Premier's ex-adviser praises apartheid

A former adviser to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has praised apartheid as a model for how Japan could expand immigration, prompting the government's top spokesman on Friday to emphasize that Japan's immigration policy is based on equality.

Author Ayako Sono, considered part of Abe's informal brains trust, set off a wave of online fury this week when she wrote in the conservative San-kei newspaper that South Africa's former policies of racial separation had been good for whites, Asians and Africans.

Her comments could complicate Abe's efforts to address a deepening labor shortage and his efforts to burnish the country's image abroad, analysts said.