Gates condemns Myanmar for not accepting aid

2008/05/31 21:30

US Defense Secretary Robert Gates has criticized Myanmar's military government for obstructing international efforts to provide aid to its cyclone victims.

Speaking at an international security conference in Singapore on Saturday, Gates said the military government's initial refusal to accept aid cost tens of thousands of lives, and that many other countries feel the same way.

Photo: US Defense Secretary Robert Gates

In the same speech, he stressed that the US commitment to Asia will continue, regardless of which political party occupies the White House next year.

Gates called on each country to secure transparency about its military to promote mutual trust and to prevent an unnecessary arms race.
He was apparently referring to China's growing military spending and modernization.

China's deputy chief of the General Staff for the People's Liberation Army, Ma Xiaotian, strongly denied that China is becoming a threat. He said China is only working to strengthen its defense capability and has no intention to engage in an arms race or to threaten other countries.

The conference was organized by a British think tank and was attended by ministerial-level defense officials from about 30 countries.

China grateful for Japan's use of private planes

2008/05/31 20:34

China's top military commander has thanked Japan's Defense Minister for deciding to use private cargo planes, instead of Self Defense Force planes, to deliver earthquake relief supplies.

The deputy chief of the general staff of the People's Liberation Army, Ma Xiaotian, exchanged views with Shigeru Ishiba at a regional security conference in Singapore on Saturday.

Ishiba said that the Japanese government examined various options for transporting aid supplies from Japan to quake-hit Sichuan Province.

He says the Chinese government never insisted on using Self Defense Forces cargo planes.

He added that Japan understands and respects China's culture, tradition and national sentiment in regard to the history between the two countries.

Ma said that China and Japan share complicated historical, cultural and psychological backgrounds. But he said he thinks the Japanese people understand the ambivalent sentiment that the Chinese government and Chinese people have.

The Japanese government plans to use privately chartered planes to deliver additional aid supplies including tents and blankets to China at the beginning of next week.

Japan Urges China to Make Defense Spending More Transparent

By Patricia Lui
Last Updated: May 31, 2008 04:12 EDT

May 31 (Bloomberg) -- Japan urged China to make its defense spending more transparent, saying the military budgets of both nations should use common criteria and definitions.

"Japan is transparent in its budget spending, and it wants China to be transparent," Japanese Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba said during a question-and-answer session after speaking at an Asian Security Conference in Singapore today. "China's rise in military spending may not be only for self defense."

Ishiba, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates and People's Liberation Army Lieutenant General Ma Xiaotian are among officials conferring in formal and informal sessions at the annual conference, known as the "Shangri-La Dialogue" for the name of the hotel where it take place.

Increases in military spending aren't necessarily bad, Ishiba said, provided common, transparent budgets criteria and definitions allow for thorough comparisons.

In response, Ma said determining whether a weapons systems is offensive or defensive is a subjective matter. A missile system termed defensive might also be considered an offensive weapon if it provides an ability to attack, he said.

Ma said China welcomed the Japanese government's efforts to aid in the relief of victims of the May 12 earthquake, even though it declined to have such aid transported by Japanese military aircraft. Ishiba earlier said his nation needs to consider cultural and historical sensitivities in providing help.

To contact the reporter on this story: Patricia Lui in Singapore at plui4@bloomberg.net

Pentagon chief says U.S. will remain Asian power

By Andrew Gray
Reuters
Saturday, May 31, 2008; 3:05 AM

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Washington will remain committed to Asia no matter who wins this year's U.S. presidential election, Defense Secretary Robert Gates told the region's decision makers on Saturday.

His message at a conference of Asian security and defense officials appeared intended both to reassure allies and serve as a statement of intent to China, following Beijing's rise in economic and military power in recent years.

Photo: Secretary of Defense Robert Gates (R) speaks with South Korea's Defence Minister Lee Sang-hee (L) before a ministerial lunch on the sidelines of the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore May 31, 2008.

"As someone who has served seven United States presidents, I want to convey to you with confidence that any future U.S. administration's Asia security policy is going to be grounded in the fact that the United States remains a nation with strong and enduring interests in this region," Gates said.

"I can assure you that the United States -- because of our interests and because of our values -- will not only remain engaged, but will become even more so in the decades ahead," the former Central Intelligence Agency chief said.

Speaking at the annual Shangri-La Dialogue forum in Singapore, Gates tried to strike a balance in comments on China. U.S. officials said he wanted to make Washington's views clear without creating an open confrontation with Beijing.

Gates offered praise, citing Beijing's "valued cooperation" in North Korean nuclear talks, and avoided direct criticism.

But he also alluded to subjects which have been contentious, such as repeated U.S. calls for greater transparency in Chinese military budgets.

Japan's Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba also called on China to be clearer about its spending and intentions.

CHINA PUSHES BACK

But Lt. Gen. Ma Xiao Tian, deputy chief of the general staff of the Chinese People's Liberation Army, shot back at the same conference, saying his country's defense spending was "at a low level" compared to other developed nations' budgets.

He said about two-thirds of Chinese defense spending went on costs such as maintenance and training.

He also offered implicit criticism of U.S. missile defense efforts, describing such systems as "not purely defensive."

"China is a peace-loving country and its people is a peace-loving people," he said. "We are a military threat to no other country."

China's growing prosperity has been accompanied by double-digit rises in military spending and a drive to modernize its armed forces and their equipment.

Beijing has said it will boost defense spending by 17.6 percent this year to 418 billion yuan ($60.2 billion).

The Pentagon and Western analysts say China's true military spending could be two or three times the official amount. But it is still dwarfed by the Pentagon's budget of more than $500 billion, which does not include war costs.

Gates said Washington wanted to work with all Asian nations to understand their military budgets and decisions so that miscalculations could be avoided.

By describing U.S. efforts to reassure the world ahead of its shootdown of a defunct satellite in February, Gates also drew an implicit contrast with China's own satellite shootdown a year earlier which was not announced in advance.

"Transparency enhances confidence and reduces competitive arms spending," he said. "The same applies to the way in which sovereign governments make their national security decisions."

(Editing by David Fox)

Ishiba, Gates confirm steady implementation of military realignment pact

May 31 02:30 AM US/Eastern

(AP) - SINGAPORE, May 31 (Kyodo) — Japanese Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Saturday confirmed the steady implementation of a 2006 bilateral accord on the realignment of U.S. forces in Japan, Japanese officials said.

The accord includes the relocation of the U.S. Marine Corps' Futemma Air Station in the densely populated central Okinawa city of Ginowan to Nago in the same prefecture. But talks have been stalled between Japan's central government and municipalities in Okinawa over the plan to construct an airfield to relocate the U.S. base.

Gates thanked Japan for resuming operations to refuel ships participating in U.S.-led antiterrorism operations in the Indian Ocean and Ishiba replied Japan will continue to cooperate for international peace and stability, the officials said.

Ishiba and Gates, who met on the sidelines of an international security meeting here, are believed to have exchanged view on China's growing military power and the situation on the Korean Peninsula.

China defends military spending, Japan seeks transparency

AFP - Saturday, May 31

SINGAPORE, May 31, 2008 (AFP) - A senior Chinese general on Saturday defended his nation's increased military spending while rival Asian power Japan sought greater transparency at a high-level security forum.

Lieutenant General Ma Xiaotian, deputy chief of the general staff of the People's Liberation Army, said China's build-up is a logical result of its rising economic power and does not threaten other countries.

Photo: (left-right) Shigeru Ishiba, John Chipman and Ma Xiaotian in Singapore

"Notwithstanding the vicissitudes of the international situation, China will always adopt a defensive defence policy," he said in a speech to the Shangri-La Dialogue.

"We are not engaging in an arms race. We are a military threat to no other country. We shall never seek hegemony or expansionism," he told defence officials and experts.

Ma said China had to guard a 22,800-kilometre (14,135 mile) land border, 32,000 kilometres of coastline and a total maritime area of more than 4.7 million square kilometres.

"History tells us that we must rely on ourselves for sufficient defensive capabilities in order to survive," he said.

"To maintain territorial integrity and protect our maritime interests is our unshirkable responsibility."

At a question-and-answer session with delegates after Ma's speech, Japanese Defence Minister Shigeru Ishiba said Tokyo was not opposed to its neighbour's increased defence spending but called for greater transparency.

"When you look at the enhancement of the defence capability of China, I wonder whether that was only aimed at protecting itself. I sometimes wonder, maybe that is not the only intention when you look at the ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons and other factors," he said.

Japan has been working to repair often tense ties with China but has also repeatedly voiced unease over its neighbour's rising military spending.

"We are not regarding China as a threat, no. However, what sort of capabilities, for what purpose? To what extent a country has in its military capability, a country has to be transparent," Ishiba said.

"Japan tries to be transparent. I want to see the same transparency in China as well."

China in March said its defence spending would rise 17.6 percent this year to 417.8 billion yuan (57.2 billion US dollars). The figure represents 1.4 percent of gross domestic product last year, compared with 4.6 percent in the United States and three percent in Britain, it said.

Many Chinese are still deeply resentful of Japan's World War II aggression. Japan on Friday said it had decided not to send military aircraft to deliver aid to Chinese earthquake survivors amid concern their first mission there since World War II would create resentment.

The US defence department has expressed concern about China's growing military might, saying a lack of transparency posed risks to regional and international stability.

China's military spending in 2007 was between 97 and 139 billion dollars, well in excess of Beijing's official budgeted figure of 45 billion dollars, it said.

It also raised concerns over China's development of cruise and ballistic missiles, its testing of an anti-satellite weapon last year and an apparent rise in cyber-espionage.

US Defence Secretary Robert Gates, who is attending the Singapore forum, also urged openness in Asia's military modernisation but did not mention any particular country.

"Transparency enhances confidence and reduces competitive arms spending," he said.

"We desire to work with every country in Asia to deepen our understanding of their military and defence finances, and larger national security decisions."

In an apparent dig at the United States, but also without naming any country, Ma criticised the "expansion" of military alliances and the placing of missile defence systems in space.

The US military is hoping to establish a limited anti-missile shield comprising interceptors and a tracking radar in Europe to defend against what Washington calls threats from "rogue states" such as Iran.

U.S. defense chief sees continued U.S. engagement in Asia after Bush

May 31 01:43 AM US/Eastern

SINGAPORE, May 31 (AP) - (Kyodo) — American engagement in Asia would remain a top priority for a next U.S. administration, regardless of the results of this year's presidential election, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Saturday.

"We work to ensure that the United States continues to be welcomed in this part of the world," Gates said in a speech at the Asian security forum here, known as the Shangri-La Dialogue.

The new U.S. administration which will take over the administration of President George W. Bush next year will "work with Asian leaders to identify these trends and make them work for the benefit of Asia," he said.

"The next U.S. administration seems certain to continue the long standing security partnerships" as "American engagement in Asia remains a top priority," Gates said.

Gates also said any new regional security arrangement should not exclude the United States.

"One can hardly suggest that it is appropriate for Europe, the Middle East and Africa to develop regional security institutions, but not for Asia to do so," he said.

"We welcome the resulting search for a new security architecture," Gates said. "However we do have some benchmarks," such as "exclusion of no single country."

He expressed U.S. "willingness to work with partners and friends to facilitate the evolution of security arrangements suitable to our common needs."

Gates emphasized the importance of U.S. ties with Japan, especially their enduring bilateral security alliance.

"The U.S. has a longstanding deep security relationship and alliance with Japan, and we have to remember the priority that we have to give that."

At the same time, he said Washington would also like to see better ties between China and Japan.

"The U.S. has every interest in an improved relationship between China and Japan. If there are ways we can contribute to that, consistent with our relations with Japan, we are willing to be helpful."

On the North Korean peninsula issue, he dismissed any speculation of a growing disparity in view between the United States and South Korea on how to tackle the issue, saying "there is a good alignment" between them.

There is also "no change in our drive to temper North Korea"s nuclear ambition," while stressing the importance of China's role in the talks.

On Myanmar, Gates said the United States plans to continue to help Myanmar recover from the recent cyclone disaster.

He said that despite the obstacles in getting foreign humanitarian aid into Myanmar, "we continue to get help into Burma and the United States remains poised to provide more."

However he said in response to a question later that the United States "does not support forced assistance and respects the sovereignty of Burma."

Defense ministers and top military officials from almost 30 nations are attending the three-day annual forum, organized by the London- based International Institute for Strategic Studies.

Gates Warns China Not to Bully Region on Energy

By ERIC SCHMITT
Published: May 31, 2008

SINGAPORE — Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates issued a set of thinly veiled warnings to China on Saturday, cautioning that it could risk its share of further gains in Asia’s economic prosperity if it bullied its neighbors over natural resources in contested areas like the South China Sea.

Three years ago at the same lectern here, Mr. Gates’s predecessor, Donald H. Rumsfeld, bluntly criticized China’s swift military buildup. Last year Mr. Gates struck a more conciliatory tone, saying Beijing and Washington had a chance to “build trust over time.”

Mr. Gates seemed to take a third approach in his remarks to a major regional Asia security conference here, seeking to lay down clear markers of continued American commitments to the region while also obliquely criticizing China.

He said that in his four trips to Asia since becoming defense secretary 18 months ago, several countries had expressed concern about “the security implications of rising demand for resources” (translation: China’s voracious quest for new sources of energy) and about “coercive diplomacy” (translation: China’s contested claims of resource-rich territorial waters).

Mr. Gates said there were rewards for playing by an international set of rules in a transparent way. “We should not forget that globalization has permitted our shared rise in wealth over recent decades,” he said. “This achievement rests above all on openness: openness of trade, openness of ideas, and openness of what I would call the ‘common areas’ — whether in the maritime, space, or cyber domains.”

The secretary specifically praised Beijing twice, noting that he had recently set up a telephone hot line with his Chinese defense counterpart and that the American-backed, six-party negotiations intended to temper North Korea’s nuclear ambitions “would not be possible without China’s valued cooperation.”

Otherwise, Mr. Gates spoke in a diplomatic code that his senior aides said would be clearly understood not only in Beijing but also in other Asian capitals and by the hundreds of security experts attending the annual regional conference sponsored by the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

Mr. Gates and his aides had debated just how blunt he ought to be in his address, which opened the Saturday session. In the end, aides said, he accepted the argument that taking a more direct approach would play to Beijing’s advantage and that a subtler, more indirect tack would win more support among Asian allies.

In the speech he recalled disputes in the mid-1990s between China and its neighbors over competing boundary and resource claims in the South China Sea, tensions that have resurfaced among China, Vietnam, Indonesia and Malaysia.

“We urged then, as we do today, the maintenance of a calm and nonassertive environment in which contending claims may be discussed and, if possible, resolved,” he said.

Mr. Gates, as he did last year at the conference, said that the United States “seeks more openness in military modernization in Asia. Transparency enhances confidence and reduces competitive spending.”

He also delivered a scolding reference to China’s unannounced destruction of a satellite in January 2007 when he described how the Pentagon handled a similar situation much differently in February, alerting others before shooting down a failing satellite over the Pacific just before it tumbled uncontrollably to Earth carrying toxic fuel.

Lt. Gen. Ma Xiaotian, deputy chief of the general staff of China’s People’s Liberation Army, pushed back during his speech, saying that China was not engaged in an arms race and that its military spending, compared with other sectors of its economy, was “limited and proportional.” In a clear reference to America’s plan to build missile defense systems, General Ma said deploying such defenses “was not helpful” to regional stability.

Mr. Gates made clear that central to the Bush administration’s Asia policy is maintaining American military might and economic sway in the region.

Indeed, Mr. Gates’s first stop on his weeklong visit to Asia was to Guam, where he took a helicopter tour on Friday to review Pentagon plans to spend $15 billion over the next six years to upgrade and expand World War II-era installations to accommodate thousands of additional American troops, and to broaden training missions with regional partners like Japan.

He said Saturday that Washington’s policy also focused on empowering regional allies to defend themselves by strengthening their armed forces and by building more robust economies and open political systems.

This policy is almost sure to endure no matter which party wins the White House in the November election, he said.

He showed an unusual flash on anger in response to a question after his speech about American efforts to deliver relief to cyclone victims in Myanmar, saying the United States has tried 15 times to get the Burmese leadership to allow more foreign assistance, but to no avail.

“We have reached out, they have kept their hands in their pockets,” he said.

Japan needs to win Asian trust for defense policy: Ishiba

May 30 10:58 PM US/Eastern

SINGAPORE, May 31 (AP) - (Kyodo) — Japanese Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba stressed Saturday that it is necessary to ensure the "trust" of other Asian countries in dealing with contentious issues, such as the exercise of the right of collective self-defense.

Meanwhile, Ishiba expressing his resolve to enact a permanent law authorizing the dispatch of Japanese Self-Defense Forces overseas whenever Tokyo deems necessary for international peace cooperation activities.

Photo: Japanese Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba

"Japan gets a lot of benefits from many countries in this region and around the world, and from safe and secure maritime routes," Ishiba said in his speech at an international forum on security in Asia in Singapore. "Japan is therefore responsible for the peace and stability of the world."

"At present, the government of Japan plans neither to amend its Constitution nor change its interpretation" of whether Japan can exercise the right of collective self-defense, the providing of military aid to an ally, Ishiba said at the event called the Shangri- La Dialogue.

Ishiba said Japan must do its utmost to avoid "an act of invasion...in the name of right of collective self-defense" during the Friday-Sunday event organized by the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies.

"It is essential that the Japanese people living in this century accurately understand the grief and bitterness which Japan left to the people of Asia and win the trust of Asian people beforehand," he said.

The issue of the right of collective self-defense has been a controversial issue in Japan as the government has said the country "has" the right but "is not allowed to use" it under its pacifist Constitution.

The Japanese defense minister pledged to "seriously consider" establishing the permanent law, which would authorize the SDF to join international peace-fostering activities when deemed necessary, in order to show "a menu for responding proactively to the needs and requirements of the international community."

Ishiba indicated he recognizes it is questionable that the SDF are engaging in U.S.-led antiterrorism operations in the Indian Ocean and the airlift mission in Iraq only under time-bound laws.

The temporary law authorizing the mission by the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force to refuel foreign vessels participating in the antiterrorism operations in and near Afghanistan will expire in January and that for the Iraq mission will likewise in July next year.

Having the permanent law for the SDF overseas dispatch is another contentious issue as some warn the legislation could lead to enhancing the SDF capability overseas to a level that goes beyond the constitutional restrictions.

Ishiba repeated his call on China to disclose more information about its military expansion, saying in the speech, "We would like to urge China to further enhance the transparency of its military capabilities and their purpose."

Gates says U.S. remains engagement with Asia-Pacific

2008-05-31 11:14:39
www.chinaview.cn

SINGAPORE, May 30 (Xinhua) -- U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates told an Asian security summit here Saturday that the United States will remain strong engagement in the Asia-Pacific region no matter who will be the next president.

"Any future U.S. administration's Asia security policy is going to be grounded in the fact that the United States remains a nation with strong and enduring interests in this region -- interests that will endure no matter which political party occupies the White House next year," Gates said.

Speaking at the annual Asian Security Summit, also known as theShangri-La Dialogue, Gates said Asia has become the center of gravity in a rapidly globalizing world, and the United States is a Pacific nation with an enduring role in Asia.

"For those who worry that Iraq and Afghanistan have distracted the United States from Asia and developments here, I would counter that we have never been more engaged with more countries," he said.

The three-day conference, organized by the London-based think tank International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), has brought together Gates, and the defense ministers and military officials of 26 other countries, including China.

On the Korean Peninsula nuclear issue, Gates noted the U.S. drive to temper North Korea's nuclear ambitions will be not possible "without China's valued cooperation".

He also spoke of openness in military modernization in Asia. "Transparency enhances confidence and reduces competitive arms spending. The same applies to the way in which sovereign governments make their national security decisions."

Editor: Feng Tao

Gates upbeat on on-time relocation of Marines in Okinawa to Guam

May 30 08:17 PM US/Eastern

WASHINGTON, May 30 (AP) - (Kyodo) — U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates expressed confidence Friday the planned relocation of Marines to Guam from Japan's Okinawa Prefecture will be completed by 2014 as set by Washington and Tokyo.

"We're still planning on having the project completed by 2014," he said after a tour of the U.S. Pacific territory, according to the transcript of his remarks.

