2005

• December
• November
• October
• September
• August
• July
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• January

• Korean Wave Just a Ripple in Japan: Survey
  By Kim Tae-jong Staff Reporter A recent survey suggests that the Korean wave ``hallyu'' may be a mere ripple in Japan. Only a small number of people in Japan seek out and enjoy Korean pop culture, according to a survey released Wednesday by the Korea Culture and Tourism Policy Institute. The survey examined respondents' opinion of Korean pop culture products in television drama, music and movies, compared to those from Japan, the United States, Europe and China. Conducted on 1,000 Japanese living in Tokyo and Chiba from Sept. 2 to Dec. 20, it found that Korea ranked fourth on the list, just ahead of China. The survey, however, considered European countries as a single unit. It did not compare Korea with specific European countries such as France, Italy and England. The respondents gave Korean television dramas and films an unsatisfying score of 2.5, on a scale where 3 means ``I like'' and 2 correlates to ``I don't like.'' Based on the survey, the institute concluded that so-called hallyu phenomenon has been exaggerated and only a few Japanese actually enjoy Korean pop culture [Hallyu] [Softpower]
• NK Reports Talks With Japan
  "The two sides agreed to put behind their unfortunate past in order to realize normalization of diplomatic relations in the principle of their declaration made in Pyongyang," the North's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said. At the end of their two-day talks in Beijing, the two countries agreed to set up working groups on the normalization process, abductions and nuclear weapons.
• Friendship year between Korea, Japan marred by historical dispute
  [YEAR-END REVIEW] The year 2005 began with celebrations for the 40 year friendship between Korea and Japan but deteriorated into one of the worst between the neighboring countries as they came to diplomatic blows over contentious history issues. Japan shocked Korea in March when its Shimane Prefecture designated "Takeshima Day," enforcing their symbolic claim on the Korea-controlled Dokdo islands, and prompted further anger from Koreans in April by approving textbooks that critics claim glorify its past invasions of Asian countries in the 1900s. Revulsion with Japan reached a peak here in August when Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi visited the Yasukuni Shrine that honors war criminals along with other fallen soldiers. The anger of Koreans found a resounding echo with the Chinese, but both outcries were not well received by the Japanese, most of whom felt the emotional outbursts and protests were unnecessary because they said that successive governments have "already apologized" for past atrocities. Korea, China and other Asian countries all contend that Japan must stop making provocative moves if it is to show sincere regret. [Textbooks]
• KCNA Blasts Japan's Fresh "Abduction" Racket
  Pyongyang, December 24 (KCNA) -- As already well known to the world, the Japanese reactionaries have worked hard to garner support from the international community, clamoring for solving the "abduction issue" in the past. They have faked up stories about "false remains" and "close examination." They resorted to such political adventure as citing even the British intelligence service to make those stories sound plausible. Japan has only suffered shame and jeer of the international community as the falsity of these farces has been brought to light one after another. As if it were not enough with this, Japan is now getting busy to kick up another "abduction" row. It is busying itself to fake up the second "abduction case" by putting forward such human scum as Jenkins branded as "Juda of modern version" and "a vegetable human being". Meanwhile, Japanese government officials are vying with each other to solicit international cooperation. Recently the Japan Defence Agency chief asked for "cooperation" when talking with the Russian ambassador to Japan and the ambassador in charge of human rights issue expressed his intention to build up international opinion for the settlement of the "abduction issue." A large meeting calling on the international community to work for an "earlier settlement of the abduction issue" was held in Osaka. This clearly proves that the Japanese reactionaries are systematically conducting a premeditated smear campaign against the DPRK and they felt an urgent need to kick up a fresh "abduction" racket in the international arena. Tokyo, a centre of plot-breeding operations, is using even Jenkins for staging the second "abduction farce" which is nothing surprising nor new to us. The think-tank of the Japanese ultra-right forces are master hands at conspiratorial plots. They see no difficulty in replacing the remains of a wife personally sent by her husband with the remains of another person and holding a funeral after painting a person still alive as a dead one. This think-tank cited such despicable man as Jenkins this time to peddle the story about the "abduction" of women of third countries. This is ridiculous, indeed.
• Seoul Officials to Help Troubled Ethnic Koreans in Japan
  SEOUL (Yonhap) -- Officials at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade said Monday they had decided to donate some 120 million won ($120,000) to help a group of ethnic Koreans in Japan who are facing eviction from their town. More than 200 ethnic Koreans live in Utoro, a tiny Korean village of rickety houses in Uji City, Kyoto. The town is a legacy of Japan's colonization of the Korean Peninsula from 1910-45. Japan forced many Koreans to construct an airfield in the region in 1941. Many of the Koreans built homes on the land in Utoro owned by a Japanese company they worked for, but the firm sold the land to a developer two decades ago, making them illegal squatters. The issue has been one of Japan's longest-running social disputes, as South Korean activists view it as a symbol of the hardships of roughly 700,000 Korean immigrants. [Diaspora]
• Chinese Plan for a Nanjing Memorial to 'the Good Nazi' Reopens War Wounds
  By Peter Goff
  [Japan Focus 26 December 2005]
  The Nanjing Massacre remains a touchstone of China-Japan conflict nearly seven decades after the event. Now Chinese plans to honor John Rabe, a Germany citizen in Nanjing, for his efforts to protect Chinese citizens from slaughter have inflamed tensions with Japan over war and rare memory. The Chinese plan offers a rare example in the annals of warfare in general, and China in particular, of recognizing in a public and prominent way the achievements of a foreign national in a world that is dominated by nationalist icons.
• Japanese Premier's Visit of "Yasukuni Shirine"
  KCNA, Rodong Sinmun, Minju Joson Blame Japan for its Militaritst Hysteria; Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi Junichiro visited the "Yasukuni Shirine" on October 17 to be followed by more than 100 Dietmen the next day. The Korea Central New Agency (KCNA) of the DPRK criticized it on Oct. 20, and comments on it were carried by Minju Joson on Oct. 23 and Rodong Sinmun on Oct. 24.
  Commenting on this, Minju Joson said: This clearly reveals that the commitment the Japanese authorities made before the international community to break with the past on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of Japan's defeat in the last war, is nothing but hypocrisy and that they have become evermore undisguised in their ambition to realize the old dream which Japan's prewar militarists failed to do in the past. Asians and people in other parts of the world are strongly opposed to anybody's visit to the shrine as they regard it as a symbol of Japanese militarism.
• An Abnormal and Unfair Investigation
  On October 14, the Public Safety Section of the Metropolitan Police Department raided a total of 11 organizations, including the Science Technology Association of Korean Residents in Japan (Kwahyop), which is housed in the Korea Publishing Center (in Bunkyo Ward, Tokyo), and furthermore it searched the Kim Man Yu Science Advancement Association (in Adachi Ward, Tokyo), which is a nonprofit corporation, and arrested two Korean residents in Japan. On the same day, the statements were issued by Nam Sun U, the Vice-Chairperson of the Central Committee of Chongryun, and by Hwang Chol Hong, the Chairperson of Kwahyop.
  About 9 a.m. on October 14, the Public Safety Section of the Metropolitan Police Department blockaded the Korea Publishing Center, a company run by Korean residents in Japan, by mobilizing dozens of riot police on the suspicion of a "violation of the Pharmaceutical Affairs Law", and searched the office of the Science Technology Association (Kwahyop), which is a voluntary organization of science technologists residing in Japan, which consists of scientists, technical experts, and producers, and is not related at all to the production of medicines or the like.
• Principle of Criminal Suits Denied
  The Tokyo High Court Sentences Kang Yong Gwan to 6 years' imprisonment The Tokyo High Court rejected an appeal and sentenced Kang Yong Gwan on October 6 to the same six years' imprisonment as the first trial in connection with an "embezzlement" case. Kang is the former chief financial officer of the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan (Chongryun). In November 2001, the prosecutors' office arrested Kang Yong Gwan for "suspected embezzlement". He was charged with opening an account in a fictitious name with the sales department of the head office of the Chogin-Tokyo Credit Corporation. However, it was made clear in the former trial that the account had been opened and handled by Chogin-Tokyo and that Kang had never known its existence. Protesting the unfair judgment by the court, about 350 Chongryun workers and Korean residents in Japan held a protest rally, and a report meeting by Chongryun's defense council at the Japan Education Center in Chiyoda Ward, Tokyo. Immediately after the judgment, the defense council held a press conference, and an emergency rally was held in front of the Tokyo District Court. Meanwhile, the defense council filed an appeal with the Supreme Court on the same day. The Baseless Political Judgment At the meeting held after the protest rally, Hiroharu Yoshimine, chief counsel for the defense, made a report. Showing his anger at the judgment, which, he said, was the same in essence as the lower court's unfair decision, he stated that it was a "baseless political judgment". Kang was indicted in accordance with false testimonies, and the Public Prosecutors and the Metropolitan Police raided the Central Office of Chongryun, which is functioning as a virtual embassy of the DPRK in Japan, he added.
• Japan, North Korea Set for Tough Negotiations
  Tokyo Names Envoy to Tackle Nuke Issue By Reuben Staines Staff Reporter Japan appointed a special envoy Thursday to represent Tokyo at proposed working group talks with North Korea aimed at resolving a protracted international standoff over the communist nation's nuclear weapons programs. The Foreign Ministry in Tokyo named Tadamichi Yamamoto, who currently acts as a special ambassador on antiterrorism and Iraq issues, to cover the newly created post. Political analysts said Japan appeared to be strengthening its diplomatic team in order to push forward talks with Pyongyang on dismantling its nuclear weapons programs, as well as the repatriation of Japanese citizens abducted by the North. The move comes as Japanese and North Korean delegations are set to open two days of bilateral talks in Beijing on Saturday. [In denial]
• Japan, N. Korea to Hold Talks on Abductions
  The Associated Press Tuesday, December 20, 2005; 10:48 PM TOKYO -- Japan and North Korea will hold talks over the weekend on the North's abductions of Japanese citizens and other outstanding bilateral issues, the Japanese Foreign Ministry said Wednesday. A ministry statement said the talks would take place in Beijing on Saturday and Sunday. The two countries held talks on Nov. 3-4 _ the first in more than a year _ in Beijing on the abductions and other matters, which ended in discord over the North's demands for compensation for Japan's colonial-era rule and Tokyo's questions about the abduction of its citizens by Pyongyang's spies. Japan's chief delegate Akitaka Saiki and North Korean envoy Song Il ho will discuss the kidnappings, the North's nuclear weapons and missile programs as well as issues concerning the past, according to the statement. Japan's top spokesman said that Tokyo will further press Pyongyang on the abduction issue. "We will again demand strongly for the return of the survivors, investigations into the matter, and the handover of suspects," said Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe. Tokyo and Pyongyang have been at odds over missing kidnapped Japanese and the colonization of the Korean Peninsula. [Double standards] [Media}
• Seoul cool to overture by minister in Tokyo
  December 20, 2005 ? Tokyo's pledge last weekend to "sincerely" address Korea's deep grudges stemming from its colonial era were met with some skepticism yesterday by Korea's foreign minister, Ban Ki-moon. A Foreign Ministry official said yesterday that Mr. Ban had reiterated to his staff that for bilateral relations to improve, "their actions need to be in line with their words." On Sunday, a Korean diplomat said the ministry would issue a statement reacting to Japan's, but Seoul has evidently decided on a more indirect response to the offer of an olive branch.
• Seoul cool to overture by minister in Tokyo
  December 20, 2005 ? Tokyo's pledge last weekend to "sincerely" address Korea's deep grudges stemming from its colonial era were met with some skepticism yesterday by Korea's foreign minister, Ban Ki-moon. A Foreign Ministry official said yesterday that Mr. Ban had reiterated to his staff that for bilateral relations to improve, "their actions need to be in line with their words."
• Japan: What Foundations for Economic Optimism?
  By Stephen Roach
  Stephen Roach, chief economist for Morgan Stanley, might also be introduced as their chief iconoclast and contrarian. In these latter roles he regularly challenges the optimistic consensus on the basis of facts and analyses that tend to be ignored as the herd embraces a new trend. For example, while numerous analysts confidently hold that asset-based (rather than income-based) consumption can continue to power the US economy, Roach has been raising doubts about this for years. As America's housing bubble slides and leaves a swathe of consumers stuck with exorbitant mortgage payments, their "propensity to consume" is falling and Roach is looking prescient (again). The American housing bubble is only beginning to slide, but this may be one reason that growth in consumption has recently slipped to 1.5% after recording a robust 4% for the past decade.
• Japan to Pay Up to $1.2 Bln for Missile Project
  By REUTERS Published: December 15, 2005 Filed at 6:00 a.m. ET Skip to next paragraph TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan plans to spend up to $1.2 billion for an ambitious project to develop a next-generation interceptor missile with the United States, Japanese defense ministry officials said on Thursday. Development of the upgraded version of the Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) will cost about $2.1 billion to $2.7 billion over nine years, of which $1 billion to $1.2 billion will likely be paid for by Japan, the Japanese defense ministry officials said.
  Japan and the United States began joint research on the next-generation missile defense system shortly after North Korea test-fired a missile over Japan in 1998. Tokyo has spent about 26 billion yen ($221.2 million) for joint research on the system, and the defense ministry planned to set aside about 3 billion yen next year for the project to develop the advanced interceptor missile. Tokyo eased a blanket ban on arms exports last year to open the way for joint development of a missile shield. Experts say it would take only about 10 minutes for a North Korean missile to reach Japan. North Korea has criticized Tokyo's plans as a provocation and other countries in the region including China and Russia have expressed concern that the missile shield will be used to keep their military capabilities in check. [Missile defense] [Threat] [China confrontation]
• Ban Lashes Out at Aso in ASEAN
  By Park Song-wu Staff Reporter Japanese leaders need to convert their words of remorse into action, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Ban Ki-moon told his Japanese counterpart Taro Aso in Kuala Lumpur on Saturday. Ban's remarks came as South Korea and China cancelled their three-way summit with Japan, which was scheduled to be held on the sidelines of the ASEAN+3 meetings. ``It is unfortunate that we are not able to hold the Seoul-Beijing-Tokyo talks because of Japanese leaders' continued visits to the Yasukuni Shrine,'' Ban told Aso, according to South Korean officials.
• Commemorating the death of a patriotic envoy
  December 10, 2005 ? On November 30, 1905, the day Japan made the Korean king sign the Eulsa Treaty ? an agreement that forced Korea to surrender its sovereignty ? Min Young-hwan killed himself. To commemorate the centennial anniversary of his death, Korea University Museum has put together an exhibition based on personal belongings left behind by Min, titled "Min Young-Hwan; Death that Never Dies." Min was a patriotic government officer with a colorful background.
• Japan envoy cites shared values, urges cooperation
  December 10, 2005 ? Shotaro Oshima, the Japanese ambassador to Korea, emphasized yesterday that cooperation between Japan and South Korea was the most important element to build an affluent and peaceful Northeast Asia and to form an East Asian community. He said the two countries, having shared the values of freedom, democracy and human rights based on relations that have lasted for 2,000 years, should take the lead in solving current issues in East Asia.
• Japan should promote its charms
  The Yomiuri Shimbun International society is undergoing a period of dramatic transition more than 60 years after the end of World War II. The nature of conflicts in the world has changed from one between nations to one between the international community and terrorism. While Asian economies have been growing rapidly, Asia has many problems in the fields of security and regional cooperation. There are also many destabilizing factors in the region. It is necessary for Japan to show just what kind of role it can play in such an environment. Japan should first place Japan-U.S. relations at the center of its diplomatic relations, and then expand its activities in Asia. Diplomacy is like a deck quoit. With Japan-U.S. relations as the pin, Japan can conduct a policy of integrated diplomacy by adding a United Nations ring, an Asia ring, and then further rings. As a result of globalization, the United Nations' role in the international community is widening. Accordingly, it's increasingly important for Japan to get a permanent seat at the Security Council to enhance its position in the international community. The ultimate goal of Japanese diplomacy should be to enhance the nation's allure. We should make Japan even more attractive to the rest of the world, not just in terms of the nation's economy, but also its culture and education. (Dec. 6, 2005) [Softpower] [Strategic incoherence]
• Strong U.S.-Japan alliance crucial in changing Asia
  Richard Armitage Special to The Yomiuri Shimbun
  Perhaps the most significant factor fueling a changing Asia, however, is China's ascent on the world stage. This will happen, and it is about time. How it happens, however, presents a challenge for both the United States and Japan. Within Washington, there is an ongoing debate about how best to facilitate a smooth transition for China and its neighbors. Some say that if we get China right by building a stronger bond between our two countries, then Asia will be okay. I take a different view: If we get Asia right by engaging the entire region, including building upon our already strong alliance with Japan, then China--and its transition to a global player--will be okay.
  The United States is grateful to Japan for its support in Iraq and Afghanistan, and for passing the laws allowing Japan's involvement in these key countries. The United States also appreciates the harmony of views regarding peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait. Such cooperation is not only important for our shared goals, but stands as a clear indication of a changing, more globally active Japan. In expanding its role abroad, Japan has become an even more noteworthy, global partner. A challenge for Japan, however, is to decide what type of global role it should play. In this context, I raise the issue of Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution. While its future implementation is clearly a matter for Japan alone to decide, the debate surrounding the issue is reflective of this larger question. What is at stake in the debate is not simply a question of whether Japan should maintain a traditional military force, but rather what role such a force would permit Japan to play globally. [China confrontation] [US-Japan alliance] [Japanese remilitarisation]
• Okinawan Magma Rising: "Time to Bring the Curtain Down on this Farce"
  By Miyagi Yasuhiro (Councilor, Nago City, Okinawa)
  [Japan Focus 5 December 2005]
  Koizumi's Japan enjoys the warmest of relationships with Bush's US, for the very good reason that Koizumi has proved himself willing, even enthusiastic, to deliver what Washington requires - uncritical support in general, continuing provision of facilities for the US military in Japan, and Japanese boots on the ground to support the American mission in Iraq. On one significant issue, however, Koizumi has failed to deliver: the 1996 promise to replace the antiquated and inconvenient facilities of Futenma Marine Air Station, that now sits uncomfortably in the middle of the bustling township of Ginowan in the middle of Okinawa island, with a new facility in Northern Okinawa, to be built on the coral reef offshore from the fishing village of Henoko, in the township of Nago
• Japan's Hidden Arms Trade
  By Robin Ballantyne
  [Japan Focus 5 December 2005]
  The 2004 government announcement that it was considering joining the US in the production of a missile defence system was deeply troubling to Japanese and Asians concerned about Japan's expansive military posture in tandem with the US. Over the years, Japan has created a high tech non-nuclear military force. But it has steadfastly maintained an official ban on weapons exports. Many feared that the move heralded the end of Japan's nearly 40-year-old ban on arms exports.
  Since 1976, the Japanese government has proclaimed that "Japan shall not promote 'arms' exports, regardless of the destinations."[1] This stance has been advanced by ministers and officials in the domestic and international arena, who stress that Japan does not participate in the global arms trade. For example, in 2000 Sugiura Seiken, the Senior Vice Minister for Foreign Affairs informed a UN conference that: "Japan has been actively pursuing arms control and disarmament. We do not permit the export of arms to any country."[2]
  However, in December of 2004 it became clear that Japan's position as a weapons manufacturer and weapons exporter were under review.
  These statements, and particularly the Missile Defence project, are being undertaken both in response to rising Japan-North Korea tensions, and in the wish to strengthen the capacity of Southeast Asian countries to protect Japanese shipping through the Malacca straits. [Threat] [Japanese remilitarisation]
• One Man's Justice
  By Mark Ealey and Yoshimura Akira
  [Japan Focus 5 December 2005]
  Mark Ealey translates and Introduces Yoshimura Akira's novel probing the moral equation underlying the Pacific War in a novel that explores American firebombing of Japanese cities and the Japanese revenge killing of U.S. POWs.
  New Zealander Mark Ealey is a freelance translator specializing in Japan's foreign relations. One Man's Justice was his second of six book-length translations, following on from Yoshimura Akira's Shipwrecks (1996.) Here is a portion of Chapter 3 of One Man's Justice describing the last two days of the war from the point of view of fictional character Kiyohara Takuya, one of the executioners of the captured bomber crewmen. Written for Japan Focus and posted on November 30, 2005. [Double standards]
• "The Most Crucial Education": Saotome Katsumoto and Japanese Anti-War Thought
  By Matthew Penney [Japan Focus 5 December 2005]
  Tahara Soichiro's Nihon no sengo (Japan's postwar), a recent work of Japanese popular history from one of the country's best-selling and most widely read journalists, bears the provocative subtitle "Were we mistaken?" [1] This question, asked of the entire postwar period, is representative of a significant current in contemporary Japanese thought - the idea that Japan has strayed from the "correct" path and failed to live up to international "norms". In recent years, Japanese debates about war and peace, on both sides of the ideological divide, have been influenced by this view. Conservatives play up the idea that the Japanese constitution, which explicitly forbids participation in armed conflict and the maintenance of military forces, means that the nation has not been able to play a role in world affairs appropriate to its economic might
  Matthew Penney, a PhD candidate at the University of Auckland, is currently conducting research concerning popular representations of war in Japan. This article is adapted for Japan Focus from the forthcoming book Inside-Out Japan: popular culture and globalisation, edited by Matthew Allen and Rumi Sakamoto (Routledge). Posted at Japan Focus on December 3, 2005. He can be contacted at penneym@hotmail.com. [Japanese remilitarisation]
• China, Japan, Korea meeting cancelled
  December 05, 2005 ? The Blue House announced yesterday that a summit meeting between South Korea, Japan and China during the Association of Southeast Asian Nations+3 meeting in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, will not take place. Blue House spokesman Kim Man-soo said China, which is the chair for the trilateral meeting, informed Seoul that due to the current situation Beijing has decided to postpone the meeting. Until now, it was customary for the three nations to hold a summit meeting during the ASEAN+3 meeting that is scheduled for Dec. 12 to 14. Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi paid a visit to Yasukuni shrine in October despite repeated warnings from Seoul and Beijing that doing so would seriously hamper relations. A visit by South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun to Tokyo also has been ruled out by Seoul. [Yasukuni]
• Trilateral Summit Cancelled
  By Ryu Jin Staff Reporter The three-way summit to be held in Malaysia between South Korea, China and Japan has been cancelled. The meeting used to take place on the sidelines of an annual meeting of top leaders from 10 Southeast Asian and three Northeast Asian nations. China's Foreign Ministry announced that the trilateral summit was postponed due to the ``recent atmosphere and situation,'' which diplomatic sources interpreted as the recent row caused by Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's repeated visits to a war shrine. [Yasukuni]
• Unit 731 and the Japanese Imperial Army's Biological Warfare Program
  By Tsuneishi Keiichi
  [Japan Focus, 21 November 2005]
  [Japan's Unit 731 remains central to the fiercely contested China-Japan controversy over war crimes and war memory, and to the international debate on science and ethics. With a staff of more than 10,000, including many of Japan's top medical scientists, 731 and its affiliated units conducted human experiments, including vivisection, on Chinese and other victims in Manchukuo and throughout China between 1933 and 1945. The experiments tested, among other things, the lethality of biological weapons and sought to determine the ability of the human body to survive in the face of various pathogens and in conditions such as extreme cold. Tsuneishi Keiichi is Japan's leading specialist on biowarfare. [cbw]
• Whither East Asia? Reflections on Japan's Colonial Experience in Taiwan
  By Robert Eskildsen
  [Japan Focus, 21 November 2005]
  [We present two articles on a critical moment in the history of Japanese imperialism on Taiwan, the nature of the impact of colonialism on indigenous people, and contemporary ramifications of that history. In the first of these, Robert Eskildsen reflects on the broader issues of Japanese colonialism for contemporary East Asia in light of the 1874 Taiwan expedition and contemporary assessments of it. The second is Nishida Masaru's report on a commemoration of the expedition involving Japanese NGOs and villagers at the site of the Mudan Incident toward framing a people's reconciliation: "Japan, the Ryukyus and the Taiwan Expedition of 1874: toward reconciliation after 130 years." Japan Focus] [Japanese colonialism] [Imperialism] [Taiwan]
• Japan, the Ryukyus and the Taiwan Expedition of 1874: toward reconciliation after 130 years
  By Nishida Masaru
  [Japan Focus, 21 November 2005]
  [We present two articles on a critical moment in the history of Japanese imperialism on Taiwan, the nature of the impact of colonialism on indigenous people, and contemporary ramifications of that history. In the first of these, "Whither East Asia? Reflections in Light of the Japanese Colonial Experience on Taiwan," Robert Eskildsen reflects on the broader issues of Japanese colonialism for contemporary East Asia in light of the 1874 Taiwan expedition and contemporary assessments of it. The second is Nishida Masaru's report on a commemoration of the expedition involving Japanese NGOs and villagers at the site of the Mudan Incident toward framing a people's reconciliation. Japan Focus] [Japanese colonialism] [Imperialism] [Taiwan]
• Japan's Kamikaze Pilots and Contemporary Suicide Bombers: War and Terror
  By Yuki Tanaka Ritualized violence and brutality as exemplified by suicide attack may constitute the most negative manifestations of a human being's desire to let one's own people live by sacrificing one's own life. However, war and violent conflict inevitably brutalize not only suicide attackers, but all human beings. Undoubtedly war is an act of madness, its absurdity clearly shown in the paired (but imbalanced) actions and reactions of World War II: as Japan adopted kamikaze-style suicide attacks, the US used "strategic bombing" to indiscriminately kill hundreds of thousands of civilians, and finally engaged in atomic bombing attacks. Yet, to a great extent, it is the former acts that have borne the opprobrium of history while the latter would come to shape the strategic horizons of subsequent wars. Thus terrorist suicide bombing, which is occurring more and more frequently throughout the world, bears the opprobrium of "lunatic actions by fanatics," while the bombing of civilians, such as those executed by the U.S. and British forces in Afghanistan and Iraq, are widely regarded as "legitimate military operations." It is crucial that we find effective ways to break the vicious cycle of these two types of terrorism. [Terrorism] [Double standards]
• Seoul responds to 'a senseless act'
  November 29, 2005 ? Another salvo was fired yesterday in the endless war of words between Seoul and Tokyo, this time with the South Korean Foreign Ministry commenting that a remark made by Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Aso over the weekend was "a senseless act." Mr. Taro had criticized Korea for taking issue with controversial visits to the Yasukuni Shrine by Japanese senior politicians. As in the past, the South Korean Foreign Ministry issued a statement of regret which stated that Mr. Aso's remarks were based on a "wrong historical perception." Regrets were also conveyed yesterday by South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon to the Japanese Ambassador to Seoul Shotaro Oshima at a dinner meeting for selected ambassadors hosted by the speaker of the National Assembly. Last weekend, the Japanese foreign minister targeted Seoul and Beijing in a lecture, saying that only these two countries take issue with the Yasukuni Shrine where Japan honors its war dead, including class A war criminals. Despite this year being designated as a "friendship" year, relations between the two countries have cooled off substantially, although advances on the cultural front, with Korean TV dramas being popular in Japan, are steadily taking place. Seoul has refrained from engaging in an all-out diplomatic war with Tokyo, which is also a participant in the ongoing six-party North Korean nuclear negotiations. In the hope of getting some concession on the issue of the visits to the shrine, which are seen here as glorifying Japan's imperial past, and despite a visit there by Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi last month, Seoul chose to have a meeting between the two nation's leaders earlier this month during the Asia- Pacific Economic Cooperation forum. That meeting only reconfirmed the wide gap between the two countries. by Brian Lee
• Seoul Raps Aso for 'Thoughtless' Remarks
  By Park Song-wu Staff Reporter The government Monday expressed strong regret about Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Aso's ``thoughtless'' remarks over Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's repeated visits to a war shrine in Tokyo. ``It was thoughtless to turn a deaf ear to neighboring countries and international society that have expressed deep concerns over (Koizumi's) visits to the Yasukuni Shrine,'' said a statement issued by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade. The latest controversy was triggered by Aso who said at a forum in Tokyo on Saturday that South Korea and China are the only two countries that take issue with the prime minister's visits to the Yasukuni Shrine.
• Japan propoposes more assertive military
  By CARL FREIRE ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER Tuesday, November 22, 2005 · Last updated 1:11 p.m. PT TOKYO -- Japan's ruling party marked its 50th anniversary Tuesday with a proposed constitutional change that could give the nation a more assertive international military presence. The pacifist constitution's first alteration since its adoption in 1947 would create an official role for the Japanese armed forces [Japanese remilitarisation]
• Tense, terse discussion of joint past
  Roh and Koizumi fail to bridge political gap
  November 19, 2005 ? BUSAN ? Failing to yield any breakthrough results, the widely-awaited summit between President Roh Moo-hyun and Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi took place yesterday, reaffirming the rocky road ahead for the two countries' diplomatic relations. Meeting on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, the two leaders had a half- hour one-to-one talk, following the 21 leaders' gathering and before a welcoming gala dinner. Originally scheduled to last about 20 minutes, the talk ended up taking 30 minutes, the maximum time the two leaders could afford. The talk, however, had to be stopped in the middle because of time pressure, said Chung Woo-seong, senior advisor to the president for diplomatic affairs. Those 30 minutes were apparently used reiterating long-standing positions. Starting by saying he'd like to "deliver the thoughts of the Korean people to the Japanese people," Mr. Roh reportedly said, "We no longer call for Japan's apology. We do not seek compensation at a government level, putting aside civilian level compensation as a separate issue. But we can never accept Japan's stance on Yasukuni Shrine visits, history education and Dokdo Islets." Mr. Koizumi responded, saying, "Thank you for your honest opinion" and continued to explain why he keeps making the visits. Mr. Chung explained, "President Roh was asking for Japan to act and stop just talking."
• Roh, Koizumi Fail to Patch Up History Row
  By Ryu Jin Staff Reporter PUSAN _ President Roh Moo-hyun made a complaint to Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi Friday over the latter's repeated visits to a war shrine, which stirred a diplomatic row with Asian countries, including China and South Korea. In a half-hour meeting on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum here, Roh once again took issue with Tokyo's moves to gloss over its wartime atrocities. ``We don't demand an apology by the Japanese government any more. We don't demand government- to-government compensation either,'' he was quoted as telling Koizumi. ``But we can't tolerate Japan's positions on the Yasukuni Shrine, the Dokdo islets and on history textbooks at all.'' The Japanese premier, however, only repeated his earlier position that his visits to the shrine are not aimed at paying homage to the war criminals but to repent for the past and reaffirm that Japan should not stage a war ever again. [Yasukuni]
• Ugly Images of Asian Rivals Become Best Sellers in Japan
  By NORIMITSU ONISHI Published: November 19, 2005 TOKYO, Nov. 14 - A young Japanese woman in the comic book "Hating the Korean Wave" exclaims, "It's not an exaggeration to say that Japan built the South Korea of today!" In another passage the book states that "there is nothing at all in Korean culture to be proud of." In another comic book, "Introduction to China," which portrays the Chinese as a depraved people obsessed with cannibalism, a woman of Japanese origin says: "Take the China of today, its principles, thought, literature, art, science, institutions. There's nothing attractive."
  In "Hating the Korean Wave," a young Japanese woman says, "It's not an exaggeration to say that Japan built the South Korea of today!" The two comic books, portraying Chinese and Koreans as base peoples and advocating confrontation with them, have become runaway best sellers in Japan in the last four months. In their graphic and unflattering drawings of Japan's fellow Asians and in the unapologetic, often offensive contents of their speech bubbles, the books reveal some of the sentiments underlying Japan's worsening relations with the rest of Asia. [Hallyu] [Japan-SK relations] [China confrontation]

• Council of IGJVCK Meets
  Pyongyang, November 14 (KCNA) -- The 13th meeting of the Council of the International General Joint Venture Company of Korea was held at the Mansudae Assembly Hall today. Present there were Vice-Premier of the Cabinet Ro Tu Chol who is chairman of the council of the company, Vice-Chairman of the Central Standing Committee of the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan Ryang Su Jong and Chairman of the Korean Committee for the Promotion of International Economic Cooperation Paek Hyon Bong who are vice-chairmen of the council, Vice- Chairman of the State Planning Commission Choe Pae Jin and Chairman of the Federation of Joint Economic Venture of Korean Residents in Japan who are directors of the council and officials concerned. The meeting reviewed the last successes and discussed the issues of improving the function and role of the company to suit the actual conditions and enabled to take measures for further activating joint venture, collaboration and processing trade. A resolution of the meeting was adopted at the meeting.
