Japan Halts Work On New US Military Base In Okinawa

Japan temporarily halted work on a controversial new US military base in southern Okinawa as talks continue with local officials opposed to the project.

Japanese protest against new US military base plan

Thousands of demonstrators formed a human chain around Japan's parliament in Tokyo, protesting on the planned construction of a new US airbase on the southern island of Okinawa.

Japan’s Mitsubishi Bank to pay $250 M for violating US sanctions on Iran

Japan’s biggest bank, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc., agreed to pay $250 million to the state of New York to settle claims it transferred billions of dollars for countries facing U.S. sanctions including Iran, Sudan and Myanmar. Mitsubishi Bank is the largest shareholder in New York-based Morgan Stanley (MS) and owns San Francisco-based lender UnionBanCal Corp. The company was the world’s biggest bank when it was created in 2005 through the merger of Mitsubishi Tokyo Financial Group Inc. and UFJ Holdings Inc.

Comfort Women: Japan mayor says US troops abused women during occupation

Japan has a dark history which all its Asian neighboring nations want to apologize for. Until today, Japan refuse to look at its painful past. Up to 200,000 “comfort women” from Korea, China, the Philippines and elsewhere were forcibly drafted into brothels catering to the Japanese military during WWII, according to many mainstream historians. In response to US criticism on this wartime sex slavery, Japan's Osaka Mayor, Toru Hashimoto, claims American troops abused Japanese women during their seven-year occupation. He also slammed France and Germany as they were among countries that introduced wartime “comfort stations.”