Japanese Government Officials

Japan on Tuesday lifted sanctions it imposed on North Korea in November, 1983, to protest a terrorist bombing in Rangoon, Burma, the previous month that killed 17 visiting South Korean officials. Japanese government officials may again travel to North Korea, and North Korean officials may enter Japan. Also lifted were bans on Japanese and North Korean diplomats' making contact in third countries.

Hanni Vogelweid of Huntington Beach doesn't remember seeing Chiune Sugihara, the Japanese diplomat who provided her family with transit visas so they could leave Lithuania in early 1941. But she'll never forget what Sugihara did. She's alive because of him. Vogelweid, a 73-year-old German-born Jew, is one of as many as 10,000 who received transit visas from a man who risked his own life to help Jews avoid the Holocaust.

For one frightening month in 1940, Japanese diplomat Chiune Sugihara handwrote transit visas day and night, allowing thousands of Polish Jews to flee advancing Nazi soldiers. "He wrote and wrote--sometimes even refusing to take his meals," Yukiko Sugihara, his widow, recalled Tuesday. When the pain in his fingers forced the Japanese consul general in Lithuania to stop momentarily, she massaged his hands and reassured him: "You're doing the right thing; we must help these people.

A Japanese government spokesman apologized for insulting Koreans, the latest in a string of verbal blunders by Japanese leaders over the past few years. Seiroku Kajiyama, Japan's chief government spokesman, had predicted that hostilities between North and South Korea would set off street violence between rival Korean factions in Japan. South Koreans said the comment reinforced a mistaken image of Koreans who live in Japan as thugs and gang members.

Hanni Vogelweid of Huntington Beach doesn't remember seeing Chiune Sugihara, the Japanese diplomat who provided her family with transit visas so they could leave Lithuania in early 1941. But she'll never forget what Sugihara did. She's alive because of him. Vogelweid, a 73-year-old German-born Jew, is one of as many as 10,000 who received transit visas from a man who risked his own life to help Jews avoid the Holocaust.

A Japanese government spokesman apologized for insulting Koreans, the latest in a string of verbal blunders by Japanese leaders over the past few years. Seiroku Kajiyama, Japan's chief government spokesman, had predicted that hostilities between North and South Korea would set off street violence between rival Korean factions in Japan. South Koreans said the comment reinforced a mistaken image of Koreans who live in Japan as thugs and gang members.

Japan's natural disaster in March was only hours old when the Tokyo-based charity got on the line to the old man. He'd just arrived in Uganda, an exhausting trip for a 77-year-old whose knees are so weak he sometimes needs a wheelchair to get around. "Come back," the charity implored its founder. "We need you. " Two days later, Yoshiomi Tamai not only returned to Japan, but he headed straight for this provincial city 190 miles north of Tokyo. The death toll from the earthquake and tsunami was rising into the thousands.

The image is of a lonely Korean woman in her late 60s, working in a back street bar in Shanghai. It could be Manila. Or Taipei. She is quiet. No one asks how she got there, so no one answers. The image and the silence haunt Bok Lim Kim, a La Jolla resident who has for a decade tried to raise awareness of sex crimes committed against Korean and other Asian women during World War II. The euphemism was "comfort girls." In reality, they were sex slaves.

Government to Use Public Funds to Cover Thrift's Deposits: After a day of emergency meetings, Japanese government officials agreed to use public funds to cover the deposits of the troubled Cosmo Credit Union, the Tokyo area's largest thrift, said a senior Tokyo Metropolitan Government official. The use of government money to guarantee all Cosmo's deposits could mark the beginning of a move by Japanese officials to resolve the country's long-running banking crisis.

For one frightening month in 1940, Japanese diplomat Chiune Sugihara handwrote transit visas day and night, allowing thousands of Polish Jews to flee advancing Nazi soldiers. "He wrote and wrote--sometimes even refusing to take his meals," Yukiko Sugihara, his widow, recalled Tuesday. When the pain in his fingers forced the Japanese consul general in Lithuania to stop momentarily, she massaged his hands and reassured him: "You're doing the right thing; we must help these people.

Japan on Tuesday lifted sanctions it imposed on North Korea in November, 1983, to protest a terrorist bombing in Rangoon, Burma, the previous month that killed 17 visiting South Korean officials. Japanese government officials may again travel to North Korea, and North Korean officials may enter Japan. Also lifted were bans on Japanese and North Korean diplomats' making contact in third countries.

One of the world's most historic warships, the battleship Missouri, will be open for visitors Saturday at the Long Beach Naval Shipyard to anyone who picks up a free ticket from any of the Navy recruiting offices in Los Angeles County, a Navy spokesman said. The 45-year-old ship won a place in history in September, 1945, in Tokyo Bay when Japanese government officials came aboard and signed the surrender documents that ended World War II. The Iowa-class battleship is one of four that were recommissioned under President Reagan's defense buildup.

Japan, saying that North Korea undoubtedly was behind the November terrorist bombing of a South Korean jetliner that killed all 115 people aboard, imposed sanctions for the "inexcusable act against world peace and order." Under the sanctions, contact between Japanese diplomats and North Korean officials will be severely restricted, and Japanese government officials will not be allowed to visit North Korea.