World wide welsh - Japanese success for Jon, New Zealand's first woman QC is Welsh

THERE'S a very long and very good profile of Swansea-born writer Jon Mitchell at Japan Times. Jon, who went to Japan as a 23-year-old and has put day jobs and rejections far behind him is a successful novelist and screenwriter. He told Japan Times that the situation in American-dominated Okinawa reminded him of home: "People don't think so. They imagine Wales as this mountainous, cold, British place and Okinawa as a subtropical paradise. Yet, you had the suppression of the Welsh Language by the English in the 19th century. Welsh kids had to wear a plaque around their necks, and inform on other kids who spoke Welsh. . . . Okinawa had exactly the same system, right down to the plaque."


STUFF in New Zealand profiles Welsh-raised and often controversial star lawyer Judith Ablett Kerr QC, New Zealand's first female QC. She's prepared to take on the toughest and most controversial defences, says colleague, Greg King: "Her wisdom, her knowledge and friendship are incredibly valuable to me. And those that know her, know that that is the real Judith Ablett Kerr. What they see on television is a surgeon going about her clinical job."