2004

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2003

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2002

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• August and preceding

• Lawmakers pass bill to investigate collaborators
  December 30, 2004 ? Closing its deep political rift for the moment, the National Assembly got back to business yesterday and passed dozens of economic and social bills, including one that addressed the extent of a planned investigation of Korean collaborators during Japan's colonial rule over Korea. According to the special legislation, the subjects of investigation will be expanded to include Korean officers who served as second lieutenants or higher in the Japanese Army. The new law would include former President Park Chung Hee, father of the opposition Grand National chairwoman Park Geun-hye, who was an officer commissioned by Japan.
• Japan to Punish NK Over Abduction Issue
  By Reuben Staines, Park Song-wu Staff Reporters Japan is preparing to introduce a six-point plan to punish North Korea for its refusal to come clean on the fate of Japanese kidnapped by Pyongyang agents during the Cold War.
• Details on Tokyo ties to be public
  December 29, 2004 ? The South Korean Foreign Ministry said yesterday it will make public sensitive information related to the normalization in 1965 of diplomatic ties between Seoul and Tokyo. In particular, documents relating to financial compensation stemming from Japan's 1910-45 colonial rule over the peninsula will be released. Starting in 1951, the two countries engaged in difficult negotiations over nearly 14 years to reach accords on re-establishing relations, but the details of the talks have been kept secret. Under the 1965 treaty and accompanying agreements, Japan gave South Korea $300 million in grants, $200 million in loans and at least $300 million in commercial credits. The settlement effectively exempted Japan from making individual payments to Korean victims of colonial rule. [Reparations]
• Asia - AFP Japanese want tougher stance towards China, North Korea: poll
  Tue Dec 28, 1:51 AM ET Asia - AFP TOKYO (AFP) - A majority of Japanese want their government to get tougher with China and North Korea (news - web sites) as support for Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi has dipped, an opinion poll showed. . Tension has been mounting between Japan and its communist neighbors amid a row over North Korea's abductions of Japanese citizens and a string of disputes with China. The poll of 1,740 people by the Nihon Keizai Shimbun found 54 percent did not approve of the government's China policy, nearly double the 28 percent who supported it. Forty-eight percent favored Koizumi's visits to a controversial war shrine in Tokyo, against 38 percent who were opposed, the economic daily said.
• U.S.-Japan Joint Operation Plan Denounced
  Pyongyang, December 27 (KCNA) -- It was recently disclosed that the U.S. together with Japan worked out the joint operation plan "5055" on the assumption of an "emergency" on the Korean Peninsula. In this regard Rodong Sinmun Monday says in a signed commentary: It can not but be interpreted as a very serious development that the U.S. and Japan worked out such joint operation plan. This is a measure to step up their preparations for mounting a preemptive attack on the DPRK to stifle it. An immediate aim of the U.S.-Japan joint operation plan is to isolate and blockade the DPRK. The U.S. has advertised that it is willing to seek a peaceful solution to the nuclear issue in a bid to deceive the international community. But this can never cover up its real ambition to invade the DPRK. The Bush bellicose forces asserted that they have no intention to invade north Korea and attack it by force of arms, whenever an occasion presented itself. But this was nothing but a subterfuge to speed up the war moves against the DPRK behind the curtain of "peace." Japan is frantically working to implement the joint operation plan against the DPRK in cahoots with the U.S. This is as foolish an act as jumping from the frying pan into the fire. Japan should bear in mind that it will only meet disastrous consequences for zealously following the U.S. policy of aggression toward the DPRK. The self-reliant deterrent forces of the DPRK will be bolstered in every way to cope with the war moves of the U.S. and Japanese reactionaries.
• Seoul-Tokyo Treaty to Be Disclosed Next Month
  By Ryu Jin Staff Reporter South Korea has decided to make public next month several important documents that were exchanged with Japan in the lead-up to the two nations' normalization of ties four decades ago. ``The government decided to make these documents public to meet the people's right to know and improve the government's administrative transparency,'' Deputy Foreign Minister Lee Soo- hyuck said at a press briefing on Tuesday. Subject to the disclosure, he explained, will be five files of documents, totaling over 1,200 pages, most of which are government reports and instructions about negotiations with Tokyo, especially with regard to Seoul's compensation demands.
  The 1965 deal made it virtually impossible for those persecuted to obtain compensation individually from the Japanese government. Seoul allegedly favored a lump-sum payment of some $360 million for about 1.03 million forced laborers though Tokyo suggested individual reparation, according to sources. The late president Park Chung-hee's military regime, which pushed for the negotiations despite fierce protests by the public at the time, finally received $500 million in soft loans and grants from Japan, including government-level compensation. But the Park government didn't give individuals as much money as originally promised, using much of the funds for economic projects such as the construction of highways. Moreover, the number of people who received compensation from the government reached just over 8,000, leaving the remaining 1.02 million _ at the government's own calculations _ empty-handed.
• NK Threatens to Exclude Tokyo From Nuke Talks
  By Park Song-wu Staff Reporter In a move to force Japan to give up its threat of economic sanctions, Pyongyang is refusing to return to the six-party nuclear talks as long as Tokyo is at the bargaining table, North Korea experts in Seoul said Friday. Paik Hak-soon, director of North Korean Studies at Sejong Institute, said the North's refusal is nothing but propaganda, which he believes will not affect the format of the multilateral talks. ``By threatening Japan, the Pyongyang regime wants to stress that it will not easily fall victim to Japan's right-wing strategy to impose economic sanctions and enact a bill over the North's human rights situation,'' Paik told The Korea Times.
• Memorial Service & Symposium on Problem of Remains of Victims of Forcible Drafting Held in Japan
  Diplomatic Documents on Problem of Remains Make Public Memorial Service is held in Yutenji. Two photos are the bereaved families in the DPRK who were unable to go to Japan by the preventive maneuvers of the Japanese government. "What is wrong for me to go Japan to get my father's remains?"-- Grievous Cry of the Bereaved against Japanese Government It is 60 years since the World War II ended and Korea was liberated, but there are the remains of many Korean war dead in Japan, which had not been returned to their fatherland. In "Yutenji," a temple in Tokyo, Japan, 1,100 Korean victims of forcible drafting were on the list of Koreans whose remains were kept. The Korean Measure Committee for Compensation for "Comfort Women" for the Japanese Army and Victims of Forcible Drafting had been making an inquiry into the bereaved families of the victims which were on the list of Yutenji.
• The Remains of North Korean Victims in Yutenji were Fake
  It was disclosed that the remains of the war dead of Korean victims of the Japanese army's civilian employee believed to have been preserved in Yutenji Temple, in Tokyo, Japan, which had been deposited there by the former Welfare Ministry in 1971, were not there and what was even worse, their remains were enshrined in "Yasukuni Shrine." The Fact-finding Group for Korean Victims of Forcible Drafting was entrusted by the bereaved families in the DPRK and got data on Kim Ryong Gyun, a victim of forcible drafting by Japan, from the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry of Japan. "Nothing" was mentioned about the "remains" on the data but seal to confirm that the remains were enshrined in "Yasukuni Shrine on October 17, 1959, was affixed. It was also mentioned in the data that Kim Ryong Gyun had been forcibly drafted by the Japanese Navy and when and how he died.
• Japan's Judgment That Remains of Abductee Is Fake Is Cook-up with Political Scenario: DPRK
  Pyongyang Warns It Regards Japan's Economic Sanctions as Declaration of War PYONGYANG, December 14 (KCNA)-- A spokesman for the Foreign Ministry of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea issued a statement Tuesday denouncing the ultra-right forces of Japan for kicking up a racket against the DPRK. As we have already declared, we will seriously reconsider the issue of taking part in the six-party talks together with Japan as long as such premeditated and provocative campaign by Japan's ultra-right forces against the DPRK goes on, the statement said, and continued: If sanctions are applied against the DPRK due to the moves of the ultra- right forces, we will regard it as a declaration of war against our country and promptly react to the action by an effective physical method. Then the ultra-right forces of Japan will be held entirely responsible for the catastrophic impact it will have on the DPRK-Japan relations and the regional situation. On Dec. 8, the chief cabinet secretary of Japan announced that a DNA examination of the remains of the Japanese woman, Megumi Yokota, confirmed they were "bones of two others different from hers." Ultra-right forces of the ruling and opposition parties and anti-communist organizations of Japan, as if they had been waiting for that chance, cried out for immediately applying economic sanctions against the DPRK and are now busy with a renewed campaign against it. It was against this background that the Japanese government officially clarified the stand of freezing the humanitarian aid including food upon which it had agreed with us. As far as the remains of Megumi Yokota are concerned, her husband directly handed them to the head of the delegation of the Japanese government, which came to Pyongyang for the DPRK- Japan inter-governmental working contact held in November last, free from interference from a third party at the repeated earnest request of the Japanese side. It is unimaginable that her husband handed the remains of other persons to the Japanese side. Let's suppose he handed the remains of other person to the Japanese side, as claimed by it, then what did he expect from doing so?
• International Council to Demand Japan's Liquidation of Its Wartime Past Holds Its Coordinators' Meeting
  A meeting of coordinators of "the International Council for Solidarity to Demand Japan's Liquidation of Its Past" was held in Beijing on November 26. The meeting introduced the activities conducted by organizations of different countries and regions after the second meeting of the council and made public proposals related to its work for next year. Participants discussed measures to further intensify the international solidarity activities demanding Japan's liquidation of its past in 2005, 100 years after the fabrication of the "Ulsa Five-point Treaty" by Japan and 60 years after its defeat in World War II
• KCNA Takes Ultra-Right Forces of Japan Accountable
  Pyongyang, December 23 (KCNA) -- The chief cabinet secretary of Japan was reported to have recently announced that the DNA test of the remains of Japanese woman Megumi Yokota proved that they were bones of two others different from hers. This insistence on the part of the ultra-right elements of Japan is a despicable act, a departure from the normal way of thinking, as the husband of the deceased directly handed her remains over to the head of the Japanese government delegation, free from any involvement of the third party, when it came to Pyongyang for the inter-governmental working contact. They reneged on the agreement made between the two governments on the "abduction issue" in the past and now they are insisting that the DNA test proved negative. This false propaganda compels the DPRK to suspect the ulterior aim sought by Japan in persistently raising a hue and cry over the "solution to the issue of abduction." As already known, the DPRK sent surviving Japanese abductees and their children to Japan under the agreement reached at the DPRK-Japan summit, set up a state-sponsored investigation committee and has conducted sincere investigation to confirm the whereabouts of those whose fate the Japanese side claimed "unknown."
• Japanese Ultra-right Conservatives' Anti-DPRK Racket under Fire
  Pyongyang, December 22 (KCNA)?Rodong Sinmun here Wednesday in their commentary denounce the Japanese ultra-right conservative forces and anti-communist organizations for calling for gsanctionsh against the DPRK, while malignantly slandering it after announcing the gresults of the recent DNA testh of the remains of Japanese woman Megumi Yokota. Rodong Sinmun says: The Japanese ultra-right conservative forces, adamantly opposed to Japanfs settlement of its past and the improved DPRK-Japan relations, cooked up a new gshocking caseh called gcase of false remainsh in a bid to render the mind- set of the Japanese people hostile to the DPRK and drive the DPRK-Japan hostile relations into an extreme phase. In fact, the DPRK has done everything it can as regards the gabduction issue.h This notwithstanding, the Japanese ultra-right conservative forces are still using this issue as a pretext for aggravating the situation. This development compels the DPRK to guess that they deliberately kicked up the recent racket according to their carefully prearranged operational script to serve a particular political purpose. This is evidenced by the fact that acting Secretary General of the Liberal Democratic Party Abe, a standard-bearer of the Japanese ultra-right conservatives, is spearheading the anti-DPRK campaign. Explicitly speaking, it is impossible for the fact-finding committee to performs its duty as the Japanese ultra-right conservatives are wickedly mocking at the DPRKfs investigation to confirm the whereabouts of those persons whose fate the Japanese side claimed unknown and misusing it for their anti-DPRK moves. Now that they insist her remains are gfalseh in disregard of the sincere efforts made by the DPRK it has no option but to demand Japan return the remains as they are together with the test data. The more frantic they are getting in their anti- DPRK campaign while floating the fiction about gfalse remainsh the higher the hatred of the Korean people against Japan will mount and their will to force it to settle its past grow stronger. In case gsanctionsh are applied against the DPRK, it will decisively react to this action by exercising its right to strong option.
• Japan's Defence Program Outlines Assailed
  Pyongyang, December 21 (KCNA) -- Japan has decided on new "National Defence Program Outlines". This is a move as dangerous as whipping up a war chariot of militarism toward overseas aggression. Rodong Sinmun today says this in a signed commentary. In the "outlines" the Japanese reactionaries have changed the "exclusive defence strategy" into a definite offensive strategy, which means the total lifting of the scores of years-long post-war "restrictions" on Japan's military actions, the commentary points out, and goes on: What merits more serious attention is that they in the "outlines" stressed the need to cope with the "threat" from the DPRK and China. Their claim that Japan is exposed to "threat" from the DPRK and China is a sheer lie and it serves as a war slogan intended to put into practice the ambition for "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere", taking advantage of the U.S. policy for stifling the DPRK. [Japanese remilitarisation]
• Into the hornet's nest
  The government is under increasing domestic pressure to force North Korea to break its silence over the fate of kidnapped Japanese citizens, writes Justin McCurry
  Wednesday December 15, 2004 It is a sure sign of the precarious state of Japan-North Korean relations that one of the few voices of restraint belongs to the normally rambunctious Richard Armitage. Speaking in Washington this week, the US deputy secretary of state urged Japan not to impose sanctions against North Korea to pressure it into giving accurate details about the fates of 10 Japanese nationals abducted by the regime's agents in the 1970s and '80s. But after years of responding to North Korea's transgressions with what many saw as unwarranted caution, Japan is running out of patience: voters, politicians and the media are united in their calls for Tokyo to get tough with Pyongyang.
• Tokyo-Pyongyang Friction
  Six-Party Dialogue Should Not Be Compromised The shaky relations between Pyongyang and Tokyo are rapidly deteriorating, following the North's recent dispatch of an identified person's bones to Japan. The North claimed that the bones belonged to those of a Japanese woman whom its agents had kidnapped decades ago. The deception has so enraged the Japanese people that they are pressing their government to take stern actions, including economic sanctions, against the Stalinist Northern regime. To make matters worse, Japan's Liberal Democratic Party is determined to put forward a bill concerning the human rights situation in the North, apparently in anger over Pyongyang's disregard of Tokyo's demand to apologize for the incredible deception. The LDP's move is certain to draw strong protests from the North, which already suffered a severe blow due to U.S. President George W. Bush's endorsement of the North Korean Human Rights Act. It will consequently impede Tokyo's efforts to establish diplomatic ties with Pyongyang.
• Japan Pushes for NK Human Rights Law
  By Reuben Staines Staff Reporter Fuming over North Korea's apparent deception in the abductee issue, Japanese lawmakers are pushing ahead with a plan to introduce legislation targeting Pyongyang's human rights abuse. Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party has begun drafting a bill that will be in the same mold as the North Korean Human Rights Act enacted by the U.S. in October, Tokyo's Nihon Keizai Shimbun reported Sunday. If passed, it would ban aid to the North except for humanitarian purposes until the communist nation improves its human rights record, including the dispute over Japanese kidnapped by North Korean agents during the Cold War, the economic daily said.
• Tour for remorse
  December 20, 2004 ? Japanese lawmakers visiting Seodaemun Prison museum yesterday. The prison was the site of the torture and imprisonment of Korean independence figures during Japanese colonial rule, from 1910 until 1945. by Lim Hyun-dong
• Japanese tour notorious prison site
  December 20, 2004 ? Japanese opposition lawmakers visited Seoul's Seodaemun Prison yesterday, the site of Japanese atrocities during the colonial era, and paid respects by laying flowers in front of the prison building. Seodaemun Prison, now a museum, was notorious as a place for the torture and imprisonment of Korean independence figures. The eight lawmakers from the Democratic Party of Japan arrived in Seoul on Saturday to attend the inauguration of the "Solidarity for Asia Peace," made up of 90 legislators from Japan and South Korea, as well as experts from various sectors.
• At summit, Roh cautions Koizumi on North stance
  December 18, 2004 ? KAGOSHIMA, Japan ? At a press conference here after a summit meeting with Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi of Japan, President Roh Moo-hyun said that South Korea would not oppose Tokyo taking punitive economic measures against North Korea. But Mr. Roh added that he hoped Japan would be "very prudent in implementing the measures in order not to adversely affect the six-party talks and the diplomatic normalization efforts between North Korea and Japan." Last week, DNA testing showed that the remains of a Japanese female abductee returned by North Korea did not actually belong to the kidnap victim. Furious Japanese politicians called on their government to cut off aid to Pyeongyang and raised the issue of sanctions. Mr. Roh said in the press conference, "I understand that Japan was shocked, but North Korea might have made a mistake, not intending to insult Japan on purpose. I recommend that [Japan] check and listen to North Korea's sincere explanation, giving it enough time and not rushing to impose economic sanctions."
• Japanese Government's Formal Apology and Compensation Demanded in S. Korea
  Pyongyang, December 16 (KCNA) -- The participants in the 635th Wednesday Meeting for the settlement of the issue of the "comfort women" for the Japanese army held in south Korea on Dec. 8 made public a statement demanding the Japanese government's formal apology and compensation, according to a news report. The statement noted with bitter indignation that the minister of Education and Science of Japan recently let loose a rigmarole that "it is very good to find less words about comfort women for the Japanese army and forcible drafting" in the history textbook published by the "Society to Make New History Textbook," an ultra-right conservative organization. It branded the act of distorting and concealing the wrong doings as another crime.
• 'Japan Should Refrain From Sanctioning NK'
  KAGOSHIMA, Japan (Yonhap) - President Roh Moo- hyun on Friday said he hoped Japan would refrain from imposing economic sanctions on North Korea. The Japanese government is under pressure to retaliate after tests found that human remains returned by North Korea in connection with abductions of Japanese nationals decades ago by Pyongyang's agentswere not those of the abductees. ``I think Japan should make a decision on economic sanctions on North Korea in a cool and careful manner in order for the issue not to affect the normalization talks between North Korea and Japan and the ongoing six-party nuclear talks, although Japan may be inclined to impose economic sanctions on the North because of the kidnapping issue,'' Roh told a joint news conference at the end of a two-hour working summit with Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi here.
• Japan's Reconstruction Aid Leaves the Citizens of Samawa Desperate
  by Maekawa Mitsuo Eight months have passed since the Japanese Self-Defense Forces have been deployed in Samawa. Contrary to the Japanese government's intentions, discontent with the performance of the Self-Defense Forces among the citizens of Samawa has rapidly increased. This is a report of the local situation. "There is no electricity and no water supply. Where is Japanese support?" Walking around on the market place in the center of the city of Samawa, I constantly heard such complaints. Because of security concerns, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Self-Defense Force personnel rarely show their faces to the citizens. While covering events for this article, there were only two Japanese journalists stationed in Samawa. Since the beginning of July, the mood that had initially welcomed Japan has begun to change swiftly.
  The Betrayed Citizens of Samawa In Samawa city, the temperature during the day time is 45 degrees C. The temperature inside of rooms is 38C, higher than body temperature. Citizens live under conditions in which "water that comes out of the faucet is hot." If there weren't air conditioners, one could not even sleep at night. Electricity was already in short supply in Samawa before the war requiring a planned electricity outage for two hours at night. Since the war, citizens have begun to compete with others in buying imported electrical appliances which have become cheap. However, the power authority has postponed solution of the problem of electricity insufficiency. Currently, less than a third of the necessary electricity is provided. Hence, electric outages often occur daily. That makes the delivery of water from filtration plants difficult and water outages repeatedly occur. This summer, the number of patients due to heat prostration increased to more than 24,000 in Musanna prefecture. 80 per cents of them are children. The citizens don't hide their frustration. One store owner complains, "The electricity does not last even for one hour. The water condition is also bad. We don't need much help. Electricity and water would be sufficient." In May, 150 carp streamers were sent from Japan as a symbol of friendship. That was the only Japanese help the citizens here could see. The store owner says, "In fact, they only gave us the carp streamers. The Self-Defense Forces emphasize that they are our 'friends,' but there is no evidence of that." This reality is at the base of the increasing disappointment in the Self-Defense Forces among the citizens of Samawa.
• Koizumi wary over issue of sanctions on North Korea
  December 17, 2004 ? TOKYO ? One day before a Korea-Japan summit, Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi expressed caution on employing sanctions against North Korea. "I understand that the Japanese people are outraged. There is an opinion that negotiations are no longer needed and that we should exercise pressure," said Mr. Koizumi in a press conference with Korean reporters. "Nevertheless, I believe we need to examine all circumstances and see how North Korea reacts."
• North Korea sees sanctions as war threat
  December 16, 2004 ? Reports that Tokyo is considering economic sanctions against North Korea over its abduction of Japanese citizens decades ago drew an angry response yesterday from Pyeongyang's Foreign Ministry, which said any such move would be tantamount to a "declaration of war
• DPRK Stand on Japanese Ultra Right Forces- Proposed Sanctions against DPRK Clarified
  Pyongyang, December 14 (KCNA) -- A spokesman for the Foreign Ministry of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea issued a statement Tuesday denouncing the ultra-right forces of Japan for kicking up a racket against the DPRK. As we have already declared, we will seriously reconsider the issue of taking part in the six-party talks together with Japan as long as such premeditated and provocative campaign of the ultra-right forces against the DPRK goes on, the statement said, and continued: If sanctions are applied against the DPRK due to the moves of the ultra- right forces, we will regard it as a declaration of war against our country and promptly react to the action by an effective physical method. Then the ultra-right forces of Japan will be held entirely responsible for the catastrophic impact it will have on the DPRK-Japan relations and the regional situation. On Dec. 8 the chief cabinet secretary of Japan announced that a DNA examination of the remains of Japanese woman Megumi Yokota confirmed they were "bones of two others different from hers." Ultra-right forces from ruling and opposition parties and anti- communist organizations of Japan, as if they had been waiting for the chance to occur, cried out for immediately applying economic sanctions against the DPRK and are now busy with the renewed campaign against it. It was against this background that the Japanese government officially clarified the stand of freezing the humanitarian aid including food upon which it had agreed with us. As far as the remains of Megumi Yokota are concerned, her husband directly handed them to the head of the delegation of the Japanese government, which came to Pyongyang for the DPRK- Japan inter-governmental working contact held in November last, free from the interference from the third party at the repeated earnest request of the Japanese side. It is unimaginable that her husband handed the remains of other persons to the Japanese side. Let's suppose he handed the remains of other person to the Japanese side, as claimed by it, then what did he expect from doing so? The "results of the examination" announced by Japan, in the final analysis, make us suspect that they were cooked up according to the political script carefully prearranged to serve a particular purpose. We sent Japanese abductees and their children to Japan and formed a state fact-finding committee to confirm the whereabouts of those persons whose fate the Japanese side claimed unknown, according to the agreement reached at the DPRK- Japan summit. Since then an earnest investigation has been under way. We arranged meetings with many witnesses and handed the discovered materials, the articles left by the deceased and their remains to the Japanese side as they were with a view to testifying to the fact that those persons whose fate are unknown died. Japan abducted at least 8.4 million Koreans, massacred more than one million others and violated the chastity of 200,000 Korean women in the past but it has not yet made any moral and material compensation for these crimes. This has lashed our servicepersons and people into towering national hatred for Japan. It was hard to organize such a thing under this situation. We, however, have approached everything with utmost patience from the stand of respecting the DPRK-Japan Pyongyang Declaration. But such ultra-right forces of Japan as acting Secretary General of the Liberal Democratic Party Abe behaved otherwise. They have long taken a double-faced approach towards us. In quest of the top post in state power they cited the issue of abduction to perform a "feat." When their intention proved futile, they came out to malignantly slander the DPRK in a bid to completely hamstring the implementation of the agreement reached at the summit. They are making so desperate efforts to renew the row over the issue of abduction which has already found a solution because they needed a subterfuge to justify Japan's militarization, hold in check any improvement in the bilateral relations and step up their political and military interference in regional issues. It is none other than the present Bush administration that supports and encourages these forces behind the scene because it is keen to provoke a new war on the Korean Peninsula and maintain its permanent supremacy in the region on the basis of the U.S.-Japan alliance. No sooner had the "results of the examination" of the remains been made public than the U.S. declared through a deputy spokesman for the State Department that it fully supports Japan's stand and will use every opportunity and means to help Japan find a solution to such crucial human rights issue as abduction. Whether the ultra-right forces of Japan decide on the sanctions against us and whether the Japanese government suspends its food aid to us under the U.S. manipulation, this will be nothing surprising for us. There are also "people's sentiment" and option for us and we will do what we should do, when necessary.
• Roh, Koizumi to Discuss Visa, Nukes
  By Shim Jae-yun Staff Reporter President Roh Moo-hyun and Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi will have a summit meeting in Kagoshima, Japan, on Friday to discuss issues of mutual interest, Chong Wa Dae said Wednesday. ``Main agendas of the summit talks will include the continuing impasse on the North Korean nuclear issue and the envisioned setup of a free trade agreement (FTA) between the two nations,'' Chung Woo-sung, presidential secretary on foreign policy, said during a media briefing.
• Tokyo Warned Against NK Sanctions
  By Reuben Staines Staff Reporter South Korea on Wednesday urged Japan to carefully consider possible negative effects on the North Korean nuclear talks before imposing economic sanctions on Pyongyang for its kidnapping of Japanese citizens. Ban Ki-moon, minister of foreign affairs and trade, said the South Korean government understands Japan's anger at the North over the abduction issue but does not want to see it become a further obstacle in the nuclear talks, which have been stalled since June. The warning followed a typically bellicose statement from the North that it would interpret Japanese sanctions as a ``declaration of war.'' ``It is not desirable for the (abduction) issue to develop in a direction that affects efforts to reopen the six-party talks and resolve the nuclear issue, and we don't think it will,'' Ban told reporters at a weekly briefing. ``We believe it is best to encourage North Korea to come to the negotiating table as soon as possible and to pursue progress through dialogue rather than imposing sanctions or blockades,'' he said. U.S. and Chinese officials have also encouraged Japan to take a cautious approach.
  The families of the some of the 13 kidnapping victims believe they are still alive in the North and that Pyongyang is refusing to release them because they may know state secrets. On Tuesday, Richard Armitage, U.S. deputy secretary of state, reportedly told a Japanese official that it might be ``outmaneuvered'' by Pyongyang if it chose to apply sanctions. He said Japan should carefully consider the timing of any punitive measures. Japan has already halted the shipment of 125,000 tons of food aid to the North over the abductee dispute.
• Tokyo's Flag Law: Proud Patriotism, or Indoctrination?
  By NORIMITSU ONISHI Published: December 16, 2004 Tokyo Shimbun High school students and faculty faced Japan's flag and sang the national anthem at a graduation ceremony in Tokyo in March, as required by law. OKYO - Toru Kondo, an English teacher at a public high school here, had never before been reprimanded in his 32-year career. But he was recently required to take a two-hour "special retraining course," lectured on his mistaken ways and given a sheet of paper on which to engage in half an hour of written self-examination. His offense was to defy the Tokyo Board of Education's new regulation requiring teachers to sing the national anthem while standing and facing the national flag. He and scores of colleagues refused, because for them the rising- sun flag and the anthem, "Kimigayo," or "His Majesty's Reign," are symbols of imperialism.
• N Korea warns Japan on sanctions
  Tokyo is furious over the issue of Japanese abducted by the North North Korea has warned that it will regard any economic sanctions imposed by Japan in response to an ongoing kidnap row as a "declaration of war". The Japanese government has already suspended food aid to North Korea as a result of the dispute.
• Japan Threatens to Punish North Korea Over Abductee's Remains
  By JAMES BROOKE Published: December 14, 2004 OKYO, Dec. 13 - Japanese leaders are threatening economic penalties on North Korea, driven by widespread anger after North Korea tried last week to pass off a box of mixed human bones as the remains of a woman who was kidnapped from Japan years ago as a teenager. "If we give North Korea one more chance and it fails to respond by the deadlines, we need to strongly urge the government to immediately exercise economic sanctions on North Korea," Shinzo Abe, acting secretary general of the governing Liberal Democratic Party, said Sunday. It was the second such statement by a party leader in recent days. Politicians and public opinion polls show strong support for banning North Korean ships from ports in Japan, North Korea's third-largest trading partner.
• Japan develops plan in case of Korean conflict
  December 13, 2004 ? As part of a new military doctrine, Tokyo has defined its role in the event of a conflict on the Korean Peninsula, saying Japanese forces would undertake the evacuation of civilians and conduct search and rescue missions for downed U.S. and South Korea pilots. The Asahi Shimbun, a Japanese daily, reported Sunday the details of the doctrine called "Operational Plan 5055." The daily reported that in 2002 the United States and Japan reached an agreement on the plan. Under the plan, another chief task of the Japanese military would be to secure military bases and ports used by U.S. forces for deployment or logistics purposes. Japan's Navy would safeguard a sea route from the Korean Peninsula to Japan in order to keep a supply line open. Japan's Maritime Self Defense Force would patrol coastal areas adjacent to nuclear facilities in anticipation of possible North Korean commando attacks. Experts say that the plan and recently announced defense measures that flow out of a once-a- decade defense review reflect Japan's shift in focus from defending Japan from a possible Russian invasion to guarding the country from possible North Korean or Chinese threats.
• Japanese Reactionaries' Ambition for Reinvasion Assailed
  Pyongyang, December 12 (KCNA) -- Abe, acting secretary general of Japan's Liberal-Democratic Party, told at a lecture some time ago, with regards to the demand for a stop to the Yasukuni Shrine visit by the chief executive of Japan, that it is his duty bound to express respects and worship for the souls of the departed persons for the country and that the practice of visiting the shrine should be kept by the next- term prime minister. Earlier, Nakayama, minister of Education and Science of Japan, said at a local meeting, in regard to the deletion of the past crimes in the preceding history textbooks: It is very good that such words as "comfort women" for the Japanese army and forcible drafting have been curtailed. Commenting on such remarks of those who are bereft of reason, buoyed up by the fever of reinvasion, Minju Joson today denounces them as an intolerable mockery and insult to the Koreans and other Asian people. [Japanese remilitarisation]
• Japanese Authorities' Action to Disallow DPRK Delegation's Entry under Fire
  Pyongyang, December 11 (KCNA) -- The Korean Measure Committee for Compensation to "Comfort Women" for the Japanese Army and Victims of Forcible Drafting in a statement on Dec. 10 denounced the Japanese authorities for the inhuman action taken to disallow the entry of some members of the DPRK delegation into Japan to participate in the memorial service for the Korean victims of the forcible drafting and a meeting to be held in Tokyo on Saturday. The Tokyo group for probing the truth about the forcible drafting of Koreans invited bereaved families and those concerned with the dead in the DPRK to a memorial service and meeting to pay homage to at least 1,100 Korean victims of the forcible drafting who are entombed at Yutenji temple in Tokyo with no one to take care of and probe the truth behind the damage done to them. The invitation of them was, therefore, of very humanitarian and ethical nature
• Japan's New Military Focus: China and North Korea Threats
  By JAMES BROOKE Published: December 11, 2004 OKYO, Dec. 10 - Japan adopted plans Friday to shift its military focus away from the cold-war threat of invasion from the Soviet Union to guarding against missiles from North Korea and Chinese incursions around its southernmost islands. The new policy cuts tanks and artillery pieces by one-third, to about 600 of each, but greatly increases investment in missiles and forms a squadron of midair refueling planes to allow existing aircraft to attack North Korean missile sites and return home safely to Japan. "Russia is a weak, almost marginalized player in the strategic military sense, while China has continued to develop its military power and North Korea has become a major focus," Lance Gatling, an American aerospace consultant here, said in an interview. In another break with Japan's pacifist tradition, the plan calls for selectively ending a longstanding ban on arms exports. To develop a missile defense system with Washington, Japan would have to export components to the United States. [Missile defense] [Japanese remilitarisation]
• Tokyo to cut off food aid, plans sanctions on North
  December 11, 2004 ? An outraged Japan threatened yesterday to cut off food aid to North Korea, after DNA testing showed that remains returned by Pyeongyang were found not to be those of a Japanese female North Korea admitted kidnapping decades ago. Japan's foreign minister, Nobutaka Machimura, said Tokyo will not provide food aid to North Korea, even if asked by the World Food Program. Tokyo conducted DNA tests on charred remains handed over last month; results showed that they were not those of Megumi Yokota, kidnapped by North Korean agents in 1980 when she was 13, according to the government spokesman, Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroyuki Hosoda. "It would be difficult under such circumstances to provide further assistance to North Korea," he said, referring to 250,000 tons of food aid Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi pledged to Pyeongyang. Half has already been shipped. Angry politicians also urged the Japanese government to impose economic sanctions against North Korea. The Diet, or parliament, adopted a resolution yesterday, calling for Tokyo to implement laws to cut cash flow to North Korea. The laws, passed earlier this year, allow Tokyo to halt money transfers to North Korea and bar North Korean ships from entering Japanese ports. Pro-Pyeongyang ethnic Koreans in Japan are a key supplier of hard currency to the regime. by Kim Hyun-ki, Ser Myo-ja
• Japan shifts threat focus to N. Korea and China
  By James Brooke The New York Times Saturday, December 11, 2004 TOKYO In a once-a-decade defense review, Japan adopted Friday plans to shift its military focus away from the northern Cold War threat of invasion from Russia to guarding against missiles from North Korea or Chinese incursions on Japan's southernmost islands. [Japanese remilitarisation]
• Japan Not Qualified for Permanent Membership of UNSC
  Pyongyang, December 9 (KCNA) -- The DPRK Committee of the Council for International Solidarity Demanding Japan's Liquidation of the Past called a press conference here on Dec. 8 as regards a joint statement adopted by the council denouncing Japan for making a bid for permanent membership of the UN Security Council while evading its responsibility to apologize and compensate for its crimes committed against humanity in the past. Hwang Ho Nam, vice- chairman of the DPRK Committee of the council, in a joint statement issued at the conference noted that December 8 is the day Japan started the Pacific War 63 years back, but it has not yet shaken itself of the ill fame of an enemy state nor has it got reconciled with the countries where people are still suffering from the aftermath of the war.
• Japan Eases Arms Export Ban for New Missile Shield
  By REUTERS Published: December 10, 2004 Filed at 1:03 a.m. ET TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan eased a blanket ban on arms exports on Friday to open the way for joint production of a new missile shield with the United States, but said it would still refrain from most other weapons exports. The decision marks another defense policy shift for Japan, which has been stretching the limits of its pacifist constitution as Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi seeks a bigger global security role for Tokyo. ``We will uphold a policy of continuing to handle cautiously the export control of weapons, taking into consideration our basic ideals as a peaceful nation,'' Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroyuki Hosoda said in a statement. [Japanese remilitarisation]
• Japan Extends Iraq Mission Up to a Year
  Government Set to Unveil Revamped Defense Strategy By Anthony Faiola and Sachiko Sakamaki Washington Post Foreign Service Friday, December 10, 2004; Page A19
  TOKYO, Dec. 9 -- Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's cabinet agreed on Thursday to extend the deployment of Japan's 600 non-combat troops in Iraq for up to one year, despite condemnation of the mission by more than half of the Japanese public and opposition political parties. The mission, the largest overseas deployment of Japanese soldiers since World War II, is part of what many experts view as a reemergence of Japan's armed forces in world affairs.
  In a further step in that direction, Japan is set to unveil a new national defense strategy Friday that calls for closer military ties with the United States as well as better training and transport capabilities for future deployments of forces abroad, according to a draft copy obtained by The Washington Post. The document also calls for Japan to move toward building an antimissile shield in conjunction with the United States.
  Highlighting a slow but steady shift away from more than half a century of pacifism, Japan will give its armed forces, known officially as the Self-Defense Forces, a more conventional command structure, putting its land, sea and air forces under a joint command. North Korea and, for the first time, China are named as potential security concerns. [Japanese remilitarisation]
• Japan's Moves to Emerge Military Giant under Fire
  Pyongyang, December 7 (KCNA) -- The director general of the Japan Defence Agency during his recent U.S. junket expressed its intention to put the missile defense system (MD) now in the process of Japan-U.S. joint technological research on a production line. Almost timed to coincide with this, the Mitsubishi Heavy Industry Company of Japan and the Lockeed Martin Company of the U.S. concluded a patent contract on producing PAC- 3, main component of the MD. Under this contract Japan will start a serial production of PAC-3 next year and this type of missiles will be deployed in Japan in real earnest from the fiscal 2008. {Japanese remilitarisation}
• Former sex slaves rally across Japan
  December 06, 2004 ? Former "comfort women" from South Korea, Taiwan and the Philippines gathered in mass rallies across 10 cities in Japan on Saturday to demand a formal apology and compensation for Japanese atrocities committed during World War II. The former sex slaves gathered in Tokyo, Kyoto, Fukuoka and other major cities to give testimonies about the physical and emotional pain the Japanese military inflicted upon them during wartime. The comfort women association in South Korea, and Japanese citizens, sponsored the mass rallies. Last Friday, several comfort women met with Japan's Chief Cabinet Minister Hiroyuki Hosoda to demand a formal apology from the government. It was the first time comfort women had met a central government spokesman. Mr. Hosoda is said to have expressed apologies and regret.
• Japan defying global trend by toeing U.S. line
  Takahiko Tanaka :The Asahi Shimbun 3 December 2004
  Providing humanitarian relief and helping the Iraqi people reconstruct their war-torn nation was not the primary purpose of the Japanese government's dispatch of the Self-Defense Forces (SDF) to Iraq. Its main aim was to toe the line of U.S. Iraq policy. Humanitarian relief and reconstruction were something extra, so to speak. In fact, relief activities produced little result and the SDF is virtually confined to its camp under the protection of the Iraqi people. By sending the SDF to Iraq, I think Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and his supporters wanted Japan to become a so-called ``normal state.'' They used the SDF dispatch as an opportunity to lift restrictions on the use of military force. The way the government is trying to justify the dispatch by calling it ``international contribution'' and ``cooperation with international society'' shows the Koizumi administration's view on the world. In short, in his lexicon, international society is synonymous to the United States. The Koizumi administration's image of world order comprises the following two points: (1) It believes that a hierarchical order with the United States at the top can be established. By being a loyal partner to the United States, it hopes to promote Japan's international status. (2) By demonstrating Japan's military presence, it thinks it can boost its international influence. [Japanese remilitarisation]
• Uncertainty looms in North Korea
  Yoichi Funabashi 30 November
  Portraits of Kim Jong Il, general secretary of the North Korean Workers' Party, have reportedly disappeared from some public places. They couldn't have been taken down for, say, cleaning, given that they represent the image of North Korea's ultimate personality cult. It is natural to think the removal suggests some significant changes in the Stalinist state. However, the South Korean administration of Roh Moo Hyun does not see it that way.
• EAST ASIAN PERIL: Fragile ties
  By MANABU HARA, Senior Staff Writer A Partnership in Review 22 November 2004
  Tensions between Japan and China are more dangerous than Washington realizes. This is the 22nd in a series of interviews examining Japan-U.S. ties and their implications.
  Ezra Vogel, a Harvard professor and prominent expert on Japan and China, believes the key issue in East Asia centers on increased dialogue between Japan, the United States and China over such issues as North Korea and the relationship with China.
  Koizumi is now pursuing a very dangerous policy with China. Beijing's leaders are ready to move closer to Tokyo if Tokyo takes steps that allow Beijing to gain public support for warmer relations. But Koizumi's visits to Yasukuni Shrine make it impossible for Chinese leaders to come to Japan. His stance may win short-range approval, but the consequences for peace and stability in Asia are very serious.
  Suspending his visits to the shrine would put Japan in a strong position to demand that China also review its textbooks and education programs to show the progress toward peace achieved in Japan after World War II. Japan after all invaded China in World War II, and it is unrealistic to expect China to take the big steps necessary to break the vicious cycle between the two countries, which is now becoming very dangerous.
  Q: Do you think that Washington regards Koizumi's stance toward China as problematic for the United States as well? What should Japan and the United States do in East Asia now?
  A: I doubt that most Washington policy-makers are fully aware of the danger of heightened Sino-Japanese tension. Washington policy-makers are preoccupied with terrorism and nonproliferation, and few are making the broad constructive efforts to help create the better world that forms for many of us the basis of our patriotism. I hope that we will once again accept responsibility for our place in the world, which has given us pride in our country. Washington no longer thinks in broad global terms or takes a long-term perspective. A heightening of tension between China and Japan would dwarf some of the intense but much smaller-scale ethnic conflicts around the world. The United States should encourage Japan to have a good relationship with China.
• KCNA Lambastes Japan's Plan for Economic Sanction
  The Liberal Democratic Party of Japan, at a meeting of its "headquarters for measures to settle the issue of abduction by North Korea" on November 5, approved an interim report submitted by a team on the simulation of applying economic sanctions against North Korea, which call for economic sanctions in five phases.
• DPRK and Japan Hold Talks on Abducted Japanese Citizens
  Pyongyang Gives Tokyo Information on Missing Japanese The DPRK delegation (right) and the Japanese delegation (left) at the working-level talks held in Pyongyang from November 10 to 15. The DPRK and Japan held their working-level talks on the issue of missing Japanese citizens from November 10 to 15 at the Koryo Hotel in Pyongyang. Both sides discussed pending problems on bilateral relations between the DPRK and Japan. It was the third round of bilateral working- level talks since the second summit talks between Kim Jong Il and Koizumi Junichiro had been held in May 22 in Pyongyang. The last contact was held in Beijing in August. The 19-member Japanese delegation headed by Yabunaka Mitoji, director of the Foreign Ministry's Asian and Oceanian Affairs Bureau, arrived in Pyongyang on November 9. Present at the talks from the DPRK side were Ma Chol Su, director of the Asian Affairs Department, Song Il Ho, vice-director of the department, and other officials concerned.
  The Red Cross society of the DPRK had conducted an investigation into "missing Japanese civilians" before the first DPRK-Japan summit talks held in September 17, 2002. In a bilateral contact between the Red Cross societies of the DPRK and Japan in August 2002, an official of the Ministry of People's Security who was in charge of the investigation, informed the Japanese side of the process of investigation. Through the investigation, Pyongyang recognized the fact of "abduction of Japanese civilians by agents of the DPRK." The DPRK informed Japan of the fact at the summit talks. It also gave the Japanese side information on its first round investigation of missing Japanese people. Pyongyang and Tokyo have been in a vicious circle of distrust and confrontation. Sentiments of Korean people toward Japan have worsened. Japan put doubts about the results of the investigation and demanded a re-investigation by the DPRK. But Pyongyang could not go on the investigation because of the rising of domestic anti-Japan public opinion. It was June when the investigation committee, once dissolved, was reorganized. The DPRK side again started its investigation activities in accordance with the doubts presented by the Japanese side. The results of the inquiry were given the Japanese side as the working-level talks held in Beijing in August. The second summit talks between the DPRK and Japan held in May 22 brought a positive change in bilateral relations. It was the fruit of the summit talks that the investigation into the safety of Japanese abductees was resumed. In the second summit talks, both sides reaffirmed the spirit and principle of the DPRK-Japan Pyongyang Declaration and confirmed both sides' will to normalize their bilateral relations.
• Niigata Chuetsu Earthquake
  33 Houses of Koreans Damaged Chongryun Sends Supporting Party and Encourages Victims A supporting party of Chongryun distributing beef soup to not only Korean but also Japanese victims. Strong earthquakes hit the Chuetsu area of Niigata Prefecture, Japan. In the area, houses collapsed and people were injured and killed owing to the earthquakes. Not only Japanese people but also Korean residents in Japan living the Chuetsu area suffered.
• Japanese Teachers Impressed by Koran National Dances and Music
  Korean School Students Give Performances in Japanese Teachers' Workshop Japanese teachers impressed by the performances of Korean school students. There are many Korean national schools in various parts of Japan. Some Korean school students learn national instruments and dancing in their extracurricular activities. These club activities lead the students to realize that they are Koreans. At the same time, their work of art can be a way of appearing to Japanese people for the Korean nation. Korean students, especially club members of Korean dancing and Korean national instruments sometimes give performances on various stages as part of their activities.
• Roh, Koizumi, Wen join in appeal to North
  November 30, 2004 ? VIENTIANE, Laos ? Leaders of China and Japan joined President Roh Moo-hyun here yesterday in urging North Korea to return to the six-nation negotiations designed to resolve the nuclear standoff on the Korean Peninsula. Mr. Roh, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi of Japan and Premier Wen Jiabao of China held the discussion on North Korea during the eighth Association of South-East Asian Nations, or ASEAN, meeting in the Laotian capital. According to Chung Woo-seong, Mr. Roh's diplomatic adviser, the president informed Mr. Koizumi and Mr. Wen about his recent talks with U.S. President George W. Bush in Santiago, Chile, where it was agreed to pursue a a return to the six-party negotiations. The Chinese and Japanese leaders said they believed Pyeongyang should rejoin the talks immediately, according to Mr. Chung. He said that Mr. Wen told Mr. Roh that the Chinese position is that the Korean Peninsula should be free of nuclear arms and that outstanding issues with North Korea should be addressed through dialogue.
• Korean draftees' suit rejected by Japan
  November 30, 2004 ? Japan's top court yesterday rejected a damage compensation suit filed by South Korean victims of World War II, ending a 13-year legal battle. A group of 35 South Koreans drafted by the Japanese Imperial Army to work as sex slaves or soldiers, filed the suit with the support of their relatives against Tokyo in 1991, seeking 20 million yen ($194,400) each for their suffering during Japan's colonial rule of Korea.

