Butler shows hundreds of employees the door after raising $50M for room service delivery

Kyle Wiggers

TechCrunch

Fri, July 8, 2022 

On May 16, Butler Hospitality, an on-demand platform for room service and amenities, sent an email to vendors that might have been considered reassuring under other circumstances. "We are writing to inform you [that] room service and catering services will continue as is. All collateral is still functional," the email read. "We appreciate your loyalty to sticking with us through these times."

The trouble was, Butler's roughly 1,000-person workforce had been laid off just days earlier. In fact, most were told that the company had been dissolved -- according to interviews TechCrunch had with a number of former employees, and corroborated in a report last week by industry blog Restaurant Dive.

Butler’s downfall is a cautionary tale both of the opportunities and challenges that exist in the world of on-demand startups. There may be clear gaps in the market for services that appear in theory like easy sailing. Yet they can inevitably be buffeted by economic, social and, in recent times, extreme public health headwinds. And amidst all that, those working there are the first to go over.

On-demand delivery

New York-based Butler was founded in 2016 as a "ghost kitchen" operator with a simple business model. Butler would lease a hotel kitchen on one property and use it to provide meal delivery services to in-house guests there and in other, nearby hotels.

Butler founder and CEO Premtim Gjonbalic has experience in the hospitality industry. According to a Forbes profile, he opened his first restaurant in New York City at the age of 19 -- located inside a "big-box" hotel. Gjonbalic is also listed as an advisor to Fast Acquisition Corp., a special-purpose acquisition company that unsuccessfully attempted to take Fertitta Entertainment, a dining, hospitality, and gaming giant, public.

"We are coming in and showing what the experience should be,” Gjonbalic told Crunchbase in a 2020 interview. "You don’t need a cart in the room or a $20 service charge to deliver food. Guests want good packaging, a good menu, price transparency and to be able to track their order. This should have been happening a long time ago."

Butler owned five different restaurant concepts that it staffed, including Standard by Butler (a casual bar and grill), Prime by Butler (an American brasserie) and Super Franc (a Tuscan steakhouse). Hotels could choose which concepts to have available to their guests; Butler handled the integration, experience, menu design and packaging. To customers, it pledged to deliver orders -- including "convenience" items on the side, like chargers and shaving cream -- in under 30 minutes, charged directly to their hotel bill.

After a seed round and bootstrapped funding from Gjonbalic, Butler went on to raise $15 million in Series A contributions from The Kraft Group, &vest, Scopus Ventures and Mousse Partners. The company subsequently raised $30 million from backers including Shamrock Holdings, Maywic Select Investments and Platform Ventures, bringing Butler's total raised to "north of" $50 million.

In a press release issued last October, Butler said that it wanted to more than double its presence to 12 markets in the U.S., with plans to service rooms in cities including Boston, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh (expanding from its bases in New York, New Jersey, Chicago, Miami, Denver, San Francisco and Washington, D.C.). The company said that Hilton, Hyatt, IHG and Marriott were among its more than 400 hospitality partners, which were big gets for the small operation.

But some ex-employees say trouble was brewing behind the scenes.

Signs of instability

Butler no doubt took a hit as the pandemic depressed service and hospitality spending. In April 2020, the company received a $600,000 loan through the Paycheck Protection Program. But Butler, intent on expansion, continued to take on expensive new hotel restaurant leases.

At one point, Butler was offering $500 prepaid Visa cards for every hotel partner successfully referred to it.

"Butler expanded its national footprint in 2021, hoping to capitalize on the travel recovery," Gjonbalic told TechCrunch via email. However, the startup found COVID-19 having both direct and indirect lasting effects, he added, among them labor and supply chain shortages, closed international borders, and continued delays of corporate and group travel.

As travel recovered in late Q1 2022, Butler's challenges didn't go away, with inflation, geopolitical issues (i.e. the war in Ukraine), interest rate hikes and the bigger pressure on tech finance all creating a challenging fundraising environment for the startup. This led to commitments falling through "abruptly," Gjonbalic said.

But Gjonbalic and the rest of the company's senior leaders failed to communicate the severity of the situation, according to ex-staffers who spoke with TechCrunch on the condition of anonymity. Just weeks prior to the mass firings, one ex-employee claims they were told Butler had no cash flow issues and that "the next [financing] round was coming." Another says they were assured that the company's board of directors would give six months of runway regardless of how the next fundraise went.

Some of the complaints have been more public and open. Kelly Buerger, a former launch manager for Butler, filed a class action lawsuit against the company in June alleging that Butler failed to give employees sufficient notice of their termination. Under the New York WARN Act and the federal WARN Act, companies employing 50 or more employees are generally required to give several weeks’ advance notice of mass layoffs.

"Beginning on or about April 22, 2022, and within 90 days therefrom, [Butler] terminated hundreds of its employees," the lawsuit alleges. "[Butler] was required by the WARN Act to give [Buerger] and putative class members at least 60 days advance written notice of their termination ... [Butler also] failed to pay [Buerger] and each of the putative class members their respective wages, salaries, commissions, bonuses, accrued holiday pay and accrued vacation for 60 days following their respective terminations, along with other vested compensation perks during the 60-day period."

Some ex-Butler employees who were promised health benefits through August received an email a week after the dissolution indicating their plans would been terminated early.

Layoffs begin

Butler began taking extraordinary measures to preserve its remaining capital. An employee at one of Butler's hotel customers said the company began discontinuing services and introducing new fees without advanced warning. For example, Butler began charging for deliveries that previously had been free.

Early in the year, there was a round of layoffs at Butler -- fewer than 20 people -- that management described to employees as "a one-time thing." A few weeks later, about 50 people were furloughed in what Butler internally called a response to "challenges."

"We regret to inform you that due to ... circumstances faced by [Butler] resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, including the critical need to conserve our cash resources, we have made the very difficult decision to place you on a temporary furlough," a notice received by one ex-Butler employee reads. "We are hopeful that [Butler's] financial condition will improve, and we hope to recall you from temporary furlough to resume your position with [Butler] by no later than November 9, 2022."

The larger-scale layoffs started in May, shortly after Butler hired a new COO and chief revenue officer. The company dissolved on May 13.

Gjonbalic claims that the board and Butler's legal counsel at Cooley, a Palo Alto-based law firm, explored "several options" to try to save the company, but ultimately decided to shut down and dissolve the company on May 12.

"On May 13, Delaware counsel was retained to assist with the shutdown and to liquidate the business assets and the employees were terminated on May 13," Gjonbalic told TechCrunch in an email. "Butler is not operational. The board agreed ... to shut down the company, but this is not something that happens overnight, so several excess liability hubs were assigned or transitioned back to hotel ownership to assist with accomplishing this as quickly as possible."

