Japan is studying a proposal to establish a secular war memorial separate from a Tokyo shrine that critics say glorifies Japan's past aggression in Asia, a government spokesman said yesterday.
The talk of an alternative to the Yasukuni Shrine comes amid speculation that Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi could go there next week to mark the 60th anniversary since Japan's World War II surrender.
The proposal, submitted last week by the ruling Liberal Democratic Party's junior coalition partner, the Komeito Party, calls for a budget to be set aside to consider possible locations and other details of a secular war memorial.
Such proposals have come up in the past, but fierce opposition to establishing an alternative to Yasukuni has blocked them. Still, Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroyuki Hosoda said the government was looking at the plan.
"If a decision is made, there will be plenty of time to include it in next year's budget," Hosoda told reporters.
This is not the first time that some in Japan have considered an alternative to Yasukuni, which includes executed World War II criminals among the 2.5 million war dead honored there.
A special Cabinet committee studied the issue four years ago and concluded that a secular monument was necessary, but no steps have been taken to implement the plan. Many conservatives and a powerful association of families of fallen soldiers are against such plans.
A secular war memorial, however, is seen as one way to appease Japan's neighbors, who have repeatedly voiced anger over Koizumi's visits to Yasukuni. He has gone there four times since becoming prime minister in 2001, but has not gone since January last year. He has been coy about whether he will go on Aug. 15.
"It's something we've been urging for some time and a basic party policy," said Hideshiro Nishinaka, a Komeito official who worked on the proposal.
But some LDP lawmakers support Koizumi's visits and oppose a security memorial.
CONDITIONS: The Russian president said a deal that was scuppered by ‘elites’ in the US and Europe should be revived, as Ukraine was generally satisfied with it Russian President Vladimir Putin yesterday said that he was ready for talks with Ukraine, after having previously rebuffed the idea of negotiations while Kyiv’s offensive into the Kursk region was ongoing. Ukraine last month launched a cross-border incursion into Russia’s Kursk region, sending thousands of troops across the border and seizing several villages. Putin said shortly after there could be no talk of negotiations. Speaking at a question and answer session at Russia’s Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, Putin said that Russia was ready for talks, but on the basis of an aborted deal between Moscow’s and Kyiv’s negotiators reached in Istanbul, Turkey,
SPIRITUAL COUPLE: Martha Louise has said she can talk with angels, while her husband, Durek Verrett, claims that he communicates with a broad range of spirits Social media influencers, reality stars and TV personalities were among the guests as the Norwegian king’s eldest child, Princess Martha Louise, married a self-professed US shaman on Saturday in a wedding ceremony following three days of festivities. The 52-year-old Martha Louise and Durek Verrett, who claims to be a sixth-generation shaman from California, tied the knot in the picturesque small town of Geiranger, one of Norway’s major tourist attractions located on a fjord with stunning views. Following festivities that started on Thursday, the actual wedding ceremony took place in a large white tent set up on a lush lawn. Guests
Four days after last scanning in for work, a 60-year-old office worker in Arizona was found dead in a cubicle at her workplace, having never left the building during that time, authorities said. Denise Prudhomme, who worked at a Wells Fargo corporate office, was found dead in a third-floor cubicle on Aug. 20, Tempe police said. She had last scanned into the building on Aug. 16 at 7am, police said. There was no indication she scanned out of the building after that. Prudhomme worked in an underpopulated area of the building. Her cause of death had not been determined, but police said the preliminary
‘DISCONNECTED’: Politics is one factor driving news avoidance, a professor said, adding that people who do not trust the government are more likely to tune it out Hannah Wong cried when the Hong Kong government effectively forced the territory’s Apple Daily and Stand News out of business three years ago. Among the last news firms in the territory willing to criticize the government openly, many saw their end as a sign that the old Hong Kong was gone for good. Today, the 35-year-old makeup artist says she has gone from reading the news every day to reducing her intake drastically to protect herself from despair. Four years into a crackdown on dissent that has swept up democracy-leaning journalists, rights advocates and politicians in the territory, a lot of people
RSS