• Is Japanese Militarism Undergoing a Modern Revival?
  Japan's LDP Tells China to Stay Out of Yasukuni Shrine Issue Japan's Supreme Court Rejects Suit by War Victims Japanese Education and Science Minister Nakayama Nariaki said on Sunday, "It's certainly good progress that references to comfort women for the military have been reduced [in Japanese history books]," adding that, "I've always thought they needed to be revised." The education and science minister is the highest-ranking official to assume responsibility for authorizing academic textbooks that are being written now for publication in 2006. Given the perceptions that he has built up in the public mind, one can easily imagine what the textbooks might look like. It harks back to 2001, when a far-right organization compiled their own controversial texts and Nakayama, as the representative of a ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) group, championed the organization. Acting LDP Secretary-General Abe Shinzo on the same day asserted that, "Leaders who succeed Prime Minister Koizumi should also visit and pay homage to the Yasukuni Shrine." Abe also supported the textbooks made by the far-right splinter group and he once declared with a clear conscience that, "The issue of comfort women never even existed." The combined remarks of Nakayama and Abe point dangerously close to a revival of Japan's former militarism. If Japan's representative politicians in the post-war generation hold such perceptions, how can the country's Asian neighbors trust its pledge of becoming a peace-loving country?
• Seoul to Urge Tokyo to Take Softer Line on Nuke Issue
  S. Korea, Japan, China to Hold 3-Way Talks in Laos By Ryu Jin Korea Times Correspondent VIENTIANE - President Roh Moo-hyun will once again stress South Korea's firm commitment toward a peaceful resolution of the North Korean nuclear crisis, while seeking closer cooperation with China and Japan and support from Southeast Asian countries. Roh is set to hold a three-way meeting with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi Monday morning, ahead of the annual ASEAN+3 summit in the afternoon, involving 10 member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the three Northeast Asian nations.
• Travels in the floating world
  Inspired by his 12-year-old son's passion for Japanese pop culture Peter Carey booked a family trip to Tokyo. Could the generation gap be bridged? Saturday November 27, 2004 The Guardian Buy Wrong About Japan at the Guardian bookshop I was at the video shop with my 12-year-old son when he rented Kikujiro , a tough-guy/little-boy Japanese film whose charming, twitching hoodlum is played by an actor named Beat Takeshi. How could I have known where this would lead? Over the next few weeks Charley rented Kikujiro a number of times, and although I was with him when he did so, I had no idea how powerfully he'd been affected, not until he said, quietly, en passant, "When I grow up I'm going to live in Tokyo."
• Nuclear North: a joust with Tokyo over language
  9th in a series November 24, 2004 ? Two days before the South Korea-Japan summit, senior officials of the two countries were coordinating the wording of the joint statement on June 5, 2003, in Tokyo. Lee Soo-hyuck, South Korea's deputy foreign minister, and Mitoji Yabunaka, Mr. Lee's counterpart, were struggling to find common ground on North Korea's nuclear problem in a second day of discussions. "We should say that tougher measures should be taken if North Korea worsens the situation. That was agreed at the Japan-U.S. summit on May 24," Mr. Yabunaka claimed.
• Rearming Japan
  Don't Repeat Unhappy History in East Asia
  While Korea is mired in an ideological struggle between rightists and leftists, all seems to be a foregone conclusion in Japan. Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party has unveiled a draft revision of the constitution that calls for a ``minimum military capability'' for individuals and collective defense and allows it to make ``international contributions.'' In short, Japan will have a regular army that can operate anywhere in the world. The draft revision also strengthens the status of the emperor and revives the national flag and anthem. The long, tenacious efforts of ultra-right conservatives to regain the military power of imperialist Japan appear to be bearing fruit. The LDP will formally adopt the new constitution bill on Nov. 15, 2005, the 50th anniversary of its founding. Moves to replace the pacifist constitution forced upon Japan by U.S. military rule half a century ago, however, are not limited to the ruling party. Both houses of Japan's Diet will announce a joint outline next year, with the opposition parties working on their own.
• Army Deserter Says N. Korea Abducted Wife
  By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Published: November 19, 2004 Filed at 9:49 a.m. ET TOKYO (AP) -- North Korean agents mistakenly abducted the Japanese wife of U.S. Army deserter Charles Jenkins decades ago, believing she was a teacher, Jenkins said in an interview broadcast on Friday. Jenkins' wife, Hitomi Soga, disappeared in April 1978 from a small island off northern Japan after leaving her home with her mother to go shopping. Two years ago, North Korea leader Kim Jong Il admitted she was one of 13 Japanese who were kidnapped to teach the communist country's spies the Japanese language and culture.
  ``My wife, when she was kidnapped, they kidnapped the wrong person,'' Jenkins said in a taped interview aired by Fuji TV on Friday. Jenkins, who deserted his U.S. Army unit along the Demilitarized Zone between the Koreas in January 1965, met and married Soga in 1980. The couple have two North Korea-born daughters. Jenkins said the North had been seeking school teachers to train North Korean children as spies. ``The North Korean government did not have any use for my wife because she was not a school teacher. She was a nurse,'' Jenkins said. Not having any position for Soga, the government decided to place her with Jenkins so it could monitor them together, Jenkins said.
• Government Delegation of Japan Flies Back
  Pyongyang, November 15 (KCNA) -- A government delegation of Japan led by Mitoji Yabunaka, chief of the Asia and Oceania Bureau of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, flew back today after participating in the inter-governmental working-level contact between the DPRK and Japan.
• Families of Kidnapped Japanese Say N. Korea Lying
  By REUTERS Published: November 15, 2004 . Filed at 8:57 a.m. ET TOKYO (Reuters) - The families of Japanese kidnapped decades ago by North Korean agents lashed out at the secretive communist state on Monday, saying it had lied about the fate of their loved ones. Japanese officials returned earlier in the day from talks with their North Korean counterparts in Pyongyang on the fate of 10 missing abductees, an issue which is a major stumbling block in normalizing relations between the two nations. Hopes of progress were raised when the talks, originally scheduled to end last Friday, were extended through the weekend, and the delegation brought back documents and personal belongings related to the abductees. Family members, though, said there was no new information, and media reports said nothing appears to contradict North Korea's claim that eight of the 10 have died or never entered North Korea. Takuya Yokota said he still refused to believe that his sister Megumi, 13 when she was snatched in 1977 as she walked home from school on a evening lonely road, was dead. Pyongyang says Megumi committed suicide and the delegation brought back bones said by North Korea to be hers for DNA testing. ``North Korea says they are her bones, but we do not think they are her bones,'' Takuya told a news conference. He added that the timing for his family was especially painful because Monday marks the anniversary of Megumi's kidnapping exactly 27 years before. ``The information given to us by North Korea is insincere, full of mistakes, and has deceived the Japanese people,'' he said. His mother, Sakie, added: ``Our children are all still waiting somewhere for us. We cannot give up.'' Some Japanese politicians, including several leading figures in the ruling party, had previously called for Japan to impose sanctions on North Korea if no progress was made in the talks. ``While some signs of efforts by the North Korean side could be seen, there are still points that Japan cannot be satisfied with,'' Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi told reporters. But Koizumi, who is cautious about the idea of sanctions, also said that he thought Japan needs to hold more talks with North Korea. Chief cabinet secretary Hiroyuki Hosoda echoed this, adding: ``We will analyze what was brought back and decide on our response.'' North Korea admitted in 2002 to kidnapping 13 Japanese, and Japan believes another two were also abducted. Five returned to Japan in 2002 and Pyongyang said eight were dead, but Tokyo has been pressing for better evidence about those eight and the missing two. The Japanese delegation on Friday met Yokota's North Korean husband and visited a hospital where she was treated. On the sidelines of the abductee talks, North Korea also told Japan the environment was not conducive to holding another round of multilateral talks on its nuclear arms program by the end of the year, delegation head Mitoji Yabunaka was quoted by Kyodo news agency as saying. The reason was the continued ``hostile policy'' of the United States, Kyodo added. The United States, China, Japan, Russia and South Korea have held three rounds of talks with North Korea but Pyongyang declined to attend a previously agreed follow-up meeting in September. [Abductees]
• Meeting Held to Convey Relief Funds to Koreans in Japan
  Tokyo, November 12 (KNS-KCNA) -- A ceremony of conveying relief funds sent by leader Kim Jong Il to Koreans in the quake-stricken area of Chuetsu, Niigata Prefecture, Japan was held at Joson Primary Middle School in Niigata on November 9. Kim Jong Il, taking it to his heart the news that a strong earthquake caused serious damage to Koreans in Chuetsu, saw to it that relief funds worth 100,000 U.S. dollars were sent to help them bring their life to normal at an early date.
• Summit Venue Unlikely to Be Changed
  By Ryu Jin Staff Reporter The scheduled summit between South Korea and Japan next month will likely be held in the Japanese island of Kagoshima as originally planned, despite Seoul's call for a venue change, Seoul's top diplomat indicated on Saturday.
• Exercise Displays Japan's Ambitions
  Seeking New International Stature, Government Departs From Pacifist Past By Anthony Faiola Washington Post Foreign Service Sunday, November 7, 2004; Page A21 YOKOSUKA, Japan -- As salty winds gusted off Tokyo Bay, a crack unit of Japanese commandos ascended the starboard ladder of a ship in a simulated hunt for weapons of mass destruction. They secured and patted down the crew, then searched the docked vessel until they uncovered its hidden cargo -- a mock stash of sarin gas. The training exercise late last month was all for the cameras. Japan, along with Australia, France and the United States, was showcasing its willingness to prevent the transit of weapons by terrorists and renegade states, particularly North Korea. But for Japan, a country that since World War II has eschewed any impression as an aggressor, the decision to take a leading role in a high-profile military exercise marked a rare display of force. It underscored another mission: to redefine this nation as more than just an economic power. Japanese commandos board a ship in a maritime interdiction exercise. Participation in the exercise underscored Japan's desire to redefine itself as more than an economic power. (Kyodo News Service) Seeking a more assertive role on the world stage, the Japanese government is now in the midst of a campaign to win a permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council and transform its Self- Defense Forces into a full military. Key to the changes is a push by the ruling Liberal Democratic Party to alter the country's pacifist constitution, which renounces war. For the last nine months, 600 noncombat Japanese troops have been stationed in Iraq, the country's most dangerous military-related operation since World War II. [Japanese remilitarisation] [media] [Threat] [Context]
• Seoul, Tokyo Haggle Over Summit Venue
  By Ryu Jin Staff Reporter Japanese Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura arrived in Seoul last evening for talks with his South Korean counterpart Ban Ki-moon, on various pending issues such as the North Korean nuclear crisis. Also high on agenda in their talks today will be the thorny issue of altering the venue for next month's Seoul-Tokyo summit, according to officials, though the main purpose of his visit was to have face-to-face meetings with South Korean leaders as it is the Japanese diplomat's first trip to Seoul since assuming his post in September. As part of their ``shuttle'' diplomacy, South Korea's President Roh Moo-hyun and Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi are scheduled to hold a summit on Dec. 17 and 18. Japan has recently suggested the southern Japanese island of Kagoshima as the venue, but opposition arose in South Korea that the venue is inappropriate due to its links to Japan's imperial past.

• KCNA Refutes U.S. and Japan's Assertion about DPRK's "Missile Test"
  Pyongyang, October 12 (KCNA) -- The United States and Japan are asserting that the DPRK has a missile test-fire plan. Officials concerned of the governments and militaries of the two countries and their media raised a hue and cry over a threat from a new type medium-range ballistic missile, saying that north Korean army vehicles, soldiers and missile technicians are massed in the area around the launching base for missile Rodong and there is a sign of possible north Korean fire of a ballistic missile capable of striking the U.S. mainland and Japan proper. The test, production and deployment of missiles are an issue pertaining to the legitimate right of the DPRK. Therefore, the row kicked up by the U.S. and Japan over the DPRK's missiles can never work on it. The test, production and deployment of missiles can never pose any threat to others as they are of self-defensive nature
• Puts Brake on Tokyo's UN Bid
  By Shim Jae-yun Korea Times Correspondent HANOI - South Korea is applying a brake on Japan's bid to become a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council. As part of efforts toward that end, Seoul is taking a leading role in pushing for the reform in the international organization.
• Japan-Based Korean Democracy Fighters Visit Seoul
  By Moon Gwang-lip Staff Reporter A total of 146 members of a Japan-based group of Korean residents advocating democracy for South Korea on Sunday visited their motherland to pay respect to victims of civil uprisings and call for the unification of the divided nation. The visit is aimed at fully restoring their honor, which they claim was damaged by the military regime of then-President Park Chung- hee, which suppressed democratic movements at home and abroad during the 1970s. The group called Hantongnyon, or the Korean alliance for democracy and unification in Japan, was outlawed as an anti-state organization in 1978 by the Supreme Court. It has become famous for its campaign to save former President Kim Dae-jung in the 1970s
• GLOBAL ALLIANCE FIGHTS JAPAN'S EVASION OF WW 2
  Victor Fic, China In late August, 1995, after the world commemorated the fiftieth anniversary of the end of W.W. 2, Japan's nationalists were gleeful while the survivors of Japanese militarism in China and the rest of East Asia were crestfallen. The former felt self-satisfied because, over the past five decades, they had managed to avoid unambiguously apologizing for their country's past militarism. With the golden anniversary of the war's end over, the rightists calculated that most people would discard the subject of Japan's war guilt just as they would toss out an old calendar.
• Japan PM Prefers Bush, Could Cope with Kerry
  By REUTERS TOKYO (Reuters) - If Junichiro Koizumi could vote in the November U.S. presidential election, the Japanese prime minister would almost certainly cast his ballot for his diplomatic soul mate, President Bush. Koizumi has closely linked his security policy to the Republican president, spending considerable political capital to back the war in Iraq and send troops there on a risky non-combat mission -- despite opposition from Japan's own voters. ``Koizumi feels that he did certain things to support Bush in Iraq and believes that Bush owes him one,'' said Glen Fukushima, a former head of the American Chamber of Commerce in Japan.
  Kerry says he would pursue bilateral talks to persuade the secretive communist state to abandon its nuclear arms programs, while Bush is sticking to a six-way format that includes both Koreas, Japan, China and Russia as well as the United States. ``We would have to deal with a new U.S. approach, and it is an open question whether that would be better or worse,'' Soeya said. So are Koizumi and his policy aides losing sleep over the outcome of the U.S. poll? Probably not. ``No matter which party wins, policies will not change drastically. That is the strength of America's two-party system,'' Keidanren's Nakamura said. ``The basics don't change that much.''
• Solidarity Meeting of Korean and Japanese Women Held in DPRK
  Calling For Earlier Normalization of DPRK-Japan Relations
• Japan Hit for Provocative Act against Pyongyang Declaration
  Pyongyang, September 29 (KCNA) -- It has recently been disclosed that the General Staff of the Ground Force of the Japan Defense Agency is working out "a plan for combating terrorism" including a drastic arms buildup of the Ground "Self-Defense Force" under the pretext of coping with "large-scale terrorism" of the DPRK. Commenting on this, a Rodong Sinmun analyst Wednesday says: The Japanese reactionaries are drawing up the "plan for combating terrorism" and seeking a drastic arms buildup by pulling up the DPRK over its fictitious "terrorism". This shows they are going to extremes in their moves to stage a comeback to Korea and impede the implementation of the DPRK-Japan Pyongyang Declaration.

