Tag Archives: boycotts

Protests and boycotts ahead of Netanyahu’s address to Congress

American-Jews-protest-Israel

Important Takeaways:

  • Democratic Sen. Ben Cardin will preside over Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s joint address to Congress on Wednesday as he faces calls to boycott the speech.
  • The Maryland office of Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR, urged the Maryland senator to boycott what the largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization referred to as Netanyahu’s “war criminal” address to Congress.
  • “It is deeply troubling that Sen. Cardin would choose to lend legitimacy and support to a war criminal who is responsible for egregious violations of human rights and international law,” said CAIR’s Maryland Director Zainab Chaudhry.
  • Netanyahu arrived Monday in Washington, D.C., where he will hold meetings with the Biden administration and will address the joint session of the House and Senate on Wednesday, as he seeks bipartisan support for Israel just days after President Joe Biden announced he would end his re-election bid.
  • As Netanyahu addresses the joint Congress on Wednesday, House Speaker Mike Johnson has warned lawmakers that there will be a “zero-tolerance” policy for anyone who disrupts the speech and that law enforcement “will remove … offending visitors from the gallery and subject them to arrest.”
  • On Tuesday, hundreds of members of the group Jewish Voice for Peace were arrested during a demonstration inside the Cannon House Office Building in Washington, D.C., according to the group.
  • “Arrests are beginning as over 400 American Jews refuse to leave Congress, but we won’t leave until our government stops arming Israel and ends the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza!” the group wrote Tuesday in a post on X.

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Japan, South Korea agree on need for dialogue to resolve feud on wartime labor and Fukushima

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, South Korean Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha and Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Kono pose for photo ahead of the ninth trilateral foreign ministers’ meeting among China, South Korea and Japan at Gubei Town in Beijing, China, 21 August 2019. Wu Hong/Pool via REUTERS

By Hyonhee Shin and Ami Miyazaki

TOKYO/SEOUL (Reuters) – Japan and South Korea on Wednesday agreed on the need for dialogue to resolve a feud over compensating Korean wartime workers that has spilled into trade and put a deep chill on ties between Washington’s two biggest Asian allies.

Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Kono, speaking after talks with South Korean counterpart Kang Kyung-wha, said both sides shared that view over the dispute, which is a bitter legacy of Japan’s 1910-1945 colonization of the Korean peninsula.

“In that sense, I want to firmly make progress towards resolving (this matter),” Kono said outside the Chinese capital of Beijing, in comments carried live on Japanese public broadcaster NHK.

“I think the fact that we … were able to talk in this difficult situation could lead to big progress towards resolving this problem,” Kono said. “I want to stay in close touch and continue to talk.”

A South Korean official said both sides reiterated their positions but the meeting was meaningful in restoring diplomatic dialogue and reaffirming the need to keep talking, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency said.

Relations soured after the South Korean Supreme Court ordered some Japanese firms to compensate Korean wartime workers last October, a move strongly condemned by Tokyo, which says the matter was resolved by a 1965 treaty normalizing ties.

The feud has spilled over into trade, after Japan tightened export controls on materials vital to South Korean chipmakers and then dropped Seoul from a list of countries eligible for fast-track exports, prompting South Korea to take a similar step towards Japan.

The number of South Korean tourists visiting Japan fell last month to its lowest in nearly a year, amid a far-reaching boycott of Japanese products and services, from cars to beer and tours.

Kang again urged that Japan’s tightened controls be eased, and relayed concerns about media reports and international environmental groups’ claims that Japan plans to release contaminated water from the Fukushima nuclear plant into the ocean, Yonhap said.

Kono also said Japan wanted Seoul and Tokyo to maintain a military intelligence-sharing pact that could expire if South Korea decides not to roll it over this week.

“This is an important framework for the United States, Japan and South Korea and … should be maintained,” Kono said, adding that he had discussed the intelligence pact with Kang.

Though Kang declined to comment after the meeting whether South Korea would renew the deal, Kim Sang-jo, policy chief of President Moon Jae-in, said on Wednesday that Seoul would continue consideration “until the last minute”.

Kono urged both China and South Korea to scrap their import curbs on produce from areas around Japan’s Fukushima nuclear disaster site, where three reactors suffered melt downs after an earthquake and tsunami in 2011.

Seoul said on Wednesday it would double radiation testing of some Japanese food imports, for fear of contamination from the Fukushima plant.

An official of Japan’s Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries said Japanese food products were safe and increased radiation testing was unnecessary.

(Writing by Linda Sieg; Editing by Clarence Fernandez and Simon Cameron-Moore)