Mr. Dezaki, his supporters and outside historians say the lawsuit over his film shows how nationalists seek to silence those who challenge them, while at the same time using any outlet they can to spread views that run counter even to an official 1993 Japanese government apology to the comfort women.
“The overarching theme of the film is, why do they want to erase this history?” the 36-year-old Mr. Dezaki said.
The 1993 apology has been a festering wound for those on the political right, including Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who have insisted that the Korean women were not sex slaves because there is no proof that they were physically forced into the brothels.
The conservatives have generally avoided the kind of reckoning that Germany has undergone in atoning for the Holocaust, as they argue that the actions of Japan during the war were no worse than those of other nations, and should not damage national pride.
“If Japan chooses the path of dialogue and cooperation, we will gladly join hands,” he added.
Motoko Rich can't understand Japanese. So she doesn't know what Japanese media has been saying.
Japan has been offering the dialogues with S.Korea. It is South Korea which had been refusing the talk.
Mr. Moon used Thursday’s anniversary — a national holiday in South Korea — to nevertheless urge Tokyo to stop using trade as a weapon to address historical grievances that have poisoned ties between the allies for decades and recently increasingly alarmed Washington.
In the last two months, Japan has removed South Korea from its list of preferential trading partners and tightened controls on the export of three chemicals essential to making the semiconductors and flat-panel displays that South Korean companies sell around the world, including for Apple iPhones.
EU has not put South Korea in its list of preferential trading partners. Is the EU using the trade as a weapon of something?
South Koreans have marched on the Japanese Embassy in Seoul, the capital; begun a widespread boycott of Japanese clothes, beers, cosmetics and cars; and curtailed tourist travel to Japan.
South Koreans are boycotting the innocent companies which have nothing to do with Abe's decision. It is just a manifistication of anti-Japanism.
In his Thursday address, Mr. Moon urged Japan not to disrupt “a highly sophisticated division of labor” that has allowed both nations to prosper.
There is no stable division of labor in the global market. Some South Korean companies took the place of Japanese companies. If South Korea can't provide what the consumers need, somebody else replaces South Korea.
Besides, there is little effect on the market. It is just that it takes little time for Japanese companies and the government to process the required documents.
In recent weeks, South Korean and Japanese political leaders both stoked nationalistic sentiments at home
Did Abe stoke nationalistic sentiments? What did he say? No Japanese is boycotting Korean products. The tour to Korea has increased.
But South Korea says the 1965 deal did not cover individual victims’ rights to seek redress for brutal colonial-era practices like using Korean women and men, including teenagers, for sexual slavery or forced labor. It insists that Japan has never sincerely atoned for — and instead has tried to whitewash — its brutalities.
Liar liar liar.
In 2005, the administration led by President Roh Moo-hyun concluded that the compensation payment was covered by Japan's "economic cooperation" grants, loans and other funds that were paid to South Korea for the settlement of problems stemming from property and other claims under the 1965 treaty. And Moon Jae-in, the current president of South Korea, was deeply involved in this matter as a high official at the time.
The 1,200 pages of documents show that South Korea agreed never to make further compensation demands, either at the government or individual level, after receiving $800 million in grants and soft loans from Japan as compensation for its 1910-45 colonial rule.
The documents were drawn up in 1963-65, the final years of South Korea's 14-year normalization talks with its former colonial ruler. The two neighbors established diplomatic ties in 1965 amid strong protests in South Korea.
If Mr. Abe expected he could force South Korea to make concessions on past disputes through trade penalties, he miscalculated. South Koreans have rallied behind Mr. Moon as he has vowed to fight back.
He didn't. He dropped South Korea from white-list for security reasons.
He hasn't taken " necessary measures against the Republic of Korea" yet.
7. Given the severe situation surrounding the Japan-Republic of Korea relationship caused by the Republic of Korea side, including the aforementioned, the Government of Japan will be taking necessary measures against the Republic of Korea.
Some gas stations in South Korea have put up signs saying Japanese cars are unwelcome.
