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Barack Obama urged to attend Hiroshima memorial

Sixty-four years after he survived the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Japanese fashion designer Issey Miyake has broken his silence on his memories of that day to invite President Barack Obama to attend this year's memorial event.

In an opinion article in The New York Times entitled A Flash of Memory, 71-year-old Miyake said he had not previously discussed his experiences on August 6, 1945, because he did not "want to be labelled 'the designer who survived the bomb'".

Miyake was 7 when the first atom bomb was dropped on his home town. He describes a bright red light, the black mushroom cloud and people running in all directions as they tried to escape.
Read entire article at Telegraph (UK)