• NK Threatens to Turn Japan into `Sea of Fire'
  North Korea threatened Thursday that it will turn Japan into a ``nuclear sea of fire'' if the U.S. attacks it with nuclear weapons. ``If the U.S. ignites a nuclear wear, the U.S. military bases in Japan would serve as a detonating fuse to turn Japan into a nuclear sea of fire,'' North Korea's main newspaper Rodong Sinmun said. The article, carried by the North's Korean Central News Agency, claimed that the danger of a nuclear war in Northeast Asia keeps increasing as a result of Washington's push to realign its military presence in this part of the world. About 70,000 U.S. troops are stationed in Japan. ``The U.S. selection of Japan as the most important vantage point in implementing its Korean and Asian military strategy is designed to put into practice its long-range attack strategy,'' it said.
• Japan Raises Defenses on Signs North Korea Plans Missile Test
  By JAMES BROOKE Published: September 24, 2004 OKYO, Sept. 23 - Japan sent two destroyers and a surveillance airplane to the Sea of Japan on Thursday, American and Japanese government officials said, after the United States and Japan detected signs that North Korea was preparing to test a ballistic missile capable of reaching the main islands of Japan. At the same time, the North Korean newspaper Rodong Sinmun warned Japan that its military cooperation with the United States "would serve as a detonating fuse to turn Japan into a nuclear sea of fire," the official Korean Central News Agency reported. These tensions across the Sea of Japan, where the two countries are separated by as little as 350 miles, surfaced on the day when North Korea was to have taken part in a fourth round of six-nation talks intended to dismantle its nuclear weapons program. But, rebuffing appeals from its neighbors and the United States, North Korea has made it clear that it will not resume substantive talks until the American presidential election is decided and Washington's policies are defined. North Korea's harsh polemics and the easily detectable activity of soldiers and vehicles around North Korean missile bases may be intended to influence the elections, some analysts in the region speculated. North Korea has complained that the Bush administration has not taken its military power seriously enough to engage in bilateral talks.
• The City of Nagasaki Peace Declaration
  August 6, 2004
• Book to Depict Pro-Japan Activities of Former Newspaper Manager
  By Chung Ah-young Staff Reporter Chosun Ilbo, a daily newspaper whose past is disputed due to alleged pro-Japanese reports during the colonial rule, will publish a book illustrating the pro-Japanese activities of Bang Eung-mo, a former president of the newspaper, in October. On the front page of the New Year's edition of 1940, Chosun Ilbo carried photos of the Japanese emperor and his wife with articles wishing for their health and happiness. More than half a century later, the newspaper is facing increasing calls to apologize for its pro-Japanese activities during the period of colonial rule, becoming a major target for a reformist-backed drive to shed light on Koreans who collaborated with Japan. / Korea Times File This is the first time that the paper has used a book to make public its shameful history, which was known only to some scholars. [Media]

• Japan Plans to Launch Spy Satellites
  By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Published: August 25, 2004 Filed at 11:51 p.m. ET TOKYO (AP) -- A Japanese government panel has approved plans to send two spy satellites into Earth's orbit beginning next year, a media report said Wednesday. If confirmed, the missions would be the first since late 2003 for Japan's ailing space program, which has suffered a slew of launch and mission failures. The government has earmarked 69.9 billion yen (US$635 million) for the project in 2005, when Japan's space agency would send the first probe, designed to snap high- resolution pictures of objects on the ground such as buildings, public broadcaster NHK TV said. The second probe, which would use radar to analyze topography, would go up in 2006, NHK said, citing a Cabinet Office official. A Cabinet Office spokesman refused to comment on the report. The government had planned to put a total of eight spy satellites into orbit through 2006 to keep watch on North Korea, Japan's No. 1 security concern. It now has two spy satellites orbiting the planet.
• Tokyo Urges Seoul to Keep Lid on 1965 Agreement
  By Ryu Jin Staff Reporter Tokyo has urged Seoul not to release details of the controversial agreement of 1965 that established bilateral ties while it is engaged in negotiations to normalize its relationship with Pyongyang, a South Korean official said Friday. ``Japan requested that the diplomatic archives be kept secret since they could have a negative effect on its negotiations with North Korea for the envisioned setting up of bilateral diplomatic relations,'' the government source said on condition of anonymity. The 1965 pact, which normalized relations between South Korea and Japan about 20 years after the demise of imperialist Japan, has been regarded as a Pandora's box as it allegedly contains items unfavorable to Seoul. Under the pact, the late dictatorial president Park Chung-hee's government made it virtually impossible for those persecuted under the 1910- 45 Japanese colonial rule to receive compensation individually from the Japanese government. Park's military regime received $800 million from Japan at the time, including government-level compensation, but did not give individuals as much money as originally promised. Moreover, a recently released CIA report even supported allegations that the South Korean government took a huge amount of money from Tokyo as illegal political funds in return for the unequal agreement. [Park Chung-hee]
• Songs of Silence and Survival
  Exhibition Shows Photo-portraits of Victims of Sexual Slavery By Bridget O'Brien Contributing Writer Many may be familiar with the term ``comfort woman,'' one that euphemistically describes the hundreds of thousands of women who were tricked, coerced or abducted by the Japanese military to serve as sex-slaves for soldiers during World War II. Comfort is not one of the words those women would use to describe their treatment however, remaining silent for so many years due to shame and politics, their stories were hidden. In an exhibition entitled ``Lineages of Separation _ Voices and Portraits of the Survivors of Japanese Military Sexual Slavery,'' audio-recordings and photographic portraits let us glimpse their incredible struggle from tragedy to hope through song.
• Seoul urged to keep mum on Korea-Japan documents
  Previously undisclosed diplomatic documents exchanged between South Korean and Japan decades ago while normalizing ties may be opened to the public in the country, officials said yesterday. Seoul has recently informed Tokyo that it may be inevitable to avoid the release of the classified documents here if local courts rule that the government must reveal parts of the old document written when forming new ties. South Korea made diplomatic ties with Japan in 1965 accepting $500 million in soft loans and grants as compensation for Japan's 1910-45 colonial rule over the Korean Peninsula. The agreement with Tokyo, however, drew severe criticism as it was revealed later that the accord exempted Japan from making individual compensation for victims of abuses by the colonial rulers. According to officials at Seoul's Foreign Ministry, the early warning to Japan of the possible release of the documents is to prevent further damage to diplomatic relations between the two sides by explaining the possible court ruling here, which will go against what has been promised that the contents be released simultaneously. A host of suspicions have also been raised surrounding the terms of the normalization, such as allegations that the then South Korean government received an astronomical amount of political funds from Japan in return for agreeing to establish ties. [Park Chung-hee]
• Leading NK Defector Invited to Visit Japan
  SEOUL (Yonhap) _ A leading Japanese lawmaker reportedly asked Hwang Jang-yop, the highest- ranking North Korean defector to Seoul, to fly to Japan next month, according to diplomatic sources.
• Japan's Projected Naval Exercises Assailed
  Pyongyang, August 14 (KCNA) -- The Japanese government recently declared that it would stage joint naval exercises, pursuant to PSI in waters off Tokyo Bay this October under its own sponsorship. A signed commentary of Rodong Sinmun Saturday dismisses this as a product of the sinister intention of the Bush administration to escalate its policy to isolate and blockade the DPRK.
• Japanese Prosecution Records on Korean Independence Worriers Unearthed
  AUGUST 13, 2004 22:00 by Chae-Hyun Kwon (confetti@donga.com) Japan's prosecution records on Korea's independence groups and activists during the colonial period of 1935-36 have been unearthed. On August 13, Shin Guk-ju, the former president of Seoul's Dongguk University, disclosed Volume 25 of the "Ideology Research Material," which was published by the crime division of the Japanese prosecution in 1936. The cover of the booklet that Professor Shin owned was marked with a warning of "Top Secret" and "Security Clearance" and a serial number of 409.
• N. Korea to Allow Japan Mission Visit on Abductees
  By REUTERS Published: August 14, 2004 Filed at 1:39 a.m. ET TOKYO (Reuters) - North Korea will allow Japan to send a fact-finding mission to the secretive communist state to investigate the fate of 10 citizens abducted decades ago, Kyodo news agency reported Saturday. The report came after Japan and North Korea failed to make progress toward establishing diplomatic ties at two days of talks in Beijing this week, at which North Korean officials gave no new details about Japanese citizens believed to have been abducted to train Pyongyang's spies
• Powell Links Japan UN Seat to Constitution - Report
  By REUTERS Published: August 13, 2004 Filed at 0:14 a.m. ET TOKYO (Reuters) - Secretary of State Colin Powell said Japan must consider revising its pacifist constitution if it wanted to become a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council, Kyodo news agency reported on Friday. Article Nine of Japan's postwar, U.S.-drafted constitution, renounces the right to go to war and forbids a military, although it is interpreted as permitting forces for self-defense. . ``If Japan is going to play a full role on the world stage and become a full active participating member of the Security Council, and have the kind of obligations that it would pick up as a member of the Security Council, Article Nine would have to be examined in that light,'' Kyodo quoted Powell as saying. ``But whether or not Article Nine should be modified or changed is absolutely and entirely up to the Japanese people to decide because the United States would not presume an opinion,'' he added in an interview with Japanese media in Washington on Thursday. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitagetold a lawmaker for Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's ruling party last month that Japan must revise the constitution and play a greater military role for international peace if it wanted a permanent seat on the Security Council, Japanese media have reported. Japan has sent troops to help rebuild Iraq in a strictly non-combat role. [Japanese remilitarisation]
• Japan, North Korea Begin Talks on Improving Ties
  By REUTERS Published: August 11, 2004 Filed at 1:28 a.m. ET BEIJING (Reuters) - Japan and North Korea on Wednesday began talks on the fate of Japanese citizens abducted decades ago by North Korean agents, the main stumbling block to forging diplomatic ties between the Asian neighbors. The two-days of working-level talks will be dominated by a simmering dispute over 10 Japanese who Tokyo believes were kidnapped by North Korean agents in the 1970s and 1980s to be used to train spies for the North.
• Japanese Government's Discrimination against Koreans in Japan Denounced
  Pyongyang, August 8 (KCNA) -- A delegate of the Japan Workers' Human Rights Committee, a non- governmental organization, addressing the 56th meeting of the UN subcommittee on protection and promotion of human rights held in Geneva on August 2 asked the subcommittee to recommend the Japanese government to immediately stop the discrimination against the Koreans in Japan and enact a law to protect and promote their human rights. Calling the subcommittee's attention to the human rights situation of the Koreans in Japan, descendants of victims of Japan's colonial rule over Korea, he said: Although the graduates of the Korean higher schools, who had been denied the right to take examination for entering Japanese universities owing to the Japanese government's refusal to "recognize" it in the past, are now permitted to do so, they still have to go through various formalities. Disclosing that the number of the cases of violence against Korean students is on increase in Japan since the adoption of the DPRK-Japan Pyongyang Declaration, he asserted that violence and attack against innocent children are quite unjustifiable whether the political tension between Japan and the DPRK increases or not.
• Spokesman for DPRK FM Blasts "Joint Naval Exercise" to Be Hosted by Japan
  Pyongyang, August 7 (KCNA) -- A spokesman for the DPRK Foreign Ministry Saturday answered a question put by KCNA as regards the fact that the United States has instigated Japan to stage a "joint naval exercise" against the DPRK. He said: The Japanese government announced on August 3 that it would sponsor a "joint naval exercise" off Tokyo Bay in October according to PSI.
• Japan Wants Jenkins' Ordeal to End Soon
  By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Published: August 6, 2004 Filed at 3:35 a.m. ET TOKYO (AP) -- Japan hopes to resolve a potential custody battle with the United States over accused U.S. Army deserter Charles Jenkins soon, an official said Friday, as Jenkins prepared to discuss his legal case with a U.S. military attorney for a second day. Jenkins, 64, is accused of deserting his Army platoon in South Korea in 1965 and defecting to the communist North. Since Jenkins arrived to receive medical treatment last month, Tokyo has urged leniency so he can live in Japan with his Japanese wife, whom he met in North Korea.
• Hiroshima Mayor Criticizes U.S. Nukes
  By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Published: August 6, 2004 Filed at 3:26 a.m. ET HIROSHIMA, Japan (AP) -- The mayor of Hiroshima marked the anniversary of the world's first atomic bomb attack Friday by lashing out at the United States for its pursuit of next-generation nuclear weapons, and called on a global ban on all nuclear arms by 2020. Tadatoshi Akiba said Washington had turned its back on other nations and accused President Bush's administration of taking an ``egocentric'' view of the world. ``Ignoring the United Nations and international law, the United States has resumed research to make nuclear weapons smaller and more 'usable,''' he said at the 59th annual ceremony in the western city's Peace Memorial Park. In June, the U.S. Senate approved spending for the Bush administration's research into -- but not development of -- new nuclear ``bunker buster'' and ``mini-nuke'' warheads. The nuclear bunker buster would be designed to hit targets deep underground, such as subterranean military command centers that are beyond the reach of conventional arms. The mini-nukes would have the explosive power of less than 5,000 tons of TNT -- one-fourth the size of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. Supporters of the new weapons say they would cause less damage and fewer deaths in the area around a target. The United States has had a self-imposed ban on nuclear testing since 1992. But Akiba said the world needs to dismantle and ban all weapons like the U.S. atomic bomb that killed or wounded 160,000 people on Aug. 6, 1945. He called on nations to attend a nuclear nonproliferation meeting, to be held in May 2005 in New York, and sign a treaty that would eventually abolish nuclear arms by 2020. He also branded North Korea's development of nuclear weapons a ``worthless policy of 'nuclear insurance'.'' Japan, the United States and four other nations have been engaged in talks to pressure the isolated communist regime to scrap its weapons program. Before Akiba spoke, a bell pealed at 8:15 a.m., marking the time when the U.S. A-bomb leveled this city, 429 miles southwest of Tokyo. Tens of thousands of survivors, residents, visitors and officials from around the world remembered the bombing victims by observing a minute of silence. Afterward, 1,000 doves were released. In brief remarks, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi reaffirmed Japan's policy banning the production, possession and transport of nuclear weapons within its borders. Hiroshima city added to a list -- encased in a stone cenotaph -- 5,142 names of those who have died from cancer and other long-term ailments over the past year, raising the toll to 237,062, city official Niroaki Narukawa said. Among those added in recent years were seven American POWs who perished in the explosion. Some of those Americans were from the crews of three aircraft -- two B-24 bombers and a Helldiver dive bomber -- shot down near Hiroshima on July 28, 1945 after a raid on Japanese warships in nearby Kure. Others were prisoners who had been killed elsewhere in grisly experiments that the Japanese military apparently wanted to hide. One American, U.S. Army Air Force Cpl. John Long, Jr., was newly incorporated earlier this year into a memorial hall in the peace park, which opened in 2002 and displays photographs and biographical notes about 9,000 bomb victims. Ceremonies will be held Saturday on the anniversary of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, on the southernmost main island of Kyushu. About 70,000 people were killed by an atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki from a U.S. aircraft, three days after the one that hit Hiroshima. On Aug. 15, 1945, Japan's surrender ended World War II.
• Korean Schoolgirl Establishes New Record in Weightlifting
  Giving courage and power to Koreans in Japan
• U.S. Readies Case Against Alleged Deserter
  By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Published: July 31, 2004 Filed at 1:02 a.m. ET TOKYO (AP) -- After 40 years in North Korea, accused U.S. Army deserter Charles Robert Jenkins appears to be settling into a quiet routine in Japan. Ensconced in a Tokyo hospital, he is visited by his wife and daughters every day. The gaggle of cameramen outside has dwindled to just a half dozen or so. And doctors say his recovery is going much better than expected -- though they refuse to say what exactly he is supposed to be suffering from. Jenkins' new routine, however, may be short- lived. The U.S. military has refrained from nabbing Jenkins while he is in the hospital, but has been quietly preparing to bring him to justice when he is physically able. No formal deadline has been announced, but Japanese media reports say Jenkins' day of reckoning may come as soon as next week.

• Ex - G.I. Jenkins Asks to See U.S. Military Lawyer
  By REUTERS Published: July 26, 2004 Filed at 3:32 a.m. ET TOKYO (Reuters) - A former U.S. Army sergeant accused of deserting to North Korea and now in Japan receiving medical treatment has asked to speak to a U.S. military lawyer, a spokesman for the U.S. military forces in Japan said on Monday. But the spokesman said he was unable to comment on speculation that this was a first step toward Jenkins seeking a plea bargain concerning charges that he deserted in 1965. Jenkins, 64, arrived in Japan for medical care on July 18 with his Japanese wife, Hitomi Soga, and their two daughters after the family was reunited in Jakarta on July 9.
• Online Campaign Launched to Defend Tokto
  300 Web Sites Post Alternative Information on Islets By Moon Gwang-lip Ahn Yong-bok, a fisherman of the Choson period (1392-1910), was doing his job as usual on Tokto, the easternmost islets under the rule of the kingdom, when he saw a Japanese fishing boat cast anchor at one of the islands. Ahn prohibited the vessel from fishing there, visited Japan and obtained a memorandum from the neighboring realm promising no more fishing near Tokto. The incident happened around 300 years ago. Today, many modern Ahns are continuing the unfinished job. But they know the task of defending Tokto, tiny islets of just 186,173 square meters, faces an uphill battle.
• No Proof Ex - GI Jenkins Deserted to N.Korea - Nephew
  By REUTERS Published: July 24, 2004 Filed at 12:03 p.m. ET TOKYO (Reuters) - The nephew of a former U.S. soldier accused of deserting to North Korea said on Saturday that he had been kept from visiting his uncle in a Tokyo hospital and reiterated his belief that the ex-G.I. was innocent of any crime. Charles Robert Jenkins, 64, a former army sergeant who Washington says deserted in 1965, arrived in Japan for medical care last Sunday with his Japanese wife, Hitomi Soga, and their two daughters after the family was reunited in Jakarta on July 9. Jenkins' nephew, James Hyman, arrived in Tokyo a week ago hoping for a reunion with his uncle, whom he last saw when he was 4 years old, but he and his wife said their repeated requests had been turned down by Japanese officials. ``Has Robert just changed one prison for another?'' asked Hyman's wife, Shir-Lee, at a news conference, referring to Jenkins by his middle name. Washington has repeatedly said it had the right to seek Jenkins' custody so that he can face court martial for desertion and other crimes, but has put off doing so because of his poor health. Jenkins met Soga after she was abducted by North Korean agents in 1978. Soga returned to Japan with four other abductees in 2002 but had to leave her husband and two daughters behind. Her plight has touched Japanese hearts and Tokyo has asked Washington to give Jenkins special treatment so that the family can live together in Japan -- a request that the United States has so far rejected.
  The impasse over Jenkins has put Washington and Tokyo in something of a bind. President Bush is thought reluctant to give him special treatment for fear of sending the wrong message while U.S. soldiers are fighting in Iraq and upsetting voters in an election year. But Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi has spent considerable political capital to send Japanese troops on a non-combat mission to Iraq, partly at Washington's nudging.
• Armitage: Article 9 hinders Japan's alliance with U.S.
  WASHINGTON-Pacifist Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution is an impediment to the alliance between Japan and the United States, according to U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage. He made his comments Wednesday to Hidenao Nakagawa, chairman of the Liberal Democratic Party's Diet Affairs Committee, who is visiting Washington. Armitage indicated that the present constitutional interpretation prohibiting the exercise of Japan's right to collective self-defense will have to be revised to further strengthen the military alliance between the two nations. [Japanese remilitarisation]
• Article 9 hindering U.S. ties, bid for UNSC seat: Armitage
  WASHINGTON (Kyodo) U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage told a Japanese lawmaker Wednesday that the war-renouncing Article 9 of Japan's Constitution is becoming an obstacle to strengthening the Japan-U.S. alliance.
  Article 9, the centerpiece of the nation's pacifist Constitution, stipulates the Japanese people "forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes."
• Kin of kidnapped fret lack of focus on Pyongyang in Upper House poll
  By ERIC JOHNSTON Staff writer KOBE -- Seven months ago, on the eve of the House of Representatives election, North Korea's abductions of Japanese was one of the main campaign topics. But as the House of Councilors election approaches, most candidates are paying little attention to the issue and instead focusing their speeches on issues of more immediate concern to voters, including pension reform.
• U.S. Official Denies Talk of Jenkins Deal - - Report
  By REUTERS Published: July 24, 2004 Filed at 2:28 a.m. ET TOKYO (Reuters) - A U.S. official has denied that there are moves in the United States to permit a plea bargain for Charles Robert Jenkins, an ex-U.S. soldier accused of deserting to North Korea, Kyodo news agency said Saturday. Jenkins, 64, who Washington says deserted to North Korea in 1965, arrived in Japan for medical care last Sunday with his Japanese wife, Hitomi Soga, and their two daughters after the family was reunited in Jakarta on July 9.
  The stalemate over Jenkins' fate has put Tokyo and its close ally, the United States, in something of a bind. President Bush is thought to be reluctant to pardon him for fear of sending the wrong message while U.S. troops are fighting in Iraq and of offending voters ahead of the November presidential election. Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi has spent considerable political capital to back the United States by sending troops on a controversial non-combat mission in Iraq.
• Roh assailed over touchy issues
  Tokto, war history get a bare mention SEOGWIPO, Jeju ? President Roh Moo-hyun and Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi of Japan ended a two-day summit yesterday with a calm stroll on the beach as a political storm blew up over Mr. Roh's decision to soft-pedal contentious issues with Mr. Koizumi, including the countries' territorial dispute over the Tokto Islands and Japan's brutal wartime record in Korea.
• Roh, Koizumi offer aid to N.K.
  Korean president says time not appropriate for inter-Korean summit JEJU - President Roh Moo-hyun and Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi promised yesterday that the two countries would provide economic assistance to North Korea if the North dismantled its nuclear weapons programs.
• Roh, Koizumi cement policy on North Korea
  SEOGWIPO, Jeju ? President Roh Moo-hyun and Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi of Japan reaffirmed yesterday their shared goal of ending North Korea's nuclear weapons program, but there appeared to be some nuanced differences in their approach to the six-nation talks to accomplish that goal. The two leaders promised an aggressive effort to convince North Korea of the benefits it would receive if it began to dismantle its nuclear arms programs.
• Roh Calls on Japan to Correct Past Problems
  Two Leaders End First Shuttle Diplomacy By Shim Jae-yun Staff Reporter CHEJU ISLAND - President Roh Moo-hyun urged Japan on Thursday to take steps to correct past problems, including distortions of historical facts in textbooks and politicians' visits to a controversial shrine dedicated to World War II dead.
• Park Chung-hee May Be Free From Probes Into Pro- Japan Collaborators
  By Park Song-wu Staff Reporter The ruling Uri Party hinted Wednesday that it could exclude late President Park Chung-hee from its fact-finding probe into Koreans who collaborated with Japanese authorities during the 1910-1945 colonial rule. ``If the Grand National Party leader Park Geun- hye really wants it, the Uri Party could leave out her father of the probe,'' said Lee Bu- young, a member of the ruling party's steering committee.
• Roh-Koizumi to Focus on Pyongyang's Nuclear Program
  By Shim Jae-yun Staff Reporter President Roh Moo-hyun and Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi in their summit talks on Wednesday will focus on finding a peaceful solution to the impasse over North Korea's nuclear weapons program
• Foreign Web Sites Use Japanese Names for Korean Marathoner
  By Na Jeong-ju, Lee Jin-woo Staff Reporters Sohn Kee-jung, a Korean marathon hero who won the gold medal in the 1936 Berlin Olympics, is wrongly described as a Japanese national on hundreds of foreign Internet portal sites. According to the Voluntary Agency Network Korea (VANK), an Internet-based civilian diplomatic mission, 847 Websites overseas described Son as ``Kitei Son'' with Japanese nationality.
  The new findings followed the International Olympic Committee (IOC)'s wrong description of the marathoner's name as Kitei Son and his nationality as a North Korean. The IOC later corrected his nationality to Korean at the request of South Korean Olympic Committee, but not his name.
• Ex-G.I. Accused of Deserting Arrives in a Sympathetic Japan
  By TODD ZAUN Published: July 19, 2004 OKYO, July 18 - An American accused of deserting the United States Army four decades ago and fleeing to North Korea arrived in Tokyo on Sunday for medical treatment, though by setting foot in Japan he faces the threat of a military court-martial. Charles Robert Jenkins, 64, is believed to have deserted the Army in January 1965 while on patrol inside the demilitarized zone separating North and South Korea. American officials say they intend to prosecute Mr. Jenkins, who has appeared in North Korean propaganda films, though they also say they may wait to seek custody while he receives treatment.
• U.S. May Delay Seeking Charges for Ex - Soldier
  By REUTERS Published: July 17, 2004 Filed at 0:39 a.m. ET TOKYO (Reuters) - The United States maintains its right to try an ex-U.S. soldier accused of deserting to North Korea, but may delay doing so out of respect for his health, U.S. Ambassador Howard Baker said Saturday. Charles Robert Jenkins, a former U.S. army sergeant who Washington says deserted to the secretive communist state in 1965, is expected to arrive in Japan on Sunday with his Japanese wife and the couple's two North Korean-born daughters for medical treatment despite questions about his fate
• Bill Banning Entry of Specified Foreign Ships Into Japanese Ports Passes Japan's Upper House
  The "bill banning the entry of specified foreign ships into Japanese ports" passed Japan's House of Councilors on June 14 following its approval by the House of Representatives on June 3. So Chung On, director of the International Affairs Bureau of the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan (Chongryun), published a comment. He said in the comment, "it is a tough reality and a deplorable development that Japan's ruling and opposition parties passed a law for sanctions against the DPRK at a time when the relationship between DPRK and Japan was at a new turning point thanks to the DPRK-Japan summit talks." He stressed that "sanctions" or "pressure" will not bring about any positive result and "dialogue" based on confidence is the only and the best way to solve various problems between the DPRK and Japan.
• KCNA Denounced Japan's Legislation for Sanctions against DPRK
  "Bill Banning Entry of Specified Foreign Ships into Japanese Ports" Passes Lower House Japan went ahead with an act inconsistent with the "DPRK-Japan Pyongyang Declaration" in spite of the fact that Japan had reconfirmed its implementation at the second summit meeting between two countries which was held in May.
• Chongryun Holds 20th Congress
  The 20th Congress of the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan (Chongryun) was held on May 28 and 29 at the Korean Cultural Hall in Tokyo, Japan. The congress became a landmark congress to mark a new milestone in the independent movement of Korean residents in Japan. A platform and rules of Chongryun were revised and the officials of the central committee were elected at the congress.
• Ex-GI May Risk Arrest By Going To Japan
  U.S. Reserves Right To Request Custody By Anthony Faiola Washington Post Foreign Service Friday, July 16, 2004; Page A14 TOKYO, July 15 -- An alleged U.S. Army deserter who lived in North Korea for 39 years appears set to travel to Tokyo for medical treatment as soon as this weekend, but U.S. officials on Thursday said they reserved the right to request his custody, even though that might not occur immediately. [human rights]
• U.S. Plans to Pursue Accused Deserter
  By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Published: July 15, 2004 Filed at 4:04 a.m. ET TOKYO (AP) -- The United States plans to pursue a case against accused Army deserter Charles Jenkins, but might not demand he be turned over immediately to American custody if he comes to Japan, the U.S. ambassador said Thursday.
• Controversy Over Scope of Pro-Japanese Collaboration
  JULY 13, 2004 22:12 by Sung-Won Park (swpark@donga.com) The Uri Party decided on July 13 to submit a revision of the special law to probe pro-Japanese collaborators during the Japanese invasion to the National Assembly on July 14. The new revision significantly expanded the scope of the Japanese collaboration probe
• Roh, Koizumi to meet on Jeju with North, free trade on agenda
  President Roh Moo-hyun will meet with Prime Minister Juinchiro Koizumi of Japan on Jeju island next week, the Blue House announced yesterday. In the meeting on July 21 and 22, the two leaders will focus on the North Korean nuclear issue, as well as other bilateral matters, including a free trade agreement
• Uri to revive bill on collaboration
  Despite the press of other business, the Uri Party yesterday said it was preparing new measures to expose collaborators during Korea's occupation by Japan. The colonial period began in 1910 and ended in 1945 with Japan's surrender after World War II. After a party meeting yesterday, Uri leaders said they would propose today the expansion of a law enacted last year to allow investigations of alleged Korean collaborators. Demonstrating the depth of emotion that the issue still raises, the original legislation met with a storm of criticism that it was too lenient toward collaborators. The law, and the proposed revision, both would apply no sanctions ? and almost all the persons involved are by now dead ? but would put allegations of collaboration on the public record. The original legislation is not scheduled to be effective until September
• Roh-Koizumi Summit Will Focus on NK Nukes
  By Shim Jae-yun Staff Reporter Foreign Affairs-Trade Minister Ban Ki-moon on Tuesday said the summit meeting between President Roh Moo-hyun and Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi will focus on ways to help resolve the impasse over North Korea's nuclear weapons program.
• Details Prove Elusive in Jenkins Reunion
  By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Published: July 14, 2004 Filed at 2:27 a.m. ET JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) -- Accused U.S. army deserter Charles Jenkins, reunited with his Japanese wife in Jakarta, saw his first mango over the weekend. At dinner, he wasn't wearing a pin with the face of North Korea's former leader. His daughters got to watch a Harry Potter film. It's not exactly headline news, to be sure. But the dozens of reporters camped out in the family's five-star hotel read these bits of trivia like a fortune teller's tea leaves, searching desperately for insight into whether the family will stay in Indonesia, move to Japan or return home to North Korea.
• Yokosuka navy base plays key missile role, think tank says
  The Japan Times: Sept. 13, 2003 By NAO SHIMOYACHI Staff writer YOKOSUKA, Kanagawa Pref. -- A disarmament think tank on Friday suggested that Yokosuka is a pivotal U.S. base for Tomahawk cruise missiles, backing its claim with documents showing that a U.S. destroyer received and transferred hundreds of the high-tech missiles here between 1991 and 1997.
  "We are of course against North Korea's missile programs," Umebayashi said. "But when there are a bunch of Tomahawk missiles, which have almost the same range as (Pyongyang's) Nodong (ballistic) missiles, stored in Yokosuka, it would not make a fair argument just to talk about the missile threat from North Korea."

