On December 13, 1937, the city of Nanjing fell to the invading Japanese army.
The date is now observed as a memorial for the victims of the Nanjing Massacre. Today’s Yangtse Evening Post, published out of Nanjing, shows city residents standing out in the first rain of the winter amid an array of 3,000 candles (representing the official estimate of 300,000 victims).
The a wall engraved with names at the city’s Memorial Hall is undergoing enlargement to accommodate the names of additional victims.
Today’s top news headline reports that the number of students taking the entrance exam to arts academies has fallen for two years in a row. The trend is blamed on low acceptance rates and, possibly more importantly, low employment rates.
At the bottom of the page are headlines concerning the suicide of Mark Madoff, the son of convicted stock swindler Bernie Madoff, and a riot in Moscow that resulted in the arrest of 65 people.
Conspicuously absent from the front page is any mention of the opening ceremony to the 2010 Asian Para Games, held last night in Guangzhou.