Tag: Japan

Well so much for all the false claims that Ivermectin was causing Japan to have such a low COVID rate:

The sixth wave of COVID-19 in Japan gained strength over the weekend, rising to a daily total of 26,801 new cases on Monday and exceeding the previous peak reached six months ago, according to the World Health Organization.

A government panel could recommend a modified state of emergency, or quasi-emergency, in 11 prefectures, including Tokyo, on Wednesday due to the spike in cases nationwide, Japanese media reported Tuesday. 

Three other prefectures, including Okinawa, are already under a quasi-emergency. The new emergency may last three weeks, according to reports. The government would ask bars and restaurants to close early and refrain from selling alcohol, among other measures.

The U.S. military in Japan as of 6:30 p.m. Tuesday had not reported its total COVID-19 infections from the holiday weekend around Martin Luther King Jr. Day. It last confirmed 715 new infections across 17 military installations on Friday. 

Yokota Air Base, the headquarters of U.S. Forces Japan in western Tokyo, reported 138 new cases between Jan. 12 and Tuesday, for a 273 active cases, according to the base website. Most new infections, 130, were acquired locally and eight tested positive after recently arriving in Japan.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link, but Japan now has a higher daily case rate than at any during the Delta Wave that hit the this past summer.

Here is the latest on the COVID situation in Japan:

The U.S. and Japan on Sunday agreed to keep American troops within their bases as worries grew about a sharp rise in coronavirus cases in the country. 

The restrictions starting Monday will last 14 days, confining U.S. military personnel to base facilities except for “essential activities,” a statement from the U.S. Forces in Japan said. The Japanese Foreign Ministry released the same statement. 

The allies will share information and cooperate on coronavirus measures, “given the extraordinary virulence of the omicron variant spreading throughout Japan,” the statement said. 

U.S. military members will wear masks, both on and off base, when outside their homes, and will continue to carry out strict testing before leaving for and after arrival in Japan, it said. 

New COVID-19 cases have surged in Japan, jumping above 8,000 on Saturday, a four-month record. The spike has been most pronounced in areas near U.S. bases. Last week, Japan asked the U.S. for cooperation in keeping its military personnel on base.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

It seems to me a fairway to handle this is that any information about the site include the fact that Korean forced laborers were used her during the Imperial era. However, this makes too much sense and likely won’t happen:

A government panel proposed Tuesday that a gold mine site on the island of Sado, Niigata Prefecture, be a candidate for the 2023 UNESCO World Heritage designation.

But in a rare move, the Cultural Affairs Agency released a statement saying that the candidate selection by the Council for Cultural Affairs does not mean that the government has decided to recommend the site to UNESCO.

The agency said that the government will consider the matter comprehensively.

Under ordinary circumstances, the Japanese government would submit a recommendation to UNESCO by Feb. 1 next year after obtaining approval from related ministries and agencies and the Cabinet.

As South Korea claims that workers from the Korean Peninsula were forced to work at the Sado mines, however, it is unclear whether the Japanese government will recommend the site for World Heritage listing.

Yomiuri Shimbun

You can read more at the link.

USFJ is trying to mitigate the repetitional damage done to the command with the Japanese public with these new changes:

U.S. Forces Japan re-imposed a testing requirement for personnel heading to Japan on Thursday after the country’s foreign minister admonished the U.S. military for breaching its border protection measures. 

Japanese Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi expressed “deep regret” to USFJ commander Lt. Gen. Ricky Rupp that a unit of Marines was not tested for COVID-19 before it arrived on Okinawa aboard a U.S. government flight. The newly arrived Marines were quarantined at Camp Hansen but permitted base access for five days before being tested, Hayashi said at a Wednesday news conference in Tokyo. 

Marine Corps Installations Pacific on Dec. 17 said “multiple” Marines in the group had tested positive for COVID-19, the coronavirus respiratory disease. By Thursday, that cluster had grown to 227, up from 180 on Monday, Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno said at a news conference that morning.

Matsuno said he would continue to push the U.S. military to “take more thorough measures” to prevent the virus from spreading and hopefully ease locals’ concerns.

USFJ said the Hansen cases have prompted changes, according to a statement emailed to Stars and Stripes by spokeswoman Yukiko Date.

“In light of the current omicron variant, the COVID-19 positive cases at Camp Hansen in Okinawa, and to ensure the health and safety of all SOFA members and the citizens of Japan, USFJ has updated our COVID Health Protection Guidance to require pre-arrival testing for all SOFA members within 72 hours of flights departing for Japan on all forms of transportation,” the statement said. 

USFJ acknowledged Hayashi’s complaint but said it followed guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Defense Department and Indo-Pacific Command when it discontinued pre-departure testing in September.

The Okinawa Department of Public Health and Medical Care believed the U.S. military was testing its personnel before they boarded flights for Japan until it learned otherwise on Wednesday, a spokesman for the department said during an online press conference on Thursday.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

Looking back it is amazing that 93,000 people fell for the “Workers’ Paradise” scam, but it was a very different time back in the 1960’s compared to today:

Eiko Kawasaki stood at the port of Niigata, the place from which she left for North Korea more than 60 years ago, and tossed chrysanthemum flowers into the sea to pray for her peers who could not come back. Then she burst into tears.

