HIROSHIMA: A History Lesson Aware of lingering bitterness over their nation's role in World War II, Japanese are disappointed but not surprised that U.S. veterans' groups have forced the downscaling of a controversial exhibition commemorating the end of the conflict. After months of heated debate, officials of Washington's Smithsonian Institution last week withdrew plans to display artifacts and photos of the devastation caused by the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Instead visitors will see the fuselage of the Enola Gay, the B-29 Superfortress plane that flew the Hiroshima mission, and a videotape of its crew. While Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama called the decision ``regrettable,'' Hiroshima survivor Koshiro Kondo was more emphatic: ``We had hoped that the feelings of the people of Hiroshima might have gotten through to the American people.''

GENOA: Sunday, Bloody Sunday Italians are forgoing sports for a day in an effort to atone for a national epidemic of stadium violence that resulted in the murder of a football fan. Authorities canceled all national sporting events scheduled for Sunday, Feb. 5, after Genoa supporter Vincenzo Spagnolo was knifed to death the previous Sunday in a brawl before his team's game against Milan. Though Milan booster Simone Barbaglia, 18, has been charged with Spagnola's death, many Italians feel the crime typifies a nationwide trend of rising violence. Said Enrico Spigone, 30, a Lazio rooter: ``The problem isn't the fans. The problem is violence in general in society. Neither the kid who got killed nor the killer were delinquents. They were both decent guys.''

COPENHAGEN: To Smoke or Not to . . . An aggressive antismoking campaign in Sweden is raising angry smoke signals in Denmark because it targets Prince cigarettes, a popular Danish brand. The posters now confronting smokers throughout Sweden feature shocking images--an anxious-looking woman flanked by an X ray of a cancer-stricken woman with only one lung--and even stronger headlines: Seduced by a Prince and Killed by a Prince. Though the manufacturer of Prince cigarettes is not taking legal action, offended Danes are fighting back. ``Since thousands of people are killed in traffic every year,'' the Copenhagen tabloid Ekstra Bladet editorialized, ``why not print posters with Raped by Volvo or Abused by Saab?''

SHANGHAI: Crash Zone Drivers who hoped the new inner-city elevated beltway around Shanghai would relieve the city's nightmarish traffic congestion are anything but relieved. Since its opening on Nov. 6, the 48-km, four-lane ring road has become a four-ring circus of chills and spills. Vehicles have smashed into walls, flipped over and collided with other cars driven in the wrong direction. Though no one has been killed so far, the highway's first 44 days of use were a demolition derby, with 1,002 crashes and breakdowns reported--or about one incident an hour. The numbers are not declining, say the worried Shanghai traffic police. So what's causing all the trouble? Drivers complain that the lanes are too narrow, exits too few and fellow road users too careless. Some motorists, accustomed to navigating crowded city streets, drive too slowly, explains one resident, while others ``hit the open space of the ring road, get giddy and want to drive too fast.''