Koizumi does Yasukuni

[Greji]

Prime Minister Koizumi being extremely sensitive to not upsetting anybody, slipped right up the golden runway of Yasukuni Jinja this morning. I look forwarded to the favorable supportive comments from the Chinese and Korean Governments for his protection of traditional Japanese values.

I'm sure that he will get all the rave reviews in the Japanese press who are their own worst enemy to begin with.

Let the fun and games begin!

[Captain Japan]

What time? Any details? The BBC is citing Jiji and saying he is on the way...
Japan PM to visit Yasukuni shrine
BBC

Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi is to visit a controversial war shrine on Monday, Japan's Jiji news agency reports.
The Yasukuni war shrine is seen by Japan's neighbours as a symbol of the country's World War II militarism.

Relations with China and South Korea have been soured by Mr Koizumi's annual visits to the shrine.

Yasukuni honours Japan's 2.5 million war dead, as well as war criminals convicted by a 1948 war tribunal.

[Greji]

[Greji]

What time? Any details? The BBC is citing Jiji and saying he is on the way...

Now I don't know.

NHK said he had already made the un-announced visit and the schedule had not been previously given for security. Now they are showing Yasukuni with photo ops being setup, so I don't know if he's got there or not!

[Captain Japan]

What time? Any details? The BBC is citing Jiji and saying he is on the way...

Now I don't know.

NHK said he had already made the un-announced visit and the schedule had not been previously given for security. Now they are showing Yasukuni with photo ops being setup, so I don't know if he's got there or not!

What kind of job lets you watch TV??!!

[Greji]

What kind of job lets you watch TV??!!

If you recall, I work Saturdays and Sundays, so my weekends are usually Mondays and Tuesdays, which allows me to watch the White Sox kick the Angels ass today.

[Captain Japan]

Ok, Kyodo has the dope. He's going in 15 minutes! Kyodo stories usually disappear so I'm putting the whole thing up...
Koizumi to visit Yasukuni Shrine on Mon. morning: aides

TOKYO, Oct. 17 KYODO
Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi will visit the war-related Yasukuni Shrine around 10 a.m. Monday, his aides said, in a move that is expected to spark renewed protests from China, South Korea and other Asian countries, and further damage strained ties.
Political observers have been saying that Koizumi was certain to visit the Shinto shrine, which enshrines convicted war criminals along with the war dead, by the end of the year given his landslide victory in the Sept. 11 general election.
The opposition camp and even some in his ruling coalition have, however, urged Koizumi not to do so out of diplomatic concerns.
The visit, Koizumi's fifth since taking office in April 2001, will also be highly controversial as it comes just about two weeks after the Osaka High Court ruled his previous visits violated the constitutional separation of religion and state.
Yasukuni Shrine, in central Tokyo, began its annual four-day autumn festival Monday.
Koizumi has repeatedly said that he visits Yasukuni to mourn the war dead and to pledge that Japan shall never wage war again. In response to criticisms from China and South Korea, he has said that ''other countries should not intervene on how (Japan) should pay tribute'' to the war dead.
Koizumi last visited Yasukuni on New Year's Day last year, after going Aug. 13, 2001, April 21, 2002, and Jan. 14, 2003. He has avoided going there on the sensitive day of Aug. 15, the anniversary of Japan's 1945 surrender in World War II, despite his pledge to do so when he ran for presidency of the Liberal Democratic Party in April 2001.
In a meeting with Koizumi in April, Chinese President Hu Jintao called on the Japanese prime minister to back up his feelings of remorse for Japan's wartime past with action, words widely believed to be a call for a halt to the Yasukuni visits.
Similarly, South Korean President Roh Moo Hyun told Koizumi in a meeting in June that the Yasukuni issue remains at ''the core'' of disputes between the two countries, in what was believed to be an implicit call for an end to the visits.
In May, Chinese Vice Premier Wu Yi, who was visiting Japan for Chinese national day events at the World Expo in Aichi Prefecture, abruptly canceled a scheduled meeting with Koizumi. Beijing later announced the cancellation was due to Koizumi's remarks on his visits to Yasukuni.
With Shanghai being host of the next world expo, the Japanese government had invited Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao to visit Japan for the Sept. 25 closing of the Aichi Expo, but he did not visit.
There are no indications of when the stalled mutual visits by the two countries' leaders will resume.
Koizumi's visit to Yasukuni on Monday is also likely to affect plans for South Korean President Roh's visit to Japan in December.

[Greji]

Ok, Kyodo has the dope. He's going in 15 minutes! Kyodo stories usually disappear so I'm putting the whole thing up... Koizumi has repeatedly said that he visits Yasukuni to mourn the war dead and to pledge that Japan shall never wage war again. In response to criticisms from China and South Korea, he has said that ''other countries should not intervene on how (Japan) should pay tribute'' to the war dead.

It is an interesting note that in a world where protocol requires all visiting heads of state to lay a wreath on the national tomb or emblem of the country's war dead in the country they are visiting (usually as one of the first protocols of the visit), that this is only frowned upon if it is Japan and only Japan cannot have a war memorial. Odd deshou?

(For CJ, Contreras mows down Angels (or should I say Angles) in the first two CWS 1-0!)

[Captain Japan]

Koizumi plans Monday visit to controversial Yasukuni
Mainichi

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi will visit Yasukuni Shrine on Monday morning, a government spokesman said.

It will be Koizumi's first visit to the site where Japan's war dead are enshrined -- including Class-A war criminals -- since New Year's Day last year and his fifth since becoming prime minister in April 2001.

Critics, especially in China and the Koreas, say that the shrine glorifies Japanese militarism, but Koizumi says that he is only mourning the country's war dead.