Photo: U.S. Secretary of Defense Gates (Right) inspects Guam by helicopter

Gates made the remark in response to a question on concerns in the United States that the planned relocation could be delayed due to the new host's infrastructure and both governments' fiscal burdens.

The plan to move 8,000 Marines to Guam is part of an agreement struck between the United States and Japan in May 2006 to realign the U.S. military presence in Japan by 2014.

Any delay in relocating the Marines to Guam could affect another key element of the agreement -- relocating the U.S. Marine Corps Futemma Air Station's heliport functions from downtown Ginowan to Nago, both in Okinawa.

Gates was sanguine about the future course of the relocation, though he acknowledged there are some potential obstacles including funding and how the realignment of U.S. forces in Japan will unfold.

"There are a lot of pieces of this jigsaw puzzle that have to fit together at the same time," he said. "And I'm confident that we'll get it done in a timely way."

Gates visited Guam as part of his tour of the Asia-Pacific region. During his stay in Guam, he assured local officials the Defense Department will be "sensitive to the needs of the people of Guam" as the Marines are transferred from Okinawa.

After the inspection of Guam, he moved to Singapore for an international security conference. He is also due to travel to Thailand and South Korea.

Prosecutors to build case against PCI officials as tax-evasion case

May 30 02:23 PM US/Eastern

(AP) - TOKYO, May 31 (Kyodo) — Prosecutors have apparently decided to build a criminal case against senior officials of Pacific Consultants International on charges of evading income tax in connection with the remittance of money to an overseas company allegedly to bribe foreign public servants, sources close to the investigation said Friday.

PCI remitted several hundred million yen to a Hong Kong company affiliated with a former PCI board director in 2004 and later via a local agent and the money was meant to bribe high-ranking government officials in Southeast Asian countries to help the consultant firm to obtain orders for Japanese official development assistance projects, the sources said.

The money was allocated as "field research" expenses but the Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office apparently determined it could not recognize the sum as tax-free expenses and thus the remittance constituted tax evasion, the sources said.

Earlier, a former president of PCI, a consulting firm at the center of a high-profile fraud case, told prosecutors that he used part of public money earned via the fraud to bribe the public servants in Southeast Asian countries.

But the prosecutors are expected to give up establishing a criminal case against the PCI officials on charges of bribing foreign public servants due to the difficulty of obtaining evidence from foreign officials concerned. Bribing foreign government officials is prohibited under the law to prevent unfair competition.

Earlier this month, Masayoshi Taga, 62, a former president of PCI, admitted he used the illegally earned public money to bribe high- ranking Southeast Asian government officials as a way of expediting PCI's lobbying for Japanese ODA projects, the sources said.

Taga was served a fresh arrest warrant in mid-May on suspicion of swindling the Japanese government out of 140 million yen by overcharging for a fiscal 2004 government-awarded project aimed at disposing of chemical weapons abandoned by the former Imperial Japanese Army in China at the end of World War II. He was also arrested in April on suspicion of aggravated breach of trust in connection with the project.

According to Taga, who was then the PCI board director in charge of weapons disposal business, he was instructed by his then superior, former PCI President Shota Morita, to use part of the illegal money to bribe foreign public servants to smooth PCI's ODA business, said the sources.

Taga told the prosecutors that he used the money as told by Morita, the sources said. Morita was earlier indicted over the alleged breach of trust in connection with the weapons disposal project.

PCI is one of Japan's leading consulting firms in ODA-related projects. Based in Tama in the western suburbs of Tokyo, the company received 1.75 billion yen for the weapons disposal project in China in fiscal 2004 from the Cabinet Office.

The project began in accordance with an agreement reached between Japan and China in July 1999, whereby Japan would provide money, technology and facilities to dispose of the weapons.

US to remain committed to Asia: Gates

Saturday, 31 May, 2008

Washington would remain committed to Asia no matter who wins this year's US presidential election, US Defence Secretary Robert Gates told the region's decision makers on Saturday.

His message at a conference of Asian security and defence officials appeared intended both to reassure allies and serve as a statement of intent to China, following Beijing's rise in economic and military power in recent years.

"As someone who has served seven United States presidents, I want to convey to you with confidence that any future US administration's Asia security policy is going to be grounded in the fact that the United States remains a nation with strong and enduring interests in this region," Gates said.

"I can assure you that the United States - because of our interests and because of our values - will not only remain engaged, but will become even more so in the decades ahead," the former Central Intelligence Agency chief said.

Gates tried to strike a fine balance in his comments on China.

He offered praise, citing Beijing's "valued cooperation" in North Korean nuclear talks and avoided direct criticism.

But he also alluded to subjects which have been contentious, such as repeated US calls for greater transparency in Chinese military budgets.

"We desire to work with every country in Asia to deepen our understanding of their military and defence finances, and larger national-security decisions," Gates told the annual Shangri-La Dialogue forum in Singapore.

"We do so in a sincere and open effort to avoid misreading intentions and so that we can continue our work as strategic partners," he said.

China's growing prosperity has been accompanied by double-digit rises in military spending and a drive to modernise its armed forces and their equipment.

Beijing has said it is committed to a "peaceful rise" but Washington has called on China to clarify why it feels the need to build up its military to such an extent.

By describing US efforts to reassure the world ahead of its shootdown of a defunct satellite in February, Gates drew an implicit contrast with China's own satellite shootdown a year earlier which was not announced in advance.

"Transparency enhances confidence and reduces competitive arms spending," he said. "The same applies to the way in which sovereign governments make their national security decisions."


Source: AAP

Japanese politicians question use for tours and leisure trips

By Vince Little and Hana Kusumoto, Stars and Stripes
Pacific edition, Saturday, May 31, 2008

YOKOTA AIR BASE, Japan — The Japanese government wants to learn more about how the U.S. military uses highway toll tickets.

Under the Status of Forces Agreement with the United States, Japan pays for the U.S. military’s "official" off-base travel.

Japan Communist Party representative Satoshi Inoue took issue last month with the practice of the U.S. military issuing toll tickets for off-base bus tours and leisure trips. He also criticized their availability to people who rent vehicles at some installations.

Photo: A Japanese driver pulls up to a toll gate to enter the Shuto Expressway in Tokyo on Thursday afternoon. Japanese government officials want to know how the U.S. military is using toll tickets provided by Japan for official off-base travel after Japan Communist Party representative Satoshi Inoue raised the issue of the U.S. military using the toll tickets for off-base leisure travel.

On April 23, the Japanese government contacted U.S. Forces Japan seeking more details on toll ticket use, defense and foreign ministry officials said, and is awaiting a formal response.

"All we can say on the matter is that USFJ is in discussions with the Government of Japan on this and a variety of other Status of Forces Agreement issues," USFJ spokesman Marine Corps Master Sgt. Terence Peck wrote in an e-mail to Stars and Stripes on Wednesday.

The second section of Article 5 in the SOFA states that U.S. government-owned vehicles and members of the U.S. military, Department of Defense civilians and their dependents "shall be accorded access to and movement between facilities and areas in use by the United States armed forces and between such facilities and areas and the ports or airports of Japan," and that access "shall be free from toll and other charges."

In fiscal 2007, Japan paid about $8.4 million in highway tolls for U.S. military vehicles after spending about $8.63 million the previous year from its defense budget, according to Inoue and the Defense Ministry.

"It is wrong to shoulder something used for leisure with [Japan’s] tax," Inoue said, calling it a SOFA violation.

He said he wants Japan to stop paying all tolls for the U.S. military, and added that the public will definitely not support paying for the leisure travel.

U.S. military personnel using the toll tickets must fill out information blocks for vehicle type, license plate number, driver’s name, location and date.

The Japan Highway Public Cooperation then claims the amount to the defense ministry, which pays the toll, according to Inoue. "There is no place to claim the purpose [of the trip]," Inoue said, and toll booth workers can’t differentiate between official and unofficial use of military vehicles.

Inoue raised the issue April 19 at an upper house committee meeting on foreign affairs and defense. Inoue said a Japan Defense Ministry official told him that the use of toll tickets for U.S. tour buses isn’t a problem because the outings are "official" and provided to boost troops’ welfare and morale. A Defense Ministry spokesman contacted Thursday declined to comment.

At Yokota on Wednesday, some people suggested the move to eliminate highway toll tickets for base-sponsored recreational purposes could backfire, eliminating options and perhaps inviting more chances for misconduct by U.S. personnel outside the gates.

"I see why the Japanese government would be doing it, but I don’t necessarily think it’s a good thing," said Paula Sloan, a Yokota Middle School teacher. "I don’t think it’ll solve any of the problems the Japanese might have with the U.S. military. It limits what people can do on weekends — without going out and causing problems.

"Someone here who’s 18, 19, 20 years old, they’re not going to be able to pay for tour tickets if they go too high. ... Instead, they might start getting into trouble in bars off base," she said.

Airman 1st Class Robert Gore of the 36th Airlift Squadron was unaware toll tickets are included with Yokota vehicle rentals but said he’d be more reluctant to rent one if they weren’t. Base tours also give Americans stationed here an opportunity to see Japan with someone else at the wheel, he added.

"It wouldn’t be good if they went away," he said. "If I was new, it’s a good way to get off base for the first time."

Expressway tickets have history of misuse

TOKYO — Highway passes provided to the U.S. military by Japan have a paper trail rooted in controversy.

From 1969 to 1994, American servicemembers and Defense Department personnel were issued plain white passes to access toll roads.

But 15 years ago, about 7,400 fake passes turned up across the country. Japanese police traced the forgeries to discount ticket shops in Tokyo, where they were being copied and sold for about $50 each.

The forged passes cost the Japanese government an estimated $95,000.

In February 1994, four Japanese men with ties to organized crime gangs were arrested in connection with the expressway passes. Japanese police said at the time that they believed one of the men acquired the passes from someone connected to Atsugi Naval Air Facility.

About four months after the scandal, the white passes were replaced by the green toll tickets in use today. The new forms require all U.S. Forces Japan organizations to maintain an accountability register.

In accordance with the status of forces agreement, the forms may not be used for privately owned vehicles, even if the driver is conducting official business.

The new highway passes are printed on paper designed to thwart counterfeiting and include a serial number.

The Japanese government has picked up toll costs for U.S. military vehicles in Japan since 1964.

What it costs to drive

The following is a list of one-way toll fares from U.S. military bases in Japan to the New Sanno Hotel in Tokyo:

Sasebo Naval Base
25,310 yen (about $241.76)

Marine Corps Air

Station Iwakuni
18,500 yen (about $176.71)

Misawa Air Base
13,650 yen (about $130.38)

Camp Fuji
3,200 yen (about $30.57)

Yokosuka Naval Base
2,250 yen (about $21.49)

Camp Zama and Naval

Air Facility Atsugi
1,450 yen (about $13.85)

Yokota Air Base
1,300 yen (about $12.42)

Source: East Nippon
Expressway Company Ltd.

Miura sues to seek that Japan not cooperate with U.S. probe

May 30 07:47 AM US/Eastern

TOKYO, May 30 (AP) - (Kyodo)—Japanese businessman Kazuyoshi Miura, arrested on Saipan in February on murder and conspiracy charges, filed a lawsuit Friday with the Tokyo District Court seeking that Japan not comply with a request by the United States to cooperate in the investigation on him.

Miura, 60, is being held on Saipan, an island in the U.S. Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, on the charges in connection with the shooting in 1981 that led to the death of his 28-year-old wife Kazumi. Japan's Supreme Court has acquitted Miura of the shooting of his wife.

Photo: Kazuyoshi Miura on Saipan

Miura's side asserted, "Cooperation in the investigation with the United States will damage (Miura's) reputation as it is equivalent to treating him as a suspect although his acquittal was finalized. The damage which stems from such reasons as prolonging detention is huge."

Miura sought that Japan's justice and foreign ministers not take procedures including accepting a request to cooperate in the U.S. investigation over the case.

Regarding the cooperation, Justice Minister Kunio Hatoyama said in a press conference in February, "Generally speaking, his acquittal in Japan does not constitute a reason that Japan will reject providing cooperation."

People related to the U.S. investigation visited Japan in March and consulted with Justice Ministry officials.

According to Miura's lawyer, Miura has said, "I cannot accept the cooperation, which ignores the Supreme Court's acquittal."

Bush to leave 'strong and positive legacy' in Asia: Gates

May 30, 2008

SINGAPORE (AFP) — President George W. Bush will leave a "strong and positive legacy" in Asia and his successor will maintain engagement in the region, US Defence Secretary Robert Gates said Saturday.

Gates told a high-level security forum here that any speculation that the United States was losing interest in the region was "preposterous."

"Actually I think this will be an area where there will be a strong and positive legacy in the future," he told the forum, six months before the US presidential elections.

"Any speculation in the region about the United States losing interest in Asia strikes me as either preposterous, or disingenuous, or both," said Gates, who will visit Thailand and South Korea after Singapore.

Doubts have emerged among some allies over US leadership in the region, which comes as rising power China continues its military build-up.

Describing the United States as a "resident power" in Asia with military bases and cooperation pacts with a web of partners, Gates said future US leaders will maintain Washington's commitment to the region's security.

"Any future US administration's Asia security policy is going to be grounded in the fact that the United States remains a nation with strong and enduring interests in this region," he said at the Shangri-La Dialogue forum of defence and military officials and security experts.

Gates said there was a "significant improvement" in the US-Japanese and US-Indian relationship under Bush.

He also cited the example of progress in communication with China.

The two sides recently established a "Defence Telephone Link" between the Pentagon and the Chinese defence minister, he said, adding the US also started with Beijing a series of dialogues on strategic issues.

Regardless of controversies over the Bush administration's security policies globally, Gates said that "in Asia the overall legacy is a pretty straightforward and very positive one."

"For those who worry that Iraq and Afghanistan have distracted the United States from Asia and developments here, I would counter that we have never been more engaged with more Asian countries," Gates said.

Singapore, an unwavering US ally, on Saturday welcomed Gates' comments.

"I think that the message that Secretary Gates brought about continuity of US policy and emphasis on the Asia Pacific is a welcome one," Minister for Defence Teo Chee Hean told reporters at the forum.

The United States has permanent bases in Japan and South Korea and is beefing up its military presence in the Pacific island of Guam, where Gates stopped en route to Singapore.

Guam, a US territory since 1898, is currently home to about 6,000 military personnel. It will soon become an even more important US base with the relocation of about 8,000 Marines from Japan's Okinawa island by 2014.

"Our Asian friends, whether or not they are formally allied to us, welcome our growing presence on Guam," Gates said.

"As the island's new facilities take shape in coming years, they will be increasingly multilateral in orientation, with training opportunities and possible pre-positioning of assets," Gates said.

Japanese Defence Secretary Shigeru Ishiba, speaking at the same forum, underscored the importance of the Japan-US Security Alliance to the stability of the East Asian region.

He said it was "one of the most solid alliances in the world" and contributes to the "regional public good."

Filipina files rape complaint against US soldier in Okinawa

English Articles
［ 202 words｜2008.5.30｜英字 ］

MANILA -- The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) on Thursday said a Filipina allegedly raped by an American serviceman has filed a case with US military authorities in Okinawa, Japan.

ﾒWe just learned this morning that the documents for the case are now filed with US military authorities in Okinawa and we are just waiting for the decision of the military authorities whether they will entertain it or not,ﾓ DFA Office of Migrant Workers Affair Executive Director Crescente Relacion told a press conference.

He said the DFA instructed the Philippine Embassy in Tokyo to seek a reinvestigation of the case in the Prosecutorﾕs Office following its dismissal last May 15 for lack of evidence.

ﾒWe are closely monitoring the case. The decision of the prosecutor is a different issue but we are committed to give assistance to the victim,ﾓ Relacion said.

The victim, who is in the protective custody of the Archbishop of Naha and the Philippine Consulate General in Okinawa, said she was raped in a hotel. The brutal incident left her with severe injuries.

A US marine was convicted by a lower court in Makati in 2006 for raping a Filipina at the former US military base in Subic Bay. DMS

High Court orders disclosure of ’06 helicopter crash documents

Date Posted: 2008-05-30

The Japanese government decision to withhold documents surrounding the crash of a U.S. Marine Corps helicopter on Okinawa nearly two years ago has been slammed by the Fukuoka High Court.

A court battle over whether the government must release all documents pertaining to the August 2006 crash of a CH-53 Sea Stallion helicopter in Ginowan City began after a lower court ruled authorities had the right to keep some documents away from the public. A Naha City man had initiated the suit, demanding that the Foreign Ministry reveal all documents concerning the crash onto Okinawa International University’s campus, injuring three crew members. The helicopter slammed into an administration building wall at the university, which sits next to Futenma Marine Corps Air Station, but nobody on the ground was injured.

Presiding Judge Osamu Nishi and the Fukuoka High Court has now directed the government to hand over the documents. The lower court had rejected the suit, citing potential damage to U.S.- Japan security relations if the documents were turned over without Washington’s approval. Justice and Foreign ministries are now contemplating an appeal to Nishi’s order.

Drunken airman exposes himself to two young girls

Date Posted: 2008-05-30

Maric Bassett is in deep trouble with both American and Okinawan authorities after he dropped his pants and exposed himself to two girls on an Okinawa City street.

The 26-year-old airman assigned to Kadena Air Base was walking in Nakano Machi, the Okinawa City entertainment district, early Friday morning when police say he suddenly stepped in front of two girls, pulled his pants down to his knees, and exposed himself. “Oh my God,” one girl shouted as the other called police.

Bassett denied to police he was exposing himself to the girls, saying “I just wanted to pee.” Police say the airman was so drunk, his alcohol level was 0.71ml.

The incident came only days after an Okinawa Prefecture employee did the same thing, exposing his naked lower body in front of an Okinawan woman.

Fretting safety, Yokosuka public awaits atomic-powered carrier

Friday, May 30, 2008
By KAKUMI KOBAYASHI
Kyodo News

YOKOSUKA, Kanagawa Pref. (Kyodo) After seeing off the aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk this week, Yokosuka now has to brace for the arrival of its replacement — the first nuclear-powered U.S. vessel to be based in Japan.

Photo: Showing the flag: The USS George Washington operates recently in the Persian Gulf. The nuclear-powered aircraft carrier is coming to Yokosuka, Kanagawa Prefecture, in August.

Mayor Ryoichi Kabaya basically supports the forward-deployment of the 102,000-ton George Washington. But the recent fire on the vessel that hurt two sailors has heightened safety concerns among residents of the Kanagawa Prefecture city.

"I regret that the incident took place at a very bad time," Senior Vice Foreign Minister Hitoshi Kimura said.

Indeed, both the Japanese and U.S. governments are trying to dismiss concerns about the safety of nuclear-powered military vessels and create a welcoming mood for the George Washington.

U.S. Forces Japan Commander Lt. Gen. Edward Rice recently stressed the strategic significance of having the carrier here, saying: "The George Washington is a tremendously capable asset. It is more capable than the Kitty Hawk."

The U.S. based three aircraft carriers, including the Kitty Hawk, at Yokosuka since 1973.

As the strength of the Self-Defense Forces is limited under the war-renouncing Constitution, forward-deployed carriers have been a strategic deterrent under the bilateral security alliance.

"It has significance for the United States to continue to have a carrier in Japan geographically, in terms of Washington's strategy toward the Middle Eastern area," military affairs commentator Tetsuo Maeda said. "The Middle East is on the other side of the globe for the United States. Having a carrier in Japan can save time and energy of going across the Pacific 10,000 km from mainland America."

The Kitty Hawk is the U.S. Navy's last conventionally powered carrier, and the Pentagon said it had no other option but to replace it with a nuclear-powered flattop.

There have been few major movements opposing the deployment of U.S. carriers to Yokosuka, which is also the headquarters for the U.S. Navy in Japan and a key Maritime Self-Defense Force base.

Yokosuka is also the hometown of former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, who built up strong ties with the U.S. during his five years in office.

But the fire on the George Washington has fueled concerns among a growing number of Yokosuka's residents, even though the navy has repeatedly said the incident had no effect on the ship's nuclear system.

Rice touted the safety of U.S. nuclear vessels, saying there has not been "one single incident of release of radioactivity or an environmental issue" in the U.S. Navy in 40 years.

But Yokosuka lawyer Masahiko Goto doubts this record. He leads a group opposed to the deployment of the George Washington.

"It is true that there have been no serious accidents like in Three Mile Island or Chernobyl," Goto said. "But the United States hides a number of incidents, which could have resulted in a major accident involving nuclear-powered military ships and submarines since the 1970s.