Employees laid off during the final round, which included operational staff working at Butler-leased restaurants, were informed in a three-minute Google Meet call. An ex-employee told TechCrunch that services stopped abruptly after the company's dissolution; guests at one hotel with a Butler contract were suddenly unable to order room service.

Vestiges of the company remain. An ex-employee with knowledge of the matter said that people formerly employed by Butler were direct-messaging the company's Instagram account, which remains active, to ask about missing payments. Much of Butler's senior leadership haven't updated their profiles on LinkedIn to reflect the shutdown, and Butler's website makes no mention of it.

"Hotel owners and hotel management companies took over most of [Butler's] lease obligations, and fortunately my dad agreed to assume two of the remaining lease obligations and debts off the company’s hands," Gjonbalic said [in an email to TechCrunch]. "An assignee is in place and he is handling all post-dissolution matters."

Cautionary tale

While an extreme example, Butler is hardly the only food delivery startup to have fallen on hard times recently. Instacart last month slashed its valuation by almost 40% and slowed hiring. Publicly traded DoorDash and Deliveroo have seen their stock prices fluctuate wildly over the past year. Gorillas, Getir, Zapp, Jokr and Gopuff are among other delivery startups that have let go staff in recent months, despite fundraising. And some have been forced to shut down entirely, like Fridge No More, 1520 and Buyk.

Beyond foodtech, stories like Butler's are playing out with increasing frequency as investors tighten their belts, fearing a downturn. As one ex-Butler staffer put it, VC backers maintained an insatiable demand for growth, encouraging expansion that later proved to be foolhardy. Valuations became inflated, which caused unrealistic expectations and changes in direction -- and initiatives.

"Butler is a prime example of what’s happening in tech right now -- except instead of just 20% layoffs, the whole company went under," the staffer said.

PAKISTAN

Sindh orders suspension of coal exploration, mining work in two districts

Move follows death of eight miners due to flooding

Published: July 09, 2022 

Azeem Samar, Correspondent

A man pushes his rickshaw (tuk tuk) through a flooded road during the monsoon season in Karachi, Pakistan July 9, 2022.

Image Credit: Reuters

Karachi: After the tragic death of eight miners due to flooding caused by heavy monsoon rains, the Sindh government has issued orders to immediately halt coal exploration and mining work in two districts of the province.

The Sindh government’s Director-General of Coal Mines Development has issued the orders asking the contractors concerned to suspend coal mining and exploration work in Thatta and Jamshoro districts due to unsuitable weather.

The orders have asked the coal mining companies to adopt all the due safety precautions at the coalfields in addition to suspending the exploration and mining operations.

The provincial government warned that in case of non-compliance the mining permits would be cancelled as per the provisions of Sindh Coal Mining Concession Rules-2022.

The orders were issued on the directives of Sindh Energy Minister, Imtiaz Ahmed Sheikh.

The Sindh government’s Energy Department has in the past promised to improve working conditions of the workers associated with coalfields in Thatta and Jamshoro like the facilities available to labourers associated with the Thar coal mining site in the province.

The coal miners in the two districts often work in highly risky conditions in tunnel mines where accidents during the mining operations often threaten their lives.

The Sindh Energy Minister said that a private company owned the coal mine in the Jhimpir area of Thatta where eight miners had died earlier in the week due to flash flooding after heavy rains.

He said the relevant district administration had been asked to lodge a criminal case against the loss of the precious lives of the coal miners.

Sheikh said that due penal action would be launched against the owner and contractor of the coal mine for showing negligence by them that endangered the lives of the miners.

He said that a probe committee had been formed to investigate the mining tragedy in the Jhimpir area.

The Sindh Energy Minister said the probe committee comprised the DG of Coal Mines Development, the Chief Inspector of the Mines, and representatives of the miners.

He stated that the initial reports received after the tragedy revealed that one of the deceased who had lost his life in the mining tragedy was a 12-year-old boy.

He said the deceased boy was the son of one of the minors who had survived the accident.

Sheikh said the bereaved father of the boy had said that he was present at the mine along with his son as the flooding had caused the boy to fall into the mine.

He maintained that the probe committee would determine whether the account of the accident given by the father of the deceased boy was true or else the boy had already been inside the mine when the flooding occurred as it was a case of child labour related to the coal mining work.

Sindh Chief Minister, Syed Murad Ali Shah, also took cognisance of the death of a boy in the mining tragedy in Jhimpir and asked Sindh Energy Minister to conduct a probe into the incident for taking due action against those responsible if it was proven that it was a case of child labour.

X-FILES Congressman proposes whistleblower protection for UFO spotters

Aaron Foster via Getty Images

Daniel Cooper
·Senior Editor

Fri, July 8, 2022

A UFO-obsessed Republican Congressman has introduced an amendment to the Defense Authorization Act to offer new protection for UFO whistleblowers. Rep. Mike Gallagher has pushed for a new rule to establish a process for receiving reports concerning Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP). It’s hoped that, with these in place, soldiers and contractors will feel more comfortable sharing details of unexplained phenomena they see on the battlefield.

The Drive suggests that this could be a way of resolving the ever-present rumors that the government has evidence of extra-terrestrial life. Those who come forward should feel comfortable that they will not be breaking secrets laws, and will be protected from reprisals. There are some on the UFO speaker circuit, for instance, who say they have proof of alien life but can’t reveal it for fear of imprisonment.

The notion that the US has had secret dealings with alien life is something of a hobby-horse for Gallagher. Back in May, Politico reported that Gallagher used a House Intelligence Committee meeting to needle Pentagon officials about a glowing orb floating over Montana that briefly shut down a nuclear weapons facility in 1967. That story apparently comes from the book Unidentified: The UFO Phenomenon, from former USAF airman Robert Salas. At the time, Pentagon officials denied that there was any secret trove of evidence concerning alien life.

In 2020, the Pentagon released a series of videos that it had received concerning UAPs, showing pilots capturing something moving across their view. But officials added that there was nothing more to share, and that it has not been able to prove to anyone's satisfaction that the events featured are the result of alien incursion

MASS MURDERER

Former Mexican President Echeverria, famed INFAMOUS for role in repression, 

dies at 100

 Former Mexican President Luis Echeverria makes a statement in Mexico City

Sat, July 9, 2022
By Adriana Barrera

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) -Former Mexican President Luis Echeverria, who took office in 1970 promising a democratic opening for the country but oversaw six of the harshest years of a so-called "dirty war" against dissidents, has died aged 100.

