By APRIL ELKJER
Nichi Bei Times

"I believe that our marching and our standing together with them, these images will go back to Burma and gives them hope and gives them faith. For Aung San Suu Kyi for the people of Burma and for all those for 45 years have suffered," said Dharma teacher Jack Kornfield. "That it will give them heart and it will give them the flame and spirit that we all know that allows for freedom for all human beings all over the world."

By ALEC YOSHIO MacDONALD
Nichi Bei Times Contributor

OAKLAND — "The people who founded the League of Women Voters of California probably never imagined somebody like me ever heading the organization, even 87 years later," reflected Janis Hirohama. Yet there she was on a Saturday morning in downtown Oakland, serving her duties as recently elected president for one of the state’s oldest political nonprofit groups.

FORT BENNING, Ga. — On Aug. 8, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Vincent Hichiro Okamoto was inducted into the Ranger Hall of Fame (RHOF), the fourth Japanese American (and first since WWII) to receive the honor. Col. Paul J. LaCamera, commanding officer of the 75^th Ranger Regiment, presented a medallion and lapel pin to this year"s 17 inductees at the Marshall Auditorium in Fort Benning, Georgia, where the regiment and RHOF are located.

By APRIL ELKJER
Nichi Bei Times

"We are so sorry for your journalist killed by the Burmese," stated Burmese American Democratic Alliance board member Mr. Ohn Myint. It was a brutal killing we are very sorry about that. Reports around the world should condemn these actions."

Kyodo News

NAHA, Japan — About 110,000 people staged a rally in Okinawa on Saturday demanding that the education ministry retract its instruction to history textbook publishers to remove references to the Japanese military’s forcing of civilians to commit mass suicide during the 1945 Battle of Okinawa.

By MAYUKO TOKITA
Asahi Shimbun

TOKYO — Tokyo's Ikebukuro district has no colorful arches or lanterns like the ones that adorn the established Chinatowns in Yokohama, Kobe and Nagasaki. But once you step out of JR Ikebukuro Station from the north exit, you are assailed by the unmistakable sounds, sights and aromas of a new Chinatown in the making.

By BEN HAMAMOTO
Nichi Bei Times

"Why does everything have to be some big statement about race?" Ben Tanaka, the main character in Adrian Tomine's new book, "Shortcomings," proclaims. For the entirety of his career, Tomine has told human stories in which race and politics, if present at all, are relegated to the background or subtext.