October 2nd, 2008 — Dark Side of the Sun, Sex Industry
Former Comfort Women Await Justice
Adair K. Fincher, September 25, 2008
(This is a well-researched article about the women who were forced to work as sexual slaves by the Japanese Army during the second world war. Revisionist Japanese historians would like to deny it ever happened but that does not mean that it didn’t.)
A typical winter scene outside the Japanese Embassy in Seoul, South Korea: Three elderly Korean women, too old and too weak to stand, sit with gloved hands frantically waving butterfly-shaped signs written in Korean: “Apologize to us on your knees.” The air is cold. They and their supporters—nuns, the elderly, the young, and the non-Korean—are bundled in heavy winter coats and woolen caps, noses peeking out over tightly wound scarves. A cane sticks out from below the banner draped across the elderly women’s knees. In Japanese, Korean, and English the banner reads, “Wednesday Demonstration to Solve the Japanese Military Comfort Women Issue.”
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October 1st, 2008 — Dark Side of the Sun, Organized Crime
Once the yakuza move in, they don't move out easily.
YAKUZA WARS
by David McNeill and Jake Adelstein
A bloody dispute between two rival Yakuza groups in a southern Japanese city has led to a historic fight-back by local people. But rooting out the mob from society will not be easy. Continue reading →
September 24th, 2008 — Dark Side of the Sun, General
by Katie Preston
edited by Jake Adelstein
On June 8 near Akihabara station, seven people were killed and ten others injured in a random act of violence committed by a troubled young man. The suspect had rented a van, purchased a knife, and driven to Tokyo in order to kill strangers indiscriminately, perhaps to express his unhappiness and desperation.
TMPD at a crime scene from long ago.
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September 21st, 2008 — General
By Justin McCurry in Tokyo
From the guardian.co.uk
Tuesday August 26 2008
Residents of a city in western Japan this week became the first to turn to the courts for help in ridding their neighbourhood of organised crime, amid fears that they will become the next victims of a violent power struggle.
Around 600 residents of Kurume, in Fukuoka prefecture, have asked a local court to order members of the Dojinkai yakuza gang to vacate an office building in the middle of a busy shopping district.
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September 11th, 2008 — General
Grassroots anti-mafia organization?
It hardly seems possible, but that’s Japan for you.
Read The Independent Article on The Town that Took on the Yakuza from the September 9th online issue.
Japan’s mafia seemed untouchable – until a group of residents risked everything to launch a court fight to drive the gangsters out. By David McNeill in Kurume City
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September 6th, 2008 — General
From The Times
August 28, 2008
By Leo Lewis, Asia Business Correspondent
Japan’s powerful yakuza organised crime syndicates are mounting a widespread assault on the country’s financial markets that may have left hundreds of listed companies riddled with mob connections.
In a surprisingly stark admission, the National Police Agency (NPA) says that it is locked in a battle for the economic soul and international reputation of Japan. Continue reading →
August 26th, 2008 — General, Organized Crime
I was knocking back drinks with a former bodyguard in the Yamaguchigumi, and it was raining outside.
He is about fifty years old, six feet five, and has arms that are bigger than my legs.
I was sitting on the tatami listening to the rain outside, and while he lit up his twentieth cigarette of the day I said,
“I love rainy days.”
He didn’t agree. Continue reading →
August 18th, 2008 — General
The stories Jake Adelstein wrote as a crime reporter for a Japanese newspaper have earned him and his family a death threat from one of the country’s most notorious and influential yakuza. Writing a book about crime and criminal culture in Japan is likely to have further enraged the Tokyo uderworld. Adelstein never planned it this way.
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July 19th, 2008 — General
The BBC’s International Radio Station did a story on Wednesday’s program on Jake Adelstein becoming an “accidentally intrepid” crime reporter.
The information on the July 16th Program can be found here.
July 3rd, 2008 — Books on Japan, General
By Jake Adelstein
You wouldn’t expect The Japan Travel Bureau to put out the finest sociological treatise about the pathology and isolation of modern life in Japan, but here it is. It’s a hilarious and disturbingly accurate read about the daily life of Japan’s favorite workhorse — the company man.
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