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador on Twitter confirmed the death on Saturday, expressing his condolences to Echeverria's family.

As an elderly man, Echeverria escaped attempts by Mexican prosecutors to indict him for genocide for his role in two infamous massacres of student protesters in 1968 and 1971 that helped define an era of heavy-handed state repression.

MEXICO'S HIMMLER
Bald and bespectacled, Echeverria denied wrongdoing and said his conscience was clear. He refused to testify about crimes that have not been fully cleared up to this day.

A loyal son of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, which ruled Mexico for 71 years until its ousting in a 2000 election, Echeverria believed in preserving the all-encompassing party system that reached into every sphere of public life.

His 1970-1976 presidency was tainted from the outset by accusations that he ordered troops to open fire on thousands of peacefully demonstrating students in the Mexico City area of Tlatelolco on Oct. 2, 1968 while serving as interior minister.

At the time, the government said just 30 people had been killed and injured in the massacre, carried out days before the Olympic Games opened in Mexico City. Some witnesses said many more bodies were carted off from the scene.

Hundreds of students were beaten and jailed after the protest, which occurred when student uprisings were erupting worldwide. A definitive death toll has never been given.

CRACKDOWNS AND ECONOMIC WOES

As interior minister, Echeverria led a group of top officials crafting a response to the student uprisings, according to declassified U.S. government documents.

Keen to wipe the slate clean during his presidency, Echeverria promised a "democratic opening". He released people imprisoned after the massacre and courted the intellectual left, promoting them to prominent positions in government.

But from the late 1960s to early 1980s, activists say PRI security forces were responsible for a brutal campaign against leftist intellectuals and critical journalists, many of whom were killed and disappeared during Echeverria's rule.

On June 10, 1971, the day of the Corpus Christi Catholic celebration, a paramilitary force known as Los Halcones, or The Falcons, attacked a student protest with pistols, rifles, tear gas and batons, killing or wounding dozens of demonstrators.

Born on Jan. 17, 1922 to a middle class family in Mexico City, Echeverria was know for embracing a leftist foreign policy while cozying up to Washington.

U.S. President Richard Nixon was fond of Echeverria.

"He's strong, he wants to play the right games," Nixon said of Echeverria in a recorded conversation with the director of the Central Intelligence Agency.

During his presidency, Echeverria had plans to redistribute lands of the wealthy to peasants and espoused a protectionist economic policy of high tariffs, state intervention and preference for domestic products.

As the public sector ballooned and government borrowing soared, Echeverria alienated the business class, which stopped investing and sent its capital out of the country.

Mexico's foreign debt sextupled and the peso's value almost halved during Echeverria's term in office, leading to a currency devaluation shortly before his term expired.

In 2006, a judge ordered Echeverria to be placed under house arrest for his connection to the student killings.

But in March 2009, a court ruled the army crackdown did not qualify as genocide, and upheld prior rulings that a 30-year statute of limitations for the crimes had expired.

In 2020, after some 10 years out of the public eye, Mexican media photographed Echeverria waiting in a wheelchair to receive a COVID-19 vaccine, wearing a wide-brimmed straw hat and rolling up the sleeve of a lilac-colored shirt for the shot.

(Reporting by Adriana Barrera; Editing by Lisa Shumaker and Diane Craft)

Luis Echeverria, former Mexican president blamed for political killings, dies at age 100


By —E. Eduardo Castillo, Associated Press
By —Mark Stevenson, Associated Press

 Jul 9, 2022 3:42 PM EDT

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Former Mexican President Luis Echeverria, blamed for some of Mexico’s worst political killings of the 20th century, has died at the age of 100, current President Andrés Manuel López Obrador confirmed Saturday.

In his Twitter account, López Obrador sent condolences to Echeverria’s family and friends “in the name of the government of Mexico,” but did not express any personal sadness about the death. López Obrador did not provide a cause of death for Echeverria, who governed Mexico from 1970 to 1976.

Echeverria had been hospitalized for pulmonary problems in 2018.

In 2005, a judge ruled Echeverria could not be tried on genocide charges stemming from a 1971 student massacre depicted in the Oscar-winning movie “Roma.”

READ MORE: What does López Obrador’s win in Mexico mean for the U.S.?

The judge ruled that Echeverria may have been responsible for homicide, but could not be tried because the statute of limitations for that crime expired in 1985.

In 1971, students set out from a teacher’s college just west of the city center for one of the first large-scale protests since hundreds of demonstrators were killed in a far larger massacre in 1968. They didn’t get more than a few blocks before they were set upon by plainclothes thugs.

The main female characters in “Roma” are depicted as incidental witnesses to the slaughter when they go to buy baby furniture at a store near the scene. Unwittingly they run across the protagonist’s sometime boyfriend, who is depicted as participating in the repression.

“Roma” won the Oscar for best foreign language film.

Echeverria had battled respiratory and neurological difficulties in recent years.

In 2004, he became the first former Mexican head of state formally accused of criminal wrongdoing. Prosecutors linked Echeverria to the country’s so-called “dirty war” in which hundreds of leftist activists and members of fringe guerrilla groups were imprisoned, killed, or simply disappeared without a trace.

A motion filed by special prosecutor Ignacio Carrillo asked a judge to issue an arrest warrant against Echeverria on genocide charges in the two student massacres: first for the 1968 killings at the Tlatelolco plaza, when Echeverria was interior secretary.

On Oct. 2 1968, a few weeks before the Summer Olympics in Mexico City, government sharpshooters opened fire on student protesters in the Tlatelolco plaza, and soldiers posted there opened fire. Estimates of the dead have ranged from 25 to more than 300. Echeverria had denied any participation in the attacks.

According to military reports, at least 360 government snipers were placed on buildings surrounding the protesters.

READ MORE: In blow to Biden, Mexican president to skip Summit of the Americas

In March 2009, a federal court in Mexico upheld a lower court’s ruling that Echeverria did not have to face genocide charges for his alleged involvement in the 1968 student massacre, and ordered his absolute freedom.

While few people in Mexico mourned the passing of Echeverria, Félix Hernández Gamundi — a 1968 student movement leader who was in Tlatelolco plaza on the day of the massacre, and who saw his friends gunned down — mourned what might have been.

“The death of ex-president Luis Echeverría is regrettable, becuse it occurred in total silence, because despite his his very long life, Luis Echeverria never decided to come clean about his actions,” Hernández Gamundi said.

“Of course we don’t mourn his death,” he said. “We mourn the opacity he displayed his entire life and his decision never to make an accounting, to always take advantage of his immense political and economic power that he enjoyed for the rest of his life.”

