As she emerged from prison on Saturday (May 28) morning, Fusako Shigenobu was surrounded by a small group of believers. Supporters of one of the founders of the Japanese Red Army terrorist organisation appear to be vastly outnumbered in Japanese society, however, with most people believing she got off lightly for her group’s reign of global terror in the 1970s.
Moscow has condemned Japan's decision to not invite its representatives to the annual ceremonies marking the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in response to Russia's war on Ukraine.
Tokyo is showing an increasing willingness to play a larger role in global security issues as it seeks support from Europe for its own most pressing concern an increasingly influential and expansionist Beijing.
The spectre of nuclear weapons being deployed in Ukraine, combined with the leaps that both China and North Korea have made in recent years in atomic weaponry, has emboldened some on the right in Japan to call for the nation’s non-nuclear principles to be reconsidered. And while the possibility of a conventional conflict devolving into an exchange of nuclear warheads.
Experts say that Tokyo's imposition of sanctions on Russia is almost certainly the final nail in the coffin of Japan's ambition to resume control of the disputed Kuril Islands.