In an exclusive extract from his memoir, Kiyoshi Tanimoto describes the terrifying trip across the city to locate his wife and child

• ‘I didn’t want to be a victim of the bomb’: read an interview with Tanimoto’s daughter Koko Kondo

Most of the people of Hiroshima had neither seen nor heard any plane. They heard no sound of explosion. They had seen only a strange flash in open daylight, or merely felt the reflection of the flash. However, there had been a tremendous explosion.

The parents of Mr Konda, one of our church members, had been waiting for a train at Yokogawa station, located 2km [one and a quarter miles] away from the centre of the bomb’s explosion. They saw a B-29 and a parachute dropping through the air. Before they had time to wonder at the sight, they fell unconscious. Afterward, they could not remember sensing any sound or light. When they regained consciousness, they found themselves lying on the ground, burned and without any clothing. The houses all around had been crushed to the ground. After getting to their feet, they ran toward the suburbs. Other people rushing along the Koi highway had the same experience.

On that fateful day in 1945, Kondo was just a baby in her mother’s arms. She talks about her father’s newly discovered eye-witness account of the aftermath – and why she decided to continue his work as a peace campaigner

• ‘Everywhere there were pitifully injured people’: read an extract from Kiyoshi Tanimoto’s memoir

Koko Kondo holds up a tiny salmon-pink dress. “This is what I was wearing,” she says. The dress, with its white-ribboned collar, is in perfect condition. A miracle. On 6 August 1945, Koko was eight months old and crawling on a tatami mat at the family parsonage. Mrs Takaki, a member of the church, had just popped round to have a chat with Chisa, Koko’s mother. Chisa gathered Koko up in her arms so she wouldn’t be a distraction, and they stood by the door. It was 8.15am; a serene summer day in Hiroshima. That was when the uranium-fuelled atom bomb, named Little Boy by the Americans, was dropped. The most deadly bomb in history. Koko and Chisa were buried in the rubble, unable to move. The parsonage roof had crashed down on them. For 40 years, Chisa couldn’t bear to tell Koko about the day, the pink dress, and how they survived. It was too painful.

Today, 81 years on, Koko is talking to me via video link. She is an elegant woman with a kind face and a vertiginous silver quiff. She speaks quietly in perfect English, then surprises you by stamping on a word fiercely to make her point. The virtual background to her screen is the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park, which was built on ground zero, the point directly underneath where the bomb exploded.

The agreement offers the Saudis the same options Trump has sworn Iran will never have

The stark contrast between Donald Trump’s nuclear deal with Saudi Arabia and his nuclear demands for Iran would be comical if not so tragic. Trump has handed the Saudis the same nuclear options he swore Iran would never have.

To make matters worse, Trump seems to have offered the Saudis this sweetheart deal to make amends for his disastrous war of choice with Iran. Meanwhile, he continues to bomb Iran in a push to open the strait of Hormuz, which was not closed until Trump launched his counterproductive war.

The US will help Saudi Arabia establish a civilian nuclear program, but critics have said it could lead to domestic enrichment and set off a regional arms race

• Middle East crisis – live updates

The US and Saudi Arabia have agreed a landmark deal that would use American technology and expertise to establish a civilian nuclear program in the Gulf country, a move that has caused alarm across the Middle East and through the corridors of power in Washington.

Much of the deal remains unclear, but concerns centre on whether Saudi Arabia would have the capability to enrich uranium domestically, and what that means for nuclear proliferation.

Donald Trump said to have approved agreement to help kingdom make fuel for civilian reactors, which observers fear could pave the way to a nuclear weapon

Donald Trump has approved an agreement with Saudi Arabia that could provide the kingdom with uranium enrichment capability for its civilian nuclear programme, according to news reports citing people familiar with the matter.

The people, who were not authorised to comment publicly about the yet to be formally announced decision, said the agreement may be announced as early as Wednesday. The deal was reported by both the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times.

Beijing may be using Youlin Chen’s knowledge to devise ways of staging nuclear tests without detection, advocates for his release from spying charges suggest

An American seismologist has been detained in China on espionage charges since 2024, his family has revealed, saying Donald Trump’s direct appeal for the scientist’s release to his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, went unanswered.

Youlin Chen – who has researched how to detect underground nuclear tests using seismological data – was detained on 5 November 2024, according to a statement from the NGO Global Reach, which is working with his family to secure his freedom.

Humans have long sought to geoengineer the Earth’s environment. Tim Flannery outlines a few of the wildest ideas from the 20th century

An increasing number of scientists think we have let the climate crisis fester for so long that our only hope to stave off ever-intensifying catastrophes is to use technological interventions. Cloud brightening, injecting sulphur into the atmosphere and the use of tiny mirrors in space – all of which might reduce the amount of sunlight reaching Earth’s surface – are among the concepts being promoted by entrepreneurs and governments alike. Geoengineering, they argue, is now inevitable.

Ever since the God of the Old Testament granted our species dominion over the Earth, ideas of remaking the world to better suit us have been a dominant thread in human thinking. We have for centuries toyed with grand ambitions to alter and re-form the climate and environment, many of which – in retrospect – seem doomed or absurd.

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Sir Keir Starmer cuts civilian investment while deepening reliance on American power. That doesn’t feel like national renewal

Since Brexit, Daphne du Maurier’s final novel, Rule Britannia, has been seen as a prescient warning about the UK cutting itself adrift from Europe. After joining and then leaving the EU’s predecessor, the Common Market, in a referendum, Du Maurier imagined the UK facing such economic instability that its prime minister submits to a US takeover. Britain is occupied by US forces, sparking an uprising that eventually forces them to leave. Sir Keir Starmer’s defence investment plan (Dip) would not belong in Du Maurier’s novel, but has the same nightmare logic: a Britain adrift from Europe told that fiscal necessity and national security require deeper incorporation into American power.

It shows the strain inside Sir Keir’s government that the plan took a year to move from strategic defence review to partial funding plan. John Healey, the former defence secretary, resigned after deciding that the Treasury’s offer could not fund the strategy. His successor, Dan Jarvis, told MPs that the plan was worth £298bn over four years, which is £15bn above last year’s spending review settlement. Mr Jarvis said that he had secured £1.5bn more than was on offer when he arrived. Against the defence ministry’s demands, that looks less like a breakthrough than proof of why Mr Healey walked.