• Japan's Obstructions to Korea's Reunification Flayed
  Pyongyang, November 13 (KCNA) -- What Japan has done against the DPRK for such a long period after Korea's liberation is as bad as those crimes it has committed during its colonial rule over Korea, says Rodong Sinmun Sunday in a signed article. The greatest crime Japan has committed against the Koreans after Korea's liberation is that it has persistently obstructed the Koreans' efforts for national reunification, the article notes, and goes on: Had not the Japanese imperialists occupied Korea it would not have been divided
• Okinawa and the Revamped US-Japan Alliance
  By Gavan McCormack
  Buddies in Kyoto
  George and Junichiro, two great buddies (if the Japanese media is to be believed) meet again, on 15 and 16 November, in Japan's ancient capital of Kyoto. Since Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi Junichiro is one of the dwindling band of ever-faithful Bush supporters, and since officials on both sides have been working hard to clear away all possible obstacles from the negotiating table between them, the mood may be expected to be warm: Japanese troops will remain in Iraq till September 2006; the ban on US beef imports, till recently cause of great congressional anger, is about to be lifted; the Japanese Post Office, sitting on the world's largest pool of funds, is about to be privatized; and, perhaps most important, a deal has just been done on the re-organization of US forces in Japan. The ground should therefore be clear for an untroubled meeting, plenty of windy rhetoric about the world's "closest and most important" relationship, some photo-ops, and perhaps some quiet tippling under the red and yellow-hued autumn foliage of the old Kyoto palace.
  Yet the truth is that the relationship is precarious: Koizumi does what he is asked by Bush, but cannot be sure of being heard when he seeks something in return [1]. This time, in his eagerness to please, he has promised something that he almost certainly cannot deliver: a solution to the long-running dispute over relocation of the US Marine base at Futenma in Okinawa. The alliance is no stronger than its weakest link, and Okinawa today is undoubtedly that weakest link. [Okinawa] [Japan-US relations]
• Koizumi's Japan in Bush's World: After 9/11
  by Gavan McCormack
  1. The "Trustworthy Ally" Half a century ago, General Douglas MacArthur, proconsul in the US occupation, was acclaimed as a benevolent liberator even while patronizing the Japanese people, whom he described soon after leaving Japan as "12-year old children." Today, proconsuls from Washington fly regularly in to Tokyo to inspect and instruct, as if Japan were a peripheral dependency, even though its economy now is roughly equal in scale to those of Germany, France and Britain combined. Japan's leadership basks in the glow of such patronage, seemingly satisfied with the role of satrap, for all the world like the one-time leaders of East European satellite states in the Soviet empire.
  However, Koizumi is a paradoxical, unpredictable, sometimes cantankerous leader, whose political instincts pull him in different directions. While taking steps to lock Japan more firmly into dependence within a US-dominated global order, using hostility for North Korea as the fulcrum, he has also taken significant steps towards resolving that very North Korean issue.
• Where is Japan Heading?
  By Hisane MASAKI As Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) has adopted its draft of a new constitution that would clear the way for a greater role in international security, many people here and abroad will question: Where is Japan heading?
  Though adoption of a new constitution could be years away, the world is still sitting up and taking notice. The LDP's historic move will certainly be hailed by Japan's most important ally, the United States, as clear evidence that Tokyo is going in the right direction to become a more reliable and responsible security partner regionally and globally. But it will very likely raise grave concerns among many of the country's Asian neighbors who fear that Japan's military genie might be finally beginning to escape its bottle, 60 years after the end of World War II.
  There is growing alarm in Japan over potential threats posed by neighbors North Korea and China. At the same time Japan is under increasing pressure from its most important ally, the US, to shoulder more of the burden of its foreign and security policy, regionally and globally. [Japanese remilitarisation] [Threat] [China confrontation]
• China, Korea rap Japanese visits to a controversial war memorial
  November 16, 2005 ? BUSAN ? Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon, who made no progress in trying to mend strained ties with Tokyo in a meeting with his Japanese counterpart on Monday, found an ally yesterday in China's foreign minister, Li Zhaoxing. The two officials condemned the controversial visits of Japan's Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi to the Yasukuni war memorial and said the visits should stop.
  Seoul and Beijing have taken different tacks in responding to the most recent visit, however. Chinese officials will not meet their Japanese counterparts here during the APEC meetings despite Tokyo's plea for a meeting of the two nation's leaders.
• Drastic Increase of Pro-Japanese Internet Sites in S. Korea Assailed
  Pyongyang, November 13 (KCNA) -- Pro-Japanese Internet sites are now reportedly on the drastic increase in south Korea. Its gravity lies in that they carry articles blindly hailing Japan and insulting south Koreans under the titles "Tok Islet belongs to Japan", "Japan's colonial domination over Korea was blessing" and 'Mean and dirty south Koreans." This is intolerable as it is nothing but rowdyism intended to hurt the dignity of the nation, observes Minju Joson Sunday in a signed commentary. It goes on: The appearance of pro-Japanese Internet sites is aimed to arrest the daily mounting struggle to eliminate pro-Japanese elements. This deplorable development is unthinkable apart from the Grand National Party. The GNP is made up of descendents of pro- Japanese traitors who supported the Japanese imperialists' colonial rule as Japanese soldiers and policemen, etc. It is not secret that they stayed in power for years after Korea's liberation on August 15, 1945, sold off the dignity and the interests of the nation to the U.S. and Japan and have perpetrated sycophantic and traitorous acts even since they were ousted from power. That is why the GNP leaves no means untried to scuttle the campaign for liquidating the pro- Japanese elements, much upset by it. The number of pro-Japanese Internet sites is rapidly increasing against this backdrop. It is beyond doubt that the GNP is behind this move. South Korea is bound to turn into a den of pro- Japanese elements and a colony of Japan unless the GNP's moves to come to power are foiled.
• DPRK Cabinet Hosts Reception for Delegation of Korean Traders and Industrialists in Japan
  Pyongyang, November 12 (KCNA) -- The DPRK Cabinet hosted a reception at the Mansudae Assembly Hall on Friday evening in honor of the delegation of Korean traders and industrialists in Japan on a visit to the socialist homeland to mark the 60th anniversary of the formation of the Federation of Korean Traders and Industrialists in Japan. Present on invitation was the delegation with Ryang Su Jong, vice- chairman of the Central Standing Committee of the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan (Chongryon), as its adviser and Ri Pong Guk, chairman of the federation, as its head. Premier of the Cabinet Pak Pong Ju, Vice- Minister of Foreign Trade Ri Myong San, and officials concerned were present.
• Ban, Japanese find no cure for strained bilateral links
  November 15, 2005 ? BUSAN ? The foreign ministers of South Korea and Japan tried to mend fences yesterday at a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, but reportedly found no meeting of the minds. A South Korean official, who described the meeting as "frank and sincere," said that Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon told Taro Aso that his government should act in a way that reflected "sincere reflections" by Japan on its colonial legacy in Korea and its militaristic past. He said such actions were necessary to instill a trust of Japan in the Korean people.
• Pak Pong Ju Meets Delegation of Korean Traders and Industrialists in Japan
  Pyongyang, November 11 (KCNA) -- Premier of the DPRK Cabinet Pak Pong Ju Friday met and had a compatriotic talk with a delegation of Korean traders and industrialists in Japan with Ryang Su Jong, vice-chairman of the Central Standing Committee of the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan, as its adviser and with Ri Pong Guk, chairman of the Federation of Korean Traders and Industrialists in Japan, as its head on a visit to the socialist homeland on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the formation of the FKTIJ at the Mansudae Assembly Hall.
• Seoul, Tokyo Differ Over Yasukuni
  By Park Song-wu Staff Reporter Ban Ki-moon, left, minister of foreign affairs and trade, shakes hands with his Japanese counterpart Taro Aso, ahead of talks at BEXCO in Pusan (Busan), Monday. / Yonhap PUSAN _ The two foreign ministers from South Korea and Japan failed to narrow their opinion gaps regarding Japanese politicians' periodic visit to a controversial war shrine in Tokyo, at their meeting here on Monday. Japan's Foreign Minister Taro Aso was thought to have come to South Korea with a mission to mend the two countries' relations that deteriorated after Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi visited the Yasukuni shrine, which includes memorials to convicted war criminals, last month.
• The Postwar and the Japanese Constitution: Beyond Constitutional Dilemmas
  By Yoshikazu SAKAMOTO
  The Abandoned People and the Right of Individual Self-Determination
  [Japan Focus 14 November 2006]
  The phrase 'sixty years of the post-war' is often used to mean '60 years since the end of the war' or 'these past sixty years'. However, the term 'post-war' itself is premised on a 'pre-war' and a 'wartime'. In other words, prior to the sixty years of post-war, there is the disjuncture between 'post-war', on the one hand, and 'pre-war' and 'wartime' on the other. For me, it is this experience of disjuncture that is the starting point of 'post-war'. [Japanese remilitarisation]
• Family Ties: The Tojo Legacy
  By David McNeill
  [Japan Focus 14 November 2006]
  The granddaughter of Japan's wartime leader Tojo Hideki has become one of his staunchest public defenders since emerging from obscurity a decade ago. But exactly who is she and why has she come in from the political cold? There is no mistaking the impact of the family genes on Tojo Yuko: she has the same myopic, almond-shaped eyes, thin mouth and wide cheekbones as her grandfather, General Tojo Hideki, who led Japan to disastrous defeat in World War 2. She even affects his rigid military bearing.
  Still, she articulates a set of views that resonate in a country floundering since the end of the Cold War and spooked by the rise of China: resentment at the outcome of the Tokyo trials and the legacy of victor's justice; disdain for the nihilism of contemporary Japanese life; distrust and dislike of Beijing and of the bureaucratic parlor games of diplomacy; a preference for a more muscular, independent foreign policy backed by a strong military. This environment helps explain why a woman who might two decades ago have been an occasional afternoon wide-show curiosity has emerged as an influential commentator on contemporary Japanese affairs.
• Responsibility of Intellectuals: Kobayashi Hideo on Japan at War
  By Zeljko Cipris
  [Japan Focus 14 November 2006]
  As Randolph Bourne discerned as far back as 1917, a state waging war is readily able to obtain support for its undertaking from sizable numbers of intellectuals. Such factors as jingoism, combative egos, power worship, or considerations of profit and prestige ensure that numerous academics, journalists, writers, and critics will pronounce eloquently in favor of the warring state and exhort their compatriots to back it without question. Although a uniformly pro-war consensus is seldom attained, hawkish intellectuals play an important role in engineering consent and discrediting opposition to official policies. Appreciative of the services rendered by its intellectual myrmidons, the state rewards them, directly or indirectly. When Japan launched its war against China in the 1930s, it did so proclaiming the loftiest of motives: to deliver peace, stability, and freedom to a chaotic land, and to liberate a troubled continent. A humanitarian intervention fused seamlessly with an imperial mission-the entire affair foreshadowing the sort of grand overseas enterprise that in a later age would elicit enthusiastic approbation elsewhere from a Robert Kaplan or a Michael Ignatieff. One writer explained that "The objective of Japanese expansion is neither the attainment of capitalistic supremacy nor the acquisition of colonies, but the realization of harmony and concord among the nations of East Asia and the promotion of their common happiness and prosperity. [1]" [Imperialism] [In denial] [Japanese colonialism]
• Japan-U.S. Relations Prosper on Isolation
  By Karel van Wolferen
  [Japan Focus 14 November 2006]
  There is nothing in the world that resembles the nichibei relationship. Yet, it is hard to think of two large industrialized countries that are so unlike each other as the United States and Japan. Except, recently, for one striking resemblance. If you had to choose one single word to typify their place in the world today, what more appropriate term would there be than "isolation"?
  The reasons for Japanese and American isolationism are very different. The U.S. variety has been fostered by an American nationalism, which the world has not experienced before in such a virulent and extreme form. But if we zero in on the persons who are supposed to be at the center of the political webs in either country, we again face striking parallels. The Bush people exist in a cocoon, something that has in recent weeks been confirmed by right-wing members of their own Republican party who have become horrified by it. Colin Powell's right-hand man, Col. Larry Wilkerson, has belatedly described an utterly inept administration living on fantasy. Gen. William Odom, former director of the National Security Agency, has characterized the biggest product of its fantasies--the invasion of Iraq--as "the greatest strategic disaster in U.S. history." Brent Scowcroft, bestfriend of the first President Bush, has explained that there has been no way to talk reason with Condoleezza Rice, his successor as national security adviser. Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi does not at first sight appear to live in a cocoon. As a TV celebrity politician he seems to be in continuous touch with the Japanese public. But if we consider what kind of relationship he has with his counterparts in the rest of the world, beginning with Japan's immediate neighbors, his own isolation is overwhelmingly obvious. Koizumi's cocoon is smaller than that of George W. Bush. It is an individual one, he carries it with him like a turtle in its shell. It is maintained for psychological reasons. I have been trying to figure out what makes him want to persist in a symbolic gesture that may be small in itself but that is understood everywhere as a taunt in the direction of China and Korea, and is believed to be very stupid by other Asians as well. [Yasukuni] [Solipsism]
• Roh, Koizumi to meet after all
  November 09, 2005 ? President Roh Moo-hyun yesterday became the second senior administration official to reverse course on contacts with Japan. Yesterday, despite earlier strong suggestions that he would call off a pair of one-on-one meetings with Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, he said he would ask the Japanese leader for a bilateral meeting during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation leaders' gathering in Busan next week. "I consider it proper for me to meet a guest from a neighboring country whether we have some issues or not," Mr. Roh told a group of foreign correspondents yesterday at the Blue House. Details have not yet been arranged. After the latest visit by Mr. Koizumi to the controversial Yasukuni Shrine last month, the Blue House released statements almost but not quite canceling a trip by Mr. Roh to Tokyo next month and ruling out a bilateral meeting at the APEC gathering.
• Representing Hirohito in Wartime: the art of Arthur Szyk
  By Tony McNicol
  [Japan Focus 7 November 2005]
  Sodei Rinjiro interviewed by Tony McNicol.
  When Professor Sodei Rinjiro submitted his book on caricaturist and illustrator Arthur Szyk to his Hosei University publishers, he received an apologetic but unequivocal rejection: "It is well written, nothing wrong with the content, but we can't print the pictures." The problem was several war-time caricatures of the late Emperor Hirohito that Sodei had provided from his personal collection. "I am sure they were afraid of right-wingers."
  Illustrator and caricaturist Syzk, a Polish Jew born in 1894, fled Nazism for America in 1940. There he applied his considerable talent to war propaganda - so successfully that the American press often described him as a "one man army" against fascism.
  During and before the war the Emperor was a god; you were not supposed to ridicule or to caricature him. So I had never seen anything like it. After the war, Macarthur didn't like caricatures of the Emperor. He wanted to keep him for his use . . . to occupy Japan. So again, we were not allowed to see such cartoons.
• North Korea Lets Japanese Defector Go Home
  By MARI YAMAGUCHI The Associated Press Thursday, November 3, 2005; 10:35 PM
  TOKYO -- North Korea allowed a Japanese woman who defected to the communist nation two years ago to return to her homeland Thursday. Kazumi Kitagawa, reportedly once a government mole in a Japanese doomsday cult, jumped off a ferry and swam across a river between China and North Korea in 2003 seeking asylum.
  "I'm very happy to be back in Japan," the 31- year-old Kitagawa said after she arrived from Pyongyang via the Russian port of Vladivostok. "I'm very sorry that I caused so much trouble with my sudden return." The official Korean Central News Agency said Pyongyang sent Kitagawa home as a humanitarian gesture after she "expressed her wish to go back to Japan." [Media] [Abductees]
• NK-Japan talks
  NK-Japan talks underway: Song Il-ho, top center, vice director of the Asian Department of the North Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs, speaks to journalists after the morning session of talks with a Japanese delegation at a Beijing hotel, Friday. Diplomats from Japan and North Korea are discussing abductions and other issues in talks aimed at resolving obstacles to forming diplomatic relations. [photo]
• RS. on Imperial Japanese Army's Biological and chemical War Crimes
  Pyongyang, October 31 (KCNA) -- Japan's Tokyo Shimbun recently carried fresh information about the imperial Japanese army's biological and chemical war atrocities in the past. According to it, the Japanese imperialists organized poison gas warfare units not only overseas but at home and conducted exercises under the simulated conditions of an actual war during the Second World War. It was reported that a booklet discovered in the library of the defence institute of the Japan Defence Agency was a reference book for guiding the education and training of recruits at a poison gas warfare unit called "mortar regiment No. 1". The booklet tells how this unit staged exercises under the simulated conditions of an actual poison gas war against the former Soviet Union. In this regard Rodong Sinmun Monday in a signed commentary says: [cbw]
• Japanese Government Urged to Compensate Former "Comfort Women"
  Pyongyang, November 4 (KCNA) -- Amnesty International released a report on the issue of the "comfort women" for the imperial Japanese army on Oct. 28 against the backdrop of the growing world public voices demanding Japan apologize and compensate for its past crimes. Amnesty International asserted in its report that the "above-mentioned issue is a violation of international law and the Japanese government is, therefore, obliged to make a legal compensation to the former 'comfort women'".

• Contrasting rulings:
  This combo picture shows reactions after two separate judgments at the Tokyo District Court, Tuesday, with a banner reading "unfair judgement," left, after 117 former South Korean leprosy patients lost their claim for compensation and another banner in the right photo reading "won the suit" by a group of 25 former Taiwanese leprosy patients. The two contrasting rulings were the first-ever verdicts on the Japanese government's isolation of leprosy patients overseas during its colonial rule.
• Dropping outrage, Ban resets his trip to Tokyo
  October 25, 2005 ? Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon abruptly reversed course yesterday, announcing that he would visit Tokyo as scheduled on Thursday. Last week, after the fifth visit by Japan's prime minister, Junichiro Koizumi, to a controversial war memorial in Japan, Seoul reacted with outrage. Mr. Ban said he had canceled his visit, that a trip by President Roh Moo-hyun to Japan in December was also likely to be scrapped and that the president would not meet Mr. Koizumi one-on-one at next month's leaders' meeting of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation group in Busan. That was last week. Yesterday, Mr. Ban told reporters, "The relationship between South Korea and Japan should not be strained because of a specific issue. So I will visit Japan." He will spend three days there.
• Japan, North plan to resume talks Nov. 2
  October 25, 2005 ? TOKYO ? Ending one year of suspension, North Korea and Japan will resume talks in Beijing next month to discuss a wide range of issues, diplomatic sources in Japan said yesterday. North Korea reportedly proposed to hold the meeting on Nov. 2. Song Il-ho, deputy director of Asian affairs at the foreign ministry, will represent Pyongyang at the talks. Akitaka Saiki, deputy director general of Asian and Oceanian affairs at Tokyo's foreign ministry, will head the Japanese delegation, sources said. According to Tokyo officials, the two sides will discuss North Korea's nuclear and missile development programs and the country's abduction of Japanese citizens, as well as Japan's settlement for its past aggression on the Korean Peninsula. If the talks go smoothly, the delegates are expected to raise the level of the meeting to begin normalization negotiations
• [EDITORIALS]U.S. also tired of the shrine
  Henry J. Hyde, chairman of the Committee on International Relations of the U.S. House of Representatives, has sent a letter to the Japanese ambassador to the United States and criticized Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's visit to the Yasukuni Shrine. Thomas Schieffer, the U.S. ambassador to Japan, has also said that Mr. Koizumi's visit to the shrine created worries among Asian countries, including China and Korea. Washington, which has kept neutral toward the issue, seems to have changed its position and is saying what it should.
• Distorted Reports of Japan's Media Protested
  Pyongyang, October 24 (KCNA) -- Representatives of different organs of the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan (Chongryon) strongly protested against distorted reports of Japan's media as regards the Japanese police authorities' forcible search into the office of the Association of Korean Scientists and Technologists in Japan. Representatives of Chongryon including An Thae Du, department director of Chongryon Central Standing Committee, on Oct. 18 visited the head office of "TV Asahi" to bitterly denounce it for creating public opinion against the DPRK and Chongryon with tricky, malicious and distorted reports. Recalling that on October 14 the police authorities mobilized more than a hundred riot policemen to make a forcible search into the office of the association under the pretext of investigation into the suspicion of its members' violation of the "Drugs, Cosmetics and Medical Instruments Law", they charged that "TV Asahi" in a report regarding the forcible search gave a cut-in that a pharmaceutical company under question is an organization under Chongryon, deliberately linked the case with the "abduction issue" and branded the person arrested as a "cadre" of Chongryon. [Media]
• Foreign Minister to Visit Japan Thursday
  By Park Song-wu Staff Reporter Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Ban Ki-moon will visit Japan on a three-day schedule starting from Thursday, a ministry official told reporters on Monday. It is a clear turnaround, as Ban said last Wednesday that it would be ``inappropriate'' to seek his visit to Japan ``under the current circumstances.'' Strong criticism for the ministry's untimely decision is expected to come as the country is still smarting from Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's controversial visit to the Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo on Oct. 17. The ministry official told reporters at a background briefing in Seoul that Ban's visit was decided as ``all related ministries'' in the government acknowledged the necessity of maintaining a high-level communication channel between Seoul and Tokyo. But he failed to properly answer questions on whether there were persuasive reasons that led the government to change its behavior within just a week.
• Koizumi's Kingdom of Illusion
  By Gavan McCormack [Japan Focus 24 October 2005] The Magic
  Nearly four years after he was first elected Prime Minister, promising to "reform" Japan even if it meant destroying his own party, the LDP, Koizumi did the unthinkable: he secured an even bigger majority by promising again to do more-or-less the same, having failed ignominiously in the meantime to advance a reform agenda. Though head of government, he won a resounding triumph by presenting himself as leader of a crusading force of reformers.
• Asian Legislators to Cooperate to 'Correct' History
  CHEJU (Yonhap) -- Asian nations pledged on Sunday to work together to address an ongoing history dispute as Japanese Premier Junichiro Koizumi's repeat visits to a national shrine that honors Japan's war casualties and a number of war criminals has ratcheted up tension in the region. At the end of the inaugural assembly of the Parliamentarians' Alliance for Peace in Asia (PAPA), over 60 lawmakers from 11 countries adopted a joint declaration of peace and a charter that calls for joint studies into the countries' shared past to correct any controversial anomalies. [Textbooks] [Yasukuni]
• Govt decides to make Sakai designated city
  The Yomiuri Shimbun 22 October 2005
  The government decided at a Cabinet meeting Friday to name Sakai, Osaka Prefecture, an ordinance-designated city accorded with special administrative powers, from April 1. The government will partially amend Local Government Law ordinances and announce the decision Wednesday. Sakai is the second ordinance-designated city in Osaka Prefecture, after Osaka, and will become the 15th such city in the nation. Sakai's upgraded status will bring the number of Kansai area ordinance-designated cities to four, following Osaka, Kyoto and Kobe.
• Homecoming of a monument
  [Photo] October 21, 2005 ? An honor guard with the memorial stone in a ceremony at Incheon International Airport yesterday. [Japanese colonialism] [Joint Korean]
• DPRK Will Make Positive Contribution to International Efforts for Global Peace
  Pyongyang, October 19 (KCNA) -- The DPRK government will in the future, too, make a positive contribution to the international efforts for global peace by strengthening cooperation with the UNESCO and all its member nations in the idea of independence, peace and friendship, said the head of the DPRK delegation to the 33rd meeting of the General Conference of the UNESCO on Oct. 7. History books beautifying the Japanese history of aggression quite contrary to the mission of education to implant the spirit of peace in the people and the spirit of the foundation charter of the UNESCO are still included in the curriculums of education for rising generations in Japan which inflicted war holocaust on humankind in the past, which touches off a serious apprehension among the Asian countries, he said, and continued: The reality requires to enhance the function and role of the UNESCO whose mission is to provide the intellectual foundation of peace and equality through international cooperation in the fields of education, science and culture. [Textbooks]
• Premier Urges Japan to Renounce Past History
  By Lee Jin-woo Staff Reporter Prime Minister Lee Hae-chan speaks during a meeting with Korean residents in Frankfurt, Germany, Wednesday. /Yonhap Prime Minister Lee Hae-chan Thursday urged Japan to renounce its disgraceful past history during his visit to an international book fair in Germany, according to his aides in Seoul. In a dinner meeting with Korean residents in Frankfurt, Lee said, ``Germany reviewed the failure of its past history and successfully restarted its new history (after the end of World War II), but Japan is still trying to restore its militaristic and totalitarian past tendency.''
• Choson Monument Returns Home Thursday
  Pukkwan Taechop-bi, or ``monument for great victory in Pukkwan,'' will arrive in Seoul from Japan Thursday, according to the Cultural Heritage Administration Wednesday. The stone monument, which is some 300 years old, was placed in the Yaskuni shrine in Tokyo after a Japanese general shipped it to his country during the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905). After a South Korean discovered the monument at the shrine in 1978, the South Korean government has sought to bring it back. As Japan said it is necessary for South and North Korea to reach an agreement on its return, the two Koreas struck an agreement during the 15th round of inter- Korean Cabinet talks in June in Seoul. Following the welcoming ceremony at Incheon International Airport, the monument will be moved to the National Museum of Korea in Seoul. It will be made public on Oct. 28. saltwall@koreatimes.co.kr 10-19-2005 21:44 [Joint Korean]
• Foreign minister says his Japan trip is off
  October 20, 2005 ? Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon yesterday rebuffed a plea by his Japanese counterpart to keep the two nations' diplomatic timetable on schedule. "Under the current circumstances," he said, "it is not proper [for me] to pursue a visit to Japan." He was speaking at his weekly press briefing. On Tuesday, Nobutaka Machimura, Japan's foreign minister, told Korean reporters in Tokyo that he hoped planning for the visit by Mr. Ban and a visit by President Roh Moo-hyun to Tokyo in December would continue. Both Seoul and Beijing have said they would postpone meetings of senior government officials, reacting to the latest visit this week of Japan's prime minister, Junichio Koizumi, to the controversial Yasukuni Shrine. Mr. Ban said "nothing has been decided" about a meeting between Mr. Roh and Mr. Koizumi in December.
• Foreign Minister Snubs Japan
  By Park Song-wu Staff Reporter Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Ban Ki- moon said Wednesday that a visit by him to Japan is not appropriate ``at the moment.'' Ban had been expected to visit Japan later this month. His remarks came as South Korea strongly criticizes Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi for his recent visit to a controversial shrine in Tokyo, which includes memorials to convicted war criminals. {Yasukuni}
• Koreans react bitterly to shrine visit in Japan
  October 18, 2005 ? Japan's prime minister, Junichiro Koizumi, paid another well-publicized visit to a controversial war shrine yesterday, and the reaction in Seoul was bitter outrage. The presidential spokesman, Kim Man-soo, told the press after the visit, "Until recently, we have talked about bilateral leaders' meetings, but now I am forced to say we are no longer considering a meeting." He was referring to tentative plans for President Roh Moo-hyun to travel to Japan in December to meet with Mr. Koizumi. Neither, the spokesman said, would Mr. Roh meet his Japanese counterpart one-on-one at the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in Busan next month. The angry words came after Mr. Koizumi visited Yasukuni Shrine yesterday morning, his fifth visit there since he became prime minister in 2001.
• Yasukuni protest
  At the Japanese Embassy in Seoul yesterday, denunciations rained down from scores of Koreans protesting Mr. Koizumi's latest visit to a controversial shrine [photo]
• Asians Angered, Again, by Visit to War Shrine by Japan Leader
  By NORIMITSU ONISHI Published: October 18, 2005 TOKYO, Oct. 17 - Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's visit to a nationalist war memorial here on Monday drew immediate and fierce criticism from Asian countries, threatening to isolate Japan and worsen its strained relations with China. Beijing condemned the visit to the memorial, the Yasukuni shrine, as "a serious provocation to the Chinese people," and canceled bilateral talks on the North Korean nuclear crisis that had been scheduled for Monday. South Korea announced that it would cancel or postpone a trip to Japan scheduled for December by President Roh Moo Hyun. On Monday morning, after months of speculation about the timing of a visit, Mr. Koizumi fulfilled his promise of praying annually at the shrine. The Shinto shrine, which deifies Japan's 2.5 million war dead, including war criminals responsible for atrocities throughout Asia, is regarded by most Asians as the symbol of unrepentant militarism. "Prime Minister Koizumi has to bear the historic responsibility for damaging China-Japan relations," China's ambassador to Japan, Wang Yi, said in a statement on Monday.
  While campaigning for his party leadership in 2001, Mr. Koizumi promised the politically powerful JapanWar-Bereaved Families Association that he would visit the shrine every year. So he has found himself cornered every year: yield to outside criticism and risk losing the backing of his nationalist supporters, or go to Yasukuni and enrage Asia. He has chosen the second option, and possible successors in his party have said they will continue the visits. The political opposition has called for an end to the visits and the construction of a new, secular memorial.
  While Japan's political leaders have tended to regard an increasingly powerful China as a threat, business leaders have regard it as an opportunity.
• What Me Worry? Japan Blithely Ignores the Warnings of Peak Oil Analysts
  By Andrew DeWit {Japan Focus 17 October 2005}
  The October 2 edition of the Nikkei, Japan's leading business newspaper, carried a review, by Tokyo University Professor Kikkawa Takeo, of two recently translated books that discuss peak oil. As most readers will know, peak oil is the theory that the global supply of oil is about to peak in production and then irrevocably decline, leading to enormous challenges for our oil-dependent societies. The books the Nikkei decided to review are Paul Robert's "The End of Oil," and Linda McQuaig's "It's the Crude, Dude: War, Big Oil, and the Fight for the Planet" (the latter misleadingly titled "Peak Oil" in Japanese). The Nikkei gives peak oil theory gets a thumbs down. The review approvingly cites a 2005 Nikkei publication "Reading Oil" (Sekiyu wo Yomu), which argues that technology and new investment will increase oil reserve recovery rates and ensure new finds. And to cap the rebuttal, an appeal to authority: an article in the May 2005 edition of the Japanese Oil and Natural Gas Review that essentially dismisses peak oil theory.
  On the other hand, as we can see with the Japanese translation of McQuaig's book getting the "Peak Oil" title, there is increasing interest in the subject in Japan. The Nikkei editors, having studiously ignored peak oil until now, decided that it was necessary to carry something soothing about it. So the review concedes that peak oil theory as a social phenomenon deserves attention. The author, Kikkawa, remarks that Japan is just behind America and China in its consumption of oil, but that in contrast to them it has a weak level of concern for energy security. The campaign leading up to the September 11 election in fact was notable for the virtual absence of comment in the contending parties' platforms. Keep in mind that Japan essentially has no domestic reserves of oil and gas, and relies on America to protect the sea lanes from the Middle East (from whence Japan gets about 85% of its oil). Kikkawa maintains that Japan's limited concern with energy security is due to endaka (increasing exchange value of the yen), which limits the effect of oil-price increases in the domestic economy. The review concludes with a warning that Japan risks being left behind in the global race for energy security due to negligence. Thus it grants a smidgeon of praise to the peak oil books as warnings of the need to pay more attention to oil issues. [Energy security] [Oil]
• 60 Years On Japanese Debate the Tokyo Tribunal's legitimacy
  By Yoshida Reiji {Japan Focus 17 October 2005}
  [The Tokyo war crimes trial (International Military Tribunal for the Far East, 1946-1948) was the Pacific counterpart to the first Nuremberg Tribunal. Controversial at the time, it is more controversial today. This essay reminds American readers of differences in assessing the trial in the victorious and in the defeated countries, as well as within a single country such as Japan. [Japanese colonialism]
• Japan's Black-Hearted Design Hidden behind Its Backing to U.S. Assailed
  Pyongyang, October 12 (KCNA) -- The joint meeting of cabinet, defense and diplomatic officials of the Liberal Democratic Party of Japan are again contemplating the revision of the "law on special measures against terrorism" which had been adopted in October 2001 in form of backing the U.S. forces in the "war against terrorism" and underwent modification in the subsequent period. Meanwhile, Japan has entered into an examination of the deployment of "X-band radar", the latest missile watching equipment, in Japan, zealously supporting the U.S. assertion that it is necessary to increase the precision in intercepting missiles flying towards the U.S. [Missile defense]
• S. Korea-Japan Vice FMs' Talks Due
  Japanese Vice Foreign Minister Shotaro Yachi arrives in Seoul Thursday for "strategic talks" with his South Korean counterpart, government officials said Wednesday.
• Japan Returns Choson Monument
  By Park Song-wu Staff Reporter Pukkwan Taechop-bi South Korea will bring back ``Pukkwan Taechop- bi,'' a 300-year-old stone victory monument, from Japan later this month, the Foreign Affairs and Trade Ministry said Monday. Japan, which took it from the northern part of the Korean Peninsula a century ago, temporarily agreed in May to give it back if the two Koreas could reach a consensus on the terms of its return
  The two Koreas agreed to jointly make efforts to get it back during the 15th Cabinet-level talks held in Seoul in June. The monument will first be displayed in South Korea for a while and will be delivered to North Korea ``at an appropriate date,'' the Seoul official said.
