This September, KIMURA Tadakazu, president of the hugely influential Asahi Shimbun newspaper, apologized, about the reports dealing with the Fukushima nuclear plant accident and military comfort women. Regarding the Fukushima nuclear plant, it was reported that after the accident 650 workers at the plant evacuated in defiance of orders given by the chief of Tokyo Electric Power Company to remain at the site. In fact it was not true, but based on this article overseas media reported that workers had run away from the site. Regarding reports about comfort women, in 1982 it printed a Japanese man’s statement about having forcibly and violently snatching away Korean women by order of the Imperial Japanese Army during the war; his statement was subsequently printed more than ten times. Regarding this article, the Asahi Shimbun acknowledged that the statements had been false and retracted them in their newspaper in August, but did not apologize at the time. In 1996, the United Nations Commission on Human Rights quoted this man’s false testimony, and, using this word “sex slave” for comfort women, strongly admonished Japan. Korea says that the total number of Korean comfort women is 200,000, and even today, by building statues of comfort women, not only in Korea, but also in many parts of the United States, Korea petitions the world about Japan’s militarism and differing awareness of historical events. It is said that comfort women have existed during times of war, not only under Japanese military regimes, but also under the military rule of many other nations. As Japan is the perpetrator it is not able to counter that critical reports of Japan are exaggerated, nor ask why Japan alone is being globally condemned. The Japanese government has admitted that Japanese military hired comfort women through traders, and formally apologized for this to Korea in 1993. But it said that they did not find any evidence that the women had been taken against their will. In general overseas media take the view that other data clearly proves the existence of comfort women, so it’s not possible to hide the fact that these women’s human rights were violated. In Japan, other media outlets, in particular weekly magazines, have severely criticized the Asahi Shimbun saying that incorrect reports have caused much greater disgrace than deserved. You could say that the Asahi Shimbun got what they deserved because they had to publish advertisements for such critical campaigns in their own paper. On the other hand, you could take the view that this demonstrates that Japanese democracy is still sound.