Japanese envoys seeking out two Japanese World War II soldiers allegedly hiding in the southern Philippines jungle are to pull out after a failed search, officials said yesterday.
The plan to withdraw was announced amid contradictory reports and growing doubts about the story that the two Japanese "stragglers," supposedly now in their 80s, wanted to emerge from hiding, 60 years after the war ended.
"The Japanese embassy in the Philippines has decided that the embassy staff that has been sent to General Santos city will be recalled to Manila for the time being," said Ekio Egawa, the Japanese consul-general.
Egawa would not say when the Japanese delegation would be pulling out.
He said the decision to withdraw was made after a shadowy Japanese mediator, allegedly in touch with the two soldiers, had told the diplomats that any interviews of the two should be done "at a later date at a more quiet place."
Egawa also cited security concerns that the scores of Japanese and local journalists who came to this southern city to cover the event, might be targeted by guerrillas and kidnapping gangs operating in the hills outside the city.
He refused to disclose further details on the mysterious mediator except to say they would still be in contact with him from the embassy in Manila.
Egawa also would not say they were questioning the credibility of the story or the middleman, remarking that "we will be waiting for further contacts from the mediator."
In Japan, Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroyuki Hosoda had said that "if we see no progress, we are considering sending our diplomats back to Manila."
The self-described Japanese middleman met with the diplomats in the south on Sunday but was not accompanied by the two men. Instead he offered to arrange another meeting.
Japanese broadcaster NHK said the middleman's statements were often contradictory and ambiguous.
"We cannot look for them in large mountain areas that are controlled by guerrillas. We just have to wait for a new contact" from the middleman, Hosoda said.
Auschwitz survivor Eva Schloss, the stepsister of teenage diarist Anne Frank and a tireless educator about the horrors of the Holocaust, has died. She was 96. The Anne Frank Trust UK, of which Schloss was honorary president, said she died on Saturday in London, where she lived. Britain’s King Charles III said he was “privileged and proud” to have known Schloss, who cofounded the charitable trust to help young people challenge prejudice. “The horrors that she endured as a young woman are impossible to comprehend and yet she devoted the rest of her life to overcoming hatred and prejudice, promoting kindness, courage, understanding
‘DISRESPECTFUL’: Katie Miller, the wife of Trump’s most influential adviser, drew ire by posting an image of Greenland in the colors of the US flag, captioning it ‘SOON’ US President Donald Trump on Sunday doubled down on his claim that Greenland should become part of the US, despite calls by the Danish prime minister to stop “threatening” the territory. Washington’s military intervention in Venezuela has reignited fears for Greenland, which Trump has repeatedly said he wants to annex, given its strategic location in the arctic. While aboard Air Force One en route to Washington, Trump reiterated the goal. “We need Greenland from the standpoint of national security, and Denmark is not going to be able to do it,” he said in response to a reporter’s question. “We’ll worry about Greenland in
PERILOUS JOURNEY: Over just a matter of days last month, about 1,600 Afghans who were at risk of perishing due to the cold weather were rescued in the mountains Habibullah set off from his home in western Afghanistan determined to find work in Iran, only for the 15-year-old to freeze to death while walking across the mountainous frontier. “He was forced to go, to bring food for the family,” his mother, Mah Jan, said at her mud home in Ghunjan village. “We have no food to eat, we have no clothes to wear. The house in which I live has no electricity, no water. I have no proper window, nothing to burn for heating,” she added, clutching a photograph of her son. Habibullah was one of at least 18 migrants who died
Russia early yesterday bombarded Ukraine, killing two people in the Kyiv region, authorities said on the eve of a diplomatic summit in France. A nationwide siren was issued just after midnight, while Ukraine’s military said air defenses were operating in several places. In the capital, a private medical facility caught fire as a result of the Russian strikes, killing one person and wounding three others, the State Emergency Service of Kyiv said. It released images of rescuers removing people on stretchers from a gutted building. Another pre-dawn attack on the neighboring city of Fastiv killed one man in his 70s, Kyiv Governor Mykola
RSS