• Investigation into Remains of Korean Draftees Urged
  Tokyo, October 5 (KNS-KCNA) -- Hong Sang Jin, secretary general of the Central Headquarters of the Koreans' Side to the Group for Investigation into Truth behind Korean Victims of Forcible Drafting, and Akihiro Harada, director of the Central Headquarters of the Japanese' Side to the group, and representatives of the Japanese' sides in Tokyo, Kanagawa, Chiba, Saitama, Tochigi and Fukushima to the group strongly urged the Japanese government to actively come out in the investigation into the remains of Korean victims of forcible drafting
• Japan and North Korea plan to relaunch talks
  October 06, 2005 ? A South Korean Foreign Ministry official said yesterday that Japan and North Korea have agreed to restart negotiations next week aimed at normalizing ties between the countries. "Both sides are currently in the final stages of deciding on a venue for the negotiations where senior working-level officials are expected to meet," the official said. The official said Beijing is likely to become the venue as both sides find it hard to narrow differences over selecting the location. The North has -argued for Pyongyang while Japan wants to hold the negotiations in Tokyo, he said.
• KCNA Assails Japan for Peddling "Abduction Issue"
  Pyongyang, October 4 (KCNA) -- The ultra-right conservative forces of Japan are still peddling shamelessly the "abduction issue' which had already found a solution. This is evidenced by a statement released by the "Society of Abductees' Families" and the "Association for Rescuing Abductees," both made up of the above-said forces. The statement blustered that "unless the issue of the repatriation of abductees is settled at the dialogue with north Korea, there is no other option but to apply economic sanctions against it to express the will of the state to bring back all the abductees". This meant the Japanese ultra-right conservative forces' total denial of the DPRK-Japan Pyongyang Declaration, a clear indication that they have no political will to normalize the relations with the DPRK. [Abductees]
• Japan's Clumsy Diplomacy Ridiculed
  Pyongyang, October 3 (KCNA) -- Japan has gone the lengths of making such threatening and pressurizing remarks as blustering that it would "reexamine" its contribution to the UN as its efforts for permanent membership of the UN Security Council have gone bust this year. Commenting on this, a news analyst of Rodong Sinmun Monday says this is nothing but a political dwarf's poor diplomacy. The news analyst goes on: The UN member nations opposed Japan's bid for permanent membership of the UNSC because they concluded that it is not qualified to sit on it. The issue of Japan's contribution to the UN is not relevant to their opposition. A permanent seat on the UNSC is not to be bought. Japan boasts its contribution to the UN only to invite derision and denunciation from the international community. What Japan should do right now is to honestly reflect on its past crimes and redeem them. [Japanese colonialism] [UNSC]
• Japan Urged to Drop Servile Attitude toward U.S.
  Pyongyang, October 2 (KCNA) -- The Japanese diplomatic boss in a speech at the 60th session of the UN General Assembly said that the DPRK nuclear program is a serious challenge to the international non-proliferation system and a direct threat to Northeast Asian peace and security. Commenting on this, Minju Joson Sunday brands his political ignorance and wrong viewpoint of thinking as the inevitable result of consciousness of toeing the U.S. line. His remarks are of no value and significance, the signed commentary says, and goes on:
• Japan in Controversy Over Korean Peace Regime
  By Park Song-wu Staff Reporter U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill Christopher Hill, the U.S. assistant secretary of state, hinted on Wednesday that Japan could be involved in discussing a peace regime on the Korean Peninsula. But a high-ranking Seoul official said Thursday that there is ``no possibility'' of Japan joining the peace talks. Hill, who led the U.S. delegation to the six-party denuclearization talks in Beijing, said at a seminar hosted by the United States Institute of Peace in Washington that Japan has a ``very direct interest'' in the peace regime issue.
  The Seoul official downplayed Hill's remarks, saying that the U.S. envoy might have wanted to underline Washington's alliance with Tokyo, which is within the boundary of Pyongyang's possible missile attacks. ``I can definitely say that the number of participants in the envisioned peace regime talks is four,'' the official told The Korea Times on condition of anonymity. He indicated that the two Koreas, the U.S. and China are the ``directly related parties'' who will undertake the permanent peace talks in the future [Friction] [SK-Japan relations]

• Japan's Disturbing Military Moves under Fire
  Pyongyang, September 26 (KCNA) -- Japan is contemplating setting up the command of the "rapid reaction force" of its ground "Self- Defence Force" in Jama base, Kanagawa, a U.S. forces' base in Japan, and transferring the general command of its Air SDF to the Yokoda base of the U.S. air force in Japan under the pretext of "combating terrorism". In this regard Rodong Sinmun Monday observes in a signed commentary: It is Japan's plan to realize the "integration" of the SDF and the U.S. troops and coordinate the commanding system of the armed forces whereby the SDF will operate along the U.S. forces under a unified command. The hasty action taken by Japan to this end cannot be construed otherwise than a very dangerous military move, the commentary says, and continues: Japan can make a retrogressive revision of its present constitution anytime and a social atmosphere for it has already been created. It is against this background that Japan is frantically pushing forward the arms buildup and taking an active part in the development of the U.S. missile defence system (MD). [Japanese remilitarisation]
• Where will Japan's postal funds end up? The money trail and the future of reform
  By Hara Manabu
  Japan Focus 26 September 2005
  Hara Manabu nicely sums up some of the misconceptions on postal privatization that lay behind LDP victory in the just-completed election. As Hara writes, many voters believe that the Koizumi plan will go a long way towards lifting the economy out of years of sluggish growth and mounting monumental debt. Yet most experts who actually know what's in the privatization plan, as well as how the current system is structured, do not foresee significant economic benefits in the privatization scheme. Indeed, some fear there will be more ill than good if the privatized postal savings actually went out into the already overcrowded market to make loans. Not only would this "weaken private sector financial institutions even further," according to Richard C. Koo, chief economist of Nomura Research Institute, but it would reduce the pool of funds that currently buys up much of the government's very large floatation of debt. While a hard-core fiscal disciplinarian might regard this as just the sort of shock a profligate state needs, the consequences would almost certainly include escalating interest rates as well as cuts elsewhere in the budget to finance the increasing burden of debt repayment.
  Hara notes the intriguing possibility that the American fiscal authorities have their eye on the postal savings funds. They need massive funds to finance the past few years of big tax cuts and large-scale wars, an unprecedented and unwholesome marriage in American fiscal history. And they will need even more money now that fallout from the New Orleans fiasco has convinced the Bush regime of the need to buy back popular support with big-state spending. With virtually zero savings at home, America has to look abroad to finance its deficits. It has been able to count on the Bank of Japan, Japan's central bank, for much of this cash, but the BOJ now holds about US$ 800 billion in US Treasury bonds. To see the privatized postal savings get in line with the depleted BOJ at Treasury auctions would likely bring tears of joy to the eyes of US debt management specialists. Yet with the long-term prospects for the US dollar dim, Japan's postal savings depositors may soon have tears of another kind in their eyes. Japan Focus]
• Can Anyone Compete with China? Lessons from Japan
  By Eamonn Fingleton
  Japan Focus 26 September 2005
  [This article by Eamonn Fingleton exemplifies the "Japan as Number One" genre, a type that has become such a rara avis in recent years that it seemed virtually extinct. The conventional wisdom among international economists as well as Japanese neoliberals, is that Japan is washed up and has to learn from America. Using Japan's trade with China as an example, Fingleton raises compelling questions about the failures of American industrial and trade policy. Even though the idea that America is the "global standard" is now rarely voiced explicitly in Japan and by globetrotting boosters in business management elsewhere, the belief that what are deemed to be American ways of doing things have simply proved far better than Japan's still underlies much thinking on how Japan should reform its economy. So an article that goes so deliberately against the grain is worthy of notice in part for scarcity value alone.
  We cannot confirm whether Fingleton is correct in claiming that Japan is deliberately and skillfully leveraging surplus Chinese labour by transferring low-tech production there and upskilling at home. Certainly Japan's trade surplus is as high as he says it is at a time when the U.S. is awash in debt, and it is also true that Japan runs a trade surplus with China that is the envy of Washington
• Japan's Policy of Toeing U.S. Line under Fire
  Pyongyang, September 25 (KCNA) -- Japan's policy of toeing the U.S. line is aimed to find a way out under the U.S. patronage and support and attain its sinister purpose, says Rodong Sinmun Sunday in a signed commentary dealing with Japan's policy of toeing the U.S. line that has become all the more undisguised in the new century. The strategic goal of Japan's foreign policy in the 21st century is to hold the position of a political and military power in the international arena and exercise its influence, the commentary says, and goes on:
• Japan sending feelers for talks with North
  September 24, 2005 ? Reports from Tokyo said yesterday that Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi proposed more work toward normal diplomatic relations between Japan and North Korea. Mr. Koizumi made the proposal in a message to North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, official sources in Japan said. The message was reportedly delivered last week by Kenichiro Sasae, Tokyo's negotiator at the six-party talks, in a meeting with North Korea's envoy to the negotiations immediately after they concluded. In a statement issued by the six countries at the talks on Monday, Japan and North Korea pledged to normalize their relations. Japanese anger rose after a 2002 bilateral statement of intent to thaw relations because of alleged North Korean duplicity in accounting for Japanese citizens abducted to the North several decades ago.
• Roh, Koizumi Discuss NK Nukes
  By Ryu Jin Staff Reporter President Roh Moo-hyun and Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi agreed Thursday to continue their close cooperation for upcoming negotiations on North Korea's nuclear weapons program, Chong Wa Dae said. In a series of telephone talks with leaders of the four nations surrounding the Korean Peninsula, Roh called the Japanese leader around noon to discuss the latest round of six-party talks, which concluded with a principled agreement to end the nuclear standoff. ``While congratulating Prime Minister Koizumi on his party's recent election victory and the inauguration of his new Cabinet, Roh expressed his hope the two nations would continue working together closely on the nuclear issue,'' presidential spokesman Kim Man-soo said in a press release.
• Roh and Koizumi reciprocate praise
  September 23, 2005 ? President Roh Moo-hyun yesterday spoke to Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi in a continuing round of phone conversations with leaders of the countries involved in six-party talks, following calls to U.S. President George W. Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin earlier this week. During the 10-minute phone conversation with Mr. Koizumi yesterday at noon, Mr. Roh praised the "close cooperation from participating countries, including South Korea and Japan," according to presidential spokesman Kim Man-soo. Mr. Roh added he wanted cooperation to continue to grow in upcoming negotiations, regarding how to observe the agreement in detail. Mr. Koizumi responded by praising South Korea's "active role" in drawing up the breakthrough agreement.
• Delegations Here
  Pyongyang, September 21 (KCNA) -- Delegations of Japan, Taipei of China, the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan (Chongryon) and the United States arrived here today to participate in the Third Meeting of the International Solidarity Council for Japan's Liquidation of the Past. Arriving here Tuesday were delegations of south Korea, China, Netherlands and Germany. Delegations were greeted at the airport by Hong Son Ok, chairperson of the Korean Committee of the council, and officials concerned. [Japanese colonialism]
• Seoul Uneasy Over Tokyo Joining UN Security Council
  By Park Song-wu Staff Reporter
  Protesters carrying Chinese flags take part in an anti-Japan demonstration in Hong Kong on April 17, 2005. /Reuters-Newsis Japan's becoming a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council is the last thing many Koreans would like to see, as many of them think Tokyo has not yet come to terms with the atrocities it committed during the 1910-45 colonial period. To put it simply, Koreans, as well as other Asians in the region who suffered from Japan's colonial rule, may not accept even the possibility that Japan could represent them in the U.N.'s most powerful body
• Understanding N. Korea like reading tea leaves
  09/17/2005 By KENGO SAKAJIRI The Asahi Shimbun
  BEIJING--A change in North Korean tactics at six-way talks here has Japanese delegates trying to figure out whether Pyongyang is ready to deal or still maneuvering to seek concessions. The guessing game was prompted by North Korea's decision to hold bilateral talks with Japan for two days in a row. While no progress has been reported from those meetings, the fact they took place represents a marked turnaround from the fourth round of talks that recessed in early August. In that round, North Korea held bilateral talks with all the other participating nations except Japan. It was only when a decision was reached Aug. 7 to recess the six-way talks that Pyongyang deigned to have even a brief discussion with the Japanese delegation. But this time around, North Korean delegates met with their Japanese counterparts on Wednesday and Thursday. Also, they did not limit the discussions to the all-important nuclear issue that brought the United States, China, Russia, Japan and South Korea to the negotiating table. The North Koreans listened to Japanese views on the highly charged abduction issue. No formal bilateral talks were held Friday, however. In Tokyo, Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroyuki Hosoda explained Thursday that the talks were being held at the request of North Korea. Japanese delegates were clearly taken aback by Pyongyang's readiness to hold bilateral talks, said a government source.
• Keep on Fighting till Japan Atones for its Past Crimes
  Spokesmen for the Central Committee of the Kim Il Sung Socialist Youth League, the Central Committee of the Union of Agricultural Working People of Korea and the Central Committee of the Korea Democratic Women's Union issued statements in connection with the passage of 60 years after the defeat of Japanese imperialism. A spokesman for the Central Committee of the Kim Il Sung Socialist Youth League made clear their position in its statement issued on Aug 8, saying, "The Korean youth will never stop their anti-Japan actions until Japanese redresses all its crimes committed against the Korean people."
• The Emperor, Modern Japan and the U.S.-Japan Relationship: an Interview with Herbert Bix
  Japan Focus 1 September 2005
  The foremost Western authority on the life and times of Emperor Hirohito -- known posthumously as the Emperor Showa -- talked to The Japan Times about the role of Japan's former "living god" and his place in history in comparison with other powerful twentieth century leaders including Hitler, Mussolini, Roosevelt and George W. Bush. In 2000, historian Herbert P. Bix shattered the image of Emperor Hirohito as a mere figurehead who was detached from Japan's imperialist warmongering in the first half of the 20th century. [Japanese colonialism]
• Free Speech - Silenced Voices: The Japanese Media, the Comfort Women Tribunal, and the NHK Affair
  Tessa Morris-Suzuki
  Japan Focus 18 August 2005
  In the last week of January and the first weeks of February 2005, the words which leapt out at commuters' eyes from the advertisements were "lies", "witch hunt", "political pressure" and everywhere, the names of two of Japan's largest and most influential media institutions: the national broadcasting company NHK and the daily newspaper Asahi. The two organizations were embroiled in an intense battle over problem of media ethics and freedom, and their rival media organizations were observing the struggle with considerable glee
• Koizumi's Statement on the Sixtieth Anniversary: improving or inflaming relations with China and South Korea?
  Yomiuri Shimbun
  Japan Focus 18 August 2005
  [The rituals of apology and the rituals of pride continue on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of Japan's surrender, but with new twists in the context of Japan's election. The Prime Minister's two speeches on August 15 addressed, in turn, Japan's neighbors, particularly China and South Korea, and the LDP's rightwing supporters in the Japanese electorate. As Richard Parry observed in The London Times, in a statement approved by the Cabinet, the Prime Minister repeated "an unambiguous expression of 'deep remorse and heartfelt apology' for Japan's 'colonisation and aggression' during the war." But in a similarly worded speech on the same day at a ceremony at which Emperor Akihito also spoke, all reference to colonialism, aggression and apology were omitted. As discussed in the following article, the Prime Minister's speech began with this statement directed not only to Japan's neighbors but very much to a nationalist constituency at home: On the 60th anniversary of the end of the war, I reaffirm my determination that Japan must never again take the path to war, reflecting that the peace and prosperity we enjoy today are founded on the ultimate sacrifices of those who lost their lives for the war against their will." The Prime Minister chose not to visit Yasukuni Shrine, the memorial to Japan's war dead and the national symbol of the bond between the emperor and the war, on the symbolically charged August 15 date. However, two other cabinet ministers and LDP Acting Secretary General Abe Shinzo, did visit. Abe is widely expected to succeed to the office when the Prime Minister retires next year. (Japan Focus commentary)
• Japan's Sixtieth
  Gavan McCormack
  Japan Focus 18 August 2005
  How different the 60th anniversaries of the end of World War II in Europe and in Asia. In the former, German participation was taken for granted, and the defeat of Nazism celebrated on all sides as the dawn of liberation. In the latter, it would be inconceivable for the Japanese Government to be invited to participate in commemorative events in Beijing, Seoul, Pyongyang, or elsewhere, as debate over what the war was about continues.
  Prime Minister Koizumi Junichiro chose to visit Chidorigafuchi Cemetery, not Yasukuni Shrine, to honor Japan's war dead on August 15, 2005. There may be no other country in the world today so much at odds, on questions of history and territory, with all its neighbours as Japan. In South Korea, Asia's most vibrant democracy, 90 per cent of people do not trust Japan; in China, hostility and suspicion is widespread.
• Arlington National Cemetery and Yasukuni Jinja: History, Memory, and the Sacred
  Andrew M. McGreevy
  Japan Focus 11 August 2005
  Arlington National Cemetery and Yasukuni Jinja (The Shrine of the Peaceful Land) are symbols of the histories of the United States of America and Japan. Arlington National Cemetery and Yasukuni Jinja have a common purpose--to honor the war dead--but the two are very different. Arlington National Cemetery, which was created in controversy, is today is a place of peaceful repose. Yasukuni Jinja had very dignified origins, yet now is embroiled in disputes.
• Koizumi's Snap Election: a contemporary dilemma haunted by history
  Ronald Dore
  Japan Focus 11 August 2005
  Koizumi Junichiro, Japan's prime minister, has lost the vote on his grand scheme to privatise the country's post office with its vast savings pool and will go to the polls. For now, the village-pump communitarian face of Japanese conservatism has won out over anti-bureaucratic, privatising radicalism. The global finance industry will have to wait a little longer to get its hands on that Dollars 3,000 billion of Japanese savings. But the snap election next month is likely to focus as much on the dire state of Japan's relations with China and Korea as on privatisation. Here at issue is the other face of Japanese conservatism: the reluctance to feel guilty about the war. The key symbol of that reluctance has been Mr Koizumi's visits to the Yasukuni shrine in Tokyo to pay respects to Japan's war dead.
• Japanese Politicians Urged to Stop Visiting Yasukuni Shrine
  Pyongyang, September 14 (KCNA) -- With nothing can the Japanese reactionaries cover up the sinister aim they have sought in their visits to the "Yasukuni Shrine" and the distortion of history or justify them, says Minju Joson Wednesday in a signed commentary. It goes on: The Japanese chief executive asserted that he can not understand why foreigners interfere in his and other Japanese' visits to the shrine, claiming that the visit is made solely from a humanitarian viewpoint. This was nothing but sophism in which the nature of the problem was craftily twisted. Even a mere child can easily understand what visiting the shrine and paying homage to war dead mean and what this symbolizes.
• Japan's Wild Ambition for Military Supremacy Assailed
  Pyongyang, September 14 (KCNA) -- The Japan Defence Agency recently included 150 billion yen in the defence budget for 2006 for the purpose of stepping up the U.S.-Japan joint development of the missile defence system (MD). It is now actively cooperating with the U.S. in the realignment of its forces in Japan. Rodong Sinmun today in a signed commentary carried in this connection observes that Japan does such great favor for the U.S. in a foolish bid to establish military supremacy in the region with its help. [Japanese remilitarisation]
• April Snow' refuels 'Yonsama' passions
  September 14, 2005 ? Wherever Bae Yong-joon is, there too are his many passionate Japanese housewives ? his housewife fans that is. No sooner was the fervor over the popular television drama "Winter Sonata," over, than the recent romantic movie, "April Snow," starring the South Korean actor, quickly refueled the Japanese housewives' frenzy. The fans were in attendance during the entire shooting of the film and they are still here in Korea, "oohing" and "aahing" over each setting Mr. Bae appeared at in the film. [Hallyu]
• Distorted History Textbook
  Low Choice Shows Conscience of Japanese Civil Society
  It's a relief that only 0.4 percent of Japanese middle schools have chosen a controversial textbook that justifies their country's war of aggression. Most of the credit should go to the conscientious Japanese civic groups that tried hard to prevent the adoption of the distorted schoolbook, and their Korean counterparts, who gave positive them support. Together, they demonstrated the power of a civil alliance for a just cause. Now is the time to move beyond these quadrennial campaigns to a fundamental and lasting solution. True, the 2005 adoption rate of the history book that whitewashes Japan's wartime atrocities is about 10 times higher than four years ago. Still it is only a fraction of the 10 percent targeted by Fusosha Publishing and its rightwing supporters. The successful blocking of the textbook is all the more meaningful as it comes amid rising nationalism in Japan. Lengthening queues in front of the Yasukuni war shrine and escalating territorial disputes with neighbors are only a few examples.
• The Strange Record of 15 Years of Japan-North Korea Negotiations
  Gavan McCormack and Wada Haruki Japan Focus 8 September 2005
  No country is closer to Japan than Korea. From ancient times, the two neighbors have enjoyed intimate exchanges. Yet today Japan has relations with only one of the two Korean states, and even that relationship is contentious. While Japan normalized relations with the Republic of Korea (ROK or South Korea) in 1965, it has not yet formally recognized the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK or North Korea). This asymmetry is a major obstacle not only to repairing Japanese-Korean relations overall, but ending the Cold War in Asia.
  Although Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi Junichiro made two diplomatic visits to North Korea in the last four years, raising prospects of a breakthrough in Japan-North Korea relations, progress on normalization remains stalled. Several major conflicts hang over the discussions: North Korea's overall military posture, its nuclear weapons program, and its abduction of Japanese citizens in the 1970s and 1980s. In order to return to the negotiating table and resolve these issues, the two countries must not only address their outstanding disputes but also grapple with the historical roots of the conflict.
• Using a Sledgehammer to Crack a Nut: Japanese Police Crush Peace Protestors
  By David McNeill Japan Focus 8 September 2005
  What lies behind a series of over-the-top police interventions against antiwar activists? Venerated by neonationalists and marinated in over a century of militarism and war, Yasukuni Shrine may well be Japan's least friendly venue for a demonstration by pacifists. Still, every August 15, small groups of Christians, radicals and antiwar campaigners come here to stage token protest against visits to the shrine by prominent politicians. The activists range in age from 19 to 90 and seldom carry anything more dangerous than white flags and placards, which is why they were stunned last month when the police waded in and arrested six of their members.
• War Responsibility in a Japanese College Classroom
  By William Underwood Japan Focus 8 September 2005
  "August 6, 1945: Hiroshima. August 9, 1945: Nagasaki." I wrote the words on the classroom whiteboard in large letters. Then I crossed out both dates and places with a big red X. "Not true," I declared. "The atomic bombings never happened. A total fabrication." My university students were dumbstruck. We stared at each other in silence for a long moment. All right, I conceded, Hiroshima and Nagasaki were bombed by American warplanes 60 years ago. But only conventional bombs were used and only a few hundred people were killed. Another uncomfortable silence. Then I admitted it was a ruse. The students seemed to collectively exhale in relief. The tragic reality, of course, is that hundreds of thousands of Japanese died as the result of the two atomic bombings. The brief classroom exercise helped students imagine how citizens of Asian countries victimized by Japanese colonialism, invasion and atrocities during World War II feel when the Nanjing Massacre is labeled a fabrication, military sex slaves are portrayed as willing prostitutes, and forced laborers are claimed to have voluntarily toiled for Japan's former empire. [Textbooks] [Yasukuni]

• Legacy of Japanese island's World War II poison-gas plant lives on
  By Kato Takeo and Yamane Yusaku
  [Japan Focus 4 August 2005]
  TAKEHARA, Hiroshima Prefecture- Yamauchi Masayuki guides a group of junior high school students through the hills and forests on the tiny island of Okunoshima in Hiroshima Prefecture. When a curious rabbit approaches, Yamauchi pauses. "Here, rabbits were used in experiments to test the effects of poison gas produced at the plant," Yamauchi tells the children from Niiyoshi Junior High School in Kasaoka city in neighboring Okayama Prefecture. The site is where the Imperial Japanese Army in 1929 built a secret poison-gas plant for the war effort. The army ordered residents near the plant site to relocate. Plant workers were forbidden to tell anyone, even their parents, about their jobs. The secrecy reached new heights in 1938, when the army erased Okunoshima island from maps of Japan compiled by the army's land-surveying section. Today, the 0.7-square-kilometer island, located 3 km off the coast of Takehara city, draws as many as 10,000 students on school trips annually. [WMD]
• Dokdo Is Korean Territory
  By Lee Sang-tae
  [Japan Focus 4 August 2005]
  [Korean and Japanese claims to sovereignty over the tiny islets known respectively as Dokdo and Takeshima renewed in intensity this past winter and spring. This is an argument with at least a century's history of conflict and vituperation. Korea's claim is straightforward and meshes with a broader, global post-colonial discourse: "These have long been our islands. You colonized us illegally, and part of that illegal act was the seizure of territory that is demonstrably ours on old maps and in ancient records." As a sizeable advertisement sponsored in part by the Korean government in the July 27 The New York Times makes clear: "DOKDO IS KOREAN TERRITORY." Japan counters with a complex, legalistic explanation involving the validity of the 1910 takeover and the terms of the post-colonial emancipation. On top of this, Japan knowingly holds the diplomatic wildcard, meaning that it was the United States' unwillingness to resolve this issue in 1951 in its peace treaty with Japan that has sustained the mess. In the absence of Japanese renunciation of claims to the islets, any conclusive judgment would, therefore, require the United States to take a stand. In the midst of this, of course, the United States maintains separate - and in the case of these islands competing - national interests in its discrete, bilateral security treaties with Korea and Japan. The following article by Professor Lee Sang-tae presents the numerous historical documents supporting Korea's historical claims to the islets, as well as introducing the issue of American involvement. Japan Focus.]
• Seoul voices concern on actions in Tokyo
  August 04, 2005 ? South Korean politicians voiced concern yesterday over Japan's recent attempts to revise its constitution in order to augment the role of its military. Japan's governing Liberal Democratic Party released a draft revision Monday, calling for a fully fledged military force for self-defense. The proposed revision will also allow Japan to help an ally under attack from an enemy, although the current pacifist constitution bans this. Chung Sye-kyun, floor leader of South Korea's Uri Party, said yesterday, "The proposed revision of Japan's constitution is an attempt to reshape the country for a war." Kim Moo-sung, secretary general of the opposition Grand National Party, also criticized Japan saying, "It is unacceptable that Japan is revising its constitution to build armed forces instead of repenting for its past." [Japanese remilitarisation]
• Repeal of "Taft-Katsura Agreement" Called for
  Pyongyang, August 2 (KCNA) -- More than 10 legislators from the ruling and opposition parties of south Korea including the Uri Party submitted to the "National Assembly" a resolution demanding the United States and Japan declare the repeal of the "Taft-Katsura Agreement" in connection with the lapse of 100 years since its fabrication, according to the south Korean KBS on July 29. The resolution said that the "agreement" set the stage for the Japanese imperialists' past domination over Korea and the division of the Korean territory. It denounced the fabrication of the "agreement" by the U.S. and Japan as a criminal breach of international law as it wantonly encroached upon the rights of a sovereign state.
• 400 People Allowed to Visit Dokdo per Day
  The government Thursday has doubled the number of people permitted to visit the Dokdo islets in the East Sea from 200 to 400 per day. The Cultural Heritage Administration said it has also decided to allow as many as 140 people onto the volcanic islets at one time, up from the current 70.
• Golden Jubilee of Chongryun Celebrated in All Parts of Japan
  The celebration to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the foundation of "Chongryun" held in Tokyo on May 29. Events to celebrate the 50th anniversary of foundation of the Chongryun were held in all parts of Japan. Korean residents in Japan commemorated the anniversary with various events, such as a celebration, a mass festival, a party and so on. People were filled of joy and pleasure.
• DPRK Hits Japanese Senior Officials' Visit to "Yasukuni Shrine"
  PYONGYANG, June 7 (KCNA)- The Japanese reactionaries are growing increasingly zealous in their visits to the Yasukuni Shrine, which are becoming politicized and regularized, said Rodong Sinmun on June 7 in a signed article. Recalling the recent superheated rhetoric sounded off by acting Secretary General of the Liberal Democratic Party of Japan Abe and Chairman of its International Affairs Committee Nakagawa to build a social atmosphere in favor of the shrine, the article said:
• Ties With Japan Traumatic But Beneficial
  By Kim Yun-sik We remember the bitter protectorate treaty with Japan 100 years ago, as well as the 60th anniversary of Korea's liberation from Japan and the 40th anniversary of normalizing relations with Japan.
• Ill Will Rising Between China and Japan
  By NORIMITSU ONISHI and HOWARD W. FRENCH Published: August 3, 2005
  TOKYO, Aug. 2 - Japanese lawmakers on Tuesday overwhelmingly passed a resolution that plays down this country's militarist policies in World War II, less than two weeks before ceremonies take place across Asia marking the 60th anniversary of the war's end on Aug. 15.
  Though expressing "regret" for the wartime past, the resolution omitted the references to "invasion" and "colonial rule" that were in the version passed on the 50th anniversary. [Softpower]
• French a failure, says Tokyo chief
  Justin McCurry in Tokyo Friday July 15, 2005 The Guardian
  The governor of Tokyo has committed a faux pas by branding French a "failed international language". During a speech at the opening of a university, Shintaro Ishihara said: "It is no surprise that French has failed as an international language because it is a language that cannot count numbers."
  The governor was referring to French's sometimes long-winded counting system. The number 70, for example, is "60 plus 10"; 80 is "four 20s". No doubt the plaintiffs would like to remind Mr Ishihara of the complexities of counting in his own mother tongue: the Japanese word for 1 million translates as "100 ten-thousands". [Softpower]
• Japan's "Claim" to Tok Islet Rejected
  Pyongyang, July 30 (KCNA) -- The Japanese reactionaries' "claim" to Tok Islet is a sheer fabrication, a distortion of history and a far- fetched assertion devoid of any ground, says Rodong Sinmun today in a signed article. Tok Islet has been under the jurisdiction of Korea as an inalienable part of its territory throughout history, the article notes, and goes on:
• The "Comfort Women" Controversy: History and Testimony
  By Yoshiko Nozaki
  This article examines the Japanese controversy over the "comfort women" (ianfu) system during Japan's Asia-Pacific War (1931-1945) and attempts to include that history in school textbooks.[7] The testimonies given by former comfort women in the 1990s forever changed the paradigm of historical research on the subject and became the focus of charged debate among intellectuals of different disciplinary and ideological backgrounds, as well as the target of Japanese neonationalist attacks. [Comfort women] [Textbooks]
• Japanese Daily Refuses to Publish Cartoon Ad on Distorted Textbooks
  By Chung Ah-young Staff Reporter A Japanese newspaper has refused a Korean civic group's attempt to post a cartoon in an ad criticizing Japan's distortion of history in textbooks. In an attempt to discourage the adoption of the textbooks in Japan, the Asia Peace, History and Education Network, a non-governmental organization based in Seoul, originally planned to post the message titled ``To those who bring peace to the Asia-Pacific region together,'' in an advertisement in the Ehime Shimbun on July 29. However, the newspaper turned down the request because of the cartoon that accompanied the advertisement. The cartoon, drawn by famous Korean cartoonist Park Jae-dong, depicts Japanese students as militaristic, with one student saying ``War is great'' and ``I want to wage war once again'' while studying a glorified history of their wartime atrocities with the ``Fusosha''
  The newspaper has decided to postpone the publishing date and replace the cartoon with another after consulting with the civic group. A civic group official said the newspaper told them that it is difficult to publish the advertisement because the cartoon is too radical. ``We've conceded to replace Park's cartoon with an image of the globe and the word ``peace,'' which was released in the Yomiuri Shimbun, another Japanese newspaper,'' the official said.

• U.S.-Japan Conspiracy Condemned
  Pyongyang, July 28 (KCNA) -- It is one hundred years since the conclusion of the "Taft-Katsura Agreement", a product of the U.S.-Japan criminal conspiracy aimed to invade and dominate Korea. In this regard, the Central Committee of the Democratic Front for the Reunification of the Fatherland (DFRF) released a statement on Wednesday to denounce the indelible crimes the U.S. and Japanese imperialists committed by ruthlessly trampling down upon the dignity and sovereignty of the Korean people. The "Taft-Katsura Agreement" was a product of the bargaining of the U.S. and Japan in which they flouted and decided on the inalienable territory of Korea and the destiny of its nation as they pleased. [Japanese colonialism]
• Japan in bind over aid accord for North Korea
  07/29/2005 By YU YOSHITAKE, Staff Writer
  BEIJING-Delegations to the six-party talks here indicated they are moving toward an accord that would promise economic assistance and security assurances to Pyongyang if it abandons its nuclear ambitions. But such a deal would effectively trump Japan's economic sanctions card in getting North Korea to resolve the abduction issue. And considering the domestic outrage against Pyongyang, Tokyo would also find it difficult to commit any assistance to North Korea without improvements in their frigid relations or progress on the issue of Japanese abducted by North Korean agents
• Hirohito and History:
  Japanese and American Perspectives on the Emperor and World War II in Asia
  By Herbert P. Bix [Japan Focus 28 July 2005]
  For nearly 60 years many Japanese have been struggling honorably to come to terms with the China War and the Pacific War, and indeed their entire imperialist past. But their struggles never take place in a vacuum. Trends in history, politics, international relations, and even culture, shape them. During the occupation years (1945 to 1952) neonationalists who rejected the Tokyo Trial, and justified the lost war seldom spoke out. At that time, Japanese who sought to grasp the war experience, end the era of irresponsibility, and develop a critical historiography went virtually unchallenged.
