[/floatr]Mainichi: Former Japanese leader Nakasone denies setting up sex slave brothel in World War II
A Japanese former prime minister and elder statesman Friday denied setting up a military brothel staffed by sex slaves during World War II, despite writing a memoir that critics say shows he did so while in the navy. Yasuhiro Nakasone, who served as prime minister from 1982 to 1987 and was known for his friendship with then-U.S. President Ronald Reagan, described the facility he set up as a place for civilian engineers to relax and play Japanese chess...A Nakasone memoir published in 1978 said that members of his 3,000-man navy unit in wartime Philippines and Borneo "began attacking women, while others took to gambling...At one point, I went to great pains to set up a comfort station" to keep them under control, he wrote...But on Friday, Nakasone was vague about the activities at the facility, skirting a question about whether prostitutes were active there. "The engineers ... wanted to have a facility to relax and play 'go,' so we simply established a place so they could have that"...more...
(Apologies for using that image yet again)
