Japan's defence minister visited a controversial shrine to Japan's war dead on Thursday, just after accompanying Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on a historic visit to Pearl Harbor, where Japan's attack brought the United States into World War Two.
Television footage showed a smiling Tomomi Inada in a black jacket and skirt arriving at Tokyo's Yasukuni Shrine, which honours Japanese who lost their lives in the country's wars, including several leaders executed for war crimes.
Visits to the shrine by prominent Japanese officials anger neighbours China and South Korea, which consider Yasukuni a symbol of Japan's militarism and a reminder of its wartime atrocities.
