MOSCOW, September 12 (RIA Novosti) - Asahi Shimbun, one of the leading Japanese newspapers, is apologizing for its reports on the Fukushima disaster and comfort women from South Korea that contained false information, its publisher Tadakazu Kimura announced at a news conference, Japan Today reported.
"I apologize to readers for publishing the erroneous articles and being too late in making the correction," Kimura said late Thursday.
Asahi Shimbun apologized for the May 20 article, which said 90 percent of workers at Fukushima TEPCO's nuclear power plant had left the complex, disobeying the plant chief's order to stay. However, records of the investigation committee hearing on the disaster case published Thursday revealed that the staff followed the orders of the late plant manager Masao Yoshida.
"I offer profound apologies to our readers and people at Tokyo Electric Power Company [TEPCO]," the publisher stated.
The second false report was published in 1982 and concerned the topic of wartime sexual enslavement of Korean women by Japanese forces. Research by other newspapers and academics proved wrong the cited Japanese writer's claim of witnessing the kidnapping of Korean women for sex slavery.
The country's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said on a radio show Thursday that Asahi's report on comfort women had "agonised many people and impaired Japan's reputation in the international community."