• Reporting the realities of war
  The bravery of two freelance Japanese journalists killed as they worked in Iraq is in stark contrast to Japan's line-toeing media executives, says Justin McCurry Wednesday June 2, 2004 The past few weeks have seen Japanese journalism at both its boldest and its most craven. Its less endearing side was displayed when five children, whose parents were abducted by communist agents during the cold war, arrived from North Korea. The journalists wanted to know whether the children's parents, who returned to Japan in 2002, had taught them any Japanese. Were the reunited families sitting down to eat Japanese or Korean meals? What had they bought on their first shopping trip together? Those reunions were not the only progress made at last month's Pyongyang meeting between the Japanese prime minister, Junichiro Koizumi, and the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-il. However, the media made little of pledges by Kim to refrain from conducting nuclear weapons tests, his willingness to talk again, or his desire for a nuclear-free Korean peninsula. These were all causes for optimism, but were buried beneath minutiae about the children.
  How comfortable life must be for governments when media executives - often to the frustration of their reporters on the ground - churn out identikit coverage, all of it towing the official line. Hence North Korea is congenitally evil, Samawa is safe, and the skipping of pension contributions by ministers - tantamount to tax evasion - is not a matter for resignation. [media]
• DPRK FM. Spokesman on Stand to Implement Spirit of DPRK-Japan Summit
  Pyongyang, June 2 (KCNA) -- A spokesman for the DPRK Ministry of Foreign Affairs Wednesday gave the following answer to a question put by KCNA as regards the prospect of the DPRK-Japan relations following the Japanese prime minister's visit to the DPRK: As already reported, the top leaders of the DPRK and Japan at a summit meeting and talks in Pyongyang on May 22 exchanged wide-ranging views on all the issues arising between the two countries including the issues of implementing the DPRK- Japan Pyongyang Declaration and restoring the bilateral confidence. In this regard, the DPRK is taking note of a series of practical and constructive moves taken by the Japanese side recently. The DPRK favorably appreciates a congratulatory message sent by Prime Minister Koizumi to the 20th Congress of the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan, in particular, in which he expressed his intention to make utmost efforts to normalize the Japan-DPRK ties. It is the DPRK's stand to remain true to the spirit of the DPRK-Japan summit meeting and materialize it. The DPRK, too, is doing necessary work to implement the DPRK-Japan Pyongyang Declaration and advance the matters discussed between the two sides.
• DPRK and Japan Hold Second Summit Talks on Normalizing Bilateral Ties
  Both Sides Reaffirm Implementation of "Pyongyang Declaration"
• International Meeting to Demand Japan's Settlement of Its Past Held in Seoul 300 Delegates Participated in Conference
• Letter to Kim Jong Il from Koreans in Japan
  Pyongyang, May 31 (KCNA) -- The participants in the 20th Congress of the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan (Chongryon) on May 29 sent a letter to leader Kim Jong Il.
• Koizumi Sends Congratulatory Message to Chongryon Congress
  Tokyo, May 28 (KNS-KCNA) -- Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi who is president of the Liberal Democratic Party of Japan sent a congratulatory message to the 20th Congress of the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan (Chongryon) on May 28
• Bush Support on Iraq May Affect Koizumi
  By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Published: June 1, 2004 Filed at 1:56 a.m. ET TOKYO (AP) -- Fresh off a high-profile diplomatic dash to North Korea, Japan's Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi heads into next week's summit of industrial democracies with a stronger hand than usual. His popularity is up, and the nation's economy is sputtering back to life after a long slumber. But some analysts say he may want to keep a bit of distance from George Bush.
• Japanese aide says North seeks U.S. talks
  Japanese foreign minister Yoriko Kawaguchi told Seoul's foreign minister, Ban Ki-moon, that North Korea has "deep distrust towards the United States but also strongly wishes to engage in dialogue with it." Ms. Kawaguchi was here over the weekend to debrief Mr. Ban on Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's visit to Pyeongyang.

• Roh Praises Koizumi's NK Visit
  President Roh Moo-hyun praised the outcome of the recent Japan-North Korea summit, calling it a ``great achievement'' while meeting with visiting Japanese Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi at Chong Wa Dae on Saturday.
• Japan Deaths in Iraq Highlight PM Political Risk
  By REUTERS Published: May 28, 2004 TOKYO (Reuters) - The deaths of two Japanese journalists in Iraq could deepen public divisions over Tokyo's troop dispatch and highlight a political risk for the government ahead of a July election, analysts said Friday.
  Koizumi's popularity rates rose about 10 points to above 50 percent in media surveys this week after last Saturday's Pyongyang summit, at which North Korea agreed to let five children of Japanese abducted decades ago be reunited with their parents in Japan.
• Families of Kidnapped Japanese to Return to Tokyo
• SILENCE BROKEN: KOREAN COMFORT WOMEN
  Cara White Dramatic and Moving Documentary About Korean Women Forced Into Sexual Servitude By The Japanese Imperial Army During World War II
• 70% positive on Koizumi trip: poll
  Nearly 70 percent of respondents to a latest Kyodo News poll gave a positive assessment of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's one-day visit to North Korea on Saturday, but as many as 83.9 percent said they think the abduction issue remains unresolved.
• On the move after decades of pacifism
  By Richard Halloran Special to The Japan Times
  A quiet pride is evinced in the dispatch of Japan's Self-Defense Forces troops for peacekeeping in Iraq even though the polls say a bare majority opposes the deployment. Says a business executive: "That's their profession; that's what they've been trained for." A debate over revising the pacifist Constitution, particularly Article 9 -- that forbids the use of military power to resolve disputes -- is under way. Some say an amendment is unnecessary, that a mere reinterpretation would permit Japanese forces to take part in collective security. The need for that security arises largely from a perceived threat from North Korea [Japanese remilitarisation]
• Japan PM Koizumi Denies Snub by N.Korea's Kim
  By REUTERS Published: May 25, 2004 Filed at 2:07 a.m. ET TOKYO (Reuters) - Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, under fire from some quarters for his weekend summit in Pyongyang, denied on Tuesday that he had been snubbed by North Korean leader Kim Jong-il. At talks with Kim on Saturday, Koizumi won the release of five North Korean-born children of Japanese abducted by the communist state decades ago. Some media said Kim -- who rarely meets Western leaders -- had been rude to Koizumi at what was their second summit. ``There were reports that the prime minister was snubbed and he was asked if that was true,'' Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroyuki Hosoda told a news conference after a cabinet meeting. ``The prime minister explained that that was not the case,'' Hosoda said, adding that there was no diplomatic slight in the fact that it was Koizumi who greeted Kim at the Daedong Guest House outside Pyongyang where the summit was held. Ordinary voters gave Koizumi a modest thumbs up.
• Japanese Leader Enjoys Boost in Support
  By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Published: May 24, 2004 Filed at 6:04 a.m. ET TOKYO (AP) -- Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi reaped the political benefits Monday of his weekend summit in North Korea, enjoying a boost in ratings despite harsh criticism that he failed to win enough concessions from Pyongyang. Polls in two of Japan's top national newspapers showed substantial jumps in approval of Koizumi's Cabinet -- strengthening the government less than two months before elections for the upper house of Parliament in July.
• Abductee Families Begin New Life in Japan
  By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Published: May 24, 2004 Filed at 11:24 p.m. ET KASHIWAZAKI, Japan (AP) -- One of the first things Kaoru Hasuike did after meeting his children at the airport in Tokyo was tell them their new names. His 22-year-old daughter -- called Yong Hwa back in North Korea -- would be Shigeyo. His 19-year-old son, Ki Hyok, would be Katsuya. From now on, they would be Japanese.
• Jenkins wants U.S. to guarantee he won't be court-martialed
  Monday, May 24, 2004 at 13:00 JST TOKYO - Charles Jenkins, the American husband of one of five repatriated Japanese abductees, will consider visiting Japan from North Korea if the United States guarantees it will not court- martial him as a deserted soldier, Japanese government sources said Sunday
• Seoul hails Koizumi's mission to North Korea
  Welcoming the meeting over the weekend between North Korean leader Kim Jong-il and Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi of Japan, South Korea's Foreign Ministry said the visit was a breakthrough in the two countries' ties. "The meeting set a turning point for the two country's relationship to advance by producing some results for the Japanese abductee problem, which is the biggest pending issue between the two countries," the Foreign Ministry said in a statement issued Saturday .
• Japan, North making progress
  North Korea and Japan held a summit in Pyeongyang Saturday, one year and eight months after their first such meeting. The two sides agreed on the release of five family members of former Japanese abductees in North Korea, and verified their intent to hold working-level meetings to reinvestigate alleged kidnappings stilll unaccounted for and to resume working-level negotiations toward the reestablishment of diplomatic relations. Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi announced he would stop enactment of unfriendly legislation against North Korea and send food and medical aid within two months.
• Japanese Prime Minister Interviewed by Reporters
  Pyongyang, May 22 (KCNA) -- Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi had an interview with reporters at Pyongyang Koryo Hotel Saturday in connection with his visit to the DPRK. Present there were mediapersons in the city, reporters of the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan, foreign correspondents to the DPRK and his suite reporters. In the interview the prime minister said that the purpose of his second visit to the DPRK is to reaffirm, together with Chairman of the National Defence Commission Kim Jong Il, the importance of the faithful implementation of the Japan-DPRK Pyongyang Declaration, put the abnormal relations between the two countries on a normal basis and make their hostile relations friendly relations and the relations of confrontation those of cooperation . He said that the frank talks were held and it was reaffirmed that the Pyongyang declaration serves as a foundation for the improvement of the Japan-DPRK relations. He expressed the belief that his visit would be a turning point for the normalization of diplomatic relations between Japan and the DPRK. Then he answered questions put by reporters.
• Koizumi's Trip Gets Lukewarm Reviews
  By JAMES BROOKE Published: May 24, 2004 OKYO, May 23 - From television talk programs to mass circulation newspapers, Japanese reacted skeptically on Sunday to their prime minister's trip to North Korea. Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's summit meeting with North Korea's leader, Kim Jong Il, on Saturday "made no headway in resolving the abduction, nuclear, missile or any other issues related to Northeast Asia's peace and security," the conservative Yomiuri Shimbun said in its editorial. "Japan must be ready to put punitive measures into action at any moment" to win compromises from North Korea. In his 10-hour visit to Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, Mr. Koizumi promised large amounts of food and medical aid. He was allowed to fly home with five children of two Japanese couples who returned to Japan in October 2002, almost a quarter century after they were kidnapped by North Korea from Japan. Despite the criticism, more than 60 percent of people polled by three newspapers gave him high marks for bringing home the family members, ending 18 months of separation for the families.
• DPRK and Japan Hold Summit Talks on Normalizing Bilateral Ties
  PYONGYANG, May 22 (KCNA) -- Kim Jong Il, chairman of the DPRK National Defense Commission, Saturday met and had talks with Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi on a visit to the DPRK to implement the "DPRK-Japan Pyongyang Declaration" and restore the relations of confidence between the two countries. Present there were Kang Sok Ju, first vice-minister of Foreign Affairs, from the DPRK side and Masaaki Yamazaki, deputy chief Cabinet secretary, Koro Bessho, chief secretary to the prime minister, Hitoshi Tanaka, deputy minister for Foreign Affairs, Mitoji Yabunaka, chief of the Asia and Oceania Bureau of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and other suite members from the Japanese side.
• Koizumi to tell North Korea he will try to normalize ties
• North Korea and Japan Sign a Deal on Abductions
  By JAMES BROOKE Published: May 23, 2004 TOKYO, May 22 - Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi flew to North Korea on Saturday to meet with Kim Jong Il, the North Korean leader. After promising to give North Korea millions of dollars of medical aid and thousands of tons of rice, Mr. Koizumi flew home with five children of Japanese citizens abducted by North Korea almost a quarter century ago. But Mr. Koizumi's bold trip ended in hostile criticism back home, with some Japanese suggesting that he had been treated shabbily by Mr. Kim and expressing anger that the American husband and two daughters of a kidnapped Japanese woman remained in North Korea.
• North Korean 'comfort woman' describes her agony at rally here
  "I must receive compensation from Japan," Ri Sang-ok, 78, a former comfort woman said in Seoul yesterday. Ms. Ri is the first former comfort women now living in North Korea to visit the South and speak about her ordeal as a sex slave for Japanese troops during World War II. She was speaking at the International Solidarity Council Demanding Settlement of Japan's Past, an international conference aimed at protesting what organizers and participants of the rally called Japan's failure to apologize and compensate victims of wartime and colonial abuses. Ms. Ri joined a North Korean delegation at the rally. In 1943, at the age of 17, she left her hometown in Hwanghae province, North Korea, attracted by the Japanese military's promises of an opportunity to make money. Instead, she ended up being forced to have sex with members of the Japanese military in South Pyeongan province for about a year. "The Japanese people must kneel and apologize to us, the Joseon people," she said, using the North Korean term for the country.
• Ri Sang-ok, former comfort woman of North Korea,
  Ri Sang-ok, former comfort woman of North Korea, speaks about the pain inflicted by Japanese troops during World War II in a press conference on Japan's war crimes in Seoul, Friday. [photo]
• NK Delegation Urges Japan to Apologize for War Crimes
  By Park Chung-a A North Korean representative advocating human rights of former sex slaves for Japanese troops on Thursday called on the Japanese government to apologize and compensate for atrocities inflicted by its troops on Asian people during World War II.
• Koizumi in North Korea
  By REUTERS Published: May 22, 2004 YONGYANG, North Korea, Saturday, May 22 - Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi of Japan arrived in North Korea on Saturday hoping to reunite the families of Japanese kidnapped by the Communist state decades ago and give a push to stalled talks on North Korea's nuclear weapons program.
• Koizumi gets four abductees' kids
  Jenkins, Soga's offspring remain in North, may reunite in China
  By KANAKO TAKAHARA Staff writer
  PYONGYANG -- Pyongyang allowed five of the repatriated Japanese abductees' eight family members to leave for Japan on Saturday evening after Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi wrapped up his summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Il. North Korean leader Kim Jong Il and Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi wrap up their summit Saturday at the Taedong Kang guesthouse near Pyongyang. The two offspring of freed abductees Kaoru and Yukiko Hasuike and the three of Yasushi and Fukie Chimura boarded a reserve Japanese government jet bound for Tokyo after Koizumi concluded his one-day visit here. They were to arrive in Tokyo later in the evening and reunite with their parents. However, repatriated abductee Hitomi Soga's husband, Charles Robert Jenkins, and their two daughters refused to come to Japan, citing fears that Jenkins -- an alleged U.S. Army deserter -- could be extradited and court-martialed by the U.S. Koizumi said Japan will instead arrange for Jenkins, Soga and the two daughters to meet at an early date in a third country -- possibly China.
• NK Delegation Urges Japan to Apologize for War Crimes
  By Park Chung-a A North Korean representative advocating human rights of former sex slaves for Japanese troops on Thursday called on the Japanese government to apologize and compensate for atrocities inflicted by its troops on Asian people during World War II.
• Sending Korean Residents to North Korea is Expulsion Policy by Japan
  .MAY 18, 2004 21:37 by Hun-Joo Cho (hanscho@donga.com) .. The program of sending Korean residents in Japan to North Korea, which was strongly supported by the Japanese government and non-governmental organizations starting from 1959 under the name of humanitarianism, was actually designed to mitigate the "causes of anxiety: the high crime rate and poverty," Japan's Asahi Shimbun reported on May 18. According to findings from Professor Kawashima Takane of Meiji University based on data from the Japanese Foreign Ministry, "Cabinet authorized" data of the Japanese government dated February 13, 1959 indicates that "the object of sending Korean residents to North Korea is based on the international common idea that the freedom of choosing one's place of residence is a component of basic human rights." But a document titled, "Inside affairs for reaching cabinet authorization," which has been kept top secret so far, emphasizes the political aspects of the sending program, saying that "Korean residents in Japan have higher crime rates, and about 1.7 billion yen is needed every year for supporting the 19,000 households that are categorized as livelihood-protection families. Public opinion is to send the problematic people to North Korea if they apply for it, and this overwhelmingly leads the opinion of the ruling party."
• N. Korean State Media Confirms Japanese PM's Planned Visit
  North Korea's state media reported Friday that Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi will visit the communist country in late May. The Korea Central New Agency (KCNA) said the purpose of the visit is "to implement the DPRK-Japan Pyongyang Declaration and restore the relations of confidence between the DPRK and Japan."
• Rice aid eyed if North responds
  The Asahi Shimbun Tokyo is seeking progress on the abduction issue. The government will provide North Korea with much-needed food assistance if Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's visit to Pyongyang brings results in the abduction issue, sources said. However, some officials say the pending offer of 250,000 tons of rice could be seen as ``a reward'' for bad behavior.
• THE TRUTH COMES OUT: Ulterior motive at work in '50s, '60s
  The Asahi Shimbun A repatriation program that resulted in tens of thousands of pro-Pyongyang Koreans leaving Japan decades ago to settle in North Korea was anything but altruistic, says a researcher who perused declassified documents from the period. In fact, it was more of a de facto mass eviction under the guise of a humanitarian gesture, says Takane Kawashima, associate professor of political communication at Meiji University. The repatriation program was initiated in part because of a high crime rate among Koreans, Kawashima said, quoting from one document. More than 90,000 people, mostly Koreans brought to Japan before and during World War II, and their relatives, including Japanese spouses, went to North Korea between 1959 and 1984. Most left in the 1950s and '60s.
• Mystery Surrounds Japan Abductee's American Spouse
  By REUTERS Published: May 17, 2004 Filed at 11:24 p.m. ET TOKYO (Reuters) - On a winter night in 1965, Charles Robert Jenkins, a 24-year-old army sergeant, was leading a patrol near the Korean demilitarized zone when he left his men to investigate a noise. What happened next is a mystery. The U.S. government says that Jenkins slipped into North Korea and defected to the communist North. His relatives back in North Carolina say he was abducted and brainwashed by North Korean authorities. What is clear is that Jenkins will be on the agenda when Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi meets North Korean leader Kim Jong-il on Saturday
• Koizumi's Summit With Kim Jong-il
  Breakthrough to Six-Party Talks Draws Concern Japan's Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's summit talks with North Korean leader Kim Jong- il on his visit to Pyongyang on May 22 are drawing concern because of their impact on the six-party dialog for a peaceful resolution to the nuclear standoff between the North and the United States
• Japan asks U.S. to pardon abductee's American husband
  Japan has asked the United States to pardon a former American soldier living in North Korea whose Japanese wife was kidnapped by the reclusive regime and repatriated in 2002, government sources said Saturday. The government made the request after Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi said Friday he will make a second visit to Pyongyang on May 22 for talks with North Korean leader Kim Jong Il. The government is hoping to have eight relatives -- including former U.S. Army Sgt. Charles Robert Jenkins -- of the five repatriated Japanese brought to Japan.
• Abe says ferry-ban bill could be scrapped
  Bargaining chip in abduction dispute must be used 'effectively' ASAHIKAWA, Hokkaido (Kyodo) Liberal Democratic Party Secretary General Shinzo Abe proposed Saturday scrapping a bill to ban port calls in Japan by North Korean ships if substantial progress is made on the abduction dispute. If the eight relatives of the five repatriated Japanese abductees are allowed to come to Japan and North Korea fully explains what happened to 10 missing Japanese who Pyongyang said have died or did not abduct, the bill might become unnecessary, Abe told a lecture meeting here
• COMJAN 'abduction' list grows -- despite lack of evidence
  By ERIC JOHNSTON Staff writer OSAKA -- On the afternoon of Feb. 1, 2003, 42-year-old Naruki Okita, operator of a small marine transport company in Taisho Ward here, showed up near the docks of Izumi Kita with his luggage in tow. Okita stopped off at a local bar, where he left his luggage and went with a bar employee to another watering hole. The two parted company near the waterfront in the early evening. That was the last time anybody saw Okita. A four-day search of Osaka harbor failed to dredge up a body. Okita's name is now on a list compiled by the Investigation Commission on Missing Japanese Probably Kidnapped to North Korea (COMJAN), even though police say there is virtually no evidence to show he was kidnapped -- much less to North Korea. "It's tough to say what happened to Okita. We are still treating it as a missing persons' case," an Osaka police official said on condition of anonymity. The fact that Okita is listed as a possible kidnap victim creates political headaches for the central government in its efforts to deal with North Korea. COMJAN has the backing of many Diet members and local government officials, as well as those who lobby on behalf of known and suspected abduction victims and their relatives. All have long pressed Tokyo to investigate "all possible abductions" and to force North Korea to cooperate before providing aid or normalizing relations. This agenda is pushed regardless of how flimsy the evidence -- if any exists at all -- connecting a missing person to North Korea might be.
• Japan's PM Koizumi Plans North Korea Trip
  Saturday May 15, 2004 1:01 AM By NATALIE OBIKO PEARSON Associated Press Writer
• Japanese Prime Minister to Visit DPRK
  Pyongyang, May 14 (KCNA) -- Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi will visit the DPRK in late May to implement the DPRK-Japan Pyongyang Declaration and restore the relations of confidence between the DPRK and Japan.
• Films on Theme of Anti-Japanese Education Screened
  Pyongyang, May 14 (KCNA) -- A series of films on the theme of anti-Japanese education are now shown at cinemas and houses of culture and other places across the country. Among them are the documentary film "History Indicts" and feature films "Japan Provokes War in Year Imjin," "Emissary Unreturned" and "Kwangju Calls." Cinema-goers feel bitter hatred for the Japanese imperialists, the sworn enemy of the Korean nation, and renew their firm determination to take revenge upon them.
• Japan, N. Korea to Hold Talks
  Abductees' Families, Nuclear Project on Leaders' Agenda By Anthony Faiola Washington Post Foreign Service Saturday, May 15, 2004; Page A12 TOKYO, May 14 -- Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi will meet with the North Korean leader, Kim Jong Il, next week in a summit described by the Japanese government Friday as an attempt to engage Kim on a range of sensitive issues, including nuclear proliferation.
• Experts doubt merits of Koizumi Pyongyang trip
  By KANAKO TAKAHARA Staff writer
  Widespread suspicion over North Korea's agenda has failed to dampen speculation that Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi may visit Pyongyang in the near future to secure the passage to Japan of the families of the five repatriated abductees.
  A senior Foreign Ministry official involved in Japan-North Korea talks has voiced concern that Japan-U.S. relations could be damaged if Koizumi pays another visit to a state Washington has branded a "supporter of terrorism." "Japan has asked the U.S. to include the abductions in its annual report on global terrorism," the official said on condition of anonymity. "Koizumi may be criticized for the about-face." It is widely believed the U.S. government cannot afford to seriously address North Korean issues until after the presidential election in November. Some experts warn that Washington would not welcome a change of position in Tokyo before the nuclear standoff is resolved
• ABDUCTION ISSUE - Rightwing's political football
  By GREGORY CLARK Japan Times 2004.02.27 ?
  Don't underestimate the depth of genuine public anger in Japan over the abduction issue with North Korea. At the same time don't underestimate the degree to which Japan's powerful rightwing is exploiting the issue to shift Japan even further to hardline foreign policies, a shift typified by the extraordinary pomp and jingoism in the recent send-off for troops going to Iraq. Nor is there much to suggest that Tokyo is in the right over the abduction issue. During Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's historic September 2002 talks in Pyongyang, North Korea about-faced dramatically to admit, and even apologize for, past abductions of Japanese citizens. Its willingness to release five of the abductees to go to Japan was a clear bid to improve relations. But now we see it being used as a blunt weapon for creating worse relations. North Korea released the five abductees in exchange for a promise that they would return within two weeks. Tokyo has reneged on that promise. What's more, it now insists that North Korea send to Japan the family members of these former abductees, regardless of whether they want to go or not. And it will not allow the parents to return to North Korea, even briefly, to confirm or persuade the children to go.
• Japanese Leader to Travel to N. Korea
  By Anthony Faiola Washington Post Foreign Service Friday, May 14, 2004; 1:21 AM TOKYO, May 15 -- Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi will visit Pyongyang for a summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Il as early as May 22, Japan's Kyodo news agency and NHK television network reported Friday.
  The meeting would be focused on recovering the relatives of five Japanese citizens abducted by North Korea during the 1970s and 1980s. The five were released in October 2002, but without eight close family members, including seven children. In addition, the reports said Koizumi's one-day trip would include broader talks regarding Japan- North Korean relations as well as North Korea's nuclear weapons programs
• A Flurry of Diplomacy in Asia on Eve of Arms Talks
  By JAMES BROOKE Published: May 12, 2004 SEOUL, South Korea, May 11 - Tokyo is abuzz with reports that the prime minister of Japan is planning a visit to North Korea. Meanwhile, South Korea and North Korea are organizing a meeting of army generals, the highest level inter-Korean military meeting in decades. Pieces in Northeast Asia's long frozen security puzzle are starting to shift as envoys from the United States, China, Japan, Russia and the two Koreas converge Wednesday in Beijing for midlevel talks on North Korea's nuclear weapons program.
• KCNA Blasts Japanese LDP Heavyweight's Anti-DPRK Remarks in U.S.
  Pyongyang, May 11 (KCNA) -- Abe, secretary general of the Liberal Democratic Party of Japan, made reckless remarks against the DPRK, when meeting with some high-ranking officials of the Bush administration during his recent junket to the U.S
• Koizumi considering visit to North Korea
  Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi of Japan may visit North Korea with the aim of reuniting Japanese abductees in the North with family members, a Japanese newspaper reported yesterday. The Nihon Keizai Shimbun reported that Mr. Koizumi had ordered planning for a trip to North Korea around May 23. State-run NHK added that talks were under way to send a "high-level official" to North Korea if Pyeongyang permits the eight persons in the North who had been kidnapped by the communist regime to rejoin their families in Japan, after which Tokyo will grant economic aid.
• Japanese Attempt to Land on Tok Islet
  Pyongyang, May 8 (KCNA) -- A right-wing organization of Japan is attempting to land on Tok Islet, claiming dominium over it, according to south Korean MBC. On May 4 four members of the organization staged a demonstration in waters off the islet after leaving Shimane Prefecture. Asserting that Tok Islet belongs to Japan, they blustered that they would attempt to land on the islet. The south Korean maritime police corps dispatched five patrol craft, two helicopters and a commando force to the islet to guard it.
• KCNA on Truth about Japan's Nuclear Issue
  Pyongyang, May 8 (KCNA) -- The Korean Central News Agency released a lengthy memorandum Saturday bringing to light the truth behind the nuclear issue of Japan to warn the Japanese militarist forces against their dangerous moves for nuclear weaponization and resolutely foil them. The memorandum said:
• Koizumi can get abductee kin: Pyongyang
  North Korea earlier this year told Japan through informal channels that it would allow the relatives of five repatriated Japanese to leave the country if Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi goes to Pyongyang to pick them up, government sources said Sunday. The revelation comes on the heels of media reports that the prime minister is contemplating such a visit to break the impasse in the abduction issue.
• Japan Studying PM Visit to North Korea, Cautiously
  By REUTERS Published: May 9, 2004 Filed at 3:14 a.m. ET TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan has begun preparations for a possible visit to North Korea by Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi to bring to Japan family members of citizens kidnapped by North Korea decades ago to train spies, media said on Sunday. A breakthrough on the emotive issue would not only clear the way for talks on establishing diplomatic ties between the two countries but would be a political coup for Koizumi ahead of an upper house election in July.
• N.Korea Says Japan About to Have Nuclear Arms
  Sat May 8,12:30 PM ET Add Top Stories - Reuters to My Yahoo! SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea (news - web sites) on Saturday accused Japan of being on the verge of possessing nuclear weapons. The charge, carried in a report by North Korea's state news agency KCNA, was the latest in Pyongyang's running assault against one of the five countries preparing to meet next week to discuss how to break up the North's suspected nuclear arms program. "Japan's nuclear weaponisation has been pushed ahead at the phase of practical implementation, going beyond the stage of discussion," the report by KCNA monitored in Seoul said.
• South Korea and Japan Reaching Out to North Korea
  By Anthony Faiola Washington Post Foreign Service Sunday, May 9, 2004; Page A25 SEOUL -- Top U.S. allies in Asia are opening new lines of communication with North Korea, seeking direct dialogue on a host of sensitive issues such as nuclear proliferation, even as the Bush administration continues to reject broad engagement. Released MAY 5, 2004 The South Korean and Japanese governments reacted with new urgency, analysts said, after U.S. intelligence indicated that North Korea had built up an arsenal of at least eight nuclear devices over the past 20 months.
• An invasion of Korea
  The fact that a Japanese right-wing activist group left Japan by boat yesterday in order to claim the Tokto islet is an outrageous act of invading a country's sovereignty. There have been times when Japanese leaders such as the prime minister have made absurd political remarks on the historical relations of the two countries. But never has anyone committed such a ruthless provocation as this one.
• Japanese Rightists Return Without Approaching Tokto
  A group of Japanese activists went back to Japan Thursday from a small Japanese island, ending a two-day voyage aimed at making a case for Japan's ownership of South Korea's easternmost islets of Tokto, officials in Seoul said.
• Japanese spur sharp Tokto alert
  Following reports that a small group of right- wing Japanese activists would attempt to land a boat on Tokto and claim the tiny islands in Japan's name, South Korea issued an emergency alert yesterday and ordered the National Maritime Police to protect Korea's territorial waters in the East Sea around Tokto.
• Seoul on High Alert as Japanese Activists Set Sail for Tokto
  By Yoo Dong-ho Staff Reporter The South Korean government on Wednesday was put on high alert, as Japan's ultra rightist group are heading for the South Korean islets of Tokto in the West Sea.
• Talks with N. Korea on Japan Abductees End
  By REUTERS Published: May 5, 2004 Filed at 2:28 a.m. ET BEIJING (Reuters) - Japanese diplomats and North Korean officials agreed on Wednesday to meet again after ending two days of talks on the issue of family members of Japanese citizens that Pyongyang kidnapped decades ago to train spies. Officials have been tight-lipped about the discussions held at a Beijing hotel, describing them only as ``in-depth.'' Japan has repeatedly said it wants North Korea to resolve the issue of the families of the abductees, abandon its nuclear arms programs and halt the development of ballistic missiles. Talks on establishing diplomatic ties have stalled over these points
• Seoul Threatens to Block Japanese Activists' Approach to Tokto
  By Yoo Dong-ho Staff Reporter The Seoul government on Tuesday threatened to seize a Japanese boat carrying four Japanese ultra-right group members, if it violates the maritime border and approaches the South Korean Tokto islets in the East Sea.

