Tests show human remains that North Korea claims belonged to a Japanese citizen abducted decades ago by communist agents belong to someone else, the Japanese government said yesterday.
Pyongyang had said the remains belonged to Megumi Yokota, who was abducted in 1977. North Korea maintains that she died in 1994, but Japan doubts the account.
North Korea has admitted to kidnapping 13 Japanese in the 1970s and 1980s to train them in Japanese language and culture. The regime released five in 2002 but has said the eight others -- including Yokota -- died, a claim many Japanese don't believe.
Widespread dissatisfaction in Japan with the North Korean investigation into the fate of the abductees has led to increasing calls for sanctions against the communist regime.
Japanese officials immediately criticized Pyongyang for the apparent deception -- the second time North Korea has turned over false remains of a missing Japanese abduction victim.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiro-yuki Hosoda said Tokyo would protest, adding that the failure to clear up the Yokota case could block further food shipments to the impoverished country.
"We will immediately lodge a protest and do our best to seek the truth," Hosoda said. "It has become a major obstacle for Japan-North Korea relations."
The remains were turned over to Japanese negotiators in Pyongyang on Nov. 15. The ashes were brought back to Japan, where scientists conducted DNA and other tests to determine their identity.
The findings deepened the mystery concerning Yokota's fate.
The girl was kidnapped in 1977 as a 13-year-old off the Sea of Japan coast and vanished behind North Korea's wall of secrecy. North Korea claims she committed suicide in a hospital.
A spokesman for Niigata Prefectural police, which covers the area where Yokota was kidnapped, said forensic tests showed the remains belonged to two unidentified people.
Asian perspectives of the US have shifted from a country once perceived as a force of “moral legitimacy” to something akin to “a landlord seeking rent,” Singaporean Minister for Defence Ng Eng Hen (黃永宏) said on the sidelines of an international security meeting. Ng said in a round-table discussion at the Munich Security Conference in Germany that assumptions undertaken in the years after the end of World War II have fundamentally changed. One example is that from the time of former US president John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address more than 60 years ago, the image of the US was of a country
‘UNUSUAL EVENT’: The Australian defense minister said that the Chinese navy task group was entitled to be where it was, but Australia would be watching it closely The Australian and New Zealand militaries were monitoring three Chinese warships moving unusually far south along Australia’s east coast on an unknown mission, officials said yesterday. The Australian government a week ago said that the warships had traveled through Southeast Asia and the Coral Sea, and were approaching northeast Australia. Australian Minister for Defence Richard Marles yesterday said that the Chinese ships — the Hengyang naval frigate, the Zunyi cruiser and the Weishanhu replenishment vessel — were “off the east coast of Australia.” Defense officials did not respond to a request for comment on a Financial Times report that the task group from
BLIND COST CUTTING: A DOGE push to lay off 2,000 energy department workers resulted in hundreds of staff at a nuclear security agency being fired — then ‘unfired’ US President Donald Trump’s administration has halted the firings of hundreds of federal employees who were tasked with working on the nation’s nuclear weapons programs, in an about-face that has left workers confused and experts cautioning that the Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE’s) blind cost cutting would put communities at risk. Three US officials who spoke to The Associated Press said up to 350 employees at the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) were abruptly laid off late on Thursday, with some losing access to e-mail before they’d learned they were fired, only to try to enter their offices on Friday morning
STEADFAST DART: The six-week exercise, which involves about 10,000 troops from nine nations, focuses on rapid deployment scenarios and multidomain operations NATO is testing its ability to rapidly deploy across eastern Europe — without direct US assistance — as Washington shifts its approach toward European defense and the war in Ukraine. The six-week Steadfast Dart 2025 exercises across Bulgaria, Romania and Greece are taking place as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine approaches the three-year mark. They involve about 10,000 troops from nine nations and represent the largest NATO operation planned this year. The US absence from the exercises comes as European nations scramble to build greater military self-sufficiency over their concerns about the commitment of US President Donald Trump’s administration to common defense and
RSS