Ishiba Says Diet May Need to Debate Asahi Reporting, Sankei Says

Japan’s parliament may need to debate the Asahi newspaper’s erroneous reporting on the “comfort women” issue, the secretary-general of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party was quoted as saying in the Sankei newspaper.

Shigeru Ishiba spoke to reporters yesterday after the Asahi published a review of its coverage of women trafficked across Asia to serve in Japanese military brothels before and during World War II, the Sankei reported today. The Asahi retracted a number of stories from the 1980s and 1990s that cited former soldier Seiji Yoshida, saying his testimony about abducting women in South Korea could not be verified.