• Japan Urged to Admit Its Legal Responsibility for Its Past Crimes
  Pyongyang, April 11 (KCNA) -- A DPRK delegate in a speech made during the debate on the agenda item 12 (women's rights) at the 60th Meeting of the UN Commission on Human Rights on April 5 strongly demanded Japan admit its legal responsibility for its past crimes, make an apology for them, make a state compensation for them and conduct a proper education in history
• Freed From Captivity in Iraq, Japanese Return to More Pain
  By NORIMITSU ONISHI Published: April 23, 2004 OKYO, April 22 - The young Japanese civilians taken hostage in Iraq returned home this week, not to the warmth of a yellow-ribbon embrace but to a disapproving nation's cold stare. Three of them, including a woman who helped street children on the streets of Baghdad, appeared on television two weeks ago as their knife-brandishing kidnappers threatened to slit their throats. A few days after their release, they landed here on Sunday, in the eye of a peculiarly Japanese storm. "You got what you deserve!" read one hand- written sign at the airport where they landed. "You are Japan's shame," another wrote on the Web site of one of the former hostages. They had "caused trouble" for everybody. The government, not to be outdone, announced it would bill the former hostages $6,000 for air fare. The former hostages' transgression was to ignore a government advisory against traveling to Iraq. But their sin, in a vertical society that likes to think of itself as classless, was to defy what people call here "okami," or, literally, "what is higher." Treated like criminals, the three former hostages have gone into hiding, effectively becoming prisoners inside their own homes.
• Unreasonable Punishment against Chongryon Official Protested
  Pyongyang, March 31 (KCNA) -- The Tokyo District Court sentenced the former director of the Financial Department of the Central@Standing Committee of the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan (Chongryon) to a severe penalty on March 26.
• Kang Song: Sanctions on N. Korea would hurt the weakest
• Japan's Ruling Party to Introduce Bill to Ban Entry of N. Korean Ships
  (03/13/2004)
• Korean Victims Start Full-Scale Activity to Seek Compensation From Japan
  Korean Victims Demand Convincing Apology, Compensation from Japan Interview with Kim Yong Gol, Chairperson of the Association of Korean Victims of Forcible Drafting and Their Bereaved Families

• Stricter laws urged to punish pro-Japanese
  A group of civic organizations yesterday demanded revision of a bill passed earlier this month to punish pro-Japanese activities by Koreans in the early 20th century, complaining it was too lenient and allowed suspects to go unpunished. Some stipulations have been deleted, softened or otherwise altered by lawmakers, damaging the original purpose of rectifying Korean history from distortions by colonial sympathizers, the civic groups said. The groups involved are assemblies of civic activists focusing on honoring victims of the 1910-1945 Japanese colonial eras and the 1950-1953 Korean War. The special bill, passed by the national assembly on March 2, requires the government to investigate Koreans who allegedly helped the Japanese regime annex the country and collaborated during the 1910-1945 colonial era and compensate those who were forced to serve the Japanese military or companies in Japan. 2004.03.30
• Dismantling the Former Colonial Government Building : To Restore the National Spirit
  Lee Man-hoon Staff Writer, The Joong-ang Daily News KOREANA SUMMER 1995
• North issuing stamps showing Tokto islets
  North Korea says it will issue postage stamps depicting Tokto, the tiny islands off the coast of Gyeongsang province, which have long been the subject of a territorial dispute between South Korea and Japan
  North Korea's Tokto stamps will depict the early 18th century Joseon map that shows Tokto as part of the Korean Peninsula. The Tokto stamps issued by South Korea focus on the natural scenery of the islands. Jang Ju-seong, president of Ko Sun Film in Hong Kong, which has been given exclusive rights to sell the North Korean Tokto stamps, said, "Compared to South Korea's Tokto stamps, the North Korean ones are more forthright."
• Japan's Reckless Anti-DPRK Racket Assailed
  Pyongyang, March 26 (KCNA) -- The Japanese reactionaries' reckless moves to apply sanctions against the DPRK and put pressure on it only escalate their confrontation with the DPRK and drive the situation on the Korean peninsula to a grave phase.
  The Japanese reactionaries have become more clamorous for economic sanctions at a time when the U.S. is set to stage five multinational exercises this year to lay an international siege to the DPRK. This is not just an accidental coincidence
• Correct Settlement of Issue Related to "Comfort Women" Called for
• Seoul Regrets Koizumi's Remarks
  By Ryu Jin Staff Reporter South Korea's Foreign Ministry on Monday expressed regret over Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's latest comments about his repeated visits to a controversial shrine honoring war criminals. [Yasukuni]
• Japan Urged to Drop Its Wild Ambition to Stifle DPRK
• EAST ASIAN GRIDLOCK?
  Professor Tessa Morris-Suzuki ASIAN CURRENTS, March 2004, Issue #1
  The main sticking point is North Korea's refusal to acknowledge the existence of a uranium enrichment program and its insistence that a nuclear-free Korean peninsula should refer only to the nuclear weapons and not other aspects of any nuclear program.
  Around the world the North Korean regime is regarded with fear and profound mistrust, a remnant of ruthless Communist totalitarianism. But Japan must surely be unique in its obsession with North Korea and its erratic leader, Kim Jong Il. Television, newspapers and mass circulation magazines provide an incessant diet of horror stories featuring famine, repression and torture, contrasted with the corrupt lifestyle of Kim and his cronies
  More sober Japanese observers are quietly questioning the impact of this media frenzy. There has been a spate of attacks on members of the substantial Korean community who retain some links to the North and lurid stories about Kim Jong-Il do little to help Japanese public understanding of one of their nearest neighbours or to encourage constructive Japanese involvement in resolving pressing problems facing the region [Black]
• KCNA Blasts Japanese Chief Executive's Reckless Remarks
  Pyongyang, March 19 (KCNA) -- The Japanese chief executive at an official meeting on March 15 reiterated his plan to continue his visit to the "Yasukuni Shrine."
• Koizumi haunted by Aznar's fate
  After the Madrid bombing, many Japanese are questioning what price they may pay for being seen as 'America's lackeys', reports Justin McCurry in Tokyo Tuesday March 23, 2004
• Japan's Brazen-faced Distortion of History
  Pyongyang, March 18 (KCNA) -- Japan has distorted history in an attempt to conceal its blood-stained past, still dreaming of world supremacy. In history textbooks, it did not even mention the issue of comfort women for the imperial Japanese army, the immoral state crime of the blackest dye in the 20th century committed in Korea and other countries
  When it occupied Korea in 1905, Japan, with a wild ambition for "Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere", changed its English name as "Korea" from "Corea"
• Comfort Women's Frustrating Struggle Continues
• Comfort Women' to Mark 600th Wednesday Rally
  By Na Jeong-ju Staff Reporter About 1,000 people will hold simultaneous demonstrations in seven countries on Wednesday to mark South Korean comfort women's 600th Wednesday rally in front of the Japanese Embassy in Seoul,
  their supporters will gather in Japan, Taiwan, the United States, Germany, Belgium and Spain
• War of Liberation Continues: South Korea is still a Japanese colony.
  The sons and daughters of pro-Japanese traitors rule South Korea. Lee Wha Rang
• Japanese Reactionaries under Fire for Justifying Their Visits to "Yasukuni Shrine"
  Pyongyang, March 15 (KCNA) -- The Japanese ruling quarters including the chief executive and the director general of the Liberal- Democratic Party came out to justify their visits to the "Yasukuni Shrine". This is an unbearable insult to and a mockery of the victims of the crimes committed by the Japanese imperialists and their bereaved families as well as the Asian people. Rodong Sinmun today says this in a signed commentary.
• Speaker Faces Charges of Dad Working for Colonial Japan
  By Ryu Jin Staff Reporter A ruling party lawmaker alleged on Monday that National Assembly Speaker Park Kwan-yong tried a ``murky deal'' with her late last month to vindicate his father, who is accused of being a pro-Japanese collaborator. Rep. Kim Hee-sun of the Uri Party claimed
• KCNA Raps at Japan's Ambition for Overseas Expansion
• East Sea of Korea Is Not Sea of Japan
• Suspicious minds
  Japan is hoping to boost foreign investment and tourism by promoting the country as a land of hospitality. However, institutional racism and the media's tendency to blame foreigners for rising crime means many visitors find themselves less than welcome Justin McCurry Wednesday March 10, 2004
• KCNA on Japan's Much Talk about "Abduction Issue"
• Pyongyang Condemns Japan's Law of Economic Sanction Against DPRK
• Japanese in Korea - A Photo Journal
  [Japanese colonialism]
• War criminal, general, but still a Korean
  At the gallows in a prison in the Philippines on Sept. 26, 1946, Lieutenant General Hong Sa-ik, 57, of the Southern Army of imperial Japan asked the clergyman present to read Psalm 51. He was sentenced to death by the court as a war criminal for his actions in World War II.
• Seoul Rebuffs Tokyo's Tokdo Stamp Issuance
  By Kim Tae-gyu Staff Reporter Tokyo published stamps featuring Tokto islets three times this year and the Korean government expressed its regret
• Port-call bill trump card with N. Korea
  The Asahi Shimbun Like an ace in the hole, the government and ruling coalition are holding a proposed bill to deny port calls by North Korean ships, hoping the threat of ``playing'' it will get Pyongyang to show its hand at the negotiation table.
  Much is at stake concerning the bill. Ending port calls would close off the only direct channel of transportation and exchange between Japan and North Korea. All charter flights have been suspended.
  In effect targeted at one particular country, the bill is of an antagonistic bent that has ``almost no parallels in the world,'' as LDP Upper House member Ichita Yamamoto put it. The bill would prevent Korean residents here from visiting relatives in the North. Along with humanitarian questions, its compatibility with domestic port laws, to say nothing of international laws requiring equal treatment of ships of any nation, would also be the focus of intense Diet debate.
• DPRK, Japan Discuss Nukes and Abduction Issue
  Japanese FM Delegation Visits Pyongyang A delegation of the Japanese Foreign Ministry visited the DPRK from February 11 to 14 to discuss with DPRK officials the issues of bilateral relations- the nuclear issue and the abduction issue. Reportedly, the Japanese delegates conveyed a message from Prime Minister Koizumi Junichiro to Kang Sok Ju demanding the repatriation of the eight family members of the five abductees. Koizumi called it a "prerequisite for the resumption of normalization talks." He also called for a new investigation into the fates of 10 abductees, who Pyongyang declared, were dead or did not enter the DPRK. Pyongyang contended that Tokyo broke a promise by refusing to return the five abductees after their "temporary homecoming." The DPRK side branded the detention of the five Japanese abductees in Japan by the Japanese side as breach of the promise it had made to the DPRK as another form of abduction.
• Symposium Demand Korea's National History Distorted by Japan Be Corrected
  North and South joint symposium and exhibition held in DPRK On February 25, a North-South symposium on the wrong designation of the East Sea of Korea as the Japan Sea and a North-South joint exhibition demanding the return of cultural treasures looted by the Japanese imperialists, were held in the DPRK
• UN Committee on the Rights of the Child
  UN Recommends Japan to Eliminate Discrimination Against Korean Schools
• Japan Collaborators Face Probe
  National Assembly Weakens President's Amnesty Power By Park Song-wu Staff Reporter The National Assembly on Tuesday passed a bill to set up a special committee that will inquire into pro-Japanese collaborators during Japan's colonial rule from 1910 to 1945.
• Seoul Plays Down Roh's Anti-Japan Remarks
  By Shim Jae-yun Staff Reporter The Seoul government on Tuesday continued efforts to prevent possible diplomatic friction with Japan over President Roh Moo-hyun's remark slamming Japan for hurting the sentiment of the Korean people who suffered from Japan's colonial rule.
• Assembly Passes Law to Investigate Pro-Japanese Activity
• Japan to Strengthen Inspection of NK Products
  [Belligerence] [Sanctions] Asahi, also, reported that such a strengthened examination caused the NK marine products to be delayed in shipping thus causing them a disadvantage in competing with rival products from other countries. For a long time, the processing of men's suits on a commission basis in North Korea had been highly favored due to the low labor costs in the NK. However, such a business has been reduced because of an unstable delivery and, in turn, this decreased the consumer demand for said NK products. On top of it, this reinforced inspection on North Korean ships and 'catch-all' regulation, also, has had bad effects on the trade between Japan and North Korea.
• Roh cautions Japanese leader
  In his address to the nation, marking the anniversary of Koreans' independence uprising against Japan's colonial rule, President Roh Moo- hyun yesterday directed blunt criticism against Japan's prime minister, Junichiro Koizumi, warning him not to hurt Korean national sentiment. Mr. Roh's remarks, which suggested strong displeasure over the Japanese leader's visit to a shrine honoring World War II criminals, was seen as an effort to stir patriotism before the April elections.
• Voices of Indignation at Japanese Imperialism Still Reverberate in Korea
• Anti-Japanese rally to be held in Seoul
  An international rally to demand the Japanese government apologize for war crimes in the early 20th century have been scheduled to take place in Seoul in late May. Comfort women residing in North Korea will join the rally as well.
• 'Sex Slaves' Conference to Be Held in May
  By Byun Duk-kun Staff Reporter An international conference of comfort women who were forced into sex slavery by the Japanese army during World War II will be held in Seoul in May, the South Korean branch office of an international coalition for comfort women said on Sunday. More than 300 people, including former sex slaves of South and North Korea, China, Taiwan and the Philippines, will participate in the international conference to discuss ways to overcome the vestiges of the Japanese colonial rule from May 20 through 22.
• Colonial-Era Prison to Open Female Cells to Public on Monday
  By Na Jeong-ju Staff Reporter A colonial-era prison in Sodaemun, Seoul, will open its underground cells for female Korean independence fighters, including Ryu Kwan-sun, to the public on Monday.
• Roh Criticizes Koizumi for Being Insensitive to Koreans' Feelings

• Evidence Japan military ran comfort facilities
  Korean professors found evidence in documents held in U.S. and Japanese government files that the Japanese military operated facilities in which Korean women were forced to serve as sex slaves for Japanese soldiers.  Until now, the Japanese government has claimed that such facilities were private establishments that were run voluntarily by individuals for profit. Therefore, it said, the Japanese government and military had no responsibility regarding the treatment of comfort women. These documents, however, show that the Japanese military was directly involved in the establishment, management and supervision of the comfort facilities.
• 1911 Postcard Shows Tokdo as Part of Korea
  By Joon Soh  Staff Reporter A postcard printed in 1911 containing an image of Tokdo, an islet that has been at the center of an ongoing territorial dispute between South Korea and Japan, has been found. ``If Tokdo was originally the territory of Japan, as the Japanese claim, why would it appear on a postcard celebrating the inauguration of the Choson Governor-General?'' Song said. ``This proves that (even during the annexation by Japan) Tokdo was considered part of Korea.''
• Tokyo, Pyongyang discuss new bilateral talks in March
  27 February 2004 Japan and North Korea are trying to schedule their next round talks on bilateral issues, including the Japanese abducted by the North, in mid-March, diplomatic sources said Thursday.
• Media Attention Bittersweet for 'Comfort Women'
  By Mike Weisbart and Han Eun-jung They want an official apology. They want reparations to be paid. They want the government to stop sitting on its thumbs. And they want the truth to be told. The problem is that they can't get any attention unless there's a sex scandal, and even then it appears to be fleeting.
• The 1923 Kanto Massacre of Koreans in Japan:
  A Japanese Professor Reveals the Truth Professor Matzuo believes that the Japanese government wanted to firm up its power by eliminating, in one swoop, troublesome Koreans, many of whom were Communists, socialists and Korean nationalists. After the massacre, the police and the military went through the motion of prosecuting some of the perpetrators. Their intent was to blame civilian mobs for the massacre
• Japanese Red Army wife arrested on return from North Korea
  The wife of one of nine Japanese Red Army radicals who have lived as fugitives in North Korea after hijacking a Japan Airlines plane in 1970, has been arrested on her return to Japan. Police say 51-year-old Tamiko Uomoto had been sought for refusing a 1988 government order to return her passport after she allegedly had contact with North Korean agents in Europe. Japan bars citizens suspected of having acted against national interests from holding passports. Ms Uomoto, who was arrested as she arrived from Pyongyang via Beijing, is the third wife of a Red Army radical to return to Japan from North Korea. The Kyodo newsagency says the other two wives were given suspended prison sentences upon their return on a similar charge.
• 'I worry that we won't live to see our daughter' [Abductees] Mystery of Japanese kidnap victims persists Justin McCurry in Tokyo Wednesday February 25, 2004
• Comfort woman in China locates siblings in Korea
• KCNA Blasts Japan for Its Abduction of Koreans
  Pyongyang, February 22 (KCNA) -- Japan is talking much about the "abduction" by someone in a bid to mislead the international community with the second round of six-way talks at hand. Its loudmouthed "abduction" is a crafty trick pertaining to Japan to lay an artificial stumbling block in the way of the talks and cover up its true colors as the kingpin of abduction.
  // While talking much about the already settled issue of the abduction year after year, Japan is keeping mum about its own abduction. This shows what an extent its moral vulgarity and shamelessness have gone to. Japan is not in a position to slander the DPRK over the issue of abduction. Japan has detained five persons who went to Japan for a hometown visit in violation of the promise made between the governments of the DPRK and Japan.
  It itself should be called into question as it is an abduction. Japan's abduction is, in the final analysis, a government-sponsored one, which is a complete perfidy to the DPRK-Japan Pyongyang Declaration. Japan should ponder over the consequences entailed by the reckless abduction and send the DPRK citizens back at once.
• Photo gallery of Japanese crimes
• Kim Yong Nam Meets Congratulatory Group of Koreans from Japan
• Tokyo Lets Loose Lapdogs of War
  by Chalmers Johnson Published on Wednesday, February 18, 2004 by the Los Angeles Times Japan may have regained its sovereignty in 1952, but the decision to dispatch Japanese troops to Iraq earlier this month has reminded many of its citizens just how little independence the country really has - and just how much control the United States retains. If British Prime Minister Tony Blair is President Bush's poodle, then Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi is his cocker spaniel.
• Japan Expects Amending Its Foreign Exchange Law to Provide Opportunity to Resume Negotiation With North Korea
  The Amendment of the Foreign Exchange Law will strike a big blow against North Korea which is suffering from a chronic economic slowdown. For the NK, the remittance by the Chochongnyon, a pro-Pyongyang federation of Korean residents in Japan, and Korean entrepreneurs there, plus, civilian level trades with them have been a critical source of funds.
• Japan Hit for "Amendment to Law on Foreign Exchange"
• Nude Photo Project Suspended
  Firm Succumbs to Public Outcry over Portraying Comfort Women _
  By Soh Ji-young, Joon Soh _ Staff Reporters Caving to fierce public outcry, Netian Entertainment on Monday decided to suspend its nude photo project featuring actress Lee Seung-yeon as a sexual victim of the Japanese military.
• Japan, North Korea stumble over abductions
  By Richard Hanson
• Atrocities during the March First Movement (1919.3.1)
  Case 1. Torture Murder of a Teenage Girl, Yu Kwan-soon (??? ???) Lee Wha Rang, Feb 14, 2004, Seattle Yu was one of the 40,000 or so Koreans arrested by the Japanese in the aftermath of the failed March First Movement of 1919, wherein patriotic Koreans of all social spectrum joined in a nationwide march for Korea's independence. She was only 18 at the time and died from 20-month long barbaric tortures by the Japanese savages. Today, she is worshipped as Korea's Jean d'arc by the under-40 generations of Korea
• Ex-comfort women assail photo shoot
  Lee Seung-yeon, a 36-year-old actress, has aroused the ire of Korea's aged group of former Japanese "comfort women" by posing for a series of provocative photographs that depict her as a Japanese sex slave during the Japanese occupation of Korea. The photographs were to appear on a paid Internet site, but the outrage generated by the attempt to nudge erotic photography here toward more kinkiness could cause those plans to change. The photo shoot was staged in the Philippines at one of the comfort station locations during the Japanese occupation of that country. One of the photos showed Ms. Lee partially clad in Korean attire in front of a Japanese flag.
• Court Orders Partial Disclosure of 1965 Korea-Japan Accord
  By Soh Ji-young Staff Reporter A Seoul Court on Friday ordered the release of documents that will determine the litigation rights of Koreans who were forced to work in Japanese military brothels and factories during the Japanese colonial period. With the court decision, some of the documents related to the 1965 Korea-Japan Agreement, which have remained classified for nearly 40 years, will be made public for the first time.
  At least 724,000 Koreans are estimated to have been taken to mainland Japan, Sakhalin and southern Pacific islands as forced laborers by Japan during World War II. Also, about 200,000 women, mostly Korean, were forced into sexual slavery for Japanese troops as comfort women.
• KCNA Assails Japan for Distorting History
• Japan's Perfidy to DPRK-Japan Pyongyang Declaration Assailed
• Request Made to Bar Japan from Participating in Six-way Talks
• Japan's Military Sculpts New Image in Iraqi Sand
  Deployment Furthers Break With Pacifism
  By Anthony Faiola Washington Post Foreign Service Tuesday, February 10, 2004; Page A01
  The dispatch of soldiers to Iraq has jarred the national psyche. No Japanese soldier has fallen -- or killed an enemy -- since the surrender to the United States in 1945. Pacifism has run deep here since the Imperial Army led 2 million soldiers to their deaths in World War II and the United States dropped the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki that led to the end of the conflict. So, today, many Japanese are deeply torn, even tormented, about the military's new postwar role. There are concerns over whether the Self-Defense Forces are suitable for a place as dangerous as Iraq. The troops, though backed by the world's fourth-largest military budget Lawmakers are pushing for changes that would allow the Self-Defense Forces to be called a military, which the constitution now prohibits, and grant the government far broader authority to dispatch soldiers overseas. Hardware Acquisitions After years of debate, many believe the government has a good chance of winning such changes. Japan is already adding significantly to its military hardware without widespread opposition. Facing a threat from North Korea, which fired a ballistic missile over Japan in 1998 and now claims to possess a "nuclear deterrent," Japan plans to double from four to eight its fleet of modern, Aegis-equipped destroyers. The government is also buying new aerial refueling planes capable of extending the reach of Japan's F-15 fighter jets to North Korea and back. The Japanese are also buying aircraft-mounted, precision missile-guidance systems, similar to those used by the United States and Britain in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the Defense Agency put in a budget request to purchase an advanced PAC-3 anti-ballistic missile system from the United States. Last year, Japan launched its first two independent spy satellites. "This year will be the one that takes our defense towards a new direction," Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba told foreign journalists last month ..//..
  Opinion polls show that almost half the country now supports the mission -- up from less than a quarter of the population only six months ago. Ret. Lt. Gen. Toshiyuki Shikata, former commanding general of Japan's northern forces on Hokkaido, said that is as it should be. "We will never again cross the lines that were crossed in the past," he said. "The tiger is out of its cage again, but only to do the obligation of the international community. . . . The role of the SDF is changing, but for the better."
• Former South Korean Abductees Will Testify Before Japanese Parliament
  SEOUL (Yonhap) _ Three South Koreans who returned home after years of captivity in North Korea will be going to Tokyo this month to testify before the Japanese parliament, a civic group organizing the visit said yesterday.
• JAPAN PASSES LAW ON NORTH KOREA SANCTIONS
  Published: February 9, 2004
  TOKYO (AP) -- Japan passed a law Monday making it easier to impose economic sanctions on impoverished North Korea, prompting the communist country to demand that Tokyo be barred from future multilateral talks on its nuclear program. The law allows Japan to impose sanctions on countries without a U.N. resolution. It does not specifically mention North Korea, but lawmakers have said it is aimed at the reclusive state.
  Tokyo could use the law to take steps such as banning North Korean imports and freezing remittances from North Koreans living in Japan -- all desperately needed to help the North's devastated economy.
• DPRK Criticizes Japan's Refusal of Pyongyang's Proposal on Abduction Issue
  Tokyo Places Obstacles in Improving Bilateral Ties: Pyongyang
• DPRK Hits Japanese Former PM's Remarks on Nuclear Possession
  Pyongyang's media warned Japan of its ambition to be a nuclear power. On January 7, Japan's former Prime Minister Nakasone Yasuhiro in a lecture expressed his view that Japan's possession of nuclear weapons is conditionally possible, saying, "The possession of nukes helpful to Japan's exclusive defense is not a violation of the constitution depending on its interpretation."
• Japanese PM Visits "Yasukuni Shrine"
  DPRK Warns Against Japan's Trend Toward Militarism
  Japanese Prime Minister, Junichiro Koizumi, made an official visit to "Yasukuni Shrine" on January 1. "Yasukuni Shrine" honors about 2.5 million Japanese war-dead, including the A-class war criminals. He used sophistry saying that the Japanese generally visit shrines as their custom on the New Year's Day, but Asian countries such as China and South Korea strongly opposed his act as glorifying the history of aggression of Japan's military.
  The DPRK also strongly accused Japanese Prime Minister of his rash act in the comments of Korean Central News Agency (KCNA, January 3), Minju Joson (January 6) and Rodong Sinmun (January 8).
• Hong makes 8th defense in WBC
  Hong Chang Su, 29, a People's Athlete of the DPRK, successfully defended his title at the WBC super flyweight title match held on January 3 in Osaka, Japan. It was his 8th defense of the WBC super flyweight title since champion Hong, who is a third generation Korean resident in Japan, started to challenge a title match in August, 2000.
• Japanese national high school rugby and football championships
  Osaka Chogo Snatches Victory
• Abduction aide made secret trip to North
  In utmost secrecy, a Cabinet Secretariat official in charge of the abduction issue visited Pyongyang in mid-January in a bid to break the impasse in stalled bilateral negotiations, according to sources. The visit was ``aimed at pressing (Pyongyang) to agree to government-to-government negotiations,'' a source said. In December, a senior North Korean official informally proposed a solution to the vexing issue of reuniting family members of five abductees back in Japan. The official told a visiting parliamentary group that the family members could leave North Korea if the five returnees flew to Pyongyang to pick them up. Tokyo, however, insists on government-level talks.
  The official was in Pyongyang around the same time that four Foreign Ministry officials visited to meet with a Japanese man detained on suspicion of drug smuggling.
• N.K. Warns 'Retaliation' against Japan's N.K. Sanctions Bill
• Korea: Naming names of Japan's collaborators
  {David Scofield}
• Armitage: Abductions on agenda
• DPRK Foreign Ministry Spokesman on Japan's Abduction of Its Citizens
• Japan Has Nothing to Expect
  The move, prompted by the U.S. policy of stifling the DPRK economically and isolating it, is inviting all the Korean people's denunciation. Japan's adoption of the bill is driving the DPRK-Japan relations to an unpredictable phase. What is ridiculous is that Japan hopes for the DPRK's concession through the adoption of the bill. But Japan has made a big mistake. The DPRK Government and people, who consider the sovereignty of the country as their life and soul, will never be frightened by pressure and sanctions of such a war criminal state as Japan. Japan should be held entirely responsible for all the consequences to be entailed by its wanton violation of the DPRK-Japan Pyongyang Declaration. Japan has nothing to expect. In another interview with KCNA Vice-Minister of Agriculture Hong Myong Ryol said: The history of humankind has never known such a brazen-faced and untrustworthy nation as Japan. It is only little more than a year ago that Japan's chief executive came to Pyongyang and admitted, in a spirit of humility, facts of history that Japan caused tremendous damage and sufferings to the Korean people through its colonial rule in the past, and expressed deep remorse and heartfelt apology. But Japan is now threatening sanctions, far from making an apology. This reveals the craftiness and vulgarity of the Japanese-style ethics. The Korean people will never remain a passive onlooker to Japan's acts of infringing upon the sovereignty of the DPRK.
  I would like to remind the Japanese authorities of the fate of a tiger moth.
• What's the big deal?
  A highly charged, nationalistic ad by KTF, the country's second largest mobile telephone service provider, features Tokto island with a Korean flag planted prominently on top, saying "our phones work there."
  At a recent soccer match between the Korean and Japanese Olympic teams in Qatar, Choi Seong-guk celebrated scoring the team's third goal by pulling off his jersey to display a white shirt bearing the message "Tokto belongs to the Republic of Korea." The move drew cheers from Korean fans.
• Rodong Sinmun on Japan's Overseas Military Operations
• Japan's Adoption of Anti-DPRK Law Assailed
• Talks before sanctions
  Korea herald editorial 2 February 2003
  Considering Pyongyang's recent gestures of desperation, however, Japan hardly seems to have made a wise choice. No participating nation in the six-way dialogue needs to spoil the North with inappropriate rewards for giving up its nuclear ambitions. Nor should they embarrass their unpredictable dialogue partner and drive it away from the conference table at a time when they are jointly struggling to end the diplomatic quandary peacefully through dialogue as soon as possible.
  Japan has a particularly important role in the negotiations, because the settlement of the nuclear issue, and hopefully the abduction cases, will lead to the payment of reparations for its colonial occupation of the northern half of the peninsula in the 20th century. The compensation, which is expected to amount to $10 billion according to an accord in the previous bilateral talks, will decisively contribute to the North's economic reconstruction.
  With Pyongyang sending out signals of growing despondency, the allies must cooperate, with a shared conviction, in ways to bring the nuclear conundrum to a peaceful conclusion. A negotiated settlement of the dispute leading to the North's "soft landing" will be in the interests of all regional powers. Kim Jong-il and his aides in Pyongyang must have learned the dreadful lesson from their fellow nuclear aspirants in the Middle East by now.
• DPRK FM Blasts Japan's Adoption of "Amendment to Law on Foreign Exchange"

