On June 27

On this day in ...
... 1950 (60 years ago today), President Harry S. Truman announced that he'd ordered U.S. troops to join South Korea in enforcing the June 25 U.N. Security Council Resolution 82, which, by a vote of 9-0 with 1 abstention, called for "an immediate cessation of hostilities" on the Korean peninsula and withdrawal of North Korean armies to the 38th parallel. Later on this same day, Council would vote 7-1 in favor of Resolution 83, which

Recommends that the Members of the United Nations furnish such assistance to the Republic of Korea as may be necessary to repel the armed attack and to restore peace and security in the area.

War followed for years. Above left, a 1951 U.S. Army photo (credit) of Korean War refugees.

(Prior June 27 posts are here, here, and here.)

Witnesses to tragedy

'We are all mentally ill and physically damaged.'

So says 84-year-old Kim Kun-ja in a Los Angeles Times article about the home on the outskirts of Seoul where Kim lives with 7 other so-called "comfort women" who endured sexual slavery by the Japanese military during World War II.
Kim says she doesn't want to talk about it any more. But others are willing to replace the voice of this woman, "[f]or years ... among the loudest activists" for redress. One is 82-year-old Kang Il-chul (below left). (photo credit) She says,

'We have to resolve this problem before we die. We have to go away if God calls us, but until this is solved, I can't close my eyes happily.'

In addition to living at the House of Sharing, part of the Historical Museum of Japanese Military Sexual Slavery, which receives tens of thousands a visitors a year, the women have given witness in other ways. The Times recounts:

The testimony of the women of the House of Sharing is the riposte to those who say there is no evidence that Korean women were forced to sexually service Japanese troops. They gather every Wednesday outside the Japanese Embassy in Seoul or at various South Korean government offices. They unfurl their banners and mostly stand in silence, unflinching as guards snap their pictures. Over 17 years, they have picketed 861 times. Some have traveled to Washington to testify before Congress.

Theirs is a story well worth reading.

On December 23

On this day in ...

... 1948 (60 years ago today), 7 former leaders of Japan were executed for war crimes by hanging at Sugamo prison (left) in Tokyo. The previous month the group, which included Generals Hideki Tojo and Kenji Doihara, had been convicted following a 2-1/2-year trial before the International Military Tribunal for the Far East. (photo credit)

... 1997, economic news was glum amid reports that Moody's Investors Services Inc., "one of the world's largest credit-rating agencies," had "downgraded the sovereign debt of South Korea, Indonesia and Thailand to 'junk' status." The move "seriously impair[ed] the countries' ability to raise the money needed to work through the region's wrenching downturn." Eventually the International Monetary Fund would step in, and economies seemed to be recovering 2 years later. (photo credit)

On August 15

On this day in ...

... 1998 (10 years ago today), 29 persons, among them 9 children "and a woman pregnant with twins," died in Omagh, following "the worst paramilitary bombing since the start of the Northern Ireland conflict three decades ago." Claiming responsibility was the "Real IRA -- a breakaway group formed after the Provisional IRA declared a ceasefire."

... 1974, assassin's bullets intended for Republic of Korea President Park Chung Hee shot and killed Hee's wife, 1st Lady Yook Young Soo, and a 17-year-old girl, Chang Bong Wha, while Park was giving a Liberation Day speech before 1,500 people at a theater in Seoul. Later that year Korea honored Yook with the stamp at right.

On June 25

On this day in ....

.. 1993 (15 years ago today), Kim Campbell was sworn in as Canada's 1st woman Prime Minister. "Facing a series of formidable tasks, including reducing a yawning federal budget deficit, balancing demands of Quebec- and English-speaking provinces and preserving national health and other social programs," the New York Times wrote of Campbell's government-reduction and other cost-cutting measures, the new Prime Minister said her Cabinet heralds 'a new approach to government and a new generation of leaders for Canadians.'" She did not last a year, resigning from her post and retiring from electoral politics in December 1993. (credit for Merna Forster's 2004 photograph of Campbell unveiling her official portrait)

... 1950, the U.N. Security Council denounced North Korea's invasion of South Korea. By Resolution No. 82, it labeled the action a breach of the peace and called for an immediate end to fighting.

Asian Enigma answered

Answer to Asian Enigma above:

c) Philippines

Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo (below) has served as President since 2001. She is not is not the 1st woman to serve as President of the Philippines, however; Corazon Aquino held the post from 1986 to 1992. Notably, women have governed in 3 of the other Asian countries on this list:

a) Sri Lanka: Sirimavo Banaranaike was Prime Minister 1960-65, 1970-1977, and 1991-2000; her daughter, Chandrika Kumaratunga, Prime Minister in 1994 and then President from 1994 to 2005.

d) Bangladesh: Hasina Wajed, Prime Minister from 1996-2001, and her rival, Khaleda Zia, from 1991-1996 and 2001-2006.

f) South Korea: Han Myeong-Sook served as Prime Minister from April 2006 to March 2007.