The United Nations was founded in the aftermath of World War II, just as the world was beginning to learn the full horrors of history's worst genocide, the Holocaust that consumed 6 million Jews and 3 million others in Europe.

In our modern world of interdependent nations, hardly any state can wage war successfully without raising loans and buying war materials of every kind in the markets of other nations.

In wartime, everyone's birthday turns into a commemoration of something so sad.

The United Nations was founded 70 years ago, at the end of World War II. Since that time, Japan has steadfastly walked the path of peace and rebuilt a nation. And, since the mid-1950s onward, we have actively worked to share our experience of development with other nations, especially in Asia.

World War II and the ensuing Cold War compelled the United States to develop a sustained commitment to Western Europe and the Far East.

As the Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel warned years ago, to forget a holocaust is to kill twice.