"The problem is that Japan has no authority to check the safety standards of the George Washington or the facilities to maintain it," he said.

Concerns about nuclear safety are a household topic in Japan — an earthquake-prone country with more than 50 nuclear plants, some of which have suffered accidents and defect coverups.

"The operation of nuclear plants is subject to control of the Japanese government. . . . But it is very dangerous for a state to have a nuclear reactor out of its control on its soil," Goto said.

Yokosuka citizens' groups petitioned twice for a plebiscite on the carrier, but the assembly rejected both attempts.

Funeral held for two fishermen lost in collision with destroyer

Friday, May 30, 2008

CHIBA (Kyodo) Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and Maritime Self-Defense Force Chief of Staff Adm. Keiji Akahoshi were among the mourners at the funeral Thursday of two fishermen who were lost in February after their small fishing boat was run over by an MSDF destroyer.

Photo: Somber occasion: Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba speaks to reporters Thursday in Katsuura, Chiba Prefecture, after attending the funeral of two fishermen who were killed in a collision with a destroyer.

Capt. Ken Funato, the skipper of the 7,750-ton destroyer Atago at the time of the collision, also attended the service Haruo Kichisei, 58, and his son, Tetsuhiro, 23.

Kichisei's relatives and fellow fishermen and their families bade farewell to the two during the service held at a funeral hall in their hometown of Katsuura, Chiba Prefecture.

The Japan Coast Guard declared them dead May 20 after more than three months had passed since they disappeared in the Feb. 19 collision.

EDITORIAL :: Mr. Fukuda's vision

Friday, May 30, 2008

In August 1977 then Prime Minister Takeo Fukuda in Manila gave a speech on Japan's Asia diplomacy. Under what was later called the Fukuda doctrine, Japan promised to refrain from becoming a military power, to pursue "heart-to-heart" relationships of mutual trust in various fields, to seek solidarity with ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) on the basis of equal partnership, and to pursue mutual understanding with the Indochinese countries.

Last week, his son, Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda, gave a similar speech at a Tokyo symposium on Asia's future. Will this speech serve as principles to guide Japan's policy toward Asia for the next 30 years, as Mr. Fukuda no doubt hopes?

The speech, which might be called a new Fukuda doctrine, reflects efforts to give substance to his foreign-policy goal of making the push for Asia diplomacy resonate with the reinforcement of the Japan-U.S. alliance. This will help restore balance to Japan's diplomacy. This means a departure from former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's lopsided emphasis on ties with the United States, as well as from former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's attempt to encircle China through closer ties with the U.S., Australia and India while minimizing friction with it.

Given Japan's geographical location and modern history characterized by its 20th-century war in the Asia-Pacific region, Mr. Fukuda's approach is reasonable. He needs to exert the kind of leadership that follows up with concrete action.

In his speech entitled "Toward the Day When the Pacific Ocean Becomes an Inland Sea," Mr. Fukuda said the doctrine declared by his father is still alive because Japan and other Asian countries cannot leave behind the principle of sharing good things and coping with problems together as "colleagues." He stressed the importance of people in the Asia-Pacific region building relations of mutual trust and "walking together."

Mr. Fukuda envisions the Pacific Ocean as an inland sea 30 years from now, with increased exchanges of people, goods, capital and knowledge, and the world's leading economies concentrated in the region. He noted that the countries in the region now account for about 60 percent of the world's gross domestic product and about 40 percent of world trade.

Pointing out that the key word is "openness," Mr. Fukuda correctly noted that Japan's starting point should be the "open diversity" of its society. Attaining this is easier said than done, as it requires that Japan review its policies ranging from education to immigration control. He admitted that Japan lags behind in the social advancement of women, acceptance of direct investment, and the utilization of talented people from other Asian countries. His humble attitude deserves praise.

Mr. Fukuda mentioned five promises of concrete action. Japan will support ASEAN's effort to create a single integrated market by 2015. He said the creation of such a market demands the eradication of gaps within the ASEAN region and the development of the Mekong River region. His call for dedicating the next 30 years to eradicating these gaps is likely to receive support from the countries concerned.

Mr. Fukuda also said Japan will strengthen its alliance with the U.S. as a public asset to ensure stability in the Asia-Pacific region. But there is the danger that strengthening ties with the U.S. in an accelerated manner could be taken by other Asian countries as an effort by the two countries to dominate the Asia-Pacific region.

To prevent such a perception, Japan will need to maintain close communication with other countries as it deepens its relations with the U.S. Only when such communication is adequate will the Japan-U.S. alliance be able to serve as the cornerstone for prosperity in the region as Mr. Fukuda hopes.

Other promises include Japan's becoming a "peace cooperation state" whose work will include cooperating with other partners to ensure the Strait of Malacca is free of pirates. It will push exchanges of young people and cooperation between universities in the region. And it will make efforts to battle the effects and causes of global warming.

Mr. Fukuda proposed that emergency relief organizations and public health organizations in Japan and other Asian countries form a network for prompt cooperation in the event of either a major natural disaster or an outbreak of bird flu or a new type of flu. He noted that the fight against climate change cannot be carried out by Japan alone and urged other countries in the region to cooperate.

Mr. Fukuda avoided such issues as China's Tibet problem and the military rule in Myanmar. But his new doctrine will help orient Japan's diplomacy. Yet, implementing it is another matter. Some ideas put forth by him, such as the antidisaster and antiflu network especially, deserve prompt action.

Reform bill sidesteps 'amakudari'

Friday, May 30, 2008
By MASAMI ITO
Staff writer

The Lower House passed a bill Thursday to reform the civil servant system, but the legislation omitted any steps to curb the notoriously corrupt system of "amakudari," the practice whereby bureaucrats retire into lucrative posts in industries they had overseen.

With the Diet closing on June 15, the Liberal Democratic Party-New Komeito ruling coalition and the Democratic Party of Japan, the largest opposition force, were able to draft a last-minute revision of the bill, which was submitted in April. Passage of the bill has been a key goal of Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda as he struggles to regain public trust following a spate of scandals involving government employees.

Photo: Kenta Izumi on behalf of the Democratic Party takes the rostrum at the House of Representatives plenary session for the national civil-service reform bill.

After a majority vote by the ruling bloc, the DPJ and the Social Democratic Party passed the revised bill, it was handed to the Upper House, which is scheduled to deliberate on it Friday. Full passage is practically assured by the end of the Diet session.

The bill aims to restructure the civil servant system by having the chief Cabinet secretary propose a list of candidates for vice minister and other high-ranking positions in ministries and agencies, and by establishing a new Cabinet personnel bureau in the Cabinet Secretariat that would oversee personnel affairs at each ministry.

"The aim of restructuring the public servant system is to change a vertically structured and closed bureaucracy into one that is transparent and efficient, and to create an administrative organization that will truly benefit the public," DPJ lawmaker Kenta Izumi said at a Lower House plenary session.

Izumi pointed out that Japan's "bureaucrat-led administration" must be changed into a "politician-led Cabinet" to realize a true parliamentary government.

To ensure passage of the bill, the ruling bloc compromised on many of the DPJ's proposals. But one of the key issues in the civil servant reform debate — amakudari — was skipped altogether.

The infamous system, in which retired government officials are rewarded with high positions in private companies in industries they once oversaw, has been criticized as a key path to corruption. Although the DPJ called for banning amakudari, it apparently backed down to avoid jeopardizing the bill.

The Japanese Communist Party voted against the bill.

"The privileged bureaucrats served the business world, not the public, and as compensation, they continued to expand their interests through amakudari," JCP lawmaker Tetsuya Shiokawa said. "And the result of (amakudari) led to bid-rigging and contaminated blood products. . . . Regulation against amakudari is what is necessary to sever the collusion between politics, bureaucracy and the business world."

Another measure lost in the revision was disciplinary rules to regulate direct contact between politicians and bureaucrats. The DPJ protested the measure because it would make it more difficult to collect information needed to form policy.

Under the revised bill, when Diet members and bureaucrats make contact they are required to document the meeting and disclose the information to increase transparency.

Ruling bloc lawmakers admitted Fukuda strongly pushed for enactment of the bill, which pressured the coalition to compromise with the DPJ.

Keio's Ikeo proposed for BOJ position

Friday, May 30, 2008
Bloomberg

Kazuhito Ikeo, a professor at Keio University in Tokyo, was nominated Thursday to join the Bank of Japan's Policy Board as the government sought to fill one of two positions left vacant since March.

The positions on the nine-member board, including one of Gov. Masaaki Shirakawa's two deputies, have been vacant since the Democratic Party of Japan-led opposition camp used its control of the Upper House to block four candidates in March and April. No one was proposed for deputy Thursday, said Katsuya Ogawa, a DPJ member who was among lawmakers who received the nomination.

Photo: Takashi Sasagawa speaking in Diet

Ikeo, 55, has argued that keeping interest rates too low has hampered their use as a policy tool and that borrowing costs will eventually need to rise, said Masaaki Kanno, a former central bank official and now chief economist at JPMorgan Chase & Co. in Tokyo.

"Professor Ikeo and Gov. Shirakawa share the view that interest-rate levels need to be normalized over the medium to long term," Kanno said. Japan's benchmark overnight lending rate is 0.5 percent, the lowest among major economies.

Ikeo will testify in the Lower House next Tuesday, said Takashi Sasagawa, a Liberal Democratic Party lawmaker and member of a committee on government appointments.

The nomination needs the approval of both houses. If accepted, Ikeo would fill the seat left vacant when board member Kiyohiko Nishimura was promoted to one of the two deputy governor posts in March.

The government was forced to postpone the proposal Tuesday after newspapers reported Ikeo would be the nominee. The DPJ has said it will reject candidates whose names have been leaked to the media.

Ikeo has been an economics professor at Keio since 1995. He has taught at other colleges, including his alma mater, Kyoto University. An expert on banking regulation, he has served on several government panels, including one that provided advice on the nation's banking industry and fiscal policy.

Ikeo criticized the BOJ's "quantitative easing" policy of pumping extra cash into the economy to fight deflation, saying in a 2001 interview that it's "doubtful that the policy would have any drastic influence" on the economy. The bank ended the five-year policy in March 2006.

Bill would aid Taiwan, Korea war criminals

Friday, May 30, 2008
Kyodo News

The Democratic Party of Japan submitted a bill Thursday aimed at providing ¥3 million in special benefits to each Korean and Taiwanese convicted of Class B or C war crimes at the Tokyo tribunal.

The main opposition party submitted the bill to the House of Representatives, but it is not clear if the measure will be put to a vote in the current regular Diet session, which ends June 15, or if the ruling bloc will even support it.

Photo: DPJ Lower House member Kenta Izumi

The DPJ will call on other parties for support and is ready to revise the bill if required, party members said.

DPJ Lower House member Kenta Izumi, who proposed the bill, told reporters it would cover 148 people from the Korean Peninsula and 173 from Taiwan. Both the Korean Peninsula and Taiwan were under Japan's colonial rule until its surrender in World War II in 1945.

The bill would allow relatives to apply for the special benefit if a convicted war criminal has died.

In 2006, South Korea recognized Korean war criminals as victims of war, paving the way for them and their relatives to appear in public. But many of the war criminals are accused of collaborating with Japan.

At the tribunal, more than 5,000 people, mainly Japanese nationals, were accused of war crimes in three categories — crimes against peace (Class A), ordinary war crimes (Class B) and crimes against humanity (Class C). Many Koreans and Taiwanese, who served in the Japanese forces, were punished as Class B or C criminals.

Secretary Gates Visits Guam Military Base

By ERIC SCHMITT
Published: May 30, 2008

ANDERSEN AIR FORCE BASE, Guam — Dipping low over this tropical island in a Navy helicopter on Friday, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates gazed out over one of the largest American military construction projects in decades.

Over the next six years, the Pentagon is planning to spend $15 billion to upgrade and expand World War II-era air bases, barracks and ports, and carve out of the jungle new housing and headquarters to accommodate thousands of additional troops and their families who are scheduled to arrive.

It is all part of the military’s effort to remake Guam into a strategic hub in the western Pacific, underscoring both the increasing geopolitical importance of Asia to Washington as well as the Pentagon’s priority to project power from American territory rather than foreign bases.

Mr. Gates made Guam his first stop on a weeklong trip to Asia, his fourth to the region since becoming defense secretary 17 months ago. He will also attend a regional security conference in Singapore, and confer with defense officials in Thailand and South Korea.

An underlying theme of the trip, Mr. Gates said, will be “affirming that the United States is not distracted by our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan from our long-term interests here in Asia.”

With American officials warily watching China’s military buildup as well as the continuing standoff with North Korea over its nuclear program, the massive construction projects already underway and on the drawing board here are striking.

The military owns about one-third of this island, and much of the remaining jungle will be bulldozed to build military headquarters, housing, hospitals, schools and commissaries, officials said.

By 2014, some 8,000 marines are expected to move here from their long-time base in Okinawa, requiring a new headquarters, housing and a small-arms training range. The Japanese government is paying $6 billion to help defray costs of the move and the new constructions here, said Geoff Morrell, the Pentagon press secretary.

Japanese defense forces will train and conduct exercises with American troops here, said Mr. Morrell, in a historical twist of fate. Three days after the Dec. 7, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, Japan’s occupation of this American island started and continued until United States soldiers returned to Guam on July 21, 1944, a date celebrated here as Liberation Day.

The Navy, which has three submarines, a helicopter squadron and supply ships based here, is planning to dredge the harbor to accommodate large marine amphibious ships.

Since 2004, the Air Force has been rotating B-1, B-2 and B-52 bombers through Guam from bases in the United States. The rotations are designed to support American security in the Asia-Pacific while other United States forces are diverted to the Middle East.

The Air Force is also planning to build hangars for three Global Hawk surveillance aircraft, and expand facilities to accommodate periodic rotations of fighter jets, including the Air Force’s newest fighter, the F-22, from their bases in Hawaii and Alaska.

“Andersen in six years will not look anything like it does today,” Brig. Gen. Doug Owens, the base commander here, told reporters traveling with Mr. Gates.

In all, Mr. Gates said, more than 12,000 additional American troops will move here, more than doubling the current total of about 7,000 service members.

American and Guamanian officials acknowledge that the wave of new construction — as well as the more than 25,000 workers likely to flock to the island to supplement local laborers — will require a careful balancing of environmental protections and national security priorities.

Mr. Gates said the Pentagon wants to complete these projects “in a way that’s sensitive to the needs of the people of Guam as well as to our military needs.”

Japan says goodbye to USS Kitty Hawk

By Allison Batdorff, Stars and Stripes
Pacific edition, Friday, May 30, 2008

YOKOSUKA NAVAL BASE, Japan — Usually the teary-eyed folks on Yokosuka’s piers wave goodbye to the sailors onboard, not to the Navy warship carrying them away.

But much of Wednesday’s pier-side sentiment was for the ship itself when USS Kitty Hawk steamed away from Yokosuka Naval Base for the last time.

Photo: In front of a giant banner shielding the hangar bay, a Kitty Hawk sailor observes the people gathering ashore Wednesday to say their final goodbyes to the ship before it departs Japan for the last time.

Schoolchildren waved hand-drawn signs saying "Don’t Forget Japan!" "Fly Free, Kitty Hawk!" and "We Will Miss You!" while dignitaries waxed eloquent about the 47-year-old aircraft carrier’s service to the fleet.

After almost a decade forward-deployed to Japan, Kitty Hawk is returning stateside to offload equipment and sailors to its replacement — the USS George Washington — and is scheduled for decommissioning in 2009.

Before he boarded the ship, Kitty Hawk Strike Group Commander Rear Adm. Richard Wren called the departure bittersweet.

"This is the beginning of the end for the Kitty Hawk," Wren said.

Hitoshi Kimura, senior vice minister for foreign affairs of Japan, called the 1,065-foot-long, 280-foot-wide Kitty Hawk "the most famous warship in Japan" and a "symbol" of the U.S.-Japanese alliance.

"I am proud to call Kitty Hawk our ship, not just your ship," Kimura said.

While Kitty Hawk’s "door is closing," a new door will open when the George Washington arrives in Yokosuka in August, U.S. Ambassador to Japan Thomas Schieffer said.

"When Japan and the U.S. stand together, peace has its best chance," Schieffer said. "Goodbye, Kitty Hawk; hello George Washington!"

The George Washington will be the Navy’s first nuclear-propelled aircraft carrier forward-deployed to Japan.

The carriers are to meet in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, next month, when roughly a third of Kitty Hawk’s crew will crossdeck to the George Washington.

The George Washington is in San Diego undergoing repairs after a May 22 fire damaged the ship and trapped several sailors for hours. Officials have not released the cause of the fire, the extent of the damage or whether it will affect the hull swap with the Kitty Hawk.

After Hawaii, Kitty Hawk will stop in San Diego, but the carrier’s final destination is Bremerton, Wash., where it will be decommissioned next year.

On Wednesday, amid the speeches, balloons and final farewell ceremony, 13-year-old Andrew Debolt said Kitty Hawk had served the Navy well.

"It did its time," Debolt said. "It’s been through a lot of things."

Moreover, the ship’s departure makes for a great cultural joke in Japan, Yamaguchi Corp. interpreter Masami Wada said.

"Today it is no longer ‘Hello Kitty’ in Japan," Wada pointed out. "Today, it’s ‘Goodbye, Kitty.’  "

While the farewell festivities were nice, Tabatha Anderson and her son Tyler said they’re already looking forward to the George Washington’s arrival ceremony — because that means their beloved sailor is home.

"We’re going to miss him," Tabatha Anderson said of her husband, who departed with the Kitty Hawk on Wednesday and will join the George Washington crew in Hawaii.

Gates to address buildup on visit to Guam

By Teri Weaver, Stars and Stripes
Pacific edition, Friday, May 30, 2008

Defense Secretary Robert Gates will make his first trip to Guam as the top Pentagon official this week to discuss military buildup on the island, according to Air Force officials.

During the two-day trip, Gates will meet with local leaders and military commanders to discuss the planned move of 8,000 Marines from Okinawa to Guam, a major portion of the long-term buildup.

The secretary also will meet with airmen at Andersen Air Force Base, re-enlist two sailors and preside over the retirement ceremony of Seikichi "Mr. Paul" Kaneshiro, the longest-serving federal employee in the Air Force in history, according to an Andersen spokesman.

Kaneshiro, a vertical repair superintendent with the 36th Civil Engineer Squadron at Andersen, will retire Friday after 66 years with the Air Force, according to an Andersen news release.

Kaneshiro joined the military in 1943 as part of the 522nd Field Artillery, a part of a battalion of Japanese-American soldiers. After serving with the U.S. Army in Germany, France and Italy, Kaneshiro returned to Hawaii to work for the Air Force.

He worked at Hickam Air Depot in Hawaii, then moved to Guam to help rebuild the island after a typhoon hit in 1946.

Gates’ visit to Guam comes as local officials and military leaders are planning $10.3 billion in expansions to move the III Marine Expeditionary Force from Okinawa.

Other military projects are also planned, including the addition of an Army air defense unit and a port that can handle long-term visits from aircraft carriers.

Atago navigator believed there was no danger of collision with boat

May 29 07:00 AM US/Eastern

YOKOHAMA, May 29 (AP) - (Kyodo) — The chief navigator on the Maritime Self-Defense Force destroyer which collided with a fishing boat in the Pacific off Chiba Prefecture in February mistakenly believed there was no danger of collision as a forward group of boats, including the one it hit, was engaged in fishing operations and some were anchored there, Japan Coast Guard investigations showed Thursday.

The Coast Guard, based in Yokohama, has determined that the 7,750-ton Atago and the 7.3-ton Seitoku Maru were on a "collision course," in which both vessels could see the other making no move, although they actually were approaching, Coast Guard sources said.

Given the circumstances, the Coast Guard suspects that the MSDF destroyer did not undertake sufficient surveillance and fell behind in awareness of the danger of collision, according to the sources.

The Coast Guard is planning to send papers on the 35-year-old chief navigator, who was duty officer, and the 35-year-old officer to whom he handed over duty, to prosecutors as early as mid-June on suspicion they neglected continuous surveillance and appropriate duty handover.

The two fishermen on the Seitoku Maru -- Haruo Kichisei, 58, and his 23-year-old son Tetsuhiro -- went missing in the Feb. 19 collision and were declared dead May 20.

