These drawings and paintings by Japanese survivors of the atomic bomb were created more than a quarter century after the bombs fell on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945. They are provided courtesy of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum and form part of a much larger archive of more than 2,000 images and annotations. Posted at Japan Focus on April 27, 2005.

Written on the eve of Japan's dispatch of Self-Defense Forces (army) to Iraq, a major step in the erosion of the peace constitution, this article examines three issues central to understanding the contemporary Japanese military and society. The first of these is the question of the willingness of SDF forces to go to Iraq at a time when strong opposition to its dispatch surfaced in Japanese society. Based on questionnaires and interviews with SDF personnel, the article examines SDF views concerning deployment to Iraq as well as constitutional issues. The second is the nature of the movement seeking to elicit opinions and support resistance to the dispatch to Iraq, from within the ranks of the SDF. This may be viewed as a successor to the Vietnam-era movement that supported GI resistance among US troops stationed in Okinawa and Japan. The third is the existence of serious problems within the SDF, particularly bullying of recruits and suicides that have soared in recent years. This article appeared in the November, 2004 issue of Sekai (World), pp. 47-54. Posted at Japan Focus on February 15, 2005.

On Oct 25, 2005 a three-judge panel of the Tokyo District Court upheld a lawsuit filed by 25 leprosy (Hansen's disease) patients from Taiwan claiming compensation from the Japanese government for being forcibly segregated during Japanese colonial rule. On the same day, another panel of judges ruled against 117 South Korean leprosy patients seeking compensation who had also been quarantined during the colonial era.

Ikiteiru heitai (Living soldiers or Soldiers alive) by Ishikawa Tatsuzo (1905-1985) is arguably the best piece of war literature to emerge from the Sino-Japanese War of 1937 to 1945. In Japan, the novella has been published and republished throughout the postwar era, most recently as a Chuko Bunko in 1999, and is now available for the first time in English [1]. Providing a strong indictment not only of the conduct of the Japanese military in China but also of war itself, Ikiteiru heitai is a powerful, deeply disturbing work

Stephen Roach, chief economist for Morgan Stanley, might also be introduced as their chief iconoclast and contrarian. In these latter roles he regularly challenges the optimistic consensus on the basis of facts and analyses that tend to be ignored as the herd embraces a new trend. For example, while numerous analysts confidently hold that asset-based (rather than income-based) consumption can continue to power the US economy, Roach has been raising doubts about this for years. As America's housing bubble slides and leaves a swathe of consumers stuck with exorbitant mortgage payments, their “propensity to consume” is falling and Roach is looking prescient (again). The American housing bubble is only beginning to slide, but this may be one reason that growth in consumption has recently slipped to 1.5% after recording a robust 4% for the past decade.

As Japan's trade with South Korea and China continues to surge, there is mounting evidence of growing mistrust of Japan among its near neighbors. A recent poll conducted by Japan's Yomiuri and South Korea's Hankook newspapers is indicative. The poll comes in the wake of angry South Korean responses to Japanese claims to Takeshima/Tokdo islands, Prime Minister Koizumi Junichiro's widely publicized Yasukuni Shrine visits, and the continuing controversy over Japanese textbook treatments of colonialism and war.]

Attempting to observe Central and Inner Asia from North America or Europe is like looking through a glass that is badly refracted, or even like trying to view the invisible. I propose a new approach toward the understanding of Central and Inner Asia that actively takes stock of East Asian countries’ activities, interests, perspectives, and scholarship in the region, and that interrogates dominant definitions of Asian regionalism.

During the next three months, North Korea will unload its nuclear reactor at Yongbyon, removing fuel rods that can be reprocessed into plutonium for more nuclear weapons. Once again, Pyongyang is offering to negotiate a freeze that would prevent further reprocessing, as it did in June, 1994, leading to the Agreed Framework, and as it has repeatedly offered to do in the six-party talks.