“He delayed for a long time the inevitable process of democracy that began in 1968,” Hernández Gamundi said. “October 2 marked the beginning of the end of the old regime, but it took many years afterward.”

Echeverria’s death came as his Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI — which ruled Mexico with an iron hand for seven decades, before losing power for the first time in the elections of 2000 — is losing what little power it still had, discredited and riven by internal scandals and disputes.

Born on Jan. 17, 1922, in Mexico City, Echeverria received a law degree from Mexico’s Autonomous National University in 1945.

Shortly afterward, he began his political career with PRI. He later held posts in the navy and Education Department, advanced to chief administrative officer of the PRI and organized the presidential campaign of Adolfo Lopez Mateos, who served as Mexico’s leader from 1958-64.

In 1964, under then-President Gustavo Diaz Ordaz, Echeverria was rewarded with the position of interior secretary, overseeing domestic security. He held that position in 1968, when the government cracked down on student pro-democracy protests, apparently worried they would embarrass Mexico as the host of the Olympics that year.

Echeverria left the interior post in November 1969, when he became the PRI’s presidential candidate.

He won that race, and was sworn in on Dec. 1, 1970, supporting the regimes of Cuba’s Fidel Castro and leftist Salvador Allende in Chile.

After Allende was assassinated in 1973 during a bloody coup led by Gen. Augusto Pinochet, Echeverria opened Mexico’s borders to Chileans fleeing Pinochet’s dictatorship.

READ MORE: Mexico’s drug war fought with drones, human shields, gunships

Echeverria traveled the world promoting himself as a leader and friend of leftist governments. But within Mexico, he was developing a reputation for cracking down on dissent and guerrilla groups.

According to Carrillo, the prosecutor who tried to charge him, Echeverria “was the master of illusion, the magician of deceit.”

Juan Velásquez, the lawyer who defended Echeverria, said the ex-president died at one of his homes, but did not specify a cause.

“I told Luis that even though nobody — not him, not me, not his family — wanted him to go on trial, in the end it was the best thing that could have happened,” because the charges were dropped, Velásquez said.

In his later years, Echeverria tried to project himself as an elder statesman, and a few times— when his health permitted — held forth unrepentantly before journalists. But he mainly lived in reclusive retirement at his sprawling home in an upscale Mexico City neighborhood.

Mexican prosecutors allege that Echeverria ordered an elite force of plain-clothes state fighters known as the “Halcones,” or “Falcons,” to attack suspected government enemies. It was that group that participated in the beating or shooting deaths of 12 people during the student demonstration on June 10, 1971.

Despite decades of calls by activists and opposition politicians for justice, Echeverria never spent a day in jail, though he was briefly declared under a form of house arrest.

One in five people rely on wild species for income and food, UN report confirms

Human exploitation and climate change are undermining many benefits of natural world, IPBES study finds


A protest outside the Victoria state parliament in Melbourne, Australia against proposed new laws that include harsh penalties for citizens who enter logging sites to protest. 

Photograph: William West / AFPBy Kevin O'SullivanSat Jul 9 2022 - 05:00

Human exploitation in combination with climate change is undermining the enormous benefits billions of people across the planet derive from wild species, a UN report has found.

The increasing strain on wild species of plants, animals, microbes and algae also means global biodiversity loss is accelerating, according to the report released on Friday by Ipbes, the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services.

One in five people rely on wild species for food and income, while humans use 50,000 wild species to meet their needs every day, it adds.

Iphes — whose research is on a par with IPCC reports on climate change — previously established that 1 million species were threatened with extinction, many within decades.

Its latest evaluation details how billions of people in developed and developing countries benefit daily from use of wild species “for food, energy, materials, medicine, recreation, inspiration and many other vital contributions to human wellbeing”.

“The accelerating global biodiversity crisis, with a million species of plants and animals facing extinction, threatens these contributions to people,” it warns.

The assessment report on sustainable use of wild species is the result of four years’ work by 85 leading experts from the natural and social sciences, holders of indigenous and local knowledge, and 200 contributing authors. Its summary was approved this week by representatives of the 139 member states of Ipbes, including Ireland, in Bonn, Germany.

It calls for a transformative change in human-nature relationships, whereby sustainable use of wild species is achieved and “biodiversity and ecosystem functioning are maintained while contributing to human wellbeing”.

One in five people rely on wild plants, algae and fungi for their food and income; 2.4 billion rely on fuel wood for cooking— Dr Marla R Emery

“With about 50,000 wild species used through different practices, including more than 10,000 wild species harvested directly for human food, rural people in developing countries are most at risk from unsustainable use, with lack of complementary alternatives often forcing them to further exploit wild species already at risk,” said Dr Jean-Marc Fromentin who co-chaired the assessment.

“One in five people rely on wild plants, algae and fungi for their food and income; 2.4 billion rely on fuel wood for cooking; and about 90 per cent of the 120 million people working in capture fisheries are supported by small-scale fishing,” noted co-chair Dr Marla R Emery. “But the regular use of wild species is extremely important not only in the Global South. From the fish that we eat, to medicines, cosmetics, decoration and recreation, wild species’ use is much more prevalent than most people realise.”

Some 70 per cent of the world’s poor are directly dependent on the products of nature including 7,500 species of wild fish and aquatic invertebrates, 31,100 species of wild plants including trees and fungi, 1,700 species of wild land-based invertebrates, and 7,500 species of wild amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals.

Wild tree species account for two thirds of global industrial roundwood; trade in wild plants, algae and fungi is a billion-dollar industry, and even non-extractive uses of wild species are big business, it finds. Tourism, based on observing wild species, is one of the main reasons that — before the Covid-19 pandemic — protected areas globally received 8 billion visitors and generated US$600 billion annually.


On fishing, Dr Fromentin said: “Recent global estimates confirm about 34 per cent of marine wild fish stocks are overfished and 66 per cent are fished within biologically sustainable levels — with significant local and contextual variations.”

Global estimates confirm about 34 per cent of marine wild fish stocks are overfished. 

Photograph: Koen van Weel / ANP / AFP

The report calls for a fixing of current inefficiencies; reducing illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing; suppressing harmful financial subsidies; supporting small-scale fisheries; adapting to changes in oceanic productivity due to climate change; and proactively creating effective transboundary institutions.

Countries with robust fisheries management have seen stocks increasing in abundance, it concludes. The Atlantic bluefin tuna population has been rebuilt and is now fished within sustainable levels, it confirms. For countries and regions with low intensity fisheries management measures, however, the status of stocks is often poorly known, but generally believed to be below the abundance that would maximise sustainable food production. —

“Many small-scale fisheries are unsustainable or only partially sustainable, especially in Africa for both inland and marine fisheries, and in Asia, Latin America and Europe for coastal fisheries.”

