Lee Hak Rae was a Korean youth who went to work at age fifteen supervising prisoners of the Japanese mobilized to build the Burma-Thailand Railway. Hintok, where he served, was the most dangerous place along the railway. Prisoners called it “Hellfire Pass.” Of approximately 700 Australians, 100 died there, mainly from overwork and diseases such as dysentery and cholera. Lee was indicted by an Australian court in Singapore on September 25, 1946, but on October 24 his case was dismissed. In Hong Kong, en route to Japan, he was again forced to return to Singapore. On March 10, 1947 he was indicted for a second time.

In the last decade, numerous film and print media treatments of the Second World War have focused on the “soldier's perspective.” Because the wartime generation is now rapidly disappearing, postwar generations have become especially eager to know the war. In particular, there is a hunger to learn how it was experienced by ordinary servicemen—a focus popularized most effectively by historian John Keegan (and film directors such as Clint Eastwood, Oliver Stone, and Francis Ford Coppola). Scholars and war history buffs alike seek “reliable” accounts of the war; presumably, the best histories of the war are those that rest on a firm foundation of the most “reliable” sources. Certainly, the larger historical narrative of the war is incomplete without adequate attention to the personal records that servicemen kept at the time, such as diaries and letters. Nevertheless, like any document, it is essential to pay close attention to the assumptions shared by the authors of these documents and their audiences today, especially regarding the “truth” such texts putatively contain.

On Saturday 25 August 2007, NHK broadcast a programme called Seishonen no jisatsu o kangaeyo [Let's reflect on youth suicide]. The programme was prompted by the National police agency's publication of new statistics on the problem of youth suicide. In 2006, 886 Japanese youths took their own lives, invariably in response to bullying. ‘Youth’ as defined by the NPA refers to primary, middle, secondary school as well as university students. The 2006 figure was the highest since records began. It comes hard on the heels of other statistics demonstrating that Japan's annual suicide figures have hit 30,000 for the 9th year in succession.

This paper explores conflicting representations of Japanese fishing practices in a joint venture company in the Pacific. Western and Islander representations frequently included suspicions that Japanese management was cheating their local partner and engaging in illegal and ecologically destructive fishing practices. In contrast, Japanese self-identified as as socially and ecologically responsible in contrast to the callous disregard for employment security and destructive industrial fishing methods used by Americans. Analysis of these different perspectives shows underlying conflict about whose development assistance is best, with Islander perspectives demonstrating postcolonial reactions to their continued subordination in the world system.

By Chinese standards, the city of Yanji is rather small, with a population of nearly 400,000. About a third of them are ethnic Koreans: Yanji is the capital of Yanbian autonomous prefecture in the northeastern province of Jilin, the ethnic home of the large Korean minority in the area. The prefecture is close to the borders of North Korea and Russia.

This article was originally written for a Japanese audience. My purpose was to inform them of the developments leading up to the passage of the “comfort women” resolution in the House of Representatives. I did not, therefore, devote much space to describe the tireless efforts made by Japanese scholars, lawyers, and activists who have long kept the “comfort women” issue alive. Their dedication to the historical truth and the victims resulted in such accomplishments as the creation of Women's Active Museum on War and Peace in Tokyo and the 56 consecutive issues of the “The Report on Japan's War Responsibility” published by the Center for Research and Documentation of Japan's War Responsibility.

Funafuti Atoll~A straight well-paved road leads to the northern tip of Fongafale Islet. In some places it is so narrow it feels like a causeway. Reverend Fr. Camille Desrosiers slowly drives his van pointing at modest landmarks of his adoptive country. He is 78 years old, originally from Quebec, Canada. He arrived in the Pacific in 1956 and never left, helping the impoverished people, drifting from one small island nation to another: first Samoa, later Tokelau now Tuvalu.