TOKYO: The family of a famed Hiroshima atomic bomb victim is fundraising to take a flame burning since the wartime attack to Pearl Harbor to light a peace monument, they said Friday.
The “flame of peace” is said to have been taken from the smoldering ruins of Hiroshima after the world’s first nuclear attack. It was kept alive first in a private home before being moved to a peace tower in Japan’s Fukuoka in 1968.
Now, the family of Sadako Sasaki, who died at 12 of radiation-induced leukaemia a decade after the attack, wants the flame to be taken to the site of the deadly Japanese attack to promote peace.
“We want this plan to be a symbol of peace after Japan and the United States, once enemies, have overcome their hatred,” Sasaki’s brother Masahiro Sasaki told AFP.
A majority of Americans “still support the atomic bombings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and their reaction to our calls for ‘no more Hiroshima, no more Nagasaki’ is ‘you attacked Pearl Harbor,’ but we have to overcome the hatred,” the 80-year-old said.
He is soliciting private donations in Japan and the US to transport the flame next summer, and are discussing a site for the monument with authorities in Hawaii.
“We’re hoping that it will be at the memorial” built over the remains of the USS Arizona, which sank during the attack, he said.
The “flame of peace” has been taken abroad before including to the Vatican in 2019 when atomic bomb survivors were granted an audience with the Pope.
Sadako Sasaki is widely remembered for having folded one thousand paper cranes before dying on October 25, 1955, after a long battle with leukaemia.
She set out to fold the cranes while in hospital, after hearing a tradition that doing so would make a wish come true.
Her brother Masahiro, also an atomic bomb survivor, and her nephew Yuji have used her story to educate people globally about the dangers of war.
In 2012, they donated one of Sasaki’s paper cranes to the memorial built over the remains of the Arizona.
December 8 will mark 80 years since the Pearl Harbor attack, which killed more than 2,400 Americans and opened the war between Japan and the US.
Around 140,000 people died in the bombing of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, a toll that includes those who survived the explosion but died soon after from radiation exposure.
Three days later the US dropped a plutonium bomb on the port city of Nagasaki, killing about 74,000 people and leading to the end of World War II.
Hiroshima attack flame offered for Pearl Harbor memorial
https://arab.news/bf88h
Hiroshima attack flame offered for Pearl Harbor memorial
- The “flame of peace” is said to have been taken from the smoldering ruins of Hiroshima after the world’s first nuclear attack
- December 8 will mark 80 years since the Pearl Harbor attack
France, Algeria to resume security cooperation: minister
- Algeria plays a key role in the latter, sharing borders with junta-led Niger and Mali, both gripped by terrorist violence
ALGIERS: France and Algeria agreed on Tuesday to restart security cooperation during a visit to Algiers by French Interior Minister Laurent Nunez, marking the first sign of a thaw in diplomatic ties.
After meeting with President Abdelmadjid Tebboune, Nunez said both sides had agreed to “reactivate a high-level security cooperation mechanism.”
The visit took place against a backdrop of thorny relations between France and its former colony, frayed since Paris in 2024 officially backed Moroccan sovereignty over the disputed Western Sahara region, where Algeria supports the pro-independence Polisario Front.
Nunez said Monday had been devoted to working sessions aimed at “restoring normal security relations,” including cooperation in judicial matters, policing and intelligence.
He thanked the Algerian president for instructing his services to work with French authorities to “improve cooperation on readmissions.” Algeria has for months refused to take back its nationals living irregularly in France.
The renewed cooperation is expected to take effect “as quickly as possible” and continue “at a very high level,” Nunez confirmed.
According to images released by Algerian authorities, the talks brought together senior security officials from both countries, including France’s domestic intelligence chief and Algeria’s head of internal security.
Invited by his counterpart Said Sayoud, Nunez’s trip had been planned for months but repeatedly delayed.
Both sides have a backlog of issues to tackle. Before traveling, Nunez said he intended to raise “all security issues,” including drug trafficking and counterterrorism.
Algeria plays a key role in the latter, sharing borders with junta-led Niger and Mali, both gripped by terrorist violence.
Ahead of the trip, Nunez had also mentioned the case of Christophe Gleizes, a French sports journalist serving a seven-year sentence for “glorifying terrorism.”
It is unclear whether the matter was discussed with Tebboune, from whom the journalist’s family has requested a pardon.
