National Holiday in Vietnam.

Today is the National Holiday of Vietnam, the day when Vietnam declared an independence from French colonization. Today in Hanoi is much quieter than normal days probably because everyone is spending time with her or his family at home.

I am quite proud of Vietnam when it comes to the topic of war. Vietnam protected its nation from France, China and the US, all of which had (even now) strong militaries. Not only this fact, but also the fact that Vietnam did not ask these nations for compensation is impressive.

Unlike Japan, Vietnam only pursued its independence and democracy. Even now, Vietnam is fighting against China over the territory of South China Sea. But today, let's just celebrate the independence of my another mother country. :)

Innovation!!!!

http://www.ted.com/talks/michael_pritchard_invents_a_water_filter#t-16649

This is the old news, but I just found out from my geography class.
I always thought that clean water had to come from big filtering machines, which many people in LEDCs cannot afford to implement. Even when the clean water is filtered, it has to be packed and transported to the place where people need.

Instead of taking so much money and time on man-made water, why cannot we just have this portable and innovative water bottles? I know water is used not only for drinking, but I think this bottle is one of the most innovative products which will act as a pioneer to improve quality of life.

The World Bank in the Loess Plateau, China

Today, I learned the World Bank's strategy to solve the severe land degradation in the Loess Plateau, China.

In short, what this organization has done was to bring greens back to the desert. The transformation from desert to green land was just impressive.

I often talk about international peace in this blog, but I realized that unsustainable environment should be also the big issue which human face today.

We should check out more about environmental issues!

What is Wrong with Having Vacations?

This is a coincidence,but there is nothing to complain about the US president and the Japanese Prime Minister.

A few days ago, Hiroshima had a huge landslide in which some citizens are still  missing. However, the critic's focus on this incident was that the Prime Minister of Japan, Mr.Abe, was playing golf on his vacation when the landslide just occurred.

On the contrary, Mr.Obama has a similar situation in which some people criticize him for playing golf after he showed heartbroken feeling in his speech about the execusion of an American journalist.

In my opinion, we are all humans and need a rest. Of course, they are the leaders of big nations and need to be responsive to any crisis, but it does not mean they cannot have vacations during their presidencies.

End of the World War and Japan's Responsibility

For Japanese people, 15th of August is when our emperor announced the Japan's defeat in the World War Second.

When this day comes, I always think how devastatingly Japan took over its neighbouring countries. I can admit that Japan was wrong even though it was the time of the World War.

However, nowadays, it does not mean we can always look back and regret what our ancestors did;because we are the ones who invaded the countries and the only one who was bombed by nuclear bombs, we should know what peace is supposed to be and how we can bring a peace for the present and even future generations.

We cannot change history, but I believe we can change the present and the future, depending on how we act.

As a country which experienced the severe wars, I think Japan can or should take further actions to contribute to the world security.

Summer Books!

Although I did not have enough time to engage in something so new in this summer break(had many preparatory works for the senior year), I started reading some interesting books.

The first book is called "Ikegami Akira's World Religion" written obviously by Mr.Ikegami Akira, my favorite Japanese journalist and professor at the Tokyo Institute of Technology. This book talks the fundamental knowledge regarding influential world religions:Islam, Christiananity and Judaism.

What encouraged me to learn about religion was that many current affairs including the conflict between Israel and Gaza involves religion; thus I realized that religion plays large parts in international affairs, which suggests having some knowledge will be important!

The second book I read is called "The Politics Book" written by an English professor at the London School of Economics and Political Science. This book also talks about fundamental knowledge of politics. 

What encouraged me to read this was that I like reading news articles, especially those about international politics, so I thought having some background knowledge will enhance my understanding of current political affairs.

I have not finished these books yet and will not probably finish within year since I will be busy with my school works. However, I will try to learn new things just piece by piece.

Finally, Israel Left from Gaza Strip.

I assume most of people already know that Israel army left from Gaza strip, and the number of reported deaths has reached almost 2000.

Overall, I find this incident quite ridiculous and immoral because Israel attacked anywhere war-related equipments were potentially hidden.(a school established by the UN)

More noticeably, ceasefires were always temporal even though the UN strongly condemned what Israel was doing; thus, I find the UN's negotiations for a halt ineffective. Eventually, Israel did not stop until it achieved its initial goal.

From this attack, I often wonder what the best way to resolve any wars is. Mr.Ikegami, a Japanese journalist, said war is something that people can easily get into and cannot easily get out, with which I totally agree. Perhaps, the best way is to prevent a war rather than to stop. Then how do we prevent a war?