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November 21, 2024
 

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Jon Mitchell

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Jon Mitchell
Jon Mitchell writes about human rights issues on Okinawa. In 2015, he received the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan Freedom of the Press Award for Lifetime Achievement for his investigations into U.S. military contamination on Okinawa and other base-related problems.
JAPAN
Feb 15, 2013
U.S. report to deny Agent Orange in Okinawa
A Pentagon probe into the presence of Agent Orange in Okinawa is set to support veterans' allegations of the clandestine burial of harmful chemicals — but deny the defoliant was among them.
JAPAN
Jan 12, 2013
'71 Pentagon paper says Agent Orange was stored on Kadena Air Base
LIFE
Dec 4, 2012
'Were we marines used as guinea pigs on Okinawa?'
Newly discovered documents reveal that 50 years ago this week, the Pentagon dispatched a chemical weapons platoon to Okinawa under the auspices of its infamous Project 112. Described by the U.S. Department of Defense as "biological and chemical warfare vulnerability tests," the highly classified program...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Dec 4, 2012
'Were we marines used as guinea pigs on Okinawa?'
Newly discovered documents reveal that 50 years ago this week, the Pentagon dispatched a chemical weapons platoon to Okinawa under the auspices of its infamous Project 112. Described by the U.S. Department of Defense as "biological and chemical warfare vulnerability tests," the highly classified program...
Japan Times
LIFE
Nov 11, 2012
The war legacy that binds Okinawa and Vietnam
As the motorbike taxi I'm aboard zigzags through the traffic in Da Nang, Vietnam's fourth-largest city, a bus pulls out of nowhere, causing my driver to brake, swerve and slam us into a sidewalk stack of bamboo cages packed with soft plump ducklings.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues
Sep 15, 2012
U.S. Agent Orange activist brings message of solidarity to Okinawa
Residents of Okinawa Island have recently been confronted with mounting evidence that their land used to be a major storage site for the toxic U.S. defoliant Agent Orange.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Aug 19, 2012
Rumbles in the jungle
Japan's poorest prefecture is Okinawa — and on Okinawa the poorest region lies along the northeastern coast blanketed by the dense Yanbaru jungle. Here, the villages of Higashi and Kunigami were the last areas on the island to receive electricity and running water. Until 1978, they lacked even a paved...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Aug 7, 2012
Poisons in the Pacific: Guam, Okinawa and Agent Orange
The day after 19-year-old Sgt. Leroy Foster arrived on Guam's Andersen Air Force Base, one of America's largest Pacific military installations, in 1968, he was assigned to what his superior officers called "vegetation control duties."
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Aug 7, 2012
25,000 barrels of Agent Orange kept on Okinawa, U.S. Army document says
During the Vietnam War, 25,000 barrels of Agent Orange were stored on Okinawa, according to a recently uncovered U.S. Army report. The barrels, thought to contain over 5.2 million liters of the toxic defoliant, had been brought to Okinawa from Vietnam before apparently being taken to Johnston Island...
Japan Times
LIFE
Jul 8, 2012
Okinawa's first nuclear missile men break silence
In October 1962, the United States and the Soviet Union teetered on the brink of nuclear war after American spy planes discovered that the Kremlin had stationed medium-range atomic missiles on the communist island of Cuba in the Caribbean, barely over the horizon from Florida.
LIFE
Jul 8, 2012
Okinawa, nuclear weapons and 'Japan's special psychological problem'
Situated among boiling sulfur pits and magma-blackened rocks, the hot-spring resort of Hakone, 100 km west of Tokyo, provided a suitably apocalyptic backdrop for secret nuclear talks held by the United States and Japan in November 1961. The meetings, attended by U.S. President John F. Kennedy's secretary...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jun 15, 2012
Agent Orange at base in '80s: U.S. vet
The U.S. Marine Corps buried a massive stockpile of Agent Orange at the Futenma air station in Okinawa, possibly poisoning the base's former head of maintenance and potentially contaminating nearby residents and the ground beneath the base, The Japan Times recently learned from interviews with U.S. veterans....
Japan Times
JAPAN
May 17, 2012
Agent Orange 'tested in Okinawa'
