G8 Speakers of Parliament Visit Hiroshima



NHK World reports that Speakers of Parliament from the Group of Eight countries visited the cenotaph for the victims of the 1945 atomic bombing in Hiroshima:

The visit was made on Tuesday morning, ahead of the G8 speakers' meeting. This year, the speakers are in Hiroshima to exchange views on the legislature's role in promoting global peace and disarmament. The attendees included Nancy Pelosi, the first US House Speaker to pay respects at the memorial. Each laid flowers before the cenotaph and offered prayers for the victims.

Local elementary school and junior high school students welcomed the speakers and handed them peace messages and paper cranes, which are a symbol of peace. The speakers then visited the Peace Memorial Museum to see exhibitions, including victims' belongings and a panoramic model of the devastated city after the bombing.

Japan's Lower House Speaker Yohei Kono also called for more international efforts to abolish nuclear arms. I'm impressed by these efforts, especially of the people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, who continue to work hard to tell the real story of nuclear weapons. I hope the Speakers of Parliament and other elected politicians will do everything they can to make sure that this weapon is never used again.

MSNBC: Pelosi visits Hiroshima atomic bomb memorial
NHK World: Parliament speakers lay flowers at A-bomb memorial

(Note to self: do I know the names of even one of these "elected politicians" that are supposed to represent us in our democratic societies...?)

Comments

Anonymous said…
Interesting to note that five of the G8 countries have most of the world's nuclear weapons (US, Russia, China, France, UK). Are ANY of them moving to do away with their own nuclear weapons? (no)

Also note that six of the G8 are among the world's top ten polluting countries.

So much for measuring "progress" in economic terms.
4:49 pm, September 04, 2008
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