Japan defense minister to attend security talks in Singapore

May 29 06:56 AM US/Eastern

TOKYO, May 29 (AP) - (Kyodo)—Japanese Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba will leave for Singapore on Friday to attend international security talks and meet with his U.S. counterpart Robert Gates as well as other officials, Defense Ministry officials said Thursday.

Photo: Japanese Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba

Ishiba plans to make a speech Saturday at a plenary session of the three-day Shangri-La Dialogue organized by the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a British think tank, the officials said.

Ishiba and Gates are expected to meet Saturday on the sidelines of the event to discuss issues including the ongoing realignment of U.S. military facilities in Japan.

Ishiba will also meet with British Defense Secretary Des Browne and Australian Defense Minister Joel Fitzgibbon among his other counterparts Sunday, the officials said.

Retired teacher again found guilty in 'Kimigayo' case

May 29 04:35 AM US/Eastern

TOKYO, May 29 (AP) - (Kyodo) — The Tokyo High Court on Thursday upheld a lower court ruling that found a retired high school teacher guilty of disturbing a graduation ceremony by urging parents to remain seated during the singing of the "Kimigayo" anthem.

Photo: Appeals court ruling "unfair ruling" the banner states. May 29 afternoon, the Tokyo High Court in Kasumigaseki.

Katsuhisa Fujita, 67, had appealed against the Tokyo District Court ruling in May 2006 of a 200,000 yen fine, saying he had been exercising his constitutionally guaranteed right of expression and that he was indicted to serve as a politically-motivated warning.

He was accused of telling parents attending the graduation ceremony at the Tokyo metropolitan-run Itabashi High School on March 11, 2004, that the ceremony was "abnormal" as "teachers will be punished if they do not stand up and sing 'Kimigayo.'"

He had worked at the high school until his retirement in March 2002, and was invited to the graduation ceremony as a former faculty member.

Gates stops in Guam en route to Asia

May 29 03:38 AM US/Eastern

US Defense Secretary Robert Gates arrived Thursday in the tiny Pacific territory of Guam, ahead of an Asian tour featuring an annual regional security conference in Singapore.

Gates touched down at Guam's Andersen air force base at 3:30 pm (0530 GMT), one day before he heads to Singapore for the Shangri-la Dialogue, bringing together top officials and experts from the Asia-Pacific through Sunday.

The US defense secretary will then head to Thailand and South Korea.

Guam, a US territory since 1898, is currently home to about 6,000 military personnel, but will soon become an even more important US base, with the relocation of about 8,000 Marines from Japan's Okinawa island by 2014.

"That will more than double the US military presence on the island," Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell told reporters travelling with Gates.

The troop transfer is part of the US military's worldwide realignment of bases and was meant to ease opposition to the US presence in Okinawa, which now hosts half of the 40,000 US troops in Japan.

Japan is footing most of the bill for the troop transfer, Morrell said, calling Guam an "operating hub from which our forces can project strength throughout the Pacific."

Bill submitted to provide benefits to Korea, Taiwan war criminals

May 29 02:25 AM US/Eastern

TOKYO, May 29 (AP) - (Kyodo) — Japan's main opposition Democratic Party of Japan on Thursday submitted a bill aimed at providing 3 million yen, or about US$28,700, each in special benefits to Koreans and Taiwanese convicted of Class B and C war crimes at the Tokyo war crimes tribunals.

The party submitted the bill to the House of Representatives, the lower chamber of the bicameral Diet. It is not immediately known whether the measure can be enacted during the current 150-day regular parliamentary session that runs through June 15.

The DPJ will call on other parties to support the bill and is ready to revise it if required, party members said.

DPJ lower house member Kenta Izumi, who proposed the bill, told reporters the bill would cover 321 people -- 148 from the Korean Peninsula and 173 from Taiwan. Both the Korean Peninsula and Taiwan were under Japan's colonial rule until its 1945 defeat in World War II.

The bill would allow relatives to apply for the special benefit if a convicted person has died.

In 2006, South Korea recognized Korean war criminals as victims of war, paving the way for them and their relatives to appear in public. But many of the war criminals are accused of collaboration with Japan.

At the Tokyo war crimes tribunals, more than 5,000 people, mainly Japanese nationals, were accused of war crimes in three categories -- crimes against peace (Class A), ordinary war crimes (Class B) and crimes against humanity (Class C).

Many Koreans and Taiwanese were punished as Class B or C criminals for joining the Imperial Japanese Army or Navy or serving as civilian employees of the Japanese military.

Meanwhile, Lee Hak Rae, 83, leader of Doshinkai, a group of 50 former Korean war criminals, told a news conference at the Diet on Thursday that he is deeply impressed with the measure and that he earnestly wants the bill to pass through the Diet.

At the war crimes tribunals, Lee received a prison sentence for serving as a guard at an internment camp in Thailand.

"I was punished as a Japanese war criminal. It's extremely unreasonable for me to be unable to receive compensation because I am not Japanese any more," he said.

Lee was one of the plaintiffs who filed a suit in 1991 demanding that the Japanese government apologize and pay compensation to Koreans who were punished as war criminals for serving as civilian employees of the Japanese military.

But the Supreme Court rejected the suit in 1999.

Gov't nominates Keio Univ. Prof. Ikeo as BOJ board member

May 29 02:14 AM US/Eastern

TOKYO, May 29 (AP) - (Kyodo) — The government on Thursday nominated Kazuhito Ikeo, a Keio University economics professor, as a member of the Bank of Japan's Policy Board and asked the Diet to approve the nomination.

It made the nomination along with that of Shunichi Nagata for his appointment as governor of the Deposit Insurance Corp. of Japan at a meeting of representatives from the lower and upper houses of the parliament.

The nominations subject to Diet approval came two days behind schedule, after their leakage to the press before their announcement angered Takeo Nishioka, chairman of the House of Councillors Committee on Rules and Administration, from the Democratic Party of Japan.

The ruling and opposition parties agreed last fall that the opposition side would not accept nomination proposals if nominees' names are leaked to the press beforehand.

Nishioka agreed to hold the Thursday meeting for the nominations after Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka Machimura admitted the government's fault regarding the leakage as media cited government sources.

At the meeting, Machimura apologized for embarrassing the Diet with the leakage and pledged efforts to prevent any such leakage in the future. Takashi Sasagawa, Nishioka's House of Representatives counterpart from the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, asked the government to be more careful in this regard.

The Diet representatives agreed that Ikeo will give a policy speech at the lower house committee next Tuesday morning and at the upper house committee in the afternoon.

The DPJ, the largest Japanese opposition group, has set a meeting for next Wednesday to consider whether to approve the two nominations as well as 23 others presented Tuesday.

The 55-year-old Ikeo, if approved by both chambers of the Diet, will take one of the nine seats at the central bank's interest rate-setting committee.

The BOJ's Policy Board normally consists of the governor, two deputy governors and six other members, who are picked widely from the private sector and academia.

But at present the decision-making body lacks two members -- a deputy governor and a board member -- as a result of recent political wrangling between the ruling coalition dominating the lower house and the opposition camp controlling the upper house.

Nagata, 64, was formerly a Finance Ministry bureaucrat. His term of office at the DIC is due to expire in late June.

Gates Begins Asia Swing Focusing on Regional Security

By Donna Miles
American Forces Press Service

EN ROUTE TO GUAM, May 28, 2008 – Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates today kicked off a six-day swing through the Western Pacific that includes a keynote address at the 7th annual International Institute of Strategic Studies’ Asia Security Summit in Singapore.

The visit, which also will take the secretary to Guam, Thailand and South Korea, will underscore the United States’ enduring presence in and commitment to the region, a senior defense official traveling with Gates told reporters. It also will amplify the U.S. role in strengthening multilateral security cooperation.

The three-day security conference, known as the Shangri-La Dialogue after the hotel where it’s held, will bring together more than 20 major participants for what the official called “the big security fest in East Asia.”

Gates’ address at the first plenary session May 31 will set the stage for the next presidential administration, officials said. Pointing to the longstanding U.S. commitment, he will assure regional nations of continued commitment, regardless of who wins the U.S. general election.

The speech “transcends the immediate and looks at the enduring,” another official said on background.

Gates will recognize changes within the Asia-Pacific theater, including the emergence of China and India as powers.

The issue of China’s growing military power, and lack of transparency about it, will almost certainly arise, the official said.

But this year, discussions are expected to be less contentious than at past Shangri-La dialogues. That’s because the Defense Department released this year’s China Military Power report in early spring, rather than just before the conference as in 2006 and 2007, with unintended consequences, the official said.

“We did not want to step on Shangri-La and to set up this artificial confrontation atmosphere,” he said.

Gates is slated to meet with Chinese Lt. Gen. M.A. Xiatian, deputy chief of general staff for the People’s Liberation Army, during a “pull-aside,” an informal bilateral meeting during the conference.

The United States and China are moving toward more positive exchanges that transcend old Cold War paradigms, a State Department official traveling with Gates told reporters.

“This is not the competitive relationship of the Cold War,” he said. “We are really working together to create the conditions that will be beneficial for all of us and all of the residents of the Asian-Pacific zone.”

Gates will emphasize the strength of U.S. alliances and partnerships in maintaining regional security during the formal Shangri-La sessions, as well as the many bilateral and pull-aside sessions planned.

His keynote speech “will show very convincingly that the alliance structure that is out there is not some Cold War relic, not something that constricts or confines alliance partners, but is very facilitative, very enabling, and also very flexible,” an official said.

The United States is approaching security challenges in the region not only multilaterally, but also as a “whole of government,” the State Department official said.

“The face of American power projection in Asia these days isn’t just military. It’s not just diplomatic. It’s not just public diplomacy. It’s not just development assistance,” he said. “But it is really all of these things and more, woven together.

“And Secretary Gates has been an ardent advocate in our government back in Washington in making sure that we work and coordinate better as a government in projecting our power (and) in pursuing our security partnerships in Asia,” he said. “So not only do we have more foreign countries as partners, but we are also more integrated as a government in engaging with them.”

Examples of this cooperation – expected to be a focus at the Shangri-La conference – are ongoing humanitarian assistance missions in both Burma and China.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations has come up with a new plan to speed up the delivery of aid to Burma and is expected to seek support for it at the conference. “This will be a place where a lot of comment is being exchanged. It is very much the current issue,” an official said.

During Gates’ first stop of the trip, in Guam, he will witness the massive construction effort under way to prepare for the arrival of Marine forces being relocated from Okinawa.

An official traveling with Gates emphasized the importance of Guam, with its prime strategic location, its pro-military population and its status as a U.S. territory. “This is not just another base,” he said. “This is a place where you can project power from the continental United States and Hawaii -- ships, aircraft and land troops as well.”

But increasingly, Guam is emerging as a node for multilateral security cooperation in Southeast Asia, and for alliance transformation in Northeast Asia, the official said. “It is integral to the force posture transformation,” he said.

Filipina victim files rape case against American soldier in Japan

Thursday, May 29, 2008 02:55 PM

The Filipina rape victim has filed a case with the US military authorities in Okinawa, Japan against the American serviceman who allegedly raped her, the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) said.

DFA Office of Migrant Workers Affair Executive Director Crescente Relacion said the DFA received a report that the documents for the case against the US military personnel are now with the US military authorities.

"We just learned this morning that the documents for the case are now filed with US military authorities in Okinawa and we are just waiting for the decision of the military authorities whether they will entertain it or not,” Relacion said in a press briefing.

The DFA instructed the Philippine Embassy in Tokyo to ask for a reinvestigation of the case in the Prosecutor’s Office following the dismissal of the rape case last May 15.

The Home Office also instructed the embassy to ask the Filipina’s Japanese lawyer to look into the possibility of filing a case with the US military authorities in Okinawa.--Pia Lee Brago

Bill to reform Japan's public service system passes lower house

May 29 12:53 AM US/Eastern

TOKYO, May 29 (AP) - (Kyodo) — Legislation to reform Japan's public service system, beset by bureaucratic sectionalism and other problems, passed the House of Representatives Thursday, paving the way for its enactment during the ongoing Diet session.

Photo: Yoshimi Watanabe, Minister of State for Financial Services and Administrative Reform, smiles after the passage of the civil service reform plan in the House of Representatives on May 29.

Under the bill, the Cabinet would conduct across-the-board management of personnel affairs of senior ministry and agency officials. The chief Cabinet secretary will make a draft plan, rather than the Cabinet ministers currently in charge of it.

The bill passed a lower house plenary session with majority approval of the ruling coalition of the Liberal Democratic Party and New Komeito party, the main opposition Democratic Party of Japan and others.

It will be sent to the opposition-controlled House of Councillors and is expected to pass the chamber for enactment.

Whether the bill would pass the Diet has been a focal point as the ongoing session heads toward its end on June 15.

The ruling parties and the DPJ agreed Wednesday to revise the original bill submitted by the government, and seek the passage of the revised one during the Diet session.

Funeral held for 2 fishermen lost in collision with destroyer

May 29 12:09 AM US/Eastern

CHIBA, Japan, May 29 (AP) - (Kyodo) — Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and Maritime Self-Defense Force Chief of Staff Adm. Keiji Akahoshi were among the mourners at a funeral Thursday for two fishermen who were lost after their small fishing boat collided with an MSDF destroyer in February.

Photo: Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba answers questions from reporters before attending the funeral of Haruo Kichisei, 58, and his son Tetsuhiro, 23. May 29 afternoon, Chiba Prefecture. Katsuura City.

MSDF Captain Ken Funato, who was the skipper of the 7,750-ton destroyer Atago at the time of the collision, also attended the service for the two fishermen -- Haruo Kichisei, 58, and his son Tetsuhiro, 23.

Kichisei's relatives, fellow fishermen and their kin bade farewell to the two during the service held at a funeral hall in their hometown of Katsuura, Chiba Prefecture, about 100 kilometers east of Tokyo.

On May 20, the Japan Coast Guard declared them dead after more than three months had passed since they went missing in the Feb. 19 collision.

Photo: Funeral hall in Katsuura, Chiba Prefecture, about 100 kilometers east of Tokyo. May 29, morning.

Kichisei and his son were aboard the 7.3-ton fishing boat Seitoku Maru that sank after being hit by the Atago, which is equipped with the sophisticated Aegis air defense system.

They were not found despite a monthlong search by the Japan Coast Guard, the MSDF and fellow fishing boats.

Japan "Law on Space"

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Flexibility key for marines' Guam move: Rice

Thursday, May 29, 2008
By KAKUMI KOBAYASHI and SHOKO UEDA
Kyodo News

The top commander of the U.S. forces in Japan suggested last week that a more flexible approach by both the military and the Japanese government would help to achieve the planned relocation of a U.S. Marine Corps contingent to Guam from Okinawa by 2014.

Photo: Edward Rice

In an interview, Lt. Gen. Edward Rice also offered reassurance that no threat to safety is posed by the aircraft carrier USS George Washington, which from August is to make Yokosuka, Kanagawa Prefecture, its forward-deployed port, becoming the first nuclear-powered flattop based in Japan.

"The government of Guam, industry partners, the U.S. military and the government of Japan are working to determine how we can think creatively about how to make this work," Rice said, referring to the marine relocation plan, a key item in a Japan-U.S. agreement on the reorganization of U.S. forces in Japan.

"There are needs to continue to be flexible all round to complete this," said Rice, who served as commander of the 13th Air Force on Guam in 2005.

The remarks came after the U.S. Government Accountability Office warned earlier this month that the planned relocation of marines to Guam from Okinawa could be delayed, citing the new host's poor infrastructure and both governments' fiscal burdens.

"There may be restrictions in place in terms of who can come to Guam to do the work. The government of Guam might be able to be more flexible" about whom they allow to come in to do the work, Rice said, without elaborating.

He also denied the U.S. side can meet a request by Okinawa to slightly redesign the plan to build a relocation facility in Nago for the U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma in Ginowan. The marine relocation is contingent on the completion of the new air base by the target year.

"It's very easy to fall into the thinking that a small change in one place won't affect the rest of the program. It's our view that a small change can very well affect the rest of the program," Rice, 52, said.

Referring to the planned deployment of the George Washington to replace the USS Kitty Hawk, Rice said, "I'm absolutely confident that we will operate this ship safely."

The city of Yokosuka supports the George Washington deployment, but some citizens are opposed or are calling for more disclosure of information about the nuclear-powered ship, citing safety concerns.

There is "not one single incident of release of radioactivity or an environmental issue" with nuclear-powered vessels of the U.S. Navy in 40 years, Rice said.

"Sometimes it isn't well understood this isn't just about defending against an attack on Japan, it's about regional stability that underpins the economic prosperity of Japan," he said.

Kitty Hawk heads to retirement

Thursday, May 29, 2008

YOKOSUKA, Kanagawa Pref. (Kyodo) The aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk, the U.S. Navy's last conventionally powered flattop, set sail Wednesday for the United States, ending its nearly 10-year mission in Japan.

Photo: Goodbye Kitty: Crew members form the word sayonara on the deck of the USS Kitty Hawk in Yokosuka, Kanagawa Prefecture, on Wednesday.

Replacing the Kitty Hawk in August will be the nuclear-powered George Washington.

Shortly before 9 a.m., the 82,000-ton Kitty Hawk slowly pulled away from the wharf in Yokosuka, Kanagawa Prefecture, pushed by two tugboats. Hundreds of people, including elementary and junior high school students from the U.S. naval base, were on hand to say farewell.

Some of the Kitty Hawk crew formed the word sayonara in block letters on the gray deck.

The 47-year-old Kitty Hawk is expected to be decommissioned next year.

The Kitty Hawk has played a "memorable role ensuring the peace of Northeast Asia" since being deployed to Yokosuka in 1998, U.S. Ambassador Thomas Schieffer told a ceremony at the wharf.

Lower House panel-OK'd bill lets Cabinet manage public servants

Thursday, May 29, 2008
Kyodo News

A House of Representatives panel approved a bill Wednesday aimed at reforming the public servant system, including giving the Cabinet across-the-board management of personnel affairs involving senior ministry and agency officials.

The move came after the Liberal Democratic Party-New Komeito ruling coalition and the Democratic Party of Japan, the main opposition force, agreed earlier in the day to revise the original bill submitted by the government and seek the latest legislation's passage during the ongoing Diet session.

The revised bill, which the three parties jointly submitted to the Lower House Cabinet Committee on Wednesday, is expected to clear a Lower House plenary session Thursday and be sent to the opposition-controlled House of Councilors for deliberations.

The revised bill calls for creation of a Cabinet personnel bureau at the Cabinet Secretariat. Currently, each ministry controls such personnel affairs.

The revised bill, however, killed an earlier plan to set disciplinary rules on direct contact between politicians and bureaucrats to prevent collusion. The final version of the bill instead requires "documenting such contacts" and "ensuring disclosure" of such information.

Many lawmakers in both the ruling and opposition camps were against disciplinary steps, saying it would make it difficult for politicians to gather information from bureaucrats.

The revised bill was worked out by accepting the DPJ's idea in many aspects.

LDP Diet affairs chief Tadamori Oshima welcomed that the ruling and opposition parties were able to "find a common ground in the divided Diet."

Prime ministers in trouble

Thursday, May 29, 2008
By HUGH CORTAZZI

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda face a sea of troubles. Neither looks likely to keep his job long enough to make a significant contribution to solving the problems in Britain or in Japan.

When Brown succeeded Tony Blair last year as prime minister, much was expected of him. While some observers were not impressed by his record as finance minister, his supporters argued that he had brought Britain a decade of economic stability and prosperity. Though criticized as a dour bully with a clunking fist, at least he would be decisive and would not attempt to copy Blair by spinning away problems.

Unfortunately, while he seemed to start his stint as prime minister last summer dealing competently with unprecedented floods, he soon began to flounder and dither. First was the problem of the mortgage lender Northern Rock, which had to be rescued by the Bank of England at a considerable potential cost to taxpayers. This holed his reputation for economic competence.

Then, early last autumn — when Labour was still ahead in the opinion polls — he let it be known he was toying with the idea of calling an early general election. But he backed off and instead encouraged Alistair Darling, whom he had appointed finance minister, to adopt some opposition tax proposals. He failed to capitalize on these measures by fiddling around and complicating them.

Even more damaging was his handling of the abolition of the 10p (10 percent) tax band in order to lower the headline main rate of income tax from 22 percent to 20 percent. His government failed to recognize that the losers would include less well-off earners who formed one of the party's main supporting groups.

