Free Republic

Countries around Asia are honouring their dead and calling for peace, as they mark the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II in the Pacific. In Japan, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi said his nation felt "deep remorse" for the aggression shown towards its neighbours during the war. Commemorative services are also taking place in other Asian nations. But across the region, many still feel that Japan has yet to fully face up to, and atone for, its wartime actions. The war in the Pacific, which finally ended on 15 August 1945, killed millions of people from the jungles...

As his celebrated 1993 speech in Memphis to the Church of God in Christ demonstrated, former President Bill Clinton is capable of soaring eloquence and visionary thinking. But as those who heard his deadening speech nominating Michael Dukakis at the 1988 Democratic National Convention in Atlanta well know, he is also capable of numbing, self-conscious garrulity. Unfortunately for the reader, Mr. Clinton's much awaited new autobiography "My Life" more closely resembles the Atlanta speech, which was so long-winded and tedious that the crowd cheered when he finally reached the words "In closing . . ." The book, which weighs in...