comment on them was because he’d been too busy – he says the figures prove the UK is creating jobs that are attracting people to work in its economy.
(Annual net immigration to Britain rose to 333,000 in 2015, just 3,000 below its record peak, figures from the Office for National Statistics showed on Thursday.)
Cameron concedes the numbers were “disappointing” but insists the way to bring down immigration is not to “wreck our economy” by quitting the EU.
Updated
I typed too soon: we’re back to Boris Johnson questions:
Also asked if he'd defend Boris Johnson against "horror scenario" claim - errrrm no. He said not going there til referendum
— Anushka Asthana (@GuardianAnushka) May 27, 2016
Questions now move from Boris Johnson and Brexit to Donald Trump and the US election – would Cameron congratulate Trump if he became president?
Cameron says he would congratulate anybody who’d got through the “marathon” process of selection.
Cameron declines to row back on comments that the UK could thrive outside the EU:
Britain is an amazing country – we can find our way whatever the British people choose.
The question is: how do we do best?
And there is no escaping Boris Johnson…
.@David_Cameron says he has taken a "self-denying ordinance" not to get into arguments with pro-Brexit Tories like @BorisJohnson #euref
— Andrew Woodcock (@AndyWoodcock) May 27, 2016
Cameron – in the wake of the declaration by G7 leaders that Brexit would pose a “serious risk” to global growth – says the UK should “listen to our friends” on the issue of EU membership.
Updated
Cameron says that whether the UK stays within the EU or leaves, it would still be affected by the migration crisis.
But, he adds:
“If you leave the single market you put at risk jobs and growth.
Quizzed on comments made this week by his former election adviser Steve Hilton that the British prime minister would advocate leaving the EU if he were not leading the country, David Cameron denied being a “closet Brexiteer”:
Cameron denies claims by Steve Hilton that he is a "closet Brexiteer" - "I'm not really a closet anything" he says to chuckles. #g7
— Stuart Hughes (@stuartdhughes) May 27, 2016
Says g7 agreed to implement London summit agreement on anti corruption. And talks about plans on antibiotic resistance
— Anushka Asthana (@GuardianAnushka) May 27, 2016
PM talks about eu trade deal with Japan say wouldn't have achieved anything on that "scale" outside eu. Not agreed yet tho
— Anushka Asthana (@GuardianAnushka) May 27, 2016
David Cameron press conference starts
The British prime minister says the G7 leaders agreed it was not enough to tackle the “symptoms” of terrorism but must focus on “root causes” including cohesion and internet security.
David Cameron addresses the media at the #g7 summit in #Japan pic.twitter.com/vlw5xOnlyN
— Stuart Hughes (@stuartdhughes) May 27, 2016
Bangladeshi prime minister Sheikh Hasina Wazed has become the latest leader to say she believe Britain should remain a member of the European Union.
Talking at the hotel in which the G7 summit as been held, Sheikh Hasina said:
I feel that your country should remain in the European Union, you should not come out of that, because your people will be beneficiaries.
We now know that Obama will be visiting the Hiroshima Peace Memorial museum in the next couple of hours.
As one reader points out, the museum has been closed to other visitors on Friday afternoon:
Read more about the museum and the harrowing exhibits the US president is expected to view:
In a predictable response, North Korea has issued a statement criticising the US president’s imminent visit to Hiroshima, AFP reports:
Nuclear-armed North Korea has ridiculed Barack Obama’s visit to Hiroshima as the “childish” diplomatic ploy of a “nuclear war fanatic”.
The North’s official KCNA news agency said Obama’s decision to become the first sitting US president to visit the site of the 1945 atomic bomb strike was an act of stunning hypocrisy.
“It is a childish political calculation,” the agency said. “Even if Obama visits the damaged city, he cannot hide his identity as a nuclear war fanatic and nuclear weapons proliferator.”
Obama was due to lay a wreath in Hiroshima later Friday at a memorial to the bombing, which ultimately claimed the lives of around 140,000 people.
The KCNA commentary also questioned Tokyo’s motives in organising Obama’s visit, saying it was playing up the notion of Japan as a victim of war, and shifting the focus away from the pain its colonial ambitions and wartime aggression inflicted on others.
“Japan seeks to put under the carpet its true colours as a provocateur of the war and aggressor … despite its past crimes,” the agency said.
The Korean peninsula suffered more than three decades of harsh Japanese colonial rule, which ended only with Japan’s surrender following the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings.
The BBC reports that David Cameron has told the G7 summit that the UK plans to take an “active leadership role” to help Libya deal with people-trafficking by sending a second warship to the Mediterranean.