As a 17-year-old girl seeking a better life, Kawasaki joined a resettlement program led by North Korea that promised a “Paradise on Earth” — where everything was supposed to be free and those with Korean roots like her could live without facing discrimination.

Kawasaki was among some 93,000 ethnic Korean residents in Japan and their relatives who joined the program only to find the opposite of what was promised. Most were put to brutal manual labor at mines, in forests and on farms and faced discrimination because of Japan’s past colonization of the Korean Peninsula.

One of the rare survivors who made it back to Japan, her birthplace, Kawasaki, now 79, is on a mission to keep alive the tragic stories and memories of the deceived “resettlement” victims. 

She aspires to open a museum and revitalize a street in Niigata to commemorate the resettlement program under the auspices of Japanese and Korean friendship groups.

Associated Press

You can read more at the link, but it is likely that most of the 93,000 ethnic Koreans from Japan are dead considering their very low social status in North Korea that would have led them into forced labor and little food.

Right now U.S. servicemembers still have to quarantine for 10 days upon arrival in Japan, but the government is reviewing a possible drop in this requirement:

The U.S. military population in Japan does not immediately benefit from the shorter coronavirus quarantine period for incoming travelers imposed this week by the Japanese government, a Foreign Ministry spokesman said Tuesday.

Japan is opening its borders to business travelers, international students and technical interns from countries considered low risk for the coronavirus and lowering its quarantine period for some foreign travelers to three days, with conditions. 

Eligible travelers are those from countries that Japan considers low risk. Tourists are still banned.

Travelers from the U.S., except those under the status forces agreement, may still be denied entry to Japan, according to the Foreign Ministry website. SOFA sets the rights, limits and responsibilities for service members, Defense Department employees and others affiliated with the U.S. military in Japan.

The spokesman said the government is still considering a three-day quarantine period for the “specific circumstance” of fully vaccinated U.S. military personnel arriving in Japan. 

“The government is still reviewing the matter,” the spokesman said during an hourlong virtual media briefing, “and has not resolved the question yet.”

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

A joint Japanese and Russian naval fleet sailed around the main island of Honshu, Japan in response to the international community sailing ships through the Strait of Taiwan. The big difference between this exercise and the international community’s freedom of navigation patrols is that no one from Japan is shrieking about the exercise like the Chinese government routinely does after freedom of navigation patrols. This shows how secure the Japanese government is unlike the CCP which has to shriek after every international military exercise or freedom of navigation patrol to drum up internal nationalism to legitimize their rule:

 A combined Russian Navy and People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) fleet concluded a sail in international waters east of Japan’s main island of Honshu and split off to their home ports on Saturday, all while being monitored by Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force ships and aircraft during the voyage.

The Chinese ships were Type 055 destroyer Nanchang (101), Type 052D destroyer Kuming (172), Type 054 frigates Binzou (515) and Liuzhou (573) and the replenishment ship Dongpinghu (902). Russian ships were destroyers Admiral Tributs (564) and Admiral Panteleyev (548), corvettes Gromkiy (335) and Hero of the Russian Federation Aldar Tsydenzhapov (339) and the missile range instrumentation ship Marshal Krylov (331).

The combined fleet had entered the Tsugaru Strait on Oct. 18 and since then had been sailing off Honshu. The Joint Staff of the Japan Self-Defense Force issued a release and map on Saturday stating that the joint fleet had sailed through the Osumi Strait that day. Located between the Osumi Peninsula and Tanegashima Island, the strait connects the Sea of Japan with the Pacific Ocean. Following their sail through the Osumi Strait, the ships of the two countries separated at a location 130 kilometers, or about 81 miles, southeast of the Danjo Islands. 

USNI News

You can read more at the link.

Here is the latest on the forced labor issue between South Korea and Japan:

Here is the latest from the Imperial Japanese forced labor issue with South Korea:

Japan has protested a South Korean court order on Mitsubishi Heavy Industries to sell assets in order to pay compensation to two women subjected to forced labor for the company during Japan’s occupation of the Korean peninsula during 1910-1945. Foreign minister Toshimitsu Motegi said on Tuesday that the ruling a day earlier by the Daejeon District Court in South Korea was a “clear violation of international law.” “We must avoid serious impacts on Japan-South Korea relations,” Motegi said, describing the court’s decision as “truly regrettable” during a regular news conference in Tokyo.

Relations between the two countries, both important U.S. allies in North Asia, have been dogged by the bitter legacy of Japan’s wartime occupation, and ties soured in 2019 due to a dispute over export controls which has yet to be resolved.

The Daejeon District Court in South Korea ruled on Monday that Mitsubishi Heavy should sell two patents and two trademarks, according to a support group for the women, who are both in their nineties.

Asahi Shimbun

You can read more at the link, but Tokyo believes this issue was resolved with the 1965 pact where $500 million from Japan was given to South Korea.  The ROK government at the time could have compensated everyone back then with that money, however it was instead used for the overall development of the country such as improving infrastructure.  The money ultimately helped with the country’s economic development at the expense of direct compensation to those effected by Japan’s colonial rule.  This is why Japan is so strongly against the court rulings they feel they have already paid compensation.

With that all said when is the ROK government going to launch lawsuits on behalf of victims of North Korea’s kidnappings and provocations in far more recent times than Japan’s colonial rule that began over a century ago?