Visit makes history

Japan’s first lady Akie Abe made an unofficial visit to Pearl Harbor on Monday, where she paid tribute to Americans killed in Japan’s surprise attack on the United States naval base in Hawaii on December 7, 1941. Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said yesterday Abe made her visit as a private individual, and it was not an indication that her husband, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, would visit as well. A visit by Shinzo Abe would be the first by an incumbent Japanese PM. In May, Barack Obama became the first sitting US president to visit Hiroshima, one of two cities the US hit with atomic bombs in 1945.