Yasukuni Shrine is controversial for many people across East Asia since the shrine memorializes, among others, convicted Japanese war criminals.

On assignment, I traveled to Yasukuni Shrine and Chidorigafuchi National Cemetery. As a light rain fell, a long line of visitors stretched through the muggy precincts of Yasukuni Shrine.

End of War Memorial Day Many groups assembled around Yasukuni Shrine.

A shrine to Mary has existed on the site since 1462.

Legend has it that the king was the first pilgrim to this shrine.

The Mamluk governor of Jerusalem built a mosque and shrine there in the early 15th century.

It has been reliably reported that he wants to visit the shrine while in office this time.

But Koizumi also legitimized a new Japanese nationalism, antagonizing China and South Korea by his annual visits to the Yasukuni Shrine.

Barack and Michelle Obama photoshopped into Islamic attire in front of the Imam Redha shrine in Mashhad, Iran, a revered Shia site.

Then Zachariah came forth from the shrine to his people and told them by signs to glorify the Lord morning and evening .

Then Zachariah came forth from the shrine to his people and told them by signs to glorify the Lord morning and evening .

Meanwhile, thousands of people traveled to Yasukuni Shrine and neighboring Chidorigafuchi National Cemetery in Tokyo to pay their respects to the war dead.

It is the centre of tourism in Iran, and between 15 and 20 million pilgrims go to the Imam Reza's shrine every year.

History The stadium was completed in 1958 as the Japanese National Stadium on the site of the former Meiji Shrine Outer Park Stadium.

Abe has a reputation as a nationalist, and recently visited the Yasukuni Shrine, a Tokyo war memorial that is controversial in China and Korea.

The problem is not the 12 Class A war criminals interred at the shrine the real problem is the Yushukan military museum next door.

You also carried the tent of your king and the shrine of your images, the star of your god, which you made for yourselves.

Once again, protests against Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi s annual visit to the Yasukuni shrine are breaking out in China as well as South Korea.

Koizumi s visit to the shrine, officially presented as that of a private citizen, was intended to impress the Japanese public, regardless of its effects abroad.

Moreover, Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzu Abe, the front runner to succeed him, has openly declared that he will continue to visit the shrine as prime minister.

On one hand, he is wise not to have visited the Yasukuni shrine, which honors millions of Japan s war dead, including 14 Class A war criminals.

The residual suspicion that lingers in countries like China and Korea sets limits on Japan s appeal that are reinforced every time the Japanese prime minister visits the Yasukuni Shrine.

In keeping with common Chinese practice, his remains were placed in the Temple of Azure Clouds, a Buddhist shrine in the Western Hills a few miles outside of Beijing.

After a few months during which Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi ostensibly sought to improve his country s relations with China, his fifth visit to the controversial Yasukuni Shrine has again raised tempers.

And their wish would then be brought to a priest, who would find a ritual object, and the appropriate sacrifices would be made, and the shrine would be built for the god.

Blogger Karachi Walla shares some images from a visit to the Manghopir Shrine one of the oldest Sufi shrines located in the suburbs of Gadap town, to the North West of Karachi.

While Japan's government lobbies hard to get a permanent seat on the UN Security Council, its Prime Minister regularly flouts Asian opinion by paying his respects to war criminals at the Yasukuni Shrine.

Nakasone broke the taboo by being the first prime minister to worship at the Yasukuni shrine in his official capacity on August 15, 1985, the fortieth anniversary of the end of World War II.

So President George W. Bush could quietly tell Abe that we welcome good relations between Japan and China, and that prime ministerial visits to the Yasukuni Shrine undercut Japan s own interests in East Asia.

Later on, the same newspaper published that the mosque and shrine of Al Hussain, where about 1,000 people gathered to commemorate the event was closed, and some of those commemorating the occasion were arrested.

Norway lost the steady stream of pilgrims to the relics of St. Olav at the Nidaros shrine, and with them, much of the contact with cultural and economic life in the rest of Europe.

In the area of the Holy Shrine, men under 45 were no longer allowed to go to the Al Aqsa mosque, and it was expected that this restriction would be extended to Omar Square.

As Japan s government never ceases to point out, the Yasukuni shrine, built in 1869, venerates the 2.5 million Japanese who have died for their country, not just the 14 judged as war criminals after WWII.

DOHA They are armed, I am not going to fight a losing battle and kill my men over a demolished shrine, said Fawzi Abd al Aali, the former Libyan interior minister, before he resigned last August.

The most contentious issue, however, has been prime ministerial visits to the Yasukuni Shrine, and, until Abe s visit, China had been reluctant to engage in any summit meetings with Japan so long as such visits continue.

Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi has insisted on paying an annual visit to the Yasukuni shrine, where Japan s past aggressive wars are glorified, and where war criminals are among the buried, behavior that China s government considers unacceptable.

While Abe wisely visited China and smoothed over relations ruffled by his predecessor, Junichiro Koizumi, who repeatedly visited the Yasukuni Shrine (where 14 class A war criminals from WWII are interred), many people are uncertain about his long term vision.

I will not punish your daughters when they play the prostitute, nor your brides when they commit adultery because the men consort with prostitutes, and they sacrifice with the shrine prostitutes so the people without understanding will come to ruin.

In particular, she wished to know whether the Government offered viable alternatives to shrine leaders for trokosi girls sent to them by families of those who had committed crimes under customary law or to those who performed female genital cutting as a livelihood?

His refusal to rule out future visits to the Yasukuni Shrine, with its war glorifying Yushukan Museum alongside, fuels hardline skepticism in China. It also makes common cause with South Korea much more difficult, and heightens the risk of maritime territorial disputes becoming explosive.

While Fukuda has made it clear that he will not visit the Yasukuni Shrine, 160 other parliamentarians paid homage at the site last month, an indication that conservative forces in Japan remain strong and that future prime ministers may not abstain from visiting Yasukuni.

Japanese traditional architecture and its history are as a consequence dominated by Chinese and Asian techniques and styles (present even in Ise Shrine, held to be the quintessence of Japanese architecture) on one side, and by Japanese original variations on those themes on the other.

The meeting is a welcome development. But Abe comes into office with a reputation as a stronger nationalist than his predecessor, Junichiro Koizumi, whose insistence on visiting the controversial Yasukuni Shrine (where Class A war criminals from World War II are buried) helped sour relations with China.

Finally, there is the issue of the Yasukuni Shrine to Japanese war dead, which records in its Book of Souls 14 A class war criminals, and contains a museum that glorifies Japan s conquests as just wars fought for survival and self defense or for the liberation of Asia.

However, despite the strong denunciation by Asian countries, the Japanese authorities denied the very existence of comfort women , had deleted all references to them from their history books and openly visited the Yasukuni shrine where the criminals who had set up the system of comfort women were buried.