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Tokyo court rejects appeal of Chinese war victims
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Tokyo court rejects appeal of Chinese war victims
www.chinaview.cn 2005-04-20 08:12:23
BEIJING, April 20 (Xinhua/China Daily)-- The Tokyo High Court yesterday rejected compensation demands brought by Chinese victims of Japan's World War II atrocities,
The rebuffed claimants included victims of germ warfare, the Nanjing Massacre and fire bombing in Yong'an, Fuzhou Province.
Turning down the plaintiffs, who were appealing against a previous rejection, the high court claimed under international law cited by itself, individual victims have no right to seek compensation with a foreign country for damages inflicted by a military force.
In the previous ruling issued in September 1999, the Tokyo District Court, while recognizing the facts of the plaintiffs claims, also denied their claims for damages,
The plaintiffs have said they will appeal yesterday's ruling which made no comment on atrocities the claimants had suffered .
The 10 plaintiffs lodged their lawsuits in 1995, asking the Japanese Government to apologize and pay compensation for a series of atrocities during the war, including the Nanjing Massacre and lethal experiments performed on the Chinese by Japan's infamous Unit 731.
Banging her fists on the arms of her wheelchair, Guo Jinglan, 83, refused to give up her fight. "I'm determined to take care of myself and fight to the end," she said.
Guo and her husband were arrested by Japanese troops in 1941 in northeastern Heilongjiang Province on charges of conducting resistance activities.
After grim interrogation, her husband was sent to Unit 731 and never returned.
"Only by recognizing history, can Japan play a role in the international community," said Yoshio Shinozaka, a former member of Unit 731 who testified for the plaintiffs.
Commenting on the case yesterday, Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said: "We hope the Japanese side will approach this issue in a responsible manner and handle it appropriately."
Qin said China is "studying" a suggestion by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan that Chinese and Japanese leaders meet at the Asia-Africa summit in Indonesia to resolve their differences.
"They (China and Japan) have lots of relationships, on all fronts - political, economic and social - and I hope those important aspects of their relationship will encourage them to resolve their differences," Annan was quoted as saying by agencies.
Meanwhile, Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi yesterday shrugged off Beijing's complaints about his visits to the Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo, which honours Class A war criminals along with other war dead, Kyodo News reported on its website.
"I do not think that is the case," Koizumi told reporters when asked for his response to the complaints, adding that he does not believe his visits to the shrine have hurt Japan's diplomatic interests.
"Each country has its own history, tradition and views," Koizumi said.
Speaking at a meeting on the current Sino-Japanese situation yesterday, Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing said that Japan should take "concrete actions" to meet the commitment it made to face and meditate on its history of aggression.
The foreign minister also encouraged the Chinese public to translate their patriotism into enthusiasm for work and studies.
As to the recent progress in India-Pakistan relations, Qin said China welcomes the consensus reached by Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on improving and developing ties.
Musharraf visited India from April 16 to 18 on his second such trip in four years. Enditem
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Cuba calls for human rights probe into Guantanamo
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Cuba calls for human rights probe into Guantanamo prison
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www.chinaview.cn 2005-04-15 13:04:47
HAVANA, April 14 (Xinhuanet) -- Cuba on Thursday called for an independent probe into the plight of the terror suspects held at the US base at Guantanamo Bay.
In a resolution submitted to the UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva, Cuba asked the US government to "authorize an impartial and independent investigation" into the human rights situation in the detention center at its naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, said Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque.
The resolution was introduced after the Geneva-based human rights group backed a US call to renew the mandate of a special investigator to exam the human rights situation in Cuba.
Cuba also called on the United States to allow human rights specialists to visit the detention center and gather information.
About 540 men from around 40 countries are being held at Guantanamo Bay, including many prisoners from the war in Afghanistan after the terror attacks on the United States on Sept.11, 2001.
International rights groups have expressed concerns about the treatment of those at the base. There are reports saying some prisoners are not being treated humanely. Enditem
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Iran rejects US military presence in Middle East
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Iran rejects US military presence in Middle East
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www.chinaview.cn 2005-04-17 21:27:55
TEHRAN, April 17 (Xinhuanet) -- Iran on Sunday voiced its strong opposition of the US military presence in the Middle East, saying regional problems should be solved by regional countries themselves.