• Japan's Claim to Tok Islet Assailed
• Rewriting distorted history
  Koreans are often infuriated by erroneous historical perceptions of Japanese attempts to emphasize their superiority in past bilateral relations. Recently, many Koreans came to realize that another next door neighbor has a different view on history, when China claimed historical sovereignty over an ancient kingdom founded by their ancestors in present-day Chinese territory
  It is a great shame that the Assembly rejected a 500 million won budget request from a group of lawmakers last month to compile a who's who of pro-Japan collaborators. Surprisingly, the entire amount was raised through a 11-day campaign earlier this month, attesting to the public's strong interest in the project.
• KCNA on DPRK's Stand to React to Japan's Blockade and Sanctions with Toughest Stand
• KCNA on DPRK's Sincere Approach towards "Abduction Issue"
• N.K. Leader Says Move Underway for Improved Ties With Japan
• War of words
  Japan's deployment of troops in Iraq has led to conflict between the press, who want to tell the real story, and the government, who would rather they didn't, says Justin McCurry
  Tuesday January 27, 2004
• A Postage Stamp Island Sets Off a Continental Debate
  JAMES BROOKE, Published: January 27, 2004
  The problem is that South Korea's Tokdo is Japan's Takeshima.
• Ex-abductees torn by N. Korea's offer for family reunion
  TOKYO, Jan. 24 Kyodo - The five Japanese nationals formerly abducted to North Korea and returned to Japan in October 2002 have been torn by Pyongyang's recent offer to allow them to bring their North Korean-born children and a spouse to Japan if they fly to Pyongyang airport. The five -- Hitomi Soga, 44, Kaoru and Yukiko Hasuike, 46 and 47, and Yasushi and Fukie Chimura, both 48 -- are among 13 Japanese North Korea in September 2002 admitted to abducting in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
  The five returned to Japan in October 2002 and have continued to stay in Japan against Pyongyang's wishes, leaving behind their children and, in Soga's case, her husband Charles Jenkins, a former U.S. Army sergeant, in North Korea.
• Korean People's Victory for the Colonial History Project
  A most moving event has taken place, as the public has collected the W500 million needed for the production of a "who's who" of individuals who collaborated with the Japanese, after the 16th National Assembly cut all funding for the project.
• Pyongyang facing sanctions
• KCNA Comments on Japan's Move for "New Defence Program"
• Tokyo's Controversial Dispatch Plan Means Major Turning Point in Its Postwar Foreign Policy
• North Korea Reaches Out to Japan in a Series of Quiet Signals
• Mission to Iraq Eases Japan Toward a True Military

• More facts about crimes related to Japan's forcible drafting of Koreans disclosed
  [Japanese colonialism]
• Let North, South Korea Unite to win Apology, Compensation from Japan
  [Joint Korean] [Japanese colonialism]
• Like comfort women, laborers seek justice
  [Japanese colonialism]
• The Weekly Post Special
  North Korean Spies Steal Japanese Money, Nuclear Weapon and Missile Technology [Bizarre][Espionage][Weaponization] [Japanese remilitarisation]

• Japan plays down North Korean missile provocation
  [Rocketry]
• Koizumi wants to warm Korean ties
• A War-Torn Land
  Will North Korean nukes rouse Japan from its 'stupor of peace'? {Alex Kerr} [Japanese remilitarisation]
• Japan's attempt to increase surveillance over DPRK blasted
  [Espionage]
• Japan threatens North Korea
  [Belligerence] [Japanese remilitarisation] Japan's defence agency spokesman Akihiro Kobe said his country did not have the military capability to effectively take out a North Korean missile, either in the air or on the ground before its launch. "Our planes do not have the fuel to make it to North Korea and back. The fighters also have no air-to-ground attack capability," Mr Kobe said.
• Roh-Koizumi Summit Due for Feb. 25
• North Korea vs. the world
  [NPT] Japan Times editorial
• Japan denounced for rushing headlong into war
  [Japanese remilitarisation]
• Japan threatens force against N Korea
  [Belligerence] [Preemptive]
• Japanese unions ask for Korean solidarity
  [Chongryon]
• Korean school in harassment plea
  [Abductees][Japan Korea issues]
• Japanese Prime Minister's behaviour flailed
  [Koizumi] [Chongryon]
• More details of Japan's forcible drafting of Koreans disclosed
  [Japanese colonialism] [History] [Abductees]
• General Policy Speech By Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi To The 156th Session Of The Diet
  January 31, 2002 [Normalisation] [NPT] [Abductees]
• DPRK Denounces Japanese PM's Visit to "Yasukuni Shrine"
  [Yasukuni]
• Correction of wrongly used country's name and false report urged
  [Japan Korea issues]

• N.K. Media Urges Japan to Implement Normalization Talks Accord
• China hands over Japanese refugee
  [Refugee reception]
• Japan left out of loop on N. Korea
  [Spin] [Abductees]
• Sophistry of political dwarfs berated
  [Yasukuni] [Japanese Colonialism]
• KCNA assails Japanese Prime Minister's visit to "Yasukuni Shrine"
  [Yasukuni]
• Japanese Prime Minister's visit to "Yasukuni Shrine" denounced
  [Yasukuni]
• Roh Expresses Regret Over Koizumi's Shrine Visit
  [Yasukuni]
• Japan urged not to blindly follow U.S.
  [Confucianism] [Koizumi0209]
• Kim Cancels Meeting With Japanese FM
  [Yasukuni]
• ROK, Japan Agree on `5 Plus 2' Forum: Official
  [Multilateral]
• Japan's Past of Wars Against Its Neighbors Haunts Japan's Foreign Affairs
  [Yasukuni] [Japanese colonialism] [Japanese remilitarisation]
• Japan's Crimes Against Humanity
  [Japanese colonialism]
• Japanese Raped the Last Queen of Korea Before Burning Her Alive! A hitherto secret Japanese archive reveals.
  [Japanese colonialism]
• Looming Trade Penalties Could Sever A North Korean Link To Japan
  {James Brooke} [Sanctions]
• Koizumi's shrine visit draws Seoul protest
  [Yasukuni]
• Seoul Expresses Regret Over Koizumi's Shrine Visit
  [Yasukuni]
• Koizumi's Two-Faced Behavior / Parliamentary Cabinet Proposals
  [Yasukuni] [Nuclear]
• Japanese Prime Minister's Envoy Mori Critical of Roh Moo Hyun
  [Anti-Americanism] [Roh Moo-hyun] [TCOG] [Internet]
• Framework for engaging North
  [Japan Russia relations]
• Comfort Women's Rally Marks 11th Anniversary
  [Comfort women]
• Japanese media accused of missing point of issue
  [Abductees]
• Stop to violence on Korean students in Japan urged
• Turn of abnormal relations into normal ones urged in Japan
• Japan's Koizumi vows to keep pressure on North Korea, continue economic reforms -AP
• Japan urged to show good faith
  [Koizumi0209] [Abductees] [Japan Korea issues][Peace efforts]
• Japan eyes more nuclear sanctions
  [Sanctions]

• The Society for East Sea on 'East Sea/Sea of Japan' issue
  [Japanese colonialism]
• South Korea, Japan to Jointly Support Historical Research
  [Textbook]
• Koizumi may meet Pyongyang officials on Russia trip: Abe
• Emperor Akihito expresses empathy toward abductees
  [Abductees]
• Japanese abductees doff Kim Il Sung pins
  [Abductees]
• Japan Abductees Remove N. Korean Badges
  [Abductees]
• Seoul Denies Japanese Report of North Korean Defector Fingering U- Enrichment Plant
  [Nuclear] [Media]
• Story of defector testifying for N.K. uranium not true : Seoul source
  [Media]
• 'Defector leaked details of N. Korea's N-program'
  [Media] [US dominance]
• Defector testimony decisive in sniffing out secret nuclear program
  [Nuclear][Media]
• Govt to study missile defense development
  [Missile defense]
• Hard line represents big policy shift
• Japanese abduction victims meet to discuss their fate, North Korea -AP
  [Abductees]
• Atomic bomb victims outside Japan win relief
• KEDO must go on, says Japanese hardliner
  [KEDO] [Agreed Framework] [Friction]
• Lending by Japanese Loan Sharks Reaches W1.1 Tril.
• Japan-North Korea Ties
  [Normalisation] [Abductees] (Asahi editorial)
• Koizumi: no immediate harm for N.K.- Japan relations over freighter
  [Yemen]
• Former Sex Slaves Sue Japan for Compensation
  [Japanese colonialism] [Comfort women]
• Japan details post-WW II cases of North Korean spying
  [Espionage]
• Japan expresses concern over missile finding
  [Yemen] [Normalisation]
• DPRK-Japan Normalization Talks End with No Results Abduction Fever in Japan Leads Bilateral Talks to Dead End
  [Abductees] [Normalisation]
• Japan's Insincerity Makes DPRK Reconsider Moratorium on Missile Launch: FM Spokesman
  [Abductees] [Rocketry]
• Chongryun Protests against Japanese Investigation Official's Remarks on Possible Application of Anti-subversive Activities Law
  [Chongryun]
• N. Korean Children's Artists Troupe Cancels Performances in Japan
  [Cultural relations]
• Nuclear Weapons Unconstitutional for Japan
  {Anthony DiFilippo} [Nuclear][ Japanese remilitarisation]
• N.K. ship contacted Japanese crime ring with cell phone
  [sunken ship]
• Japan prepares to permanently resettle citizens abducted by North Korea -AP
  [Abductees][Koizumi0209]
• Normalization talks of Japan, North Stall
  [Normalisation]
• Japanese politicians break off North links
• Japan official hesitant to sanction the North
  [Normalisation] [Aid weapon] [Sanctions]
• Hospitalized U.S. army deserter refuses invitation to visit Japan, be reunited with wife -AP
  [Abductees]
• Koizumi reportedly knew about Korean nuclear program
  [Nuclear][US dominance]
• Japan warns of suspending remittances to North
  [Sanctions]
• Chongryon boy accepted as exchange student in South
  [Chongryon] [National Security Law]

• A missile shield appeals to a worried Japan
  [Nuclear] [Missile Defense] [Threat] {James Brooke}
• Kidnap row mars Japan-N Korea talks
  [Abductees] [Normalisation]
• N.K.-Japan agree on joint probe of abductions; no progress on nukes
  [Abductees]
• Abduction issue high on agenda, says Red Cross chairman
  [Abductees]
• Japan, North fail to deliver results, will maintain contact
  [Normalisation]
• Pro-N.K. paper faults Japanese rightwingers for cancellation of show
  [Cultural relations]
• N.K. to participate in 5th Winter Asian Games
  [Sports relations] [Japan]
• Japanese activist for North Korean refugees reported missing in northeastern China -AP
  [Refugee encouragement]
• Japan still hoping for reunion in 3d nation
• Japan takes question of kidnappings to UN
  [Abductees]
• Japan changes tune on missile defense
  [Missile defense]
• Seoul, Tokyo to share views on KEDO Project
  [KEDO]
• Tokyo looking into applying anti-subversion law to Chongryon
  [Chongryon]
• Japan newspaper says N.K. Red Cross a group of political operatives
• North sold oil to Japanese gangsters, asserts Tokyo hard-liner
• Rift Deepens Between Japan, N. Korea -AP
• Tokyo to take things slower with Pyeongyang
• Pyeongyang indicates indefinite delay in N.K.-Japan security talks
• Former North Korean spy to testify before Japan Diet
  [Espionage] [Defector report] [Joint US military]
• 80 more Japanese may have been adbducted by Pyeongyang
  [Abductees]
• As tensions with North Korea grow, Japan investigates other possible abductions-AP
  [Abductees]
• Japan to consider temporary suspension of reactor project
  [Nuclear] [KEDO]
• 3 in 10 Japanese wives in North died of starvation, hardship
  [Abductees]
• Japan to dispatch special envoy on North Korea to Beijing
• Report: Japan official in Beijing in apparent bid to restart talks with North Korea -AP
• N.K.-Japan normalization talks not likely this month
  [Normalisation]
• Japan reviewing KEDO protocol, reports Sankei
  [KEDO]

• Nuclear Japan: Oxymoron or Coming Soon?
  {Matake Kamiya}[Nuclear]
• N.K. likely to release 5 Japanese soon
  [Abductees]
• 5 abductees in Japan will not be made to go to North
  [Abductees] [Misinterpretation]
• Japan says abductees to stay at home as pressure mounts in tug-of-war with North Korea -AP
  [Abductees] [Misinterpretation]
• Japan denies entry to 3 North Korean Officials
  [Belligerence] [Cultural relations]
• Abductee's daughter says she wants to stay in North
  [Abductees]
• Pyeongyang art troupe cancels performance in Japan
  [Cultural relations]
• Japan, North resume talks on normalization
• Decades after abductions, Japanese taken by North Korea will be allowed to return
  [Abductees]
• First DPRK-Japan Summit Makes Breakthrough in Changing Long-Hostility into Normalcy
• Japan concludes the "mysterious boat" as spy boat from N.K.
  [Sunken ship]
• Japanese man who went missing 40 years ago returns from North Korea -AP
  [Abductees]
• Japan and double-edged influence on the Northeast Asia region
  {Brent (Won-ki) Choi} [Koizumi0209]
• Team returns with remains, photos from North Korea
  [Abductees]
• Disbelief: Families reject North Korea's explanations on abductees.
  [Abductees]
• Japanese investigation team releases result
  [Abductees]
• North-Japan contact to resume
• Sad end for N Korea abductee
  [Abductees]
• Japanese investigation team releases result
  [Abductees] [Abductees] [History]
• Team sent to investigate abductions concludes stay in North Korea -AP
  [Abductees]
• Japan's dilemma: defining its role in Asia
• IHO Refuses Seoul's Demands on East Sea
• Former North Korean spy on Japan's wanted list
  [Abductees]

• In bizarre spy saga, Japanese family awaits reunion with son abducted by North Korea
  [Abductees]
• DPRK-Japan Pyongyang declaration hailed
  [Koizumi0209] [Railways] [EU]
• Time will tell value of N.K.-Japan accord
  [Koizumi0209]
• Japanese abduction started out by Kim Il-sung's order
  [Abductees] [Kim Il Sung] [Bizarre]
• Japanese families to demand safe return of abductees within a month
  [Abductees]
• Chosun Shinbo apologizes past incorrect report on kidnapping
  [Abductees] [Chongryon]
• Japan investigators to report on N.K. army
  [Abductees]
• Reflection can follow the summit
  {Park Bo-gyun } [Koizumi0209] [Abductees] [Kim Hyun-hee] [Terrorism]
• Japanese families want details of N. Korea kidnaps
  [Koizumi0209] [Abductees]
• Sincere implementation of DPRK-Japan Pyongyang declaration called for
  [Koizumi0209]
• Rodong Sinmun calls for normalizing DPRK-Japan ties with concerted efforts
  [Koizumi0209]
• North-Japan to discuss 6-way talks
• Japan to Probe N. Korea Abductions -AP
  [Abductees]
• Chongryon students feel Japan's wrath after summit
  [Chongryon] [Abductees]
• Japan takes diplomatic initiative
  {Kil Jeong-woo} [Koizumi0209]
• Japan mission on N Korea kidnappings
  [Abductees]
• Report: Suspicions emerge in Japan of more abductions by North Korea -AP
  [Abductees]
• Chongryon supports DPRK-Japan declaration
  [Koizumi0209] [Chongryon]
• Seoul Furious Over IHO's Move on East Sea
• Confrontation is useless, asserts North
  [Peace Efforts] [Koizumi0209]
• North likely to face coup in military sector
  [Role of NK military][Koizumi0209] [Abductees]
• Japan the victim? Absurd, say North Koreans (Report from Pyeongyang)
  {Oh Day-young} [Koizumi0209] [Japanese colonialism] [ewa]
• Koizumi's support soars after Japan-North Korea summit -AP
  [Koizumi0209] [Abductees]
• Pay for kidnapping, North to be asked
  [Koizumi0209] [Abductees]
• N.K. civilians continues to remain ignorant over abduction issue
  [Abductees] [ewa]
• Summit likely to spur momentum
  {Kim Young-hie} [Koizumi0209] [Abductees] [Reparations]
• Japan May Ask North Korea for Kidnap Compensation
  [Koizumi0209] [Abductees]
• Japanese Leader Faces Questions Over North Korea Meeting
  {HOWARD W. FRENCH } [Koizumi0209] [Abductees]
• DPR Korean women in Japan visit hometowns in ROK
  [National Security Law] [Religion]
• Seoul Wary of Negative Opinion of Abductions in Japan
  [Abductees]
• Japan to establish body in charge of abductees
  [Abductees]
• Heartbreak over Japan's missing
  [Abductees]
• Japan to establish body in charge of abductees
  [Abductees]
• Kim, Koizumi Discuss North Korea-Japan Summit
  [Koizumi0209]
• NK Willing to Return Kidnapped Japanese
  [Koizumi0209] [Abductees]
• Lessons of NK-Japan Summit
  [Koizumi0209]
• Abnormal trend since Kim-Koizumi summit
  [Koizumi0209] [Japanese colonialism]
• Japanese prime minister arrives here
  [Koizumi0209]
• DPRK Foreign Ministry spokesman on issue of missing Japanese
  [Abductees]
• Koizumi interviewed
  [Koizumi0209]
• Kim's apology on kidnapping stirs more fury
  [Koizumi0209] [Abductees]
• Outraged Japan to push North Korea for quick return of kidnap survivors -AP
  [Koizumi0209] [Abductees]
• Koizumi and Kim tip the balance
  {Shin Hee-suk} [Koizumi0209]
• North Korea aid is a matter of how much
  [Koizumi0209] [Reparations]
• The architect of the N. Korean summit
  {Takashi Kokubu} [Koizumi0209]
• Mori: N. Korea adopted pragmatic policy stance
  [Koizumi0209]
• Pyongyang eyes a big payday in reaching deal with Tokyo
  [Koizumi0209] [Reparations]
• The Pyongyang achievement
  [Koizumi0209] [Abductees]
• Is North Korea Ready for Peace? Koizumi Picks Up Where Kim Left Off on Peace Endeavor
  {Oh Young-jin} [Koizumi0209]
• Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, left, shake hands with North Korean leader Kim Jong-il after signing a joint statement
  [photo][Koizumi0209]
• DPRK-Japan Pyongyang Declaration
  [Koizumi0209] [Reparations] [Abductees]
• DPRK-Japan Pyongyang declaration published
  [Koizumi0209] [Reparations] [Abductees]
• DPRK Foreign Ministry spokesman on issue of missing Japanese
  [Koizumi0209] [Abductees] [Terrorism]
• Japan Families Bitter at N. Korea -AP
  [Abductees]
• Japanese families enraged over the news of death
  [Abductees]
• Kim apologizes for kidnapings
  [Koizumi0209] [Abductees] [Rocketry] [Reparations]
• North Korean leader apologizes for the kidnapping
  [Koizumi0209] [Abductees]
• Japan on sunshine express
  [Sunshine policy] [Koizumi0209]
• Asia Society: Special Report - Koizumi Visits North Korea
  [Koizumu0209]
• Japan seeks return of kidnap survivors
  [Koizumi0209] [Abductees]
• North Korea trip not a winner in Japan
  {Suvendrini Kakuchi} [Koizumi0209] [Abductees]
• NORTH KOREANS SIGN AGREEMENT WITH JAPANESE
  {HOWARD W. FRENCH} [KOIZUMI0209]
• The truth about meeting Kim Jong-il
  {Richard Hanson} [Koizumi0209]
• NK Willing to Return Kidnapped Japanese
  [Koizumi0209] [Abductees]
• Summit success as North Korea opens up
  [Koizumi0209]
• South Korea hopes for progress in Koizumi's trip to North Korea -AP
  [Koizumi0209]
• Koizumi gambles with a dictator -IHT
  {Robyn Lim} [Koizumi0209] [Abductees] [Misinterpretation]
• Koizumi bid in chain of failures
  {Victor Cha} [Koizumi0209]
• 4 abductees alive, 6 dead
  [Koizumi0209] [Abductees]
• 8 abductees dead, 5 alive
  [Koizumi0209] [Abductees]
• Kim appeared nervous in meeting with Koizumi [Koizumi0209]
• N. Korean ministry central to talks
  {Takuji Kawata} [Koizumi0209]
• Analysis / Tough talking expected on summit promises
  [Koizumi0209] [Abductees]
• Will Kim keep his promises?
  [Koizumi0209]
• Kim admits abductions Four Japanese alive, six dead; normalization talks to resume
  {Junko Takahashi} [Koizumi0209] [Abductees]
• Abductees' families express grief, rage over death reports
  [Koizumi0209] [Abductees]
• Japanese PM'S DPRK Visit, An 'Ice-Breaking' Tour
  [Koizumi0209]
• Japan, DPKR agree on steps to resume normalization talks
  [Koizumi0209]
• Koizumi, Kim Jong Il Concludes First Round Of Talks
  [Koizumi0209]
• Japanese Leader Arrives in N. Korea -AP
  [Koizumi0209] [Abductees] [Reparations]
• Summit success formula: abductees for an apology
  [Koizumi0209] [Abductees]
• Yukio Okamoto : Tokyo will consider Seoul's stance on compensation
  [Reparations] [Koizumi0209] [Abductees]
• Hopes and Uncertainties High for North Korea - Japan Talks {Howard French}
  {Howard French} [Koizumi0209]
• Gain and Pain of Kim Jong-il and Koizumi
  {Jang Sung-min} [Koizumi0209]
• From a wary Japan, optimism on remarks by North Korea leader
  [Koizumi0209] [Kim Jong Il] [Peace efforts]
• Kim Jong Il's answers to questions raised by president of Kyodo News Service
  [Koizumi0209] [Kim Jong Il] [Peace efforts][Threat]
• Improvement of DPRK-Japan relations is requirement of times
• Kim Jong-il expresses hopes for summit with Japan
  [Koizumi0209] [Kim Jong Il]
• Japan to urge North to reduce conventional arms
  [Security] [Koizumi0209]
• Report: North Korea may offer Japan news about allegedly abducted Japanese; Koizumi may agree to diplomatic ties -AP
  [Koizumi0209] [Abductees] [Reparations]
• A sea by any other name
• Kim seeks 'normal' ties with Japan
  [Koizumi0209]
• Suspected spy ship raised; now the questions
  [Sunken ship] (Chinese characters - Shinpu Zhejiang)
• Pyeongyang hinting that it will receive nuclear inspectors, Japan media report
  [Inspections] [Rocketry] [Koizumi0209]
• Japan retrieves missile during investigation of sunken ship
  [Sunken ship]
• Mystery ship sunk off the China coast is raised in Japanese salvage operation
  [Sunken ship](Chinese characters)
• Terrorist wife held on return to Japan
  [Terrorism] [Abductees]
• A suspected North Korean spy ship that sank in the East China Sea off Kagoshima, Japan, in the process of being raised by Japan's Coast Guard on Wednesday
  [Sunken ship][photo]
• Koizumi and Kim Jong-Il: Hope for the best, prepare for the worst
  {Victor Cha} [Koizumi0209] [US NK relations] [Threat]
• Pyongyang visit to last 9 hours
  [Koizumi0209]
• Korea summit report still vague
  [Koizumi0209] [Abductees]
• Koizumi's epochal visit
  [Koizumi0209]
• Koizumi gambles for results
  {Ralph Cossa} [Koizumi0209]
• JCG confirms 8 bodies found in, around mystery ship
  [Sunken ship]
• Koizumi is 'positive' on railroad projects
  [Railways] [Japan]
• Japan considers foreign minister-level body if talks go well
• Koizumi to Visit N. Korea -AP
• Relatives of Japan's first hijackers return from North Korea -AP
  [Terrorism]
• Korean-American League protests Japanese article about DPRK
  Letter from Dr Moon J Pak, Chairman, Steering Committee, Korean-American League regarding an article appearing in the Japanese magazine Bungeishunju
  [FDI] [Sanctions] [Refugee reception] [Confucianism] [Japanese colonialism] [Abductees]
• Why it must be East Sea
• Koizumi to convey U.S. message at summit
  [Koizumi0209] [US dominance]
• Seoul hopes for breakthrough on North Korea's nuclear, missile issues during Koizumi-Kim summit
  [Koizumi0209][Threat]
• Japanese aid not without conditions
  [Diversion] [Reparations][Aid weapon]
• Basic principles for N.K.-Japan summit laid out
  [Koizumi0209]
• Seoul reluctant to continue bilateral talks over 'East Sea'
• Seoul Calls for Alternative to `Sea of Japan'
• A new 'mystery ship' flap will not scuttle meeting in Pyeongyang, Japan says
  [Koizumi0209] [Belligerence]
• Korizumi to ask Kim to visit Tokyo
  [Koizumi0209]
• Koizumi's turn in the spotlight {Kim Young-hie}
  [Koizumi0209] [Reparations]
• Another mysterious boat emerges nearby Japanese waters
  [Belligerence]
• Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi to Visit Pyongyang to Meet DPRK Leader Kim Jong Il
  [Koizumi0209]
• DPRK-Japan Gov't Talks Paved Way for Historic Summit; Six-Point Joint Press Release of Great Significance Issued
• DPRK, Japan Agree on Humanitarian Issues at Red Cross Talks; Issue 4-point Joint Press Release
  [Red Cross]
• Last chance for Kim Jong-il?
  {Ha Young-sun} [Koizumi0209]
• Koizumi's Dangerous Gambit
  [Koizumi0209] [Belligerence]
• Seoul Hopes Koizumi Will Soften Hard-Line US Policy on NK
  [Koizumi0209] [Friction]
• Mr. Koizumi Goes to Pyongyang
  [Koizumi0209]
• Koizumi to apologize for colonization at summit meeting
  [Japanese colonialism] [Abductees] [Chongyron] [Foreign trade]
• Koizumi's popularity up after announcement of North Korea visit, poll shows -AP
  [Koizumi0209]
• North to secure Japan's assistance, break away from U.S. pressure
  {Lee Dong-hyun} {Jeong Yong-soo}
• Japanese leader to make historic North Korean visit
  [Koizumi0209] {Jonathan Watts}
• Seoul Opposed to Six-Party Talks
  [Japan] [Friction] [Joint Korean]
• 6-way Korea talks proposed
• Japan considering liaison office in Pyeongyang
• Japan PM Plans to Apologize to N. Korea-Report
  [Koizumi0209]
• Japan Considers Opening Liaison Office in Pyongyang
• Kim Jong-il orders end to Chongyron study groups
  [Chongryon] [Koizumi0209]
• Japan will not censure North over alleged spy boat
  [Sunken ship]
• Families of Japanese allegedly abducted by North Korea welcome Koizumi's trip -AP
  [Koizumi0209] [Abductees]
• Koizumi's epochal visit/ Cooperation of U.S., other nations key
  [Koizumi0209]
• Koizumi's NK Visit May Clear Clouds Over `Sunshine Policy'
  [Koizumi0209] [Sunshine policy] [Isolation]
• NK-Japan Normalization Urged
  [Sunshine policy]
• Tokyo said to offer aid to North for past wrongs
  [Japanese colonialism] [Koizumi0209] [Reparations]
• N. Korea reportedly invited Mori to visit
  [Koizumi0209] [Continuities]
• Koizumi playing for high political stakes
  [Koizumi0209] [Abductees]
• Koizumi aware of bleak prospects
  [Koizumi0209] [Abductees]
• Seoul's Kim advised Kim Jong Il to be flexible on Japan
  [Sunshine policy]
• North Korea to `do what it can'
  [Koizumi0209] [Abductees]
• N. Koreans allow spouses to visit home
  [Red Cross]
• A welcome surprise
  [Koizumi0209] [Abductees]
• Much at stake for Koizumi in N. Korea
  [Koizumi0209]
• Japan gains ground in Pyongyang talks
• Preparations begin for Koizumi N. Korea visit
  [Koizumi0209]
• Koizumi to Visit NK Sept. 17: Seoul Welcomes Japan PM's Trip
  [Koizumi0209]
• Koizumi to visit N.K. next month
• Tensions rise over naming of 'East Sea'
• South Korea welcomes Koizumi's landmark visit to Pyongyang
  [Koizumi0209]
• DPRK Foreign Ministry spokesman on Japanese PM's DPRK visit
  [Koizumi0209]
• Tokyo, Pyeongyang plan a summit
  [Koizumi0209]
• Strengthening of Japan-Korea friendship called for
• Families of Japanese allegedly abducted by North Korea welcome Koizumi's trip -AP
  [Abductees][Koizumi0209]
• What's in a name? Strife, if it's a sea
• Japan, North Korea on cusp of a major icebreaker in Asia

