Word: ginneko
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Dates: during 2004-2004
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...blustery February day in the northern Japanese town of Asahikawa, members of the local ?lite crowded into the warm confines of the Ginneko barbecue shack to discuss the crisis in Iraq. The topic: whether Japan's deployment of troops there was a good idea?an emotive issue, given that many of the departing soldiers were based in Asahikawa. Squeezed in with the mayor and a gaggle of local reporters was a bright-eyed youngster named Noriaki Imai. The 18-year-old had just graduated from high school in a nearby town a few days earlier, and he was washing down...
...Nobody in sleepy Asahikawa could have guessed that Imai would resurface two months later?not at another smoky Ginneko gathering, but on television screens worldwide as one of three Japanese hostages taken captive in Iraq last week by a previously unknown group called the Mujahedin Brigade. The kidnappers' warning, which came with a video showing the blindfolded hostages?two humanitarian workers (Nahoko Takato and Imai) and a photographer (Soichiro Koriyama)?surrounded by armed men, was chillingly clear: "Three of your sons have fallen into our hands. We offer you two choices: Either pull out your forces or we will burn...
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