• The Allied Occupation of Japan - an Australian View
  By Christine de Matos [Japan Focus 28 July 2005]
  The Japanese Occupation is generally remembered as primarily an American affair and as a dichotomous relationship between Japan and the United States. However, it was an Allied Occupation, and, despite the persistence of selective historical memories, there was a distinct and at times contentious Allied presence, contribution, and experience. The Occupation provided a terrain on which the victor nations, believing their social, economic and political values vindicated by victory, competed to reshape the character of Japan's modernity. One Ally that participated in this process, and often acted as a dissenting voice, was Australia. Examining the involvement of additional participants in the Occupation does not challenge the notion of US dominance, but does demonstrate that others periodically played significant roles in both administering the Occupation and in challenging US policies.
• Tokyo Should Not Go Astray
  Keep Focused on 6-Party Talks' Big Picture
  With each participating nation laying out its stance on the second day of the six-party disarmament talks in Beijing yesterday, it is imperative that not only North Korea and the United States, the two antagonists, but the four peacemakers _ South Korea, China, Japan and Russia _ should stay focused on their collective mission
  There are many things lying around that could be used to throw a spanner in the works. Pyongyang may press its negotiating partners to recognize it as a nuclear power or demand Washington foreclose any emergency possibility of introducing nuclear weapons onto the Korean peninsula. Washington could feel tempted to demand the North dismantle not only its plutonium-based nuclear program, but also the one based on highly enriched uranium. After all, it is common knowledge that hardliners in Washington feel it is not carrots but only sticks that will work in dealing with the North. With the situation being as fluid as it is now, it is unwise for one participating country to try and project its individual agenda as Japan did, when it called for the resolution of the North's abduction of Japanese nationals and the communist state's missile programs during the initial sessions. It is time for Japan, as well as other participating nations, to take a deep breath and take a look at the big picture of what is at stake _ peaceful disarmament of Pyongyang's nuclear weapons program. They should realize that it is not until the big issue is resolved that the participating countries will have a chance to settle their personal accounts. 07-27-2005 19:44
• Kyoto's Korea Town Fights for Survival
  One of Japan's longest legal feuds may erupt again, thanks to worsening Korea-Japan relations
  Kin Sunae, Kan Kyon Nam and Gen Akio in the village (c)2005 D. McNeill
  A bony, 80-year-old body floats around inside the nylon shirt of an unlikely illegal squatter. Kan Kyon Nam keeps a cigarette permanently clamped between what appear to be her two remaining front teeth. But frail or not, if the bulldozers come she wants it known there'll be trouble. "If they try to evict me and demolish my house I'll die under it," she says. "There's no point in trying to stay alive at my age." Fighting talk comes easy to the older residents of Utoro, a tiny Korean village of rickety houses in Uji City, Kyoto, which has been struggling to avoid being wiped from the map for over half a century. One of Japan's longest-running social disputes, Utoro has been largely forgotten here, but across the Japan Sea many see this community of 230 people as a living symbol of the hardships of Korean immigrants. Now, against a background of soured bilateral relations, the village is again back under the media spotlight.
• How long will N. Korea ignore Japan?
  When Japan's top negotiator Kenichiro Sasae delivered his opening speech on the first day of the six-party talks on Tuesday, North Korea's Kim Kye-gwan hardly glanced his way. Throughout the opening ceremony, Kim did his best to ignore his Japanese counterpart, while Sasae continuously tried to catch Kim's attention. What the two share are domestic pressures to be as hostile towards each other as possible, because of matter irrelevant to the nuclear issue - North Korea's kidnapping of Japanese citizens and refusal to comply with Tokyo's demand to reveal all information on some Japanese who were taken by North Korea to be trained as spies in the 1980s. North Korea is openly annoyed by Japan's attempt to bring the issue up at the disarmament talks and refuses to sit for one-on-one discussions
  Within relatively more amicable talks this time, it is equally becoming burdensome for Japan to cling onto the abduction issue, as other negotiators criticize Japan for distracting the focus of the disarmament talks.
• Japan Unwelcome in 6-Way Talks
  By Park Song-wu Korea Times Correspondent BEIJING _ Is Japan an uninvited guest throwing a spanner in the works of the six-party nuclear talks? Japan is drawing criticism from the South Korean public and officials by speaking out on what the other countries in the denuclearization talks do not want to hear, including the ``abductees issue,'' which Seoul says is not an official agenda item for the multilateral negotiations. Internet users in South Korea began to post Japan-bashing articles on major portal Web sites, arguing that participating countries should take away the Japanese seat and hold ``five-party'' talks instead.
• Japan Termed Filibuster against Six-Party Talks
  Pyongyang, July 23 (KCNA) -- Several rounds of the six-party talks held so far proved fruitless. One of the serious blames for this rests with Japan. The DPRK, therefore, feels no need to sit face to face with Japan, a black- hearted filibuster against the talks. Minju Joson Saturday says this in a signed commentary. Recalling that a whole string of reckless remarks beclouding the prospect of the six-party talks are heard from Japan, as evidenced by Abe's assertion that the talks would be meaningless if the "abduction issue" is not taken up by them, the commentary goes on: Japan is not keen to make the six-party talks contribute to the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula but working hard to meet its own interests.
• KCNA Flails Japan's Attitude toward Six-Party Talks
  Pyongyang, July 20 (KCNA) -- The international community is becoming increasingly concerned about the role of a filibuster to be played by Japan at the forthcoming six-party talks. Hosoda, chief cabinet secretary, and Machimura, foreign minister, expressed their intentions on July 14 and 15 to raise the "abduction issue" at the six-party talks, uttering that Japan remains unchanged in its basic policy to take every opportunity to strongly assert the settlement of the "issue."
• World Community Called Upon to Check Japan's Bid for Permanent Membership of UNSC
  Pyongyang, July 20 (KCNA) -- Japan has not yet won confidence of the international community for it has threatened global peace and security. Its bid for a permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council is aimed to become a political power and use it for holding hegemony in Asia and other parts of the world. Rodong Sinmun Wednesday says this in a signed article. Japan set it as an ultimate goal of its diplomacy to sit on the U.N. Security Council this year which will mark the 60th anniversary of the world body and to this end, it has busied itself soliciting support from big countries and showing off its moneybags before developing countries to lure and bribe them, the article says, and goes on:
• Abe's Militarist Remarks Assailed
  Pyongyang, July 19 (KCNA) -- Abe, acting secretary general of the Liberal Democratic Party of Japan, in a lecture in Osaka on July 3 let loose a string of balderdash that the prime minister prayed for the souls of the fallen fighters at the "Yasukuni Shrine" and this is a universally accepted common sense. In May when Abe visited the United States he asserted that the next prime minister, too, should visit the shrine because it is the responsibility and duty of the chief executive to express respects to those who fought for the country
• Seoul Welcomes Koizumi's Bid to Normalize Ties With N. Korea
  By Seo Dong-shin Staff Reporter The government welcomes Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's commitment to seek normal ties with North Korea, a top government official said Wednesday. ``South Korea will actively help Japan toward the goal through inter-Korean channels,'' the official told reporters on customary condition of anonymity. Koizumi said Tuesday in Tokyo that he remains committed to establishing diplomatic relations with North Korea. [In denial]
• Govt to seek complete ban on N. Korean N-development
  The government will ask the United States, China, Russia and South Korea to adopt a five-nation policy that will bar North Korea not only from developing atomic arms but also from using nuclear development for peaceful purposes during a new round of six-way talks with Pyongyang at the end of this month, government sources said Monday.
  On July 12, Seoul announced a new energy assistance plan to provide 2 million kilowatts of electricity to North Korea. The government, therefore, will assert that if South Korea directly supplies electricity to North Korea, it does not need to conduct nuclear development for the purpose of generating power, the sources said. [nuclear energy]
• Japan to seek N. Korea nuclear energy ban - report
  Mon Jul 18, 2005 9:41 PM ET TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan will urge parties to six-way talks on North Korea's nuclear weapons program to push Pyongyang to abandon nuclear development for peaceful as well as military purposes, a Japanese newspaper said on Tuesday
• Yasukuni: Behind the torii / From government-run shrine for war heroes to bone of contention
  By The Yomiuri Shimbun
  Few institutions in Japan are as contested, controversial, and complex as Yasukuni Shrine. According to a recent editorial (June 6, 2005) in the Asahi Shimbun and published in Japan Focus, "Yasukuni Shrine... in the past served the purpose of providing a site to publicly manifest both grief and admiration for those who perished in conflict. In this sense, it functioned to enhance the will to fight and mobilize the populace for war."
• Lonely, yet teeming with life
  July 12, 2005 ? Koreans consider Dokdo island important for diplomatic and strategic reasons, but what few realize is that the island in the East Sea (Sea of Japan) is significant for the wealth of environmental and ecological information it holds. Dokdo is located 87.4 kilometers (54.3 miles) from the South Korean island of Ulleung and 157.5 kilometers from Japan's Oki islands. It has two main islands, which are the remains of an ancient volcanic crater, and 78 smaller "rock" islands and reefs, for a total surface area of about 56 acres. The Korean government designated Dokdo as the nation's 336th natural monument in 1982, saying that it should be protected because of its value as natural breeding grounds
• Wicked Remarks of Japanese Chief Executive under Fire
  Pyongyang, July 13 (KCNA) -- The Japanese chief executive at the recent G-8 summit uttered that Japan seeks a "comprehensive solution to the issue of the abduction of Japanese and the nuclear issue" and solicited "understanding" and "cooperation" from the participating nations as regards the abduction issue. He went the lengths of asserting that Japan "would not normalize its relations with north Korea" unless the abduction issue is solved. In this regard Rodong Sinmun Wednesday in a signed commentary says: It is clear to everyone that his reckless remarks are intended to chill the atmosphere for the resumption of the six-party talks as they are nothing but an attempt to impair the image and authority of the DPRK and isolate it internationally, pursuant to the U.S. hostile policy towards the DPRK. Japan is going to bring the abduction issue to the talks in a bid to kick up a racket there though they are slated to open soon. [Abductees]
• Japan's move in East China Sea makes conflict "inevitable": report
  www.chinaview.cn 2005-07-16 11:27:04
  BEIJING, July 16 (Xinhuanet) -- Japan is stamping on China's maritime rights by granting Japanese firm Teikoku Oil Co the right to test drill for gas and oil in a part of the East China Sea disputed by the two countries and muddying the waters of the East China Sea, the China Daily said in an editorial Saturday. Japan's move could lead to confrontation with China, it warned, citing that the Chinese government's calls to solve the dispute through negotiation have fallen on deaf ears in Japan . Giving Teikoku the go-ahead to test drill is a move which makes conflict between the two nations inevitable, though what form this clash will take is hard to tell, the daily said. It said that Japan's attempt to force gas exploration in an area beyond the Okinawa submarine trench has many motivations: [China-Japan relations] [China confrontation]
• S. Korea-Japan Joint Naval Maneuver Denounced
  Pyongyang, July 10 (KCNA) -- 50 civic and social organizations including the Solidarity for Implementing the South-North Joint Declaration, the Council for National Reconciliation and Independent Reunification and the south Korean Federation of University Student Councils reportedly released a joint statement titled "We denounce the south Korea-Japan joint naval maneuver" on July 7. Noting that the coastal police office of south Korea and the Japan Coast Guard staged a "joint naval maneuver" under the pretext of "combating terrorism" from July 7, the statement said that the U.S. has justified its wars of aggression under the signboard of "anti-terrorism." It termed the on-going exercise part of such "anti-terrorism war". [Role of ROK military]
• Campion Making Documentary About NK Abduction
  The Academy Award-winning director Jane Campion of ``The Piano'' and National Geographic film makers Patty Kim and Chris Sheridan are making a documentary about North Korea's abduction of a Japanese schoolgirl. Based on a true story, the film is told through the eyes of the girl's mother and father who have been searching for their daughter for nearly 30 years and chronicles how their personal tragedy has become the biggest issue in Japan. The film will be completed this year, and a special short preview and fundraising for ``ABDUCTION The Megumi Yokota Story'' will be held on June 29 in Washington D.C.
• Japan Joins U.S. in Dangerous Space Race
  By Bruce K. Gagnon
  [Japan Focus 7 July]
  Japan is now embarking on a historic and potentially dangerous journey into space, urged on by the U.S., which seeks a more heavily armed and militarily active partner in the Asia-Pacific. Space technology is being developed for two primary reasons. One is to give nations the ability to better coordinate warfare on Earth. The second is that many nations and corporations view space as the "new world." Gold on asteroids, water and helium-3 on the moon, magnesium, cobalt, and uranium are believed to be on Mars. Corporations intend to venture to these planetary bodies and secure massive profits in the years ahead. But first new space technologies have to be created that make it possible, and cost effective, to "mine the skies." [1] If citizens can be convinced that their nation must use space technologies to "protect them" from enemies, real or imagined, then this investment in space technology can also be used to create the infrastructure that will allow these same aerospace industries to mine the heavens. Thus space technology becomes "dual use." With the development for military use also comes development for corporate use. The question is who benefits? Who pays and who reaps the profits?
• Money Diplomacy of Japan Assailed
  Pyongyang, July 7 (KCNA) -- No one should have an illusion about Japan which is playing the hypocrite and the coquette, brandishing the moneybag, as if it would do "something nice", but sharpen vigilance against its bid to buy a responsible position of the United Nations with money. Rodong Sinmun in an article Thursday strips bare the hypocritical money diplomacy in which Japan is these days showing extra zeal to create a climate favorable for obtaining permanent membership of the UN Security Council at any cost by improving its image on the international scene, waxing quite eloquent about its "contribution" to the budget of the United Nations and "cooperation" with the developing countries.
  Herein lies the danger of Japan's ambitious scheme to be a permanent member of the UNSC with the exhibition of the moneybag.
• Japan, NK Trade Blows on Nuke Issue
  By Reuben Staines Staff Reporter
  Japan is losing patience with North Korea's refusal to return to multilateral talks aimed at resolving the standoff over its nuclear weapons program, a top Tokyo official has warned. Japanese Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura said on Monday that despite recent optimism that North Korea is preparing to resume the stalled nuclear negotiations, ``the Japanese government is neither extremely optimistic nor extremely pessimistic.'' ``Soon we will reach the limits of our patience,'' Machimura said in an interview with Reuters news agency. ``The passage of time helps North Korea's nuclear development. We need to deal with this with a sense of urgency.'' The comments continued a pointed war of words between Tokyo and Pyongyang, which still harbors resentment toward Japan for its harsh colonial rule over the Korean Peninsula.
• Japan's Dangerous Militarist Moves to Veer to Right Assailed
  Pyongyang, July 4 (KCNA) -- The ultra right conservative forces of Japan are these days escalating their moves to push it to the Right in the socio-political aspect, obsessed by the militarist view that they support the prime minister's visit to the "Yasukuni Shrine" and it is "interference in internal affairs" for other countries to say this and that about the visit. Rodong Sinmun Monday in a commentary warns that if the Japanese reactionaries continue to go ahead as now, it will spark acute political and military confrontation between Japan and other Asian countries. [Japanese remilitarisation]
• U.S. Deals Fatal Blow to Japan
  By Oda Takashi
  Japan Focus 30 June 2005
  Thursday, June 16, 2005 is a date that will be etched in memory as the day Japan's proposal for United Nations reform was dealt a fatal blow by the U.S. government. The United States' proposal on reform of the U.N. Security Council released that day calls for expansion of membership from the current 15 to 19 or 20, by adding "two or so" permanent members to the current five--Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States--as well as two or three additional nonpermanent members. The U.S. government reiterated its support for Japan's bid for permanent membership of the council, but the U.S. proposal is a huge embarrassment and trouble for Japan.
• Japan and North Korea: Bones of Contention
  International Crisis Group Asia Report N°100 _ 27 June 2005
  EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Relations between Japan and North Korea continue to deteriorate due to concerns over Pyongyang's nuclear weapons program and past abductions of Japanese citizens. Nearly a decade and a half of efforts at normalising relations between the countries have faltered due to Pyongyang's unwillingness to give up that program or come clean over the abductions. For Japan, normalisation would help preserve regional stability and represent one more step toward closure on its wartime history; for North Korea, it would potentially produce the single greatest economic infusion for reviving its moribund economy. Indeed, the prospect of normalisation with Japan is one of the leading incentives that can be offered to North Korea in a deal to end the North's nuclear programs.

• Abe's Clumsy Outburst on Resumption of Six-party Talks Flailed
  Pyongyang, June 28 (KCNA) -- Abe, acting secretary general of the Japan Liberal Democratic Party, recently blabbed that if the six-way talks are resumed, Japan "should wrest a sincere reply on the abduction issue from north Korea," while pretending to welcome the latter's stand toward the resumption of the talks. Commenting on this, Rodong Sinmun on June 28 says Abe's remarks clearly revealed once again that Japan is not interested at all in a solution to the nuclear issue and the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, wedded body and soul to the "abduction issue" which has nothing to do with the purport and purpose of the six-party talks. In persistently bringing forward the "abduction issue" that was already settled through the Pyongyang visit of the Japanese prime minister, the conservative politician of Japan seeks to whip up the sentiments of national confrontation and anti-DPRK hostile feelings among the Japanese over the issue and win popularity and thus consolidate the political foothold for holding monopoly over power, the analyst notes, and goes on:
• Minju Joson on Japan's Wretched Situation
  Pyongyang, June 28 (KCNA) -- Japan that has tried its luck in the bid for a permanent seat at the UN Security Council is now at a loss what to do, finding itself in an awkward position after the U.S. announcement of a proposal on UN reform, says Minju Joson in a signed commentary today. In case Japan supports the U.S. proposed UN reform, that will glaringly reveal once again to the international community its policy of toeing the U.S. line and this will touch off worldwide criticism of Japan, thus forcing it to stand isolated diplomatically, branded as a Jude of modern version, the commentary says, and goes on: The present political confusion in Japan is attributable to its pursuit of a mode of diplomatic activities with main emphasis on winning support of a specific state. It was against this backdrop that Japan favored the U.S. policy in the international community whether it liked it or not, caring not to hurt the U.S. feelings, and it did not shun such shameful deed as rolling up its sleeves in implementing it. Typical examples are the stand and attitude it took whenever the U.S. was driven to a serious political impasse in such matters as the Iraqi war and the nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula. As for the U.S. which Japan worships as God, it is not so kindhearted as to take the lot of its junior ally into consideration, defying its own political loss. Actually the U.S. turned its back on the UN reform proposal of group 4, fearing that its approval would play down its own political status and say among the permanent members of the Security Council. Japan should draw a lesson from this, though belatedly.
• 'Abductions Limit Japan's Role in Nuke Talks'
  By Reuben Staines Staff Reporter Antagonism over Japanese citizens abducted by Pyongyang during the Cold War is limiting Tokyo's potentially important role in resolving the North Korean nuclear crisis, a think tank said in a report released Monday. ``While Japan ultimately has a vital role to play in solving the problem North Korea represents for regional security, no new initiatives are likely to originate in Tokyo for the time being,'' the International Crisis Group (ICG) said. In the report, entitled ``Japan and North Korea: Bones of Contention,'' the Brussels-based group said public outrage in Japan over 13 Japanese that Pyongyang admits to having kidnapped in the 1970s and '80s is dictating the country's policy toward the North.
• Japan's Criminal Participation in Last Korean War under Fire
  Pyongyang, June 26 (KCNA) -- Rodong Sinmun today in a signed article lays bare Japan's zealous participation in the last Korean war. The article says: No sooner had the U.S. imperialists started a war of aggression against the young DPRK than Shigeru Yoshida, the then boss of the Japanese militarists, convened the socalled cabinet meeting which adopted it as its government policy to actively cooperate with the U.S. forces in their military actions in Korea. Pursuant to this policy, Japan directly dispatched its forces to the Korean front in a concealed manner. As soon as former officers of the imperial Japanese army arrived in Korea, they acted "advisers" and "military experts" as staff members at units of various services and arms of the U.S. imperialist aggression forces. They, at the same time, played the role of scouts after joining reconnoitering and search teams or while taking a direct part in offensive operations from the forefront. The Japanese militarists sent former airmen of the imperial Japanese army including Kamikaze pilots to the Korean front to assist the U.S. forces in airlifting operations. A hundred percent of the mine sweepers and mine sweeping forces of Japan were dispatched to the front in top secrecy. They took an active part in the U.S. imperialists' germ warfare.
• Korean, Japanese Groups Make Documentary on Yasukuni Shrine
  By Kim Rahn Staff Reporter This is a scene from "Annyong, Sayonara," a documentary on the Yasukuni Shrine issue, which has been filmed by civic groups in Korea and Japan. Heroine Lee Heeja, right, and hero Masaki Hurukawa look at the tombstone of Lee's father, on which nothing is written, at the National Mang-Hyang Cemetery in Chonan, South Chungchong Province. Lee's father, who was mobilized by the Japanese army and died during World War II, is in fact buried at Yasukuni Shrine. Civic groups in Korea and Japan have filmed a documentary on the issue of Japan's Yasukuni Shrine and plan to screen it in both countries on Aug. 15 to celebrate the 60th anniversary of Korea's liberation from Japanese colonial rule.
• Koreans in Japan Celebrates Golden Jubilee of Chongryun
• Korean and Japanese People Enjoy Picnic to Deepen Mutual Friendship
  Koreans and Japanese people enjoyed a picnic in Koma-go in Saitama Prefecture, a town historically associated with ancient Korea-Japan relations to reconfirm their determination to restore friendly relations between Korea and Japan. The "Koma picnic" was held on May 14 under the auspice of an executive committee for the event. The "Koma picnic" is an annual event through which Korean and Japanese learn the history of Koma-go where lots of people of Koguryo(an ancient state in the Korean Peninsula, 100 BC- 668 AD) came as refugees, and promoted mutual friendship.
• Emperor, Shinto, Democracy: Japan's Unresolved Questions of Historical Consciousness
  By Herbert P. Bix Japan Focus 16 June 2005
  Japanese archaeologists and historians have long rejected the government's claim that Japan has had 124 emperors from the mythical Jimmu, descendant of the Sun Goddess, to the controversial Showa Emperor Hirohito, whose pre-World War II reign brought havoc to Asian and Japanese people. The scholars recognize that most sites of ancient imperial tombs should be treated as objects of scientific inquiry rather than as religious remnants of discredited State Shinto. But bureaucrats of the Imperial Household Agency, claiming to follow the Imperial Household Law, interpret the rules and control the tombs. They will neither allow the tombs to be treated as ordinary historical sites for investigation nor release copies of documents pertaining to them or to more recent emperors. Professing concern for the peace, calm, and privacy of emperors, but really fearing public scrutiny of the imperial institution and its "traditions," they continue to deny permission to excavate the tombs.
• Disputed Bones: Japan-North Korea Clash
  By Gavan McCormack Japan Focus 16 June 2005
  On 24 June 2005, a three day "sit-in" will commence in front of the offices of the Japanese Prime Minister, organized not by a radical leftist group but by some of Japan's most famous and respected citizens and enjoying powerful backing in the National Diet and media, to demand the imposition of immediate economic sanctions against North Korea. Only by such means, the organizers argue, can North Korea be forced to return Japanese citizens they believe are still being held in North Korea against their will. As of that date, it will be six months since Prime Minister Koizumi declared, in December 2004, that the explanation thus far offered of the abductions by North Korea was unsatisfactory and false, in particular that the cremated human remains offered as evidence of the death of the most famous of the abductee victims, Yokota Megumi (on whom see below), were in fact not hers. The Japanese government therefore and promised "stern measures" unless Pyongyang responded "promptly and sincerely" to set matters right, and the sit-in will demand immediate recourse to these "stern" measures. More than five million people have signed a petition to that effect, and a meeting in Tokyo's Hibiya in April 2005 to promote this cause drew 6,000 people. The leaders, including the parents of Yokota Megumi, are household figures, regulars on major television channels. Their patience is exhausted, they say, and their anger at Koizumi's refusal to do as they demand, or even to meet with them and hear their demands, is at high pitch. If still not satisfied, they promise to renew their "sit-in" in July and subsequent months, and to expand it around the country.
  The political importance of this campaign is undeniable. There are, however, serious doubts about the basic assumption on which it rests: that North Korea was not only insincere in its investigation of the abduction cases but deliberately lied to Japan. Those doubts are dealt with below.
• South Korean Mistrust of Japan: Poll
  By Yomiuri Shimbun
  Japan Focus 16 June 2005
  As Japan's trade with South Korea and China continues to surge, there is mounting evidence of growing mistrust of Japan among its near neighbors. A recent poll conducted by Japan's Yomiuri and South Korea's Hankook newspapers is indicative. The poll comes in the wake of angry South Korean responses to Japanese claims to Takeshima/Tokdo islands, Prime Minister Koizumi Junichiro's widely publicized Yasukuni Shrine visits, and the continuing controversy over Japanese textbook treatments of colonialism and war.]
  The Korean boom in Japan continues and while it may help increase affinity toward South Korea among Japanese, it does not necessarily result in promotion of mutual trust between the neighboring countries.
  According to results of a survey jointly conducted by The Yomiuri Shimbun and South Korean daily Hankook Ilbo, a record high 90 percent of South Korean respondents said they did not trust Japan. The survey found a rapidly growing gap in trust between citizens in Japan and South Korea.
• Yasukuni Shrine: Ritual and Memory
  By John Breen Japan Focus 9 June 2005
  Yasukuni is first and foremost a site for the performance of ritual before the kami (gods), those men, women and some children who sacrificed their lives for the imperial cause. This article examines the organizing of space and ritual at Tokyo's shrine to the war dead and the implications for memory.
• Yasukuni Shrine, Nationalism and Japan's International Relations
  By Yomiuri Shimbun and Asahi Shimbun
  Japan Focus 9 June 2005
  [For twenty years, Prime Ministerial visits to Yasukuni Shrine, have provided a flash point for Japan-China and Japan-South Korea clashes, together with conflicts over territorial and textbook issues. Yasukuni, Japan's war memorial, is a facility with close association with the Emperor. It preserves the remains of Japan's military war dead, enshrined as gods. It also includes the remains, among those of other leaders, of fourteen Class-A War Criminals convicted at the Tokyo Tribunal. With China's emergence in the last year as Japan's leading trade partner, the Yasukuni issue continues to poison the atmosphere between the two nations as well as those with South Korea
• Korean Collaborators: South Korea's Truth Committees and the Forging of a New Pan-Korean Nationalism
  By Sheila Miyoshi Jager
  Japan Focus 9 June 2005
  The year 2005 has particular significance for Koreans concerning Japan: it is the 100th anniversary of the 1905 protectorate treaty (or Ulsa Treaty) which led to Korea's formal colonization by Japan in 1910. It is also the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Korea from colonial rule and it is the 40th anniversary of the normalization treaty of 1965. The year 2005 has also seen a distinct rise in anti-Japanese sentiments in South Korea.
• S. Korean Students Occupy Japanese Cultural Centre
  Pyongyang, June 21 (KCNA) -- 15 students affiliated to the Student Committee of the Democratic Workers' Party of south Korea occupied the Japanese Cultural Centre in Seoul by surprise on June 20 in protest against the Japanese chief executive's visit to Seoul, according to the south Korean CBS. They staged a demonstration, chanting in unison slogans "No south Korea-Japan summit" and "We denounce Koizumi's visit to south Korea" inside and outside of the cultural centre. Riot police walked away all of them.
• Japan Hit for Hastening Build-up of MD System
  Pyongyang, June 21 (KCNA) -- Japan is now giving spurs to the building of the Missile Defense System by going over to the development stage in the plan of Japan-U.S. joint researches into the MD under the pretext of coping with the "missile threat" from the DPRK. Commenting on this, a Rodong Sinmun analyst today says: This indicates that Japan's war-like forces are pushing forward in full scale their preparations to mount preemptive attacks on the DPRK and surrounding countries at any time in military conspiracy with the United States. [Japanese remilitarisation]
• A War Shrine, for a Japan Seeking a Not Guilty Verdict
  By NORIMITSU ONISHI Published: June 22, 2005 TOKYO - One recent rainy morning, a couple of dozen vehicles belonging to the Patriotic Youth League and other Japanese right-wing groups gathered inside the grounds of Yasukuni Shrine, the Shinto memorial to Japan's war dead. "Revere the Emperor," read a slogan on one truck. Others alluded to enemies unnamed: "Love and Protect our Motherland" and "Kill one, one at a time."
  At 12:30 p.m., the caravan spilled out onto Tokyo's streets, destination unclear. But the targets are usually the same: the Chinese Embassy, the liberal media, anybody daring to challenge the argument that Japan's wars were legitimate and that their leaders were not criminals. Yasukuni Shrine is the symbolic center of Japan's efforts to revise its militaristic past, and lies at the heart of worsening relations between Japan and its neighbors. Not only right-wing extremists, but now also mainstream politicians and the news media are more openly arguing that the 14 war criminals enshrined in Yasukuni were not guilty - and, because they were not, Japan's wars could not have been that bad. In a face-to-face meeting on June 20, for example, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi steadfastly resisted the entreaties of President Roh Moo Hyun of South Korea that he stop visiting the shrine and build an alternate one that would be more acceptable to China and the Koreas, all of them victims of a brutal Japanese colonization.
  While the Japanese have received the bulk of the criticism for the shrine, they are not, however, the only ones to have manipulated the meaning of Yasukuni and its war criminals. So have the Chinese, the Taiwanese and the Americans, each according to their own interests. During America's six-year occupation of Japan after World War II, Americans spent the first half democratizing the country and prosecuting war criminals. In the second half, with Communists controlling China and the cold war bearing down, Washington reversed course: wartime leaders were rehabilitated overnight in an effort to make Japan strong. Some Class A war criminal suspects, after barely escaping the noose, became postwar Japan's political and business leaders; one, Nobusuke Kishi, even became prime minister.
  Noticeable in its silence on Yasukuni and the verdict on the Class A war criminals is the United States. As the nation that defeated Japan, occupied it and still has 50,000 troops deployed here, America is the one country that Japan may still listen to on these subjects. America is hardly a disinterested observer, after all, because Yasukuni deifies Japanese who ordered the attack on Pearl Harbor.
  American officials raise an eyebrow at Japanese comparisons of Yasukuni to Arlington National Cemetery. But they tend to defend, albeit somewhat uncomfortably, Japanese visits to Yasukuni, or maintain a studied silence. The cold war may be over, but China's rise alarms America just as much as did the rise of Communism in the 1940's. So better a strong, remilitarized Japan, no matter what the Japanese say about Yasukuni or war criminals. [US-Japan policy] [US-China policy] [Japanese remilitarisation]
• Koizumi reconsidering Yasukuni
  June 21, 2005 ? Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi of Japan told President Roh Moo-hyun yesterday that his country would consider establishing an alternative memorial to the Yasukuni Shrine, where Japanese war dead, including several high- ranking former officials who were tried and executed as war criminals, are interred. Visits by Japanese leaders to the shrine have infuriated Asian countries that suffered Japanese aggression during World War II. Mr. Koizumi made no promises to end his visits to the shrine. After the two hours of talks at the Blue House, Mr. Roh indicated that the discussion had fallen short on a number of issues
• Koizumi's visit greeted with protests in Seoul
  June 21, 2005 ? Students, ex-soldiers, former "comfort women" and members of civic groups held rallies in several locations in Seoul yesterday to protest Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's presence for a summit with President Roh Moo-hyun. In the Sejongno area, not far from the heavily guarded Japanese Embassy, former South Korean soldiers who were once trained to infiltrate North Korea tried to block the streets with vans to stage a protest, but were arrested before they could succeed. Nearby, about 220 elderly women who were forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese Army during World War II held a rally denouncing Japan and Mr. Koizumi.
• Roh, Koizumi Disagree on War History
  Japanese PM Says New War Memorial Would Not Replace Yasukuni
  By Ryu Jin Staff Reporter
  President Roh Moo-hyun, right, speaks while Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi listens during a news conference after a summit at the guesthouse ``Sangchun-jae'' of Chong Wa Dae, Monday. / Korea Times South Korea's President Roh Moo-hyun and Japan's Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi held a summit in Seoul on Monday, but failed to patch up the bilateral relations frayed by disputes over their countries' bitter history. In a news conference at Chong Wa Dae after two- hour talks, Roh said he and Koizumi spent most of their time talking about issues related to their shared history. ``We had a very candid and serious dialogue and made efforts to understand each other,'' Roh told reporters in his unusually lengthy speech, with Koizumi standing at his side. ``But this failed to yield any agreements.''

• Roh, Koizumi to Hold Talks June 20: Reports
  Roh, Koizumi to Hold Talks on June 20: Reports TOKYO (AFP) _ South Korean President Roh Moo- hyun and Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi will hold talks on June 20 amid a recent deterioration in relations between the two nations, reports said Saturday.
