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ASIA / PACIFIC Page 4 n THE ASIAN REPORTER June 6, 2016 Obama uses Hiroshima visit as opportunity to urge no nukes DELICATE DIPLOMACY. U.S. President Barack Obama, center, accompanied by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, left, shakes hands and talks with Sunao Tsuboi, a survivor of the 1945 atomic bombing and chairman of the Hiroshima Prefectural Confederation of A-bomb Sufferers Organization (HPCASO), at Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park in Hi- roshima. Obama became the first sitting U.S. presi- dent to visit the site of the world’s first atomic bomb attack, bringing global attention both to survivors and to his unfulfilled vision of a world without nuclear weapons. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster) By Nancy Benac and Foster Klug The Associated Press IROSHIMA, Japan — With an unflinching look back at a painful history, President Barack Obama stood on the hallowed ground of Hiroshima and declared it a fitting place to summon people everywhere to embrace the vision of a world without nuclear weapons. As the first American president to visit the city where the U.S. dropped the first atomic bomb, Obama came to acknowledge — but not apologize for — an act many Americans see as a justified end to a brutal war that Japan started with a sneak attack at Pearl Harbor. Some 140,000 people died after a U.S. warplane targeted wartime Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, and 70,000 more perished in Nagasaki, where a second bomb was dropped three days later. Japan soon surrendered. “Their souls speak to us,” Obama said of the dead. “They ask us to look inward, to take stock of who we are and who we might become.” With a lofty speech and a warm embrace for an elderly survivor, Obama renewed the call for a nuclear-free future that he had first laid out in a 2009 speech in Prague. This time, Obama spoke as a far more experienced president than the one who had employed his upbeat “Yes, we can” campaign slogan on the first go-round. The president, who has made uneven progress on his nuclear agenda over the past seven years, spoke of “the courage to escape the logic of fear” as he held out hope for diligent, incremental steps to reduce nuclear stockpiles. “We may not realize this goal in my lifetime, but persistent effort can roll back the possibility of catastrophe,” he said. Obama spent less than two hours in Hiroshima but seemed to accomplish what he came for. It was a choreographed performance meant to close old wounds without inflaming new passions on a H subject still fraught after all these years. In a solemn ceremony on a sunwashed afternoon, Obama and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe placed wreaths before the cenotaph, a simple arched stone monu- ment at Hiroshima’s Peace Memorial Park. Only the clicking of camera shutters intruded on the moment as Obama closed his eyes and briefly bowed his head. Then, after each leader gave brief remarks, Obama approached two aging survivors of the bombing who were seated in the front row, standing in for the thousands still seared by memories of that day. Ninety-one-year-old Sunao Tsuboi, the head of a survivors group, energetically engaged the president in conversation, telling Obama he would be remembered as someone who listened to the voice of a few survivors. He urged him to come back and meet more. “He was holding my hands until the end,” Tsuboi said. “I was almost about to ask him to stop holding my hands, but he wouldn’t.” Obama stepped over to meet historian Shigeaki Mori. Just eight years old when the bomb hit, Mori had to hold back tears at the emotion of the moment. Obama patted him on the back and wrapped him in a warm embrace. From there, Obama and Abe walked along a tree-lined path toward a river that flows by the iconic A-bomb dome, the skeletal remains of an exhibition hall that stands as silent testimony to the awful power of the bomb blast 71 years ago and as a symbol for international peace. Abe welcomed the president’s message and offered his own determination “to realize a world free of nuclear weapons, no matter how long or how difficult the road will be.” Obama received a Nobel Peace Prize early in his presidency for his anti-nuclear agenda but has seen uneven progress. The president can point to last year’s Iran nuclear deal and a weapons treaty with Russia. But North Korea’s nuclear program still looms as a threat, and hopes for a pact for further weapons reductions with Russia have stalled. Critics also fault the administration for planning a big and costly program to upgrade U.S. nuclear stockpiles. Just as Obama had delicate sensitivities to manage in Hiroshima, so too did Abe. The Japanese leader made a point to dismiss any suggestion that he pay a reciprocal visit to Pearl