South Korea's top court ruled on Tuesday (October 30) Japan's Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal Corp. should compensate four South Koreans for their forced labour during World War Two, a decision that could freeze ties between the uneasy neighbours.
In a landmark ruling, South Korea's Supreme Court upheld a 2013 order for the company to pay 100 million won ($87,700) to each of the four steel workers who initiated the suit in 2005, seeking compensation and unpaid wages.
Lee Choon-shik, the 94-year-old sole surviving plaintiff, welcomed the ruling.
Japan and South Korea share a bitter history that includes Japan's 35-year occupation of the Korean peninsula until 1945 and the use of comfort women, Japan's euphemism for girls and women, many of them Korean, forced to work in its wartime brothels. (Reuters)
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