"The establishment of US military bases in the region would not only hinder the promotion of regional security but also deterioratethe existing problems," Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid-Reza Asefitold reporters.
Asefi said that the US military presence around the Persian Gulfhad done nothing to prevent conflicts and wars in the region.
As to relation between Iran and the United States, Asefi said that the ball was on the US side now and reiterated Tehran's consistent position that Washington should change its approach toward Iran.
"It is a problem to be solved by Washington and not by Tehran, but Iran is willing to do something helpful," Asefi said.
Iran and the United States, which had been close allies in the 1970s, turned into enemies following the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
The United States has accused Iran of secretly developing nuclear weapons and sponsoring terrorists, terming Iran as part of the so-called "axis of evil" and imposing harsh sanctions on the country.
Iran, in return, calls the United States enemy of the whole Islamic world. Enditem
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China protesters march for second day
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China protesters march for second day
Sunday 17 April 2005, 14:43 Makka Time, 11:43 GMT
Protests against Japan have occurred for a second weekend
Some Japanese nationals were injured in the demonstrations
"It was a result of Japan's wrong attitudes and actions on a series of issues concerning China"
Jiao Yang,Shanghai municipal government spokeswoman
More than 30,000 people have demonstrated against Japan in southern China's Shenzhen city and thousands marched in Shenyang, Japanese officials said.
A day after thousands hurled stones and bottles at Tokyo's consulate in Shanghai, more than 30,000 demonstrators gathered on Sunday in groups outside the Japanese supermarket Jusco in Shenzhen, said Chiharu Tsuruoka, spokesman for the Japanese consulate in Guangdong province, where Shenzhen is located.
"There were five groups today. The first group of 1000 arrived at Jusco supermarket at 10:30am (0230 GMT)," said Tsuruoka.
"The second one with 10,000 people passed by at 11am. A third one with 10,000 people gathered at noon. The fourth group had 500 people at 12:30pm. The fifth one was at 2pm with 10,000 people."
The groups of protesters marched from Jusco down major thoroughfares in Shenzhen, a boomtown near Hong Kong, he said.
Thousands of anti-Japan protesters on Sunday also marched through Shenyang, a city in the northeast that was the capital of Japanese-occupied Manchuria, Japan's Kyodo news agency quoted officials at the Japanese Embassy in Beijing as saying.
Factory workers demonstrate
About 2000 employees of a Japanese factory in southern China's Guangdong province on Saturday turned demands for better working conditions into an anti-Japan demonstration, a
Japanese diplomat said on Sunday.
"They originally requested better working conditions, but yesterday (Saturday) that turned into an anti-Japanese activity," said the Japanese consulate's Tsuruoka.
"At the peak, there were 2000 people protesting. Then the police came and broke it up," he said.
Tsuruoka declined to identify the company, but a spokesman for Tokyo's Taiyo Yuden Co, which makes electronic parts, confirmed a protest by 2000 people had occurred.
Other cities calm
Shanghai was quiet on Sunday. In Beijing, hundreds of paramilitary police guarded the ambassador's residence or waited on buses to take up positions for the second straight day.
Protesters last weekend threw stones and bottles at the compound, but there have been no repeat protests in the capital this weekend.
Chinese are protesting against textbooks they see as whitewashing Japan's wartime past and against Tokyo's bid for a permanent seat on the UN Security Council.
Japanese minister's visit
Meanwhile, Japanese Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura headed for China on Sunday to try to heal relations between the two countries.
Relations between the two Asian powerhouses are at their worst in decades, and China's official Xinhua news agency put the number of protesters in Shanghai at 20,000.
"It was a result of Japan's wrong attitudes and actions on a series of issues concerning China," Xinhua quoted Shanghai municipal government spokeswoman Jiao Yang as saying.
"Dissatisfied with Japan's wrong attitudes and actions on a series of issues such as its history of aggression, the students and citizens spontaneously took to the streets to demonstrate and protest, expressing their discontent with the right-wing forces in Japan on violating the Sino-Japanese relations."
Messages
Some protesters held posters carrying messages such as "Face Up to History" and "The anti-Japan war is not over yet."