That's racism！
Earlier this month, a news anchor on the national broadcaster KBS had to clarify on air that the ballpoint pen he held was not Japanese.
That is an example of how stupid Korean nationalism is.
Mr. Moon himself has also begun acknowledging that South Korea and Japan were locked in “a game with no winners” and that South Korea should not become too “emotional.”
Can you expect Koreans not to be too emotional?
And Japan has signaled it is easing off. It approved the shipment of a key high-tech material to South Korea last week, helping ease the tensions.
Oh my goodness. It is not easing off. It is doing what it has been saying. As soon as the required document is processed, and it is confirmed there is no problem. it approves the shipment. That is what's explained in Japanese media. Watch Japanse TV！
The mayor of Junggu, a central Seoul district with shopping centers frequented by Japanese tourists, called off plans to put up hundreds of “No Japan” placards after he was swamped by criticism that his plan would unnecessarily antagonize Japanese visitors.
But Korean lawmakers just canceled visiting Japan because of the atmosphere in South Korea, they say.
17:56 Korean professor says that rally against Moon Jae in is taking place every week. As of Aug.15th, the rally drew at least two hundred thousand protesters.
No Korean media cover it because I think one way of another Moon controls the media.
The Korean professor said he had a photo of the rally. According to the organizers, the rally gathered 300000 people. I can't confirm whether it is true or not. I am in Japan. Just go and visit Seoul and check if it is true or not.
That is the business of a journalist no?
A journalist should study the background and present an accurate picture of the events.
A journalist should fact-check.
A foreign correspondent should check the local media.
Japan proposed to compensate the laborers directly in 1965. South Korea declined & demanded the entire sum of $800 million (over $10 billion in today's money) to be paid to the government. So Japan did. https://t.co/V39DHUouxt@GlobalAsianistahttps://t.co/rAxSCG06zr
Japan is a modern democracy where freedom of the press is enshrined in the Constitution, which American occupiers drafted after the war. It is not the kind of place where journalists are denounced as the “enemy of the people.”
Still, the government sometimes behaves in ways more reminiscent of authoritarian regimes, like denying some journalists access to news conferences, or using clubby relationships between politicians and media executives to keep reporters in line.
The news conferences that have made Ms. Mochizuki a celebrity in Japanese press circles are attended by members of the cabinet office’s so-called kisha club — a press association whose members are given priority to ask questions, and whose queries are sometimes vetted by government officials. (Ms. Mochizuki’s employer, The Tokyo Shimbun, is a member, which is why she is allowed to attend.)
Such press clubs, which exist for institutions as small as local police departments all the way up to the prime minister’s office, often bar nonmembers from even going to news conferences and strictly control the information that comes from government agencies.
After a mass stabbing in a Tokyo suburb in May, for instance, the prefectural police agency refused to allow reporters who were not members of the club to attend any news briefings, and it refused to give them even basic facts about the case.
Critics say reporters in this system tend to avoid confrontations with officials, for fear of being ejected from the clubs and losing privileged access to information, including occasional leaks. At one briefing this spring, a reporter used his chance to question Mr. Suga by asking if the government planned to give the baseball star Ichiro Suzuki a special award upon his retirement.
Kyodo English news articles often contain serious errors. They are reprinted by Japan Times and Mainichi, under contracts that prohibit editing. The errors then get amplified by BBC, New York Times and others. Please, Japan Times et al., do not blindly reprint Kyodo articles. https://t.co/56mpXk1bpA
JUN 5, 2019
ARTICLE HISTORY PRINT SHARE
The labor minister has indicated he will not support a drive to ban dress codes that force women to wear high heels at work.
Employees’ health and safety need to be protected, but work is varied, said Health, Labor and Welfare Minister Takumi Nemoto, who oversees the country’s workplace reforms.
“It’s generally accepted by society that (wearing high heels) is necessary and reasonable in workplaces,” Nemoto said during a Diet committee session on Wednesday.