Nowadays, when we think of feature-length animation, our thoughts turn immediately to “Shrek” and Pixar (or less fondly, to “Robots” and “Madagascar”). The animated world, we've learned, is round - created in three dimensions by teams of computer wizards and enlivened by noisy, knowing references to American pop culture, past and present. It may seem somewhat paradoxical, then, that the world's greatest living animated-filmmaker - a designation that his fans at Disney and Pixar would be unlikely to challenge - is Hayao Miyazaki, a Japanese writer and director whose world is flat, handmade and often surpassingly quiet. Not that Mr. Miyazaki, 64, is entirely indifferent to technological advances. Starting with his 1997 epic, “Princess Mononoke,” he has used computer generated imagery in his movies, though he recently instituted a rule that CGI should account for no more than 10 percent of the images in any of his pictures.

[The movie “Original Child Bomb” aired on Saturday night August 6 at 5:30 p.m. on Sundance Cable, and several times the following week. Those interested in ordering it can write Mary Becker of the Thomas Merton Center at [email protected]]

New York In the weeks following the atomic attacks on Japan almost 60 years ago, and then for decades afterward, the United States engaged in airtight suppression of all film shot in Hiroshima and Nagasaki after the bombings. This included footage shot by U.S. military crews and Japanese newsreel teams. In addition, for many years all but a handful of newspaper photographs were seized or prohibited.

On 16 February 2005, the Shimane Prefectural Assembly passed an ordinance designed to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Japan's assumption of control over Takeshima Island by establishing a “Takeshima Day.” This exposed a fundamental problem in the relationship between Japan and South Korea and drew a severe response on the part of the South Korean people and government. On 17 February the South Korean government announced a shift in policy towards Japan in the unprecedented form of a statement from the Permanent Committee of its National Security Council.

There are dozens of brilliant war photographers, but there is only one Yoshito Matsushige.

For many years, Matsushige, 92, worked for a major metro daily called Chugoku Shimbun. He may not have been the greatest war photographer ever but he is unique: he took the only photographs in Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945, the day the first atomic bomb was detonated over the city, killing 150,000 people.

[C.P. CHANDRASEKHAR'S article on the rush of foreign financial institutions and investment funds to buy a share of China's big banks is fascinating and. Chandrasekar describes a frenzy to buy into deals that so lack transparency as to be - if you will - opaquely translucent. No matter. As is so common in our bubble-prone era as to pass without notice, the mere scent of speculative profits is enough to set billions of dollars flying across globalized borders. Never mind the proud claim that in the industrialized states no deal is ever done without complete transparency. But with the Renminbi likely to rise, and with the world's most dynamic economy, investors have rushed in blithely and blindly with billions.

Sixty years ago, during the evening of Aug. 14, 1945, Emperor Hirohito recorded the speech of surrender to be broadcast to the Japanese nation the next day at noon.

Aug. 15, 1945 found Sugihara Chiune, his wife, Yukiko, and their three little children in Romania, interned there by the Red Army. It was unclear what their fate would be. Japan had been officially at war with the Soviet Union, albeit for only a few days.

After years of hesitancy, India has now firmly acknowledged the strategic importance of the Andaman Sea. The Indian Navy is setting up a Far Eastern Naval Command (FENC) off Port Blair on the Andaman Islands - also known as the Bay Islands - located midway between the Bay of Bengal and the Malacca Strait - to give it “blue-water” status.

This contribution by the novelist Tawada Yoko is the second in an occasional series reflecting on East and West, on the geography and imaginative geography of Asia and the Pacific in global perspective. See Uradyn E. Bulag, Where is East Asia? Central Asian and Inner Asian Perspectives on Regionalism Find the article here: Kyoto Journal: Perspectives on Asia

Give the ceremonies back to the students.

We do not believe the board's methods will help nurture true affection for the flag and anthem in the minds of youngsters.

For the second year running, the Tokyo Metropolitan Board of Education took disciplinary action against staff members of public schools for not rising during graduation ceremonies when the “Kimigayo” national anthem was sung.