Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi is pleading for justice at the United Nations on behalf of Japanese citizens she says are still held captive by the North Korean regime, coinciding with victim families’ own appeals for help in Washington, D.C.

During her maiden speech for the assembly in New York City on Tuesday, Takaichi dedicated a significant amount of time to the continued detention of Japanese nationals kidnapped by North Korean authorities, a decades-old tragedy largely unknown to the American public but one that continues to inspire outrage in Japan.

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