Two Japanese were injured when they were surrounded by a group in Shanghai, where thousands of Japanese firms and about 34,000 Japanese expatriates are located, Japanese media reported.
Jiao repeated the call for people to "remain calm and rational, express their aspirations in a lawful and orderly manner, and turn their patriotism into an impetus in their work and study but not to join any unapproved activities".
Local media said some protesters had been detained for threatening public order.
Reuters
China rejects calls for apology
Japan's Nonstop Amnesia
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Failure to educate the poor around the world
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'Failure' to educate world's poor
By Andrew Walker
BBC World Service economics correspondent, Washington
The report says 100m children are not attending school.
The world's richest countries are failing to provide the funds needed for education in the developing world, the Global Campaign for Education has said.
The campaign group's report was published during ministerial meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank in Washington.
The delegates are set to discus efforts to achieve universal primary education.
World leaders have agreed a target of providing primary education for all children by 2015.
It was part of the Millennium Development Goals agreed at a United Nations summit five years ago.
Bottom grade
The Global Campaign for Education says 100 million children are still not going to school and it blames rich countries for failing to provide the funding necessary.
It grades 22 of them in what it calls a school report card.
Two countries, Norway and the Netherlands get an A grade, but the US and Austria receive the bottom F grade.
The assessment is based in part on countries' spending on development aid in total and on education programmes in particular.
The Millennium Development Goals also include an intermediate target for this year of ensuring that girls have equal access to primary and secondary education.
The Campaign for Global Education says it is scandalous that this target is likely to be missed.
The US says its aid programme does emphasise support for basic education and for ensuring improved opportunities for girls.
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China protests target Japan businesses
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China protests target Japan businesses
Saturday 16 April 2005, 14:31 Makka Time, 11:31 GMT
Protesters have hurled stones, bottles and paint at the Japanese consulate in Shanghai and attacked Japanese businesses as thousands of people staged anti-Japan rallies.
Protesters continue to attack Japanese businesses in China
Protesters marched and shouted anti-Japanese slogans
"The two major issues with which China and Japan are confronted - history and Taiwan - are concerned with the political basis between China and Japan"
Tang Jiaxuan, Chinese state councilor
Riot police three-deep linked arms to prevent the rowdy crowd on Saturday from entering the consulate as they yelled: "Go in, go in. Please let us in."
A group of protesters began throwing objects including stones, bottles and bags filled with paint towards the building. At least one window was broken.
Police used loudspeakers to ask the crowd to disperse and while some people did, many remained at the site where the standoff was continuing.
Barriers broken
An AFP reporter saw two people break through barriers surrounding the building, but they were pulled down by police. It was not known what happened to them.
Close to the consulate on Xianxia Road, three Japanese businesses and a Japanese restaurant were attacked with bottles and eggs, another AFP reporter said. At least one window was smashed.
Onlookers estimated 5000 to 10,000 people marched along the main Yanan Road towards the consulate, yelling anti-Japanese slogans and calling for Tokyo to adequately apologise for its wartime aggression.
A duty officer at Shanghai public security bureau said the rally had not been approved.
"We received an application but did not approve it," she said.
The protests were sparked by the Japanese government's approval of revamped history textbooks that Beijing thought made light of the nation's atrocities in the second world war.
Last weekend, there were violent rallies in Beijing, and the southern cities of Guangzhou and Shenzhen.
Call for calm
Japan and the United States issued urgent alerts on Friday for their citizens to be careful.
"I hope no violent or illegal actions will be repeated. This is our sincere hope," Keiji Ide, spokesman at Japan's embassy in Beijing, said on Saturday.
Chinese State Councillor Tang Jiaxuan, a former foreign minister, said Japanese leaders' visits to the Yasukuni shrine honouring war dead, including convicted war criminals, were at the heart of the problems.
In a meeting with Toyohiko Yamanouchi, president of Japan's Kyodo News Agency, he described relations to be "at the crossroads".
"The two major issues with which China and Japan are confronted - history and Taiwan - are concerned with the political basis between China and Japan," he said.
"They are still gravely interfering in the sound and steady development of the bilateral ties."
