TOKYO, Japan (AFP) — Japan’s defense minister went to a controversial war shrine in Tokyo Thursday, media reports said, the day after accompanying Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on a highly symbolic visit to Pearl Harbor. The shrine honours millions of mostly Japanese war dead and has been criticised by countries such as China and South Korea which suffered under Japan’s colonialism and aggression in the first half of the 20th century. Tomomi Inada, Abe’s hawkish […]
Tag: Japan
Abe, Obama hail reconciliation at Pearl Harbor
by Jerome CARTILLIER Agence France Presse PEARL HARBOR, United States (AFP) — The leaders of war-time enemies America and Japan made a poignant joint pilgrimage to Pearl Harbor Tuesday, issuing symbolic declarations about the power of reconciliation and warning against the drumbeat of conflict. Seventy-five years after Japanese fighter pilots brought the fires of war to idyllic Hawaii and dragged the United States into World War II, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe offered his “sincere […]
Obama, at Pearl Harbor, warns against ‘urge to demonize’ others
PEARL HARBOR, United States (AFP) — US President Barack Obama on Tuesday warned against the “urge to demonize those who are different” as he hosted the leader of foe-turned-ally Japan for a solemn visit to Pearl Harbor. Obama, who will leave office next month, also hailed the alliance between the two nations, saying it had “never been stronger.” In remarks that echoed with history and America’s current hypercharged politics, Obama told Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo […]
Abe’s Pearl Harbor pilgrimage underlines US-Japan tie
by Jerome CARTILLIER Agence France-Presse HONOLULU, United States (AFP) -Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe travels Tuesday to Hawaii’s Pearl Harbor, the site of a sneak attack by his country that provoked America into entering World War II, to reinforce what the leader calls “the power of reconciliation.” Abe, who will be hosted by US President Barack Obama, would be the first Japanese premier to visit the wreckage of the USS Arizona, which lost 1,177 crew […]
Japan’s Abe in Hawaii to visit Pearl Harbor with Obama
HONOLULU, United States (AFP) — Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe arrived in Hawaii on Monday ahead of a symbolic meeting with President Barack Obama at the site of the Pearl Harbor attack. Japanese leaders have visited Pearl Harbor before, but Abe will be the first to go to the US Arizona Memorial, the wreck where 1,177 US personnel died. Tuesday’s visit comes 75 years after Japan’s December 1941 attack on the base of the US […]
Chinese carrier enters South China Sea amid renewed tension
(REUTERS) A group of Chinese warships led by the country’s sole aircraft carrier entered the top half of the South China Sea on Monday after passing south of Taiwan, the self-ruled island’s Defense Ministry said of what China has termed a routine exercise. The move comes amid renewed tension over Taiwan, which Beijing claims as its own, ineligible for state-to-state relations, following U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s telephone call with the island’s president that upset […]
PM Abe to send message Japan won’t repeat war atrocities
(REUTERS) Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said on Monday he wants to send a message to the world during his visit to Pearl Harbor that Japan will never repeat the atrocities of past wars. “The alliance between Japan and the United States is one with hope in dealing with various problems in the world,” Abe said in a speech to the Japanese business lobby Keidanren. “I hope this visit will be a historical one with […]
Israeli PM, angered by anti-settlement U.N. vote, summons U.S. ambassador
(Reuters) Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday summoned the U.S. ambassador to Israel to discuss the U.S. abstention in a U.N. Security Council resolution demanding an end to settlement-building. Separately, the envoys of 10 other nations were called in to the Israeli Foreign Ministry to be reprimanded on Sunday, and Netanyahu had more harsh words for Washington over Friday’s U.N. vote. An Israeli spokesman gave no details of when Netanyahu would meet U.S. […]
Japanese Emperor Akihito celebrates 83rd birthday
TOKYO, Japan (Reuters) — Tens of thousands of people flocked to the Imperial Palace in Tokyo on Friday (December 23) to wish Japan’s Emperor Akihito a happy 83rd birthday. The Imperial Household Agency said more than 33,000 people gathered at the palace before noon, the biggest turnout in Emperor Akihito’s 28-year-long reign, as this year may be the last year they hold a mass celebration for him. “There are only few days left in […]
Japan pays UNESCO dues suspended over Nanjing row
TOKYO, Japan (AFP) — Japan said on Thursday it has paid millions of dollars in UNESCO annual funding dues after holding back the payment over a World War II-era history row. UNESCO, the UN cultural and scientific body, last year agreed to China’s request to include documents in its Memory of the World register recording atrocities by Japanese troops after the fall of the Chinese city of Nanjing 1937. Japan — one of UNESCO’s biggest contributors […]
Japan cabinet approves biggest defence budget
TOKYO, Japan (AFP) — Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s cabinet on Thursday approved Japan’s biggest annual defense budget in the face of North Korea’s nuclear and missile threats and a territorial row with China. The Cabinet approved 5.13 trillion yen ($43.6 billion) in defense spending for the fiscal year starting in April, up 1.4 percent from the initial budget for the current fiscal year. It marks the fifth straight annual increase and reflects the hawkish Abe’s […]
Japan, Indonesia to cooperate on maritime security
TOKYO, Japan (AFP) — Japan and Indonesia agreed Wednesday to cooperate on maritime security at a time when both countries are embroiled in sea rows with China. Beijing asserts sovereignty over almost all of the resource-rich South China Sea, despite rival claims from Southeast Asian neighbours. Indonesia has no dispute with China over ownership of reefs or islets. But China’s expansive claims overlap with Indonesia’s exclusive economic zone — waters where a state has […]