China in particular has taken a hard line with regard to Koizumi's Yasukuni visits, halting all meetings between the heads of government in both countries since he began attending the shrine.

Koizumi said he is visiting the shrine to attend its autumn festival, which runs from Monday to Friday...more...

Now we know why he's going. Koizumi just wants cruise the stalls for a few beers!
Vlady has really let me down in this series. It is still early. Don't get too confident, GB-sama.

[Greji]

Now we know why he's going. Koizumi just wants cruise the stalls for a few beers!
Vlady has really let me down in this series. It is still early. Don't get too confident, GB-sama.

Ah, he just likes takoyaki.

1-1 at three. Vlady was rejected by the Dodgers when he first came over as being two weak on defense and not a big offensive threat, which was why he ended up in Canada. So much for what the J-ballers claim was the talented eye of Lasorda!

[Captain Japan]

1-1 at three. Vlady was rejected by the Dodgers when he first came over as being two weak on defense and not a big offensive threat, which was why he ended up in Canada. So much for what the J-ballers claim was the talented eye of Lasorda!

As I remember the story, the Dodgers had a choice between him and his brother Wilton "Corky" Guerrero. They chose Corky. Stupid.

[blackcat]

The rapist made his visit the same day chinese astronauts return to earth HHmm....picked his timing didnt he...maybe he`ll get less flack as the chinese will be "over the moon" with good news???

[Captain Japan]

He's not holding a beer or a tray of takoyaki. The hypocrite!


Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi bows as he pays homage at Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo on October 17, 2005. Koizumi paid homage on Monday at a shrine for the war dead seen by critics as a symbol of Japan's past militarism, a step certain to outrage Asian neighbors China and South Korea. Photo: Reuters

[Mulboyne]

[Greji]

[Taro Toporific]

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi bows as he pays homage at Yasukuni Shrine i... a step certain to outrage Asian neighbors China and South Korea.

http://headlines.yahoo.co.jp/hl?a=20051017-04048145-jijp-int.view-001

[Captain Japan]

Monkey see, monkey do...
Nearly 200 Diet members visit Yasukuni Shrine
Mainichi

Nearly 200 Japanese lawmakers prayed at a Tokyo shrine honoring the nation's war dead on Tuesday, a day after a visit by Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi triggered angry protests from China and South Korea, which say the shrine glorifies Japan's past militarism.

The group, including leaders of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and a handful of opposition lawmakers, visited Yasukuni Shrine to pay respects to the war dead during a fall festival, shrine official Yoko Tokoro said.

Koizumi prayed at the shrine on Monday for the fifth time since becoming prime minister in April 2001, despite a recent court ruling that the visits violate Japan's constitutional division of religion and state.

The prime minister's visits have enflamed tensions with South Korea and China, which suffered from Tokyo's conquest of East Asia in the first half of the 20th century. Those tensions erupted in April with anti-Japanese riots in several Chinese cities.

Ruling party lawmaker Masatoshi Kurata told reporters at Yasukuni that the visit was to mourn for the war dead and pray for global peace.

"All lawmakers who are here know very well how our nation has achieved peace in the 60 years since the end of the war," Kurata said, brushing off protests from Japan's Asian neighbors. "We all thought very carefully ... each country has its own position."...more...

[dingosatemybaby]

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi bows as he pays homage at Yasukuni Shrine i... a step certain to outrage Asian neighbors China and South Korea.

http://headlines.yahoo.co.jp/hl?a=20051017-04048145-jijp-int.view-001

My wife and I had a laugh over this guy on the news last night. He tries and tries to tear apart that Japanese flag with his teeth, but no dice. So he ends up looking like a big dork.

-dingo
-has chewed through many flags

[Greener]

Big question:

Why is it so important to kiss china's ass all the sudden? Was the China/Japan war bad? Yes but no better or worse than the rest of the wars that were part of WWII.

Paul Martin made me utterly ashamed to be Canadian when he talked about china's great human rights record and claims of friendship with red china.

I have to give Koizumi props for not caring what Furher Hu thinks. That's better than most weak kneed ass kissers we call the rest of the UN.

[djgizmoe]

"Japan's dream of building a Great East Asia was necessitated by history and it was sought after by the countries of Asia...Moreover, there were those who gave up their lives after the end of the Great East Asian War, taking upon themselves the responsibility for the war. There were also 1,068 "Martyrs of Showa" [Class A War Criminals] who were cruelly and unjustly tried as war criminals by a sham-like tribunal of the Allied forces (United States, England, the Netherlands, China and others). These martyrs are also the Kami of Yasukuni Jinja."
http://www.yasukuni.or.jp/english/

For some strange reason the website seems to be down from this afternoon...

[Taro Toporific]

Totally. Wacko. China.
(Wasn't the landing was more than 24 hours before PM Koizumi's visit to Yasukuni War Criminal Shrine?)

Chinese media link Yasukuni visit to spacecraft landing
Kyodo, Tuesday October 18, 11:33 AM---Chinese media linked Tuesday Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's visit to Yasukuni Shrine on Monday to the celebratory same-day landing of the country's second manned spacecraft.
In full-page coverage of Koizumi's visit to the shrine, which China strongly opposes because the Shinto shrine enshrines Class A war criminals active during World War II along with Japan's war dead, local papers said Koizumi picked the day the Shenzhou-6 spacecraft landed after five days in space.
"As Chinese people are celebrating, for Koizumi to go to Yasukuni Shrine on this day is a serious provocation to the general Chinese public," the Beijing Morning Post said, quoting Xinhua News Agency....more...

[homesweethome]