JAPAN: To mark the 60th anniversary of the world's first atomic bomb attack in Japan, thousands of peace activists marched through Hiroshima yesterday, calling for a global ban on nuclear weapons.
The march to the World Conference Against Atomic and Hydrogen Bombs was one of dozens of events being held there ahead of tomorrow's anniversary, when more than 50,000 people are expected to gather in Peace Memorial Park for a moment of silence at 8.15am.
At that time on August 6th, 1945, the Enola Gay dropped an atomic bomb that exploded over Hiroshima, obliterating the centre of the city and killing at least 140,000 people. Three days later, Bock's Car dropped a bomb on Nagasaki, killing another 80,000.
Japan surrendered to the US, bringing the second World War to a close, on August 15th.
Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi is expected to attend tomorrow's memorial.
Hiroshima's Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba, an outspoken opponent of President George Bush, is the main speaker, and was expected to make a plea for the US and other nuclear powers to abolish their arsenals.
Today about 8,000 people, including several hundred activists from 29 countries, attended a conference, the biggest pre-anniversary event. Roughly 2,000 activists joined in the march beforehand.
"For us it is special to see this city with our own eyes," said Anatoli Ionesov, head of the four-person delegation from Uzbekistan.
"Our idea is to create a nuclear-free zone in central Asia." Though the world conference, which is held each year, is sponsored primarily by leftist or labour groups, it has a broad appeal within the Japanese population. The organisers have collected 8.5 million signatures for a nuclear ban.
"We want this conference to be a strong impetus for the creation of a fair and nuclear-free world," the organisers said in a statement opening the conference.
With emotions running high ahead of the anniversary, a suspected rightist was arrested last week after defacing a cenotaph in the park. He was reportedly angry at the inscription's suggestion that Japan was partially to blame for bringing the devastation of Hiroshima because of its military campaigns in Asia.
Meanwhile, Japan's ruling party, in its latest call for a more assertive security stance, this week proposed that the military should not be limited to a self-defence role but should take part in international efforts to secure peace overseas.
Mr Koizumi has made annual visits to Tokyo's Yasukuni shrine for war dead, seen by critics as a symbol of Japan's past militarism, and a school textbook written by nationalist historians has stirred criticism of a whitewash.
Proposals laid out in a draft for a new constitution by Mr Koizumi's Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) mark a drastic departure from the principles of the pacifist constitution, unchanged since it was drafted by the postwar occupation authorities.
A key section of the constitution, Article 9, renounces the right to maintain a military or wage war, though Japanese governments have interpreted it as allowing forces for defence, the now 240,000-member Self-Defence Forces. - (AP, Reuters)