The BBC says:
The UK will seek the extension of the EU’s Operation Sophia mission to tackle people-trafficking in the central Mediterranean, as well as a security council resolution at the UN enabling its forces to assist in the interception of arms shipments.
This would move the UK another step closer to direct military involvement in the Libyan conflict.
Abe says the G7 leaders condemn “in the strongest terms” North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic missile tests, and “strongly demand” that North Korea acts upon international concerns immediately.
He then talks about nuclear non-proliferation more generally:
Realising a world free of nuclear weapons is not easy. However, we share the strong will to move forward hand-in-hand.
He will shortly be going to Hiroshima with Barack Obama, Abe says.
In Hiroshima we will express our condolences to all victims of the use of nuclear weapons and send to the world the information on the impact of the use of the atomic bomb.
And I believe that will be a strong step forward … not to repeat the tragedy that happened.
We living today have responsibility to ensure the tragedy will not be repeated. We must build a better world.
Abe calls on Russia to play 'constructive role'
We also called for Russia to play constructive roles in order to address all issues the international community faces
It is therefore important to maintain necessary dialogue with President Putin in order to realise peace and stability in Syria.
On the issue of the South and East China seas, and maritime disputes more generally, Abe says:
Freedom of the ocean must be guaranteed … We agreed not to tolerate any unilateral action.
The Japanese prime minister is talking about Abenomics – his three-arrow policy of monetary easing, fiscal stimulus and structural reform. More background on that (and its faltering fortunes) here.
Abe: Global growth continues to be revised downward …
Worldwide, demand is stagnant. The most serious concern is the contraction of the global economy …
There is risk that this decline in global demand could become prolonged.
However, becoming pessimistic will not help.
Abe says this is why he ensured the global economy was top of the agenda at the G7 talks.
He says the G7 leaders share “a strong sense of urgency” on the issue.
Abe says developing economies have acted as an engine for global recovery.
But he says prices over the last year have fallen – a decline comparable to the aftermath of the Lehman Brothers collapse.
Investment is also on the decline, he warns.
Abe: Today’s peace and prosperity must be handed down intact to our children and grandchildren.
Those of us who are here today cannot shy away from the issues that we face …
The group of seven has a major responsibility. The world faces many issues but there is clear determination to cooperate …
Our biggest topic was the world economy … Although some recovery has been made recently and there is relative stability there is still a great deal of murkiness.
Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe is giving his post-summit press conference.
He talks about the visit by the leaders to the Ise Jingu shrine yesterday, a place Abe says always “straightens my posture”.
David Cameron will leave the G7 summit having committed to halving drug-resistant bug infections by 2020, with measures including the introduction of tough new targets to limit inappropriate use of antibiotics, Press Association reports.
The commitment was announced at the G7 summit in Japan, where heads of the world’s leading economies were discussing what the British prime minister regards as one of the biggest public health dangers threatening the world.
A UK government-commissioned report produced last week warned that a failure to act on anti-microbial resistance (AMR) could lead to 10 million deaths a year by 2050, with a cumulative hit on the world economy totalling US$100tn.
The G7 leaders agreed that “good progress has been made to combat AMR … but more needs to be done”.
And in related news today:
Updated
Further agreements among the G7 leaders have been reached on education for women and global health:
#G7 President Japan commits to supporting the empowerment of 55,000 women & girls through #training & #education pic.twitter.com/8pBjRbjWG5
— G7 (@g7) May 27, 2016
#G7 President Japan to contribute $1.1 billion to #GlobalHealth @GlobalFund @WHO @Gavi GHIT & World Bank’s PEF pic.twitter.com/vjkA7BT48w
— G7 (@g7) May 27, 2016
It’s not yet clear whether the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum will be on Barack Obama’s itinerary when he visits the city in the next few hours.
In advance of the historic visit to Hiroshima – the first by a sitting US president – Justin McCurry, the Guardian’s Japan correspondent, witnessed the harrowing exhibits that mark the deaths of 140,000 people:
The school uniform Nobuko Oshita made for herself looks like it would turn to dust at the slightest touch. One sleeve of what is left of her stained summer blouse is missing. A metal badge bearing the name of First Hiroshima Prefectural girls’ high school is still attached to the lapel.
The 13-year-old was helping with demolition work when the US B-29 bomber Enola Gay released its atomic payload over Hiroshima on the morning of 6 August 1945. Rescue workers found Oshita, barely alive, amid the rubble and took her to her parents’ home, where she died that night.