The Labour Party rebelled, and to buy off the rebels in the hope that it would save the party's candidate in an important by-election, the government produced an expensive set of temporary tax concessions. They lost the by-election and their fumbling lost them much popular support.

In foreign affairs Brown has tried hard to have it both ways. Not a fan of the European Union, he decided to go to Lisbon to sign the treaty but at a different time from other heads of government. At first it was rumored that he would go to Beijing for the opening of the Olympic Games, but when China's treatment of dissent in Tibet aroused popular concerns Brown said it had always been his intention of going to the closing ceremony. He received the Olympic flame in Downing Street, but let it be known that he had not touched it. He would not meet the Dalai Lama at Downing Street, but did so at Lambeth Palace, the residence of the Archbishop of Canterbury. The British media and public were not impressed.

There have been calls for Brown to resign, but there is no obvious successor and there are real doubts about whether a change of leader so soon after his takeover from Blair last year would help the Labour Party. Brown does not have to call an election until 2010. He blames his present problems on the American mortgage crisis and claims probably fairly that he cannot do anything about rising oil and food prices.

Like Charles Dickens' Mr. Micawber in "David Copperfield," he blames circumstances beyond his control and hopes something will turn up.

Fukuda took over from Prime Minister Shinzo Abe soon after Brown succeeded Blair. There was much hope that he would manage to save the Liberal Democratic Party from its own mistakes. He seemed to begin well with an improvement in relations with China, but it seems from abroad that it has been all downhill since last autumn.

The appointment of a new Bank of Japan governor was fumbled in ways that make Brown seem almost decisive. Having failed at his first try, Fukuda mishandled the second, reminding some of Lady Bracknell's comment in "The Importance of Being Earnest": "To lose one parent, Mr. Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness."

Fukuda has vowed to ensure that road-tax receipts will be allocated to general revenue. Yet his government has overridden the Upper House and forced through a bill to extend by 10 years the earmarking of road taxes for road construction, presumably to satisfy the road construction lobby in the Liberal Democratic Party.

It also appears that the necessary economic reforms, which former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi began, have been put on hold in deference to the lobbyists who care more about their selfish interests than those of the country as a whole. We suffered under Blair from what was termed "sofa government" because decisions were taken by a small coterie around the prime minister's sofa without proper records being kept.

It is reported that Fukuda likes to do government business via his mobile telephone. If true, this must make the jobs of civil servants a nightmare. Fukuda does not want to call an early election as he no doubt feels that the LDP would lose seats. The opposition party has few persuasive alternatives, but as in Britain the feeling that Japan needs a change must surely be growing.

Fukuda probably hopes, like Brown, that something will turn up. He also hopes that July's Group of Eight meeting in Hokkaido will boost his prestige. Perhaps, too, he believes that a Cabinet reshuffle will help him with the electorate. But the British experience is that reshuffles don't impress the public for long, if at all. As in Britain, there does not seem to be any obvious alternative leader in Japan who can successfully rally support for the government.

It is depressing that our two countries should both be stuck with such disappointing leaders.

Hugh Cortazzi, a former British career diplomat, served as ambassador to Japan from 1980 to 1984.

PUTTING OUR ALLIES FIRST / U.S.-Japan ties bedrock of Asian peace

John McCain and Joseph Lieberman / Special to The Yomiuri Shimbun

The U.S.-Japan alliance has been the indispensable anchor of peace, prosperity and freedom in the Asia-Pacific for more than 60 years, and its importance will only grow in the years ahead. Deepening cooperation, consultation and coordination between Washington and Tokyo is the key to meeting the collective challenges that both of our nations face--from nuclear proliferation to climate change--and to advancing our common interest in building a safer, better world for all of our citizens.

In many respects, the U.S.-Japan alliance has never been stronger. Polls consistently show deep support for the alliance among Americans and Japanese alike. Our security partnership has grown in leaps and bounds in recent years, measured in terms of interoperability, technology-sharing, and joint exercises. And we are deeply grateful for the continuing contributions that Japanese forces have made to the international fight against terrorism.

Rather than resting on the gains we have achieved, however, the next U.S. president must work with our Japanese allies to build on them. In particular, in a swiftly changing Asia, it is critical that our alliance must be founded and focused on a shared vision of the future. We must ask ourselves what our two nations, as equal partners, want to accomplish together in the world, and then how we can modernize our alliance and its capabilities in order to advance the interests and values we share.

Some of the challenges we face together are already apparent. With respect to North Korea, for example, former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi was right: We must bring both dialogue and pressure to bear on Pyongyang. We have the right framework in the six-party talks and the right tools in the U.N. Security Council resolution passed after North Korea's 2006 nuclear test, as well as the U.S.-Japan-South Korea trilateral coordination group. Now we must use those tools to press for the full, complete, and verifiable declaration, disablement and dismantlement of North Korea's nuclear weapons programs--goals already agreed upon by the six parties.

Future talks must also prioritize North Korea's ballistic missile programs, its abduction of Japanese citizens, and its human rights record. Whatever our other strategic priorities, these objectives are important to our allies, and thus they must be of importance to us. The president of the United States must never forget that hundreds of thousands of North Koreans languish in gulags, and that families in Japan and South Korea await the return of their loved ones, abducted by North Korea. We cannot turn our back on them.

The United States and Japan must also work closely together with regard to China--not to contain or isolate Beijing, but to ensure its peaceful integration as a responsible stakeholder in the international system. In fact, it is precisely by strengthening our alliance and deepening our cooperation that Japan and the United States can lay the necessary groundwork for more durable, stable, and successful relations with China.

Another priority of the next U.S. President must be to expand the United States' economic relationships in Asia and build the case at home and abroad for an open, inclusive system of international trade. Unfortunately, in what has become an all-too-predictable pattern, some U.S. politicians--including the two Democratic candidates for president--are preying on the fears stoked by Asia's dynamism; rather than encouraging U.S. innovation and entrepreneurship, they instead propose throwing up protectionist walls that will leave us all worse off.

This kind of protectionism is profoundly irresponsible. The United States has never won respect or created jobs by retreating from free trade, and we cannot start doing so now.

Ultimately, the enduring strength of the United States' alliance with Japan is rooted not just in a set of shared interests, but in the bedrock of shared values. Thanks to the success of Japan's democracy, numerous other nations across Asia have been inspired to follow in its path. In fact, more people live under democratic government in Asia today than in any other region of the world. Japan is a major reason why.

Japan's leaders have spoken eloquently about the importance of democracy in Asia. India's prime minister has called liberal democracy "the natural order of social and political organization in today's world."

We agree. No nation or culture holds a monopoly on the insight that all men and women are created equal and endowed with certain inalienable rights. These are not only universal truths; they are also the indispensable bedrock for the shared prosperity and stability we all desire.

That is precisely why the United States and Japan have a clear interest in enshrining these norms and values at the center of our international system. It is also why the great Pacific democracies--Japan, the United States, Australia, India and others--have a clear interest in increasing their cooperation wherever possible to create a regional architecture that favors freedom.

Strengthening the U.S.-Japan alliance is going to demand strong, courageous, and innovative leadership from Tokyo and Washington alike. We hope and expect to have a partner in Japan that is willing to assume a role in international affairs that reflects its political, economic, and self-defense capacities, and that is willing to think creatively and ambitiously about strategic issues. We likewise hope and expect to have a partner in Japan that is confident enough in its competitiveness to advance economic reform at home and more expansive trade liberalization in the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum and the Doha Round.

For all of these reasons, we welcome Japan's emergence as a global power, encourage its effective diplomacy, and support its bid for permanent membership in the U.N. Security Council.

The United States in turn must itself be a responsible, reliable ally to Japan, and a good global citizen. We must take much more seriously our responsibility to address our contribution to climate change, for instance, if we are to persuade others to take seriously their responsibilities to do the same.

U.S. power does not mean we can do whatever we want, whenever we want. On the contrary, our position in Asia has been strongest when we have listened to our friends and put our alliances first. If we are to ask more of each other, we must also pay greater attention to each other's concerns and goals.

This spirit of mutual respect and trust is essential to our alliances with Japan--trust in the reliability of our security commitments, trust in the integrity of our economic promises, and trust in the consistency of our principles. Renewing these commitments can provide the basis for a new century of shared prosperity, security, and freedom for the United States and Japan alike.

McCain, a U.S. senator representing Arizona, is seeking the Republican party nomination for U.S. president. Lieberman is an independent U.S. senator representing Connecticut and a former vice-presidential candidate for the Democratic party.

(May. 29, 2008)

Kato: Japan-U.S. relationship key

Aya Igarashi / Yomiuri Shimbun Correspondent

WASHINGTON--Japanese Ambassador to the United States Ryozo Kato has returned to Japan after completing his 6-1/2-year posting, the longest ever for an envoy to Washington.

During a recent interview with The Yomiuri Shimbun, Kato, who will become Nippon Professional Baseball commissioner, talked about the shift in the Japan-U.S. relationship and his perspective on the future of Japan-U.S. ties.

Photo: Japanese Ambassador to the United States Ryozo Kato

Comparing his mission as a diplomat to baseball, Kato said: "I'm not a cleanup hitter but rather the second batter, who is good at fielding. As a team manager, I always tried to do my best to facilitate players to show their true abilities at the right moment."

"The Japan-U.S. relationship has strengthened and Japan received more favorable recognition--mainly as a result of taking the initiative in the fight against terrorism," he added.

Talking about his efforts to build personal connections in the United States, Kato said: "I think the key is to be a Japanese with the strongest affection for our own country. You wouldn't be respected if you kowtowed to the U.S."

Talking more about the bilateral relationship, Kato said: "We need ceaseless management to maintain our alliance. For example, it's good if the U.S. military and Japan's Self-Defense Force officials in charge would have more meetings or dinners together if needed. But it would be meaningless if they didn't use the time to flesh out specifics of important issues--including a possible system to preserve confidentiality of national defense-related information, discussing deterrence against war, as well as specific operational plans."

Some experts are concerned that the Japan-U.S. relationship would worsen if the Democratic Party, which is thought to favor stronger ties with China, takes the reins of power of the U.S. government. Both nations have enjoyed good relations under the current administration of Republican President George W. Bush.

Asked about such concerns, Kato told the Yomiuri, "I'm optimistic about it."

Explaining why, Kato added, "Sen. Barack Obama is the only politician who delivered very meaningful speeches about the bilateral relationship with Japan ahead of the respective U.S. visits of [former] Prime Minister [Shinzo] Abe and Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda. Obama's a very pragmatic person.

"Whoever will become the U.S. president, it's important that Japan remain a nation that is not negligible, I believe."

(May. 29, 2008)

McCain outlines Asia strategy

Aya Igarashi / Yomiuri Shimbun Correspondent

WASHINGTON--U.S. Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Republican Party nominee in the upcoming U.S. presidential election, discusses his intention to make relations with Japan and other allies in Asia his highest priority if elected president, in an essay written for The Yomiuri Shimbun.

In the essay, the 71-year-old senator from Arizona clearly distinguished his position from that of the Democratic Party's policy of emphasizing the connection between the United States and China more than that with Japan.

In the essay "Putting Our Allies First," written together with Sen. Joseph Lieberman, McCain outlines the diplomatic strategy for Asia he hopes to implement should he win the 2008 presidential election.

In the essay, McCain and Lieberman describe the alliance between Japan and the United States as "the indispensable anchor of peace, prosperity and freedom in the Asia-Pacific for more than 60 years," adding "its importance will only grow in the years ahead."

McCain and Lieberman also outline what they expect from Japan: "We hope and expect to have a partner in Japan that is willing to assume a role in international affairs that reflects its political, economic and self-defense capacities, and that is willing to think creatively and ambitiously about strategic issues."

Finally, the two express their support for Japan's bid to become a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council.

It is the first time McCain has expressed his diplomatic strategy for Asia since March, when he gained enough delegates to secure the Republican nomination when the party holds its convention in September. Lieberman was the Democratic vice presidential nominee in 2000 and unsuccessfully sought the party's nomination for president in 2004. He was reelected to the Senate as an independent in 2006 and endorsed McCain for president in December. His name is being bandied about as a possible choice for U.S. secretary of state if McCain wins the presidential election.
(May. 29, 2008)

McCain outlines Asia strategy

Aya Igarashi / Yomiuri Shimbun Correspondent

WASHINGTON--U.S. Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Republican Party nominee in the upcoming U.S. presidential election, discusses his intention to make relations with Japan and other allies in Asia his highest priority if elected president, in an essay written for The Yomiuri Shimbun.

In the essay, the 71-year-old senator from Arizona clearly distinguished his position from that of the Democratic Party's policy of emphasizing the connection between the United States and China more than that with Japan.

In the essay "Putting Our Allies First," written together with Sen. Joseph Lieberman, McCain outlines the diplomatic strategy for Asia he hopes to implement should he win the 2008 presidential election.

In the essay, McCain and Lieberman describe the alliance between Japan and the United States as "the indispensable anchor of peace, prosperity and freedom in the Asia-Pacific for more than 60 years," adding "its importance will only grow in the years ahead."

McCain and Lieberman also outline what they expect from Japan: "We hope and expect to have a partner in Japan that is willing to assume a role in international affairs that reflects its political, economic and self-defense capacities, and that is willing to think creatively and ambitiously about strategic issues."

Finally, the two express their support for Japan's bid to become a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council.

It is the first time McCain has expressed his diplomatic strategy for Asia since March, when he gained enough delegates to secure the Republican nomination when the party holds its convention in September. Lieberman was the Democratic vice presidential nominee in 2000 and unsuccessfully sought the party's nomination for president in 2004. He was reelected to the Senate as an independent in 2006 and endorsed McCain for president in December. His name is being bandied about as a possible choice for U.S. secretary of state if McCain wins the presidential election.

(May. 29, 2008)

Fukuda catalyst for reform bill progress

Kohei Kobayashi and Kazuki Nishihara / Yomiuri Shimbun Staff Writers

Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda's strong determination to move forward on civil service reform turned the tide to help make a bill to reform the nation's civil service system likely pass the Diet.

Along with Fukuda's push, the measure benefited from the ruling and opposition parties reaching the political judgement that it would be better to reach an agreement and avoid being blamed for the failure of the reform.

The bill to reform the public service personnel system passed the House of Representatives Committee with support from both the Liberal Democratic Party-New Komeito ruling bloc and the opposition Democratic Party of Japan as all agreed on amendments to the initial bill proposed by the government.

It was initially thought the legislation would not progress during the current Diet session due to strong conflict over the issue between the ruling parties and the DPJ.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka Machimura stressed at a press conference Tuesday evening that the ruling bloc agreed on the amendments earlier in the day to the bill at Fukuda's initiative.

"Fukuda has expressed his strong determination to pass the bill and exercised strong leadership within the party for that purpose," Machimura said. "I welcome [the agreement] because it helped realize the prime minister's hope."

Indeed, it was the prime minister's strong wishes pushed the ruling parties, which initially were reluctant to craft a compromise on the issue with the DPJ, to reach an agreement.

On the afternoon of May 15, Fukuda met LDP Diet Affairs Committee Chairman Tadamori Oshima and New Komeito counterpart Yoshio Urushibara, asking for their help to pass the bill during the current Diet session.

The meeting prompted the ruling bloc to accelerate working-level talks.

In addition, Hidenao Nakagawa, former LDP secretary general, said that without compromise with the DPJ, the ruling parties would unavoidably face criticism that they bungled the bill.

Since early this month, Fukuda also has indicated the importance of taking the first step forward in civil service reform even if the bill needed to be amended, according to sources close to the prime minister.

Fukuda is believed to have wanted to make a good impression amid the unusual political situation in which the lower house is dominated by the ruling bloc while the House of Councillors is controlled by the opposition parties.

According to the sources, he even requested a senior member of the Japanese Trade Union Confederation, one of the DPJ's supporters, to exercise his influence over the DPJ.

The bill, amended in response to Fukuda's lobbying efforts, reflects nearly all of what the DPJ has suggested, except for prohibiting amakudari--the appointing of senior bureaucrats to postretirement jobs related to the sectors they formerly oversaw.

Because the revised bill had no clause regulating lawmakers contact with bureaucrats, which was strongly opposed by members of the ruling parties, the ruling bloc found it easier to accept the bill.

However, despite the ruling and opposition parties' agreement, the bill only formulates basic outlines of the reform for the next five years, without addressing the necessity to revise related laws, including the National Civil Service Law and the Cabinet Law, to fully achieve the legislation's goals.

Therefore, further confrontation between the ruling bloc and DPJ remains likely over the revision of the laws in the future.

===

Ruling bloc 'swallows' DPJ ideas

The DPJ reversed its initial stance against the reform bill because it also "wanted to avoid being blamed by the government and ruling bloc for the failure of the reform," a senior DPJ member said.

DPJ Secretary General Yukio Hatoyama initially criticized the bill drawn up by the government, saying: "It contains no regulation to address amakudari. So it merely results in the continuation of the practice."

However, other DPJ members involved in policymaking had different thoughts on the reform. "We have to draw up a better reform bill because only central government bureaucrats will be pleased with its failure," said Jun Azumi, deputy chairman of the DPJ Diet Affairs Committee.

As the next general election appears increasingly unlikely to be held in the near future, DPJ members apparently judged that it would be better to raise the issue of amakudari again immediately before the election, instead of just opposing the government-initiated bill by sticking to standard party policy positions.

DPJ members also believed that they would be able to provoke the LDP by voicing approval for the government's bill because there were likely a considerable number of LDP members who were reluctant to support the bill.

DPJ leader Ichiro Ozawa said: "The government bill is merely makeshift and low level. We have to overhaul the country's entire structure of government."

However, he allowed a DPJ party member handling the issue to decide whether to enter talks on amending the bill.

On Monday evening, senior DPJ members, including Ozawa, met and decided that the party would support the bill if they could amend it in a way they favored.

DPJ Diet Affairs Committee Chairman Kenji Yamaoka said, "Senior LDP officials in favor of representing [the interests of] bureaucrats and those close to the government attempted to water down the bill" between Monday night and Tuesday morning.

However, at working-level talks, the ruling bloc went along with almost everything the DPJ proposed, he said. As a result, agreement was reached.

On Tuesday evening, Yamaoka said at the DPJ headquarters building, "The ban on amakudari is what the DPJ must do after taking office. Except for that, I believe the party scored more than 90 out of 100 points [in terms of what it set out to accomplish with this bill]."

(May. 29, 2008)

US commander senses change in China attitude following quake

6:40 est

WASHINGTON (AFP) — A top US commander said Wednesday he sensed a change in the wind in China following a catastrophic earthquake that has prompted it to embrace outside help, even from the United States and Taiwan.

"We are recognizing the obvious," said Admiral Timothy Keating, head of the US Pacific Command. "China's reaction here, in the aftermath of this earthquake, is different than China's reaction has been to other natural disasters in China."

"While it is catastrophic and tragic, it nonetheless is an opportunity for us to improve, increase and improve the communications we have with officials in China. And that is beneficial, from our position," he told reporters here.

Keating spoke on the same day that China's President Hu Jintao met in Beijing with the leader of Taiwan's ruling party and promised to promote peaceful relations across the Taiwan Straits.

The red carpet reception at the Great Hall of the People was the highest level contact between Beijing and Taipei since Taiwan broke away from mainland China in 1949.

Asked whether he sensed a change in the wind in China, Keating said: "The short answer is yes."

"Now, I have to temper that. We're cautiously optimistic about all this, but, you know, and you all expect us to be a little bit conservative and reserved. And you want us to be prepared in case what we're seeing is a little bit tinted through rose-colored glasses," he said.

"But we are encouraged by the dialogue between the new government in Taiwan and the current government in the People's Republic of China. We're encouraged by Taiwan leaders' presence in China to offer assistance in relief aid to the earthquake victims.

"All of these are positive signs, in our view," he said.

The earthquake gave Keating the opportunity to use a recently installed defense hotline for the first time five days after the May 12 earthquake struck southwest China.

He communicated with a Chinese lieutenant general about the arrival of the first of several US Air Force C-17 aircraft carrying plastic sheeting, chain saws, generators, water and water purification units.

A Los Angeles Fire Department urban rescue team arrived on a more recent flight, he said.

Keating said there was a "night and day difference" between China's and Myanmar's response to international offers of assistance.