Relations deteriorating
In addition, territorial disputes and national sentiment were getting worse, he said.
Japan on Wednesday said it would let its companies drill for oil and gas in the disputed East China Sea. Beijing, which began drilling in 2003, called the move a provocation.
"All these issues bring obstructions and restrictions to the deepening of bilateral cooperation and have the possibility of deteriorating the China-Japan relations," said Tang.
In an effort to salvage ties, Japan's Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura is scheduled to arrive in Beijing on Sunday for meetings with China's top leaders.
Protests are expected in other cities including Guangzhou, Shenyang, Chengdu, Hangzhou, Tianjin and Wuhan on Sunday.
AFP
Japan wants apology from China over protests
Anti-Japanese protests continue despite government warnings
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More US troops questioning Iraq duty
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More US troops questioning Iraq duty
By Christian Henderson
Tuesday 12 April 2005, 3:53 Makka Time, 0:53 GMT
As the tally of American casualties in Iraq continues to rise, so does the number of soldiers uneasy about serving in the two-year-old war.
about 5500 US soldiers have deserted since the Iraq invasion
Some say the promised benefits of joining the army are illusory
Mejia (C) says he does not think the war can be justified
There are far fewer conscientious objectors than during Vietnam
"You are giving terrorism a whole new life"
Camilo Mejia,US Army deserter
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US army figures indicate that since the invasion of Iraq in March 2003, about 5500 military personnel have absconded.
In 2003 an independent advisory service for US military personnel, the GI Rights Hotline, received 32,000 calls, twice as many as in 2001, from soldiers wanting to leave the military.
Some refuse to serve for political reasons, others are just unwilling to go to a country where 1500 US soldiers have been killed and more than 11,000 wounded.
Many soldiers who object have already spent time in Iraq and become disillusioned by their experiences.
Camilo Mejia is one of them. He spent six months in a combat unit in Iraq after the invasion, and upon returning to the US for a vacation decided he would not return for moral reasons.
He subsequently served a one year prison sentence for deserting.
Hard to justify
Mejia says his experiences in Iraq shocked him.
"The commanders wanted us to get into firefights because they wanted to put that on their resume to make them look better," Mejia told Aljazeera.net. "Thirty people were killed by my unit. About three of those people had weapons."
"Once you come home it's really hard not to think about it. You start going back to those moments and it's really hard to justify that," he said.
As some soldiers begin their second or even third tour of Iraq, Mejia says many are asking why are they still in the country two years after invasion and after handing over power and overseeing elections.
"'What the hell else are we there for?' Soldiers ask themselves this question. It's like there is no ending," he said.
Unofficial draft
The Pentagon is struggling to maintain enlistment targets.
According to army figures the active-duty army in March missed a monthly recruiting goal for the first time since May 2000, and the Guard and Reserve are also lagging.
And as the Pentagon struggles to find enough troops to replace already overstretched units in Iraq and Afghanistan, many say it is resorting to measures that amount to an unofficial draft.
"We think there is a draft but a different kind because it doesn't include everyone," Robert Dove, an administrator with the Quaker peace group American Friends Committee, told Aljazeera.net.
Stop loss
Dove points to the US Army's "stop loss" policy, which prevents soldiers from retiring or leaving the military after they have finished their duty.
Carl Webb says he is a victim of this policy. He went Awol after being given orders to return to duty when he had just finished three years of part-time service in the US National Guard.
"One month before I was due to leave they gave me these orders [to return to service] ... I enlisted for three years in August 2001, which meant that my time was up in August 2004. I am saying this is illegal," Webb told Aljazeera.net.
"The policy that they have now is the policy of not allowing people to leave or calling back men who are 40 or 50-years-old. It doesn't affect the general public," he said.
Overloaded system
Despite the vocal protests of some of those who refuse to serve, there is evidence that the number of desertions has actually declined.
"We have had a steady decrease in the number of deserters," a US Army spokeswoman said.
"Most of the people who are deserting are continuing to desert for the same reasons. ... The number of people who have deserted for reasons of conscience is very, very small," the spokesperson told Aljazeera.net.
To be sure, cases of soldiers coming out against the war and registering themselves as "conscientious objectors" are still far less than the 190,000 claims filed during the Vietnam war.
