TOKYO (AP) — A South Korean national holding a banner carrying political messages was arrested Wednesday for allegedly obstructing an annual spring festival at Tokyo’s Yasukuni Shrine, Japanese police said.
The shrine honors Japan’s 2.5 million war dead, including convicted war criminals. Victims of Japanese aggression before and during World War II, especially China and the Koreas, see visits to the shrine as a lack of remorse about Japan’s wartime past.
The 64-year-old suspect held up a banner carrying messages including one urging “war criminals” to stop praying at Yasukuni and another making territorial claims on an island disputed between Japan and South Korea.
The man stood at the main shrine gate and in front of vehicles carrying messengers from the emperor, Kyodo News agency said. The messengers were scheduled to deliver offerings from the emperor, the shrine said on its website.
On Tuesday, Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, who used to regularly pray at the shrine, sent a religious ornament instead for the second time as Japan’s leader, triggering criticism from China and South Korea.
A group of more than 100 right-wing lawmakers, including a Cabinet minister, prayed at the shrine on Wednesday.
Associated Press video journalist Mayuko Ono contributed to this report.
FILE – People wait in queue before reaching to the front to pray at the main hall at Yasukuni Shrine, which honors Japan’s war dead, in Tokyo, Japan, Aug. 15, 2024, as the country marks the 79th anniversary of its defeat in the World War II. (AP Photo/Hiro Komae, File)
SAIPAN, Northern Mariana Islands (AP) — Authorities found the body of one of the six missing crew members from a cargo ship that overturned near the Northern Mariana Islands during a typhoon and were searching for the rest, hoping they might have made it to a life raft.
U.S. Air Force divers used an underwater drone on Tuesday to search inside the overturned ship, the U.S. Coast Guard said in a news release. Divers from Japan’s coast guard further examined the ship, called the Mariana, but didn’t find any of the other five, it said.
“Coast Guard aircrews continue to search for the five missing crewmen and an orange 12-person life raft in the vicinity of the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands,” the news release said.
The National Weather Service said Super Typhoon Sinlaku, the strongest tropical cyclone this year, was packing sustained winds of up to 150 mph (241 kph) when it made landfall on the Northern Mariana Islands, which, like Guam to the south, are a U.S. territory.
The Coast Guard and partnering agencies from Guam, Japan and New Zealand have covered more than 99,000 square miles (256,000 square kilometers) in their search for the crew, the guard said this week. That’s an area roughly the size of Oregon.
The ship notified the U.S. Coast Guard on April 15 that the U.S.-registered vessel lost its starboard engine during the typhoon and needed assistance. The guard said it lost contact with the ship the next day.
“Our hearts are with the families of the Mariana crew members and the communities impacted by this tragic incident,” Cmdr. Preston Hieb, the search and rescue mission coordinator for the Coast Guard Oceania District, said in the statement.
Heavy wind hindered initial search efforts, but the overturned ship was eventually spotted Saturday about 40 miles (64 kilometers) northeast of Pagan, one of the Northern Mariana Islands.
The U.S. Coast Guard said Monday that debris including a partially submerged inflatable life raft was spotted about 110 miles (177 kilometers) from the ship.
While specific safety requirements for the 145-foot (44-meter) ship were not known, federal and international codes call for cargo ships to have life rafts stocked with food and water. The rafts have to be able to withstand exposure for 30 days, according to a code put out by the International Maritime Organization.
Sinlaku battered the Northern Mariana Islands, causing wind damage and flooding. Island ports reopened to commercial traffic this week, and the Coast Guard delivered pallets of water and supplies to areas that had been cut off.
This photo provided by U.S. Marine Corps, debris covers homes and streets following Super Typhoon Sinlaku on the island of Saipan, April 18, 2026. (Cpl. Avery Wayland/U.S. Marine Corps via AP)
In this photo provided by U.S. Marine Corps , U.S. Marines with Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron (VMM) 163 (Reinforced), 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit, and local volunteers, unload water bottles from an MV-22B Osprey on the island of Saipan, April 18, 2026. (Cpl. Oliver Nisbet/U.S. Marine Corps via AP )
This photo provided by the U.S. Coast Guard , U.S. Coast Guard responders assess Smiling Cove in Saipan on April 18, 2026. (Lt. Whip Blacklaw/U.S. Coast Guard via AP)
This photo provided by U.S. Air Force, U.S. Air Force loadmasters assigned to the 36th Airlift Squadron prepare to offload a pallet of cargo from a C-130J Super Hercules from the 36 AS in Saipan, Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, April 19, 2026. . (Senior Airman Tallon Bratton/U.S. Air Force via AP)
A U.S. Coast Guard HC-130 Hercules airplane crew assigned to Coast Guard Air Station Barbers Point flies over an overturned vessel offshore Saipan, Saturday, April 18, 2026, while searching for a missing vessel, the Mariana, that experienced an engine failure April 15. (U.S. Coast Guard/Air Station Barbers Point via AP)
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