Myanmar's military junta has accepted international aid only in small amounts, frustrating US efforts to pour in relief from US warships off the country's coast.

"As it happens, the Chinese tell us they have ... what they think is sufficient material. It's bodies that they need to help, and they're throwing a lot of their military at this challenge," the admiral said.

"So there's a dramatic difference in the assistance China has requested and we've provided versus what Burma isn't looking for, but we're still ready to provide," he said. US officials use Myanmar's previous official name, Burma.

Keating said Chinese military and foreign ministry officials have been helpful in relaying messages to the Burmese explaining the US position.

The admiral's comments marked a change in tone for the US military, which over the past several years has insistently raised questions about China's intentions in rapidly modernizing its military.

Those concerns could come up again this weekend when US Defense Secretary Robert Gates addresses an annual Asian security conference in Singapore, but US defense officials suggest he will tread cautiously.

"They are making progress on the transparency front, it is slow, but it is improving," a defense official traveling with Gates said.

"US disaster relief operations in China shows that when a humanitarian disaster takes place we can cooperate, in fact closely," the official said.

Keating said he did not think the earthquake would have any impact on the country's military buildup.

But he, too, said there have been some signs of progress since China surprised the world in January 2007 by shooting down one of its own weather satellites in a test.

The United States followed in February 2008 by shooting down a satellite that was falling out of orbit.

Since then, Keating said, "we have had some relatively minor communication opportunities and some relatively minor exchange opportunities."

He said they "indicate to us an increased willingness to at least consider, if not engage, in opportunities that would be beneficial for a more thorough understanding of intent, and not just transparency."

Gates to restate US commitment in Asia

By LOLITA C. BALDOR
Associated Press Writer
Wed May 28, 3:12 PM ET

ABOARD A MILITARY AIRCRAFT - Defense Secretary Robert Gates will use a weeklong Asia trip to reinforce the United States' commitment to the region, amid rocky relations with China, struggles with North Korea, and unease among the smaller allied nations.

Even as the United States sends humanitarian aid to cyclone-devastated Myanmar and the earthquake victims in China, Asian nations worry that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have made it difficult for the Pentagon to give the Pacific region the attention it requires.

Photo: US Defense Secretary Robert Gates, seen here in April 2008, arrived Thursday in the tiny Pacific territory of Guam, ahead of an Asian tour featuring an annual regional security conference in Singapore.

"Everyone in the region recognizes that China is the huge new big player in all matters of Asian diplomacy, economics and military interactions," said Kurt Campbell, senior Asia analyst with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank. "The elephant in the room is the anxiety that many Asians feel — that we are preoccupied away from Asia during a period of enormous consequence."

While Gates has indeed focused on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, this will be his fourth lengthy trip to Asia during his 17 months as Pentagon chief. It is his second appearance at the Shangri-la Dialogue, a prestigious Asia-Pacific conference on international security.

In recent years Gates' predecessor, Donald Rumsfeld, used the forum to air U.S. criticism of China's military buildup, and to call for greater transparency by the communist giant. Gates, however, has been more conciliatory.

Senior defense and diplomatic officials traveling with Gates Wednesday said that China is making slow progress in shedding more light on the massive military expansion. And they said the Pentagon took specific steps this year to make this meeting less confrontational. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity in advance of Gates' speech to the conference.

In the last several years, the U.S. has released a highly critical report on China right before the Shangri-la conference. This year, officials purposely put the report out on time in March, to avoid that face-off.

This trip also comes just as the U.S. is providing earthquake relief to the Chinese, including sophisticated satellite imagery of the area.

That cooperation is in contrast to several other, more confrontational episodes. In March the U.S. military mistakenly delivered fuses for long-range missiles to Taiwan, triggering a strong protest from Beijing. China opposes U.S. military relations with the small self-governing island that Beijing has claimed as its own since the sides split amid civil war in 1949.

The U.S. and China were also at odds over Beijing's shootdown of its failed weather satellite last year, which rained debris down into the Earth's atmosphere. Beijing then criticized the U.S. three months ago when the Pentagon shot down its own defunct satellite, amid concerns it could pose a danger if it fell in a populated area.

Gates' first stop in the region is Guam — which typifies America's plans to keep up a long and robust presence in the Asian Pacific.

The U.S. military plans to move 8,000 Marines and their dependents to Guam from the southern Japanese island of Okinawa over the next decade. That move had triggered a construction boom, including a new wharf, accommodations for additional ships, and an Army missile defense facility.

A senior defense official said the installation at Guam would give the United States a power base in a critical part of the world.

Guam's strategic location in the Pacific gives the U.S. a critical base from which to reach other countries in the region.

Campbell, who heads CSIS' Center for a New American Security and previously served as a senior Asia policy adviser at the Pentagon, said Gates has worked to repair some of Asia's anxieties stemming from the Rumsfeld era.

"He has managed to regain trust and confidence, and also present a much more welcome set of missions and messages to the broader world," Campbell said, predicting that Gates "will attempt to reknit the United States back into the fraying, little bit anxious Asian order. And that will be important."

Gates also plans to visit South Korea and Thailand later in his trip.

The Pentagon report on China released earlier this year asserted that Beijing's reluctance to share details about its military buildup posed a risk to stability in Asia. It said the international community has limited knowledge of the motivations, decision-making and capabilities of China's military modernization.

Some estimates have put China's military spending last year at more than $45 billion. But Washington contends the total could be billions more.

Okinawa police holding two Americans

By David Allen and Hana Kusumoto, Stars and Stripes
Pacific edition, Thursday, May 28, 2008

CAMP FOSTER, Okinawa — Two American servicemembers were in Okinawa police custody Tuesday on separate alcohol-related charges.

According to Okinawa police, Airman 1st Class Malik Kareem Burchett, 26, was apprehended after allegedly exposing himself to a 28-year-old woman Friday night in Okinawa City. A charge of public indecency was forwarded Monday to the Naha Public Prosecutors Office.

Burchett, who had been drinking, claimed he was urinating when the woman walked by, a police spokesman said Tuesday. The woman told police the man had dropped his pants to his thighs as she approached.

In a separate incident, a 19-year-old Marine private first class was taken into custody on suspicion of breaking a window at Chubu Hospital in Okinawa City on Sunday night.

A police spokesman said the Marine, whose name was not released because he is considered a minor under Japanese law, was observed breaking a window with his fist by a hospital employee about 10:20 p.m. The Marine allegedly fled, but was later located and asked to come to the Okinawa City police station for questioning.

A police spokesman said the Marine had been drinking and claimed the incident was accidental. A charge of vandalism was expected to be forwarded to the prosecutor’s office.

US aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk ends mission in Japan

Wed May 28, 9:51 AM ET

YOKOSUKA, Japan (AFP) - The US aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk on Wednesday ended a decade in Japan, opening the way for a controversial nuclear-powered ship to replace it in August.

Photo: US sailors line up for a last farewell on board the USS Kitty Hawk from Yokosuka US Naval Base. The US aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk on Wednesday ended a decade in Japan, opening the way for a controversial nuclear-powered ship to replace it in August.

On a sunny morning, hundreds of people gathered in Yokosuka, a port on Tokyo Bay, to see off the only US aircraft carrier permanently deployed overseas.

As people on land waved and held up a farewell banner, sailors in white uniforms on the USS Kitty Hawk formed the shape of the Japanese word "Sayonara," or "Goodbye."

The aircraft carrier, which heads to Hawaii and will be retired, has been deployed here since 1998.

With a capacity to carry more than 5,000 crew, the Kitty Hawk's missions included deployment to the Arabian Sea in support of the US-led wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

"The Kitty Hawk contributed to the peace and stability of Japan and Asia for 10 years," said Yokosuka Mayor Ryoichi Kabaya. "I wish it a safe voyage as it completes its mission.

Japan has agreed to accept the Nimitz-class nuclear-powered USS George Washington in August to replace the Kitty Hawk, the US military's only diesel aircraft carrier.

The decision comes despite vocal opposition by some in Yokosuka. The aircraft carrier would be the first nuclear military hardware stationed in Japan.

Japan is the only nation to have been attacked with a nuclear weapon -- more than 210,000 people died when Hiroshima and Nagasaki were bombed by US forces in 1945.

Further concerns came last week when a fire broke out on the USS George Washington, injuring some two dozen sailors.

The new mother ship also comes in the wake of a series of crimes by US troops that have marred local sentiment, including the alleged murder of a taxi driver by a deserter from the Kitty Hawk.

The US military has said all its other aircraft carriers are now nuclear-powered and that East Asia's unpredictable security environment meant the most capable ships had to be deployed.

More than 40,000 US troops are based in the country under a security treaty reached after World War II, when Japan became officially pacifist.

Yokosuka has hosted US aircraft carriers -- the USS Midway, Independence and then the Kitty Hawk -- since 1973.

FOCUS: Fukuda's administration reeling after by-election defeat

Apr.28.2008 20:52
TOKYO, April 28 KYODO

Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda is seeing his administration reeling following his party's stinging defeat in Sunday's House of Representatives by-election, with his leadership in question and his hopes dashed for securing the latest popular mandate to survive this crucial period in his fight with the opposition parties.

Despite the strong public distrust shown in the election over current government policies, Fukuda fell short when asked on Monday if he will review an unpopular new health insurance system for the elderly. At the same time, he showed no willingness to compromise in his plan to restore gasoline and other road-related tax surcharges.

Fukuda's stance may further drag down his Cabinet approval rating, which has already fallen below the "danger" line of 30 percent in recent media polls, pundits say.

In the by-election held in Yamaguchi Prefecture's No.2 constituency, opposition Democratic Party of Japan candidate Hideo Hiraoka, 54, a former lower house member, defeated ruling Liberal Democratic Party candidate Shigetaro Yamamoto, 59, by a wide margin of more than 20,000 votes.

Admitting that it was "a complete defeat" for his LDP, Fukuda, who doubles as LDP president, told reporters on Monday, "I think we must recover from this (defeat) and steadily implement policies."

Government and ruling party members appeared to accept the outcome calmly, with a government source saying that he "was prepared" to face the defeat, while LDP Policy Research Council Chairman Sadakazu Tanigaki said Sunday, "It is important to unite and support the Fukuda Cabinet."

But voices have already emerged from within Fukuda's own turf that the by-election made clear that the bland 71-year-old prime minister cannot lead the LDP to win in the next crucial general election, which could possibly take place later in the year.

"We can't win unless we face the election with a new prime minister," said an LDP lawmaker elected in the 2005 general election, when the ruling coalition of the LDP and New Komeito party secured the powerful two-thirds majority it currently holds in the lower house under the popular then prime minister Junichiro Koizumi.

A local prefectural assembly member also criticized Fukuda's stump speech during the by-election campaign, saying that it sounded like he was "talking about somebody else's problem."

Although taking on a calm demeanor in front of reporters on Monday, Fukuda expressed his disappointment on Sunday night to LDP Secretary General Bummei Ibuki over the phone, saying "things don't seem to be going well," according to an LDP source.

"It's not your fault, Mr. Fukuda. You don't have to be concerned," Ibuki told him and Fukuda answered, "I've caused great trouble to you all," according to the source.

In the election, the DPJ apparently succeeded in its strategy to capture votes not only by calling for the complete abolishment of the road-related tax surcharges but by highlighting the negative aspects of a health insurance system for people aged 75 or older inaugurated April 1.

The system has triggered complaints and anger among the elderly over premium deductions from pension benefits and bureaucratic blunders.

On Monday, Fukuda said that he will "assess the reality" of the system. But when asked by reporters whether he will review it, he said, "It's too early to say so."

On the road tax, the ruling parties reaffirmed the same day their plan to resort to a revote in the lower house on Wednesday to win Diet approval of a tax code bill aimed at reinstating the tax surcharges.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka Machimura expressed hope that the government "can gain understanding from the public," but a government source said earlier that it is possible that "the Cabinet approval rating will further fall below the 20 percent line" following such a revote on Wednesday.

Wednesday is the earliest possible date for the ruling parties to take such a move in line with Constitutional provisions. Restoring the gasoline tax surcharge, about 25 yen per liter, will lead gasoline prices to rise and could trigger a public backlash when oil prices are already high.

Fukuda reiterated his stance that the failure to pass the bill would cause serious revenue shortfalls in state and local governments.

DPJ leader Ichiro Ozawa told a press conference Monday that the DPJ will decide on whether to submit a censure resolution against the prime minister in the opposition-controlled House of Councillors on May 12 or later when the ruling parties may resort to another revote to pass another bill related to the road tax.

Apparently acting on the defensive, Machimura stressed Monday that a censure motion will not affect the management of the administration even if it is approved in the chamber.

"There will be no changes on our side regarding the deliberation process of the bills or their contents," the top government spokesman said.

The motion would be nonbinding, but it would nonetheless be another blow to the government. In 1998, then Defense Agency chief Fukushiro Nukaga was forced to resign about a month after the upper house approved a censure resolution against him.

While the DPJ is expected to step up pressure on Fukuda to make him call for a snap general election, Fukuda is unlikely to risk it for fear of losing the current comfortable majority in the lower house amid his sluggish support ratings.

A senior ruling party member said that the general election will come "as close as possible" to the end of the lower house's current four-year term in September 2009.

The government source did not rule out the possibility of Fukuda resigning or dissolving the lower house even before the July Group of Eight summit, which Fukuda is eager to chair, but at the same time indicated that the current political stalemate may continue.

"I really can't tell what the situation will be in autumn. But, to begin with, there is no one to replace Mr. Fukuda in the LDP. When there is no alternative, it may be difficult for anyone to move to topple the administration," the source said.

==Kyodo

Gov't plans to nominate Keio Univ. prof. Ikeo as BOJ board member

May 28 07:16 AM US/Eastern

TOKYO, May 28 (AP) - (Kyodo)—The government plans to nominate Kazuhito Ikeo, an economics professor at Keio University, as a member of the Bank of Japan's policy board, government sources said Wednesday.

The government is expected to present Ikeo's nomination, together with the reappointment of Shunichi Nagata as the governor of the Deposit Insurance Corp. of Japan, to a joint meeting of party representatives at the upper and lower houses of the Diet Thursday morning, they said.

Takashi Sasagawa, chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on Rules and Administration from the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, and his House of Councillors counterpart, Takeo Nishioka, from the biggest opposition Democratic Party of Japan, confirmed that the nominations, which require parliamentary approval, will be discussed at the joint meeting.

On Tuesday, the government failed to propose the nominations as the names of Ikeo and Nagata were leaked to the press and reported beforehand, angering Nishioka.

Nishioka and other DPJ lawmakers remain opposed to the reported appointments of Ikeo and Nagata for their respective posts.

The 55-year-old Ikeo, if approved by both chambers of the Diet, will take one of the nine seats at the central bank's interest rate-setting committee.

The BOJ's Policy Board normally consists of the governor, two deputy governors and six other members, who are picked widely from the private sector and academia.

But now the decision-making body lacks two members as a result of recent political wrangling over the selection of the bank's executives.

Nagata, 64, is a former Ministry of Finance bureaucrat. His term of office at DIC is due to expire in late June.

Kitty Hawk leaves Japan for decommissioning

By ERIC TALMADGE
Associated Press Writer
Wed May 28, 6:54 AM ET

YOKOSUKA, Japan - The oldest active ship in the U.S. Navy, the USS Kitty Hawk aircraft carrier, made its final departure from Japan on Wednesday to be decommissioned after nearly half a century of service.

The Kitty Hawk, with sailors lining its decks, pulled away from Yokosuka port just south of Tokyo to the cheers of hundreds of schoolchildren and the sounds of brass bands.

Photo: U.S. navy sailors wave to bid farewell as their ship USS Kitty Hawk aircraft career leaves Yokosuka Naval Base, Japan, Wednesday, May 28, 2008. The ship made its final departure from Japan to be decommissioned after nearly half a century of service.

It flew the "Don't Tread on Me" flag, which designates it as the oldest ship in the Navy.

The Kitty Hawk, the last conventionally powered aircraft carrier in the Navy, is to be replaced later this summer by the USS George Washington, a nuclear-powered carrier.

After leaving Japan, the Kitty Hawk will make a stop at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii and then travel on to the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in Bremerton, Washington, to be decommissioned.

The ship, commissioned in 1961, became the first forward-deployed aircraft carrier in the Navy when it was assigned to Japan in 1998. It has since made 20 deployments in the western Pacific and participated in Operation Enduring Freedom in Iraq.

"Since it arrived in August 1998, the Kitty Hawk has been a visible symbol of strength in a rapidly changing world," U.S. Ambassador to Tokyo Thomas Schieffer said. "Goodbye Kitty Hawk, hello George Washington."

The Kitty Hawk and its battle group are the centerpiece of the 7th Fleet, the largest in the Navy, with 40 to 50 ships, 120 aircraft and about 20,000 sailors and Marines. Roughly 21 of the ships are based in Japan and the Pacific island of Guam, while the others rotate out of ports in Hawaii and the U.S. West Coast.

Along with the other 7th Fleet ships, the battle group in Yokosuka, once a major Imperial Japanese Navy hub, has a huge area of responsibility — covering 52 million square miles of the Pacific and Indian oceans, from the international dateline to the east coast of Africa.

Japan's leadership strongly backs the U.S. military presence in the country, and says the more than 50,000 U.S. troops in Japan are a stabilizing force for all of Asia.

However, the replacement of the Kitty Hawk by a nuclear-powered ship is controversial among some here because of fears of an accident. Navy officials have stressed that the ship is safe, and pointed out that nuclear-powered submarines have long transited Yokosuka with no problems.

Concerns about the George Washington were raised again earlier this month when a fire on the ship left one sailor with minor burns and 23 others with heat stress.

Sailors extinguished the fire several hours after flames were spotted near the auxiliary boiler room and air conditioning and refrigeration space in the rear of the ship. The Navy said the fire spread through a passageway for cables.

The George Washington is scheduled to be based at Yokosuka starting August.

Lower house panel approves bill to reform public servant system

May 28 06:00 AM US/Eastern

(AP) - TOKYO, May 28 (Kyodo) — A House of Representatives panel on Wednesday approved a bill aimed at reforming Japan's public servant system such as by making the Cabinet take across-the-board management of personnel affairs of senior ministry and agency officials.

The move came after the ruling coalition of the Liberal Democratic Party and the New Komeito party and the main opposition Democratic Party of Japan agreed earlier in the day to revise the original bill submitted by the government, and seek the passage of the revised one during the ongoing Diet session.

The revised bill, which the three parties jointly submitted to the lower house Cabinet Committee on Wednesday, is expected to pass a lower house plenary session on Thursday and will be sent to the opposition-controlled House of Councillors for deliberations.

Under the revised bill, the chief Cabinet secretary will "make a list of candidates" over personnel affairs of vice ministers and other senior officials at ministries and agencies. It also includes the creation of a Cabinet personnel bureau at the Cabinet Secretariat.

Currently, each ministry controls such personnel affairs.

Meanwhile, the revised bill eliminated provisions in an earlier version for establishing disciplinary rules on direct contact between politicians and bureaucrats to prevent collusion, and instead requires documenting such contacts and ensuring disclosure of such information.

The DPJ has been against the provisions, saying that it will make it difficult for politicians to gather information from bureaucrats.

The revised bill was worked out by accepting the DPJ's idea in many aspects.

LDP Diet affairs chief Tadamori Oshima welcomed that the ruling and opposition parties were able to "find a common ground in the divided Diet."

The current Diet session is scheduled to end on June 15.

Japan to send SDF plane for quake relief following Chinese request

May 28 06:00 AM US/Eastern

(AP) - TOKYO, May 28 (Kyodo) — Japan plans to dispatch a Self-Defense Forces aircraft to transport tents and other relief supplies to quake-hit China in response to a request from the Chinese government, government sources said Wednesday.

If realized, it would be the first dispatch of an SDF unit to China.

The Chinese government made the request to the Japanese Embassy in Beijing on Tuesday. Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka Machimura said he understood that the request meant that China wants "the SDF's tents, blankets and other things to be carried to China's airports by SDF aircraft."

But Machimura added it appears that China is not asking for the SDF to engage in transportation operations inside the country.

He also said the request indicates that China has decided it has "no other choice but to depend on foreign countries in areas in which it is lacking," given the scale of the damage from the devastating earthquake.