The report says climate change, increasing demand and technological advances — making many extractive practices more efficient — “are likely to present significant challenges to sustainable use in the future”.

The Atlantic bluefin tuna population has been rebuilt and is now fished within sustainable levels, the report confirms. Photograph: David Morrissey

“Overexploitation is one of the main threats to the survival of many land-based and aquatic species in the wild,” said co-chair Prof John Donaldson. “Addressing the causes of unsustainable use and, wherever possible reversing these trends, will result in better outcomes for wild species and the people who depend on them.”

The survival of an estimated 12 per cent of wild tree species is threatened by unsustainable logging, while unsustainable gathering is one of the main threats for several plant groups, notably cacti, cycads and orchids, and unsustainable hunting has been identified as a threat for 1,341 wild mammal species — with declines in large-bodied species that have low natural rates of increase also linked to hunting pressure.

It identifies drivers such as land- and seascape changes, climate change, pollution and invasive alien species that impact the abundance and distribution of wild species, and can increase stress and challenges among the human communities that use them. Global trade in wild species has expanded substantially in volume, value and trade networks over the past four decades, it warns.

While trade in wild species provides important income for exporting countries, offers higher incomes for harvesters, and can diversify sources of supply to allow pressure to be redirected from species being unsustainably used, “it also decouples the consumption of wild species from their places of origin”, it says.

Without effective regulation across supply chains — from local to global — global trade of wild species generally increases pressures on wild species, leading to unsustainable use and sometimes to wild population collapses as seen with the shark fin trade.

The authors find illegal trade in wild species represents the third largest class of all illegal trade — with estimated annual values of up to US$199 billion — with timber and fish making up the largest volumes and value under this heading.

UK

Chancellor Nadhim Zahawi announces ambition to be the next Prime Minister

The former education secretary pledged to lower taxes, boost defence spending, and continue with school reforms

Chancellor Nadhim Zahawi announced his candidacy to become Prime Minister on Saturday (Photo: Reuters/ Phil Noble)

By Natalie Chalk

July 9, 2022 

Newly-appointed Chancellor Nadhim Zahawi has thrown his hat into the ring for Tory leader, joining his predecessor Rishi Sunak, and becoming the second Cabinet minister to declare their ambition in the space of an hour, early on Saturday evening.

The former education secretary becomes the third serving Government minister to kick off their campaign for the leadership, after Grant Shapps and Attorney General Suella Braverman declared their intentions.

Defence Secretary Ben Wallace said that after “careful consideration” and discussion with colleagues and family, he would not stand to be party leader and the next prime minister.

In addition to ex-minister Kemi Badenoch and senior Tory Tom Tugendhat have launched their own bids, with further announcements expected.

Foreign Secretary Liz Truss is widely expected to stand, while other potential front-runners include trade minister Penny Mordaunt and former health secretaries Sajid Javid and Jeremy Hunt.

MORE ON TORY LEADERSHIP

'Boy from Baghdad' Nadhim Zahawi to pitch to become next PM as tax cutting, unity candidate09 July, 2022

Launching his campaign, Mr Zahawi pledged to lower taxes for individuals, families and business, boost defence spending, and continue with education reforms that he started in his previous role.

Born in Iraq to a Kurdish family, the new Chancellor came to the UK as a nine-year-old when his parents fled the regime of Saddam Hussein.

Believed to be one of the richest politicians in the House of Commons, he helped found polling company YouGov after studying chemical engineering at University College London.

He has often said that his own personal backstory has deeply influenced his view of Britain and he recently spoke of the debt he owed poet Philip Larkin as he improved his English as a teenager.

He has had something of a tumultuous week – first being promoted to Chancellor following Mr Sunak’s resignation on Tuesday, then defending Boris Johnson during a gruelling broadcast round on Wednesday, before publicly calling for him to stand down on Thursday morning.

In his bid for leader, Mr Zahawi said: “My aim is a simple one: to provide the opportunities that were afforded to my generation, to all Britons, whoever you are and wherever you come from. To steady the ship and to stabilise the economy.

“Thanks to Brexit, we are now a free nation. Let’s not just talk about the opportunities that follow, let’s take them.

“If a young boy, who came here aged 11 without a word of English, can serve at the highest levels of Her Majesty’s Government and run to be the next prime minister, anything is possible.”

He added that he wants to “focus on letting children be children, protecting them from damaging and inappropriate nonsense being forced on them by radical activists”.

Mr Sunak announced his bid for leader on Twitter on Friday afternoon, saying: “Let’s restore trust, rebuild the economy and reunite the country.”

Additional reporting by Press Association

Was Shinzo Abe's assassin motivated by religious 'cult' that backs right-wing politicians?
Bob Brigham
July 09, 2022

Official White House photo by Shealah Craighead.

With media in Japan refusing to report key details about what motivated alleged assassin Tetsuya Yamagami to shoot former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, the people of Japan are taking to social media to fill in the gaps.

Jeffrey Hall, special lecturer in Japanese studies at Japan’s Kanda University of International Studies, noted the growing online speculation that the group in question is the Unification Church, officially now known on the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification that was founded by Sun Myung Moon, whose members are known colloquially as "Moonies."

“Japanese society is generally suspicious towards newer religious groups, the word ‘cult’ will be used quite often,” Hall told The Globe and Mail newspaper. “This kind of reporting, which may be motivated by a desire to prevent discrimination or by a desire to prevent an unfair impact on the election, could ultimately lead to a backlash against whatever group this person is affiliated with and possibly others that are just similar."

In his 2021 address, Trump mentioned the right-wing Washington Times newspaper.

On Saturday, media in Japan reported for the first time that the suspect said, "I targeted Abe because he's friendly with the Unification Church."

NO TEARS FOR ABE
Shinzo Abe and the Slow Death of Article 9

Shinzo Abe would see the anti-war section of the Japanese constitution weakened or rewritten, but this would end an interesting and important experiment in international relations.

Jack Ramsey Mar 27, 2017

AGORA/AUSTRALIAN UNIVERSITY

Prime Minister Abe and President Obama at the Pearl Harbor Memorial 

(Source: National Park Service)

In 1945, President Harry S. Truman appointed General Douglas MacArthur to make a liberal democracy out of the husk of an imperial country that had twice been devastated by nuclear weapons. Bypassing all cooperation with the Japanese, MacArthur convened a group of Americans to draw up a new constitution. He gave them a week.