• Japanese Militarist Maniac's Reckless Remarks under Fire
  Pyongyang, May 21 (KCNA) -- Nariaki, minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology of Japan, recently visited a primary school in Tokyo where he told its pupils that they should always remember the fact that Tok Islet is "part of the Japanese territory" and that the new history textbooks screened and approved by the ministry are "balanced ones" and there is, therefore, "no ground for other countries to complain about them". In this regard Rodong Sinmun Saturday in a signed commentary denounces his remarks as a shameless act of tampering with history, a move to instill militarism into the rising generation and, at the same time, a blatant challenge to the Asians.
• Censorship at NHK and PBS
  By Henry Laurence JPRI Critique Vol. XII, No. 3 (April 2005)
  In January 2005, acting LDP secretary-general Abe Shinzo caused a minor sensation when he told the Asahi Shimbun that he had successfully demanded that the public Japan Broadcasting Corporation (Nihon Hoso Kyokai, or NHK) censor a 2001 documentary about the "comfort women." The episode seems to confirm the charge that the mainstream Japanese media are too timid. Whether as a result of institutional factors such as the press club system, or cultural tendencies to avoid confrontation and defer to authority, the Japanese press is said to play the role of "lapdog" to those in power, in Ellis Krauss's vivid analogy, rather than tackling hard issues or engaging in fearless investigative journalism. [1] Such critics often seem to have the American Fourth Estate in mind as the global standard for a free, fair and feisty "watchdog." Laurie Freeman, for example, describes Japanese news as "an informationally inferior product where people do not get 'all the news that's fit to print,'" making explicit the contrast to the New York Times and its famous motto. [2]
  Is it time to rethink the comparison? Even as details of the NHK affair emerged, the issue of media self-censorship came into sharp focus in America in a case as politically charged in the U.S. as war guilt is in Japan: gay marriage. Viewed together, the events show that while it is still true that Japanese television networks are easily intimidated by political pressure, the same must also be said of their American counterparts. Ironically, though, the cases also suggest that public broadcasters, while vulnerable to political threats to cut their funding, are nevertheless more likely to tackle controversial issues than their supposedly more independent commercial rivals.
• DPRK to React to Any Sanctions of Japan with Tough Retaliatory Measures
  Pyongyang, May 20 (KCNA) -- The DPRK will react to Japan's move to apply economic sanctions against the DPRK with tough retaliatory measures. Rodong Sinmun Friday warns this in a signed commentary assailing Japan for contemplating applying economic sanctions against the DPRK single-handed, independent of the United States. The Japanese reactionaries, much upset by the world public paying no heed to the so-called "abduction issue", are working hard to build up public opinion favorable for them and "single-handed application of economic sanctions" is part of their new anti-DPRK campaign, the commentary observes, and continues: Japan's loudmouthed "single-handed application of economic sanctions" is aimed at keeping the world opinion on the "abduction issue" from waning in a bid to pressurize the DPRK and wrest any concession from the latter.
• Unification Minister to Visit Japan
  By Reuben Staines Staff Reporter Unification Minister Chung Dong-young will visit Japan on Wednesday to deliver a speech on South Korea's policy on the North Korean nuclear issue. Chung will address a Nikkei Forum conference on ``South Korea's choice for peace and prosperity in Northeast Asia,'' ministry officials said.
• China, Japan Stuck on Compensation Issue
  The Associated Press Sunday, May 15, 2005; 9:51 AM BEIJING -- Japan and China failed to agree on compensation for damages caused by violent anti- Japan riots across China last month, but both sides will meet again, the Chinese Foreign Ministry and news reports said Sunday.
• `Japanese' war criminals seek redress
  By SHUICHI YUTAKA 05/20/2005 The Asahi Shimbun When Lee Hyok Rae was growing up, he never learned about human rights or the Geneva Conventions on the treatment of prisoners. Instead, he was raised in the Korean Peninsula during Japan's colonization when the most important lesson was how to become a loyal ``imperial citizen.'' He learned well. During World War II, he toiled for the Japanese military, strictly obeyed his superiors and pledged loyalty to the emperor. He was even sentenced to die as a ``Japanese'' war criminal. But he soon learned his loyalty was for naught. Many ethnic Koreans were executed to take responsibility for war crimes committed as ``Japanese citizens.'' Those who did survive, like Lee, lost their Japanese citizenship-and claims for compensation or livelihood assistance-after Japan signed the San Francisco Treaty in 1951. [Human rights] [Diaspora]
• Why Japanese Wartime Apologies Fail: A German Perspective
  by Karasaki Taro [Japan Focus 19 May 2005]
  With Japan and its neighbors still at odds over history, German freelance journalist Gebhard Hielscher says Tokyo should take bold measures to clarify that it has atoned for its wartime aggression.
  The former Far East correspondent for the daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung proposes that Japan follow Germany's lead and come up with legislation that offers compensation to individuals that suffered under its wartime policies, even if only a token sum. Hielscher says Japan must also conduct joint historical research with its neighbors, as Germany did, so that all sides can at least learn to accept one another's different perceptions.
  Q: What was your reaction to the recent outrage against Japan in China and South Korea? A: My impression is that all along, Japan has been deliberately not trying to face the past, and hoping that these issues would go away. Japan has been more concerned about its relationship with the United States. [Japanese colonialism]
• Kim Dae-jung to Give Lecture in Japan
  By Reuben Staines Staff Reporter Former President Kim Dae-jung will visit Japan to deliver a speech on the North Korean nuclear standoff and other Northeast Asian security issues at an international symposium Monday. The Nobel Peace prize laureate will fly out Sunday to attend the Tokyo University-hosted forum on ``Co-existence on the Korean Peninsula and Regional Cooperation in Northeast Asia,'' aides to the former president said.
• KCNA on Revival of Ultra "Yamato Nationalism"
  Pyongyang, May 16 (KCNA) -- The hands of the Japanese militarists were stained with the blood shed by Asians in the past century. Yet, Japan is again disturbing this part of the world, obsessed by ultra nationalism. Every recent move of Japan such as distortion of its history, actions for territorial expansion, the revival of militarism and its bid for permanent membership of the UN Security Council reminds one of Japan in the imperial era when it ran wild, crying out for the "Yamato spirit".
• Japan's Moves for War Legislation Blasted
  Pyongyang, May 16 (KCNA) -- The moves for the retrogressive revision of the constitution stepped up by Japan at their final phase reveal the reckless militarist hysteria of its reactionaries keen to realize their ambition for overseas expansion, says Rodong Sinmun Monday in a signed commentary. It goes on: The House of Representatives Research Commission on the Constitution of Japan is contemplating instituting a law on the national referendum on the constitutional revision in the wake of its recent drafting and presentation of a final report on the constitutional revision. This indicates that the moves of the Japanese reactionaries to create legal and institutional environments for turning Japan into a military power and realizing their ambition for overseas expansion have entered into a full-fledged phase.
• Civic group calls Tokyo's identification efforts weak
  May 17, 2005 ? TOKYO ? A Japanese civic group charged yesterday that efforts by Tokyo to locate the remains of Koreans who died as slave laborers for Japanese companies during World War II have been restricted to only a minority of the wartime employers, which would make it difficult to get an accurate estimate of how many bodies are still in Japan.
• Japan Accused of Toeing U.S. Line
  Pyongyang, May 14 (KCNA) -- Some time ago, Abe, acting secretary general of Japan's Liberal Democratic Party, reportedly asserted at the talks with the UN secretary general as for the stalled six-party talks that the nuclear issue of north Korea has to be referred to the UN Security Council if Pyongyang continues to boycott the talks. This assertion was echoed by the Japanese foreign minister. Commenting on it, Rodong Sinmun today says: Such behavior fully revealed the wrong stand and intention of Japan zealously following the U.S. keen to bring up the "nuclear issue" of the DPRK for discussion at the UNSC at any cost. If Japan persists in the anti-DPRK campaign, this will only precipitate its self-destruction.
  The DPRK has never posed any "threat" to Japan and there has been no "nuclear threat" from the DPRK. What they call "nuclear threat" from the DPRK is sophism the U.S. cooked up to use it as leverage for putting pressure on the DPRK. Japan should renounce its wild nuclear design before raising a hue and cry over "nuclear threat" from other country. Lurking behind the argument of the Japanese reactionaries about the "nuclear threat" from the DPRK is their wicked intention to realize the ambition for nuclear weaponization and reinvasion. [Japanese remilitarisation] [Threat]
• Overall Investigation into Remains of Koreans Demanded
  Tokyo, May 11 (KNS-KCNA) -- The Japanese government decided to send inquiry papers to about 100 companies concerned in the country in order to find facts about the remains of Korean victims to forcible drafting who were driven to slave labor after being taken to Japanese enterprises in labor and military conscription during World War II and announce the results of the investigation in around August, according to the May 5 issue of Japan's Asahi Shimbun. In this regard, the Fact-finding Group on the Forcible Drafting of Koreans on May 7 made public a statement in joint name of Koreans and Japanese.
• The South-South Conflict and Korean Residents in Japan
  By Lee Jong Won May 12th, 2005 Lee Jong Won, Professor at Rikkyo University in Tokyo, writes: "The most significant cause of continued confrontation surrounding policy toward North Korea is the DPRK's use of the nuclear card as a survival strategy and the tension Pyongyang still creates, thus, resolving these issues is of first priority." [Diaspora]
• Seoul seeks North's help on monument
  May 13, 2005 ? The South Korean government has asked Pyongyang to agree to inter-Korean talks aimed at retrieving a centuries-old stone monument now possessed by Japan. The National Cultural Heritage Administration, on behalf of the government, sent a letter to the North's Culture Ministry suggesting the talks. Inter-Korean negotiations have been suspended since last July, after the South accepted an airlift from Vietnam of 468 North Korean refugees. The monument, called Bukgwandaecheopbi, was built in what is now North Korea after Korea repelled the 1592 Japanese invasion of the peninsula. It was taken to Japan during the 1904- 5 Russo-Japanese War. Yoo Hong-joon, president of the administration, said in the letter, "Japan said it would return the monument only when both Koreas agree on the matter. The cultural offices of both Koreas should discuss it promptly." [Joint Korean]
• S-N Talks Proposed About Monument
  By Reuben Staines Staff Reporter South Korea on Thursday proposed to North Korea holding talks to discuss the return of ``Pukkwan Taechop-bi," an ancient stone victory monument taken from the Korean Peninsula by Japan a century ago. Vice Unification Minister Rhee Bong-jo said Seoul suggested the inter-Korean talks in a letter from Yoo Hong-joon, administrator of the South's Cultural Heritage Administration, to Choe Ik-gyu, the North's culture minister. The proposal came after Japan agreed last week to give back the 18th century monument if the two Koreas could reach a consensus on the terms of its return.
  After it was stolen by Japan during the Russo-Japanese war in 1905, it was installed in Tokyo's Yasukuni Shrine, a controversial war memorializing Japan's war dead, including convicted World War II criminals. South Korean activists have been lobbying Japan for the return of the monument. The agreement on its return was reached during talks between Ban Ki-moon, minister of foreign affairs and trade, and Japanese counterpart Nobutaka Machimura on the sidelines of a two-day ministerial session of the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) in Kyoto, Japan, on Friday [Joint Korean]
• I Was Abducted to Japan: Abducted Japanese Woman Returns to DPRK
  An Pil Hwa, returning to the DPRK on April 19.
  A Japanese woman, who had left Japan for the DPRK with her Korean husband in 1959, lived there for more than 40 years and was forced to be taken to Japan in 2002, returned to the DPRK on April 19 by air via China.
• Textbook Nationalism: Perspectives on China, Japan and Korea
  by Jin Hyun-joo [Japan Focus 11 May 2005]
  [Among the debates critical of Japanese textbook nationalism that have raged in Korea, China and internationally in recent months, this is a rare example of a self-reflexive discussion among Korean historians of the logic and limits of nationalist perspectives on their own history and that of East Asia.] For weeks, Japan's textbooks have been sparking strong criticism in Korea and China for whitewashing Japanese colonial rule. But, historians say, Korea's textbooks, published by the government for students in the first to 10th grades, also exhibit strong nationalism. "Voices of the far-right are loud in Japan, but they do not represent the whole Japanese population. On the other hand, Korean nationalism is quiet and not provocative, but is supported by a thick layer of Korea historians," said Lee Gil-sang, a professor at the state-funded Academy of Korean Studies. Nationalism is defined in the dictionary as "the belief that nations will benefit from acting independently..., emphasizing national rather than international goals." In a positive sense, nationalism is considered to be "devotion to the interests or culture of one's nation." Lee, a specialist in history education, said that what all three major countries of East Asia -- Korea, Japan and China -- have in common is the nationalism exhibited in their textbooks. "Nationalism in Japanese textbooks is shown in a less obvious but more clever way. The degree of nationalism in Korean texts is also very serious. China is no different from Korea and Japan. Its textbooks tends to stress ideology," he said.
• Lost Horizons: The Flawed 'Nationalism' of the Koizumi Regime
  by Kaneko Masaru
  [Japan Focus 11 May 2005] [In mid-April Japan's deteriorating relations with China produced mass Chinese demonstrations and much hand-wringing around the Pacific. Subsequently, the frictions again receded into the background, partly as a result of Prime Minister Koizumi Junichiro's April 22nd expression of "deep remorse" at the Africa-Asia summit in Jakarta. Yet according to Kaneko Masaru of Keio University, the problems are hardly over. Even if the tensions don't soon erupt again, they are rooted in multiple and deep-rooted conflicts, and may result in continuing political and economic costs on Japan.] Throughout April, many Japanese expressed irritation at what they perceived as China's endless demands for apologies. The bulk of Japanese conservative opinion in particular claimed that no matter how many times Japan apologizes, demands for more arise. A second argument popular on the right was that the Chinese government uses the Japan issue politically. For example, some insist that Japan is being scapegoated in order to distract attention from China's domestic tensions. But looking at the issue from the Chinese perspective, matters appear a good deal different. The Chinese see a striking lack of consistency. Certainly they have heard apologies from Japan, and they heard one again on April 22 when Koizumi recycled former Prime Minister Murayama Tomiichi's August 15 1995 expression of "deep remorse" for colonization and wartime atrocities. But along with these periodic apologies there have been a stream of such profoundly contradictory actions as Koizumi's politically driven visits to Yasukuni Shrine, the textbook revisionism, and renewed Japanese claims to the Senkaku/Diaoyutai Islands. Think about these kinds of actions in comparative terms. What if Germany's Schroeder suddenly paid a visit to a Nazi cemetery?
• Without saying 'Japan,' Roh sends his message
  May 11, 2005 ? MOSCOW ? Without mentioning Japan by name, President Roh Moo-hyun expressed skepticism to United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan about the country's bid for a permanent seat on the UN Security Council. Meeting with Mr. Annan Monday, Mr. Roh mentioned the proposed UN reforms that would expand the permanent membership of the Security Council. He said, "Those who attempt to advance to the Security Council should examine themselves to see what kind of moral legitimacy they have," according to Chung Woo-seong, senior Blue House adviser for diplomatic affairs. "But Mr. Roh did not mention Japan during the talk," Mr. Chung said.
• Stamps on Ecological Environment of Tok Islet Issued
  Pyongyang, May 9 (KCNA) -- The Korea Stamp Corporation has published a sheetlet showing the ecological environment of Tok Islet. Seen in the upper part of the sheetlet is a stamp showing the So (West) and Tong (East) islets belonging to Tok Islet, viewed by a pair of binoculars, under the words "Ecological Environment of Tok Islet."
• Japan Heightens Cyber Attack on Korea
  By Kim Tae-gyu Staff Reporter Japanese hackers stepped up their cyber attacks on Korean Web sites in April amid the two nation's sovereignty wrangling on Dokdo, the islets in the East Sea. The Korea Information Security Agency (KISA) said yesterday that Japan-based hackers accounted for 15.53 percent of last month's total foreign network attacks amounting to 10.8 million cases, only trailing China's 45.27 percent. [Cyberwar] [NSA]
• Optimal Strategies to Thwart Neo-Nationalism in Japan
  This is Health-Welfare Minister Kim Geun-tae' contribution to The Korea Times. He touches on rising neo-nationalism in Japan, which has come under criticism for making a claim to the tiny Korean islets of Dokdo in the East Sea and approving school textbooks glossing over Japanese atrocities during World War II. - ED.
  By Kim Geun-Tae Minister of Health and Welfare A couple of years ago, Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi suggested reshaping the Korea- Japan relationship on a future-oriented basis. However, it turned out to be mere political rhetoric. It is unlikely that the goal can be achieved in the near future since it is not easy for both countries to efface the deep-seated animosities and mistrust between them. Against this backdrop, a series of provocative initiatives, (e.g. Japan's claim over the Dokdo islets in the East Sea and the approval of new textbooks with distorted historical facts) orchestrated by the neo-nationalists in Japan (hereafter the NNJ) sparked emotional backlashes in Korea and China. It, in turn, has jeopardized the burgeoning reconciliatory bilateral relationship.
  It is in Japan's interest to distance itself from remilitarizing itself in pursuit of its regional hegemony in East Asia. Japan would be better off enhancing its soft power instead of wielding its hard power in a bid to achieve its diplomatic objectives. [Japanese remilitarisation]
• Japan's Double-dealing Political Stance Accused
  Pyongyang, May 7 (KCNA) -- The Japanese reactionaries' adamant insistence on the visit to the "Yasukuni Shrine" directly reveals their militarist ambition to launch overseas aggression, says Minju Joson Saturday in a signed commentary. Urging Japan to seriously mull over the political impact such improper behavior will have and behave itself, the commentary goes on:
• Anti-Japanese Hostilities Move to the Internet
  Chinese and South Korean Hackers Blamed for Digital Barrage Designed to Cripple Web Sites By Anthony Faiola Washington Post Foreign Service Tuesday, May 10, 2005; Page A12 TOKYO -- In the fortified control room of a major Internet security firm, a beleaguered team of experts slouched in front of glowing computer screens, tracking overseas hackers through billions of lines of data. They glanced up periodically at an electronic world map on the wall where, every few seconds, red lines lit up, revealing a new cyber-war aimed at Tokyo. Over the past several months, a series of attacks believed to have originated in China and South Korea have hit dozens of key public and private Web sites hosted in Japan. Authorities describe it as the heaviest assault ever perpetrated on the nation's computer systems from overseas. [NSA] [Cyberwar]
• S. Korea, Japan, China Plan Forum on History Dispute
  By Reuben Staines Staff Reporter Seoul, Beijing and Tokyo tentatively agreed over the weekend to establish a three-way history review committee aimed at settling an emotional row over Japan's unrepentant attitude towards its wartime atrocities.
• Drill Slated for May 17 Near Dokdo Islets
  Maritime police will conduct a defense drill for its easternmost islets of Dokdo on May 17 amid lingering tension with Japan, which also lays claim to them, provincial officials said Sunday.
• Roh, Japanese leaders meet
  May 07, 2005 ? President Roh Moo-hyun told Japanese governing party lawmakers visiting the Blue House yesterday that what the Korean government wants from Japan is not a new apology for the past, but "action" on its previous apologies. Takebe Tsutomu, secretary-general of Japan's Liberal Democratic Party, and Fuyushiba Tetsuzo, secretary-general of the New Komeito Party, the LDP's coalition partner, met with Mr. Roh yesterday and delivered a letter from Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi. The lawmakers told Mr. Roh that they took his remarks seriously, according to Blue House spokesman Kim Man-soo. They are scheduled to visit Independence Hall today, which commemorates Korea's liberation from Japan. Mr. Kim said that the contents of Mr. Koizumi's letter would not be made public.
• Rallies and Protests in S. Korea against Japan's Revival of Militarism
  Pyongyang, May 4 (KCNA) -- The Headquarters of the Student Movement for Defending Tok Islet, Expelling Japanese Ambassador and Liquidating Remnants of Pro-Japanese Force grouping 45 universities across south Korea held a rally of "day of joint action of students for defending Tok Islet and opposing Japan's revival of militarism" in the Citizens Park of Kwanghwamun, Seoul, on April 30, according to a press report. [Japanese remilitarisation]
• Japan plans to return remains of Koreans
  May 07, 2005 ? In a gesture to mend ties, Japan is planning to return to Seoul the remains of Koreans who were forced into labor during World War II, the Asahi Shimbun reported yesterday. According to the daily, last month the Japanese government sent a letter to companies that used an estimated 700,000 Koreans forced to work in Japan, asking them to identify the location of the remains of deceased workers. In 1969, Seoul and Tokyo agreed that identifiable remains of Koreans who served in the Imperial Army would be returned. Up to March, 8,835 sets of remains had been repatriated. Until now, Tokyo has refused to search for the remains of civilians, arguing that there was no direct connection between them and the government.
• Japan's Pitch for Permanent Membership of UNSC Flailed
  Pyongyang, May 3 (KCNA) -- 26 organizations of different circles in south Korea such as the Citizens Solidarity for Peace and Reunification, the Human Rights Committee of the south Korean Council of Christian Churches, the Hungsadan and the Youth Federation of south Korea and 20 public and overseas Korean organizations active in China, Japan, the U.S. and so on reportedly issued an international solidarity statement on Apr. 29 denouncing Japan for making a bid for permanent membership of the UNSC. The statement said: We cannot repress our resentment at Japan working hard to revive militarism as it has tampered with its history of aggression and beautified and justified its criminal acts, thereby rubbing salt into the wounds inflicted by it upon great many Asians, though it should feel responsibility as a war criminal state.
• DPRK's Stand on UNSC Reform Clarified
  Pyongyang, May 3 (KCNA) -- The Democratic People's Republic of Korea calls for making sufficient discussions of all proposals and making tireless efforts to reach a consensus, not setting an artificial deadline for the reform of the UN Security Council, said the DPRK delegate. Making clear the stand of the DPRK at an unofficial meeting of the plenary session of the UN General Assembly on the UNSC reform on April 27, he called for a unanimous agreement of the member states and voiced opposition to setting the criterion of election of a permanent member of the UNSC with main stress on financial contribution. Drawing attention to the fact that Japan has not settled the anti-human war crimes it committed last century, though 60 years have passed, and it teaches a distorted history to the younger generation, beautifying its crime-woven history, and intentionally causes territorial disputes with its neighboring countries, he said those neighboring countries which fell victims to Japan's aggression in the past are strongly opposed to its permanent membership of the UNSC.
• Roh Urges Japan to Take Actions
  By Jung Sung-ki Staff Reporter President Roh Moo-hyun on Friday called Japan to ``action,'' to actively reflect the apologies Japanese leaders have made for the atrocities Japan committed during World War II.
• Seoul, Tokyo Discuss Remains of Koreans
  The Japanese government has launched investigations of the remains of South Koreans conscripted into Japanese businesses during World War II, the Asahi Shimbun reported Thursday. The Tokyo government will convey the results of the investigations to South Korea by August, the report said. To this end, it said, the Japanese government sent a questionnaire to about 100 businesses, including factories and coal mines, in Japan. In a related development, South Korea and Japan began talks on repatriating the remains of South Koreans conscripted during World War II, officials in Seoul said. The talks, the first since the Korean Peninsula was liberated from the 1910-45 Japanese colonial rule, came five months after President Roh Moo- hyun asked Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi to return the remains during their summit in Japan. The two countries agreed to form a committee overseeing excavation and repatriation of the remains, according to the officials. During Japan's colonial rule, millions of Koreans are believed to have been mobilized overseas for labor or military service, with many dying or being injured there. According to declassified South Korean documents, about 22,000 Koreans were killed while serving with the Japanese military, but only 8,300 sets of remains were collected. Of these, 6,000 were returned to South Korea in 1948, three years after Korea's liberation, and 1,192 were posthumously repatriated between 1970 and 1998. The Japanese government is believed to have 1,136 sets of Korean remains. South Korea and Japan normalized relations in 1965, two decades after the liberation in 1945. Lingering anti-Japanese sentiment has flared up in recent months after Japan laid claim to South Korea's easternmost islets of Dokdo. jckim@koreatimes.co.kr 05-05-2005 17:06
• Japanese Politicians to Meet Roh on Friday
  By Ryu Jin Staff Reporter A group of Japanese political leaders, led by chief secretaries of the nation's coalition cabinet, arrived in South Korea yesterday for a four-day visit in which political observers hope would be a chance for the two countries to mend fences after serious diplomatic rows.
• Japan's Reluctant Globalization
  by Brian J. McVeigh [Japan Focus 5 May 2005]
  Review of Ulrike Schaede and William Grimes. Japan's Managed Globalization: Adapting to the Twenty-first Century. Armonk, New York: M.E. Sharpe, Inc., 2003. xiii + 263 pp. Tables, figures, notes, index. $73.95 (cloth), ISBN 0-7656-0951-7; $25.95 (paper), ISBN 0-7656-0952-5.
  Starting with the famed "chrysanthemum-and-the-sword" description, Japan seems to invite portrayals that attempt to capture contradictory or ostensibly conflicting trends. Its political system has been described as "patterned pluralism," "compartmentalized pluralism," and one of "bureaucratic -led mass inclusion." Its economy is said to have "guided markets" and "managed competition." Its capitalism has been characterized as "nonliberal" (or even illiberal). It is a nation where corporate concerns trump politics ("Japan Inc."). Internationally, it is a "fragile superpower," an economic giant but a political dwarf.[1] "Is-Japan-really-changing?" is another fixation that orients interpretations of Japan.
• Koizumi to Visit Seoul in June for Summit
  TOKYO/SEOUL (Yonhap) - Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi plans to visit South Korea late next month for a meeting with President Roh Moo-hyun, Japan's foreign minister was quoted as saying. Nobutaka Machimura briefed U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Koizumi's planned trip at a meeting in Washington on Monday (local time), Japanese news reports said.
• Anti-Japanese Campaign Held in Los Angeles
  Pyongyang, April 29 (KCNA) -- An anti-Japanese rally and demonstration reportedly took place in Los Angeles, the United States, on April 24 to check Japan's bid for a permanent membership of the UNSC and demand the settlement of its past. Participating in the campaign, co-sponsored by the Association of Koreans in Los Angeles and Chinese organizations, were more than 3,000 people, including members of human rights movement organizations of Filipino, Cambodian, Vietnamese and other Asians.
• Japan's Arms Buildup under Fire
  Pyongyang, April 29 (KCNA) -- Rodong Sinmun in an article Friday notes that the Japanese militarists have openly revealed the militarist nature and entered the stage of carrying into practice the reinforcement of its aggression armed forces and preemptive attack, getting quite outspoken in advocating them when the situation has undergone a change in the international arena. The author of the article says: The main point of the increase of the aggression forces by the Japanese militarists is to modernize them and arm them with long-range and up-to-date military hardware. Japan's military power has grown beyond comparison in the period of the current "mid-term arms buildup program" and, accordingly, Japan has joined the ranks of the world military powers in reality as well as in name. [Japanese remilitarisation]
• KCNA Slams Japan's Invariable Wild Ambition for Reinvasion
  Pyongyang, April 29 (KCNA) -- It was disclosed recently that in 1994 the Japan Defence Agency conducted a mock preemptive strike exercise under the simulated conditions of "countering the missile attack" of the DPRK. The exercise required fighters of the Air "Self-Defence Force" to fly close to their destination at super-high altitude, supported by the U.S. forces in gathering information about the "enemy" and "neutralizing its ground radars," before "attacking its missile bases" at a low altitude and flying back at super-high altitude. It also envisaged the event in which fighters ran out of fuel. In this case they were required to get an in-flight refueling from the U.S. forces or land on the base of the U.S. forces present in south Korea. The event also called on a pilot to parachute from his plane to the sea to be rescued by a warship of the "Self-Defence Forces". Commenting on the mock exercise, the military officers concerned were reported to have concluded that "there was no problem from the military point of view." [Japanese remilitarisation]
• Japanese-Korean Woman Interviewed after Her Return Here
  Pyongyang, April 28 (KCNA) -- Japanese-Korean woman An Phil Hwa who had been abducted to Japan was interviewed by mediapersons at Pyongyang Koryo Hotel Thursday. She said at the press conference: I was born in Katsushika Ward, Tokyo metropolis in November 1938. In December 1959 I came to the DPRK together with my Korean husband and have since lived here for 43 years. Early in December, 2002, I met a man on my way home where my daughter lived after visiting my son. The man asked me to meet my younger sister who he said had been waiting for me in a place not far away from there. Preoccupied by the eagerness to meet my younger sister, I believed what he said and was thus lured by him. In Dalian, China, Japanese journalists, officials concerned of the Japanese consulate general and Korean-speaking men affiliated to an anti-DPRK plot-breeding organization took me to Japan, taking me as "something to cover" and a "bargaining chip" to be used in their anti-DPRK campaign. Recalling that she was coaxed into going to Japan by those manipulated by the Japanese right- wing reactionaries to be used for an anti-DPRK smear campaign, she went on to say
• Vet Says Vietnam War Gives Lesson to Koreans
  By Kim Jong-kon Hankook Ilbo Chae Myung-shin, 80, who led the Korean troops during the Vietnam War for 56 months, stressed the need for the nation to strengthen its alliance with the United States, describing it as essential in efforts to ensure security for the nation. ``The alliance with the United States has become all the more important in order to deter the possible threats from China and Japan, which have been attempting to beef up their national hegemony in the region,'' Chae said during a recent interview with The Hankook Ilbo, sister paper of The Korea Times
  Q: What is the lesson of the Vietnam War? A: Some people demanded that the country wage a war against Japan when Japanese boats approached the Dokdo islets in the East Sea. But how can they come with such a claim? Japan already has four Aegis ships and 100 F-5 planes although we are poised to introduce only one unit.

• Admiral Yi Sun-sin commemorated
  Turtle ship parade: Students, scholars, and citizens take part in a parade Thursday to commemorate the birth of Admiral Yi Sun-sin who was born on April 28 460 years ago and defeated the Japanese invaders with a turtle-like Ship [photo]
• Groups Unite to Save Last Korean Village of Forced Laborers in Japan
  By Lee Jin-woo Staff Reporter South Korean human right activists have formed an association in an effort to save the last Korean community of conscripted laborers in Japan.
• Ending the Russia-Japan Impasse: fresh thinking on the Kurils
  by Kosuke Takahashi [Japan Focus 28 April 2005]
  TOKYO - With Japan experiencing strained diplomatic relationship with China and South Korea, the opportunity exists to set the tone in balance-of-power politics and economic integration with another neighbor. That is Russia, and the overarching, issue that continues to divide Japan and Russia is sovereignty over the four Russian-held Kuril Islands. Recently, some Japanese experts on Russia have been calling for greater flexibility and compromise by Tokyo, which has always demanded the return of all four islands. There's no sign yet of official acceptance, but pressures are building for Japan to strike a deal and accept a "two islands plus alpha" solution - still to be hammered out. In this perspective, Japan would give up its demands for the return of all four islands and instead accept the two smaller islands and a portion of the two larger ones. While dispute continues over the islands, called the Northern Territories by the Japanese and the Southern Kurils by the Russians, conciliatory approaches are beginning to crop up among Russia experts in Japan. The majority of specialists remain determined to wage a long, drawn-out contest with Russia and support Japan's official demand for the return of all four islands, but an increasing number have begun to float the possibility of compromise, arguing that better relations with Moscow are essential at a time when Japan's relations with China and South Korea have plummeted.
• Striking Shenzhen Workers at Japanese-owned Wal-Mart Supplier Firm Demand Right to Unionize
  by China Labor Bulletin [Japan Focus 28 April 2005]
  [In recent weeks, a number of protests directed against Japan have erupted throughout China. The most widely reported have been sparked by anger at new Japanese school textbooks that elide discussion of World War II atrocities, by territorial conflicts over the Diaoyutai/Senkaku islands, and by the Japanese bid for a permanent Security Council seat. Participants in those protests appear to have been overwhelmingly from the ranks of students and intellectuals. The strike at the Japanese-owned Uniden factory in Shenzhen, Guangdong carries the protest movement to a new level. It is significant as one of the first actions by workers in opposition to Japanese labor practices, as well as being an action that could simultaneously impact on the American giant firm Wal-Mart that has thus far resisted Chinese government pressures to permit a union
• Japan strikes back in textbook disputes
  April 28, 2005 ? The Japanese government has hit back in the history textbook war, announcing yesterday that it will scrutinize history textbooks from 20 countries, including South Korea, China and the United States. Officials in Tokyo said the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ministry of Education will conduct reviews, with the modern history in China's and South Korea's textbooks a priority. World War II, territorial issues and any descriptions of Japan will also be studied.
