World Politics News   Articles for World Politics Course

During World War II, as many as 200,000 women and girls were kidnapped from Korea, China, the Philippines and other Southeast Asian nations and were forced by the Japanese Imperial Army to work as sex slaves.  That atrocity has bedeviled Japanese relations with its neighbors throughout the postwar period.  Finally, the Japanese government has acknowledged its guilt and promised to pay $8.3 million into a South Korean account to support the surviving 46 South Korean women who were kidnapped.  While some of those women have rejected the agreement, South Korea has indicated that it will consider the dispute successfully “resolved” if Japan keeps its word.   We will see how others regard the settlement.

The rules governing the treatment of refugees are outlined in the UN’s 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees.  Denmark is questioning two parts of that convention.  The first governs the movement of refugees from states that are not at war, and the second questions the right of families to follow refugees granted asylum.   Reopening the convention to changes would likely allow other changes to be entertained and would also likely take an extended period of time.  But the simple fact that the convention is being questioned is an index of how troubling the refugee issue has become to some of the European states.

Last May, US Special Operations Forces conducted a raid in Syria that killed Daesh (Islamic State) financial official, Abu Sayyaf.  In that raid, thousands of documents were taken.  These documents allegedly outline a very sophisticated bureaucracy governing everything from the handling of oil revenues to the treatment of slaves.  Taken altogether, the documents belie the idea of a ragtag, ideologically driven jihadist group.  Rather, they suggest officials with long careers in government bureaucracy such as the careers of former Baathist officials in the former Saddam Hussein regime.  One should be aware that Daesh is comprised of many people that wish to restore a Hussein-like, Sunni-rule over Iraq and Syria.