Eminent academics and critics had testified that it was not a matter for the state to judge obscenity and restricting expression was unconstitutional. It was the first Japanese court trial in which a comic book stood accused of being obscene and the first in 20 years dealing with printed pornography, despite the presence of a huge amount of pornographic cartoons, photographs and videos on bookstands and on the Internet in Japan The Tokyo District Court found Monotori Kishi, a 54-year-old publisher, guilty of distributing obscene printed material and handed him a one-year prison term suspended for three years.

Japan's top government spokesman sought to contain any further damage, saying Tokyo was sorry for the sex slaves. A man walks past advertisements for comic books and compact discs on the street in Tokyo. South Korean politicians and media blasted Nakayama, who caused a stir last November by praising history textbooks that played down what he termed "excessive descriptions" of Japanese wartime wrongdoing.

Ties between Japan and South Korea have been strained by a range of feuds, 亞洲美女 including one over Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's annual visits to a Tokyo shrine for the war dead which Seoul, like China, sees as a symbol of Japan's past militarism. Jun Byung-hun, a spokesman for South Korea's ruling Uri Party, said on Sunday. Murayama, who as prime minister issued an apology in 1995 for Japan's wartime aggression, A片 said that it was time for Tokyo to finally resolve the issue of the so-called "comfort women" who were drafted into military brothels.

Japan committed indescribable wrongdoings by forcing women from South Korea and elsewhere to serve as sex slaves to its wartime troops, former Japanese prime minister Tomiichi Murayama said yesterday. The book, consisting of eight short stories, was priced at 920 yen (8.7 dollars) Two people -- the cartoonist and the chief editor of the comic book -- have been fined 500,000 yen (4,700 dollars) each.

The penal code article itself does not clearly define obscenity but the legal precedent was set by a 1957 Supreme Court ruling over a Japanese translation of D.H. The two sides have been unable to set a date for a regular summit meeting between Koizumi and South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun, which they had agreed to hold by the end of June. A片做爱 Historians estimate that as many as 200,000 women, mostly Korean, were forced into sexual slavery in Japanese military brothels during World War II.

In addition to a territorial row over two tiny islands, many South Koreans feel Japan has not squarely faced its wartime past, including the brutal 1910-1945 rule of the Korean peninsula. But the term "comfort women" is set to disappear from many government-approved history textbooks for junior high schools from next year, Japanese media have reported. Education Minister Nariaki Nakayama was quoted by media over the weekend as saying the term "comfort women," a euphemism for the sex slaves, did not exist during the war and it was good the term had disappeared from school textbooks Japan apologized again on Monday for the suffering of women who served as sex slaves for the Japanese military during World War II, a day after comments by a cabinet minister drew an angry reaction in South Korea.