Not far from Oshita’s uniform are the blackened remains of a bento lunch that Shigeru Orimen, another Hiroshima schoolchild, would never eat. Three days passed before the 13-year-old’s mother, Shigeko, found her son’s charred remains, his metal lunchbox clasped to his stomach.
A bigger table now for the G7 outreach session – alongside the group of seven leaders from the US, Japan, UK, France, Germany, Italy and Canada are representatives from Chad, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Papua New Guinea, Vietnam and Laos.
UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon, IMF chief Christine Lagarde and World Bank head Jim Yong Kim, along with the heads of the OECD and the Asian Development Bank also attended the session.
G7 host Japan said the meeting would focus on Asia’s stability and prosperity including “open and stable seas”, as well as United Nations sustainable development goals, with a focus on Africa.
The warning in the G7 declaration that Britain’s exit from the European Union could risk global growth appears to have been a last-minute addition, the Guardian’s political editor, Anushka Asthana, reports from Ise-Shima:
The G7 leaders have issued a joint declaration in which they warn that Britain leaving the European Union would be a threat to the global economy.
In a 32-page declaration, which also included concerns about geopolitical conflicts, terrorism and the refugee crisis, the heads of the world’s major economies said a Brexit could threaten global growth and jobs.
The document’s release comes just hours after purdah rules came into force in the UK, preventing the civil service from issuing any further warnings.
In a move that the British prime minister, David Cameron, will hope might boost his campaign to keep Britain in the EU, the G7 leaders said: “A UK exit from the EU would reverse the trend towards greater global trade and investment, and the jobs they create and is a further serious risk to growth.”
The wording appears to have been added at the 11th hour, because it was not included in the section on the global economy in a draft on Thursday night.
Other leaders also revealed that Brexit was not discussed in a series of sessions that covered the economy, trade, counter-terrorism and sanctions on Russia.
Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, said: “It was no subject here. But there was the signal that all who sat here want Britain to stay part of the EU.”
Read the full story here:
The world will be scrutinising Barack Obama’s every move – not just his words – when he becomes the first sitting US president to visit Hiroshima this afternoon.
While no one is expecting a repeat of West German chancellor Willy Brandt’s Warschauer Kniefall (genuflection) in the former Warsaw ghetto in 1970, Obama will be aware that even a simple bow could be pounced on by his domestic critics as an act of contrition over the August 1945 bombing, in which 140,000 people died.
On a visit to Japan in November 2009, Obama was accused of grovelling when he combined a handshake with a deep bow at the start of a meeting with the Japanese emperor, Akihito.
The former vice-president Dick Cheney said at the time: “There is no need for an American president to bow to anyone.” And Sean Hannity at Fox News incorrectly claimed that people in Japan had been “mortified” by the addition of a handshake to the traditional Japanese greeting.
Donald Tusk, the president of the European council, who is attending the summit, has welcomed what he calls “good progress”:
Good G7 progress on common global challenges such as migration, Russia, maritime security, global economy & trade https://t.co/vIHnqSvtD2
— Donald Tusk (@eucopresident) May 27, 2016
The declaration includes a line on antimicrobial resistance, an issue that David Cameron said was a priority on his way to the summit.
The G7 say they will endeavour to take leadership on an issue they say could “have serious impacts on our economies”.
The word “China” features only once in the G7 declaration, in relation to leaders’ concerns over “the situation in the East and South China Seas”.
The wording – which does not point the finger at any individual country – reads:
We are concerned about the situation in the East and South China Seas, and emphasise the fundamental importance of peaceful management and settlement of disputes.
The G7 declaration said settlement of maritime disputes should be “peaceful” and “freedom of navigation and overflight” should be respected.
It also warned that countries should not engage in “unilateral actions which could increase tensions” and avoid “force or coercion in trying to drive their claims”.
A number of countries have competing and overlapping claims in the South China Sea, not least China, which claims nearly the entirety of the area.
The Philippines and Vietnam have also laid claim to some parts of the South China Sea, and China’s programme of land reclamation and building on disputed islands has caused tensions.
G7 host Japan has also run up against Chinese claims in the East China Sea.
On refugees, the declaration offers a recognition that “ongoing large scale movements of migrants and refugees” is a worldwide challenge that requires a “global response”.
On Thursday, Donald Tusk, the president of the European Council, stressed that while geography meant Europe was rightly acting first, there was a need for countries around the world to step up efforts, to financially support refugees and help develop relocation schemes.
In today’s document, the leaders “commit to increase global assistance to meet immediate and long-term needs of refugees and other displaced persons”. They also encourage more money from institutions and bilateral donors.
German chancellor Angela Merkel said the G7 leaders did not discuss Brexit at their summit meeting, but there was a consensus that they all wanted the UK to remain in the European Union.
