Japan

Trump Admin Aims To Kill Historic Talks And Strangle Iran With Evidence-Free Accusations

June 16, 2019 Ben Norton, Grayzone Project. Educate! Iran, Japan, US Empire, Wars and Militarism

Since entering office, the Donald Trump administration has been itching for a war on Iran. And it may have found an excuse to justify an escalation of military aggression — or at least kill independent international attempts at diplomacy with Tehran. On the morning of Thursday, June 13, two oil tankers were allegedly attacked in the Gulf of Oman, just off the coast of Iran. The US government immediately blamed Iran for the incident, without providing any evidence. The vessels happened to be en route to Japan at precisely the same time that Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was in Tehran. The first Japanese leader to visit Iran since its revolution 40 years ago, Abe was holding a historic meeting with Ayatollah Ali Khamenei when the incident took place. This coincidence did not escape Iran’s foreign minister, Javad Zarif, who said, “Suspicious doesn’t begin to describe what likely transpired this morning,” and reiterated a call for regional dialogue and cooperation.

Okinawa Rally Urges Japan, US Gov’ts To Scrap Base Relocation Plan

March 18, 2019 Staff, Mainichi.jp Resist! Japan, Military bases, Okinawa, US Imperialism

NAHA (Kyodo) -- A rally of thousands of Okinawa residents on Saturday urged the Japanese and U.S. governments to scrap a plan to relocate a controversial U.S. air base within the southern prefecture. Following a local referendum last month that showed over 70 percent opposed the transfer plan, some 10,000 people gathered at a park in the prefectural capital of Naha, according to the organizer of the rally. The protesters adopted a resolution demanding the two governments abolish the plan to relocate U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma from a crowded residential area of Ginowan to the less densely populated coastal area of Henoko in Nago.

Japan Prepares For War Alongside US, Massive Military Build-Up Targets China & Russia

December 31, 2018 Ben McGrath, Wsws.org Educate! China, Inter-Imperialist Rivalry, Japan, Militarization, Russia

The cabinet of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe approved new so-called National Defense Program Guidelines (NDPG) on December 18 that will rapidly accelerate Tokyo’s remilitarization, including the acquisition of offensive weaponry. The new 10-year policy explicitly targets China and North Korea, as well as Russia. The document makes clear that Japan is preparing for war alongside the United States. It states that the US “remains the world’s most powerful nation, but national rivalries are surfacing and we recognize the importance of the strategic competition with both China and Russia as they challenge the regional order.”

Tokyo Solidarity With Okinawa Against Killing Of Henoko Coral

December 19, 2018 Joseph Essertier, Japan for a World Beyond War. Resist! Japan, Military bases, Okinawa, Wars and Militarism

Tokyo, Japan - On US television, in US newspapers, and on US-based Internet news sites this week there is a near-perfect silence as our government begins to build in earnest, on the island of a peaceful and democracy-loving people in Japan, another military base. The coral has been injured before, such as when they dropped concrete blocks on it, but only now it will be killed off for good, as they do the landfill work and bury it along with all its beautiful biodiversity. No news reports, no photos, no interviews with Okinawan intellectuals or protesters or politicians, not even with the new and interesting Governor of Okinawa, Denny Tamaki, who said that Okinawans will resist with “all methods” (arayuru shudan).

Keen Sword: US And Japan Stage Largest Wargames In Pacific Amid Tensions With China

November 5, 2018 Staff, Rt.com Educate! China, Imperialism, Inter-Imperialist Rivalry, Japan, United States

Washington and Tokyo have amassed a record number of sailors, marines and airmen for the biggest joint naval drill that the two allied nations have ever held close to Chinese shores as tensions keep rising in the region. Around 47,000 troops from the Japan Self-Defense Force have been joined by more than 10,000 US servicemen for the Keen Sword 19 military exercise – the biggest drill of its kind since the biennial joint maneuvers were launched in 1986. The US forces participating in the drill include the bulk of the Seventh Fleet, as well as the Submarine Group 7 – both of which are based in Japan's Yokosuka. Tokyo has deployed roughly a fifth of its military. Two Canadian warships are also taking part in the exercise.

