Today, Sunday, August, 15,  the 65th anniversary of the end of World War II, Prime Minister Naoto Kan of Japan, that nation's  new leader, took an important step to lead his country into the 21st century. The gentleman apologized for the suffering World War II caused.

The Associated Press reports, "Last week, Prime Minister Kan apologized to South Korea for its 1910-45 colonial rule. Imperialist Japan committed atrocities in Asia, including forcing Koreans to fight as front-line soldiers, work in slave-labor conditions and serve as prostitutes in military-run brothels."

Today, Prime Minister Kan broke with the past, he did not visit the Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo, which honors Japan's World War II dead, including her war criminals. The annual  pilgrimage to Yasukuni Shrine, led by the prime ministers of past governments, outraged Japan's Asian neighbors, whose populations suffered under Japanese aggression. The Associated Press reports that, the leaders of the now-opposition, the conservative Japanese Party, that goes by the name of the Liberal Democratic Party, and which "ruled Japan nearly continuously since the end of the war, made a point by carrying out their own trip to Yasukuni Shrine. About 40 legislators went to the shrine."

Prime Minister Kan has still much to do. His apology is a good gesture and a start.