Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi visited the Memorial Hall of the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression as his first arrangement of his one-day visit to China on October 12. Koizumi expressed an apology and mourning for those Chinese people who died during the war and wrote the character “Zhong Shu” in the visitor's book at the Memorial Hall, explaining that the words mean pleading for sympathy, understanding and forgiveness. As the second Japanese prime minister to visit the site, following Tomiichi Murayama in 1995, Koizumi’s gesture was described by Chinese president Jiang Zemin as “a meaningful action” which would improve bilateral ties.

Recently, some 25 of a group of illegal immigrants who were taken by smugglers from the Chinese port of Ningbo in pursuit of the "Korean Dream" were suffocated in a fish hold with no ventilation and were dumped overboard on Sunday night into waters near the southern port of Yosu, 320 km (190 miles) south of Seoul. Both Chinese and South government were shocked by this unhappy accident. The South Korean government has apologized to China. The gruesome deaths once more highlighted the risks run by Chinese trying to go abroad to make a pile. In June last year, 58 Chinese stowaways, in their early 20s, died in the suffocating heat of the container of a lorry that arrived in British port Dover.

US Strikes Back

America has launched a series of attacks against Afghanistan’s Taliban regime, while at the same time dropping food, medicine and leaflets. So far, four Afghan workers employed by the United Nations' mine-clearing organization and, it was reported, scores of civilians in the capital, Kabul, and the southern city of Kandahar were killed in the bombing. America said it had achieved air supremacy over Afghanistan.

America's Homeland Defence

Fearing that their assault on Afghanistan may result in fresh terrorist attacks back home, the Americans are on high alert for terrorist reprisals. On October 8, President Bush installed former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge as head of a new Office of Homeland Security. “America is going to be prepared,” Bush pledged.

A Russian airliner carrying up to 78 passengers and crew on a flight from Israel exploded and plunged into the Black Sea on October 4 in unexplained circumstances. The plane might have been hit by an accidental missile strike from the Ukrainian military, according to experts.

Just three days later, two planes with 114 passengers and crew and the four cargo handlers collided at Milan's Linate airport. All the 114 passengers and crews were pronounced dead in the accident. A combination of human error and bad weather were almost certainly to be responsible for the disaster. Terrorism was ruled out as a possible cause, according to the Italian Interior Ministry.

Flying, the dream of human being, now has been the most dangerous enemy to their safety.