World Scholars, Artists, Activists Call For Demilitarization Of Okinawa

September 11, 2018 Staff, Consortiumnews.com Resist! Demilitarization, Inter-Imperialist Rivalry, Japan, Okinawa, US Imperialism

In January 2014, more than one hundred scholars, peace activists and artists from around the world issued a statement condemning the Japanese and U.S. governments’ plans to close MCAS Futenma, which is located in the middle of a congested urban neighbourhood, and build a new base for the US Marine Corps offshore from the coastal village of Henoko in Northern Okinawa. While we applauded shutting the Futenma base, we strongly objected to the idea of relocating it inside Okinawa. Okinawa has suffered at Japanese and American hands for more than a century. It was incorporated by force into both the pre-modern Japanese state in 1609 and into modern Japan in 1879. In 1945, it was the scene of the final major battle of World War Two, resulting in the deaths of between one-third and one-quarter of its population.

More Than 70,000 People Hospitalized Amid Record-Breaking Heat In Japan

August 14, 2018 Lorraine Chow, Ecowatch.com Educate! Death, Global Warming, Japan

An ongoing heatwave has sent a record 71,266 people to hospitals across Japan between April 30 and Aug. 5 with 138 people dying from heat-related illnesses, The Japan Times reported, citing the nation's Fire and Disaster Management Agency. The busy capital of Tokyo saw the highest number of people taken to hospitals, at 5,994. Osaka followed with 5,272. About 40 percent of the total tally consists of elderly people. The number of people hospitalized in just the past three months far exceeds the previous record of 58,729 recorded from June 1 to Sept. 30 in 2013. Last month, the city of Kumagaya in the Saitama prefecture reached 41.1 degrees Celsius (106 degrees Fahrenheit), an all-time high for the country, prompting the national meteorological agency to declare the extreme heat a "natural disaster." What's more, the heat is expected to continue.

Marching For Peace, From Helmand To Hiroshima

August 6, 2018 Maya Evans, Vcnv.org Resist! Afghanistan, Japan, Protests, US Imperialism, US military

I have just arrived in Hiroshima with a group of Japanese “Okinawa to Hiroshima peace walkers” who had spent nearly two months walking Japanese roads protesting U.S. militarism. At the same time that we were walking, an Afghan peace march that had set off in May was enduring 700km of Afghan roadsides, poorly shod, from Helmand province to Afghanistan’s capital of Kabul. Our march watched the progress of theirs with interest and awe. The unusual Afghan group had started off as 6 individuals, emerging out of a sit-in protest and hunger strike in the Helmand provincial capital Lashkar Gah, after a suicide attack there created dozens of casualties.

Protests Sweep Japan To As Right-Wing Government Pushes For Further Militarization

May 7, 2018 By Elliott Gabriel, Mintpressnews.com Resist! Fascism, Japan, Militarization, Protests

TOKYO — Massive protests took place across Japan on Thursday to mark 71st Constitution Memorial Day as tens of thousands of people rallied against Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s continued attempts to scrap the pacifist aspects of the 1947 U.S.-penned Constitution. The protests drew up to 60,000 participants in Tokyo alone, where Japanese people of all ages rallied in Rinkai Disaster Prevention Park calling for the scandal-plagued Abe administration to step down and for the preservation of the Constitution’s Article 9. Rallies were also held in Osaka, Fukuoka, Hokkaido, and other cities across the country. Article 9 of the Constitution explicitly renounces “war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes.” It also clearly states that “land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained”

These Two Islands, 1,400 Miles Apart, Are Banding Together Against U.S. Bases

April 12, 2018 By Jon Mitchell, Fpif.org Resist! Japan, US Imperialism

In January, three residents from the U.S. territory of Guam visited Japan to express their solidarity with Okinawans struggling to block construction of new U.S. military facilities on their island. During their 10-day stay, the members of Prutehi Litekyan: Save Ritidian — Monaeka Flores, Stasia Yoshida and Rebekah Garrison — participated in sit-in demonstrations and gave a series of lectures explaining the similarities between Guam and Okinawa. The Japanese prefecture of Okinawa is host to 31 U.S. bases, which take up 15 percent of the main island. On the U.S. territory of Guam, the Department of Defense owns 29 percent of the island — more than the local government, which owns only 19 percent. And if the U.S. military gets its way, its share there will soon grow.

Justice For Hiroji: ‘Rough Country Boy’ Vs Empire

February 4, 2018 By Will Griffin, the Peace Report Resist! Empire, Japan, Okinawa

Hiroji Yamashiro has been a fierce leader of the anti-base movement on Okinawa Island in fighting back against the blanket of U.S. militarism that covers the island. Yamashiro, along with other anti-base activists, have been arrested and are being charged. 18.4 percent of the island belongs to the Pentagon in the form of 32 military bases, tens of thousands of troops, and constant military training exercises either near or just overhead of major civilian populations. I’ve met university students who told me they have no idea what life is like without helicopters constantly flying over them and interrupting their daily routines. The anti-base movement in Okinawa is leading the way in fighting base against the American Empire of Bases. Its time we support them in their fight.

