Okinawa
May 20, 2013
Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto on May 19 defended his suggestion that U.S. troops in Okinawa patronize sex-related services, saying the controversy his remark caused already had a...
May 19, 2013
NAHA—Defoliants used by the U.S. armed forces during the Vietnam War was stored in Okinawa, according to U.S. archives and testimony of a resident in Okinawa Prefecture....
May 18, 2013
OSAKA—Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto is now pointing the finger at translators as well as native speakers of Japanese for the continuing criticism over his recent comments on...
May 17, 2013
Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto on May 17 hit back at U.S. criticism of his remarks on "comfort women" by accusing the United States of using Japanese women to provide sex for...
May 16, 2013
OSAKA--Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto qualified some of his controversial remarks on wartime military brothels and ways to satisfy lustful U.S. servicemen in an attempt at damage...
May 16, 2013
Okinawa, which marked the 41st anniversary of its reversion to Japan on May 15, is posing one grave question: Does Japan really qualify as a sovereign state?
May 15, 2013
BEIJING--China is trying to strengthen its claim on tiny, uninhabited, Japanese-controlled islands by raising questions about the much larger Okinawa chain that is home to more ...
May 15, 2013
NAHA--Could Okinawa become an independent state? Five Okinawans formed a group to study the possibility on May 15, the 41st anniversary of the island prefecture's reversion to...
May 15, 2013
In July 1999, the Okinawa prefectural assembly came to a standstill for an entire day because of an unexpected development. It was the day a public hearing for a national flag...
May 14, 2013
OSAKA--Toru Hashimoto, co-leader of the Japan Restoration Party, stunned and flustered a U.S. military commander in Okinawa earlier this month with a suggestion that legalized...
May 14, 2013
A foreign submarine was detected on May 12 plying the depths in a contiguous zone outside Japan's territorial waters south of Kumejima island in Okinawa Prefecture, the Defense ...
May 09, 2013
BEIJING--As if the dispute between Beijing and Tokyo over sovereignty of the Senkaku Islands was not enough controversy, the Chinese Communist Party's flagship newspaper has...
May 05, 2013
NAHA--Even after nearly 60 years, Hozumi Maehara vividly remembers how he was cruelly interrogated by a U.S. military intelligence agent--with all his clothes stripped away.
May 03, 2013
The resurgence of Shinzo Abe, Japan’s prime minister born to a star-studded political lineage, is owed largely to a man from a humble background who was once vilified in the...
April 30, 2013
A sidewalk in Tokyo’s Ginza district was crowded with people waving Hinomaru rising-sun flags and jockeying for the best position to yell their insults and curses.
April 29, 2013
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe tried to reach out to Okinawans to heal wounds of the past during an April 28 ceremony organized by the central government to commemorate the return...
April 28, 2013
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe called on April 28 for a renewal of a "sense of hope and determination" in marking for the first time the restoration of Japan's post-war sovereignty, ...
April 25, 2013
Most Japanese tourists travel to the country’s southernmost prefecture for its beautiful beaches and subtropical climate. But Maiko Masaki has spent her last nine visits...
April 22, 2013
A company in Okinawa Prefecture has developed the world's first communications device that enables divers to "talk" with one another below the surface using light signals.
April 21, 2013
Emperor Showa wanted to visit Okinawa Prefecture before his first trip to the United States in autumn 1975, a desire left unfulfilled due to the opposition of residents,...