Latest news with #hibakusha
Bloomberg
4 days ago
- Politics
- Bloomberg
Nuclear War's Too Serious for a Tulsi Gabbard Video
Is Tulsi Gabbard running for a new political office? Did she just discover the horrific potential of nuclear weapons and wants to share it with the world? Or has she been watching too much Russia Today? It's hard to know what to think after watching the US director of national intelligence's depictions of nuclear Armageddon. Gabbard's video clearly took preparation. She visited Hiroshima, in Japan, and the production values are top drawer. (One infelicitous exception: the word for Japan's nuclear survivors is hibakusha, not 'hibokusha.') She speaks earnestly to camera, stares pensively into the distance against beautiful vistas and shots of a nuclear bomb's terrifying consequences. The three big points she had to make were less impressive. The first was that a nuclear war would be really, really, really, bad. All too true, but hardly a discovery. The second assertion was that the world is closer to annihilation than at any time in its history, which is wrong on the facts. And finally, that a nuclear apocalypse looms ever closer because — unlike 'we the people' — global elites and warmongers have bunkers, which is just bonkers.
Japan Times
09-05-2025
- Politics
- Japan Times
Heads of hibakusha groups urge Pope Leo to promote abolition of nukes
The heads of atomic bomb survivor groups in Hiroshima and Nagasaki voiced hope Friday that newly elected Pope Leo XIV will promote nuclear abolition as his predecessor, Francis, did. The late pope, who died in April, visited the two atomic-bombed Japanese cities in 2019 and called for the elimination of nuclear weapons. "I want (the new pope) to think about peace first and aim for a world without nuclear weapons," said Toshiyuki Mimaki, 83, who heads a hibakusha group in Hiroshima Prefecture. He urged the 69-year-old new pope to "visit Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the near future." "It doesn't matter where he is from. I hope he'll work with the same mindset as previous popes," Mimaki said of Leo, the first U.S.-born pope. Shigemitsu Tanaka, 84, who heads a hibakusha group in the Nagasaki Prefecture, said that he wants the new pope to adhere to Francis' stance on nuclear abolition. "The wish of hibakusha is not to fight back, but to ensure that people never have to go through the same suffering again," Tanaka said. This year marks the 80th anniversary of Japan's surrender in World War II. Still, there are constant military clashes around the world, including Russia's invasion of Ukraine. "World leaders should have more dialogue before fighting a war," Tanaka said.
