Japan halts exhibit of SKorea’s ‘comfort women’ statue
Tokyo: A Japanese exhibition featuring a controversial South Korean artwork depicting a wartime sex slave has been cancelled after threats of violence as bilateral ties between the countries fray.
The cancellation comes as relations between Tokyo and Seoul are soured by bitter disputes over territory and history stemming from Tokyo’s colonial rule over the peninsula in the first half of the 20th century. The exhibition, which was part of a major art festival in Aichi, central Japan, was shut down on Saturday after just three days. Titled “After Freedom of Expression?”, the event was dedicated to showing works that were censored elsewhere and was originally scheduled to run for 75 days.
The statue — a girl in traditional South Korean clothes sitting on a chair — symbolises “comfort women”, who were forced to work in wartime Japanese military brothels during World War II.
Aichi Governor Hideaki Omura, who heads organisers, said they received a number of threatening emails, phone calls and faxes against the exhibition. Omura said one of the faxes read: “I will visit the museum carrying a gasoline container,” which can evoke last month’s arson attack on an animation studio in Kyoto that killed 35 people. “We made the decision as we fear that we can’t safely organise the exhibition,” the governor said. (AFP)
French inventor crosses English Channel on Flyboard
Paris: French inventor Franky Zapata on Sunday managed to cross the English Channel on his Flyboard, a single-person platform propelled by five small turbines.
Zapata, 40, took off at 8.16 a.m. from the French town of Sangatte in Pas-de Calais, northern France, and landed roughly 20 minutes later in St. Margaret Bay, Dover, in England, having crossed the 35-km stretch of water, reports Efe news.
He had to make a pit stop on a platform roughly halfway through his journey to refill his fuel kerosene fuel tank, which is stored in his backpack.
It was second time lucky for the former jet ski champion, who on July 25 crashed into the sea during his first attempt at crossing the Channel. He fell as he landed on a refuelling boat. Had he succeeded at the time, the feat would have marked exactly 110 years since Louis Blériot first crossed the Channel by plane. (IANS)
