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January 2007
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Congratulations
to Ms. Dana Lewis of Newsweek
Japan who becomes director the Japan
Society of Northern California on January 15, 2007. Gambatte!
In "What
About the Iraqis?" Christian
Caryl, Newsweek’s Tokyo
Bureau Chief and APP member reviews four new books on Iraq
by Iraqis for the New York Review of
Books, Vol 54, No 1, January 11, 2007. He notes “As
I listened to these Iraqi voices, I could not entirely shake
the feeling that we Americans are already becoming irrelevant
to the future of their country. While people in Washington
continue to debate the next change in course, and the Baker
report raises the possibility of gradual withdrawal, Iraqis
are sizing up the coming apocalypse, and making their arrangements
accordingly.”
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New interns arrive for the Spring semester.
We welcome Ms. Mariko Agena from
Georgetown University, Ms. Meera
Fickling from William & Mary,
and Mr. Ryo Matsuki from
University of Brockport, SUNY.
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| February 2007 |
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Richard
Weitz of the Hudson Institute reports In
The Other War: The United States Gears Up for a Spring Offensive
in Afghanistan on Euraisanet, 2/16/07 how little
American allies have been contributing to the effort in Afghanistan.
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The
Subcommittee on Asia, the Pacific, and the Global Environment held
a hearing on "Protecting
the Human Rights of Comfort Women" on February 15th. One
of the witnesses testifying was APP Director Mindy
Kotler.
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APP Director Mindy
Kotler participated in the February 12-13, 2007 conference
in Seoul, South Korea, hosted by Dongguk
University, History Disputes and Regional
Coexistence: East Asia in the 21st Century.
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Dr. Kurt Campbell, a member of APP's
board, recently left CSIS to became CEO of the Center
for a New American Security (CNAS).
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Naotaka Sugawara, APP
senior analyst in economics, joins the World Bank this month
to study economic growth. Gambatte!
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| "Tips
for Think Tank Pundits: Ten Ways to Drive Your Panel Wild" by
Asia Policy Point Staff, is published in The
Washington Monthly February 2007 issue. |
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March 2007
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Alexis Dudden of Connecticut College outlines with in Abe’s Violent Denial: Japan's Prime Minister and the ‘Comfort Women' the current state of play of the Comfort Woman issue, JapanFocus, 3/2/07.
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| It is with great sadness that we report the passing on March 1st of Osiris, the beloved inspiration for Cat Among the Pigeons. Only five, he put up a noble fight against a deadly virus. He is buried at the historic Georgetown home and garden, Tudor Place where he roamed freely when not at home with the APP director and her family. Osiris was better known as “Kitty” and was the son of Moses and Maat. He was a pure bred Abyssinian. He was probably the only cat in Georgetown with a “police” record having been taken to the pound for being outside—he was turned in by a disgruntled animal rights neighbor. Protest t-shirts were made and distributed. He is very missed. |
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| Gods of the Mall by Christian Caryl, review of Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman by Haruki Murakami, translated from the Japanese by Philip Gabriel and Jay Rubin in the New York Review of Books, March 1, 2007. |
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| April 2007 |
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Did Abe Apologize to the Comfort Women in His Meeting on Capitol Hill? is an APP discussion of what the Japanese Prime Minister said to congressional leaders. The short answer is not really. He simply expressed a personal and stilted feeling of sympathy to their ordeal. (4/27/07) |
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Japanese Military's “Comfort Women” System by Larry Niksch, Specialist in Asian Affairs, Foreign Affairs, Defense, and Trade Division, Congressional Research Service, April 3, 2007, 23 pgs. “The debate over coercion in the recruitment of comfort women in 2007 has obscured the broader issue of whether comfort women were in the system on a voluntarily or involuntarily basis. There is no doubt from the available evidence that most comfort women were in the system involuntarily if one defines involuntarily to include entering the system in response to deceptive recruitment. There appears to have been little of a genuinely voluntarily nature to the system.” [Ed. This is an update of a report first issued April 10, 2006, 11 pgs. APP members who would like a copy of the first report please, contact us.] |
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