PNWJ News

PNWJ had a stall at a Peace Conference for high school students, held at Tsukuba University in Shibuya.

The conference gathered 200 students from Aomori, Ibaraki, Saitama, Chiba, Tokyo, Kanagawa, Shizuoka, Aichi and Gifu prefectures.

They reported on various peace-related activities they had undertaken (such as a field trip to a US Army Base in Tokyo), held discussion groups on a range of issues and listened to a presentation by a photojournalist (Kouriyama Souichiro) who was one of the three Japanese hostages in Iraq in April 2004.

SFU sold CDs at a show for their new Soul Flower Acoustic Revue project. The event was held at Star Pine's Cafe in Kichijoji, Tokyo.

'The Listening Project' is a documentary film shot in 14 countries that aims to find out what the world thinks about the United States. The film crew visited Mexico, China, France, UK, Russia, Brazil, Israel, Palestine, India, Tanzania, South Africa, Afghanistan, Japan & Canada, speaking to local people in each country about their opinions of the US and 'America's undeniable global impact on the social, political and economic landscape of the planet'.

PNWJ were asked to help with finding people in Japan to give interviews. The two members of KP and Takashi Nakagawa from Soul Flower Union, both artists featured on the CD, were interviewed. Other PNWJ-related interviewees included music journalist Koichi Hanafusa, members of the Peace Boat staff and PNWJ Director Dom Pates.

After the Tokyo interviews, the film crew then travelled on to Hiroshima where they conducted interviews with hibakusha (atomic bomb survivors), amongst others.

Extracts from the crew's Japan journals can be read here, here and here (English only).

PNWJ had a stall at the Michael Franti & Spearhead show in Ebisu Liquid Room, on the Japan leg of their 'Yell Fire!' tour.