A government source suggested earlier that it is envisaged that Japan will consider flying aircraft including a C-130 airplane of the Air Self-Defense Force.

China has previously accepted little humanitarian assistance from foreign countries after major natural disasters including earthquakes.

But China changed policy following the May 12 quake which hit Sichuan Province and other areas, accepting disaster relief groups from countries including Japan.

Gates heads to Asia for annual security talks

May 28 04:06 AM US/Eastern

US Defense Secretary Robert Gates departs for Asia Wednesday for an annual security conference being held against the backdrop of massive natural disasters in China and Myanmar.

The Shangri-la Dialogue, which will bring top officials and experts from across the Asia-Pacific region to Singapore May 30-June 1, has been dominated in past years by US concerns over China's military buildup.

But the death of tens of thousands of people in an earthquake in China and a cyclone in Myanmar seem likely to highlight the need for greater regional cooperation.

While US doubts about China's intentions have not abated, Gates has taken a less confrontational approach toward Beijing than his predecessor, Donald Rumsfeld.

Gates recently cautioned the US military against "next-war-itis," arguing it is more likely to face irregular conflicts like Iraq and Afghanistan than conventional wars with other "near peer" states.

At the same time, he has encouraged the US military to strengthen defense ties with regional powers like India and Indonesia as a hedge against China.

"Gates has a tough line to balance here. He needs to be clear that the US are conscious of these threats. He needs to press the Chinese to be transparent," said Michael Green, who served as Asian affairs director at the National Security Council from 2004-2005.

"But he doesn't want to provoke a confrontation with China at a time when the US is very busy in Iraq and China is very busy with earthquakes," he said.

The epic disasters exposed sharp divides, but also some signs of new thinking in the region.

Myanmar's ruling military junta has stubbornly resisted international offers of help, frustrating US officials who sought to pour in relief supplies from US warships off shore.

China, on the other hand, has welcomed foreign journalists and international relief supplies, creating opportunities for engagement.

In rare if not unprecedented moves, the US military flew in relief supplies aboard C-17 aircraft and provided the Chinese with satellite imagery of quake damaged infrastructure.

They followed other modest confidence-building steps between the two powers, including the establishment of the first telephone hotline between the US and Chinese defense ministries.

But senior US military commanders have stressed repeatedly over the past year that China has not done enough to put to rest concerns about its rapid military modernization.

An annual Pentagon report to Congress said China is developing the means to project military power and deny the US military access to the region, particularly in a conflict with Taiwan.

It cited China's development of cruise and ballistic missiles capable of striking US aircraft carriers and warships at sea, its test of anti-satellite weapons, the fielding of new intercontinental ballistic missiles, and a surge of cyber attacks on US computer networks apparently from within China.

A new port for nuclear missile submarines on Hainan Island gives it access to the South China Sea, the Indian Ocean and the sea lanes through the Strait of Malacca.

"It suggests for the first time a concrete interest by the Chinese in blue water power projection capabilities beyond just the access denial capabilities they wanted for Taiwan contingency," said Green.

"So the overall strategic picture with China is very mixed as it is with a lot of countries -- enormous economic interdependence but a level of strategic mistrust that won't go away," he said.

U.S. carrier Kitty Hawk leaves Japan ending mission since 1998

May 27 11:59 PM US/Eastern

(AP) - YOKOSUKA, Japan, May 28 (Kyodo) — The U.S. aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk left its Japanese home port of Yokosuka for the United States on Wednesday, ending its nearly 10-year mission in Japan during which the ship was also involved in operations in Iraq.

The U.S. military will replace the Kitty Hawk, the Navy's last conventional fuel-powered carrier, with the nuclear-powered George Washington in August. But a fire on the nuclear-powered carrier last week has raised safety fears among Yokosuka citizens.

Shortly before 9 a.m., the 82,000-ton Kitty Hawk slowly pulled out of the a wharf, pushed by two barges, at the U.S. naval base in Yokosuka with hundreds of people, including elementary and junior high school students from the base, seeing it off.

Some of the Kitty Hawk crew clad in white uniform formed the letters, "SAYONARA" (Goodbye), on the gray deck.

The carrier with the U.S. Navy's 7th Fleet will head for Hawaii for a replacement ceremony with the 102,000-ton George Washington in early June. The 47-year-old vessel is expected to be decommissioned next year, the U.S. Navy said.

"The Kitty Hawk has set sail for her most memorable role ensuring the peace of Northeast Asia" since being deployed in Yokosuka in 1998, U.S. Ambassador to Japan Thomas Schieffer told a ceremony at the wharf.

The top U.S. envoy in Japan also told the ceremony, attended by Yokosuka Mayor Ryoichi Kabaya and other Japanese officials, "The city of Yokosuka has been a wonderful host during the time that the Kitty Hawk has been here in Japan."

Japanese Senior Vice Minister Hitoshi Kimura said in his speech in English that the Kitty Hawk has contributed immensely to maintaining deterrence and strengthening our alliance.

The Kitty Hawk was deployed to the U.S. naval base in Yokosuka, Kanagawa Prefecture, south of Tokyo, in August 1998, as the third "forward deployed" U.S. carrier to use the Japanese city as a home port after the Midway, which came in 1973, and the Independence in 1991.

The Kitty Hawk took part in many key U.S. military operations since being commissioned in 1961, such as the bombing of Hanoi during the Vietnam War and the war in Iraq in 2003.

After the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, the carrier went to the Arabian Sea and supported operations in Afghanistan.

Apart from its participation in various operations for the U.S. Navy, the Kitty Hawk sparked legal controversy in Japan over its joint operations with the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force and some of its crewmembers being involved in heinous crimes in the local city.

The carrier left Yokosuka shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks escorted by about 10 MSDF vessels.

Some experts said the MSDF guarding the U.S. carrier in a real operation could be construed as exercising the right to collective self-defense -- assisting an ally militarily -- which the Japanese government recognizes is banned under the pacifist Constitution.

In 2007, the Japanese government came under public fire over an allegation that some of the fuel the MSDF indirectly provided for the Kitty Hawk was used for the war in Iraq in 2003, despite Japanese law only allowing the MSDF to give fuel for antiterrorism operations in and near Afghanistan.

Kitty Hawk aircraft carrier given farewell in Yokosuka ceremony

May 28, 2008

YOKOSUKA, Kanagawa -- A ceremony to mark the departure of the U.S. aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk from its home port at Yokosuka Naval Base was held Wednesday, with about 600 people seeing the ship off.

Photo: The Kitty Hawk aircraft carrier leaves Yokosuka at about 9 a.m. on Wednesday.

The aircraft carrier, which departed at about 9 a.m., is heading to Hawaii to be replaced by the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier George Washington. The Kitty Hawk is due to be decommissioned in January next year.

Among those at the farewell ceremony on Wednesday were U.S. Ambassador to Japan Thomas Schieffer and Hitoshi Kimura, Senior Vice-Minister for Foreign Affairs.

Citizens groups in Yokosuka have sought the establishment of a public referendum ordinance to question the placement of the George Washington in Yokosuka, and have filed a lawsuit seeking a halt to dredging work at the port.

A fire occurred on the George Washington in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of South America on May 22, and there is a possibility that the placement of the nuclear-powered vessel could be delayed as a result.

(Mainichi Japan) May 28, 2008

Education minister wants to make English compulsory at elementary schools

May 27, 2008

The education minister has expressed support for an advisory panel's proposal that English should be made a compulsory subject for third graders and older students at elementary schools.

"I think it better for children to start learning (English) earlier. We'd like to quickly work on the issue," Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Minister Kisaburo Tokai told a press conference following a regular Cabinet meeting on Tuesday morning.

The advisory council on educational reform has proposed that English should be made a compulsory subject for third-graders and older elementary school children as the ministry has just launched an experimental project toward the implementation of a new curriculum that includes making English compulsory for fifth-graders and older.

"Confusion should be avoided at schools. However, English is a means of communications that people should acquire. In some countries, schools teach English to students who are younger than third graders," Tokai said.

(Mainichi Japan) May 27, 2008

Photo: The 10-member panel headed by Keio University President Yuichiro Anzai called for making English a compulsory subject for third graders in elementary school at an early date and establishing about 5,000 model schools across the country to achieve the target. The proposals were contained in an initial report by the panel adopted at its session Monday and was presented to Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda later in the day.

Fukuda to forgo neckties for annual Cool Biz campaign

Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Kyodo News

With reluctance, Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda will stop wearing ties during work hours to get behind the government's annual Cool Biz energy-saving campaign, which starts Sunday, Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka Machimura said Tuesday.

While noting the prime minister "may not favor" going tieless, Machimura said Cabinet ministers will wear the Okinawa-style "kariyushi" light wear during a regular meeting June 6.

"I think he hopes to set an example as prime minister by calling on the people to work toward saving energy and changing their lifestyles," Machimura said.

The Cool Biz campaign, running from early June to the end of September, began in 2005 with government officials wearing light clothing with no ties or jackets at work so air conditioners can be kept at relatively high temperatures.

But the 71-year-old bespectacled prime minister continued to wear ties even during the campaign.

Asked how he will dress during this year's Cool Biz, Fukuda, who is struggling with sagging support ratings, told reporters Monday: "I don't want to look shabby. But there is no need to go against the trend."

Fukuda is hoping to take the initiative on environmental issues as host of the Group of Eight summit in July. Climate change will top the agenda.

Schools to skip row on Takeshima

Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Kyodo News

Japan will refrain from identifying Takeshima — a pair of Seoul-controlled rocky islets in the Sea of Japan known as Dokdo in South Korea — as an "integral part of Japan" in an educational document, a government paper said Tuesday.

Earlier this month, government sources said the education ministry planned to add the phrase in a supplementary document for new guidelines for social studies at junior high schools starting in the 2012 school year.

But the government apparently backed down after sharp reactions from South Korea. Tokyo has told Seoul it has yet to decide on the descriptions in the document, the paper said. Tokyo had received an inquiry from Seoul over the matter.

The supplementary document, along with guidelines for other subjects for junior high schools, will be compiled in mid-July.

The documents are nonbinding and provide guidance for teachers and textbook publishers.

The Cabinet of Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda released the position paper in response to a question from Muneo Suzuki, a House of Representatives member who heads the small New Party Daichi.

After the ministry plan surfaced earlier this month, South Korea was swift to react to the renewed Japanese claim on the islets.

On May 19, Foreign Affairs and Trade Minister Yu Myung Hwan summoned Ambassador Toshinori Shigeie to present the demand, acting on instructions from President Lee Myung Bak.

In Tokyo, South Korean Ambassador Kwon Chul Hyun expressed strong regret in a meeting with Foreign Minister Masahiko Komura.

The vice minister of education, Masami Zeniya, said earlier, "The matter is currently on the table, and I can't say clearly now" if the ministry will declare Japan's ownership of the islets in the document.

Japan insists the two rocky islets and numerous reefs are part of Shimane Prefecture.

Editorial :: Remove unjust rule on govt appointments

The Yomiuri Shimbun

Yet again, the government's nomination of officials that require the Diet's approval has caused a real stink.

The ruling and opposition parties had previously agreed in principle that a joint meeting of both Diet houses' steering committees would refuse submission of such nominations for these personnel matters if candidates' names were reported by the media in advance. We think this restriction should be removed immediately.

On Tuesday morning, the government was scheduled to submit the nominations of 24 people for positions in nine organizations that require the approval of both Diet chambers.

However, this plan ran off the rails when the Democratic Party of Japan's Takeo Nishioka, in his capacity as chairman of the House of Councillors Ways and Means Committee, refused the government's submission of the nominations. His hackles were raised by reports in several major newspapers' morning editions that Keio University Prof. Kazuhito Ikeo was being tapped for a vacant Bank of Japan Policy Board member post and Deposit Insurance Corporation of Japan Gov. Shunichi Nagata was to get the nod for his reappointment.

The ensuing squabbling resulted in the joint meeting of representatives from Diet steering committees of both houses to be called off--albeit temporarily--before the nominations were given. However, after the dust settled in the afternoon, the government submitted the nominations, excluding those for Ikeo and Nagata.

===

Questionable provision

Nishioka's reasoning for refusing the submission was based on a memorandum he exchanged with House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee Chairman Takashi Sasagawa of the Liberal Democratic Party at the end of October last year.

At that time, they decided on a new rule that was hatched to take into account the unusual balance of power in the Diet in which the ruling parties control the lower house while the opposition parties hold sway in the upper house. They agreed prior examination by the ruling parties of nominations would be abolished and the appointment plans would be submitted to the joint meeting of representatives from Diet steering committees of both houses.

The provision on dropping the nominations should they be reported in advance was incorporated at this time.

At the most fundamental level, this provision unreasonably restricts the freedom of the press. This restriction remains in place despite vehement criticism since it first popped up.

Personnel appointments that require the Diet houses' approval are primarily for posts that wield considerable influence on the nation's policies, including the Bank of Japan governor.

===

Denial of press freedom

Lawmakers should not forget that covering and reporting the news is legitimate obligation of newspapers. The reporting of the appointments of Ikeo and Nagata is anything but irregular. We find it despicable that the original nomination plan of the two could be abandoned because of this incident.

Should the rule, which can only be described as an "advance reporting restriction," go unchallenged, all reporting on the government's personnel appointments could become off-limits.

Still fresh in our memory is the flap over the nomination of the Bank of Japan governor, which dragged on and on partly because of the DPJ's unbending attitude over the names put forward by the government.

The newspapers were having a field day engaging in "advance reporting" as the central bank governor issue played out. So why is the main opposition party so offended by the reporting of the personnel nominations this time? The party's actions are inconsistent.

The proper criteria for approving or disapproving a nomination at the Diet is whether a person in question has the insight and expertise for a certain job. Regardless of what gets reported in the newspapers, it is the Diet that determines such nominations. The legislature should have the pride to carry out this important job.

(From The Yomiuri Shimbun, May 28, 2008)

(May. 28, 2008)

U.S. firm asks court to void contract with Yamada

Tatsuhito Iida Yomiuri Shimbun Correspondent

LOS ANGELES--A U.S. aviation fuel-related equipment manufacturer has filed a lawsuit at a U.S. district court in Cleveland against defense equipment trader Yamada Corp. and its U.S. subsidiary, claiming Yamada's involvement in bribery cases violated their contract, which therefore should be terminated, The Yomiuri Shimbun has learned.

Cleveland-based Argo-Tech Corp. also demanded compensation from Yamada and its subsidiary.

In response, Yamada filed a countersuit against Argo-Tech at a U.S. district court in California, claiming the termination of their contract would be illegal.

According to the claims by the two sides, former Yamada President Masashi Yamada, 84, participated in a 150 million dollars capital boost for Argo-Tech around 1990, when the U.S. company faced financial difficulty.

Argo-Tech in return concluded a 50-year exclusive agency agreement with Yamada on the sales of Argo-Tech's fuel pumps for aircraft and other products in 1994.

In the documents submitted to the Ohio court, Argo-Tech claimed that incidents including former Yamada executive Motonobu Miyazaki's bribing of former Administrative Vice Defense Minister Takemasa Moriya and Miyazaki's provision of 100 million yen to Naoki Akiyama, former executive director of the Japan-U.S. Center for Peace and Cultural Exchange, in connection with the company's winning contracts for the disposal of chemical weapons found in Fukuoka Prefecture violated their contract, in which they agreed they would adhere to the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

For its part, Yamada claimed in its documents submitted to the California court that the incidents mentioned by Argo-Tech had no relation to the company, so they should not cause the termination of their contract.

(May. 28, 2008)

Ruling bloc, DPJ agree to pass revised civil service reform bill

The Yomiuri Shimbun

The ruling coalition and the Democratic Party of Japan on Tuesday agreed to revise a bill on civil service reform, paving the way for it to be passed into law before the end of the current Diet session, sources said.

The Liberal Democratic Party and New Komeito made a number of concessions to the DPJ in the revised bill, which will lay down the basic policy for reform of the recruitment and personnel-management systems in place for national public servants over the next five years.

The points pushed by the DPJ include an expansion of the categories of public servants permitted to conclude labor contracts through collective negotiations between labor and management, and the introduction of a system that restricts contact between lawmakers and bureaucrats.

The revised bill will be jointly submitted by the parties at the House of Representatives Cabinet Committee on Wednesday, then voted on in a lower house plenary session Thursday and sent to the House of Councillors. It is expected to be passed into law during the current Diet session, which ends June 15.

With Monday's discussions between the parties regarding revisions of the bill nearly breaking down, the agreement represents a sharp turnaround.

The DPJ decided to accept the revised bill in discussions between party President Ichiro Ozawa and other senior party members Tuesday evening at party headquarters. The party is expected to make a formal decision to approve the bill at a meeting of the shadow cabinet Wednesday.

Under the government's proposal, the increase in the categories of civil servants permitted to enter into collective bargaining on labor conditions, including salary levels, would have been "examined," but in the revision "a system will be adopted based on [citizens'] consent."

Regarding envisaged restrictions on contact between lawmakers and bureaucrats, such as a system in which Diet members and public servants require the permission of the relevant cabinet minister to contact one another, the government proposed creating the posts of "special parliamentary affairs officials" in the Cabinet Office and ministries to act as counselors to Diet members. The revision, however, removes the stipulation of such an approval system and would instead see information passed via the information disclosure system.

In the government's proposed bill, each ministry, in conjunction with the cabinet, would have drawn up a list of candidates for appointment to senior positions in each government office and ministry, but the revision has the cabinet alone draw up a centralized candidate list.

(May. 28, 2008)

Parties rattled by nominee list / Opposition camp reacts angrily to Tuesday's media reports

The Yomiuri Shimbun

The ruling and opposition parties were rattled Tuesday by another thorny dispute over the list of government-nominated personnel whose appointment required approval from both chambers of the Diet.

The discord arose when the opposition camp angrily reacted to Tuesday morning's media reports on the government's yet-to-be-announced tentative decision concerning nominees for two positions. This caused the government to abandon a plan to submit to the Diet on Tuesday morning the list of 24 nominees for nine institutions, including the Deposit Insurance Organization.

After talks between the ruling and opposition parties, however, the government submitted a list of 23 nominees at eight institutions Tuesday afternoon, according to news reports.

The latest dispute follows similar controversy that erupted from the opposition camp's objection to media reports on the government list of nominees for various institutions during an extraordinary Diet session in late October.

The dispute also follows a recent tug-of-war between the ruling and opposition camps over government nominees for the positions of Bank of Japan governor and deputy governor in April.

Initially, the government was scheduled to submit the list of 24 nominees to a meeting of chairmen and other senior officials of the steering committees at both houses of the legislature Tuesday morning.

However, the opposition parties were bitterly antagonized by reports in The Yomiuri Shimbun and other newspapers that the government intended to ensure the central bank's Policy Board newly incorporate Keio University Prof. Kazuto Ikeo, 55, while also retaining Shunichi Nagata, 64, as governor of the Deposit Insurance Organization.

Takeo Nishioka, a senior Democratic Party of Japan official who chairs the House of Councillors Rules and Administration Committee, said he would not accept the list for upper house discussions. His unbending attitude caused the government to put off submitting the list for the time being.

However, this was followed by negotiations between Liberal Democratic Party officials--including Takashi Sasagawa, who chairs the House of Representatives' counterpart committee--Nishioka and the government's side. As it turned out, participants in the talks agreed the government would submit a similar list Tuesday afternoon.

During last year's extraordinary Diet session, Nishioka was angered by an Asahi Shimbun report about government nominations for for executive positions that required Diet approval. He said the government list would not be discussed at a plenary session of the upper house unless the government replaced its nominees with new ones. This forced the government to reshuffle some nominees on the list.

(May. 28, 2008)

POLITICAL PULSE / Top LDP faction relishing power

Koichi Akaza

Dissolution of party factions was a hobbyhorse of former Prime Minister Takeo Fukuda--father of current Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda. A bureaucrat- turned -lawmaker, Fukuda's father entered the political arena in 1952, and 10 years later founded a group dedicated to rejuvenating the Liberal Democratic Party and calling for the abolition of the factions, arguing that their existence was detrimental to politics.

Fukuda senior formed the group by absorbing some LDP lawmakers who had belonged to the faction led by former Prime Minister Nobusuke Kishi, the grandfather-in-law of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. When Fukuda senior became LDP president in 1976, he declared the dissolution of all factions, forcing the groups to shut down their offices. In reality, however, many of the factions continued their activities.