• Koizumi to visit N. Korea
  [Koizumi0209]
• Families hopeful over premier's trip
  [Koizumi0209] [Abductees]
• Japan must take stand on Iraq
  {Thomas H. Snitch} [Imperialism] [Koizumi0209]
• North Korea turning on 'charm' with Japan, U.S.
  [Yoshiharu Asano} [Koizumi0209]
• Ruling parties give visit thumbs up
  [Koizumi0209]
• Koizumi to visit Pyongyang Sept. 17
  [Koizumi0209]
• Koizumi-Kim talks a year in the works
  [Koizumi0209]
• Terrorism or simply war?
  [Japan] {Gregory Clark}
• Japanese comic book warns of nuclear dangers
  [National Security Law]
• Dokto being eyed as Japanese park
• North asks Japan for help with U.S
• Koizumi to Visit North Korea in Mid-September: Report
  [Koizumi0209]
• Korean Victims of Japan's Unit 731 Germ Experimentation Identified
  [Japanese colonialism] [History]
• Koizumi planning historic trip to North Korea
  [Koizumi0209]
• NK Hopes Koizumi's Visit Addresses `Abnormal' Ties
  [Koizumi0209]
• South Korea welcomes Japan's proposal for six-way security talks on N.E. Asia
• Japan proposes 6-way talks in region
• Tok islets, inviolable territory of Korea
  [Japanese colonialism] [Motherland]
• False gear is found on alleged spy ship
  [Sunken ship]
• Japan, North Korea wrap up first talks in two years, agree to more negotiations -AP
• Joint press release on DPRK-Japan talks
• Choosing kimchi over sushi
  [culture war]
• Japan woos the North
  [Abductees] [Rocketry] [Japanese colonialism]
• North's Kim Says Koizumi's Words 'Encouraging'
• KCNA calls for constructive DPRK-Japan talks
• Japan, North Korea open first high-level government talks in two years -AP
  [Aid] [Threat]
• Japan will ask North to continue missile-test freeze
  [Rocketry]
• DPRK representative on position towards "comfort women" issue
• North Korean telephone book circulating in Japan
• Report: Relatives of Japan's first hijackers to return from North Korea -AP
  [Terrorism]
• Seoul protests Japanese editorial on war history
  [Japanese colonialism]
• Joint press release on DPRK-Japan Red Cross talks
  [Abductees]
• Japan proceeds with spy satellite plan despite U.S. concerns
  [Rocketry] [US military dominance]
• Relatives sue over Koizumi shrine visit
  [Yasukuni]
• 6 Japanese located by North Koreans
  [Abductees]
• Yodoho hijackers may take longer to return home
  [Terrorism]
• Japan and North Korea discuss kidnapping allegations -AP
  [Abductees]
• Tokyo, North begin Red Cross talks in Pyeongyang
  [Abductees]
• Right name for the sea
  [Japanese colonialism]
• A die-hard jingoism
  [Japanese colonialism] [Yasukuni] [Textbook] [Joint Korean]
• Japan-N Korea talks make progress
• S-N Festivities End With Anti-Japanese Statement
  [Joint Korean] [Japanese remilitarisation] [Motherland]
• Two Koreas' civic groups pledge joint efforts on Dokdo sovereignty
  [Joint Korean] [Japanese remilitarisation] [Motherland]
• Koreas warn japan against return to militarism
  [Japanese remilitarisation] [Joint Korean]
• Okinawa issues resolution condemning U.S. accidents
  [US offences]
• MacArthur feared Japan 'war via trade'
  [Imperialism]
• Japan, N. Korea to start Red Cross talks Sun. morning
• Two Koreas' civic groups pledge joint efforts on Dokdo sovereignty
  [Motherland] [Joint Korean] [Japanese colonialism]
• Japan, North Korea engage in "ping-pong diplomacy" as government leaders prepare for bilateral talks -AP
  [Sport relations]
• Seoul Welcomes IHO's Decision to Drop `Sea of Japan' Reference
  [Motherland] [Japanese colonialism]
• Step Toward Cartographic Justice/Grave Concern Over Higher Inflation
• Chosensoren Students Experience Joint Camp in Busan
• Delegations of DPRK and South Korea adopted special statement toward Japan
  [Joint Korean]
• Koizumi pledges to uphold war-renunciation pledge
  [Japanese colonialism] [Japanese remilitarisation]
• Memory of Japan's wartime crimes still clear
  [Japanese colonialism]
• North Korea, Japan to hold talks Aug. 25
• Japan's Obstinacy on Tok-do / Draft-Dodging Scandal Deepening
• 57th Anniversary of Japanese Surrender
  [Japanese colonialism] [Japanese collaborator] [Japanese remilitarisation]
• N.K.-Japan director-level meeting from Aug. 25-26
• Implementation of DPRK-Japan joint press release called for
• Ministry unveils plan to include Dokdo in nat'l maritime park
  [Japanese colonialism] [Motherland]
• Japan alters policy on asylum-seekers
  [Refugee reception]
• Japan discovers 5 more bodies around sunken ship
  [Sunken ship]
• Pyeongyang ready for serious dialogue with Tokyo
  [Abductees]
• Rodong Sinmun on DPRK-Japan dialogue
• FM Choi to Visit Japan Sunday
• Report on talks between DPRK, Japan Red Cross organizations
  [Abductees]
• Japan mulls excluding some dead from shrine
  [Yasukuni]
• KCNA on dangerous revival of Japanese militarism
  [Japanese remilitarisation]
• Pyeongyang Student Art Troupe returns home
  [Cultural relations] [Rason]
• South Korea -Japan foreign ministerial meeting slated for early next week
• N.K. A-bomb victims urge compensation from Japan
• 6 families of Japanese hijackers apply to return home
  [Terrorism]
• Japan to seek new policy on refugees
  [Refugee reception]
• Japanese ambassador sees positive results from planned meeting with North Korea
• Emperor, MacArthur notes found
  [Imperialism]
• Ex-prime minister of Japan on Japan-DPRK relations
  [Murayama]
• Report: North Korea and Japan to hold Red Cross talks Aug. 18-19 -AP
  [Abductees]
• NK, Japan Agree to Resume Diplomatic Talks
• KCNA refutes Japanese newspaper's sheer misinformation
  [Drugs]
• North-Japan agrees on director-level talks
• Joint press release on talks between FMs of DPRK and Japan
  [Japan-NK negotiations]
• Memorial meeting of Koreans in Japan
  [US offences]
• Japan Hijackers May Leave N. Korea -AP
  [Terrorism]
• Fake currency taints N Korea talks
  [Japan] [Counterfeiting]

• Pro-Pyongyang Youths to Issue Protest Letter to Pres. Bush
  [Chongryon] [US offences]
• Japan seeks normalization of ties with North
  [Multilateral] [Japan] [Abductees]
• N Korea sending signals to Japan
  [Peace efforts] [Multilateral]
• Spokesman for DPRK foreign ministry on those concerned with plane Yodo
  [Terrorism]
• Report on truth about sunken Japanese ship issued
  [Japanese colonialism]
• Foreign ministry spokesman on DPRK-Japan relations
  [abductees][Japanese colonialism]
• North Korea says it played no part in decision of four Japanese Red Army members to return home -AP
  [Terrorism]
• Foreign ministers of Japan, North Korea to meet -AP
• Japan's unreasonable behavior slammed
  [Chongryon]
• Japanese authorities' moves to eliminate credit associations of Chongryun under Fire
  [Chongryun]
• KCNA on Japan Defense Agency's report
  [Japanese remilitarisation]
• Japan's nuclear weaponization under fire
  [Japanese remilitarisation]
• KCNA on Japan's participation in "Rimpac"
  [Japanese remilitarisation]
• Japan's burlesque for "comfort women for army" under fire
• Japan seeks Russia's help improving ties with North
• Seoul, Beijing, Tokyo to hold 3-way talks at Brunei
• Japan bracing for future dealings with N.K.
  [sunken ship] [Japanese remilitarisation]
• ROK, Japan Vow to Seek Dialogue With NK
  [Continuities]
• Korea, Japan to persist in seeking dialogue with N.K.
  [Continuities]
• Japan, South Korea agree to seek dialogue with North Korea -AP
  [Continuities]
• Yodo hijackers want to come home, face music
  [Terrorism] [Abductees]
• Japanese FM in Seoul to Discuss NK Policy
  [continuities]
• Red Army Members to Leave NK
  [Terrorism]
• Japan to Continue Talks with N.K. Despite Naval Clash: Kawaguchi
  [continuities]
• Japan's crafty trick to evade redress for its past flailed
  [Japanese colonialism]
• Japanese hijackers yet to officially apply to return home
  [terrorism]
• Japan's moves to upgrade defense agency under fire
  [Japanese remilitarisation]
• Official: Red Army members planning return from North Korea would be arrested -AP
  [Terrorism]
• Seoul, Tokyo to urge North to allow nuclear inspections
  [KEDO]
• Red Army Members to Leave NK
  [terrorism]
• Japan to review procedures for asylum seekers
• Japan hit for attempt for nuclear armament
  [Japanese remilitarisation]
• Red Army Members in NK May Return to Japan
  [terrorism]
• 4 Japanese hijackers in N.K. wish to return home
  [terrorism]
• Japan-EU urge North to reform economy
  [abductees]
• Koizumi vows to make effort to normalize ties with North
  [continuities]
• KCNA on Japan's moves to upgrade defence agency to ministry
  [Japanese remilitarisation]
• Archives Show Korean Laborers Forced to Work in Underground Military Site
• "Arirang Variations" by Korean and Japanese Composers Performed; 2nd Anniversary of Inter-Korean Declaration Marked
• Japan's Nuclear Ambition Persists; Leaders' Remarks Deemed "Calculated"
  [Japanese remilitarisation]
• Tokyo Governor Rebuked
  [abductees]
• Speed up economic ties, too
• North denounces Japan's reaction to naval clash
• High vigilance against Japan's moves for overseas aggression called for
  [Japanese remilitarisation]
• Mystery ship received fuel from N.K. ship
  [sunken ship] [US military dominance]
• Japan takes up arms
  [Japanese remilitarisation]
• Korea, Japan to Handle NK Provocation `Cool-Headedly'
  [border]
• Kim Leaves for Japan Today
• President visits Japan for World Cup, talks on South Korea-Japan relations

• Salvaging the truth
  [sunken ship]
• Korean unionists meet Japanese delegation
• Korea, Japan to declare new partnership at summit talks
• Missile found aboard ship
• Cheers for S. Korea earn boos for party
• 'Missing' Japanese mentioned at G-8 dinner
  [abductees]
• 'Spy ship' reportedly had missile
• President Kim to invite Akihito to Korea during visit to Japan
• Is Japan going nuclear?
  [Japanese remilitarisation]
• KCNA assails Japan's move for nuclear weaponization
  [Japanese remilitarisation]
• Japan coast guard dispatches patrol boats ahead of salvage operation
• President to visit Japan for Cup final
• World Cup Final May Help Heal Ailing Past
  [Japanese colonialism]
• Japanese researchers to examine North Korean A-bomb victims
• N.K.-Japan Red Cross talks may be delayed
• Dispute emerges over spelling of Korea
  [culture war]
• Have You Seen Them? Japan's List of Citizens Officially Suspected Kidnapped by North Korea
  [abductees]
• Society for the rescue of Japanese kidnapped by North Korea (in Japanese)
  [abductees]
• KCNA calls for vigilance against Japan's overseas advance
• Japan to raise ship sunk in gun battle
• Japan urged to make political decision to settle its past
• KCNA on Ishihara's war outcry against DPRK
• North Korea condemns "conditional" assistance
• North Korea lashes out at conditionality of aid after Japan withholds commitments -A
• DPRK order awarded to Japanese figure
• Japanese chief cabinet secretary's remark slammed
• VIEWPOINT]Scary words from across East Sea
• A nuclear wistfulness in Japan
• Korean workers exploited during WWII to testify at Japan court
• ILO likely to shelve sex slavery discussion until next year
• North blasts Japanese hint of dropping no-nuke policy
• KCNA on Japan's undisguised nuclear ambition
• Anniversary of Pochonbo battle observed
• China OK eyed in salvage
• Editorial]Which Japan is real?
• Japanese Leader's Remarks on Nuke Possession Draws Criticism
• Nuclear policy stirs up Japan
• EDITORIALS]A nuclear-armed Japan?
• Seoul Opposes Japan's Move to Possess Nukes
• Chongryun on Defending Korean Ethnicity
• Editorial] Making goals of harmony

• US GENERAL: JAPAN TIES DETER N.KOREA THREAT
• Redress demanded but Japan yawns
• Korean panel head has his reservations
• Ex-Japanese envoy says N.K. defectors are not refugees
• Kim to Meet Akihito, Koizumi on Japan Visit
• Kim, Koizumi to meet in Japan next month
• Japan's moves for overseas aggression under fire
• Japan-Korea panel begins history work
• Japan Times Apologizes for Offensive Web Site World Cup Guide on Korea
• Chongryon on preserving national character
• Ambiguous diplomacy needed sometimes, says Koizumi
• Diplomatic Problems Stall Japanese Food Aid to North Korea
• What Soccer hath joined: The Rockiest Match
• Japan's dangerous military move under fire
• Japan's asylum policy a shambles
• Japan may give up on inquiry into defectors plight
• Japan's undisguised plan for reinvasion under fire
• Japan's rice aid aims for diplomatic opportunity - NYT
• China, Japan agree in principle on defectors' status
• TODAY]The Japanese hero was a mutant
• EDITORIALS]They should be ashamed
• Coast Guard goes underground
• Angry China says it will go own way in asylum case
• Today's Editorial] Labor Unrest Over 5-Day Workweek / Japan's Double Talk
• Korean Americans to picket Japanese Embassy in Washington over North Korean defectors
• Japan at its inconsistent worst By GREGORY CLARK
• Probe of mystery ship concludes after six days
• More bodies discovered near suspected spy ship
• Japanese envoy told staff to expel defectors in 1996
• View from overseas] New Crisis Rocks Sino-Japanese Relations
• Japan's poor excuse ridiculed
• Joint press release on talks between DPRK-Japan Red Cross organizations
• Sort out China feud, says prime Minister
• Tokyo to extend U.S. anti-terror Support
• 182 Koreans victims in wartime sinking
• Taiwan paid ex-Defense Agency staff's bill
• North Korea asks Japan to fund a-bomb health facility
• Defense agency seeks upgrade,
• Military emergency debate fuzzy on civil defense role
• Japan ends probe, but questions remain over suspected North Korean spy boat
• Korea One Up on Japan After Decades of Follow-The-Leader
• Japan hints at tougher response to unidentified vessels
• Another body recovered from ship wreckage
• Coast Guard concludes underwater probe of suspected spy boat
• Japan's militarist fever slammed
• Letter to U.N. high commissioner for human rights
• Letter of protest to Japanese prime minister
• Tokyo official sees hope in Red Cross talks
• MSDF lobbied for U.S. Aegis request
• Koreans urged to mind their p's and q's for World Cup
• Asian regional symposium urges Japan's settlement of its past
• North may normalize ties with Japan
• Bodies lashed to 'N.Korea spy ship'
• N.K. forum urges Japan to apologize for past atrocities
• More talks set on missing issue
• Search of 'spy ship' yields body, weapons
• U.S. sees N. Korea moving away from hard-line stance
• Body, weapons recovered by divers investigating mystery ship
• Koizumi's visit to "Yasukuni Shrine" assailed
• North and South come together on Japan's WWII atrocities
• A positive note from Pyongyang
• Seoul official expresses concern over salvage operation
• N. Korea says search resumed
• JCG starts work to secure 'spy ship'
• Kanzaki feels China's Yasukuni heat
• Japan, N. Korea talks to kick off
• EDITORIAL: Exercise every opportunity to fix ties with North Korea
• Chinese official blasts shrine visit
• U.S. eyes Japan aid in Iraq attack
• Kim echoes criticism of Koizumi's Yasukuni visit
• Fund for 'comfort women' falls short
• Abductions, aid topics of talks
• Koizumi's War Shrine Visit Infuriates Asian Neighbors Again
• Chongryun Group Makes Seventh Home Visit
• S. Korea's Noted Cardinal Visits Korean School in Japan
• North Korea and Japan agrees on four points in Red Cross talks
• Kim Jong-il receives head executives of Chongryon
• Some progress in N.K.-Japan Red Cross talks
• Time has come to face the past

• Japan suspends payment to KEDO
• Forced laborers win suit [China]
• Japan's navy to make port call at Busan
• Japanese politicos to visit North in May
• Pyeongyang, Japan tackle spouse issue
• Reception given [anti-Japanese revolutionary struggle in China]
• slams Japan's call for right to collective self-defense
• ROK Seeks International Recognition of East Sea
• North Korea blasts Koizumi's visit to shrine
• Compensation for crimes related to "comfort women for army" called for
• Japanese PM condemned for visit to Yasukuni Shrine
• South Korea, China lodge official protests over Koizumi's visit to controversial shrine -AP
• EDITORIALS]Another surprise attack
• Seoul Not to Link Japanese PM's Shrine Visit With World Cup
• Seoul Reacts Furiously to Japanese PM's Shrine Visit
• Koizumi returns to war shrine
• Koizumi's surprise visit to shrine
• Japan to question North on 49 missing persons
• U.K. help sought in Arimoto case
• Japan, South Korea agree to resume military exchanges -AP
• Report: Japan to raise suspected North Korean spy ship as early as May
• Chinese Vice-FM Summons Japanese Ambassador Over Japanese PM's Shrine Visit
• China Expresses Strong Dissatisfaction over Japanese PM's Shrine Visit
• China Concerned over 'Investigation' of Sunk Ship: FM Spokeswoman
• China Keeps Close Watch on Japan's Search for Sunken Ship: FM Spokesman
• Incident of Boat Sunk by Japan Not Clearly Explained: Analysis
• DPRK-Japan Red Cross talks to be resumed
• Japan's nuclear weaponization under fire
• KCNA refutes Japanese diet's unreasonable resolution
• KCNA assails Japan's distortion of history
• Nuclear temptation in Japan -IHT
• VIEWPOINT]Soccer sometimes can hurt amity
• Japan must enhance vital security ties to the U.S. -IHT
• Kim Jong Il Sends Funds to Korea University & Opera Troupe in Japan
• Former "Comfort Women" in S. Korea Hold 500th Weekly Demonstration
• Survivors Tell Hidden Stories About "Taihei Maru" Incident
• Japan urged to take proper attitude toward of DPRK-JAPAN relations
• No diplomatic ties until settlement with abductees says Japan
• Parents of Japanese allegedly kidnapped by North Korea make appeal in Parliament -AP
• North Korea to resume contacts with Japan as U.S. waits
• Japanese Red Army case to be the start of thawing point
• New Japan envoy to Seoul is picked
• Koizumi calls for new laws to combat political scandals, says will press North Korea over alleged kidnappings -AP
• Japan's Koizumi wants new efforts to engage North Korea -AP
• Koizumi to pursue ties to Pyeongyang
• Pyeongyang calls off Singapore talks with Tokyo
• North-Japan Red Cross meeting set for April 29-30
• Edgy Koreans look suspiciously at new Japanese histories
• North likely to expel Red Army soon
• North's handling of Red Army troops could bring new thaw
• China says it understands Japan's position on alleged spy boat
• N.K.-Japan talks likely this month
• North Korea calls off Japan talks
• Editorial]Stand firm on Dokdo
• A positive message from Pyongyang
• Japanese Bank to Suspend Remittances to Pyongyang
• New hard line against Pyongyang
• North Korea, Japan to hold delayed negotiations soon
• Samsung Surpasses Sony in Electronics Market Value

• U.S. photos show mystery ship look-alike
  [US military dominance] [sunken ship]
• Pyeongyang accepts proposal for Red Cross talks with Japan
• Japan to push for early resumption of Red Cross talks with North
• Japan seeks new talks on abductions
• World Cup Follies
• Koizumi winds up three-day visit
• Editorial] World Cup summit
• Commentary] What Koizumi left unsaid
• Kim, Koizumi Agree to Exchange World Cup Visits
• Koizumi Balks at Food Support for NK
• DPRK ready to hold talks with Japan Red Cross Society
• Resolving Abductions, a matter of global security, says Koizumi
• Smiles, signatures at the summit
• Poll: more lawmakers favor revising Japan's constitution after U.S. Terror attacks
• DPRK-Japan Espionage Abductions
• Japanese Angry Over Korean Kidnappings
• Kim, Koizumi to Tackle Free Trade Pact
• Goodwill signs as Koizumi starts trip
• Japan: Four lenders to take over Chogin banking operations
• Japan-Korea: Historic bitterness despite new ties
• Japan refuses aid to North Korea
• North Korea to resume probe of Japan kidnap Cases
• PRC Foreign Minister implies objection against salvage
• US pressing for recovery of 'spy ship'
• Koizumi to Try Hand at Kayagum
• Kim, Koizumi to hold talks tomorrow
• Koizumi visit to focus on improving ties
• Another visit, more hopes
• Hard line sought on N. Korea
• Koizumi stresses better relations
• Former S. Korean "comfort women" urge apology and compensation
• China calls for Japan to give up on spy boat
• Past history is hard to shake off [ROK poet in Japan]
• Koizumi to Taste Korean Culture
• Japan asks North for Arimoto's location
• History still a hurdle for Emperor's visit to Seoul
• Learning from colonial history
• Kim, Koizumi to launch gov't-level work on FTA
• Women in 500th week of protests
• The 500th rejected plea
• Korean victims of Japanese sex slavery hold 500th weekly demonstration
• Kim, Koizumi to hold summit talks March 21
• FORUM]Don't gloat about Japan's woes
• victims of Japanese wartime sex crimes shout anti-Japan slogans
• Japanese PM to Visit Seoul March 21-23
• Witness? story may help clarify abduction issue
• Japan slighted by U.S.
• Japan's moves to usurp Tok Islet disclosed
• Tokyo declines from food aid as another victim adds to the abductee list
• Parents demand action in abduction cases
• Japan says China did not say no to salvage Work
• Pyongyang slams Japan's dispatch of Peacekeepers
• Korea, Japan discuss N. Korea
• Chinese World Cup Fans Could Visit S. Korea via North: Tang [also Japan spy ship]
• Rep. Kim says Japan sank ship carrying terrorist weapons
• Govt to salvage 'spy' ship in May
• Japanese reactionaries urged to behave with decorum
• Ship snapped in China similar to mystery ship
• Coast Guard pinpoints mystery ship
• Japan, South Korea to `co-host' PKO in Timor
• ROK, Japan to Launch Joint Historical Research Body
• Kim Extends Olive Branch to Japan Ahead of World Cup
• Parties Display Mixed Reactions to New List of Japanese Collaborators
• Research Details 400,000 Koreans Forced Into Labor During WWII
• Independence Movement Day marked with ceremonies, events
• List of Japanese collaborators draws mixed party reactions
• Independence Movement Day marked with ceremonies, events
• Japan forced 400,000 Koreans into slave labor, military service
• Setting history right
• Rooting out wrongdoers
• Names of Japan Collaborators Unveiled
• `Comfort Woman' to Speak on Japan's Sexual Slavery
• Pro-Japanese collaborators exposed
• Kim Jong Il receives Koreans from Japan
• Survey: Anti-U.S. Sentiment in South Korea
• Tokyo, Seoul Play Down Bush Rebuke of N. Korea

• Japan Looks for Suspected Spy Wreck -AP
• Koreans, Japanese join hands for brighter future in Asia
• Korean and Japanese Lawmakers Point to Different Potential Threats
• DPRK Denounces Japan's Launch of H2-A Rocket
• PRC-DPRK Views of Japan's Military Development
• ROK-Japan, PRC-Japan Relations
• Bush Is Dogged by 'Axis of Evil' in Visit to Japan
• N. Korea's neighbors should act together
• War hysteria of U.S. and Japan criticized
• Gov't to Lift Ban on Japanese Songs for World Cup
• Japan understands U.S. position on "evil" states, says Bush
• Japanese Hijacker Sentenced - AP
• Accused Japanese Spy Feared Dying -AP
• Koizumi says door is open for dialogue with North
• NK Released Japan`s Reporter Suspected as Spy without String after 2 Years Detention
• Japan hit for preparing biological and chemical war
• Japan urged to drop hostile policy toward DPRK
• [ANN] Bush's trip to Japan crucial [deploying naval assets in Indian Ocean]
• Editorial] A legacy lost for good? [Japan]
• Japan hit for dangerous launch of large carrier rocket
• More youths learning `cool' Korean
• S. Korea withdraws history textbook demand
• Joint history panel in sight
• New anti-American sentiment boiling up (in Japan)
• Japan, ROK dispute sea name
• Japan's NKorea policy unchanged after Bush speech
• Seoul, Tokyo reopen security dialogue
• Koizumi's South Korea visit seen as step to unsnarling ties
• U.S. Hails Japan's Military Efforts -AP
• Rodong Sinmun on "emergency legislation"
• Japan's comfort women included some spouses
• Japanese imperialists deprive Korea of 100,000 pieces of cultural assets
• North Korean Ship Searched in Japan
• Tentative dates set for Koizumi's visit
• ROK, Japanese Activists United Against Distorted Textbooks

• Nkorea had secret talks after mystery ship sinking: reports
• Japan Preparing To Salvage Ship Sunk In Shootout
• Japan hit for trying to justify overseas military actions of "SDF"
• EDITORIALS]Help Koreans in Japan
• Interview] : Nogami Yoshiji, Japan's vice foreign minister
• Japan's dangerous arms buildup under fire
• Korea, Japan finding film friendship [ROK]
• Japan and N.Korea make secret diplomatic contact
• North Korea vs Japan: Ne'er the twain shall meet
• Korea, Japan move one step closer to FTA
• Netizens Fight for Official Recognition of `East Sea'
• Seoul, Tokyo to hold security talks
• ROK, Japan to Resume Naval Drill in August
• Korea, Japan kick off 'year of people's exchange' programs
• Chinese ship may have moved drugs from North to Philippines
• KCNA on Japan's reckless provocation
• Removal of danger of war from Korean peninsula called for
• OUTLOOK]Free trade with Japan is logical
• Korea, Japan to resume joint military exercises
• Foreign minister to visit Japan
• Japan hit for war preparations for reconquest
• KCNA on fever of militarism
• Japan urged to show its will to redress past [Unit 731]
• North concerned over Japan's legalization of troop dispatch
• U.S. Backs Japan on Boat Shoot-Out -AP
• Commentary]Empress and comfort women
• NORTH KOREA SUSPECTED OF STEPPING UP DRUG SMUGGLING
• Reception for art troupe of Korean schoolchildren from Japan
• Japanese Probe Threatens Pro-Pyeongyang Group's Survival
• Koreans strive to vote, but at what price?
• Debris links ship to N. Korea
• EDITORIALS]Dangers of a sliding yen
• Koizumi's visit a delicate diplomatic test
• Chinese sailors say drugs were from North Korea
• Japan needs clear N.K. policy [Brent (Won-ki) Choi]
• Cloudy prospect for case into spy boat
• Japan links items to sunken North ship
• Kim, Koizumi plan a flurry of visiting
• Koizumi plans to visit Korea in March
• Koizumi seeks to woo SE Asian neighbors
• Feud Escalates Over 'East Sea'
• Seoul Reluctant to Give Prompt Go-Ahead to Koizumi's Visit
• Tokyo appeals decision in favor of atomic victim
• Report of suspicious divers in Japanese beach found false
• North Korean ship searched after refusing to be boarded
• Chogins funneled money to group
• North, South overcome rivalry via Soccer
• What's in a name? A lot for resident Koreans
• Chinese have little taste for battle against terrorism, poll shows
• A reader's view] Revivalist danger in Japan
• No commitment to Koizumi visit
• N.K. frieghter investigated by Japan
• Threat comes from Japan
• Campaigns Against Pro-Japanese Koreans Gaining Strength
• Senior Col. Kim Joon Rok Remembers Capturing USS Pueblo
• China, S. Korea fret over shooting
• Tokyo-Pyongyang relations sag

• Editorial]Let the sun shine on
• Japan Criticized for Denying Violation of Korean Waters
• New Horizon] Assassination of Empress Myongsong
• 2 from mystery vessel drowned
• Strengthened sea patrols discussed
• Mystery signals to N. Korea
• Crisis center left in dark over spy ship case
• Salvage may cause diplomatic row
• North Korea Calls Japan's Sinking of Mystery Boat 'Brutal Piracy'
• Today's Editorial] 490th Weekly Rally at Japanese Embassy / New Appointment Formula for High Posts
• North enters word war
• N.K. slams Japan for 'groundless' accusation
• Japan's fuss about "unidentified ship" refuted
• Japanese authorities' allegation dismissed
• 490TH WEDNESDAY RALLY _ Former comfort women
• N. Korea Denies Link to Sunken Ship -AP
• Japanese heard ship talk to North Korea
• Comfort women honor those who died unacknowledged
• Emperor Hirohito and 9 Others Found Guilty: Final Judgment of Int'l Tribunal
• Final Judgement of Women's International War Crimes Tribunal
• Research Discloses Deep Involvement Of Government and Big Business in Japan's Wartime Sex Slave System
• North Korea warns of measures against Japan over ship 'smear'
• N Korea threatens 'countermeasures' over sunken ship
• Japan warns Pyeongyang
• Japan Wants to Raise Sunken Ship -AP
• `Miracle' saved vessels from rockets
• Rockets fired at coast guard ships
• Legal questions raised over shooting at suspicious ship
• Japan Wants to Salvage Boat It Says Fired on Its Coast Guard
• Koizumi wants ship in shootout Salvaged
• Concern Growing Over Japan's Military Projection
• Today's Editorial] Japanese Emperor's Remarks on Korea/Insurance Integration Bill on Hold
• Japanese Destroyer Sinks Fishing Ship over International Water
• China watch closely on sinking unidentified boat
• After naval clash, suspected North Korean ship sinks
• Suspicions Grow Over Sunk Trawler - AP
• Japanese Patrol Sinks Fishing Boat -AP
• Japanese sink boat (photo)
• `Ancient Japanese Emperor Has Blood Ties With Korean Kingdom'
• Warning shots called legitimate
• 'Spy' ship likely from N. Korea
• Mystery ship scuttled by antiterror law
• Koizumi: Shots were self-defense
• Sunken vessel resembled 1998 drug-smuggling ship
• Tokyo-Pyongyang relations sag
• Coast guard ships retrieve bodies of two suspected spies
• Japan searches for boat Crew
• Three bodies recovered after mystery ship Sinks
• PM backs coast guard decision to shoot fleeing ship
• Seoul, Tokyo Agree on Visa Waiver for World Cup Soccer
• North ends search for missing Japanese
• ROK, Japan Fail to Agree on What to Name East Sea
• Pro-Seoul group in Japan seeks wider member base
• Japan urged to return Korean cultural assets
• Sweeping Anti-Chongryun Campaign in Japan; Ethnic Banks'Bankruptcy Develops to Political Repression
• Korea, Japan lawmakers call for end to disputes
• [Editorial]Japan's two wars, two faces
• Koizumi Expresses regrets for stalled Japan-DPRK relations
• A Police Raid Exposes North Korea's Long-Hidden Support Network Within Japan
• Japan's suppression of Chongryon criticized
• "Orphans' Homes" Were Terrible Labor Camps for Korean Kids: Another Japanese War Crime Revealed
• Japanese Envoy to U.S. Calls for Pressuring Pyeongyang, Baghdad
• Japan's smear campaign refuted
• DPRK FM spokesman on Japan's unprecedented suppression of "> Chongryon