But despite the army's figures, Dove of the American Friends' Committee believes the number of deserters is actually much higher.
"There are at least 5000 and I am sure that means there are a lot more. The system is overloaded," he says.
Poverty draft
Webb says he joined the National Guard simply because he needed to supplement his income.
"I didn't have any money. I was broke. I was in debt and there was a $2500 bonus for those who joined, so I sold my soul to the devil," he said.
Critics of US Army recruitment policies say that in a bid to meet their quotas, recruiters often operate in poor communities and lure young people with promises of an education and other benefits.
"I think poor people are definitely targeted. We refer to it as a poverty draft. What that really means is that recruiters target low-income people. So when they choose which high schools to recruit people from, they spend a lot more time in high schools in poor areas," Dove said.
He said the benefits of joining the US military were usually less than many recruits were led to believe.
"You can get up to $70,000 in assistance once you have completed your service. Almost no one gets that... Most people who get any money at all get considerably less than that and a lot of people get nothing," he said.
Also, an increasing number of National Guard units are being sent to Iraq, something that has shocked some National Guard recruits.
Great horror
"The National Guard were originally for emergencies within the United States, so a lot of people join the National Guard for a host of reasons, including that when they go for their training camp they will get paid for it," Dove said.
"But in the last two years they have been enlisted, and to their great horror they [have found they] can be sent off to war."
Both Mejia and Webb have added their voices to the anti-war lobby in the US, attending rallies and speaking about the reasons behind their actions.
"The only way this can be resolved is through protests by the masses," Webb says.
For his part, Mejia says he realised while serving in Iraq that the arguments used to justify the conflict were bogus.
"You go into an Arab nation, you kill people, you steal their oil, you destroy their country and charge them to have it rebuilt," Mejia said.
"You are giving terrorism a whole new life."
Aljazeera
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Many Iraqis killed in US air attack
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Tuesday 12 April 2005, 12:50 Makka Time, 9:50 GMT
Twenty Iraqis have been killed and 22 injured after US helicopters and heavy artillery bombed houses in al-Rummana village, north of al-Qaim city, Aljazeera reported.
Children and women are said to be among Monday's fatalities
Seven children, six women and three old men were among the dead,
witnesses said, while the injured included 13 children, seven women and two old men.
The witnesses added that the shelling started after US forces, who landed near al-Qaim on Monday night, came under repeated attack.
Early reports indicated one house was completely destroyed and three others partially damaged in the bombing, according to Aljazeera.
On Monday, five car bombs hit US military targets in the western Iraqi city of al-Qaim near the border with Syria, wounding at least two US soldiers.
Separately, the US embassy in Iraq announced that an American contractor working in a reconstruction project had been captured.
Simultaneous attacks
Iraqi journalist Ahmad Khalid told Aljazeera two of Monday's attacks in al-Qaim were simultaneous. Three bombs hit a building used as US military headquarters while a fourth targeted a US troop convoy.
Clashes erupted later between fighters and US soldiers in the city, damaging a number of houses, the journalist said.
However, no civilians were injured in those clashes as they had fled.
A spokesperson for the US Marines said on Monday three of their soldiers were wounded in the attack, which occurred outside Camp Gannon, a base in al-Qaim, about 300km west of Baghdad in Anbar province.
Late on Monday, armed men opened fire on a police patrol in the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk, injuring two members of the security service, police Brigadier Sarhat Kadir said.
Narrow escape
Attackers also placed a bomb in the undercarriage of a doctor's car, but the device exploded as the physician entered a Kirkuk store to buy bread, sparing him but wounding two nearby civilians, Kadir said.
It was not known why the attackers targeted the doctor.
Meanwhile, Poland's defence minister has said the government wants its troops to leave Iraq in the first weeks of 2006 after the authorising UN resolution expires.
"It is the government's opinion that, together with the end of the UN mandate for the stabilisation mission, all the activity of the Polish stabilisation mission should also end," Defence Minister Jerzy Smajdzinski said.
Poland, one of Washington's closest allies in Europe, runs a multi-national stabilisation force in south-central Iraq, where it has about 1700 soldiers.
Aljazeera + Agencies
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