Xinhua News Agency reported in October 2009 that Nishimatsu Construction Co. “secured a reconciliation” by voluntarily agreeing to compensate Chinese victims of wartime forced labor in Japan, after resisting the redress claim for more than a decade. But questions have arisen regarding the content of the settlement, and whether it might foreshadow greater Japanese willingness to address past injustices. (The Japanese text of the settlement is available.)

Tsukishita Miki, an A-bomb survivor, recently sent copies of the following letter to the mayors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as well as to the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo shortly before U.S. President Barack Obama visited Japan on November 13. Tsukishita was four years and seven months old when the city of Hiroshima was destroyed and many civilians instantly annihilated by the atomic bombing on the morning of August 6, 1945. He was four kilometers away from the hypocenter when the atomic bomb exploded. Miraculously he survived.

Regardless of rhetoric, there is little doubt that North Korea is not prepared to give up its nuclear capability any time soon. Although it might simply be a bargaining position, Pyongyang has even made it clear that there can be no such outcome until the whole world becomes free of nuclear weapons. That creates a new strategic reality – even if we do not recognize North Korea as a nuclear power, we will have to live side by side with it as a defacto nuclear possessing state for a considerable period of time. While the United States is separated from it by an ocean, for Russia, China and South Korea there is just a river or a border. How are all the parties concerned going to deal with this country?

How is it that today in the diverse, multi-ethnic polity of Malaysia (where government figures give a population breakdown of 65% Bumiputra, 26% Chinese and 8% Indian), a single ethnic group completely controls - and occupies virtually all positions in - the judiciary, public administrative organs, the police, the armed forces and increasingly the universities? While Malays constitute a majority of the population of this nation, their presence in all these spheres of power far exceeds their ratio within the general population. How did this situation emerge and how has it evolved?

This article addresses the struggles of two manga artists, Kōno Fumiyo and Nishioka Yuka, who attempt to portray the unprecedented tragedies of Hiroshima and Nagasaki for a contemporary audience, and how they come to terms with their authority to write this history as non-hibakusha.