• KCNA slams Asahi Shimbun's diatribe
• North, Japan Meet To Thaw Relations
• Seoul, Tokyo to Launch Forum for Joint History Study
• Japan's Overreaction Reveals Seoul's Missile Development
• Japanese reaction shows sensitivity of missile issue in East Asian region
• Japan emerges dangerous war force
• Women of 2 Koreas to Meet at Hague Tribunal on Sexual Slaves
• DPRK FM Denounces Japan's Approval of "Anti-Terrorism Law" as Step for Overseas Aggression
• Japan's Active Engagement in U.S. Retaliation Brings Clock Back to Its Militarist Days
• Japanese Civic Groups Meet to Support Korean Unity; Calling for Resumed Normalization Talks
• Korean Ethnic Education in Japan Greets 55th Birthday; Commemorative Events Held in Tokyo
• Chongryun Urges Police to Arrest Suspects of Murder-Arson Case Of Chongryun Official

• Japanese society for Japan-Korea agricultural interchange formed
• Kim, Koizumi Agree on Thorny Issues
• Kim, Koizumi agree to resolve disputes
• Kim, Koizumi Declare Support for Better Ties
• Japan PM's Visit Causes Dispute in House
• Opposition criticizes Seoul's policy on Japan
• The Day After Koizumi's Visit
• Korea Mulls Over Lifting Blocks to Japan Exchanges After Summit
• [Today's Editorial] Koizumi's Brief Trip to Seoul
• Seoul moving to normalize ties with Tokyo after summit
• Korea, Japan to Resume Exchanges
• No breakthrough in relations despite reconciliatory gesture
• Kim, Koizumi make limited progress despite apology
• S. Korea tour of Japanese prime minister
• Protests Greet Koizumi's Efforts to Mend Ties
• Substance Is Thin at Summit
• Kim, Koizumi fail to resolve issues straining Korea-Japan ties
• Kim, Koizumi to Hold Summit Today With No Statement Planned
• Historic symbol of Japan's harsh colonial rule awaits Koizumi
• Koizumi to arrive in Seoul today amid opposition
• Koizumi's projected junket to S. Korea protested
• History, Fishing on Agenda For Koizumi's Visit Today
• Koizumi Offers `Heartfelt' Regret; No Solution to Pending Issues Seen
• Anti-Koizumi Protests Engulf Korea
• Sanriku Waters Barred for ROK Fishermen
• Korea, Japan Get off Conditional Start
• GNP Urge Gov't to Take Firm Stance
• Koizumi Fails to Win Korean Hearts
• Japan's cunning predatory method assailed
• No breakthrough in relations despite reconciliatory gesture
• Kim's Foreign Policy Faces Major Test
• South Korea warns of damage to ties with Russia, Japan over fishing dispute
• [Squints & Smirks] Samurai Embassy With A View
• Lawmakers Oppose Koizumi's Visit
• Politicians voice opposition to P.M. Koizumi's visit to Seoul
• Japan's Resolving of the Past Key to N.K.-Japan Relations
• `Koizumi Reluctant to Make Visit to Independence Hall'
• Japanese premier to visit colonial-era prison in Seoul
• Seoul, Tokyo fail to resolve fishing dispute in secret talks
• [Domestic Viewpoints] Korea fooled by Russia, Japan
• KCNA on Tokyo metropolitan governor's anti-DPRK remarks
• Japan's "three non-nuclear principles" termed deceptive
• Civic Groups Oppose Koizumi's Seoul Visit
• Seoul to Review Punitive Steps Against Tokyo
• Lawmakers demand Koizumi apologize
• Japan's projected overseas military operation under fire
• Japanese prime minister to visit Seoul October 15
• President Kim, Koizumi summit poses challenge to both leaders
• Koizumi Will Visit In Bid to Heal Rift
• Japan's move to expand military role overseas draws mixed reactions from South Korea
• Korea, Japan to Set Up `Joint Textbook' Panel
• Koizumi's Trip Poses Risk to Seoul
• [Hello Korea] Comfort Women

• Japan's step for full-scale overseas aggression under fire
• Joining in "Peace Boat" Cruise for Peaceful Korea
• UN Urges Japan to Recognize Ethnic Korean Schools in Japan, Give Legal, Financial Assistance to Ethnic Education
• DPRK Hits Japan's H-2A Rocket Test-Fire
• [Arrowhead] Unnamed Sea
• President Kim to meet Koizumi during APEC forum next month
• Minister Han Urges Japan to Take Action for Summit
• Will Kim Give Koizumi Cold Shoulder at APEC Summit?
• [Editorial]Koizumi's brash moves
• Japan's anti-DPRK hostile policy under fire
• Document Shows Allied Powers Recognized Korea's Sovereignty Over Tok- do Islets
• Two Films Shed Light on 1945 Ship Tragedy
• Japan's moves to evade compensation under fire
• DPRK compelled to take counter-action against Japan's moves
• Japanese daily reverses decision; will run ads critical of textbooks
• Korean, Japanese Unionists Endeavor to Understand History
• DPRK Foreign Ministry spokesman on Japan's rocket test-fire
• Japan, S. Korea, US welcome North's offer to end contact freeze
• N.K. threatens to end missile moratorium
• Business leaders call for Japan-Korea free trade pact
• Korean, Japanese business leaders meet to discuss FTA
• Japanese join weekly anti-Japan protest in Seoul
• Japanese textbook issue (Nautilus 24 Aug)
• Japanese Schools Rejecting Textbook
• Japanese Civic Group Joins Comfort Women in Blaming Tokyo
• [A Reader's View]Japan riles Asia
• Seoul raises textbook, sex slavery at U.N. racism forum
• Japan's rocket test-fire assailed
• Friendly meeting with Japanese delegation
• [Today's Editorial] Urgent Need for History Education
• Korean survivor of forced labor honored at Japan's Yasukuni Shrine

• Japan's moves to revive militarism condemned
• Forum to Address Textbook Row
• Minister Han to present issues of 'comfort women' at U.N.
• Japan's opposition leader to visit Seoul
• Meetings held in Japan to hear testimonies
• Korea, Japan to discuss bilateral ties
• [Editorial]Conditions for fence-mending
• South Koreans Have Own Textbook Controversy
• One Last Try for Japanese Rocket
• Japan's Neighbors Cool to Koizumi
• [Today's Editorial] Conditions for Koizumi's Visit/Legislation on Spousal Rape
• Government reacts coldly to Koizumi plan to visit Korea
• Koizumi's Trip to Seoul `Premature'
• Koizumi's War Shrine Visit Adds Fuel to Flames of Asian Anger......... Choe Kwan Ik, PK Editor
• Tokyo Isolated at Geneva U.N. Meet; Blamed for Its Past and Present Acts
• Tokyo Refuses N. Korean Victims' Entry Again; Hearings Cancelled
• South Koreans urge Japan to take full responsibility for 1945 ship blast
• From Internet to nightly news: making a media circus
• Seoul threatens to boycott summit with Japan
• Japanese minister to visit Seoul amid tense relations
• Foreign Ministry spokesman on Japanese prime minister's visit to "Yasukuni Shrine"
• Japan urged to redress its past
• 'Japan May Revise Pacifist Constitution'
• Korean civic groups to take Japan's history distortions to U.N. conference on racism
• Korea Information Service: Japanese Textbook Issue
• Tangled nets over fishing rights
• Koizumi's compromise fails to appease
• Speech of DPRK delegate at 53rd session of UN sub-commission on human rights
• Japan urged to meet demand of international community
• Yakusuni Shrine Visit [sic](Nautilus reports)
• Japanese War Crimes (Nautilus reports)
• Seoul threatens to boycott summit with Japan
• Japanese chief executive's visit to "Yasukuni Shrine" assailed
• Korean Internet users focus anti-Japan protests
• Korean lawmakers leave for Japan to protest Premier Koizumi's visit to Yasukuni Shrine
• Koizumi making moves to mend ties with Korea
• Seoul Positive on Japanese Rejection of Textbook in Question
• Kim Joong-kwon, protest Koizumi's visit to Yasukuni Shrine( photo)
• Japanese PM Urged to Offer Apology
• Justice Ministry Bans Entry of 25 Japanese War Criminals
• Parties Trade Attacks Over Leaders' Colonial Past
• Chong Wa Dae: No Summit With Koizumi
• KCNA on Japanese chief executive's visit to "Yasukuni Shrine"
• Most Japanese schools ignore disputed textbook
• 'Japan Casts Dark Clouds Over Ties With Korea'
• Koreans Celebrate Liberation Day, Condemn Revival of Japanese Militarism
• Liberation Day Fete Held in Pyongyang
• Website Reveals Horror of Japan's 'Unit 731'
• An Exhibition Held to Show Japanese History Textbooks Were Distorted
• Koizumi's compromise fails to appease
• Civic groups in Korea, Japan to take Koizumi's Yasukuni visit to court
• Seoul summons Japanese envoy over Koizumi's visit to war shrine
• Koizumi's visit to war shrine sparks outcries from Korean political parties
• Diplomatic approach is key to resolving Japan's textbook controversy
• Korea-Japan relations at crucial crossroads
• Japan accelerates tilt toward nationalism, raising concern among Asian neighbors
• Koreans Slice Their Fingers in Anti-Japan Rite
• Residents of Pusan burn the Japanese flag, (photo)
• Seoul Ponders Canceling Kim-Koizumi Summits
• Koizumi Gets on Koreans' Nerves
• Civil Groups React Furiously to Koizumi's Visit to War Shrine
• Rival Parties Slam Yasukuni Visit
• Angry Protests Against Japan Replace Joy of Liberation Day
• [Today's Editorial] Haunting Militarism in Japan
• Korean founds museum on Japanese World War II biological warfare lab
• Foreign minister urges Japan to take measures to mend fences
• Foreign minister urges Japan P.M. to lead way in resolving disputes
• Korean bereaved families stage a sit-in protest at Yasukuni Shrine (photo)
• S. Korea vows strong action if Koizumi visits shrine
• S. Korea vows strong action if Japanese P.M. visits shrine
• Netizens to stage Internet protest against Japan's history textbooks on Liberation Day
• [Anniversary Interviews]Japanese envoy questions Seoul's bid to table textbook issue on U.N. meetings
• Japan's envoy sees little progress in Japan-N.K. relations without U.S.-N.K. breakthrough
• Japanese ship sinks DPRK vessel
• Korean rock band tears Japanese flag during Fuji Rock Festival
• Families of Korean victims of Pacific War to visit Japan to protest Yasukuni visit
• Civic groups call for compensation from Tokyo for Korean A-bomb victims
• Liberation Day to Become Watershed in Seoul-Tokyo Ties
• Japan accused of peddling "abduction" issue
• A symbol of pride and pain: Understanding the Yasukuni Shrine
• Why Are Asians Angry at Yasukuni?
• Gov't under fire for hiding details on WWII victims

• With U.S. Collusion, Japan Shutters Its Past
• Japanese women in Korea urge gov't to fix textbooks
• Japan working to find ways to avoid criticism of shrine visit
• Seoul to Keep Up Civilian Exchanges With Tokyo Despite Textbook Dispute
• Anti-Racism Confab to Adopt Declaration on History Education
• Former Comfort Woman to Return Home After 60 Years
• Japanese couple promotes building of memorial tower for Korean war dead
• Opposition Strikes Back at MDP Over Father's Pro-Japan Acts
• [Today's Editorial] Koizumi's Parliamentary Election Victory
• Gov't predictions vary on effects of Japan's election
• Korea, Japan Fail to Narrow Difference on Fishing Dispute
• Int'l education body demands Japan revise history textbooks
• Ruling party to join civic groups' fund-raiser to buy ads in Japanese papers
• Lawmakers Urge Japanese Premier to Cancel Visit to Yasukuni Shrine
• Japan and Ballistic Missile Defense (Rand report)
• [Global Outlook] Japan's memory problem and East Asia
• Japan's Attitude Over History Distortion Unacceptable: Armitage
• Business Has No Nationalism
• Japanese women in Korea urge gov't to fix textbooks
• Kim Calls for Restraint Over Textbook Dispute
• Opposition against rightist textbook grows in Japan
• KCNA on Japan's missile development
• Protesters burn a Japanese flag in front of the Japanese Embassy in Seoul
• No! to Distorted History Textbook: Ad Hoc Asian Rally Warns Japan
• Speech at Ad Hoc Asian Meeting on Textbook By DPRK Delegation, June 10, Tokyo
• International Scholars' Appeal Concerning the New Japanese History Textbook (July 2001)
• Center for Research and Documentation on Japan's War Responsibility (JWRC)

• Seoul Considers Slapping Fishing Ban on Japan
• [Today's Editorial] NK Family Should Not Be Sent Back/Another Absurd Action by Japan
• Seoul Mulls Retaliation Against Tokyo on Fishing
• No! to Distorted History Textbook: Ad Hoc Asian Rally Warns Japan
• South Korea contemplates retaliation after Japan bans Korean vessels from EEZ
• Seoul to Summon Japanese Envoy to Protest Fishing Ban
• Japanese government denounced for refusing to permit DPRK delegation's Entry
• A fig leaf (Asia Times online)
• IFJ Calls for Revised Japan Textbooks
• Japanese government condemned for refusing to permit entry of DPRK delegation into Japan
• Japanese army's massacres of participants in Kapo peasants war in Korea
• Union groups to take sex slavery issue to ILO
• 'Over 50,000 Farmers Massacred by Japanese Troops in 1894 Uprising'
• UN Human Rights Body Adopts Resolution Urging Punishment of Perpetrators of Violence against Women

• Seoul Expresses Displeasure With Koizumi
• Chongryun Holds 19th Congress; Sets Forth New Tasks Towards New Century
• Lineup of Central Standing Committee (of Chongryun)
• Seoul Proposes East Asia History Confab
• Pro-N.K. group in Japan elects new leader, pledges reform
• [Editorial]Wary of 'Koizumi boom'
• [A reader's view]A suggestion for the Japanese textbook controversy
• Joint Rallies Against Japanese Textbooks Planned in 80 Countries
• Seoul, Beijing Pledge United Efforts in Textbook Dispute
• More facts about Japan's forcible drafting of Koreans disclosed
• SNU professors send letter to U.N. on textbook issue
• Seoul to Urge Tokyo to Stop Textbook Sales
• Pro-Japanese activities by Koreans to be included in textbooks: Han
• [Editorial]Last battle of WWII
• Japan Activists Visit for Joint Strategy on U.S. Bases
• Seoul Urges Koizumi Not to Visit Shrine
• Seoul Mulls Permanent Body on Japan Textbook
• Textbook controversy : Analysis of Korea's requests to Japan
• Japan still playing it by the book
• Japanese civic group to actively help both Koreas' WWII compensation efforts
• Civic Group Alliance Eyed for Wartime Victims
• Seoul to Draw Up Detailed Textbook Steps Next Week
• Seoul demands Japan revise 35 textbook passages
• Speculation rampant over whereabouts of Kim J.I's eldest son, fake Dominican passport
• [Editorial] Will Japan repeat history?
• Protester group at Incheon Airport, urges boycott of Japanese goods
• Korea submits final demand today for revision of Japanese textbooks
• Seoul mulls boycott of Japanese pop culture imports in retaliation
• Lawmakers to Seek Injunction in Japan Over Textbook Dispute
• Kim Jong-nam and Company (photos)
• Illegal Entry Won't Harm NK-Japan Ties
• Japanese embassy sends Korean lawmakers letters over textbook
• Seoul Mulls UN Resolution on Textbooks
• Tokyo's Handling of Illegal Entry Leaves Questions
• 'Sightseeing' trip cut short
• The life of Kim Jong-il's eldest son shrouded in mystery
• South Korea to seek U.N. resolution on textbook issue
• Kim receives Japanese P.M.'s letter
• N Korean 'heir' deported from Japan
• Seoul hopes Kim J.N. incident won't strain Japan-N.K. ties
• .Son of Kim Jong-il (in Japan; photo)
• Koizumi to send letter to Kim regarding textbook issue
• 'Kim Jong-il son' detained in Japan
• Seoul to Propose 'Corrections' on Japan Textbooks Today

• Int'l Alliance of Lawmakers Mulled Over Textbook Row
• Unabated struggle against Japan's distorted history textbooks abroad
• Seoul Finalizes Future Steps on Japanese Textbooks
• Revision Mulled to Bar Entry of Japanese Who Distort History
• Japan's Double Standard on Textbooks
• Officials discuss steps on textbook row
• [Commentary] Japan's unpardonable impunity
• [Editorial] Countering Koizumi's Japan
• College Students Distribute Posters In Protest of Japanese Textbooks
• U.N. body urges Japan to make amends for sex slaves
• Seoul to report on content revision of history books
• Koizumi's Election Causes Wariness
• Lawmakers Pushing Bill to Uncover Truth Behind Japan's Forced Labor
• Seoul Assessing Impact on Textbook Dispute From Koizumi's Election
• Civil Groups Launch Task Force Against Japanese Textbooks
• Korean NGOs to Stage Rally in Front of Japanese Ministry
• Japanese government urged to rewrite distorted history
• Seoul to implement long-term strategy over textbook issue as review nears end
• Educational aid fund and stipends to Chongryon
• Int'l Alliance of Lawmakers Mulled Over Textbook Row
• Unabated struggle against Japan's distorted history textbooks abroad
• Seoul mulls delaying visit of Japanese minister
• Government taskforce on textbook/to take countersteps by month's end
• Envoy Returns to Tokyo Today
• Recalled envoy to return to Japan today
• Japanese residents here endorse Korea's anger over distorted history textbooks
• Rep. Kim ends 6-day hunger protest
• Foreign Minister vows tough action on Tokyo gov't
• Lawmakers renew demands for stronger steps against Japan over textbook issue
• Rep. Park Sang-cheon calls on Seoul to cooperate with China over textbook issue
• Foreign Minister Seeks Diplomatic Efforts Over Japanese Textbook
• Korean Envoy Choi Returns to Tokyo Today
• Professor Seeks United Front on Textbook
• Textbook provokes mass cyber-protest
• Foreigners differ over Japanese textbook issue
• Japanese Foreign Minister Sends Letter to Han on Textbook Row
• Seoul Expresses Regret Over Japanese Lawmaker's Remarks (on sending troops to Korea)
• Envoy to Boycott Greeting Japan Emperor at Opera
• Korean envoy to remain in Seoul as protest on Japanese textbooks
• [Commentary] A bizarre view of history
• Japan Gov't Can't Escape Responsibility: Amb. Choi
• Japan Reopens `Old Wound' With Textbook Approval: Han
• Envoy blasts Tokyo over history textbooks
• Seoul to Mobilize All Means to Rectify Japanese Textbooks
• Seoul gets tough on textbook issue
• A textbook route to tension
• Kim Urges Japan to Straighten Distorted History Textbooks
• Seoul to Mobilize All Means to Rectify Japanese Textbooks
• Seoul Hints at Linking Textbook Issue With UNSC Membership
• Comfort Women Research Center to Be Created
• Japanese Scholar Donates Books to Apologize for Textbook Scandal
• Chinese official discusses N. Korea., textbook issue with Korean leaders
• Seoul launches task force on textbook
• Hyosung chairman's Japanese speech draws anger
• [Today's Editorial] Worsening Standoff Over Textbook Issue
• Seoul stepping up pressure on Japan, civic groups call for Tokyo to resolve textbook problem
• Lawmakers pressure Seoul to act on textbook issue
• [Editorial]Japan should respond
• Amb. Choi Recalled to Seoul - Taskforce Starts Operation Today on Japan Textbooks
• Seoul to Raise Textbook Issue in UN
• Lawmakers Blast Japan for Distortion
• Boycott Against Japanese Goods Launched to Protest Textbooks
• Seoul recalling ambassador in Japan over textbook
• Korea-Japan lawmakers' meeting called off
• Japanese Woman Making Efforts to Set Historical Record Straight
• Foreign Ministry spokesman on Japan's approval of history textbooks
• Seoul unlikely to act with China, N.K. on textbook
• Debating ancient history in Japan's textbook
• Politicians threaten tough action on Japan's textbooks
• GNP Calls for Boycott of Japan Products
• Korean Internet users denounce Japan over textbook adoption
• Responses to textbook issue likely to be ineffective
• President maintains silence over Japanese textbooks
• GNP moves to boycott Japanese products over textbook issue
• [A reader's view]Two letters question Japan's distorted view of history
• Japan Invited to Tumen River Development Project
• ULD leader urges Seoul to act tough on Japanese textbooks
• Gov't to launch team on textbook
• Seoul to Form Textbooks Taskforce
• Japan-U.S. joint BMD research flailed
• S. Korea lodges official protest over Japanese history textbooks
• Civic groups in Korea and Japan unite to oppose textbook issue
• Korean Japanese to visit hometowns
• [Editorial]Japan's extreme nationalism
• Tokyo Urged to Take Steps on Textbook Distortion
• Local Teacher Challenges Japan's History Distortion
• GNP Calls for Resignation of Japan's Education Minister
• Anti-Japanese Sentiment Deepening As Citizens Denounce Japan's Textbooks
• Japan's approval of distorted textbooks poised to strain Seoul-Tokyo relations
• Seoul expresses 'deep regret' over Japanese textbooks
• Korean, Japan NGOs vow to prevent textbook adoption
• 'Comfort Women' virtually ignored by Japanese textbooks
• Full text of Seoul statement on textbook
• .Seoul Criticizes Tokyo for Authorizing `Distorted' Textbooks
• Textbook Flap Reflects Japan's Post-War `Soul-Searching'
• Korean protest against Japanese textbook goes to cyber realm

• Civilians to Support Atomic Bomb Survivors
• [Letters to the Editor] Lessons of history
• Japan overturns sex slave ruling
• Gov't Taking Steps Over Japan Textbooks
• Seoul ready to take action if Japan approves textbook
• Religious groups in 2 Koreas denounce Japanese texts
• Pyongyang Rejects Tokyo's Bid for UNSC Permanent Seat: Permanent Mission to UN Issues Communique
• Tokyo Court Rejects Former Sex Slaves' Claim
• Heads of SNU, Tokyo University Denounce Attempts to Gloss Over Wartime Atrocities
• Korea, Japan to combine efforts to bring back abductees from N.K.
• Atomic Bomb Victims in DPRK Demand Japan's Aid
• Tokyo Comes Under Fire for Distorted History Textbook Justifying Japan's War of Aggression
• Japan can learn from Germany on textbook issue
• JCS denies alleged N. Korean spy boat infiltration into South Korean waters
• Asian Unites Against Japanese Textbooks
• Japan's apology and compensation to Korean people demanded
• DPRK rejects Japan's bid for UNSC permanent seat
• Kono `Well Aware' of Seoul's Concern on history Textbooks
• Businessman Encourages People Not to Forget Japanese Atrocities
• Environmentalists Protest Japan's Plutonium Shipments
• Lee makes last-ditch appeal ahead of Japan's decision on textbook
• Funeral Service for CHONGRYUN Leader Held
• Japanese A-Bomb damage investigation delegation meets with Korean A-Bomb Victims
• Report to Korean Compatriots in Japan
• Japan's claim to Tok islet flailed
• Japan's moves to justify distortion of history under fire
• Historians from two Koreas to take action against Japan
• Japan's document on recruitment of Korean "student soldiers" found
• Japan's moves to tamper with history of aggression flailed in S. Korea
• KCNA on Japanese media attitude towards tampering with history
• Seoul suspicious of Japan's textbook 'revision'
• Japanese students shocked by prison museum
• Seoul suspicious of Japan's textbook 'revision'
• National alliance to be launched to deter textbook distortion
• [Cultural Dimensions]Compromising on the textbook debate
• [Today's Editorial] Mounting Ultra Nationalism in Japan
• War parts revised in history textbook
• Two Koreas join hands in denouncing Japan's attempt to distort history
• Young Turks to Visit Japan Amid Textbook
• Historians of 2 Koreas Blast Japan's Textbook Distortion
• Japan's nuclear weaponization under fire
• Symposium of scholars from north and south held (on Japanese colonialism)
• Japan to Approve Revised Version of Controversial History Textbook
• Anniversary of March First Popular Uprising observed
• Parties Rap Japan for Distortions
• March 1 Celebrations Turn Into Protests Against Japanese Textbook
• President Kim Urges Japan to Have `Correct Understanding of History'

• Seoul Warns Tokyo Over Textbook Distorting History
• 12 Koreans File Compensation Suit Against Japanese Firms
• Japan Heads for Collision Course With Neighbors Over Textbook
• [Seoul Perspective] Partnership with Japan
• President joins fray over Japan textbook dispute
• Korea's Independence Movement Day raises further protests over textbook
• Two Koreas urged to probe deaths
• Document on Japan's conscription found
• Seoul to respond firmly to Japan's textbook issue
• [Editorial] Back to dangerous future
• Utterance of former Japan defence agency chief blasted
• Senior Japanese official's outburst under fire in S. Korea
• Assembly to oppose Japan's biased textbooks
• Lawmakers denounce Japan's textbook distortion
• 35 Asian Countries Call for Compensation for Colonial Rule
• Asian nations adopt declaration on compensation for colonial occupation
• Historian Slams Lukewarm Attitude Toward Japan's History Textbook
• "Alleged Abduction of Japanese" Needs Reexamination: Japanese Monthly
• Seoul warns against Japan's biased textbook
• [Editorial] Teaching sadistic history?
• Seoul Regrets Norota's Remarks
• [Today's Editorial] So Close, But Still Far Away
• Japan lawmaker blames US for World War Two
• Gov't hits Japanese politician for justifying Pacific War
• Korea to Step Up Vigilance on Japan's Distorted Textbook
• Tokyo urged not to authorize distorted textbook
• Japan's move to evade state responsibility for its past crimes denounced
• Education of Koreans in Japan
• Tokyo, Pyongyang in secret talks on Links
• KCNA on Japan's dangerous move for "emergency legislation"
• Dangerous U.S.-Japan military tieup flailed
• [Today's Editorial] Japan's Foul Play

• KCNA on Saito's solicitation diplomacy
• Tokyo credit unions eye Seoul as possible white knight
• Japan's wild design for overseas aggression under fire
• Lee calls for Japan's effort to settle voting right and textbook issues
• Japanese Foreign Min. Urged to Address Row Over Textbooks, Local Suffrage
• High vigilance against Japan called for

• [OP-ED] Policy cooperation key to resolving Korean issues (Japan)

  'Comfort women' trial in Tokyo

• Despicable behaviour of those guilty assailed
• Women's International Tribunal Finds Japan Responsible for Wartime Sexual Slavery, "Emperor Showa" Guilty
• Interview with Ms. Patricia Viseur-Sellers
• Interviews with North Korean Prosecutors

• History of 20th century indicts Japan

• Remark of director general of Japan Defence Agency
• Koreas to hold joint exhibition on Japanese rule

• DPRK, Japan End Talks with No Results
• Korean High School Qualified to Compete in Japanese Football Championships
• Lawmakers issue resolution on N.K.-Japan normalization (ROK)
• US: Japan to pay N. Koreans reparations for colonial rule
• Japan Hushing up its Infamous Past History
• [International Opinion] Neighbors, yet strangers
• Japan, S.Korea agree need to match N.Korea policy
• Plight of Comfort Women Depicted in Picture Book [ROK]
• 11th round of inter-governmental full dress talks between DPRK and Japan held
• 'NK-Japan Relations to Take Positive Turn Soon'
• Japan, N. Korea end talks without pact
• N. Korea talks focus on past
• N. Korea says aid 1st offered in '97
• North Korea has opened up, but why is anyone's guess

• Japanese and DPRK negotiators (photo)
• Japan to offer US$500m aid to N Korea: report
• Improved DPRK-Japan relations are unthinkable without honest reflection and Apology
• N. Korea demands apology for Mori's remarks on Tokto
• Japan Urged Redress for Its Past Crimes
• Japanese Press North Korea on Old Kidnappings
• Japan-North Korea relations stall on kidnap issues
• Japan being left out in the cold
• 11th round of DPRK-Japan intergovernmental full-dress talks to be held
• Japanese government decides to offer rice to DPRK
• Japan to send aid to N. Korea
• Civic Groups Petition for Comfort Women (ROK)
• Mori letter to Kim bothers officials

• Spokesman of DPRK FM flays Japanese chief executive's claim to Tok Islet
• [Editorial]Mori's offensive remarks (ROK)
• Kim urges broader aid for North, support on suffrage
• Mori Shows Willingness to Hold Summit With Kim Jong-il
• Kim, Mori discuss approach toward N.K
• Japanese-Korean Women Visit Hometown in Japan
• "Kidnapping" of Japanese has nothing to do with DPRK
• [Special Report]Despite inter-Korean thaw, hope dims for improvement of N.K.-Japan ties
• President appeals to Japan to help; North Korea rebuild economy
• Comfort women call for action on Japan Textbooks
• [Editorial] A common road to peace (Kim DJ's Japan visit)
• Outburst of director general of Defence Agency of Japan

• [Editorial]Japan attempts to whitewash its past (ROK)
• Japan's moves to justify its history of aggression (DPRK)
• No Japan-NK Ties Before Abductee Issue Settled_Japanese Ambassador Says_
• Japan Says Normalizing NK Ties Not Unconditional
• NK Claims Abductees Are Voluntary Residents

• Japan-Korea ties get help

• 10th round of DPRK-Japan intergovernmental talks closes
• N.K.- Japan talks end with some progress

• 10th round of DPRK-Japan intergovernmental talks held
• DPRK Accuses Japan in UN of Its Insincerity

• 10th round of DPRK-Japan intergovernmental full-dress talks begins

• [Editorial]Priorities in N.K.-Japan talks

• Japan refuses compensation for colonial rule
• Liquidation of Past Is Key to Normalization of Diplomatic Ties: Pyongyang
  DPRK Demands Apology and Compensation for Japanese Colonial Rule at 9th DPRK-Japan Talks

• Chronology of DPRK-Japan Negotiations
• Hot Spot: North Korea (Tokyo Observer 18, 1996)