Japan group for war-bereaved families to hold its final offshore memorials

A Japanese association for war-bereaved families says it will end its memorial trips to sites of fierce World War Two battles because the participants are aging. The ship for Nippon Izokukai's final offshore memorial left port on Sunday.
A total of about 16,000 bereaved family members visited 18 regions, including China and the Philippines, on 451 trips since the project started in fiscal 1991.
Family members on the trips paid respects to the war dead and also interacted with local people.
The association said it will conclude its overseas memorials by the end of this fiscal year.
The group's last memorial at sea, 80 years after the end of the war, includes 218 family members from 42 prefectures. They boarded a vessel at a port in Kobe City, western Japan, on Sunday.
They offered a silent prayer during a ceremony held on the ship before it departed around 5 p.m.
Japan's health ministry says the remains of about 300,000 of the 2.4 million people who died abroad during the war were never recovered from the ocean.
Participants will offer flowers to honor the victims in areas such as the sites where the battleships Yamato and Musashi sank. They will return to Japan on June 11.

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Learn with AIFact CheckingText to SpeechAI Summary

Related Articles

NHK

27 minutes ago

• NHK

Vietnam joins BRICS as partner country

Vietnam has been officially admitted as the 10th partner country of the BRICS group of emerging economies. While partners lack decision-making power, they can take part in the BRICS Leaders' Summit. Vietnamese foreign ministry spokesperson, Pham Thu Hang, said in a press conference on Thursday that the country is "ready to coordinate and connect the cooperation programs of the BRICS group with relevant multilateral mechanisms, thereby contributing to peace, stability, cooperation and development in the region, as well as in the world." She also said the country is willing to work with other members in areas such as trade and investment. BRICS was originally made up of the five emerging economies of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. It has since expanded to 11 members, including Middle Eastern nations, such as Iran and Egypt. Some Southeast Asian countries, which are strengthening economic ties with China, have also shown interest in joining the bloc. Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump has threatened BRICS members that try to use their own currency for financial transactions. He says these nations could face 100 percent tariffs if they move away from the US dollar.

Japan Times

3 hours ago

• Japan Times

Hyogo governor referred to prosecutors over alleged vote-buying

Police referred Hyogo Gov. Motohiko Saito to prosecutors Friday on suspicion of vote-buying over his alleged payments to a public relations company for campaign activities in the prefecture's gubernatorial election last November, people familiar with the investigation said. The prefectural police sent papers on Saito, 47, to prosecutors after a criminal complaint was filed last December over the governor's alleged payments in violation of the public offices election law. The police also sent papers on the 33-year-old president of the PR firm. Saito has also been referred to prosecutors for an alleged breach of trust related to a victory parade for local baseball teams. The governor has consistently denied any wrongdoing. Speaking to reporters in Kobe on Friday, Saito said, "There is no change in my recognition that I've acted in compliance with laws, including the public offices election law." The PR company president has not responded to requests for comment. Saito is suspected of paying ¥715,000 to the PR firm on Nov. 4 last year for work on his re-election campaign, which included planning a PR strategy and managing the campaign's social media presence. The PR company president said in an online post on Nov. 20, 2024, three days after the election, that her company had been tasked with overall PR activities by Saito's team. The governor later refuted her claim during a news conference. In December, a lawyer and a university professor filed a criminal complaint against Saito over the alleged payments. After the PR firm refused to cooperate adequately with requests for voluntary questioning and document submissions, investigators seized evidence, including a smartphone, during a raid on the company's office in February. Saito first took office as Hyogo governor in August 2021. After being ousted from the post by the prefectural assembly last September over harassment allegations, he won re-election two months later.

NHK

3 hours ago

• NHK

Atomic Bomb Dome in Hiroshima to be designated 'Special Historic Site'

The Japanese government will designate the Atomic Bomb Dome in Hiroshima, western Japan, as a Special Historic Site that has especially high value for preservation. It would be the first such designation for a structure built since the Meiji Period, which started in the latter 19th century. A panel at Japan's Cultural Affairs Agency recommended the designation on Friday. The brick building was erected in 1915 and served as the Hiroshima Prefectural Industrial Promotional Hall. It partially survived the 1945 atomic bombing of the city. Also called Genbaku Dome, the structure is already designated a UNESCO World Heritage site. The building was only about 160 meters from ground zero, but the shell of the dome miraculously survived the bombing while inner parts of the building burned down. The panel said it regards the structure as having extremely high value as a symbol of disaster from the first-ever atomic bombing in history, which is preserved in the same state as immediately after the explosion. The most recent monument designated a Special Historic Site to date is Goryokaku, a western-style fort in Hokkaido, which was completed in the late Edo Period in the 19th Century.