Recently uncovered documents show that the United States conducted top-secret tests of Agent Orange in Okinawa in 1962, according to a veterans services employee.
Japan Times
LIFE
May 13, 2012
What awaits Okinawa 40 years after reversion?
On May 15, 1972, Okinawa became a prefecture of Japan once again. Up until then, for 27 years since World War II — when the islands endured some of the most intense fighting of the entire brutal conflict — Okinawa had been under U.S. military administration, so reversion to Japanese rule should have...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Apr 15, 2012
U.S. vet pries lid off Agent Orange denials
Thousands of barrels of Agent Orange were unloaded on Okinawa Island and stored at the port of Naha, and at the U.S. military's Kadena and Camp Schwab bases between 1965 and 1966, an American veteran who served in Okinawa claims.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / VIEWS FROM THE STREET
Mar 6, 2012
Shinchi, Fukushima: Why did you volunteer to come to Fukushima with Photohoku?
Kana Suzuki
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Mar 6, 2012
Rebuilding lives in shattered Tohoku, one image at a time
As the minibus winds through the foothills of northern Fukushima, the Geiger counter flashes blue and buzzes loud alerts — but it doesn't distract Brian Peterson. The 35-year-old American holds up a boxy Konika Instant Press — what he calls his "magic camera" — then explains how to load it, set...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Feb 14, 2012
Vets win payouts over Agent Orange use on Okinawa
The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs has awarded two more former service members compensation for exposure to Agent Orange while serving on Okinawa during the 1960s and '70s.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Dec 17, 2011
Military policeman's 'hobby' documented 1970 Okinawa rioting
At 1 a.m. on Dec. 20, 1970, a minor traffic accident involving a drunken American driver and an Okinawan pedestrian in Koza (present-day city of Okinawa) sparked the largest anti-U.S. riot the prefecture had ever seen.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Nov 30, 2011
Agent Orange buried at beach strip?
Dozens of barrels of the toxic defoliant Agent Orange were buried in the late 1960s beneath what is now a busy neighborhood in the central Okinawa Island town of Chatan, near Araha Beach, according to a former U.S. soldier who has recently pinpointed the location thanks to a 1970 map of a U.S. base obtained...
Ishiba delays meeting with Trump, citing legal restrictions
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba waves upon arrival for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, in Callao, Peru, on Friday.
Two of America’s biggest debt holders are dumping Treasurys
The U.S. Treasury building in Washington. Investors in Japan and China sold a pile of U.S. debt in the last quarter, just before the U.S. presidential election.
Rising sex tourism exposes loopholes in Japan's anti-prostitution law
While financial misfortunes during the COVID-19 pandemic may have driven some women to work the streets, others simply want more money to spend — or want to pay off their debts — at host clubs.
Japan ranks last in romance satisfaction for second straight year
In a survey of 31 countries, Japan ranked last in terms of those who felt loved, with just 51% of respondents saying so.
Ruling coalition and DPP strike last-minute deal over economic policy
DPP policy chief Makoto Mahaguchi speaks at the party's policy gathering in Tokyo on Wednesday.
Japan, U.K. and Italy discuss inviting more countries to joint fighter project
A new concept model of a next-generation fighter jet to be jointly developed by Japan, Britain and Italy is on display in Farnborough, Hampshire, in July.
Haruki Murakami's 'The City and Its Uncertain Walls' gives deep deja vu
For “The City and Its Uncertain Walls,” translated into English by Philip Gabriel, Haruki Murakami confronts the ghosts who won't leave him alone.
Japanese expats in Asia find community through rugby
The Taiwan Fivewoods celebrate their victory at the 2023 Asian Japanese Rugby Cup in December of last year.
In Fukushima, a weekend of prose, poetry and translation
Aomori-based writer JJ Carter presented on tabletop gaming as creative inspiration for building characters and narratives.
For Dr. Nakamats, aging is just experience in action
Though he didn't win the recent gubernatorial election in Tokyo, the 96-year-old Dr. Nakamats' run was seen as inspirational in Japan's aging society.

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