Merkel told reporters on the sidelines of the two-day summit:
It was no subject here. But there was the signal that all who sat here want Britain to stay part of the EU …
But the decision is up to the British voters.
The leaders’ advisers will have grappled to get the wording right when describing the state of the global economy, after Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe compared the current situation to the collapse of Lehman brothers, which triggered the global crash.
UK prime minister David Cameron was said to offer a more positive take on the world economy.
The wording they agreed on was that “global growth remains moderate and below potential, while risks of weak growth persist”.
The G7 has laid out a radically different view of the internet to that of Chinese president Xi Jinping, who has been trying to push the concept of “internet sovereignty”.
Xi says he wants to maintain a heavily-controlled “cyber ecology”.
But in its statement on Friday, the G7 rejects that:
We strongly support an accessible, open, interoperable, reliable and secure cyberspace as one essential foundation for economic growth and prosperity.
This also enhances the common values of the G7, such as freedom, democracy and respect for privacy and human rights.
And here are the images from Friday morning’s meetings that preceded the issuing of the declaration:
The Guardian’s Beijing correspondent has scanned the declaration for the G7 leaders’ message to China:
There are several not-so-subtle digs at China in relation to how its steel overcapacity is threatening thousands of jobs in G7 nations such as the UK.
The declaration says:
We recognise that global excess capacity in industrial sectors, especially steel, is a pressing structural challenge with global implications and this issue needs to be urgently addressed through elimination of market distorting measures and, thereby, enhancement of market function.
We are committed to moving quickly in taking steps to address this issue by enhancing market function, including through coordinated actions that identify and seek to eliminate such subsidies and support, and by encouraging adjustment.
Earlier this month the European commission launched an inquiry into Chinese subsidies for steel sold to the EU after warnings that steel dumping was likely to increase.
The full declaration is also available in Japanese here.
The Guardian’s political editor, travelling with the British prime minister in Japan, sends this analysis:
World leaders meeting in Japan have warned that a UK exit from the EU “would reverse the trend towards greater global trade and investment, and the jobs they create, and is a further serious risk to growth”.
Quite a big deal for David Cameron – given that Brexit wasn’t on the formal agenda but was always likely to be discussed on the margins.
All the G7 leaders have backed his campaign to keep Britain in the EU, but the strong language in the declaration will be seen as a boost on the day purdah kicks in and the civil service can no longer be used.
Updated
G7 declaration in full
You can read the entire declaration from the G7 leaders here:
On climate change
The declaration from G7 leaders agreed on Friday that they will aim for the Paris climate agreement to go into effect by the end of the year, Reuters reports.
“G7 countries need to work together and spearhead effort toward the early entry into effect and effective implementation of the historic Paris accord,” Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe told other G7 leaders, according to deputy chief cabinet secretary Hiroshige Seko.
Last December in Paris, almost 200 nations agreed a sweeping plan to end global dependence on fossil fuels to limit rising temperatures:
On the refugee crisis
A lengthy section of the G7 declaration deals with the ongoing, global migration crisis; here is one extract:
The international community should therefore increase its efforts towards conflict prevention, stabilization, and post-conflict peacebuilding and focus on finding solutions in order to reduce poverty, 18 promote peace, good governance, the rule of law and respect for human rights, support inclusive economic growth and improve the delivery of basic services.
We commit to increase global assistance to meet immediate and longer-term needs of refugees and other displaced persons as well as their host communities, via humanitarian, financial, and development assistance, cooperation, as well as other measures to support trade and investment consistent with our international obligations, recognizing the necessity of closer collaboration between humanitarian, development and other actors.
We aim to increase the socio-economic development of affected regions, notably regarding education, health care, infrastructure, and promotion of human rights and equal opportunities.
We recognize the importance of the implementation of the 2030 Agenda regarding effective migration management, and we commit to strengthen our development cooperation with our partner countries, with special attention to African, Middle East and neighboring countries of origin and transit.
And a key addendum:
The G7 recalls that only sustainable political settlements within countries of origin, including Syria, will bring lasting solutions to the problem of forced displacement, including refugees.
The full declaration from the G7 leaders has now been published – it’s 32 pages long so I’ll post relevant sections as I find them.
Here’s what they have to say on the state of the global economy and Brexit:
The global recovery continues, but growth remains moderate and uneven, and since we last met downside risks to the global outlook have increased. Global trade performance has disappointed in recent years. Weak demand and unaddressed structural problems are the key factors weighing on actual and potential growth. There are potential shocks of a non-economic origin.
