An advance team of Japanese soldiers arrived yesterday in Kuwait for training at a US military base before they cross overland to Iraq on a humanitarian mission that puts the nation's soldiers in a combat zone for the first time since World War II.
The approximately 30 soldiers, dressed in civilian clothes and carrying military duffel bags, arrived on a commercial flight from Tokyo to prepare for a mission that has run into strong opposition at home. They filed into a waiting, chartered bus, which two US military 4-wheel-drive vehicles escorted out of the airport and off to an American base in the Kuwaiti desert.
When fully in place in Iraq by March, a 1,000-strong Japanese contingent will help purify local water supplies, rebuild schools and provide medical care in southern Iraq. They will carry arms for self-protection, but their role will be noncombatant.
Many Japanese oppose sending troops into Iraq, and Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's argument that Japan is fulfilling its international commitments hasn't silenced critics. Japan's defeat in World War II and the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are considered horrifying reminders of the devastation of war.
The prime minister is also building momentum for a historic rethinking of the constraints placed on the military by the war-renouncing 1947 constitution, written by the US. His party is drafting a revision of the document, which has never been amended.
Although Japanese lawmakers approved noncombat duties with UN peacekeeping operations a decade ago, Japanese peacekeepers never before have been sent into situations as dangerous as post-war Iraq, where guerrilla attacks are a daily occurrence. No Japanese peacekeeper has ever been killed.
The rest of the Japanese force could start leaving Japan this month. After training in Kuwait, Japanese soldiers could start arriving in Iraq in early February. About 600 Japanese ground soldiers are being deployed along with roughly 400 sailors and air force personnel.
A small military team already has flown from Tokyo to inspect the area in southern Iraq where the Japanese will be based.
On Friday, the commander of the US-led coalition forces in Iraq, Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, hailed the imminent arrival of Japanese humanitarian troops as a "tremendous contribution."
Sanchez said the US "clearly understands the limitations and the national guidance that has been given to the Japanese troops."
PARLIAMENT CHAOS: Police forcibly removed Brazilian Deputy Glauber Braga after he called the legislation part of a ‘coup offensive’ and occupied the speaker’s chair Brazil’s lower house of Congress early yesterday approved a bill that could slash former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro’s prison sentence for plotting a coup, after efforts by a lawmaker to disrupt the proceedings sparked chaos in parliament. Bolsonaro has been serving a 27-year term since last month after his conviction for a scheme to stop Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva from taking office after the 2022 election. Lawmakers had been discussing a bill that would significantly reduce sentences for several crimes, including attempting a coup d’etat — opening up the prospect that Bolsonaro, 70, could have his sentence cut to
A powerful magnitude 7.6 earthquake shook Japan’s northeast region late on Monday, prompting tsunami warnings and orders for residents to evacuate. A tsunami as high as three metres (10 feet) could hit Japan’s northeastern coast after an earthquake with an estimated magnitude of 7.6 occurred offshore at 11:15 p.m. (1415 GMT), the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) said. Tsunami warnings were issued for the prefectures of Hokkaido, Aomori and Iwate, and a tsunami of 40cm had been observed at Aomori’s Mutsu Ogawara and Hokkaido’s Urakawa ports before midnight, JMA said. The epicentre of the quake was 80 km (50 miles) off the coast of
China yesterday held a low-key memorial ceremony for the 1937 Nanjing Massacre, with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) not attending, despite a diplomatic crisis between Beijing and Tokyo over Taiwan. Beijing has raged at Tokyo since Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi last month said that a hypothetical Chinese attack on Taiwan could trigger a military response from Japan. China and Japan have long sparred over their painful history. China consistently reminds its people of the 1937 Nanjing Massacre, in which it says Japanese troops killed 300,000 people in what was then its capital. A post-World War II Allied tribunal put the death toll
A passerby could hear the cacophony from miles away in the Argentine capital, the unmistakable sound of 2,397 dogs barking — and breaking the unofficial world record for the largest-ever gathering of golden retrievers. Excitement pulsed through Bosques de Palermo, a sprawling park in Buenos Aires, as golden retriever-owners from all over Argentina transformed the park’s grassy expanse into a sea of bright yellow fur. Dog owners of all ages, their clothes covered in dog hair and stained with slobber, plopped down on picnic blankets with their beloved goldens to take in the surreal sight of so many other, exceptionally similar-looking ones.
RSS