He then sent the completed document to the acting Japanese government and not-so-subtly implied that the survival of Japan’s imperial institution was conditional on the passing of the new, democratic constitution. With the constitution finalized and the ultimatum issued, acting Prime Minister Shidehara endorsed it wholeheartedly. He painted the new constitution as the way forward for postwar Japan — and especially so for a unique section: Article 9.


A city block in Tokyo, 1945

It holds that Japan shall “renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes.” The government of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has since reinterpreted Article 9 to allow for the maintenance of “Self-Defense Forces.” This is what allowed Japan to send troops to Iraq (although they were in a purely humanitarian role) and what what would allow Japan to defend itself against a theoretical foreign invasion.

Abe took office in 2012 and since then has tightened the grip of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) on parliament. In 2016, the LDP and its coalition partner Komeito won 70 out of the 121 seats that were up for election in Japan’s upper house, the House of Councillors. In theory, any party endowed with such electoral success must be doing something right. But the LDP has been in power for all but four years since 1946 and currently governs without the inconvenience of any serious opposition.

Now, after the recent election, the LDP and Komeito, along with smaller ideologically related parties and independents, constitute two-thirds of both houses.This should make any fans of Article 9 nervous. Shinzo Abe has made no secret of his personal goal to repeal or rewrite the section to allow Japan to raise a conventional military — something that can only be done with a two-thirds supermajority in both houses.

Gavan McCormack, an emeritus professor of the Australian National University, notes that “[Abe’s] revisionist historical views and hardline stance on territorial disputes [has] disturbed the U.S. government and outraged Japan’s neighbors.” Nevertheless, the United States has continued to pursue increased military cooperation, legitimizing and enabling Abe’s nationalist agenda. “Abe’s proposal to ‘shrug off the husk of the husk of the postwar state’ and ‘recover Japan’s independence,’” he argues, “could only mean replacing U.S.-imposed structures with Japanese — pre-1945 fascist and emperor-worshiping — ones.”

So Prime Minister Abe does not look to Japan’s future in his reasoning for constitutional reform, but to its imperial past. Yet even before Trump, America has been looking to offload security responsibility to its allies. This is one case where Trump’s argument (that America’s allies should take more responsibility by increasing defense spending) falls on sympathetic ears.


Shinzo Abe and Donald Trump playing golf at Trump’s Mar-A-Lago resort in February 2017
(内閣官房内閣広報室, Creative Commons)

In 2014, knowing that an amendment to the constitution was still far off, Abe took advantage of his relatively powerful position to bypass the amendment process and institute a “reinterpretation” of Article 9. This new reading of constitutional law allows Japan the right to “collective self-defense” (so that it can come to the aid of an ally under attack).

For almost all of postwar history, Japan abided by something called the “Yoshida Doctrine,” which held that Japan should focus entirely on rebuilding its economy, rather than spending money on defense. Abe can now make his case for reinterpretation and amendment by arguing that the doctrine is no longer necessary. After its rapid recovery and subsequent transformation into one of the largest and most modern economies in the world, why should Japan limit its military power

Accompanying the advent of widespread wealth, nationalist sentiment has also flared up; and the LDP has long called for more Japanese involvement in global security endeavors. The party leadership believes that if Japan’s Self-Defense Forces begin to act more like a conventional military, Japan will have a stronger case for a permanent seat on the UN Security Council. On top of these reasons, Japan is receiving pressure to both from a standoffish China and a United States that would like to delegate more responsibility for security in East Asia.

There are numerous contradictions between a constitution that explicitly forbids “land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential” and a government that has chosen to interpret the constitution to allow for the Self-Defense Forces. Many constitutional scholars have pointed out that the forces are legally dubious, as has Abe himself. Instead of scaling back the military, he has used its questionable legality to substantiate his argument for amendment, but he still faces many significant institutional barriers.

The Democratic Party of Japan, even if it failed to provide a viable alternative to the LDP’s policies, found itself united by opposition to amendment of the pacifist clauses in the constitution. And Komeito, the LDP’s junior coalition partner, (and without which the LDP cannot meet the supermajorities required for constitutional amendment) is a Buddhist party dedicated to pacifism. It originally objected to Abe’s 2014 reinterpretation, but conceded reluctantly rather than threaten its position in the governing coalition. Recently, though, Natsuo Yamaguchi, Komeito’s leader, has warned against further weakening of Article 9.

However, recent polls indicate that that most Japanese voters don’t understand the implications of Article 9 or of amendment. Unfortunately, it would seem that a side effect of Abe campaigning on an economic agenda (Abenomics, as it’s often called) and generally opting not to make a public case for constitutional reform is that voters are confused about that section of the constitution.

What opinion polls have been taken indicate a deep support for Article 9 among the Japanese population as they believe that it has kept their country out of war. The popularity of the current constitution, as well as the support it enjoys outside of the LDP (both from the Democratic Party and Komeito) indicate that it will not be rewritten in the near future. And if this wasn’t troubling enough for those calling for amendment, the constitution has not been amended since it was first put to the Japanese government in 1946.

With that said, even if Article 9 is not in mortal danger, it is already the victim of a much slower death. One might reasonably question what the point of a pacifist constitution is if Japan can not only still go to war but also be dragged into war to defend an ally (as it can under Abe’s interpretation). The Economist points out that “for a document cobbled together during a few hectic days in 1946, in bombed-out Tokyo, Japan’s constitution has weathered the test of time.” Indeed it has — at least technically — but true supporters of Article 9 should already be mourning the death of that unique experiment in international relations.

OPINION

Shinzo Abe Is Quitting, and Leaving a Trail of Scandals Behind

Will he ever face the Japanese people’s calls for accountability?

Aug. 30, 2020
By Koichi Nakano
Mr. Nakano is a political scientist in Japan.

NEW YORK TIMES

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan announced his resignation at a news conference on Friday.Credit...Pool photo by Franck Robichon

TOKYO — Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s announcement on Friday that he would resign because of poor health was a rather abrupt end for a supposedly strong leader. Mr. Abe has ruled Japan, most recently, for a record seven years and eight months: He is the country’s longest-serving prime minister.

The decision was a surprise — and yet it wasn’t.

A chronic illness was also the reason Mr. Abe cited when he suddenly resigned from his first stint as prime minister in 2007.

The matter of his health had surfaced again a couple of weeks ago when, after he underwent a medical checkup, a former minister and close associate of Mr. Abe’s publicly expressed concern that the prime minister was overworked and might have to be “forced” to get a few days’ rest.

That seemed strange because Mr. Abe certainly hadn’t appeared to be working too hard. In fact, most Japanese people had grown critical about his not doing enough to manage the pandemic and its economic impact.