• Japan's Bid to Internationalize "Abduction Issue" under Fire
  Pyongyang, April 26 (KCNA) -- Minju Joson Monday in a signed commentary denounced Japan for crying out again for the settlement of the "abduction issue," an issue which had already been solved, at the 61st meeting of the UN Commission on Human Rights, in a bid to solicit international cooperation. The Japanese imperialists are assailants who heaped unbearable insult on the Korean nation after illegally occupying Korea in the past, the commentary noted, and went on: The "abduction issue" is, in the final analysis, a product of Japan's hostile acts against the DPRK. The DPRK, however, has met all the requests made by Japan out of the idea of humanitarianism and the desire to improve the DPRK-Japan relations. It sent back those persons concerned and handed over even the remains of the dead to Japan. It is a universally accepted ethics to respond to good faith and favor in kind. Nevertheless, Japan has behaved quite contrary to it. Before long, it fabricated the fiction of the "false remains," challenging even science
• Roh Stresses Cooperation With Japan
  By Shim Jae-yun Staff Reporter President Roh Moo-hyun stressed Wednesday that South Korea and Japan need to cooperate closely to ensure peace and prosperity in Northeast Asia. ``(South) Korea and Japan share the same destiny to jointly open the future in Northeast Asia,'' Roh said in an interview with Mindan Shimbun, a newspaper for Korean-Japanese. Roh cited the need for the two nations to pursue a new approach to dealing with various issues, including the dispute over modern history.
• Lotus Lamps to Be Installed on Dokdo
  By Kim Tae-jong Staff Reporter The Chogyesa temple will install lotus lamps on the Dokdo islets in celebration of the birthday of Buddha on May 15.
• Dokdo Survey Planned to Rebuff Japan's Claim
  By Lee Jin-woo Staff Reporter The government will conduct a new geographical survey of Dokdo islets in an effort to rebuff Japan's sovereignty claims over South Korea's easternmost islets in the East Sea, the Ministry of Government Administration and Home Affairs (MOGAHA) said Tuesday.
• Tokyo court rejects Yasukuni-visit suit
  The Tokyo District Court on Tuesday rejected a damages suit by about 1,000 people, including South Koreans, who said visits to Yasukuni Shrine by Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and Tokyo Gov. Shintaro Ishihara were unconstitutional. Plaintiffs suing over visits by Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and Tokyo Gov. Shintaro Ishihara to Yasukuni Shrine enter the Tokyo District Court. The situation did not warrant that the plaintiffs' rights or interests should be legally protected, presiding Judge Hiroyuki Shibata said in handing down the ruling. The court did not rule on whether visits to the shrine -- which is regarded by critics as a symbol of Japan's militarist past -- violated the constitutional separation of religion and state. It also did not make any judgment on whether the visits were made in a private or official capacity.
• KOIZUMI'S DIPLOMACY Postwar reconciliation with rest of Asia in peril
  By KANAKO TAKAHARA Staff writer Bilateral relations between Japan and the United States during the four years Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi has been in office have often been characterized as a "honeymoon." Koizumi was one of the first leaders to give President George W. Bush his all-out support for the U.S.-led war on Iraq and sent the Self-Defense Forces to Iraq on a humanitarian mission. But Japan's relationships with its East Asian neighbors, however, namely China and South Korea, are at their worst in decades due to the uproar over history textbooks that critics say gloss over its wartime aggression and the prime minister's repeated visits to Yasukuni Shrine, which honors the nation's war dead, including Class-A war criminals.
• DNA Test for Yokota Megumi Is Not Conclusive: Japanese Expert
  UK Science Magazine Casts Doubts to Japan's Test Results
• DPRK Demanded Japan Make Sincere Apology and Redress Its Crimes Against Humanity
  A representative of the DPRK said at the UN Commission on Human Rights that Japan should accept legal responsibility, apologize and compensate for the crimes against humanity committed in the past against Korean people including the military sexual slavery imposed upon thousands during its occupation.
• "Tok-Islet Is Korea's"
  North and South Oppose Japan's claim to Tok Islet
• More words exchanged over textbooks
  April 26, 2005 ? The Foreign Ministry yesterday chided Japanese Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura for "inappropriate" remarks about history texbooks in Korea and China. In a TV interview Sunday in Japan, the Japanese foreign minister suggested that Korea and China each have only one authorized history textbook for their schools, and called that a "stupid" system. Korean schools can actually choose from numerous textbooks.
• Resigning of S. Korea-Japan "Agreement" Urged in S. Korea
  Pyongyang, April 25 (KCNA) -- Twenty-eight lawmakers from ruling and opposition parties in south Korea on April 21 presented to the National Assembly a draft resolution demanding that the south Korean-Japan "agreement" of 1965 be resigned, according to south Korean KBS. Decrying the "agreement" as an offspring of typical humiliating diplomacy defending the Japanese imperialists' colonial rule over Korea in the past, they in the resolution urged an immediate opening to the public of all the documents related to it. They demanded that Japan reflect on and apologize for its invasion and colonial occupation of the Korean Peninsula and that the Japanese government transfer to the south Korean government materials concerning human rights violation such as the issue of "comfort women" for the imperial Japanese army which it has so far concealed.
• Japan Urged to Halt Abduction of Citizens of DPRK
  Tokyo, April 23 (KNS-KCNA) -- An Phil Hwa, Japanese woman in the DPRK, came back to the DPRK after being abducted to Japan due to the appeasement of the Japanese reactionaries. The Human Rights Association of Koreans in Japan Friday issued a statement in this connection. Recalling that she expressed her feelings at the press conference at the DPRK embassy in Beijing prior to her departure on April 18, the statement said: This clearly indicates that the An Phil Hwa case was an abduction carried out in conspiracy and collusion with international reactionaries. In recent years right-wing conservative groups in the U.S. and south Korea and tricksters in service to Japan under the cloak of a "non- governmental organization" have resorted to dastardly moves to tarnish the image of the DPRK at any cost under the pretext of "human rights issue".
• KCNA on Japan's Rhetoric about "Abduction Issue"
  Pyongyang, April 23 (KCNA) -- The Korean Central News Agency in a lengthy commentary Saturday cited facts to lash out the Japanese reactionaries' renewed anti-DPRK racket over the "abduction issue". It says: The charade restarted by them over the "abduction issue" which had already found a solution is a blatant challenge to the Korean people and international justice demanding Japan settle its past crimes on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the Japanese imperialists' defeat. Recently the Japanese reactionaries organized a largely attended people's rally dealing with the "abduction issue" and set in motion media to stoke bitterness toward Koreans among Japanese in a bid to internationalize the issue.
• Tokyo Governor Slams Roh's '3rd Rate Politicking'
  Japan 'Could Take Dokdo to ICJ'
  Foreign Ministry Cut Out of Korea-Japan Dispute? Let-It-All-Hang-Out Diplomacy
  Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara on Sunday fired a broadside at Korean President Roh Moo-hyun, saying his criticism of Japan was a "a third-rate political technique" to recover popularity at home. Appearing on a Fuji TV interview program, Ishihara said Roh's repeated criticism of Japan over its colonial abuses and the Dokdo Islets was "a stopgap measure for President Roh to recover some of his popularity." He added, "For a politician it's a third-rate technique." Senior Vice Foreign Minister Ichiro Aisawa, who also appeared on the show, said there was "no change" in the Japanese government's position that Korea's Dokdo Islets "are Japanese territory." The show also gave airtime to the chairman of Japan's rightwing Society for History Textbook Reform, which is behind the controversial Fusosha textbook whitewashing the country's wartime atrocities. The chairman of the group said for Korea to demand corrections in the textbook was tantamount to "interference" in Japan's internal affairs.
• Japan protesters denounce N Korea
  Relatives say North Korea has failed to provide credible evidence About 6,000 people have rallied in Tokyo demanding sanctions against North Korea over its abduction of Japanese people more than 20 years ago. [abductees] [evidence]
• Japan's Fabrication of "Results of Examination" of Remains Flailed
  Pyongyang, April 22 (KCNA) -- Members of the National Association for the Promotion of Japan-Korea Diplomatic Relations denounced Japan's fabrication of "results of examination" of the remains of Megumi Yokota at a meeting held in Tokyo on April 8 to hear a report about their visit to the DPRK. General Secretary of the association Haruki Wata warned against the biased reports of Japanese media which connived at a report of the British science magazine Nature. He said the one who examined the remains should appear before the media and give a correct explanation for a solution to the question. And he said it was highly advisable for Japan to think and act discreetly as regards its moves to distort history. Masashi Kimiya, assistant professor of Tokyo University, lamented that Japan was confusing science and politics in the matter of remains.
• Koizumi offers apology for Japan's past
  April 23, 2005 ? JAKARTA ? Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi of Japan used the occasion of a speech here at the Asia-Africa summit yesterday to issue an official expression of regret for his country's aggression during World War II and the period of colonial rule.
• Japan's Fabrication of "Results of Examination" of Remains Flailed
  Pyongyang, April 22 (KCNA) -- Members of the National Association for the Promotion of Japan- Korea Diplomatic Relations denounced Japan's fabrication of "results of examination" of the remains of Megumi Yokota at a meeting held in Tokyo on April 8 to hear a report about their visit to the DPRK. General Secretary of the association Haruki Wata warned against the biased reports of Japanese media which connived at a report of the British science magazine Nature. He said the one who examined the remains should appear before the media and give a correct explanation for a solution to the question. And he said it was highly advisable for Japan to think and act discreetly as regards its moves to distort history. Masashi Kimiya, assistant professor of Tokyo University, lamented that Japan was confusing science and politics in the matter of remains. [Evidence]
• Koizumi...Yasukuni
  Japan's Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, left, arrives for the opening of the Asian-African leaders summit in Jakarta, Friday. He made an apology over his country's wartime aggression against Asian countries. But the right photo shows Japanese lawmakers visiting Tokyo's controversial Yasukuni Shrine for the Spring Festival. / Reuters, AFP-Yonhap 04-22-2005 17:34 [photo]
• Tokto photo
  Light of Einstein on Dokdo: Squid fishing vessels surrounding Dokdo shine their lights at the moment the ``Light of Einstein'' arrives at the islets at 8:07 p.m. Tuesday. The special light, in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the great scientist's death, made a stopover at Dokdo after being launched from Princeton University in the U.S. It traveled around the world, including Korean cities such as Pusan, Pohang, and Seoul. [photo]
• The Rise of Japanese Militarism
  Japan Provokes Territotial Disputes with Its Neighbours Introduction Zhang Donglin The latest dispute over the Diaoyutai Isles provoked by Japanese right-wing extremists with the support from the Japanese government is by no means an isolated incident. It must be viewed together with Japan's aggressive approach to the Tokdo Island in Korea. [Japanese remilitarisation]
• Bombardment of Tokyo's Nuclear Labs
  McNair Paper Number 41, Radical Responses to Radical Regimes: Evaluating Preemptive Counter-Proliferation, May 1995 Japan's scientific community was also aware of the explosive possibilities of an uranium bomb. During World War II, the Japanese Army funded one nuclear research project in Tokyo and the Japanese Navy started two other such projects.
• Parties of 2 Koreas Hit Japan's Militarism
  By Seo Dong-shin Staff Reporter The minor opposition Democratic Labor Party (DLP) on Thursday criticized Japan for attempting to revive militarism in a statement which party officials said was simultaneously issued by the (North) Korean Social Democratic Party (KSDP) in Pyongyang. It is the first time for political parties in the South and North to issue a joint statement on a particular issue since the nation's division following the 1950-53 Korean War. ``Japan's ambition toward militarism has recently surfaced and its longing for expansion of territory and distortion of history has amounted to a dangerous extent,'' said the statement read by Kim Hye-kyung, DLP chairwoman, at the National Assembly in Seoul. [Japanese remilitarisation]
• Nationalism and the China-Japan Conflict
  by Asahi Shimbun 11 April 2005 [ Japan Focus 21 April 2005]
  [As China-Japan relations entered their tensest period since the reestablishment of diplomatic relations in 1972, Japan's Asahi Shimbun appraised the situation in an article by its China bureau chief and an editorial. Noting the role of the Chinese government in fueling the current wave of protests and of the police in failing to curb violence directed against the Japanese embassy, the newspaper called on it to rein in nationalist actions that could jeopardize the flourishing economic relations between the two nations. The Asahi locates the protests in the context of Chinese responses to Japan's textbook controversy and its bid for a permanent seat on the UN Security Council. It warns the governments of both countries that the genie of nationalism, once out of the bottle, may be difficult to curb, a warning with deep historical roots in the China-Japan relationship. The Asahi texts make no mention, however, of rising nationalism in Japan, nor do they specify ways in which Japanese government and people might contribute to easing the tensions that threaten the relationship between Asia's most powerful nations. Japan Focus]
• Engaging History and Peace in a Time of Conflict: A New Documentary on Japan's Constitution
  by Eriko Arita [ Japan Focus 21 April 2005]
  [Rarely does a documentary film, many months in production, appears as timely as the nightly news when it's released. But the premiere in Tokyo on April 23 of "Japan's Peace Constitution" (Japanese title: "Eiga Nihon-koku Kempo"), directed by Japan Focus associate John Junkerman, comes at a moment when tensions with China and Korea over Japan's war past are at their highest levels in decades. The film, produced by the Tokyo independent production house Siglo, shows that the drive to revise the Japanese Constitution cannot be divorced from an understanding of that history or from the impact revision will have on Japan's relations with its neighboring countries. In order to provide an international perspective on the constitution, the filmmakers traveled to eight countries, with interviews ranging from American historian John Dower on the making of the constitution to Syrian and Lebanese journalists on the dispatch of the Self Defense Force to Iraq. Chalmers Johnson provides a grounding in the "base world" American empire, and Korean historians Kang Man-Gil and Han Hong Koo appeal to Japan to fully acknowledge its past in order to embrace a future of constructive engagement with Asia. Japan Focus]
• Japan emerges as America's deputy sheriff in the Pacific
  Simon Tisdall Tuesday April 19, 2005 The Guardian
  Escalating tension with China, violently illustrated by renewed anti-Japanese protests in Shanghai and other big cities at the weekend, is increasing pressure on Tokyo to expand its military capabilities and back a deepening strategic alliance with the US reaching from east Asia to the Gulf.
• Japanese Woman Interviewed in Beijing
  Beijing, April 18 (KCNA) -- An Phil Hwa, Japanese woman in the DPRK, was interviewed by media persons at the DPRK embassy in Beijing Monday. Born in Katsushika in Tokyo Metropolis on November 24, 1938, she came to the DPRK together with her Korean husband in December 1959 in the first batch of returnees from Japan. She has since lived there for 43 years. She has two children and three grandchildren there. She told the following story of how she was coaxed into going back to Japan:
• Embarrassed Japan Drops Abductee DNA Issue
  By Park Song-wu, Reuben Staines Staff Reporters After months of accusations and recriminations flying between Japan and North Korea, Tokyo is now trying to quietly close the file on kidnap victim Megumi Yokota's remains. The contentious bones, which were returned to Japan late last year, sparked an uproar in Tokyo after DNA tests indicated they did not belong to Yokota as Pyongyang had claimed. Japan alleged that communist North Korea, which abducted the woman from her home in Niigata in 1977, was now trying to palm it off with someone else's remains. This outcry, however, dissolved into an embarrassed silence when science journal Nature cast serious doubts earlier this year over the reliability of the tests and revealed signs of a Japanese cover-up, according to a South Korean researcher.
  Kwak in Seoul argues that Yokota's remains were used by Japanese politicians to raise nationalist sentiment that could be mobilized to push for a change in Japan's pacifist constitution.
• Korea, Japan produce joint textbook
  April 20, 2005 ? Teachers from South Korea and Japan have succeeded in publishing an auxiliary history textbook ? albeit one that does not cover the 20th century, a period which, due to the Japanese colonization of the peninsula, is the most contentious period of bilateral relations. South Korean teachers belonging to the national teachers union's Daegu chapter and Japanese teachers belonging to the Hiroshima prefecture's teachers association jointly started the project four years ago.
• Japan's Impudent Behavior Assailed
  Pyongyang, April 19 (KCNA) -- Japan is straining every nerve to grab a seat of permanent membership of the UN Security Council by taking advantage of the ever louder voices calling for the reform of the United Nations in the international arena. Ridiculing this as an impudent act of a political dwarf, a Rodong Sinmun analyst Tuesday says: Japan's bid for a seat of permanent membership of the UNSC is unthinkable apart from the historical issue.
• Japan Urged to Feel Ashamed of Its Fabrication
  Pyongyang, April 19 (KCNA) -- Last March the British science magazine Nature reported that Prof. of forensic medicine Yoshii of Deikyo College of Japan confessed to the fact that the results of examination of the remains of Megumi Yokota conducted by him were not certain and there was the possibility of the sample of the remains being contaminated. In this regard Minju Joson Tuesday says in a signed commentary: This indicates that the "story about false remains" Japan has used as strong evidence providing a pretext for applying sanctions against the DPRK was nothing but a fiction devoid of any scientific credibility.
• Japan should defuse the anger
  Anti-Japan rallies have been going on in China for three weeks now. The protests began in a few major cities, then spread nationwide in every direction, including Shanghai, Shenyang and Hong Kong. The protests have diversified in their tactics, from simple street rallies to attacks on Japanese shops and businesses, boycotts of Japanese products and labor action by Chinese employees at Japanese businesses. Japanese citizens have responded to the violent nature of these rallies with violence of their own in Japan, attacking and threatening Chinese diplomatic missions and attempting self- immolation.
  But to repair this uneasy situation Japanese leaders must demonstrate a more future-oriented, broad-minded attitude. Rather than peddling favors to underdeveloped countries to try to get a seat at the United Nations Security Council, it is more urgent for Japan to restore the confidence of its neighbors.
• Japanese Official's Trip to China Fails to Break Political Deadlock
  By Edward Cody Washington Post Foreign Service Tuesday, April 19, 2005; Page A10 BEIJING, April 18 -- A two-day fence-mending visit by the Japanese foreign minister ended Monday with no sign China and Japan are prepared to back away from the political and territorial disputes that have pushed their relations to a postwar low. "I don't know the reason why we would have to change our policies with regard to China," said Hatsuhisa Takashima, a spokesman for Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura.
  The unyielding positions of both countries appear sharpened by a sense of strategic rivalry as China's power expands across Asia and Japan redefines its regional military role in close cooperation with the United States
• Survey shows Japan is seen as leading threat
  April 18, 2005 ? In a national survey examining which country Koreans feel most threatened by, Japan jumped to the top spot over the United States and North Korea. According to the poll of 800 Koreans done last week by Research and Research, a survey company, 37.1 percent of respondents said they feel Japan is the greatest threat to Korea. North Korea was the second most threatening country at 28.6 percent, followed by the United States at 18.5 percent and China at 11.9 percent. The company's poll in January last year found that 39 percent of the respondents said the United States was the most threatening country to Korea. At the time, only 7.6 percent of those surveyed counted Japan as most threatening.
• Anti-Japan protester dies of burn injuries
  April 18, 2005 ? A man who set himself on fire in an anti-Japan protest last month died in hospital yesterday. Kim Gyung-tae was demonstrating in front of the Dangjin county office in South Chungcheong province on March 29 and chanting "Dokdo belongs to Korea," when he poured gasoline on his body and set himself ablaze.
• S. Koreans Asked to Stay Away From Rallies in China
  The government on Sunday advised its citizens to stay away from anti-Japanese rallies in China and to exercise caution due to the possibility of right-wing terrorist attacks in Japan, officials said. As a result of security concerns, South Korea's consulates in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou and the northwestern city of Shenyang issued warnings against attending or getting close to anti-Japanese demonstrations, they said. The officials cited worries that Chinese demonstrators may mistake Koreans for Japanese.
• Translated Version of Controversial Japanese Textbook to Go Online
  TOKYO (Yonhap) - A right-wing Japanese group plans to post Korean and Chinese versions of its controversial history textbook on its Web site next week, a newspaper reported Saturday.
• Violence flares as the Chinese rage at Japan
  With tens of thousands demonstrating on the streets in cities across China, Jonathan Watts in Shanghai examines the roots of an old enmity and a new conflict
  Sunday April 17, 2005 The Observer For most of the tens of thousands of anti-Japanese demonstrators who took to the streets of Shanghai yesterday, it was the first public protest they had ever seen, let alone taken part in. A few over the age of 35 remembered the pro-democracy campaign of 1989. A handful had joined small anti-American rallies in 1999. But for almost an entire generation this was their first chance to march for a cause.

• Diplomats grumble over Roh letter
  March 25, 2005 ? Foreign Ministry officials expressed unhappiness yesterday over President Roh Moo-hyun's aggressive diplomatic initiative that he started this week against Japan. Seizing on the conflict between Seoul and Tokyo over the Dokdo islands and alleged distortions in Japanese history textbooks, the president said Wednesday that Korea would press Japan to atone for its actions during the time it ruled Korea. Mr. Roh promised to be forceful, even if it meant, as he said, a "diplomatic war." The strong language appeared in a letter he addressed to the public. At the Foreign Ministry, officials complained yesterday that Mr. Roh did not consult with them before verbally attacking Japan.
• GNP Hits Roh's Diplomacy on Japan
  By Park Song-wu Staff Reporter The main opposition Grand National Party (GNP) on Thursday expressed concern over President Roh Moo-hyun's declaration of ``diplomatic war'' on Japan, saying a more ``refined'' approach is required. ``I cannot but wonder whether President
• Roh sees 'diplomatic war' with Japan
  March 24, 2005 ? Using unusually strong language, President Roh Moo-hyun criticized Japan yesterday, saying that Tokyo's policies and offenses have reached a point that South Korea can no longer tolerate. In a letter to the public, released in a Blue House gazette, Mr. Roh said that a "diplomatic war" is conceivable between the two countries. Korea, he said, would ask Japan to reconsider its record of justifying past damage it had done to its neighbors.
• Signature Book Submitted to ILO
  Pyongyang, March 22 (KCNA) -- The south Korean Confederation of Trade Unions and the Federation of south Korean Trade Unions submitted to the International Labour Organization the book carrying signatures of 200,000 persons demanding the compensation to the victims of the sexual slavery for the imperial Japanese army and opposing Japan's bid to become a permanent member of the UNSC, according to south Korean MBC. The organizations declared that this is part of the action urging the Japanese government to pay a legal reparation for the enforcement of the sexual slavery at the ILO general meeting of to be held in June.
• Japan Urged to Disclose Truth behind Fabrication of Results of DNA Test
  Pyongyang, March 22 (KCNA) --The British science magazine Nature recently disclosed on its Internet site that the results of the DNA test of the remains of Japanese woman Megumi Yokota released by Japan were a sheer fabrication and lie. Rodong Sinmun Tuesday carries a signed article in this regard. It has been disclosed to the world that the results of the DNA examination of Megumi's remains turned out to be a sheer fabrication quite contrary to the assertions made by right- wing reactionary politicians and reactionary media of Japan, the article notes, citing facts to prove that the results of the test released by Japan are logically contradictory and do not stand to reason in view of the development of matters and phenomena.
• `Tsushima Controlled by Ancient Korean Kingdom'
  By Lee Jin-woo Staff Reporter A book written by an American missionary to the Choson Kingdom says Tsushima, an island in Nagasaki Prefecture in Japan, was a dependency of the ancient Korean kingdom of Silla, a professor said. The picture shows the ``History of Korea,'' written by Homer B. Hulbert, an American missionary and scholar, in 1905. Yonhap According to Lee Hyun-bok, professor emeritus at Seoul Cyber University, the History of Korea, written by Homer B. Hulbert (1863-1949), a missionary and scholar, in 1905, shows the Japanese island used to be under Korean control.
• `Cool-Headedness Needed for Tokto Issue'
  By Ryu Jin Staff Reporter There will be more losses than gains if South Korea deploys armed forces on Tokto (Dokdo) or takes other tougher measures to strengthen its effective control on the tiny islets at this point of time, experts said Thursday. At an open forum hosted by the Institute of Foreign Affairs and National Security (IFANS), scholars, politicians, journalists and government officials put forth various ways to protect Tokto from Japan's rightists.
• Kyongsang Keeps Away Shimane
  Japan's Shimane Prefecture, under fire for its territorial claims over the South Korean islets of Tokto (Dokdo), has asked South Korea's North Kyongsang Province to retract its decision to sever a bilateral sisterhood relationship, provincial officials said Thursday.
• Roh's Harsh Criticism Stuns Japan
  TOKYO (Yonhap) - Japan was in a state of shock after South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun lashed out at the country in an unprecedentedly harsh tone for attempting to justify its imperialist past. On Wednesday, Roh said his patience with Japan had reached its limit and he was prepared to risk a ``diplomatic war'' with Tokyo unless the neighboring country earnestly repents for its past. He was referring to a series of recent Japanese moves to challenge South Korea's sovereignty over Tokto (Dokdo), a group of islets in the East Sea, and distort the two countries' shared history. Japanese officials and politicians were shocked at Roh's statement, but they called for calm.
• Asians Cooperate to Counter Japan's Rising Militarism
  By Seo Dong-shin Staff Reporter Lawmakers from across Asia will inaugurate an association in an attempt to ward off ``militarism poised to resurface in Japan,'' a ruling party lawmaker said Wednesday. South Korean lawmakers expressed hope the association will include their counterparts from Japan as well as those from countries such as Russia, China, the Philippines, Indonesia, Singapore and Vietnam. The first meeting of the alliance will take place around August in the southern island of Cheju, Rep. Kang Chang-il of the Uri Party told reporters at the National Assembly in Yoido, Seoul. [Japanese remilitarisation]
• Japan's Reckless Moves to Reinvade Korea Assailed
  Pyongyang, March 21 (KCNA) -- A spokesman for the Association of Korean Victims of Forcible Drafting and Their Bereaved Families issued a statement on Monday in which he bitterly denounced the Japanese reactionaries for working hard to reinvade the DPRK in a foolish bid to realize the old dream of the "Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere." He slashed the Japanese reactionaries for having made far-fetched assertion that Tok Islet, part of the inviolable territory of Korea, belongs to Japan.
• Allies Rattled by Intelligence Fiascos
  By Ryu Jin Staff Reporter One of the most reclusive and cloistered states in the world, North Korea often has to see any suspicions surrounding it turn into truth despite its desperate pleas toward the outside world. And, indeed, the hermit kingdom seems to have something to say this time.
  When the U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was making rounds to three Northeast Asian countries as she did as the national security advisor about eight months ago, bad news flew into Seoul revealing what might be described as ``another intelligence fiasco'' of the U.S.
  In a news article, headlined ``US Misled Allies About Nuclear Export,'' the Washington Post reported that it was not North Korea but Pakistan _ a key U.S. ally in its war on terror _ that sold uranium hexafluoride to Libya. According to the report, which quoted a couple of American officials, the U.S. delivered the false allegation to its Asian allies _ South Korea and Japan _ and China, while giving briefings to them earlier this year, in an effort to increase pressure on North Korea.
  The Post wrote the U.S. officials said the briefings were ``hastily arranged'' after China and South Korea indicated they were considering bolting from six-party talks on North Korea.
  The alleged cover-up, a reminder of the earlier dispute over its intelligence fiasco in the run-up to the Iraqi invasion, has raised a strong suspicion here that the U.S. has joined hands with Japan to spread falsified information in order to topple the Kim Jong-il regime in North Korea.
  In the Japanese version of the alleged information cook-up, the Tokyo government condemned Pyongyang last December saying it concluded that the bone ashes sent from North Korea were not those of Megumi Yokota, who was abducted by the North's agents decades ago.
  Much similar to the American case, which neo-conservatives apparently attempted to utilize for a harder line policy shift against the communist North, Tokyo also tried to use its own conclusion to suggest punitive measures such as economic sanctions.
  But the abduction dispute has recently entered a new phase after a Japanese scientist's recognition that his DNA tests on the ashes were not conclusive. According to Nature, a British science magazine, Tomio Yoshii, one of Japan's leading forensics experts, admitted his DNA tests were not conclusive and that it is possible the samples were contaminated.
  ``What the U.S. aimed with the distorted intelligence is crystal clear,'' said Kwon Young-il, a lawmaker and former presidential candidate of the Democratic Labor Party. ``It was to pressure South Korea and China to join its work of isolating North Korea and thereby bringing the country to its knees.''
  ``North Korea might have a nuclear arms program based on highly enriched uranium (HEU) as the U.S. alleges and might have sent false bone ashes _ either mistakenly or intentionally _ as Japan claims,'' says Cheong Wook-sik, who heads the Civil Network for a Peaceful Korea. ``But no scientific evidence has so far been provided to prove the allegations. This is another face of the international politics in Northeast Asia taking place between fallacy and truth.'' [Evidence]
• Tokto Omitted From Old Maps of Japan
  By Chung Ah-young Staff Reporter It has been found that antique maps of Japan did not label Tokto, South Korea's easternmost islets in the East Sea, as Japanese territory for hundreds of years.
• Seoul Seeks to Discourage Use of Distorted Textbooks
  By Ryu Jin, Seo Dong-shin Staff Reporters The government will take a comprehensive approach toward Japan on a controversial textbook that distorts Japan's imperial past, instead of specific demands for correction, officials said Tuesday.
• Roh Slams Japan on Tokto, Textbook Issues
  By Shim Jae-yun Staff Reporter Declaring a virtual war of diplomacy, President Roh Moo-hyun criticized Japan yesterday for attempting to justify its 1910-45 colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula and claim territorial sovereignty over the Tokto (Dokdo) islets in the East Sea. Issuing a statement to the people, Roh said, ``Now the government cannot but squarely address the matter. We can no longer sit idle as Japan's imperial move will (adversely) determine the future of the Korean Peninsula and Northeast Asia.'' He said the government will take all diplomatic steps to tackle the matter and the ``core of such measures will be urging the Japanese government to backtrack.''
• The Revival of the U.S.-Japanese Alliance
  By Dan Blumenthal Posted: Friday, February 25, 2005 ASIAN OUTLOOK Publication Date: February 25, 2005
• Roh proposes Korea-Japan history group
  March 22, 2005 ? President Roh Moo-hyun called for a permanent government body yesterday to handle historical issues between Korea and Japan, including the Tokto islands dispute. "We will have to have a government body to formulate government-wide policies to cope with the issues," Mr. Roh said after he was briefed yesterday on the recent Tokto and history textbook disputes with Japan.
• KCNA on Story about False Remains
  Pyongyang, March 19 (KCNA) -- The Japanese ultra-right reactionaries who have kicked up a noisy anti-DPRK smear campaign over the results of the DNA test of the remains of Japanese woman Megumi Yokota are now finding themselves on pins and needles over a case they view as undesirable. A Japanese research institute which had been involved in the examination of the remains recently admitted the possibility of erroneous examination. Professor of Deikyo College of Japan Yoshii who tested the remains admitted that the results have not been confirmed as there is the possible contamination of the remains samples. British science magazine Nature Internet site referring to its interview with him, noted that Japanese forensic experts have had little experience in the examination of cremated remains and there is hardly a likelihood that DNA can still be found in the remains that was cremated at such a high temperature as 1,200 degrees centigrade. The magazine also pointed out that the five samples of the remains handed over to the college research team by the Japanese government were so completely worn out in the process of examination that it was virtually impossible for them to reexamine those samples. This put Japan into an awkward position as it spread the story in a bid to stun the international community.
• DNA is burning issue as Japan and Korea clash over kidnaps
  David Cyranoski
  Cremated remains fail to prove fate of Japanese girl abducted in 1977.
  Tokyo - A bitter dispute has erupted between Japan and North Korea over DNA tests used to establish whether cremated remains belong to a Japanese citizen abducted in 1977.
  The argument is the latest twist in an episode that has soured relations between the two countries for years. During the 1970s and 1980s, North Korea was believed to have abducted at least 13, and perhaps as many as 100, Japanese citizens to work in its espionage programme. Now the two nations are falling out over the feasibility of correctly identifying DNA from the ashes of one of those abducted.
• DNA tests may not work in abductee case
  Experts have to overcome poor condition of Yokota's purported remains Japan Times 22 November 2004
  Experts are still examining the purported remains of abductee Megumi Yokota, but DNA tests may not work because of their poor condition, according to government sources. An undated photo provided recently by Pyongyang shows a woman appearing to be Megumi Yokota, who was kidnapped by North Korea in 1977 at age 13. The cremated remains, kept in an urn, were brought back Nov. 15 by Japanese delegates after a weeklong visit to Pyongyang for the latest talks on the abduction issue.
• Roh Plans Agency for Tokto
  Fishery Agreement Not Related With Islets in East Sea By Shim Jae-yun, Park Song-wu Staff Reporters President Roh Moo-hyun instructed authorities to set up a body at an early date to deal with the recent controversy involving the Tokto islets in the East Sea, Chong Wa Dae spokesman Kim Man-soo said Monday. ``The inter-ministerial organization will also address disputes over alleged history distortions in Japanese school textbooks,'' Kim said at a press briefing.
• Helicopters, Ships to Patrol Tokto Area
  By Na Jeong-ju Staff Reporter The government will deploy helicopters and military ships around the Tokto islets in the East Sea to counter unauthorized visits by Japanese, Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Minister Oh Keo-don said Monday.
• Quake Observatory Planned on Tokto
  By Lee Jin-woo Staff Reporter An earthquake and tsunami observatory will be set up on Tokto, the nation's easternmost islets in the East Sea, by 2007, the weather agency said Monday.
