Who cares what Okinawa wants?
"In Japan, former American prisoners of war close a dark chapter" by Anna Fifield | Washington Post October 17, 2014
HEIWAJIMA, JAPAN — Bill Sanchez looked out over the canal. ‘‘That’s where the geisha girls used to be,’’ he said, pointing at the opposite bank, now lined with modern apartment buildings. ‘‘They used to wave at us.’’
Was that a twinkle in his eye or just the reflection of the water?
For most American servicemen held as prisoners during World War II, returning to Japan is a complicated thing.
But 96-year-old Sanchez, who spent 42 months doing back-breaking work here, said Thursday that the war was bad for everyone. He’s heartened at the way America’s former enemy has emerged from the ashes.
‘‘I went through all that suffering and the Japanese went through all those bombings,’’ he said, standing on this waterway that ran alongside what was once Camp Omori, where he was held prisoner.
Not only the two massive war crimes of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but the firebombing of Tokyo and so many other Japanese cities and towns.
Now, the camp site is a sprawling venue for boat races along the canal, complete with a Jumbotron and betting windows. The neighboring mall features huge signs declaring ‘‘Big fun” and ‘‘Game panic.’’
‘‘I take a bit of pride in all of this. What they have done is unbelievable,’’ said Sanchez, who was brought to Japan on a ‘‘hell ship’’ in 1942 after the United States surrendered in the Philippines, where he was stationed. He was wearing a crimson garrison cap with ‘‘American ex-prisoners of war’’ on it.
Sanchez, from Monterey Park, Calif., is one of seven former POWs visiting Japan on a trip organized by Japan’s foreign ministry ‘‘to promote mutual understanding between Japan and the United States through encouraging a reconciliation of minds.’’
About 36,000 Allied prisoners of war were held in Japan during the war and were compelled to work in coal mines, shipyards, and munitions factories under extremely harsh conditions.
Their mortality rate was as high as 27 percent, according to the POW Research Network Japan, and many of those who survived went home emaciated.
The seven men, all in their 90s, who came to Japan this week were being treated like VIPs, with receptions and a trip on the bullet train.
But the real reason they are here is to go back to those places where they toiled 70 years ago.
***********
His fellow POWs were: 99-year-old Jack Schwartz, a civil engineer in the Navy who was captured on Guam on the third day of the war; and Oral Nichols, now 93, who was a civilian helping to oversee the construction of an airstrip on Wake Island when it easily fell to the Japanese. He was imprisoned for virtually the entire war....
I don't want to minimize or forget their experiences; however, I'm tired of the war-promoting media flogging me with nostalgic world war memories.
--more--"
What is interesting is there is no companion article or comparison to the concentration camps the U.S. sent Japanese-Americans to after Pearl Harbor (a let-it-happen-on-purpose so we can get into WWII against massive public opposition).
If only we had Twitter back then:
"The tool grew out of a disaster message board that Facebook engineers created in 2011 after the earthquake and tsunami in Japan."
I'm always on the lookout for Fukushima related stuff since the fouling of the Pacific is ongoing to the tune of 300 tons of radioactive water:
"Japan reactor near active volcanos called unsafe" Associated Press October 18, 2014
TOKYO — A prominent volcanologist disputed Japanese regulators’ conclusion that two nuclear reactors were safe from a volcanic eruption in the next few decades, saying that a prediction was impossible.
A cauldron eruption at one of several volcanos surrounding the Sendai nuclear power plant in southern Japan could not only hit the reactors but could cause a nationwide disaster, said Toshitsugu Fujii, University of Tokyo professor emeritus who heads a government-commissioned panel on volcanic eruption prediction.
Nuclear regulators last month said two Sendai reactors fulfilled tougher safety requirements set after the 2011 Fukushima disaster. The regulators ruled out a major eruption in the next 30 years until the reactors’ reach the end of their usable lifespan.
--more--"
The volcano coverage calmed down rather quickly.
"Two women resign Japan cabinet, a setback to Abe" by Martin Fackler | New York Times October 21, 2014
TOKYO — Two female Cabinet ministers resigned Monday for separate election campaign scandals, handing an ill-timed political setback to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and two of his stated policy goals: empowering women and returning Japan to nuclear power.