A UK exit from the EU would reverse the trend towards greater global trade and investment, and the jobs they create, and is a further serious risk to growth.
Escalated geopolitical conflicts, terrorism and refugee flows, are complicating factors in the global economic environment. We have strengthened the resilience of our economies in order to avoid falling into another crisis, and to this end, commit to reinforce our efforts to address the current economic situation by taking all appropriate policy responses in a timely manner.
G7 leaders: Brexit 'serious risk to global growth'
The declarations are coming thick and fast now: this one deals with Britain’s potential exit from the European Union (a referendum is taking place on 23 June):
UK exit from EU would reverse trend toward greater global trade, investment and jobs.
Brexit would be [a] serious risk to global growth.
Updated
G7 leaders commit to increase aid for refugees
News of a declaration from the G7 leaders:
Commit to increase global aid for immediate [and] long-term needs of refugees [and] displaced persons.
I’ll have more details here when they emerge.
Ahead of his visit to Hiroshima, Barack Obama spoke on Thursday about the city’s legacy, saying it was much more than “a reminder of the terrible toll in world war two and the death of innocents across the continents”.
It is a place, he said, “to remind ourselves that the job’s not done in reducing conflict, building institutions of peace and reducing the prospect of nuclear war in the future”.
The dropping of the bomb, he added, “was an inflection point in modern history. It is something that all of us have had to deal with in one way or another.”
Day two of talks begins
Martin Selmayr, aide to the European commission president, Jean-Claude Juncker, who is attending the summit, says the second day of talks is underway.
Selmayr sparked a minor storm on Thursday with his remarks that a potential 2017 G7 summit comprising Donald Trump, Marine Le Pen and Boris Johnson as the leaders of the US, France and the UK would be a “horror scenario”.
Concluding session at #G7 #IseShima started. Communiqué wth clear language on roll-over of Russia sanctions pic.twitter.com/2EVrys5knJ
— Martin Selmayr (@MartinSelmayr) May 27, 2016
The ink will barely have dried on the G7 communiqué on Friday when much of the world’s media will up sticks and follow Barack Obama on the journey west for his highly anticipated visit to Hiroshima, the first by a sitting US president.
Here’s what we know so far:
- Obama will not offer an apology for the US’s decision to drop an atomic bomb on Hiroshima on 6 August 1945, killing more than 140,000 people in the city by the end of the year. Japanese officials have made clear they do not expect an apology, while the 183,000 survivors of the attack have conflicting expectations of Obama’s visit.
- Four A-bomb survivors will attend the ceremony and may get to chat briefly with Obama after the ceremony. They will probably include Sunao Tsuboi.
- The president is also expected to visit the Hiroshima peace memorial museum and view the harrowing exhibits.
- Like US secretary of state John Kerry, who was in Hiroshima in April for the G7 foreign ministers’ meeting, Obama will lay a wreath at the cenotaph in the peace memorial park. He will then make brief remarks in which he is expected to repeat his desire to bring about a world without nuclear weapons, reaffirm the US-Japan security alliance, and pay tribute to the people of Hiroshima and other victims of war.
- Reports said Obama, who will be accompanied in Hiroshima by the Japanese prime minister, Shinzo Abe, had invited Daniel Crowley, a US army veteran who was taken prisoner by Japan during the second world war, to join him on the historic visit. The claim was made by the American Defenders of Bataan and Corregidor Memorial Society, although the White House has denied it formally invited Crowley.
- Obama will not visit Nagasaki, where 74,000 people died in a US nuclear attack three days after Hiroshima. The New York Times interviewed survivors of the Nagasaki attack who are unhappy about being bypassed by the US president.
Welcome to continuing live coverage of the G7 summit in Shima, Japan, as world leaders begin their second – and final – day of talks.
Top of the agenda today are energy and climate talks, but the focus on Friday is likely to be on the visit by Barack Obama to Hiroshima – the first visit by a sitting US president to the city devastated by an atomic bomb dropped by the US’ Enola Gay on the morning of 6 August 1945.
The Guardian’s Japan correspondent, Justin McCurry, visited Hiroshima ahead of Obama’s arrival and you can read his report here:
I will have live coverage here as Friday’s events unfold. I will also post key updates on Twitter @Claire_Phipps.
The Guardian has two correspondents at the G7 summit: Justin McCurry and political editor Anushka Asthana. You can follow their updates on Twitter too: @justinmccurry and @GuardianAnushka.
The museum is already closed for visitors since 2:30 hours ago due to the POTUS visit : http://www.pcf.city.hiroshima.jp/topics/0527openhours_e.html