• Ads Spark Controversy Over Tokto
  By Kim Rahn Staff Reporter Businesses have been quick to promote their products by making use of the public outcry over the Japanese claim to Korea's Tokto Islets. Advertisements featuring Tokto have touched off controversy as the public has criticized some companies for going too far in making use of public sentiment and nationalistic fervor. Although proponents for the ads say such advertisements reflect the current sentiment on Tokto, opponents frowned at what they saw to be opportunistic commercialism. The controversy arose over a newspaper advertisement made by multinational pharmaceutical firm Janssen Korea. The firm placed an ad of its pain and fever reliever Tylenol, which is widely used for headache, in some newspapers on March 14-15. The ad read, ``They claim Tokto as their territory. It caused a headache for 48 million Koreans. Your headache over such a ridiculous claim means you love your country.''
• Bae Yong-joon Calls for People to Remain Rational About Tokto
  By Park Chung-a Staff Reporter Bae Yong-joon, a Korean actor who is popular in Japan, announced his opinion on the worsening territorial row between Korea and Japan through his official Internet Web site on Monday, after showing reluctance to do so last week. Through his Web site www.byj.co.kr, Bae expressed concern that an emotional backlash could lead to a worsening of relations and called for ``rational response''.
• Japanese Claim Touches Nerve in South Korea
  Dispute Over Islands Rekindles Wrath Over Tokyo's Military Past By Anthony Faiola Washington Post Foreign Service Sunday, March 20, 2005; Page A17 SEOUL -- Angry swells of South Koreans have protested at the Japanese Embassy here for more than a week, burning the flag of the Rising Sun and expressing emotions so deep that some demonstrators have cut off their fingers. Riot police blocked a group of ex-military commandos from blowing up a propane gas tank at the embassy's gates.
• Tokto Sees More Visits
  By Lee Jin-woo Staff Reporter Ranking officials, police and lawmakers have rushed to visit Tokto, the nation's easternmost islets in the East Sea, since the government decided to ease travel restrictions on March 16. The Cultural Heritage
• National police chief on Tokto for a salute
  March 21, 2005 ? TOKTO ? In the midst of an angry territorial dispute with Japan over Tokto islands, Korea's national chief of police visited the rocky outcroppings in the East Sea (Sea of Japan) over the weekend to honor servicemen who died guarding them. Huh Joon-young, head of the National Police Agency, along with Yoo Hong-joon, president of the Cultural Properties Administration, went to the islands Saturday. "There is no island named Takeshima in the globe," Mr. Huh said in rousing the police guards. "Tokto is not lonely because there are police officers and the people who love it." Takeshima is the Japanese name for Tokto. Tokto, in Korean, means "lonely island." Mr. Huh paid respects before the tombstones of five police officers who died while on duty on the islands. Over the years, a number of officers have fallen into the sea and drowned. Mr. Huh and his entourage toured the island and its police station. Tokto is made up of two main jagged peaks, East Tokto and West Tokto. The west island, which is 168 meters (551 ft) high, is not populated and is home to tens of thousands of sea gulls. The police station is located on East Tokto, which stands 98 meters at its highest point. The police station is a two-story building and has a lighthouse, Internet and radar systems. Manpower includes 37 police officers and three officials from the Ministry of Fishery and Maritime Affairs. Because Tokto has some unusual natural formations ? rocks that resemble a human face and a candle stand ? it has been designated as a natural monument by the Korean government
• Masan Rejects Call to Drop Claim on Tsushima
  By Yoon Won-sup Staff Reporter The Masan City council of South Kyongsang Province, which passed a bill declaring territorial jurisdiction over Japan-controlled Tsushima Island last Friday, rejected calls by the government to withdraw the bill Sunday. Ha Mun-sik, chairman of the council, made it clear the bill remains in effect, stressing the council's independent authority to legislate a bill. ``We will not be swayed by the central government,'' he said. ``We have stronger cases for our claim on Tsushima in terms of history and law than Japan's claim to the Tokto islets.''
• ROK interfering in Japan's affairs
  The Yomiuri Shimbun The South Korean government's latest statement on its policy toward Japan poses a problem for bilateral relations. On Thursday, the administration of South Korean President Roh Moo Hyun released a statement setting new principles and policies for ties with Japan. The statement says that South Korea's basic policy toward Japan is to demand this country "thoroughly uncover the truth about problems" related to the history of the two nations and "truly apologize for and reflect on its conduct."
  Distorting 'comfort women' facts It should be remembered who has further complicated Japan-South Korea relations by distorting wartime history to give the public the mistaken impression that the system created to form corps of women volunteers assigned to work at military factories and other facilities was an attempt by the Imperial Japanese Army to forcibly recruit women as so-called comfort women. The driving force behind this campaign has been self-tormenting and "conscientious" Japanese. We feel that what South Korea calls "conscientious forces" as it deals with the controversy over history textbooks are some media organizations sympathetic toward leftist values that do not accept a diversity of historical views and values, as well as freedom of thought. The statement also says South Korea is concerned that Japan's textbook screening system approves "history textbooks that glorify (Japan's) acts of aggression and use of strong state power in the past" without making alterations in their descriptions.
• Seoul blasts Tokyo for insulting Roh
  March 19, 2005 ? A man advocating the rights of victims of Japanese aggression during World War II set himself ablaze at the Japanese Embassy in Seoul yesterday, while a top South Korean official verbally attacked Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi of Japan for allegedly disparaging President Roh Moo-hyun. In an address on March 1 to mark the 86th anniversary of Korea's independence movement against Japan's colonial rule of Korea, Mr. Roh urged Japanese leaders to compensate South Korean colonial victims and apologize for past wrongs. Mr. Koizumi reportedly said the speech was tailored for domestic purposes and played down the significance of Mr. Roh's remarks concerning additional claims. In denouncing Mr. Koizumi yesterday, Chung Dong- young, the head of Korea's National Security Council, said the Japanese leader was "factually wrong" to say that Mr. Roh's address was made to satisfy the South Korean public. Mr. Chung also said Mr. Koizumi's interpretation "lacked courtesy toward a head of state."
• Self-burning claim to Tokto
  March 19, 2005 ? To protest Japan's claim to the Tokto islands, Heo Gyeong-wuk, a member of a group supporting World War II victims, set himself on fire yesterday in front of the Japanese Embassy in Seoul. He was rushed to hospital
• Japan minister rejects bid for compensation
  March 19, 2005 ? Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura of Japan has rejected Seoul's renewed claims that Tokyo must compensate South Koreans for individual suffering during Japan's colonial rule over the peninsula. The Japanese Foreign Ministry's statement was Tokyo's official response to a declaration Thursday from the head of South Korea's National Security Council who said ties between Seoul and Tokyo had been "seriously hurt."
• Masan City Stakes Claim Over Taemado
  The council of Masan City in South Kyongsang Province yesterday passed a bill declaring its territorial jurisdiction over Japan-controlled Taemado Island, council officials said. The ordinance designated ``Taemado Day'' for the southern coast city, near Pusan, officials said. Taemado, just 50 kilometers from Pusan, called Tsushima in Japan, is located in the Korea Straits in the South Sea. The island was once under the control of the ancient Korean dynasty of Choson, according to Korean and Chinese historians.
• Unrepentant Neighbor
  Seoul Needs Firm But Coolheaded Approach The government's ``new doctrine'' for the Korea- Japan relationship announced Thursday reflects only part of the sizzling Korean sentiments over Tokyo's diplomatic challenge. It expressed strong displeasure and determination but fell short of mentioning any immediate governmental action, leaving it dependent on Japan's future moves. Such prudence is natural and necessary, considering the government's role is not agitating but calming the public. Whether the self-restraining tactic would work on Tokyo let alone the ultra-rightist Japanese is anyone's guess.
• Japan Issues Travel Advisory
  The Japanese Foreign Ministry warned tourists and residents in South Korea of demonstrations being held protesting Japan's recent repeated efforts to claim sovereignty over the South Korean islets of Tokto. "Various South Korean civic groups are demonstrating near the Japanese Embassy in Seoul. The demonstrations are likely to continue for the time being," read a message posted on the ministry's Web site(www.mofa.go.jp/anzen) Friday. Japanese tourists and residents were also advised to stay away from any such area and avoid getting involved.
• Seoul Wants Action, Not Words: FM
  By Ryu Jin Staff Reporter South Korea's top diplomat urged Tokyo again to take concrete action to mend fences with Seoul as the diplomatic tension over the South Korea- held Tokto islets and their shared history showed little sign of decreasing Friday. ``Japan should show action, not words,'' Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Ban Ki- moon said during a meeting with senior officials from the ruling Uri Party, adding that words are easier than actions.
• Dokdo Revisited
  Lee Wha Rang
  Anti-Japanese sentiment has ebbed and flowed in Korea, but it is reaching a new height over the Dokdo Island dispute as Koreans across the globe are protesting Japan's latest step in its "awakened expansionism." Japan's renewed to claim to Dokdo is due in part to recent discovery of huge hydrocarbon deposits around the island and to the rising neo-Nazism in Japan fanned by extreme right-wingers in America. The timing cannot be any any worse - a mass movement to expose pro-Japanese Koreans has been going on in South Korea and Japan's claim to the island is adding fuel to the movement and not helping their stooges in Korea.
  This is not the first Korea-Japan row over the tiny island in the East Sea (Sea of Japan). During the reign of Rhee Syngman, S Korean navy vessels were dispatched to chase away Japanese intruders on the island. Rhee threatened to invade Japan - all ied with N Korea, if necessary.
• Koizumi Upsets Roh Over Tokto
  By Park Song-wu Staff Reporter Unification Minister Chung Dong-young Friday called Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi ``impolite'' and ``unreasonable'' in a reaction to Japan's demand for a ``future-oriented'' relationship of the two countries. During a meeting with ministry officials, Chung said Japan is the source of retrogression as it is dragging South Korea's drive toward future and peace of Northeast Asia, a ministry spokesman told reporters.
• Tokyo ties called 'seriously hurt'
  March 18, 2005 ? In the Roh administration's strongest pronouncement yet on the Tokto islands dispute, Chung Dong-young, the head of the National Security Council, said yesterday that Japanese assertions of sovereignty over Tokto were tantamount to justifying the invasion of the Korean Peninsula by the Japanese Imperial Army 100 years ago. Relations between South Korea and Japan have been "seriously hurt" by the dispute, Mr. Chung said.
• Elementary school students learning about Tokto
  Elementary school students in Seoul were learning yesterday about Tokto in classes quickly arranged by teachers unions. The unions said they will hold special classes in all grades until March 26
• Koreans aim boycott at business in Japan
  March 18, 2005 ? Signs that Koreans would organize a mass boycott of Japanese products over the Tokto territorial dispute appeared yesterday, with some of Japan's major corporations named as the primary targets. Civic groups called on the public to stop buying from Japanese vehicle makers Mitsubishi, Kawasaki and Isuzu and electronics maker Fujitsu. The companies were accused of supporting the publication of nationalistic history textbooks in Japan. [Boycott]
• Many good reasons for not getting along
  March 18, 2005 ? Far from the love affair Japanese housewives have with Yonsama, the Korean star of the soap opera "Winter Sonata," the Japan-South Korea relationship has for decades been a tumultuous one. The flare-up of the dispute over the Tokto islands is but one episode in what have been sharp ups-and-downs between the two countries. Including arguments over Japanese views of history, fury about the enslavement of laborers and forced prostitution at Japanese hands and visits by Japan's leaders to shrines commemorating World War II war criminals, relations have been fragile since the end of the war in 1945. Only then was Korea liberated from 35 years of harsh colonial rule by Japan. In 1962, Korean anger at Japan reached a peak when the two countries moved to sign a treaty restoring diplomatic ties on the condition that Japan provide monetary compensation to Korea. Mass demonstrations were not only aimed at Japan, but also at the Korean government led by Park Chung Hee. Protesters denounced Mr. Park for selling out to the former enemy, which to conclude the treaty paid $800 million in compensation for its abuses during the colonial period and war. The Park regime proclaimed martial law and put down the protests. The two countries officially signed the treaty in 1965. In the aftermath, the relationship slowly warmed, but in 1974 a Korean- Japanese man attempted to assassinate Mr. Park. The man instead killed first lady Yuk Yeong-su. The Korean government considered ending diplomatic ties with Tokyo, but the Japanese government sent special envoys to smooth things over.
• Tokto outrage is misplaced
  It is interesting to note the difference in official government reactions to the plight of suffering North Koreans in China and North Korea and a few islets in the sea of water between Korea and Japan. The first elicits a despicable "say and do nothing" action called "silent diplomacy" which amounts to the continual suffering of South Korea's northern brothers. No concern is taken with this suffering and there is certainly no talk about the pride and dignity of (North) Koreans being violated. Contrast that lack of action to the government's outrage and flurry of political activity over the Tokto islands. Government officials are queueing up to bash Japan, and the Foreign Minister canceled his trip to Japan. I just wish that even one-tenth of the energy and passion being given to the Tokto issue was being channeled to improving the plight of North Koreans. If it was, China and North Korea may be inclined to improve the human rights of North Koreans: a far more worthy cause to fight for in my book. On a related note, I have to wonder of what quality the supposed human rights lawyer President Roh Moo-hyun was. He places such low emphasis on improving human rights of North Koreans. by Brendan Brown
• Tokyo Urged to Stop Justifying Past Misdeeds
  By Park Song-wu Staff Reporter Unification Minister Chung Dong-young has warned Japan against challenging South Korea's territorial sovereignty or distorting history, saying such moves are tantamount to ``justifying its past invasion of the Korean Peninsula and its past wrongdoings.''
• Pro-Japanese Online Portal Sites Shut Down
  By Kim Tae-gyu Staff Reporter Korea's Internet and telecom industries have begun to counter Japan's recent claim to Tokto, Korea's easternmost islets. The nation's biggest portal, Daum Communications, Thursday said it had shut down five overly pro-Japanese online communities. ``After consultation with the Information Communication Ethics Committee (ICEC), we closed five communities, which claimed Japan's sovereignty over Tokto,'' a Daum spokesperson said. She added Daum also found five more overridingly pro-Japanese communities and is mulling over whether to close them. The state-backed ICEC said the online communities, which distort the history and thus doing mental harm to youth can be shut down under relevant laws. [human rights]
• NK Denounces `Takeshima Day'
  A North Korean radio station on Friday denounced a local Japanese council's designation of ``Takeshima Day,'' calling it a ``scheme to plunder'' the South Korea-controlled Tokto islets. This was the first media reaction from North Korea after Japan's Shimane Prefectural Council approved a bill designating Feb. 22 as ``Takeshima Day'' in a symbolic measure to lay claim over the islets. ``The measure is a grave infringement upon the sovereignty of Korea and an unpardonable challenge toward Koreans,'' the North Korean Central Broadcasting Station said. The radio station called the designation a ``shameless robbery.'' 03-18-2005 13:15
• Tokto challenge enrages Korea
  Japan's claim causing a rift March 17, 2005 ? To general outrage among South Koreans, a local government in Japan passed yesterday into law a symbolic declaration that designates Feb. 22 "Takeshima Day, a move that asserts Japanese sovereignty over the tiny islands that Koreans call Tokto and claim as their own.
• Tokto demonstration
  Following Shimane Prefecture's proclamation of "Takeshima Day," angry citizens gathered yesterday in front of the Japanese Embassy in Seoul. They chanted and held a banner that read: "We denounce Japan's claim to Tokto and Japan's distortion of history."
• Nationalism marks day of major protest
  March 17, 2005 ? With the proclamation of Takeshima Day in Japan's Shimane Prefecture, the streets surrounding the Japanese Embassy in Seoul swelled yesterday with outraged protesters while other demonstrations erupted across South Korea.
• Seoul Urges Tokyo to Scrap 'Tokto Bill'
  National Security Ministers Meet Today to Discuss Retaliatory Steps By Ryu Jin Staff Reporter Seoul will issue a new doctrine defining future relations with Tokyo Thursday as a provincial council in Japan finally approved a controversial ordinance on Wednesday in an apparent move to stake claim to the Tokto (Dokdo) islets.
• Row With Japan Feared to Affect Nuclear Talks
  By Park Song-wu Staff Reporter South Korea should calmly address Japan's attempts to lay claim to the Tokto islets because a diplomatic row with Japan could affect the six-nation talks over North Korea's nuclear weapons program, former Unification Minister Park Jae-kyu said Wednesday. ``The confrontation with Japan over Tokto could unduly influence the six-party talks,'' Park, president of Kyungnam University, told The Korea Times. `` People are filled with anti-Japan sentiment, but the government should keep its composure.''
• Roh Will Redefine Ties With Tokyo
  By Shim Jae-yun Staff Reporter The passage Wednesday of a ``Takeshima Day'' bill by Japan's Shimane Prefectural Council, restating Japan's claim to South Korea's Tokto islets will become a crucial turning point in bilateral relations, analysts said Wednesday.
• Shimane demonstration
  Members of a conservative Japanese civic group cheer as the Shimane Prefectural Council approved the ordinance to designate Feb. 22 as "Takeshima Day," at the council building in Matuse, Shimane, Wednesday.
• Premier Urges Japan to Repent
  Prime Minister Lee Hae-chan said yesterday that Japan has not reflected enough on the atrocities it committed during its colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula. ``Germany has made every effort to reflect on its past, but Japan's effort is not enough,'' Lee told reporters before attending a policy briefing session of the Fair Trade Commission at Chong Wa Dae.
• Ullungdo demo
  About 200 civil servants of Ullung Island, 87 kilometers east of the Tokto islets, hold a rally in the island's port of Todong on Wednesday to protest Japan's moves to claim sovereignty over Tokto.
• Canadian Map Distributor Labels Ullungdo as Part of Japan
  By Moon Gwang-lip Staff Reporter A Canadian world map distributor was found to mark Ullungdo, a South Korean island in the East Sea, as part of the Japanese prefecture of Shimane. The Voluntary Agency Network of Korea (VANK) on Wednesday said they found out that Geocortex labels the island, which controls the rocky islets of Tokto, as a territory of the Japanese prefecture. The Shimane Prefecture passed an ordinance on Wednesday to designate Feb. 22 as ``Takeshima Day.''
  Recently, the Web site of the CIA, the United States' spy agency, is drawing South Koreans' concern as its online information on the international geography as well as history was found to be tilted toward the Japanese government's claims and is providing it to many other international information and geographical institutes.
• Islands Come Between South Korea and Japan
  Ordinance Intensifies Diplomatic Dispute By Anthony Faiola Washington Post Foreign Service Thursday, March 17, 2005; Page A19 SEOUL, March 16 -- South Korean officials denounced an ordinance passed Wednesday by a Japanese local council that reinforces Japan's claim to a disputed island chain between the two countries. The new law, and South Korea's reaction, escalated a quarrel that analysts say could damage their diplomatic ties.
• Korea tenses over Japan vote
  March 16, 2005 ? With tension rising before a local Japanese legislative council decides today whether to advance territorial claims over the disputed Tokto islands, South Koreans continued street protests yesterday as Seoul officials considered how to respond.
• Tokto demonstration
  Former soldiers who were trained to infiltrate North Korea rallying yesterday at the Japanese Embassy in Seoul to denounce Japan's claim to the Tokto islands. They held portraits of famous independence fighters. By Kim Tae-sung
• List of Pro-Japanese Professors to Open to S. Korean Public
  Pyongyang, March 15 (KCNA) -- The General Student Council of Korea University on March 11decided to open a list of former and incumbent pro-Japanese professors to the public in protest against the rash remarks made by Honorary Professor Han Sung Jo, according to south Korean "MBC". The council said that it would form a committee for liquidating the remnant forces of the Japanese imperialists and join the civic organizations in the actions to set right the distorted past history and prevent the second Han Sung Jo from emerging.
• Seoul Slams Japan's 'Takeshima Day'
  Firm Response Planned Against History Distortion By Ryu Jin Reporter With a local Japanese council set to endorse an ordinance bill on Wednesday to designate the ``Takeshima Day,'' the government once again made it clear that it would not tolerate any further provocations from Tokyo over recent territorial and historical disputes. On the eve of the scheduled floor vote in the Shimane Prefectural Council, South Korean politicians, activists and ordinary citizens continued their protest to stop the Japanese from making Feb. 22 a day of remembrance for the Tokto (Dokdo) islets. Backed by mounting public anger, the government reiterated that it would respond more sternly should the provincial ordinance get approval. ``The government will take tangible measures against Japan's provocative actions to protect our sovereignty,'' Ban Ki-moon, minister of foreign affairs and trade, was quoted by a government spokesman as saying during a Cabinet meeting.
• Japan Calls for Calm Over Tokto Issue
  TOKYO (Yonhap) - Japan has called for calm from South Korea as the two countries were on a collision course over the ownership of a group of islets in the East Sea. Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroyuki Hosoda made the appeal on Monday after receiving a briefing from the country's Ambassador to South Korea, Toshiyuki Takano, on the increasing outrage in the South over Japan's challenge to its ownership of the islets, Tokto.
• Records Show Tokto Belongs to Korea
  Japan Makes Groundless Claim to Tokto By Lee Jin-woo Staff Reporter History records have shown Japan's claim for the sovereignty over the Tokto islets, a set of rocky islets in the East Sea of Korea, is groundless.
• Seoul seeks to dampen rising anger at Japan
  March 15, 2005 ? Facing an aroused and angry public, officials in Seoul sought yesterday to calm a territorial dispute with Japan over the Tokto islands, which has spilled into the streets. In a demonstration of the fury in South Korea, a 61-year-old mother and her 43-year-old son each cut off one of their fingers to protest Japan's claims to the rocky islands in the East Sea (Sea of Japan), vowing to send the severed digits to Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi of Japan. Separately, Tokyo's ambassador to South Korea, Toshiyuki Takano, left for Japan in order to consult with his government over the heated situation.
• Ambassador Takano Visits Japan Amid Growing Tensions
  By Ryu Jin Staff Reporter Japanese Ambassador to South Korea Toshiyuki Takano temporarily returned home ``for consultations'' with home-based government officials, as tension between the two sides have been escalating over the recent territorial and historical disputes.
• Lawmakers to Protest History Distortion
  By Seo Dong-shin Staff Reporter A delegation consisting of five ruling and opposition party lawmakers left for Japan yesterday to protest Japan's recent moves to lay claim to the Tokto islets and distort history in textbooks.
• .'Firmer stance' on Japan urged by lawmakers
  March 14, 2005 ? The increasingly sour public exchanges between Korean and Japanese officials continued yesterday, as lawmakers from both major Korean political parties called for cooperative effort to pressure Japan over its recent "nationalism." "The ghost of Japan's imperialism is really long- lasting," lawmaker Han Myung-sook, who is running for the chairmanship of the governing Uri Party, said yesterday. "We need to take a firmer stance against Japan, which distorts history. I ask all politicians to form a committee to deal with the issue."
• Japan-U.S. Military Tie-up Denounced
  Pyongyang, March 12 (KCNA) -- A meeting of security consultative committee was held in Washington on Feb. 19 with the attendance of high-ranking officials of the U.S. and Japan in charge of foreign and defence affairs. At the meeting they confirmed and agreed upon the "joint strategic targets" which would serve as a foundation for the strengthening of Japan-U.S. military alliance and comprehensively discussed technical matters in attaining those targets. They listed the DPRK as a principal threat to East Asia and decided to jointly cope with it by strengthening the bilateral military alliance. In this regard Minju Joson Saturday in a signed commentary observes that the strengthening of the Japan-U.S. military alliance constitutes a basic factor of disturbing global peace and stability and creating instability as it obviously reveals a wild ambition to invade and dominate other countries.
• Japan Can Never Be Permanent Member of UNSC: DPRK Representative to UN
  Pyongyang, March 13 (KCNA) -- It is intolerable and contrary to the basic mission of the UN for Japan to be a permanent member nation of the UNSC in view of the fact that it committed crimes against humanity in the past and is reviving militarism and posing a threat to Asia and its surrounding countries. Pak Kil Yon, permanent representative of the DPRK to the United Nations, said this in a letter addressed to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan on March 7 as regards Japan's bid to be a permanent member nation of the UNSC.
• Tokto Open to More Tourists
  By Seo Dong-shin Staff Reporter The government is considering measures to more aggressively counter Japan's provocative movements, including one to allow more South Koreans to visit the Tokto islets in the East Sea, government sources said Sunday.
• Protesters burn a Japanese flag and a portrait of Japanese Prime Minister
  Junichiro Koizumi to denounce Japan's claim over the easternmost islets of Tokto and history distortion in revised textbooks in front of the Japanese Embassy in central Seoul, Sunday. .
• Korea Faces Prolonged Conflict With Japan Over History Distortion
  By Chung Ah-young Staff Reporter The distortion of history in the revised editions of Japanese textbooks is expected to develop into a prolonged conflict between South Korea and Japan. The Asia Peace, History and Education Network, a non-governmental organization based in Seoul, said on Friday that the recent editions of Japanese textbooks gloss over Japanese atrocities committed during the 1910-45 colonial rule in Korea. The history distortion in the ``Fusosha'' textbooks, named after its publisher, first triggered controversy in 2001. At that time, only 0.039 percent of Japanese schools adopted the textbooks that were carrying altered historical details. About 400,000 of the first edition were sold.
• Is the CIA Taking Sides With Japan Over Dokdo?"
  .MARCH 13, 2005 22:49 by Jae-Dong Yu (jarrett@donga.com) . It has been reported that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is reflecting Japan's logic of claiming ownership of Dokdo in its government information report. The "cyber diplomats," the Voluntary Agency Network Korea (VANK, www.prkorea.com), said on March 13 that after investigating the World Factbook published by the U.S. CIA, it concluded that the CIA is increasingly siding with Japan's claim on the Dokdo issue. According to VANK, a term, "Liancourt Rocks" that indicates Dokdo on the Korean and Japanese maps of the World Factbook, was not included in 2002 but is currently emphasized in arrow form starting last year. The words "Liancourt Rocks" originated from Liancourt, a French whaler that discovered Dokdo in 1849, and is another name for Dokdo by a third country that Japan is now spreading worldwide in order not to approve of Korea's ownership of Dokdo.
• Wag the Cow
  Friday, March 11, 2005; Page A22 TWELVE YEARS ago, the Clinton administration set out to change policy toward Japan. The Cold War approach, according to the Clinton view, had emphasized political and military cooperation to the detriment of U.S. economic interests; with the Soviet threat gone, it was time to get tough on Japan's trade protectionism. The Clintonites set about demanding that Japan stop running its economy through a system of murky government guidance and instead embrace transparent rules, figuring that this would create a fair playing field for U.S. businesses. But trade confrontation had costs. It forced up the yen, increasing the danger of a banking collapse that would send tremors around the world, and it threatened the political viability of U.S. military bases. In 1995, the rape of a Japanese schoolgirl by American servicemen caused smoldering anti-American resentment to explode in street protests. The Clintonites concluded that trade friction was not worth it. This history illuminates President Bush's strange call to Japan's prime minister, Junichiro Koizumi, on Wednesday. Mr. Bush phoned his counterpart not to discuss North Korea's nuclear weapons or China's military ambitions but rather to complain about Japan's closed beef market.
• Japanese textbook claims Tokto
  March 12, 2005 ? The new edition of a social studies textbook for Japanese middle schools, written by a group of nationalist scholars, contains statements that say the Tokto islands between the Korean Peninsula and Japan are a part of Japanese territory. The disclosure that the texts claim the islands as Japanese provoked a strong reaction yesterday in Korea.
• Japanese Textbooks Glorify Colonialism
  By Ryu Jin Staff Reporter The revised editions of controversial Japanese textbooks, currently facing government screening, contain distorted accounts of the nation's history in the early 20th century, a South Korean civic group claimed Friday. The textbooks, which will be used next year if they receive authorization, claim, for example, that Japan's colonial rule helped Korea's modernization.
• Japan Tries to Invade Korea Over Tokto: NK Envoy
  By Park Song-wu Staff Reporter North Korea's envoy to the United Nations alleged in a letter to Secretary General Kofi Annan that Japan's argument for its possession of the Tokto islets is a warm-up to invade the Korean Peninsula, a radio station in Pyongyang reported Sunday. In the letter delivered to Annan on Feb. 7, North Korean ambassador Park Kil-yon said that Japan's right-wingers are laying claim to Tokto, Korea's easternmost islets, as an excuse to raid the Korean Peninsula. ``Japan is modernizing its war machinery and relocating them to spur its military into action,'' Park was quoted by the North's Korean Central Broadcasting Station as saying. ``Japan's military expenditure is only second to the United States.'' [Japanese remilitarisation]
• Local politicians in Japan raise stakes over Tokto
  March 11, 2005 ? A prefectural government in Japan took a new step yesterday in pressing a claim to a group of tiny islands, known in Japan as Takeshima, but in South Korea as Tokto. Without issuing an official response, South Korean officials said they were closely following the situation. The general affairs committee of the Shimane Prefectural Assembly approved a bill yesterday to designate Feb. 22 as "Takeshima Day." The bill won support despite attempts by the Japanese government in Tokyo to defuse the issue
• Pro-Japanese Sycophantic and Traitorous Remarks Flailed
  Pyongyang, March 10 (KCNA) -- Han Sung Jo, co- representative of the Free Citizens Solidarity of south Korea, in a recent article contributed to Seiron, a magazine of the right-wing conservatives of Japan, let loose a string of balderdash that the Koreans were fortunate enough to be under the Japanese imperialists' colonial rule and one should consider it as a blessing rather than feeling resentful at it and should thank the Japanese for it and that it facilitated the growth and development of south Korea
• `Takeshima Day' Bill Clears Shimane Assembly Panel
  By Ryu Jin Staff Reporter Japan's Shimane Prefectural Assembly passed a bill at a committee session yesterday that designates Feb. 22 as ``Takeshima Day,'' further escalating the diplomatic row between Seoul and Tokyo over Tokto (Dokto), South Korea's easternmost islets.
• Ban tells Tokyo ties may suffer over Tokto spat
  March 10, 2005 ? Indicating that ties between Seoul and Tokyo may be cooling over the Tokto islands territorial dispute, Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon said yesterday that South Korea would rebuff any attempts by Japan to lay claim to the jagged set of rocks in the East Sea (Sea of Japan). "Because the Tokto islands are a territorial issue and a matter of sovereignty, it becomes a higher priority than the South Korea-Japan relationship," Mr. Ban told reporters in Seoul.
• Tokto Outweighs Korea-Japan Ties: FM
  By Ryu Jin Staff Reporter Seoul's top diplomat said yesterday the Tokto problem takes precedence over relations between South Korea and Japan, displaying Seoul's resolution to protect its sovereignty over the tiny islets.
• The night hell fell from the sky
  by David McNeill Japan Focus 10 March 2005
  Sixty years ago today, on March 10 1945, the US abandoned the last rules of warfare against civilians when 334 B-29's dropped close to half a million incendiary bombs on sleeping Tokyo.
  The aim was to cause maximum carnage in an overcrowded city of flimsy wooden buildings; an estimated 100,000 people were 'scorched, boiled and baked to death,' in the words of the attack's architect, General Curtis LeMay. It was then the single largest mass killing of World War II, dwarfing even the destruction of the German city of Dresden on Feb. 13, 1945.
• Tokto Issue May Disrupt Joint Tourism Promotion
  By Kim Rahn Staff Reporter South Korea and Japan designated 2005 as the ``Year of Korea-Japan Friendship'' to mark the 40th anniversary of diplomatic normalization between the two nations. However, the two nations' plans for a better relationship faces a big obstacle following Japan's renewed claims to Korea's easternmost islets of Tokto.
• Air Force jets scrambled to repel Tokto intrusion
  March 09, 2005 ? South Korean Air Force jets were scrambled yesterday to intercept a Japanese civilian plane that was on the verge of intruding into air space above the disputed Tokto islands.
• KCNA Slams Japan's Moves for Constitutional Revision
  Pyongyang, March 7 (KCNA) -- Disclosed recently were the clarified arguing points in the preamble of the new constitution written by the sub-committee for drafting a preamble of the committee for working out a new draft constitution of the Liberal Democratic Party chaired by Yasuhiro Nakasone, former Japanese prime minister. According to the disclosure, it decided to include the phraseology of "positive pacifism" in the preamble which would mean the dispatch of the Self-Defence Forces (SDF) overseas. This laid bare Japan's true intention to legalize and escalate its moves to emerge a military power and realize expansion overseas under the pretexts of "world peace" and "international contribution". [Japanese remilitarisation]
• Listen to the plea behind Roh's harsh words
  South Korean President Roh Moo Hyun, in his address to the nation Tuesday from Seoul, mentioned his visit two days earlier to the Independence Hall of Korea, in Cheonan, about 80 kilometers south of Seoul. I have been there. The precincts contain seven pavilions filled with displays on the history of the Korean people and their struggle for independence from Japanese colonial rule. My tour guide told me that Independence Hall has attracted 8 million visitors in the less than one year since its opening. When I was there, the most ``popular'' pavilion seemed to be the one known as the ``hall of Japanese aggression.'' People waiting to get in formed a line that stretched nearly 100 meters.
