A Japanese minister landed in hot water yesterday after saying a shocking school slaying by an 11-year-old girl was a sign that women have become more assertive in society.
"The number of lively females has increased in general in every society," disaster prevention minister Kiichi Inoue, 72, said in commenting on the context in which Tuesday's slaying of a 12-year-old girl by her 11-year-old female playmate could take place.
"Men have committed thoughtless, harsh acts but I think this is the first for a girl. Recently the difference between men and women is shrinking," he went on.
Satomi Mitarai, 12, died on Tuesday at the Okubo Elementary School in the southern Japan port city of Sasebo after being stabbed and slashed by her classmate, who has reportedly admitted to the killing.
Police have said the young attacker lashed out with a papercraft knife after being dubbed fat and ugly and a goody-goody in messages her classmate wrote on an Internet homepage they shared.
The minister's comments about gender equality drew harsh criticism from women's groups.
"By saying that this incident occurred because females are strong is just crazy," said Harumi Okazaki from the Women and Work Research Center in Tokyo.
"I think he's just making fun of women. I can't take it any other way. The comment itself is discriminatory," Okazaki said.
The top government spokesman, Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroyuki Hosoda said in a separate news conference that the minister's statement was inappropriate.
"I don't think the central argument is whether the accused is a male or female," Hosoda said.
The government has recently been forced to backtrack on a number of outlandish statements by apparently out of touch senior lawmakers. In June last year, senior Liberal Democratic Party lawmaker Seiichi Ota was forced to apologize for saying that five university students arrested for gang-raping a woman were "fine as they are in good spirits."
Inoue used exactly the same term as Ota, who was commenting on Japan's falling birth rate -- genki -- which was controversial because it carries a positive connotation of health and vitality.
Four people jailed in the landmark Hong Kong national security trial of "47 democrats" accused of conspiracy to commit subversion were freed today after more than four years behind bars, the second group to be released in a month. Among those freed was long-time political and LGBTQ activist Jimmy Sham (岑子杰), who also led one of Hong Kong’s largest pro-democracy groups, the Civil Human Rights Front, which disbanded in 2021. "Let me spend some time with my family," Sham said after arriving at his home in the Kowloon district of Jordan. "I don’t know how to plan ahead because, to me, it feels
The collapse of the Swiss Birch glacier serves as a chilling warning of the escalating dangers faced by communities worldwide living under the shadow of fragile ice, particularly in Asia, experts said. Footage of the collapse on Wednesday showed a huge cloud of ice and rubble hurtling down the mountainside into the hamlet of Blatten. Swiss Development Cooperation disaster risk reduction adviser Ali Neumann said that while the role of climate change in the case of Blatten “still needs to be investigated,” the wider impacts were clear on the cryosphere — the part of the world covered by frozen water. “Climate change and
Poland is set to hold a presidential runoff election today between two candidates offering starkly different visions for the country’s future. The winner would succeed Polish President Andrzej Duda, a conservative who is finishing his second and final term. The outcome would determine whether Poland embraces a nationalist populist trajectory or pivots more fully toward liberal, pro-European policies. An exit poll by Ipsos would be released when polls close today at 9pm local time, with a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points. Final results are expected tomorrow. Whoever wins can be expected to either help or hinder the
DENIAL: Musk said that the ‘New York Times was lying their ass off,’ after it reported he used so much drugs that he developed bladder problems Elon Musk on Saturday denied a report that he used ketamine and other drugs extensively last year on the US presidential campaign trail. The New York Times on Friday reported that the billionaire adviser to US President Donald Trump used so much ketamine, a powerful anesthetic, that he developed bladder problems. The newspaper said the world’s richest person also took ecstasy and mushrooms, and traveled with a pill box last year, adding that it was not known whether Musk also took drugs while heading the so-called US Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) after Trump took power in January. In a