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Oct. 1, 2008: South Korea and Japan hold their seventh round of high-level talks to bolster their economic ties. Oct. 3, 2008: Japanese Cabinet defends a new handbook for middle school education that describes the Dokdo/Takeshima islets as Japanese territory. Oct. 6, 2008: South Korean Yonhap says that North Korea fired a short-range missile into the Yellow Sea. Oct. 10, 2008: Japan extends sanctions against North Korea for another six months. Oct. 11, 2008: The U.S. delists North Korea from its State Sponsors of Terrorism List. Oct. 12, 2008: Foreign Minister Nakasone Hirofumi responds to the U.S. delisting of North Korea by issuing a statement that Japan will work toward the North’s verification measure along with other participants in the Six-Party Talks. Oct. 14, 2008: South Korea, Japan, and the U.S. meet to discuss trilateral security cooperation. Oct. 14, 2008: Prime Minister Aso criticizes the U.S.’s decision to delist North Korea from the State Sponsors of Terrorism List in a parliamentary committee. Japan-Korea Relations 128 January 2009 Oct. 18, 2008: Japan’s Yomiuri Shimbun reports that Pyongyang ordered its diplomats to stay alert ahead of an upcoming announcement. Oct. 21, 2008: North Korea’s Minju Joseon argues that Japan should be removed from the Six- Party Talks since it impedes the denuclearization process. Oct. 24, 2008: President Lee Myung-bak and Prime Minister Aso Taro hold their first summit meeting in Beijing before the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM). Oct. 26, 2008: Seoul Metropolitan Government approves a plan to build the Museum of War and Women’s Human Rights. It will exhibit evidence of Japan’s forced mobilization of Korean women as military sex slaves and have rooms for related educational programs and seminars. Oct. 28, 2008: Japan agrees to a U.S. position that other countries can shoulder Japan’s share of energy assistance to North Korea. Oct. 29, 2008: South Korea’s state-funded center, Donghae (East Sea) Research Institute, opens to conduct research on resources of the East Sea/Sea of Japan and the Dokdo/Takeshima islets. Oct. 31, 2008: Japan’s Air Self-Defense Force Chief of Staff Gen. Toshio Tamogami is dismissed for his essay in which he argued that Japan was a victim, dragged into the war against China by Chiang Kai-shek. Nov. 2, 2008: Democratic Party of Japan compiles a draft proposal for additional economic sanctions against North Korea to include a total ban on exports and travel to the North. Nov. 4, 2008: North Korea’s Central News Agency of DPRK criticizes Japan for its efforts to present a human rights resolution against North Korea to the UN Committee on Human Rights as “intolerable violation” of the North’s sovereignty. Nov. 4, 2008: Finance Ministers of South Korea, Japan, and China release a joint statement that they would hold more frequent talks on macroeconomic and financial policies and to expand bilateral currency swap deals. Nov. 13, 2008: Kyodo reports that Japanese and South Korean foreign and defense officials agree to cooperate for the denuclearization of North Korea. Nov. 14, 2008: Seoul’s City Council adopts a resolution urging Japan to return the Uigwe looted by Japan’s colonial administration in 1922. Nov. 20, 2008: Foreign Ministers Yu Myung-hwan and Nakasone Hirofumi meet on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum and agree on how to proceed with the verification measure of Pyongyang’s nuclear development program. Nov. 25, 2008: Foreign Minister Nakasone welcomes the plan to resume the Six-Party Talks from Dec. 8. Japan-Korea Relations 129 January 2009 Japan-Korea Relations 130 January 2009 Dec. 3, 2008: Japan, South Korea, and U.S. meet to lay groundwork before the Six-Party Talks. Dec. 3, 2008: The police chiefs of South Korea and Japan agree to set up a hotline to promote cooperation to fight cyber crime. Dec. 5, 2008: 388 South Korean atomic bomb survivors file lawsuits against Japan at district courts in Hiroshima, Osaka, and Nagasaki Prefectures with a demand to compensate them for psychological suffering caused by its refusal to disburse health-care benefits. Dec. 7, 2008: Kyodo releases a poll that shows that the approval rating of Aso’s Cabinet dropped to 25.5 percent as of the first weekend of December. Dec. 8-11, 2008: The Six-Party Talks are held to discuss the verification protocol Pyongyang’s nuclear program. Dec. 9, 2008: Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Kawamura Takeo says that Japan will continue to seek bilateral talks with North Korea on the sidelines of the Six-Party Talks. Dec. 13, 2008: South Korea, Japan, and China hold their first trilateral summit meeting in Dazaifu, Fukuoka, Japan. Dec. 16, 2008: South Korea’s Voluntary Agency Network of Korea, a vocal advocate of South Korea’s claim over the Dokdo/Takeshima islets, says that its website has become the target of cyber attacks from coordinated Japanese web users. Dec. 17, 2008: Yonhap reports that the Japanese government has decided to exclude any territorial description of the Dokdo/Takeshima islets in a high school teachers’ guidebook. Dec. 17, 2008: Korea Times reports that some Japanese web users coordinated a cyber-attack against South Korean nonprofit group Voluntary Agency Network of Korea that advocates South Korea’s claim on the islets. Dec. 29, 2008: Kyodo reports that a senior North Korean diplomat warns that the North would not proceed with the disablement of its nuclear facilities unless Japan fulfills its obligation of providing energy aid to the North under the Six-Party Talks deal.