This is Japan, 2019. Labor minister says "It's generally accepted by society that wearing high heels is necessary & reasonable in workplaces.” @huenodidi@bydanielvictor wrote about women’s efforts to prevent employers from forcing women to wear high heels https://t.co/wiDEMIg5yD
Japan is allowing in more immigrants as it struggles to fill jobs in a shrinking population. But very reluctantly. Great story by @motokorich https://t.co/mlxGNFf3bh
Commonwealth immigration, made up largely of economic migrants, rose from 3,000 per year in 1953 to 46,800 in 1956 and 136,400 in 1961.[9] The heavy numbers of migrants resulted in the establishment of a Cabinet committee in June 1950 to find "ways which might be adopted to check the immigration into this country of coloured people from British colonial territories".[9]
Although the Committee recommended not to introduce restrictions, the Commonwealth Immigrants Act was passed in 1962 as a response to public sentiment that the new arrivals "should return to their own countries" and that "no more of them come to this country".
Enoch Powell gave the famous "Rivers of Blood" speech on 20 April 1968 in which he warned his audience of what he believed would be the consequences of continued unchecked immigration from the Commonwealth to Britain. Conservative Party leader Edward Heath sacked Powell from his Shadow Cabinet the day after the speech, and he never held another senior political post. Powell received 110,000 letters – only 2,300 disapproving-[33] as a result of the speech and a Gallup poll at the end of April showed that 74% of those asked agreed with his speech.[citation needed] Three days after the speech, on 23 April, as the Race Relations Bill was being debated in the House of Commons, around 2,000 dockers walked off the job to march on Westminster protesting against Powell's dismissal,[34] and the next day 400 meat porters from Smithfield market handed in a 92-page petition in support of Powell.[35]
By 1972, only holders of work permits, or people with parents or grandparents born in the UK could gain entry – significantly reducing primary immigration from Commonwealth countries.
“In Japan, your biggest problem is that there is a greater stigma about mental health problems than in other countries,” said Vickie Skorji, director of the crisis hotline at TELL, a counseling and crisis intervention service in Tokyo. “You’re most likely to get bullied, and less likely to get support services and understanding from your parents.”
Why New Zealand?
There's a combination of reasons, and it's important not to only focus on one statistic, warns Dr Prudence Stone of Unicef New Zealand.
The high suicide rate ties in with other data, showing for instance child poverty, high rates of teenage pregnancies or families where neither of the parents have work.
New Zealand also has "one of the world's worst records for bullying in school", says Shaun Robinson of the Mental Health Foundations New Zealand.
He explains there is a "toxic mix" of very high rates of family violence, child abuse and child poverty that need to be addressed to tackle the problem.
New Zealand's own statistics also reveal that suicide rates are highest for young Maori and Pacific Islander men.
"This shows us there are also issues around cultural identity and the impact of colonisation," he says.
According to the most recent data of 2014, the suicide rate among Maori men across all age groups is around 1.4 times that of the non-Maori.
"It is alarming to see - and perhaps it is an indicator of the level of institutional and cultural racism in our society," says Dr Stone.
All my life, I've been the foreigner in Japan, and the Asian in the U.S. Covering Naomi Osaka and Denny Tamaki in Japan, I'm getting to know my own mixed-race identity in a new light https://t.co/erdKVrMimT
Audrey was 6 and a half when we started this channel.
She is a young girl living in Japan. She is half: her mom is American and her dad is Japanese.
She likes to share her opinions about various topics.
Rape statistics in Japan are among the lowest in the developed world though they are almost certainly an underestimate. Victims of sexual assault are even less likely to tell the police than elsewhere: fewer than 5 per cent of Japanese women officially report rape, according to the government. Ito’s experience suggests why.
“Everyone wants to take me to a place where I am fighting against Abe; I don’t care,” she says. “I don’t even care about Yamaguchi. I do care that the justice system works.”
Everyone including David Mcneill, right?
He said, for foreign correspondents, "all that matters was whether it affected Abe cabinet".
