Japan will send a mission to China in mid-September to excavate and retrieve chemical weapons the Imperial Japanese Army abandoned during the war, according to the government's Abandoned Chemical Weapons Office.
The 75-member mission, including eight members of the Self-Defense Forces, will travel to Beian in Heilongjiang Province on Sept. 13 and search over a two-week period for poisonous-gas munitions the army left behind after World War II, the office said.
The mission, made up of chemical weapons experts from the SDF as well as government representatives and civilian weapons experts, will be aided by up to 200 local workers who will dig in the areas where the weapons are believed to be buried.
It will be the first weapons disposal operation in China led by the Japanese government.
Under the Chemical Weapons Convention, which took effect in 1997, Japan must remove the estimated 700,000 chemical weapons abandoned in China by 2007. China puts the figure at around 2 million units.
Hawaii accident victim identified LOS ANGELES (Kyodo) The victim of a fatal traffic accident in suburban Honolulu last weekend has been identified as Konomi Nakagawa, 38, from the town of Tarui, Gifu Prefecture, the Japanese Consulate General in Honolulu said Wednesday.
Local police had refused to give her identity, citing her family's privacy.
Nakagawa died after she and her family were run over by a car. Her husband, Shinji, 40, and their eldest son, Hiroto, 11, were seriously injured, and the couple's two daughters, aged 13 and 9, suffered minor injuries, police said.