The two were the highest-profile women in Abe’s government and among the five women he appointed to his Cabinet last month, matching an all-time high for the number of women in minister-level positions.
One of the two was Yuko Obuchi, the popular daughter of a former prime minister who was supposed to lead the government’s efforts to persuade a skeptical public to allow the restart of Japan’s shuttered nuclear plants.
The turmoil in his Cabinet deals a setback to Abe at a vulnerable moment, just as his Abenomics policies for reviving growth are showing signs of losing steam.
This month, the International Monetary Fund slashed its growth forecast for Japan, saying that the blow to consumer spending from an increase in the national sales tax this spring was larger than expected.
The resignations are also the first political crisis faced by Abe, who has enjoyed relatively high approval ratings since taking power in December 2012.
Two ministers resigning on the same day because of scandal is unheard of, even in Japan’s often short-lived Cabinets, prompting local media to draw ominous comparisons with Abe’s first term seven years ago, when he was forced to resign after a series of political scandals.
Calls for Obuchi to step down as trade minister had been growing after revelations that her support groups may have used political funds to treat supporters to trips to a popular theater and to buy them handkerchiefs and neckties from a boutique run by her brother-in-law.
Politics is the $ame in every country.
Opposition lawmakers said such uses of funds could be a violation of laws against bribing voters, a charge Obuchi denied at a news conference Monday to announce her resignation.
Obuchi, a moderate who was being groomed to one day possibly become Japan’s first female prime minister, had been given one of the toughest jobs in the Abe government: winning public support for restarting at least some of Japan’s 48 nuclear reactors, idled after the 2011 Fukushima accident.
“I sincerely apologize, as a member of the Abe Cabinet, for failing to make any contribution to reviving the economy, or bringing about a society in which women shine,” Obuchi said, repeating one of Abe’s political slogans.
The other woman to step down was Midori Matsushima, who resigned as justice minister following criticisms that she distributed free hand-held fans to supporters, a possible violation of political finance laws that prohibit gifts of monetary value to voters.
Wow, that's a strict law. I like it!
--more--"
"Ministerial aide’s bondage bar spree adds to Abe scandals" Bloomberg News October 24, 2014
TOKYO — Japan’s trade minister said he was ashamed to find out that an aide spent political funds in a bondage bar in the latest scandal to hit Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s Cabinet after two resignations earlier in the week.
Yoichi Miyazawa, who has been in the role for just two days, said Thursday a staff member claimed expenses for a visit to the Hiroshima bar. Miyazawa, who is charged with overseeing nuclear restarts, also said he held 600 shares in Tokyo Electric Power Company Co., which operated the Fukushima plants at the center of the 2011 disaster.
I suppose he was fit to be tied.
Miyazawa replaced Yuko Obuchi as minister on Oct. 21 after she resigned along with another female cabinet member over alleged breaches of electoral funding laws. The revelation Thursday could prove damaging to Abe, whose first 2006-2007 stint as premier ended after a series of scandals in his cabinet led to four resignations and a suicide.
The scandal could cause Abe’s relatively stable approval ratings to dip ahead of a decision later this year on an unpopular sales tax increase, according to a political analyst.
--more--"
Maybe he should have stuck with coffee instead:
"Swiss chain sorry for ‘unforgivable’ packaging" Associated Press October 24, 2014
GENEVA — A leading Swiss supermarket chain is apologizing for what it calls an unforgivable blunder: distributing minicontainers of coffee cream bearing portraits of Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini.
Migros, which also sells electronics and household goods, says it is immediately withdrawing boxes containing hundreds of the coffee cream containers and is breaking all ties with Karo-Versand, the small Swiss company that designed the collectible series of 55 different motifs, including likenesses of the German and Italian fascist dictators.
In a statement Wednesday, Migros described the incident as an internal failure and vowed to ‘‘tighten our controls for these products drastically’’ to ensure no more such mistakes.
It says Migros subsidiary Elsa-Mifroma never should have delivered the items to restaurants and cafes.
Who were they for, and why the flap? They are part of history now.
--more--"
No Tojo creamer?
Time to fly on out of here.