• Public Angered by Praise of Colonial Rule
  By Lee Jin-woo Staff Reporter Hanh Sung-joe, the scholar who incited anger among South Korean citizens with remarks praising the 1910-45 Japanese colonialism, resigned as professor emeritus of the Korea University, according to school staffers on Sunday. He also showed his intention to step down from the co-chairmanship of the Free Citizens' Association as civic groups and the public have stepped up their protests against the retired professor for his article praising 35 years of Japanese colonial rule on the Korean Peninsula. A retired professor at one of the country's most prestigious colleges, Hanh claimed in a recent article that colonial rule was a ``blessing'' to Koreans. It was published in the April edition of the Seiron, a monthly magazine affiliated with Japan's conservative daily, Sankei Shimbun. ``We should feel grateful for the Japanese occupation of Korea, instead of criticizing it,'' the 75-year-old scholar said in his article. He taught at Korea University for 28 years to 1995.
• Professor under fire for praise of Japan
  March 07, 2005 ? A magazine article by a retired professor who wrote in praise of Japan's colonial rule in Korea has ignited a firestorm in academic circles and among the public, leading last night to the professor's resignation from Korea University. In a contribution to Seiron, a monthly publication put out by the Sankei Shimnun newspaper, Hahn Sung-joe, a professor emeritus at Korea University, argued Japan's occupation of Korea from 1910 to 1945 should be regarded as a godsend. "The fortunate part about the occupation of Korea is that it was Japan that had colonized the peninsula," Mr. Hahn wrote. "It was rather a blessing for Korea." In the article and afterwards in an interview with Korean media, Mr. Hahn said that the early 1900s were a period of fierce competition among regional powers in Asia. "At the time, if Japan had not occupied Korea, Russia would have done so," the prominent 75- year-old politics professor said. "If it were Russia, the Korean Peninsula would have been communized. Korean people would have been dispersed under Stalin's policies. Therefore, I think Japan's colonial rule rather reinforced Koreans' awareness and nationalism." Mr. Hahn said Korean nationalism had risen during the colonial rule, and it was Japanese scholars and their Korean disciples who had built the foundation of Korean studies. He urged Koreans to stop making compensation claims for Japan's use of Korean women as sex slaves during World War II. He said the episode was only temporary and an exceptional case that had done no great damage
• Professor's article dead wrong
  An article by Korea University Professor Emeritus Hahn Sung-joe in one of the most widely read right-wing magazines, Seiron, claiming that Japan's rule over Korea was a "blessing in midst of sorrow" has enraged the public. In his article, Mr. Hahn presumes that Korea would have been more unfortunate had it been annexed by Russia. Russia's policy at the time ? to divide ethnic groups ? would have forced the Korean people to disperse, Mr. Hahn wrote. Concerning the issue of "comfort women," Mr. Hahn wrote that Japan was not the only country that forced women into sexual servitude for soldiers and that "comfort women" were only a temporary phenomenon during war time. Mr. Hahn's claims leaves us dumbfounded. He also wrote that the Korean media relishes publishing articles that stir up anti-Japanese behavior. It is almost as if Mr. Hahn is the spokesman for the colonial Japanese government.
• Japan Urged to Behave with Discretion
  Pyongyang, March 5 (KCNA) -- The Japanese reactionaries came under fire by a signed commentary of Minju Joson Saturday for talking about cooperation with south Korea in their efforts to find a solution to the "abduction issue". Not content with wooing the U.S. to cooperate with them in settling the "abduction issue", they are now seeking cooperation from south Korea, the commentary says, and goes on:
• Seoul to Take Actions Against History Distortion
  By Chung Ah-young Staff Reporter The Ministry of Education and Human Resources Development has pledged to take action against attempts by Japan and China to distort history in textbooks. The ministry yesterday said that it plans to launch a task force of officials, scholars and experts to monitor history distortions by the two countries and support activities by civic groups to fight the distortions. The move came after a revised 2005 history textbook by Fuso Publishing Co. in Japan sparked controversy for its attempt to gloss over Japan's wartime atrocities. The textbook was written by a group of rightwing Japanese scholars.
• China and Japan launch race to the moon
  Tokyo blasts back after setback in Asian space race as old enemies plan ambitious projects targeting the lunar surface
  Justin McCurry in Tokyo and Jonathan Watts in Beijing Saturday March 5, 2005 The Guardian
  When a rocket carrying a weather satellite blasted into orbit last weekend it did more than restore confidence in Japan's battered space programme - it ignited talk of a space race with the country's old rival, China. Forty years after the heyday of the US-Soviet space race, the emerging contest between these two Asian powers is already showing signs of ferocity. China may have put a man into orbit, but Japan, it seems, intends to build a station for him on the moon. This is no small boast from a country whose previous launch, in November 2003, ended in ignominy when a rocket carrying two spy satellites had to be destroyed 10 minutes into the mission after a booster failed to separate.
  Beijing will be reciprocating over the next 12 months, during which time Tokyo is expected to launch three more H-2A rockets, one with two surveillance satellites on board capable of spying on North Korea - and China.
• Minister's visit to Japan canceled due to disputes
  March 05, 2005 ? In an indication of the sharpness of the recent disputes between Japan and South Korea, Seoul has canceled Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon's trip to Japan that had been scheduled for next weekend. Mr. Ban had planned to visit Japan from March 11 to 13, and to meet with his Japanese counterpart to discuss the North Korean nuclear issue and the question of compensation for Japan's colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula.
• Japan tests North Korea sanctions waters
  By Matthew Rusling TOKYO - Japan has imposed what amount to maritime sanctions against North Korea by requiring that all ships - not only North Korean - must carry hefty insurance against oil spills and other liabilities, and most of Pyongyang's ships do not buy that costly coverage. Japan has started random checks of ships of various nationalities entering Japanese waters. This is a first, relatively minor step, and a concession to Japanese public opinion and shrill calls for sanctions to punish Pyongyang for abducting Japanese citizens and then lying about the full extent of the kidnappings and sending back bogus "remains". Tokyo is holding off, however, on major, debilitating economic sanctions authorized last year, as it still hopes that North Korea will return to the six-party talks on nuclear disarmament - and full-fledged sanctions could give Pyongyang another reason not to participate.
  Lee said, "Japan today is the only country the US can trust to take action in squeezing North Korea." Seventy percent of Japanese now say they support sanctions against North Korea in response to Pyongyang's duplicity in the case of abducted Megumi Yokota.
• Ban says Japan should show more sincerity
  March 03, 2005 ? Following a speech Tuesday by South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun in which he said Japan might be asked for further compensation for atrocities committed during the colonial era, Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon said yesterday that the comments pointed up the need for Japan to take more "faithful measures" to address the issue. A sincere apology from Japan is needed to appease South Koreans, Mr. Ban said at a press conference.
• Renegotiation of Treaty Unrealistic
  By Ryu Jin Staff Reporter South Korea's top diplomat said Wednesday Japan still needs to make sincere efforts to heal the history of colonialism in the last century, though it might be unrealistic for the two countries to renegotiate the pact that normalized bilateral relations in 1965. ``The two sides will have to discuss how to address the issues (related to an apology and compensation) through working-level diplomatic channels in the coming days,'' Ban Ki-moon, minister of foreign affairs and trade, said in a weekly media briefing. His remarks came one day after President Roh Moo- hyun openly urged Japan to make a formal apology and consider paying individual compensation to those who suffered during Japanese colonial rule of 1910-45.
• Lawmaker Calls for New Seoul-Tokyo Pact
  By Seo Dong-shin Staff Reporter A Uri Party lawmaker said yesterday that the government and his ruling party are reviewing the possibility of renegotiating the controversial Korea-Japan Treaty that normalized diplomatic relations between the two countries in 1965. ``Generally, international law stipulates that treaties between nations can undergo a supplementary negotiation process if new facts concerning the treaty arise,'' Rep. Kang Chan-il said.
• Japan's DNA Test on Abductee Lacks of Scientific Proof: KCNA
  The DPRK embassy to China officially notified the Japanese embassy that it can never accept Japan's refutation against the memorandum released by Pyongyang's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) and that Japan's DNA examination in remains of Yokota Megumi was fabrication
• Roh demands apology from Japan
  Says future depends on telling truth March 02, 2005 ? Marking the 86th anniversary of the March 1 Independence Movement, President Roh Moo-hyun demanded yesterday that the Japanese government offer apologies and further compensation to its Korean victims. No Korean president has made such a demand since Japan paid compensation when the two countries restored diplomatic relations in 1965.
• Japan's Territorial Claim to Tok Islet Refuted
  Pyongyang, March 1 (KCNA) -- Japanese Ambassador in Seoul Takano at a recent press interview asserted that Tok Islet belongs to Japan. Earlier, a draft act on instituting Feb. 22 as "Day of Tok Islet" was submitted to the Shimane Prefectural Assembly of Japan. Commenting on this, a Rodong Sinmun analyst Tuesday says: This is a folly and disgraceful behavior that clearly disclose under the world eyes the brigandish nature and shameless greed of the Japanese reactionaries urged by ambition for territorial expansion and intention to stage a comeback to Korea by claiming the land of other country in a far-fetched manner out of gangster- like mode of thinking.
• Anniversary of March First Popular Uprising Observed
  Pyongyang, March 1 (KCNA) -- Papers here Tuesday dedicate editorials to the 86th anniversary of the March First Popular Uprising. The popular uprising was a patriotic struggle through which the Korean people fully proved that they were a people strong in the spirit of independence as they did not want to live as slaves for others and a people with a will not to fear any sacrifices for the dignity and sovereignty of the nation and ardent patriotism. [Japanese colonialism]
• Roh Calls on Japan to Compensate World War II Victims
  By Shim Jae-yun Staff Reporter President Roh Moo-hyun yesterday urged Japan to make a sincere apology and compensate Koreans for its misdeeds during World War II and its colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula.
• Report of KCNA on Results of Japan's DNA Test on Remains of Yokota Megumi
  PYONGYANG, February 24 (KCNA)-- The Japanese government recently sent a document refuting the memorandum released by the Korean Central News Agency dated January 24 to the DPRK through its embassy in Beijing.
• Pyongyang Hits Japan's Moves to Restrict Port Calls of DPRK's Ships
  Pyongyang severely criticized Niigata Prefecture for planning to establish its original regulation to strictly control the port call of the DPRK's ferry "Mangyongbong-92" to Niigata port.
• DPRK Will Take Strong Countermeasures to Japan's Regulations of Port Calls by DPRK
  Interview with Vice Director Kim Song Chol of the Ministry of Land and Marine Transport
• KCNA Comments--Internationalizing of Abduction Issue Is Product of Japan's Shamelessness
  The KCNA denounced the Japanese reactionaries in the comment on Jan. 29 that they are trying to internationalize the "abduction issue" recently and moreover they are justifying their "abduction act" which they inflicted on Korean people in the past.
• "Let them Stop Uttering Profanities against Women's Tribunal"
  Korean and Japanese Women Hold Emergency Meeting The "Women's International War Crimes Tribunal," which was held in December 2000 and had not been fully reported in Japan then, are now highlighted in some of Japanese media because the fact that a TV program concerning the Tribunal aired by NHK of Japan on Jan. 2001 had been grossly altered just before it was telecast under the pressure of ultra-rightwing conservative forces, was recently revealed. Korean women in Japan and Japanese women held an emergency meeting to denounce it.
• Turning a Carrot into a Stick
  By Weston S. Konishi February 15, 2005 Yet again, North Korea has proved it deserves the ire of Japan and the world after announcing on February 10th that it has "manufactured nukes" and is suspending participation in the six-party talks. Adding fuel to the fire, Pyongyang audaciously accused Japan of inaccurately analyzing the false remains of abducted Japanese national Megumi Yokota. Who can blame the Japanese public for demanding that all ties with North Korea be summarily cut off? Starting next month, only a handful of North Korean ships will be permitted to dock at Japanese ports, as a revised marine indemnity insurance law takes effect. And public outrage is pushing the Koizumi Cabinet ever closer toward imposing unilateral economic sanctions against North Korea. Tightening the noose around North Korea's economy is an understandable option, and one that seems increasingly realistic. But if Japan really wanted to punish the regime it might consider the unorthodox-launching a vast new economic initiative with North Korea.
• Japan to restrict N Korean ships
  By Jonathan Head BBC News, Tokyo Japan is still fuming over a kidnapping row with N Korea Japan is to start imposing new regulations on Tuesday, drastically reducing its trade with North Korea. The rules require all ships over 100 tons to have special pollution insurance - which few North Korean vessels have. The measure is being viewed as a sanction by Japan against North Korea for failing to explain the fate of Japanese people kidnapped decades ago. [Sanctions]
• KCNA Slams Japan's Perfidy to DPRK-Japan Pyongyang Declaration
  Pyongyang, February 28 (KCNA) -- The ultra-right wing forces of Japan are spreading the false rumor that the DPRK abrogated the DPRK-Japan Pyongyang Declaration, peddling "abduction, nuclear and missile issues". They are groundlessly accusing the DPRK of "violating" the declaration, again raising a hue and cry over the oft-touted issues. This act cannot be construed otherwise than a folly which can be perpetrated only by such political imbeciles who go reckless, unaware of even the basic spirit of the declaration. As already known, the basic spirit of the declaration is that Japan will redress its past and, on this basis, the two countries settle the pending issues between them and normalize their relations. The DPRK has sincerely fulfilled its commitments stipulated in the declaration with a view to making a substantial contribution to the genuine improvement of the bilateral relations and peace and security in the region.
• Assembly May Cancel Festivities for Korea-Japan Friendship Year
  By Seo Dong-shin Staff Reporter The National Assembly is considering canceling some of the festivities planned as part of celebrations for the ``Year of Korea-Japan Friendship,'' a lawmaker said yesterday. ``There's no need for a friendship year when an ambassador representing a country that distorts history and claims another nation's territory makes thoughtless remarks,'' Rep. Lee Mi-kyung of the ruling Uri Party said. Many events are planned for this year as part of celebrations for the 40th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Seoul and Tokyo.
• Colonial Legacy Haunts Victims
  By Chung Ah-young Staff Reporter This year marks the 60th anniversary of South Korea's liberation from 35 years of Japanese colonial rule and the 40th anniversary of the normalization of diplomatic relations between the two countries. And today, Korea celebrates the 86th anniversary of the March 1 Independence Movement of 1919 against Japanese colonial forces. But former military conscripts, forced laborers and sex slaves are still suffering from atrocities committed by the Japanese. [Japanese colonialism]
• Tokto vs. Takeshima Ignorance Is Not the Best Strategy
  Whenever Korea and Japan try to turn their traditional rivalry into neighborly partnership, some historical or territorial dispute pops up. Even the Year of Korea-Japan Friendship will be no exception. The latest obstacle is Tokyo's on-again, off-again claims to Tokto, Korea's easternmost islets. Seoul needs to prove Tokyo wrong rather than ignore the situation lest the two return to being the bitterest of enemies.
• Japan's Dangerous Attempt at Preemptive Attack under Fire
  Pyongyang, February 27 (KCNA) -- Japan's recent move to purchase Tomahawk cruise missiles and revise the "law of Self-Defense Forces" under the pretext of intercepting ballistic missiles is not for "defence" but for a preemptive attack and it is a dangerous military move which runs counter to the present constitution prohibiting a war.
• Japan Strongly Warned against Its Application of Sanctions against DPRK
  Pyongyang, February 26 (KCNA) -- Acting Secretary General of the Liberal Democratic Party of Japan Abe in a recent lecture blustered that "now is the time for Japan to impose economic sanctions upon north Korea," saying "it should apply them against it even this month".
• KCNA Blasts Japanese Heavyweight's Cry for Economic Sanctions against DPRK
  Pyongyang, February 26 (KCNA) -- The cry made by Acting Secretary General of the Liberal Democratic Party of Japan Abe for applying economic sanctions against north Korea is stirring up public furor nowadays. As a politician representing the ultra-right conservative forces of Japan he blustered this year that "3-4 weeks deadline should be set for north Korea over the abduction issue and Japan should start applying economic sanctions against north Korea according to its response and that it would be appropriate to announce the application of sanctions in February". Abe must know well that talking about economic sanctions against north Korea would be unbecoming in any case for a politician who has been involved in the settlement of bilateral issues for the past years as a heavyweight of the ruling party.
• US Documents Provide Details of Japanese Atrocities
  By Chung Ah-young Staff Reporter Japanese troops brutally suppressed Koreans fighting for independence from Tokyo's colonial rule in Russia in 1918-19, according to U.S. documents. The documents are significant as they are the first to reveal Japanese atrocities against Korean independence fighters during the period in Russia's Far East.
  Japanese troops were originally sent to Siberia to support the uprising of Czech troops in Vladivostok in coalition with U.S. and French troops.

• Seoul Must Nip Japanese Provocation in the Bud
  Japanese Ambassador to South Korea Toshiyuki Takano, meeting foreign correspondents in Seoul on Wednesday, said, "The Takeshima Islands [the Japanese name for the Dokdo islets] are Japanese territory historically and in terms of international law." The remarks happened to coincide with a demand from Japan's Shimane Prefecture to designate a "Takeshima Day."
  In the past, Dokdo conflicts have been settled through the invisible mediation of the United States, which valued above all a triangular security axis among the three countries. But now that the Korea-U.S. relationship is cooling off and Tokyo-Washington ties are closer than ever, Japanese provocations are intensifying. The more forces in Japan believe that the East Asian diplomatic landscape is moving in their favor, the more flagrant Japanese provocations over the islets will become. If that happens, what is the government going to do about it?
• Rally for Tokto
  Members of the Korean Veterans Association protested in front of the Japanese Embassy in Seoul yesterday. Protesters asked for an apology over Japanese ambassador Toshiyuki Takano's claim about Tokto. Members of the Korean Veterans Association protested in front of the Japanese Embassy in Seoul yesterday. Protesters asked for an apology over Japanese ambassador Toshiyuki Takano's claim about Tokto.
• Japan's Refutation of KCNA Memorandum Termed Poor Excuse
  Pyongyang, February 24 (KCNA) -- The Japanese government recently sent a document refuting the memorandum released by the Korean Central News Agency dated Jan. 24 to the DPRK through its embassy in Beijing. In the paper Japan told rubbish that it has not made any scientific clarification as regards the KCNA comment that the results of the DNA test of the remains of Megumi Yokota are false, it can never accept what the DPRK side described as a fabrication, it demands an early probe into the truth through the repatriation of surviving abductees and that the Japanese government is compelled to take a strong counteraction unless its demand is met. Japan even stated that it has willingness to have a working-level meeting to explain its paper refuting the KCNA memorandum, if the DPRK wishes. In this regard the DPRK embassy in Beijing on Feb. 24 officially notified the Japanese embassy there of the following stand of the DPRK: We can never accept the document as it is nothing but a poor excuse. It deserves not even a passing note because it lacks a scientific proof. We feel disgusting at Japan which fabricated the case by falsifying truth. We, therefore, have no intention to discuss the issue with the Japanese government. We strongly urge the Japanese government once again to probe the truth behind the fabrication of the results of the DNA test of the remains of Megumi, punish those responsible, apologize to her bereaved family and return the remains without delay. As far as the Japanese government's talk about "strong counteraction" is concerned, it may do as it pleases. The DPRK side, too, will take a corresponding action.
• Japanese statement
  Statement by the Press Secretary/Director-General for Press and Public Relations on the issue of the abduction of Japanese nationals
• Japan's Aggrandizement Ambition Assailed
  Pyongyang, February 25 (KCNA) -- The Shimane Prefectural Assembly of Japan is now making quite a noise over the adoption of "an act" for the institution of "Day of Takeshima (Tok Islet)", twanging the harp of "the centenary of the enrollment of Tok Islet in Shimane Prefecture". A Minju Joson analyst Friday ridicules this as a far-fetched argument and disgraceful behavior which can be committed only by Japan without an equal in the world in robber- like evil-mindedness.
• Tokto dispute flares up after envoy's remark
  February 24, 2005 ? At a press conference with foreign reporters to mark Korea-Japan Friendship Year, Tokyo's ambassador to South Korea, Toshiyuki Takano, reignited a heated territorial dispute yesterday by publicly stating that the Tokto islands belong to Japan. "Takeshima is historically and legally Japanese territory," he said in response to a reporter's question. "It is important not to be swayed by emotion and to try to seek a peaceful solution to this."
• Seoul National rehires professor
  February 24, 2005 ? Despite protests from art professors, Seoul National University administrators said yesterday they have decided to rehire a fine arts professor they laid off years ago. Kim Min-soo, 43, was ousted from his post when his contract ended in 1998. Mr. Kim filed a lawsuit saying the school's decision was unjust. He claimed his study on pro- Japanese art scholars probably angered the professors. Earlier in the week, a group of senior art professors submitted their resignations as a protest against the school's plan to rehire Mr. Kim following a court order in his favor. "If he wishes to teach, he can start as soon as school starts in March," said a Seoul National official.
• Japanese Ambassador Lays Claim to Tokto
  By Ryu Jin Staff Reporter Japan's top diplomat in Seoul claimed Wednesday that the ``Tokto islets fall under the territory of Japan,'' not South Korea, stirring up furor among the public here. Government officials dismissed the claim as ``unacceptable and intolerable.'' ``There exists a clear difference in views between South Korea and Japan over the issue of Takeshima,'' Ambassador Toshiyuki Takano was quoted as saying in a meeting with foreign reporters in Seoul. ``It is historically and legally Japan's territory.''
• Public Wants BOK to Use Tokto on Banknotes
  By Kim Jae-kyoung Staff Reporter The Bank of Korea (BOK) is facing new considerations regarding its plan to redesign banknotes with Internet users flooding its Web site with requests for Tokto and King Kwangaeto on the new notes. The demands came after the central bank recently announced its plan to review the introduction of newly-designed banknotes to crack down on the growing number of counterfeit bills. The central bank's plan focuses on tackling forged bills, but the public is calling for more than that. They are requesting a change in the pictures on banknotes in a move to counter Japan and China's move to distort history.
• Political parties unite over Japan's textbooks
  February 19, 2005 ? Lawmakers from the National Assembly's three largest political parties are making common cause over history textbooks in Japanese schools. Representatives Kang Chang-il of the Uri Party, Go Jin-hwa of the Grand National Party and Choae Soon-young of the Democratic Labor Party were among the 79 lawmakers who signed a resolution calling on Japan to end "distortion" of its history in its textbooks.
• Japan in dilemma over NK sanctions
  .Shinya Ajima The Japanese government is coming under increasing pressure to impose economic sanctions on North Korea due to the North's attitude toward its past abductions of Japanese citizens. But some analysts believe it would not be easy for Japan to take such a step, given the host of problems associated with sanctions, including doubt as to their effectiveness, the wariness of neighboring countries over hard-line policies and the U.S. administration's apparent softening of its policy toward Pyongyang.
• Japan to Join U.S. Policy on Taiwan
  Growth of China Seen Behind Shift By Anthony FaiolaWashington Post Foreign Service Friday, February 18, 2005; Page A01 TOKYO, Feb. 17 -- The United States and Japan will declare Saturday for the first time in a joint agreement that Taiwan is a mutual security concern, according to a draft of the document. Analysts called the move a demonstration of Japan's willingness to confront the rapidly growing might of China. [Japanese remilitarisation] [Japan-China relations]
• DPRK Is Not Frightened by Japan's Disgusting Drama
  Pyongyang, February 11 (KCNA) -- Minju Joson Friday comes out with a commentary hitting at the outcries of the Japanese reactionaries over the "human rights" issue in the DPRK. The Japan Democratic Party some time ago approved the content of "a bill on the extermination of north Korean human rights violation" and then the Japan Liberal Democratic Party decided to work out "a north Korean human rights act" by the latter part of February to use it as "the second card of pressure" against the DPRK.
• Japan's Opposition Party to Submit NK Human Rights Bill
  By Park Song-wu Staff Reporter Japan's main opposition Democratic Party plans to submit a bill to the Diet this month aimed at improving North Korea's human rights conditions, Japanese media reported Thursday.
• Japan's Crafty and Shameless Act under Fire
  Pyongyang, February 10 (KCNA) -- Rodong Sinmun Thursday carries a signed article disclosing Japan's crafty and shameless act of seeking to paint itself as a "victim" instead of an assailant, kicking up a row over the "issue of a few abducted Japanese victims" while shelving the hideous crime of abduction it has committed against Koreans in the past. The results of the DNA test of remains of a Japanese woman peddled by Japan is a brainchild from a to z, the article says, bringing to light the wicked moves of the Japanese conservative politicians and reactionary media, talking about "pressure" and "sanctions" over the abduction issue.
• Pyongyang No Longer Puts Importance to Any Contact With Japan: Foreign Ministry
  The DPRK Foreign Ministry said on December 31 that the results of Japan's investigation of the remains of a Japanese civilian were "fabrication" and demanded Japan return the remains of Yokota Megumi. Pyongyang also warned that it no longer puts importance to any DRPK-Japan intergovernmental talks. "We can neither accept nor admit the results and resolutely rejects them" as the Japanese government reacts to our good faith with a faithless attitude, said a spokesman for the DPRK Foreign Ministry.
• Japan Termed Wicked trickster
  Pyongyang, February 9 (KCNA) -- The Japanese reactionaries staged an anti-DPRK burlesque disclosing photos of Korean man and woman, whom they painted as "Japanese abductees by north Korea" only to come to an end like curses coming home to roost. Commenting on this, Minju Joson today notes that Japan pulled up the DPRK over the "abduction issue" only to suffer shame internationally. The paper says: It was confirmed in Japan on June 2 last year that Japanese man named Yoshikazu Saita, who had been reported to have been "abducted by north Korea", resides in Tokyo at present. In August the fate of a Japanese woman teacher, who had been supposed to be "abducted by north Korea", was confirmed when one of the killers testified to the fact that she was murdered by Japanese gangsters 26 years ago. If the Japanese reactionaries are truly interested in destinies and rights of inhabitants, they should pay much more attention to how to prevent such human rights abuses in their own country. In particular, they should apologize and compensate for the forcible drafting of Koreans, the worst crimes committed by Japan against humanity in the past, and pay attention to the prevention of reoccurrence of similar abuses of people. The Japanese reactionaries are ill-famed for their crafty nature. No cunning burlesque staged by them to hurt someone can draw anyone's attention. On the contrary it will be little short of disgracing themselves. The Japanese reactionaries had better stop acting rashly, pondering over the miserable consequences to be entailed by their anti-DPRK smear campaign.
• Japanese Politician's Manipulation of Public Opinion Under Fire
  Japan's Justification of its Past Crime Only Redoubles International Solidarity The content of the TV program "Wartime sexual abuse exposed to criticism," a sequel to the serial program "How to try war" aired by NHK of Japan on January 30, 2001, was grossly altered just before it was telecast under the pressure of ultra-right wing conservative forces including Shinzo Abe, acting secretary-general of the Liberal Democratic Party of Japan, and Shoichi Nakagawa, minister of Economy, Trade and Industry, in the direction of covering up Japan's responsibility for the war, said a recent issue of the Japanese Asahi Shimbun.
• DPRK Dismisses Japan's Test Results on Yokota's Ashes as Fabrication
  KCNA Releases Memo Casting Doubts on Japan's DNA Investigation
  The official Korean Central News Agency issued a memorandum on January 24 on the results of Japan's investigation of the remains of abducted Japanese woman Yokota Megumi. The memorandum was based on the materials analyzed by the Ministry of People's Security and forensic pathologists authorized by the government. (See a summary of the memorandum.) It said that the results of the examination by Japan was a sheer fabrication because there were too many doubts as to the "objective and correct results of examination," which the Japanese government claimed, was conducted by the most competent research institution.
• Memorandum of KCNA on Truth About Japan's DNA Test Results on Remains of Yokota Megumi
  The Korean Central News Agency issued a memorandum on January 24 disclosing before the public at home and abroad the truth about the "results of examination" of the remains of Japanese woman Megumi Yokota, on the basis of the materials analyzed by the Ministry of People's Security and forensic pathologists, authorized by the DPRK government. The memorandum said as follows. Ultra-right wing forces and political heavyweights of Japan are fanning up an atmosphere of confrontation with the DPRK, crying out for introducing a "bill on North Korean human rights" and applying sanctions against it. The Japanese government has totally ignored the sincere efforts made by the DPRK to confirm the whereabouts of those Japanese whose fate it claimed "unknown" and their results and suspended the humanitarian aid it had already promised.
• Pyongyang Urges Tokyo to Take Practical Measure for Settlement of Japan's Past
  Statement of DPRK FM on Japan's Century-Long History of Crimes Against Korea The DPRK Foreign Ministry said that Japan should reexamine its hostile Korean policy and make a bold decision for the settlement of its past war crimes. "If Japan has a shred of foresight and sense, it should totally reexamine its Korea policy it has so far pursued, and renounce its reckless hostile policy toward the DPRK at once," a spokesman of the DPRK Foreign Ministry said in a statement issued on January 17.
• Statement of DPRK Foreign Ministry on DPRK-Japan Relations
  The following is a summary of the statement of the DPRK Foreign Ministry issued on January 17. In the year 2005 the Korean people will mark the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the country. It will be 60 years after the defeat of the Japanese imperialists. Many years have passed with the old century renewed by the new century and the change of several generations since the end of the Japanese imperialists·occupation of Korea. Japan, however, has shown no will to honestly repent of its crime-woven past and redeem it, but, on the contrary, has pursued a hostile policy toward the DPRK. Disturbing rackets against the DPRK now going on in Japan are touching off towering hatred and resentment among the servicepersons and people in the DPRK who have a deep-rooted rancor against the Japanese imperialists over their monstrous crimes committed in the past. Japan had savagely plundered Korea of its resources for over 40 years after occupying it by force of arms early in the past 20th century. It took away or abducted more than 8.4 million innocent Koreans and mercilessly killed at least one million of them and forced 200,000 women into sexual slavery for the imperial Japanese army.
• Foes on the Field, and Far Beyond
  Fans at Japan-North Korea Soccer Match Underscore Countries' Rising Tensions
  By Anthony Faiola Washington Post Foreign Service Thursday, February 10, 2005; Page A16
  SAITAMA, Japan, Feb. 9 -- When 3,600 North Korea supporters started to beat drums, wave red flags and cheer at the top of their lungs at a World Cup qualifying match Wednesday night, many of the 56,000 Japanese soccer fans here leaped to their feet and responded with an uncharacteristic outburst of emotion.
  They drowned out the North Korea fans -- who were protected by rows of blocked seats and police lines -- with loud boos 20 minutes before the start of the otherwise well-mannered match. Deafening shouts of "Nippon!", or Japan!, rose around the stadium, along with a flurry of unfurled banners of the Rising Sun, the Japanese flag.
  "This is a sporting event, but in our own way the Japanese people are also expressing our anger at North Korea," said Munenobu Takahashi, 31, a law student in Tokyo who was draped in one of the flags. "Right now, we have a lot to be angry about."
• Unification Minister Asks Japan Not to Sanction NK
  By Park Song-wu Staff Reporter Minister of Unification Chung Dong-young on Friday asked Japan to refrain from imposing sanctions on North Korea, saying that it would be a dead-end in resolving the soured relations between the two countries. ``I don't think it is desirable (for Japan) to apply sanctions against North Korea,'' Chung told reporters. ``I oppose such a plan. It will inflict pain on the North for a while. But will it contribute to finding a solution?'' His remarks came a day after a task force of Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) outlined a bill on North Korean human rights, demanding Japan's active involvement in protecting North Korean defectors.
• Japan's Iraq Conundrum
  Sakai Keiko interviewed by Eric Prideaux
  One year ago this month, an advance team from Japan's Ground Self-Defense Force (GSDF) arrived in Iraq on a mission -- so the Japanese public was told -- to help rebuild the wartorn country. The rest of the main contingent of 600 troops soon followed.
  Then, on Dec. 9, 2004, amid simmering debate over whether the dispatch fell foul of Japan's war-renouncing Constitution -- and after an Asahi Shimbun poll registered over 60 percent opposition to it -- the Cabinet of Prime Minister Koizumi Junichiro extended the Self-Defense Forces' stay by another 12 months. [Japanese remilitarisation]

• Sanctions Against North Korea or East Asian Security Cooperation?
  by Kang Sang Jung
  Are economic sanctions against North Korea inevitable? Even Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, who is feeling the pressure of public opinion, indicated that he may consider doing so. He made the remark during a news conference after meeting with South Korean President Roh Moo Hyun on Dec. 17. Until then, he had maintained a cautious stance on the issue. Indeed, the Japanese people are exasperated at North Korea's irresponsible attitude in resolving this vexing problem. But is it right to forge ahead and slap economic sanctions on North Korea? Before any action is taken, it is vital that timing and methodology be considered. But more importantly, Japan needs to look ahead and discern what it could lose by imposing economic sanctions.