Mr. Abe was largely absent from public view after the coronavirus broke out in Japan early this year, popping up occasionally only to announce ill-conceived policies: His plan to distribute two washable cloth masks — so-called Abenomasks — to every household was quickly derided as futile and inefficient.

At the same time, he was still mired in various scandals from the past several years — and still failing to provide convincing accounts of his behavior.

Both the Moritomo Gakuen and Kake Gakuen scandals prompted allegations that Mr. Abe had granted special favors to ideological companions or his friends. The Moritomo Gakuen case, about a heavily discounted land deal, involved a cover-up by Finance Ministry officials, including the doctoring of public documents. Mr. Abe continues to deny any involvement (or any by his wife), but he has apologized on behalf of the government for the document tampering.

Controversy had also been growing around the cherry-blossom-viewing party the prime minister hosts every year: an official government event paid for by taxpayer money that has kept getting more and more lavish, and increasingly has seemed designed to reward Mr. Abe’s and his party’s loyal supporters. When the opposition started asking questions about the 2019 event, the Cabinet Office shredded documents listing that year’s attendees, in violation of government rules.

After that, coronavirus or not, the scandals and the cronyism continued.

In January, the prime minister bent or reinterpreted — call that what you will — a law so that a favorite prosecutor could stay in the job past the mandatory age of retirement. Then he tried to have the law formally amended — a move that looked like an attempt to retroactively validate what he had already improperly done. But after the prosecutor was forced to resign over illegal gambling, Mr. Abe had to retract the plan.

In June, the justice minister and a close aide of Mr. Abe, Katsuyuki Kawai, and his wife, Anri, a member of the upper house of Parliament from Mr. Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party, were arrested and charged with vote buying during the election for that chamber last year. The Kawais received 150 million yen (more than $1.4 million) from the L.D.P., over which Mr. Abe presides. (The prime minister denies any involvement. The Kawais have pleaded not guilty to the charges.)

In short: Mr. Abe has had a lot of explaining to do — to Parliament, the media, the public. And yet he has done as little of that as possible.

Mr. Abe closed the ordinary session of Parliament, known as the Diet, on June 17. On July 31, the opposition called for an extraordinary session as soon as possible. Although such requests are a right guaranteed by the Constitution, Mr. Abe rejected it: It was the third time he has done so.

Before Mr. Abe’s resignation announcement on Friday, his last proper news conference had been on June 18 — even though a prime minister’s news conferences with Japanese media are notoriously staged and meek affairs.

No wonder that by then public support for Mr. Abe had already dropped to its lowest levels since the start of the coronavirus crisis.

Japan has been relatively successful in managing the spread of the virus and limiting the death toll, but the government isn’t getting much credit for that. In one opinion poll from mid-August, about 60 percent of respondents said they had a negative view of the Abe administration’s response to the pandemic.

Mr. Abe returned to power in December 2012 vowing to “take back Japan” — a promise to rebuild the Japanese economy with his signature “Abenomics” and “normalize,” as he put it, Japan’s defense policy through rearmament and by reinforcing ties with the United States.

While analysts debate his record — a stock market boosted, but stagnant wages and record government debt; a controversial and unsuccessful bid to revise the Constitution’s pacifist clauses; close ties with President Trump — the L.D.P. is looking for a successor.

Since Mr. Abe is abruptly resigning amid crises and controversies, the L.D.P. is more likely to search for a new leader by consulting a relatively small group of the party’s Diet members and representatives in local chapters than by organizing a full-fledged race with the participation of rank-and-file party members.

If so, the prospects of Shigeru Ishiba, a popular and persistent critic of Mr. Abe’s ways, would seem rather limited.

Mr. Abe had been said to have a soft spot for the docile, if uninspiring, Fumio Kishida, a former foreign minister, but he may now be supporting Yoshihide Suga, his chief cabinet secretary, who is more ruthless, secretive and authoritarian and might have a better chance of defeating Mr. Ishiba.

Whatever Mr. Abe’s eventual legacy, whoever his immediate replacement, one thing already stands out: Japan’s longest-serving leader is leaving office by skedaddling from scandals and evading calls for accountability from the people he is supposed to serve.

Koichi Nakano is a professor of political science at Sophia University in Tokyo.

Shinzo Abe’s Paltry Legacy

Despite enormous stature and power, Abe leaves office having accomplished relatively little.

By Jeff Kingston
August 31, 2020

Credit: Russian Presidential Press and Information Office

Shinzo Abe is bowing out as prime minister, citing the return of a long-standing health condition. It hasn’t really sunk in, but the tremors have rippled across Japan and the region. He was a towering figure in Japanese politics — not just because he is the country’s longest serving premier ever, but because none of his predecessors were ever so dominant. He carried his party to six straight election victories and institutionalized political power over top bureaucratic promotions, enabling him to tame the bureaucracy and influence how officials act.

Paradoxically, despite enormous stature and power, Abe leaves office having accomplished relatively little.

While Abe’s legacy may be paltry, he leaves a big vacuum at the center of the world’s third largest economy. None of the potential successors look like they can fill his shoes. On the other hand, they are not beholden to his failed policies, so there is an opportunity for some fresh thinking and more resolute action on Japan’s gathering challenges, especially pandemic countermeasures and the demographic time bomb.

Granted, Abe has drawn international kudos for his grand ambitions, but after nearly eight years with a supermajority in the Diet his legislative achievements are meager and he failed to deliver on most key promises, most notably on the economy. He will always be remembered for Abenomics and the three arrows of monetary easing, fiscal stimulus, and structural reforms, but he didn’t follow through on this bold plan while racking up a mountain of debt. In the end, Abenomics was mostly a branding strategy to generate a buzz rather than a blueprint for economic revitalization. Abe erred with two consumption tax increases and in squandering too much political capital on his Holy Grail of constitutional revision.

This was Abe’s problem in 2006-07 when he prioritized revising the pacifist constitution and drew criticism for quibbling about the level of coercion involved in recruiting young Korean teens to provide sexual services for Japan’s wartime military. Just before elections in July 2007 Abe showed little empathy for people anxious about lost pension records and led the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) to a landslide defeat, becoming a national pinata with the demeaning sobriquet “kuki yomenai” (clueless). Party elders nudged him toward the exit, and he resigned, citing health problems.

In 2012, Abe made a remarkable comeback, leading the LDP to a landslide victory. Abenomics was a product launch aimed at softening his ideological image and conveying a laser-like focus on pocketbook issues. But fast forward to 2020 and his popular support plunged due to anger over how he managed the COVID-19 outbreak and a series of scandals. It didn’t help that the public didn’t feel the love of Abenomics and has been left treading water.