US Has Deadly Accidents And Crumbling Infrastructure

January 8, 2018 By Mike Ludwig, Truthout.org Educate! Infrastructure, Japan, Transportation, United States

Japan's high-speed bullet train system carries 1 million riders every day and has a remarkable safety record, at least compared to passenger trains in the United States. Passengers have taken billions of rides on Japanese bullet trains since the system was established 50 years ago, but not one passenger has died due to a derailment or collision. In the US commuters and travelers use trains less than the Japanese, but US passenger train lines have suffered five major wrecks that killed or injured passengers over the past decade, including the recent derailment of an Amtrak passenger train that killed three people and injured more than 50 others in DuPont, Washington on December 18. Among the dead were two active members of the Rail Passengers Association, a group that pushes for greater access to passenger rail services.

Japan’s Election Worsening Prospects For Peace With N. Korea, China

October 24, 2017 Nicole L Freiner, www.theconversation.com Educate! China, Foreign Relations, Inter-Imperialist Rivalry, Japan, North Korea

By Nicole L Freiner for The Conversation - Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe gambled by calling a snap election – and he has won big. Voters handed Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party a sweeping victory in the Oct. 22 balloting for Japan’s House of Representatives. The call for the election came in late September after North Korea had just fired another test missile, with its longest delivery system yet. Over the past months, North Korea has tested six missiles, with each test either falling into the Japan Sea or passing over Japan to land in the Pacific. This latest missile flew over Japan’s northernmost island of Hokkaido before falling into the Pacific Ocean. North Korea’s leader, Kim Jung Un, used strong threats after this missile test, saying that he hoped to see Japan sink into the sea. Abe and his hawkish, conservative coalition have been attempting to rebuild Japan’s military capabilities and to scrap its WWII-era constitution that prohibits aggression. Based on my research in Japanese politics, I believe the party’s electoral victory spells trouble for peace in Asia.

Japan’s Tepco Gets Slapped With New U.S. Lawsuit Over Fukushima

August 26, 2017 Aaron Sheldrick, www.reuters.com Resist! Fukushima, Japan, Lawsuit

By Aaron Sheldrick for Reuters - TOKYO (Reuters) - Tokyo Electric Power Co Holdings said on Thursday it has been hit with another lawsuit filed in a U.S. court seeking $5 billion for compensation over the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster, the second filed against the utility in a U.S. court. The suit filed by 157 individuals is seeking that amount to set up a compensation fund for the costs of medical tests and treatment they say they need after efforts to support the recovery from the world’s worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl in 1986. The utility, known as Tepco, is being sued regarding improper design, construction and maintenance, claiming compensation for physical, mental and economic damages, the company said in a statement. A multi-plaintiff lawsuit was filed on Aug. 18, 2017, against Tokyo Electric Power Co and other parties in the Southern District Court in California, the legal information group Justia said on its website. Tepco has been hit with more lawsuits than in any previous Japanese contamination suit over the meltdowns of three reactors at its Fukushima Daiichi plant north of Tokyo after a massive earthquake and tsunami in March 2011.

Hidden History Of Japanese American Incarceration And Defiance

August 8, 2017 Elliott Gabriel, www.telesurtv.net Resist! History, Immigrants, Japan

By Elliott Gabriel for Tele Sur - Filmmaker Konrad Aderer's grandparents were among those incarcerated in the camps. In his latest documentary, “Resistance at Tule Lake,” viewers are presented with a long-stifled aspect of the tragedy of Japanese American detention, with the organized mass resistance bravely waged by the 12,000 residents branded as “disloyal” to the U.S. government taking center stage. Detained under color of law at the Tule Lake Segregation Center along California's northern border, the protagonists of “Resistance” defy attempts to marginalize their suffering or their defiance. The documentary, which is being screened at select venues, gives audiences a rarely-heard opportunity to listen the voices of those who were unexpectedly plunged into “a hell,” as one survivor recounts, but maintained the strength not only to survive, but also to fight back. “The resistance that arose in the incarcerated Japanese American community is a story that has been largely hidden until now,” Aderer told teleSUR. “And it holds so much more much more meaning now, can be better understood in this post-post-9/11 era when, absent any new major attack in the United States, Islamophobia and anti-immigrant hatred has managed to become even more vicious and influential."

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