US lawmakers paid tribute on Friday at the country’s first memorial to “comfort women” forced to provide sex to Japanese soldiers in World War II, voicing concern at efforts to “whitewash” history.
To Japanese officials’ consternation, Palisades Park, New Jersey — a New York suburb with a large Korean American community — in 2010 set up a small monument to remember the estimated 200,000 former comfort women.
US House Representative Mike Honda, who led a 2007 House resolution that criticized Japan on comfort women, and local Representative Bill Pascrell took part in a service at the memorial that calls for sexual slavery never to be repeated.
“As an educator for over 30 years, it deeply offends me that an important part of world history is being whitewashed and forgotten,” said Honda, who was detained as a child during World War II due to his Japanese ancestry.
“Reconciliation is something our generation should rightfully be calling for in order to promote the growth of a peaceful global society,” he said.
Outspoken Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto triggered outrage at home and abroad by suggesting last month that battle-stressed soldiers in World War II needed the services of comfort women.
Japan’s government distanced itself from Hashimoto, who later retracted his remarks that included a call on US soldiers based in Okinawa to make use of the sex industry.
The issue of comfort women remains politically charged between Japan and South Korea, where some aging former comfort women regularly demonstrate against Tokyo.
Japan apologized in 1993 to former comfort women and a left-leaning government later set up a compensation fund.
However, few survivors in South Korea accepted because the money came from private donors instead of the government.
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