Although Abe got into politics to revise Japan’s pacifist constitution and rehabilitate its wartime history, few voters warmed to these efforts. Abe eventually realized that he won’t be revising the constitution because support is lacking, and the pandemic is hogging the political bandwidth.

At his sayonara press conference, Abe expressed regret that he didn’t resolve the abduction issue involving Japanese nationals kidnapped by North Korea since the 1970s. The government asserts that dozens remain unaccounted for. This is the issue that catapulted Abe into the national limelight when he was Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi’s chief negotiator with North Korea and ever since Abe has made it one of his signature policies. He made a point of seeking U.S. backing and Donald Trump raised the issue when meeting with Kim Jong Un.

Abe’s marginalization from the North Korea dialogue, however, reinforces a sense that his diplomacy has been more feckless than effective. He also regretted failing to secure a peace treaty with Russia and surely rues making no headway on territorial disputes with Russia, South Korea, and China. Although advocating a values-driven diplomacy Abe shied from calling out governments on human rights violations or democratic backsliding.

Abe’s advocacy of free trade – including sealing a comprehensive deal with the EU and rescuing the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) after Trump withdrew the United States — are his most notable diplomatic achievements.

At the August 28 press conference, Abe stated that his legacy will be determined by the public and history. He asserted that he expanded jobs and daycare, enacted free education for secondary school students, and changed how people work. He also touted his 2015 legislation that expands Japan’s military commitments to the United States although the Japanese public is strongly opposed.

Problematically, Abe came to power promising to revive Japan through sweeping structural reforms of the economy. Yet, he achieved little of note because the LDP is the party of the status quo – it represents the vested interests that would lose from such reforms. The overall economy was swooning even before the pandemic but due to the pandemic has shrunk below its GDP in 2013, when he started.

Abe also promised to help make women shine, but that hasn’t happened. Women account for only three of his 20 cabinet ministers, about 10 percent of Diet politicians and less than 10 percent of corporate managers. In the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report 2020 Japan slipped to 121st place, the lowest among advanced economies, down 10 rungs from the previous year.

In 2020 Abe has been the incredible shrinking prime minister. The public soured on him because he has been arrogant, complacent about managing the COVID-19 outbreak, and embodies the dubious means of old school LDP cronyism. He lurched from crisis to crisis, as numerous scandals eroded public trust and he was called out in social media for his lackluster pandemic response. With Abenomics tanking, diplomacy faltering, and the Olympics on the brink of cancellation, the legacy of a political giant is underwhelming.

Moving forward, what can be done? Abe’s successor has to be more creative in trying to boost consumption to revive the economy. This could involve a temporary income guarantee, expanded job subsidies, and nudging the Bank of Japan to buy up prefectural and municipal bonds to help support rural revitalization projects. Japan needs a global economic rebound but can do itself a favor by tackling Abe’s unfinished business on structural reforms to boost productivity, empower women, and adopt sensible immigration policies to alleviate growing labor shortages.

Is anyone up to the task? Alas, probably not.

Jeff Kingston is Director of Asian Studies at Temple University Japan.

THE ISSUE THAT DOGGED ABE 

Shinzo Abe urged to confront Japan's colonial aggression and use of sex slaves

Japanese academics add to pressure on prime minister during runup to 70th anniversary of end of Pacific war

Protesters in Tokyo hold portraits of Chinese, Philippine, South Korean and Taiwanese former comfort women who were sex slaves for Japanese soldiers during the second world war. 

Photograph: Toru Yamanaka/AFP

Justin McCurry in Tokyo

Tue 26 May 2015 

Japanese historians have urged prime minister Shinzo Abe to offer an honest account of the country’s wartime use of sex slaves in the runup to the 70th anniversary of the end of the Pacific war.

In a statement released this week that echoes a demand recently issued by overseas experts, 16 groups of academics, including the Japanese Society for Historical Studies, said the government must “squarely” confront Japan’s wartime conduct.

Despite signs of an improvement in Sino-Japanese ties, speculation is building that Abe’s conservative administration will not repeat an official apology to the “comfort women” – a euphemism for as many as 200,000 women, mostly from the Korean peninsula, who were forced to work in military brothels.

Early indications are that Abe will also make no reference to Japan’s colonial rule and aggression on mainland Asia in the first half of the 20th century, when it invaded the Korean peninsula and parts of China. The omissions would mark a clean break with apologies issued by his predecessors on previous war anniversaries, and risk raising tensions with South Korea and China.

The Japanese academics said in their statement that comfort women had been the victims of “unspeakable violence as sex slaves”.

They added: “As recent historical studies have shown, victims were subjected not only to forced recruitment, but also to conditions of sexual slavery which violated their basic human rights. By continuing to take the irresponsible stance of denying the facts of wartime sexual slavery in the Japanese military, certain politicians and sections of the media are essentially conveying to the rest of the world that Japan does not respect human rights.

“This kind of attitude tramples further upon the dignity of the victims, who have already borne terrible hardships.”

Shinzo Abe leaves during a ceremony commemorating Japanese victims of the second world war at Chidorigafuchi national cemetery in Tokyo on 25 May.

 Photograph: Koji Sasahara/AP

While Abe has said he will not alter the wording of an apology to survivors of military sexual enslavement issued in 1993 by the then chief cabinet secretary, Yohei Kono, he has resisted pressure to repeat the apology, most recently during his address to a joint session of the US congress.
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The Japanese historians urged “all concerned politicians and media outlets to squarely face up to the damage that Japan inflicted in the past, as well as to the victims”.

The demand comes soon after several hundred academics, mainly from the US and Europe, voiced alarm at attempts to rewrite Japan’s wartime history, and urged Abe to “act boldly” in addressing sensitive issues from the past.


Anger of wartime sex slaves haunts Japan and South Korea

In an open letter, more than 180 scholars called for “as full and unbiased an accounting of past wrongs as possible”. The number of academics who wish to add their names to the protest has since more than doubled to more than 450.

Rightwing revisionists associated with Abe have been emboldened by misreporting of the sex slave issue by the Asahi Shimbun newspaper. Last summer, the liberal daily admitted that it had run a series of articles stretching back to the 1980s that were based on testimony given by Seiji Yoshida, a former Japanese soldier, whose claims were later found to be false.

Abe was one of several conservative politicians who claimed the Asahi’s erroneous coverage had sullied Japan’s reputation abroad.

However, the academics said previous government apologies were not based on the Asahi’s reporting or Yoshida’s testimony, adding: “The existence of forcibly recruited ‘comfort women’ has been verified by many historical records and extensive research.”

Abe has previously questioned the widely held belief that Japanese military authorities coerced the women. He has also said that Japan has apologised enough for its actions during the war.