Harbor. Abe did not rule out coming to Hawai‘i someday, but clearly wanted to avoid any notion of moral equivalence. In Japan, Pearl Harbor is not seen as a parallel for the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but as an attack on a military installation that did not target civilians. Bomb survivor Kinuyo Ikegami, 82, paid her own respects at the cenotaph, before the politicians arrived. “I could hear schoolchildren screaming: ‘Help me! Help me!’” she said, tears running down her face. “It was too pitiful, too horrible. Even now it fills me with emotion.” Obama went out of his way, in speaking of the dead, to mention that thousands of Koreans and a dozen American prisoners were among those who died. It was a nod to advocates for both groups who had publicly warned the president not to forget about them in Hiroshima. In a brief visit to the museum at the peace park, Obama viewed a display about a young girl who survived the bombing but died several years later of leukemia. She folded paper cranes in the hospital until she died and is the inspiration for the story of Sadako and the thousand cranes. Endangered Sumatran rhino gives birth in Indonesia By Stephen Wright The Associated Press J EVEREST DAY. A porter walks with a massive load headed to Ever- est base camp near Lobuche, Nepal, in this March 28, 2016 file photo. Nepal celebrated Everest Day by honoring nine Sherpa guides who fixed ropes and dug the route to the summit so hundreds of climbers could scale the world’s highest mountain this season, following two years of disasters. (AP Photo/Tashi Sherpa, File) Nepal honors nine Sherpas who paved way for Everest climbers By Binaj Gurubacharya The Associated Pres ATHMANDU, Nepal — Nepal celebrated Everest Day by honoring nine Sherpa guides who fixed ropes and dug the route to the summit so hundreds of climbers could scale the world’s highest mountain this season, following two years of disasters. Prime Minister Khadga Prasad Oli praised the men at the ceremony in Kathmandu, where they were presented with bouquets and given checks for 50,000 rupees ($460). “The secret behind the more than 400 climbers ascending Mount Everest is the successful rope fixing and successful route fixing,” Oli said. “There was no confusion because the route fixing and the rope fixing made it possible for climbers to reach the summit.” Everest Day honors the first successful climb in 1953 by Edmund Hillary of New Zealand and his Sherpa guide, Tenzing Norgay. Since then, thousands of climbers have scaled the peak and some 280 people have died on Ever- Continued on page 13 K AKARTA, Indonesia — A Su- matran rhinoceros has given birth at an Indonesian sanctu- ary in a success for efforts to save the critically endangered species. The International Rhino Founda- tion (IRF) said the female calf was born in May, weighs about 45 pounds, and looks healthy and active. “We haven’t stopped smiling since the moment we were sure she was alive and healthy,” IRF’s executive director Susie Ellis said in a state- ment. “While one birth does not save the species, it’s one more Sumatran rhino on earth.” Only an estimated 100 Sumatran rhinos remain, mostly on the island of Sumatra, and several are in captiv- ity. They are threatened by the destruction of tropical forest habitat and poachers who kill the animals for their horns, which are prized for making ornaments and for use in traditional medicine in China and other parts of Asia. The species was rediscovered in the Indonesian part of Borneo through trails and footprints in 2013. But one member of the small popu- SANCTUARY SUCCESS. Ratu, a 14-year-old Sumatran rhino, left, lies next to her newborn calf at the Sumatran Rhino Sanctuary in Way Kambas National Park, Indonesia. The International Rhino Foundation said the female calf was born in May, weighs about 45 pounds, and looks healthy and active. (Stephen Belcher/Canon/IRF/YABI via AP) lation on Borneo died in April after a ary in the Way Kambas National wound from a poacher’s trap became Park on Sumatra in 1997. It praised infected. the sanctuary’s staff as “top-notch The calf is the second to its mother, experts” and said the second birth Ratu, who gave birth to a male named shows that the expertise exists in Andatu in 2012, which was the first Indonesia to increase the rhino rhino birth in captivity in Indonesia population. in 124 years. The father, Andalas, The foundation said Ratu was was born at the Cincinnati Zoo in given a hormone supplement daily 2001. during her pregnancy to help ensure IRF established the rhino sanctu- it went to full-term. Support the efforts of The Asian Reporter Foundation while shopping at Fred Meyer! It’s easy! Just link your rewards card to The AR Foundation’s number, which is 91860, at <www.FredMeyer.com/CommunityRewards>. (Linking does not affect your current card rewards.)