EDITORIALS Young Japanese today probably can hardly comprehend how bizarre the 1973 abduction of Kim Dae Jung from Tokyo to South Korea looked at that time. It was a high-profile international crime with all the cloak-and-dagger trappings of the Cold War era: dark secrets about cozy relations among the powerful and diplomatic settlements to cover up an inconvenient truth. A new report from South Korea has shed fresh light on this incident. [ASAHI]

EDITORIALS The issue of the 1973 abduction of then South Korean opposition leader Kim Dae Jung, while he was in Tokyo, raises the question of how Japan should deal with such a state crime. [YOMIURI]

EDITORIALS China’s Communist Party wrapped up its Congress on Sunday after endorsing a number of policy and leadership changes for President Hu Jintao’s second five-year term, which runs through 2012. [ASAHI]

EDITORIALS “Genkai shuraku,” which literally means “areas that have reached their limit,” is a term that denotes remote communities where people aged 65 and older make up more than half the population and are on the verge of becoming unable to perform their daily activities.

EDITORIALS It goes to show what a huge price must be paid for betraying consumers by falsifying information on the labels of food products. [YOMIURI]

EDITORIALS Commenting on the reported cover-up in May 2003 concerning the Maritime Self-Defense Force’s refueling mission in the Indian Ocean, an irate Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda told the media on Monday: “What (the MSDF officers) did was unconscionable. It even raises suspicions about my role in the matter.“ [ASAHI]

EDITORIALS It’s a stunning example of the government’s failure to act. Hundreds of people who were exposed to the hepatitis C virus through tainted blood products were never told about the risks–even though the health ministry was notified of the related facts at least five years ago. [ASAHI]

EDITORIALS An essential question to be explored in relation to Japan’s contribution to the global fight against terrorism is what kind of role this country should play in this regard, with its national interests in mind. [YOMIURI]

EDITORIALS Does former Vice Defense Minister Takemasa Moriya think the nation will believe he was ignorant of the ethics regulations that ban Self-Defense Force personnel from golfing with parties holding interests when he played golf with a friend from a military defense contractor? [ASAHI]

EDITORIALS Documents related to a hepatitis C virus-tainted blood product, which the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry previously said they did not possess, now have been found. The incident is similar to past problems surrounding HIV-tainted blood products. [YOMIURI]

EDITORIALS The long-standing “taboo” of debating an increase in the consumption tax rate has apparently been lifted by the government. [YOMIURI]

EDITORIALS The Cabinet Office on Wednesday presented its estimates of long-term projections for social security programs and the revenues needed to pay for them to the Council on Economic and Fiscal Policy. We welcome this development if it kicks off long-awaited head-on debate on the issue. [ASAHI]

EDITORIALS To allow the Maritime Self-Defense Force to continue its refueling operation in the Indian Ocean, the government submitted to the Diet on Wednesday a bill to authorize the mission. The current anti-terrorism special measures law authorizing the operation expires on Nov. 1. [ASAHI]

EDITORIALS Japan has the responsibility to dispose of poison gas weapons that the former Imperial Japanese Army abandoned in China at the end of World War II. [ASAHI]

EDITORIALS We can no longer tolerate unsolicited spam e-mail rife with suspicious content sent to personal computers and mobile telephones. [YOMIURI]

EDITORIALS Descriptions in school textbooks of mass civilian suicides during the Battle of Okinawa in 1945 appear destined to be changed again, after a wave of furious protest in Okinawa Prefecture triggered by the removal of such passages in high school history textbooks. [ASAHI]

EDITORIALS The Japan Boxing Commission on Monday meted out stiff punishment to pro boxing’s Kameda family–father Shiro, eldest son Koki, and second son Daiki. [ASAHI]

EDITORIALS Japan must not abandon the war that the international community is waging against terrorism. It is a matter of course for the government and the ruling camp to do their utmost to quickly establish new legislation to replace the current Antiterrorism Law. [YOMIURI]

EDITORIALS With two months to go until South Korea’s quinquennial presidential election on Dec. 19, the ruling United New Democratic Party (UNDP) held a primary on Monday and nominated Chung Dong Young, 54, as its candidate. [ASAHI]

EDITORIALS The Democratic Party of Japan has a major role to play in helping carry out necessary government policies as the dominant force in the House of Councillors. Given its position as the largest opposition party, the DPJ should put itself on an equal footing with the government and submit to the Diet its own bills […] [YOMIURI]