Abe Visits Military Cemetery in Hawaii
Posted: December 27, 2016 Filed under: Asia, Diplomacy, History, Japan, War Room | Tags: Attack on Pearl Harbor, Barack Obama, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Imperial Japanese Navy, Media of Japan, Pearl Harbor, Tomomi Inada, United States, World War II Leave a comment
HONOLULU — Hiroshi Tajima and Mai Fukuda report: Prime Minister Shinzo Abe laid flowers for American soldiers, including those killed in Japan’s 1941 Pearl Harbor attack, at a cemetery in Hawaii on Monday, the day before his scheduled visit to the harbor with U.S. President Barack Obama.
After arriving on the island of Oahu in the morning, Abe visited the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, in which remains of about 50,000 officers and soldiers — including those who lost their lives during the attack by the Imperial Japanese Navy — are buried.
The prime minister offered flowers and a moment of silence, before signing his name in a visitors’ book.
At the facility, Abe also laid flowers at the grave of U.S. Sen. Daniel Inouye, who had worked hard to promote the U.S.-Japan relationship until his death in December 2012.
The prime minister then visited a Japanese cemetery in Honolulu’s Makiki district, which houses a memorial for Japanese emigrants to Hawaii and soldiers killed at Pearl Harbor.
Abe showed his determination not to fight a war again by praying for both Japanese and American war dead. Read the rest of this entry »
‘Japanese Beethoven’ Admits He’s a Fraud
Posted: February 5, 2014 Filed under: Art & Culture, Japan | Tags: BBC News, Classical music, Japan, Ludwig van Beethoven, Media of Japan, Onimusha, Resident Evil, Samuragochi 1 Comment
Listen to an excerpt from Symphony No. 1 Hiroshima: Tokyo Symphony Orchestra / Naoto Otomo, courtesy DENON
BBC News reports: A deaf composer who has been dubbed “Japan’s Beethoven” has admitted hiring someone else to write his music for nearly two decades.
Mamoru Samuragochi shot to fame in the mid-1990s and is most famous for his Hiroshima Symphony No 1, dedicated to those killed in the 1945 atomic blast.
The 50-year-old has now confessed he has not composed his own music since 1996.
The real composer of the musician’s “hits” has not been formally named.
