A US congressional committee will likely pass this month a controversial bill demanding Japan's apology to World War II-era sex slaves, a lawmaker was quoted as saying yesterday.
Japan's conservative government has been lobbying hard against the bill, and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe recently provoked outrage by insisting that Japanese soldiers did not coerce so-called "comfort women" into army brothels.
Thirty-six lawmakers of the 50-member House Committee on Foreign Affairs have shown support for the resolution, the Yomiuri Shimbun said, quoting senior member Eni Faleomavaega.
The Democratic congressman from American Samoa told the newspaper that the the bill would likely pass before a two-week recess in April and sent to the full House unless the Japanese parliament issues an apology first.
But in a nod to Japanese sensitivities, Congress may suspend deliberations during Abe's expected visit to Washington late next month, the daily said.
The bill -- sponsored by Representative Mike Honda, who spent part of his childhood in a wartime internment camp for Japanese-Americans -- demands an apology by Japan and outright recognition of its involvement in sexual slavery.
The bill gained momentum after the Democrats took control of Congress in January from US President George W. Bush's Republicans.
Historians say up to 200,000 young women, mostly from Korea but also from Taiwan, China, Indonesia and the Philippines, were forced to serve as sex slaves in Japanese army brothels.
In 1993, Japan's top government spokesman Yohei Kono issued a statement voicing "sincere apologies and remorse" and acknowledging that Japan's imperial army was involved "directly or indirectly" in sexual slavery.
But more than a dozen lawmakers of Abe's Liberal Democratic Party met on Thursday and proposed to tone down the 1993 statement. Abe agreed that the government would assist the party's new research on comfort women.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not