HIROSHIMA MARKS 75TH A-BOMB ANNIVERSARY

Hiroshima marked the 75th anniversary of its atomic bombing by the United States on Thursday, with its mayor urging the international community to unite against serious threats to humanity -- be they nuclear weapons or the novel coronavirus pandemic -- by spurning nationalistic and isolationist policies.

At a time when tensions between some world powers have heightened over the origin of the virus and geopolitical rivalry in the face of the global economic slowdown, Hiroshima Mayor Kazumi Matsui said countries should put aside their differences and come together to overcome both man-made and natural challenges, Ayano Shimizu wrote for Kyodo news agency on August 6, 2020.

"Civil society must reject self-centered nationalism and unite against all threats," he said at the annual ceremony at Peace Memorial Park near Ground Zero, which was scaled down drastically due to a recent spike in infections in Japan.

After a moment of silence was observed at 8:15 a.m., the exact time of the bombing on Aug. 6, 1945, Matsui said the western Japanese city recovered as a result of people working closely not to repeat its tragic past. "Hiroshima considers it our duty to build in civil society a consensus that the people of the world must unite to achieve nuclear weapons abolition and lasting world peace," he said. In his speech, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said each country must step up efforts to "remove a sense of mistrust through mutual involvement and dialogue," amid the severe security environment and widening differences between nations' positions on nuclear disarmament.