[WORLD NEWS ★]
KOREA AND JAPAN END LONG DISAGREEMENT ABOUT “COMFORT WOMEN”
(P1) Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has announced a “new era” in Japanese – South Korean relations after the two countries reached a LANDMARK deal on the issue of wartime sex slaves.
(P2) Under the deal, Japan will finance a 1bn yen aid ($8.7m) fund for the Korean women known as “comfort women” who were forced to work in Japanese military-run BROTHELS during World War II.
(P3) “Japan and South Korea welcome a new era,” Abe told reporters after speaking by phone with South Korean President Park Geun-Hye.
(P4) The deal was reached in South Korea’s capital Seoul at a meeting between the foreign ministers of the two countries.
(P5) “The comfort women issue… occurred with the involvement of the Japanese military… and the Japanese government ACUTELY feels its responsibility,” Japanese foreign minister Fumio Kishida said after a meeting with his South Korean COUNTERPART Yun Byung-Se.
(P6) Kishida added that Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe expressed an “apology FROM THE BOTTOM OF HIS HEART” to the victims.
(P8) Tens of thousands of women from around Asia, many of them Korean, were sent to military brothels to provide sex to Japanese soldiers.
(P9) In South Korea, there are 46 such surviving former sex slaves, mostly in their late 80s or early 90s.
(P10) Many survivors of the wartime sexual slavery had urged Japan to issue an official apology, make REPARATIONS, and include wartime atrocities in Japanese school textbooks.
If you found the passage difficult to read or had problems understanding specific words or idiomatic expressions, please discuss them with your tutor. The following discussion questions should be answered in your own words and with your own arguments.
- Briefly summarize the content of the article in your own words.
- Korea and Japan have had an UNEASY relationship for a long time because of the negative history between the two countries. What countries does your country have an uneasy relationship with?
- Did your grandparents or other older relatives ever tell you stories about old wars when you were growing up?
- Men usually fight wars, but why are wars very difficult for women, too?
- Why are apologies important?
EXPRESSIONS TO PRACTICE:
What do the following expressions mean? Practice using each expression in a sentence; extra points if you can use it in conversation.
- From the bottom of my heart