President Barack Obama Visits Hiroshima as the first seated President to do so

President Obama to Make Historic Visit to Hiroshima
Barack Obama will become the first serving U.S. president to visit Hiroshima during a trip to Japan later this month, the White House announced Tuesday.

The historic visit will "highlight his continued commitment to pursuing the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons," it said in a statement. He will travel to the site where America dropped the atomic bomb during World War Il in the company of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, as part of a wider trip that will also include Vietnam.

Abe said that the visit was a "very big decision" for Obama, and said he welcomed the president 'Trom the bottom of my heart. " "Seventy years ago, so many people were mercilessly killed by the dropping of the atomic bomb," he told reporters. "I would like this visit to be an opportunity to honor all the victims in Japan and in the United States.

He said Japan had "consistently called for the abolition of nuclear weapons." "By having President Obama visit Hiroshima and see the realities of radiation exposure, and by having him communicate his thoughts and feelings to the world, I believe this will lend great power towards a world without nuclear weapons," Abe added.

Secretary of State John Kerry last month became the to visit Hiroshima, laying a wreath and describing the museum there as "stunning" and "gut-wrenching." Former President Jimmy Carter toured the site in 1984, and Nancy Pelosi visited in 2008 while Speaker of the House of Representatives.

The U.S. dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, killing an estimated 140,000 people, on Aug. 6, 1945. Nagasaki was hit three days later.

Many Americans believe the atomic attacks were justified and hastened the end of the war. However,
Japanese survivors' groups have campaigned for decades to bring leaders from the U.S. and other nuclear powers to see Hiroshima's scars as part of a grassroots movement to abolish such weapons.
Obama's Japan visit coincides with his final G-7 Summit meeting in Ise-Shima.
Excerpted from President Obama 'o Make Historic Visit to Hiroshima - NBC News



Works Cited

Yamamoto, Arata. "President Obama to Make Historic Trip to Hiroshima." NBC News. N.p., 10 May 2016. Web. 10 May 2016.

Response:

Before opening the link to this article, I was taken aback a little after reading the title. I'm surprised that no other president of the United States has ever visited Hiroshima, Japan. Not only does this show progress, healing, and peace, but it symbolizes a possible future end to atomic weapons. President Abe of Japan in the interview stated that this could be the beginning of the end of atomic weapons. Although this trip was controversial, I think President Obama made the right decision in visiting this desolated place. The bias is hard to define in this article, however I think because it was a controversial move for Obama to visit Hiroshima, the article seemed to favor him in going to Hiroshima, rather than not visiting the place at all. Keeping in mind that this is not an apology from the United States, it makes me wonder why Obama is even visiting the place though. I assume that that is why the decision was a little controversial.

Greenpeace's Unrest

Greenpeace publishes confidential U.S.-EU trade deal documents
BERLIN A sweeping free trade deal being negotiated between the European Union and the United States would lower food safety and environmental standards, Greenpeace said on Monday, citing confidential documents from the talks. 

But the European Commission said the documents reflected negotiating positions, not any final outcome, and the EU's chief negotiator dismissed some of Greenpeace's points as "flatly wrong."
The U.S. Trade Representative's offlce also rejected them. While it would not comment on the "validity of alleged leaks," a spokesman said "the interpretations being given to these texts appear to be misleading at best and flat-out wrong at worst. " 

Greenpeace opposes the proposed Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), arguing with Other critics that it would hand too much power to big business at the expense Of consumers and national governments. 

Supporters say the T TIP would deliver more than $100 billion of economic gains on both sides of the Atlantic. Greenpeace Netherlands published 248 pages of "consolidated texts" for 13 chapters, or about half, of the deal on the website TTIP-leaks.org on Monday. They date from early April, before a round of meetings in New York last week. "We've done this to ignite a debate," Greenpeace trade expert Juergen Knirsch told a news conference in Berlin, adding that the documents showed the negotiations should be halted.

"The best thing the EU Commission can do is to say 'Sorry, we've made a mistake'. " European Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom called the leak a "storm in a teacup" and told an audience in Geneva the EU would not compromise its principles just to get a deal before U.S. President Barack Obama leaves office in January 2017. "If it is not good enough we just have to say 'Sorry but we have to put this on ice' and wait for the next administration. Obviously we lose time and momentum but we cannot agree to TTIP-lite or something that's not good enough," she said.

Greenpeace said the documents showed differences had become entrenched between the two sides of the Atlantic. Malmstrom said it was "not very dramatic" to say there were disagreements and the EU was being as open as possible about the negotiations. Knirsch said the texts showed the United States wanted to replace Europe's "precautionary principle" - which prevents potentially harmful products from coming to market when their effect is unknown or disputed - with a less stringent approach.
Malmstrom said the precautionary principle was part of the "acquis" - the laws binding the EU together - and Greenpeace's assertion was not true.

Malmstrom called on EU governments to do more to explain TTIP's merits to their populations.
NO CHANGES ON GMOS
In Europe, there is widespread opposition to allowing more imports of U.S. agricultural products due to concerns about genetically modified foods. In Brussels, EU chief negotiator Ignacio Garcia Bercero dismissed Greenpeace's comments on the precautionary principle, adding: "We have made crystal clear that we would not agree on anything that implies changes of our regulatory regime on GMOs (genetically modified organisms). " The negotiators aim to have "consolidated texts" by July, when a 14th round of talks is due to be held. They would then try to settle the thornier issues in the second half of 2016. A survey published last month by the Bertelsmann Foundation showed waning support for a TTIP deal in both Germany and the United States after three years of negotiations. 

A spokesman for the German government said it was still working to complete a deal. An Economy
Ministry spokeswoman said Germany would not accept lower food safety standards.
(Additional reporting by Phil Blenkinsop in Brussels, Tom Miles in Geneva, Toby Sterling in Amsterdam and Susan Heavey in Washington; Editing by Andrew Roche and Andrea Ricci)

Works Cited:

Copley, Caroline. "Greenpeace Publishes Confidential U.S.-EU Trade Deal Documents." Reuters. Thomson Reuters, 02 May 2016. Web. 02 May 2016.

Response:

Greenpeace, being respected internationally and even acknowledged by the UN, is attempting to try to cause commotion and stir a movement as it sees various deals potentially dangerous not just to the EU, but to the world. The TTIP, a very controversial trade agreement, is one of the main components of Greenpeace's argument and it appears that they disagree with the GMOs being traded from the US to the EU, and they also are against the amount of power national governments and large businesses are given through the success of this trade agreement. It surprises me that Greenpeace would publish leaked documents on a website like ttip-leaks.org, and not publish them on a more open forum. I find it interesting how these documents from this trade agreement are leaked when the US government supposedly published the full document on one of its sites. Of course it must be difficult to navigate, but it shows the secrecy of this trade agreement, and beckons the question of what is actually happening behind closed doors?

Concerning bias, I would have to say that the bias is leaning on the side of Greenpeace and against the opposition from the EU and US.