Economy | ANALYSIS
Households to take hit from tax hike
by Tomoko Otake
The consumption tax increase will hit every household in Japan hard, with many people’s financial future hanging on whether their wages rise enough to offset the hike's impact.
World Sep 30, 2013
Scholars shed light on 'Jerusalem of the North'
Lithuania’s capital, Vilnius, was once a thriving Jewish cultural hub before Nazi Germany wiped out the “Jerusalem of the North” and killed off most of the country’s Jews. Now individuals and state institutions alike are trying to revive the memory of this Jewish heritage ...
National Sep 14, 2013
War museum may scale back on Japan aggression
A war museum funded by Osaka Prefecture and the city of Osaka has unveiled a proposal to put more emphasis on air raids against the city, raising the possibility that display content on Japanese aggression during World War II may be reduced. The Osaka ...
World Sep 7, 2013
Hitler bodyguard Misch dies in Berlin at 96
Rochus Misch, who spent five years as Adolf Hitler’s square-jawed bodyguard, courier, telephone operator and all-around attendant and was widely believed to be the last surviving veteran of the Nazi leader’s bunker as the Soviet Army closed in on Berlin, died Thursday at the ...
National Sep 5, 2013
Chinese plaintiff over wartime rapes dies at 83
A Chinese woman who joined a lawsuit to seek damages from the Japanese government for repeated rapes by Japanese soldiers during the war has died in Taiyuan, Shanxi province, her supporters in Japan said Thursday. Wan Aihua, who passed away Wednesday at age 83, ...
History Sep 4, 2013
South Korean text lauds Japan colonial rule
A newly authorized South Korean history textbook includes some positive passages about Japan’s colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula before and during World War II, according to local reports. The textbook describes how new cities that developed under colonial rule became transport and distribution ...
History Sep 3, 2013
Ibaraki group plans kamikaze film
An Ibaraki Prefecture-based group aims to make a movie on a former Imperial Japanese Navy air unit based in the present city of Kasama that trained kamikaze pilots near the end of the war. The Tsukuba air unit, launched in 1934, used the mainstay ...
National Aug 30, 2013
Spouses of dead Japanese from China may get aid
The ruling coalition is considering new financial support for the spouses of Japanese who resettled in Japan years after being abandoned in China after World War II ended, sources said. Under the plan being studied by the Liberal Democratic Party and its junior partner, ...
History | CHUBU CONNECTION Aug 23, 2013
Was Fellers friend of Japan or master manipulator?
A Nagoya University professor is working on a book about the life of the late U.S. Brig. Gen. Bonner Fellers, who played a major role in absolving Emperor Hirohito (known posthumously as Emperor Showa) of responsibility for Japan’s wartime aggression across Asia. The movie ...
National Aug 20, 2013
Japanese-Filipino, 86, a survivor of bicultural ordeal
by Ronron Calunsod
Koichi Sakae was 14 and living on the southern Philippine island of Mindanao when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in December 1941 and then hours later hit U.S. bases in the Philippines. Sakae, the sixth of eight children of Yamaguchi Prefecture native Naokichi Sakae and ...
National Aug 16, 2013
Nisei renew call for society free of all discrimination
by Jun Kaminishikawara
A leading group of U.S. citizens of Japanese descent, including some who suffered internment during World War II, are using their community’s experiences to campaign for a society free of discrimination and prejudice. The Japanese American Citizens League renewed its call for the protection ...
National | CHUBU CONNECTION Aug 16, 2013
Deadly postwar bomb blast almost forgotten
On Sept. 5, 1945, weeks after World War II had ended, an unexploded bomb went off on the coast of the Otani district in Tokoname, Aichi Prefecture, killing seven children. This tragic incident, occurring in a small village in the chaotic days just after ...
Crime & Legal Aug 15, 2013
Japanese sue government for wartime suffering on Pacific islands
A lawsuit was filed Thursday against the government by 24 residents of Okinawa seeking compensation for their World War II suffering while living on Pacific islands Japan had occupied. The suit, filed with the Naha District Court in Okinawa, is the first to seek ...