Giant Robot Store and GR2 News
At the end of May, just weeks before his photo exhibition was scheduled to open, Ahn Sehong got a letter from his sponsor telling him that the show was cancelled. The sponsor was Nikon, the venue was their gallery in Shinjuku, and the subject of the exhibition was the documentation of the lives of surviving Korean “Comfort Women”. Now, according to KBS World, a Japanese court has ruled that the show must go on, despite protests from right-wing, nationalist conservatives who wanted the show put to a stop. I’m sure it won’t be the end of the protests, but there’s some justice for Ahn and his life’s work. You can read some of his own words about the women he photographed and why their stories matter here.
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Some say 20, some say 40,000 people are protesting in Tokyo over the restart of the nuclear plants. (Bangkok Post -Japan protest) Strangely, it’s hardly in Japanese news.
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Downloading material or backing up a DVD might lead to jail time and a 25k fine for the offenders in Japan. It gets worse if you choose to share. A $125k fine. Not much more to say, but we’ll see how many prosecutions will happen. Otakus shall share! (Wired – Copyright)
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160,000 evacuees, suicides and more. This is a video that sort of catches up on what’s going on as the news of Fukushima gets quiet. It’s about Mikio Watanabe who’s wife commit suicide. He’s now suing TEPCO – the company who runs the Fukushima nuclear plant. There are many sad videos about Fukushima, and this is just one of them. (CNN – Fukushima Suicides)
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The group which is now spread larger than ever with teams of 16 females in more than one city in Japan is now beginning in other countries as well. Jakarta has a team and so forth. Fans get to cast votes and the top can record a single, solo. Beginning in 2005, this project has grown to 200 million in sales and will continue onward. But… will we see LA48 or NY48? That might be a scary one. (NY Daily – AKB48)
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