Despite Fukuda senior's desire to dismantle the factions, the LDP's presidential race in 1978 was fiercely fought on a factional basis. Masayoshi Ohira, supported wholeheartedly by the Tanaka faction led by former Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka, nicknamed the "shadow shogun" because he pulled the strings behind the scenes, won the race to become party president and prime minister. Fukuda, whose bid for reelection was prevented by Ohira, had no choice but to reinstate his faction, naming it the Seiwa-kai.

"It's not a group dedicated to pursuing factional interests, but a clean and amiable group intended to ponder the future of the state and its people and to rectify politics, and the group was so named to reflect my wish for that and to mark the restart of the group," Fukuda senior recalled in his memoirs years later. The name Seiwa comes from old Chinese literature, consisting of two kanji characters meaning clean and amiable.

The Seiwa-kai is the origin of the current Machimura faction, named after Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka Machimura. Its official name is Seiwa Seisaku Kenkyu-kai (the Clean and Amiable Policy Study Group), or Seiwa-kai for short, to which Yasuo Fukuda and former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe belong. The previous two prime ministers, Yoshiro Mori and Junichiro Koizumi, also hailed from the Seiwa-kai.

In other words, the faction has turned out four prime ministers in succession and the Machimura faction is now the biggest faction in the ruling party, with more than 85 members.

That would have shocked the elder Fukuda, given that he set up the Seiwa-kai with the purpose of dissolving the factions, perhaps proving even more surprising than learning his son had become prime minister. But the resurgence of factional power in the LDP would have shocked him even more.

Koizumi once served as private secretary to Fukuda senior, later describing him as his "political mentor." Koizumi won the LDP presidential race in 2001 by trumpeting the slogan of "breaking up the LDP." After winning election, he devoted himself to breaking up the old guard and overturning party traditions.

Unlike Fukuda senior, Koizumi stopped short of declaring the dissolution of factions. But he ended the tradition of balancing the distribution of cabinet and executive party posts among the factions, thereby depriving the groups of much of their influence.

As a result, the factions lost their influence over allocation of top cabinet and party posts, calling into question their very raison d'etre. As a result, the powers of the LDP president and other executives became stronger.

In defiance of opposition from within the LDP, Koizumi dared to dissolve the House of Representatives for a snap general election in 2005 to seek a public mandate for postal reform, forcing the postal privatization rebels to leave the party. The Koizumi administration was popular with the public, but faced ever-mounting opposition from the faction leaders.

The Fukuda administration is the product of that opposition. All faction leaders supported Fukuda, and in return, Fukuda attached importance to factional interests in allocating executive posts. The four key party executive posts went to Bunmei Ibuki (secretary general), Toshihiro Nikai (General Council chairman), Sadakazu Tanigaki (Policy Research Council chairman) and Makoto Koga (Election Strategy Council chairman)--all faction leaders.

In addition, Machimura, who is a co-leader of the Machimura faction, serves as chief Cabinet secretary--effectively the right-hand man to the prime minister.

The Koga and Tanigaki factions merged on May 13 to revive the Kochi-kai, an event reflecting the recent resurgence of the LDP factions.

About 5,000 people attended a fund-raising party for the Machimura faction held at a Tokyo hotel on May 19. The huge attendance meant the party was hailed as a great success. Indeed, the Machimura faction would appear to be in its prime, and attention is now focused on its maneuvering ahead of a post-Fukuda power struggle.

The faction is currently jointly led by former LDP Secretary General Hidenao Nakagawa and Machimura. In other words, the faction has no clearly defined leader. There is also a danger that the faction might break up, as Machimura and Nakagawa are on bad terms.

Former LDP Secretary General Taro Aso is seen as the leading candidate to succeed Fukuda. But the Machimura faction is divided on the issue: One group includes Abe and others who support Aso, and the other includes Nakagawa, who is less keen on Aso, and is seeking an alternative candidate.

Against the will of its founder, the Seiwa-kai has become the biggest faction in the LDP. Where is it heading? Keep watching to find out.

Akaza is political news editor of The Yomiuri Shimbun.
(May. 28, 2008)

U.S. Air Force to Deploy F-22 Raptors to Guam

Updated May.28,2008 06:49 KST

The U.S. Air Force will deploy its most advanced fighter jets to the U.S. territory of Guam. Three of the Air Force's seven squadrons of F-22 Raptors, a supersonic aircraft with stealth technology, will be in the Pacific.

U.S. military media such as the Air Force Times said the Air Force will deploy about 10 Alaska-based F-22 fighter jets to an air base in Guam around July or August this year. The deployment apparently is intended to cover the Korean Peninsula and China, placing these areas within the range of operations of the advanced fighter jet.

In a press interview, Gen. Carrol Chandler, Pacific Air Forces commander, said he expects the F-22s in Guam to hold joint training drills with U.S. allies in the region, particularly Japan.

Early in 2007, the Air Force deployed about 10 F-22s from Langley Air Force Base in Virginia to Kaneda Air Base in Okinawa, Japan, for three months. It is not known how long the aircraft will stay in Guam.

The U.S. Air Force has decided to deploy three of its seven F-22 fighter jet squadrons to the Pacific region, including Alaska and Hawaii. The highly advanced jet was developed by Lockheed Martin to replace the F-15 as the main aircraft of the U.S. Air Force, which currently operates 183 of them.

Japan tells S. Korea no decision to state ownership of disputed isle

May 26 11:20 PM US/Eastern

TOKYO, May 27 (AP) - (Kyodo) — Japan has told South Korea that it has not decided to state in an educational document that a South Korean-controlled rocky islet chain in the Sea of Japan, called Takeshima in Japan and Dokdo in South Korea, is an "integral part of Japan," the government said in a position paper released Tuesday.

In response to an inquiry from South Korea over the matter, Japan has replied that it has not decided yet on the content of descriptions in the document, the paper said.

The Cabinet of Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda issued the position paper in response to a question from Muneo Suzuki, a House of Representatives member who heads a small political party, the New Party Daichi.

Earlier this month, Japanese government sources said the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology plans to state in the educational document that Takeshima is an integral part of Japan.

The document will supplement Japan's new educational guidelines for social studies at junior high schools from the 2012 school year starting in April that year. Such documents, to be compiled for each subject in junior high school, are nonbinding and serve as guidance for teachers and textbook publishers.

South Korea was swift to react to the renewed Japanese claim on the islet chain and demanded that the Japanese government withdraw the plan immediately.

On May 19, South Korean Foreign Affairs and Trade Minister Yu Myung Hwan summoned Japanese Ambassador Toshinori Shigeie to present the demand, acting on instructions from President Lee Myung Bak.

In Tokyo, South Korean Ambassador to Japan Kwon Chul Hyun expressed strong regret in a meeting with Japanese Foreign Minister Masahiko Komura.

Japan's vice minister of education, Masami Zeniya, said earlier, "The matter is currently on the table, and I can't say clearly now" if the education ministry has decided to state ownership in the document.

Japan insists that Takeshima, which consists of two small uninhabited islets and numerous reefs with a total space of 230,000 square meters, is part of Shimane Prefecture, while South Korea claims the islands are part of North Gyeongsang Province.

Fukuda to give up wearing ties to contribute to energy-saving

May 26 11:14 PM US/Eastern

TOKYO, May 27 (AP) - (Kyodo)—Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda will give up stubbornly wearing ties during work hours in order to help contribute to the government's annual "Cool Biz" energy-saving campaign, set to start from Sunday, Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka Machimura indicated Tuesday.

While noting that the prime minister "may not favor" taking ties off, Machimura said Cabinet ministers will wear the Okinawa-style Kariyushi light wear during a regular meeting on June 6 and Fukuda will follow the request.

"I think he hopes to set an example as the prime minister calling for people to work toward saving energy and to change their lifestyles," Machimura told a regular press conference.

The "Cool Biz" campaign began in 2005 for the period between early June and the end of September, with government officials opting to wear light clothing with no neckties and jackets at work so air conditioners can be kept at relatively high temperatures.

But the 71-year-old bespectacled prime minister has kept to wearing ties even during the campaign period.

Asked how he will dress when the campaign starts this year, Fukuda, who is struggling from sagging support ratings, told reporters Monday, "I don't want to look shabby. But there is no need to go against the trend."

Fukuda is hoping to take the initiative in environmental issues as the host of the Group of Eight summit to be held in July, where climate change will top the agenda.

Nuke flattop fight goes to high court

Tuesday, May 27, 2008
The Associated Press

People seeking to block a nuclear-powered U.S. aircraft carrier from being permanently based in Japan took their lawsuit to a high court Monday.

The latest move by the 248 plaintiffs follows the May 12 rejection by the Yokosuka branch of the Yokohama District Court of their lawsuit demanding a halt to harbor work to accommodate the USS George Washington, which is scheduled to be based at Yokosuka, Kanagawa Prefecture, from August.

The appeal filed with the Tokyo High Court points to a fire last Thursday aboard the warship as adding to jitters people have about nuclear power aboard the military vessel.

The George Washington — relieving the USS Kitty Hawk which is to be retired — will be the first U.S. Navy nuclear-powered vessel to be permanently based in Japan.

Law bends over backward to allow 'fuzoku'

Tuesday, May 27, 2008
By JUN HONGO
Staff writer

FYI
SEX INDUSTRY

Some desires money can't gratify, but for appetites of the flesh, there are ways in Japan to legally sate one's carnal cravings.

Photo:
Hey sailor: Two men stroll among "soapland" parlors in Atami, Shizuoka Prefecture, last year.

Like many countries, prostitution is illegal in Japan, at least on paper. Brothel-like "soapland" and sexual massage parlors get around these barriers.

And the overt, erotic services of the so-called fashion health venues found in Tokyo's Kabukicho district and the soaplands in the hot springs resort of Atami, Shizuoka Prefecture, ensure that the world's oldest profession lives on, only under another name.

The context of Japan's legal definition of prostitution is narrow enough to provide ample loopholes for red-light district operators.

Following are questions and answers regarding Japan's sex industry — commonly known as "fuzoku" — and the attempts or lack thereof by the government to curb them:

What law bans prostitution in Japan?

The Prostitution Prevention Law, enacted in 1957, forbids the act of having "intercourse with an unspecified person in exchange for payment." It also punishes acts including soliciting by prostitutes and organized prostitution, such as operating brothels.

Legal experts say it is hard for police to crack down on prostitution because it is tricky to verify if a couple had consensual or compensated sex.

The law meanwhile does not ban paid sex with a "specified person," or someone who has become an acquaintance. It also defines sex exclusively as vaginal intercourse. Thus other paid sexual acts are not illegal.

Soliciting sex on the street could be punishable by a maximum six-month prison term or ¥10,000 fine. Parties who provide locations for prostitution could face a maximum seven-year sentence or ¥300,000 fine.

According to National Police Agency statistics, 923 people were arrested for violating the Prostitution Prevention Law in 2006.

How many types of fuzoku businesses are there?

Enacted in 1948, the Law Regulating Businesses Affecting Public Morals breaks down the sex industry into several major categories, including soaplands, "fashion health" massage parlors, call-girl businesses, strip clubs, love hotels and adult shops.

Soaplands, the "king" of fuzoku, are where clients have sex. "Fashion health" massage parlors offer sexual activities other than straight intercourse.

The law requires such businesses to register with police and operate only within their registered category. It also bans people under age 18 from working or entering fuzoku establishments.

All sex businesses except soaplands abide by the prostitution law because they do not provide straight intercourse and limit other services to mainly massages.

So how can soaplands operate legally?

To dodge the law, soapland operators claim their male clients and their hired masseuses perform sex as couples who have grown fond of each other.

A customer entering a soapland, legally registered as "a special public bathhouse," pays an admission fee "that holds the pretext as the charge to use the bathing facility," Kansai University professor Yoshikazu Nagai said.

The client then is usually asked to pay a massage-service fee directly to the masseuse — giving the pretense that the woman is working on her own and the soapland owner is not running a brothel.

According to Nagai, who authored "Fuzoku Eigyo Torishimari" ("Control of Sex Business Operations"), the process also allows the two to be deemed as adults who became acquainted at the soapland.

The law is conveniently interpreted to mean the male customer is having sex with an acquaintance, not with an "unspecified" person in exchange for cash.

Is that an acceptable justification?

"Is it nonsense to deem that the couple fell in love while massaging at a soapland? Yes. But that is how things have operated inside the Japanese legal framework for over five decades," Nagai said.

Nagai noted the legal framework on prostitution varies worldwide. Sudan, for instance, punishes prostitutes with death, but the same act is legal and out in the open in the Netherlands.

Many observers say police avoid cracking down hard on prostitution mainly because it is considered a necessary evil and they would rather keep the industry on a loose leash than let the market go underground.

"Putting aside the debate of whether it is right or wrong, the definition of prostitution differs greatly by country and is influenced by cultural, historical and religious backgrounds," Nagai explained.

When did the sex trade begin in Japan?

Prostitution goes back to ancient times, and there were only local-level laws against selling sex until the prostitution law was enacted in the postwar period.

According to Nagai, 16th century feudal lord Toyotomi Hideyoshi was the first to demarcate part of Kyoto as a red-light district.

"Hideyoshi knew that it would be easier for him to supervise the brothels if they were concentrated in a single location," Nagai said. "It also made it easier for him to collect levies from business owners."

What are the health concerns at fuzoku establishments?

In regards to sexually transmitted diseases, most fuzoku businesses conduct comprehensive medical tests when hiring a female worker. Soaplands undergo monthly inspections by public health centers to maintain hygiene.

Some establishments turn away foreign clients.

"This is because of the worldwide outbreak of AIDS in the late 1980s," Nagai said, noting some premises continue to ban foreign nationals because of the misguided fear that AIDS is spread by them.

How big is the sex industry?

There were approximately 1,200 soaplands in Japan and 17,500 sex-related businesses, including massage parlors and strip clubs, in 2006, according to statistics released by the NPA.

While some have suggested the sex business is a ¥1 trillion industry, Nagai said coming up with an accurate estimate is difficult because of the diversity.

But it is still a way for women to make quick cash, as a soapland "masseuse" can make ¥10 million or more a year, he said.

The sex industry also remains a source of funds for the underworld. According to the NPA, 20 percent of people arrested in violation of the prostitution law in 2006 were related to the mob.

But Nagai believes the industry may be facing a downtrend, since information technology has made it easy for amateurs to operate as freelancers.

Many outdated sex businesses will face such competition in the future, he said.

"One only needs a cell phone to secretly start a call-girl business," Nagai said. "It has become so convenient and there is no need for professional knowledge or the effort to maintain a bathhouse."

The Weekly FYI appears Tuesdays (Wednesday in some areas). Readers are encouraged to send ideas, questions and opinions to National News Desk

97 construction firms punished for mob links

The Yomiuri Shimbun

The central and prefectural governments suspended 97 construction companies from participating in bids for public works projects in 2006 and 2007 in response to a police warning that the companies had connections to crime syndicates, according to the National Police Agency.

One company was suspended after an employee organized the funeral for a deceased gang boss. In another case, a company was punished after executives played golf and dined with the leader of a gang.

The police intend to stop gangs interfering in public works projects by uncovering ties between construction firms and organized crime even where there is no evidence that the ties have involved criminal activity.

According to the NPA, crime syndicates have boomed while regional economies have stagnated. For example, one gang made a company that had won a contract for a public works project pay it a few percent of the contract price in protection money.

Since 2004, a growing number of local governments have started to stipulate that companies with connections to gangs will be suspended from bidding for public works projects. The governments not only stipulate that any company facing criminal charges over such connections will be suspended, but also prohibit any company having ties to gangs from bidding.

As of the end of 2007, about 89 percent of about 1,800 local governments nationwide had introduced measures to exclude crime syndicates from public works projects. The Construction and Transport Ministry currently suspends companies that provided money to gangs or whose employees played sports or dined with gangsters from bidding conducted by the ministry's regional development bureaus.

Acknowledging these measures, the police nationwide notified relevant local governments and the ministry's regional development bureaus that 97 companies are currently subject to punishment. The entities punished the 97 companies in 286 cases.

In May 2007, the Okayama prefectural police found that a construction company in Kurashiki, Okayama Prefecture, had paid 10 million yen to a group affiliated with the Yamaguchi-gumi crime syndicate to prevent it from hindering a construction project. In July 2007, the Okayama prefectural government suspended the company from bidding for 18 months.

The Osaka prefectural police department found an employee of an Osaka construction company had served as the funeral committee chairman for the funeral of Kaneyoshi Kuwata, senior member of the Yamaguchi-gumi who died in April 2007, aged 67, and that the company sent luxury foods to senior members of a gang. In October 2007, the Osaka municipal government and the Osaka prefectural government suspended the company from bidding for six months.

In December, the Fukuoka prefectural government suspended a Kitakyushu company, citing the fact that its employees had regularly dined and gone on trips with senior gang members.

Other reasons companies were suspended include: a Fukuoka Prefecture firm that was a member of a friendship group organized by a crime syndicate; a Fukui Prefecture company whose employees played golf with gangsters; and an Osaka Prefecture company that let gangsters accompany employees while working.

However, the NPA said these were just some of the collusive relationships between companies and crime syndicates. "Companies should be absolutely clear that activities that may seem mere social exchanges will be considered antisocial if they involve crime syndicates," an NPA official said.

(May. 27, 2008)

Rape case vs US serviceman in Japan dropped; Pinay victim still hopes for justice

05/26/2008 11:23 PM

MANILA, Philippines - A Filipina rape victim of a US serviceman in Okinawa, Japan is still hopefull that justice will be serve on her despite the junking of her case againts the suspect.

In an exclusive report by Lei Alviz in GMA's 24 Oras, the victim "Hazel" said she was shocked when the prosecutor junked her case for lack of evidence.

"Nung sinabi ng prosecutor na hindi na matutuloy sa korte yung kaso ko, shocked po ako. Hindi na po ako makapagsalita. Umiyak na lang po ako (When I learned that my case was dismissed, I was shocked. I was speechless. I cried)," she said.

The television report said even the guardian of "Hazel," Filipino priest Fr. Cruz, was surprised with the prosecutor's decision.

"Ang sabi ng prosecutor, wala raw mapatunayang rape kasi walang sugat. Walang sugat? E isang linggo yan sa ospital, tapos hanggang ngayon nagti-take pa siya ng sleeping pills para makatulog (The prosecutor said there is no evidence of rape. No evidence? She spent one week in a hospital, and up to now she has to take sleeping pills just to sleep)," he said.

Worse, "Hazel" said assistance from Philippine officials in Japan also stopped when they learned of what happened to her case.

"Nung umpisa po oo, sumusuporta sila. Pero nung malaman nilang binasura na yung kaso, wala na (At first they were supportive. But when they learned that my case has been junked, their assistance suddenly stopped)," she said.

Party-list group Gabriela, meanwhile, blamed the government for what happened to the case of "Hazel."

"Wala talagang paninindigan ang gobyerno natin para ipaglaban ang kaso (Our government does not have the will to fight for her case)," said Emmy de Jesus, Gabriela's secretary general.

"Hazel," however, said she is elated to know that the the US Army is already in the process of probing the suspect in preparation for possible court martial proceedings.

"Buo pa rin ang loob ko na makukuha ko yung hustisya sa nangyari sa akin (I am still hopeful that I will get the justice I deserve)," she said.

The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA), on the other hand, denied that they are not extending help to “Hazel,” saying a lawyer is still working fulltime on her case. - GMANews.TV

Guam Okinawa plus Washington Tokyo :: May 18 - 24

WWII Bomb Found in Tokyo

• 16,000 people evacuated after unexploded bomb foun...
• Wartime bomb haunts Tokyo suburb
• 16,000 evacuated in Tokyo over WWII bomb
• 16,000 people evacuate as dud disposed of in weste...

Takeshima Islets declared Japanese in Textbooks

• Takeshima Japanese, schools to be told
• New curriculum manual to state claim over Takeshim...
• Teaching guide to state Takeshima's ownership
• SKorea summons Japan envoy over disputed islands
• Gov't to state Japan's ownership of Takeshima in e...


• SKorea summons Japanese ambassador over islets dis...
• SKorea summons Japanese ambassador over islets dis...
• School curriculum guide to include Japan's soverei...

Public Education and Patriotism

• Ban lifted on school trips to Yasukuni
• Gov't lifts ban on public school trips to Yasukuni...
• 2 teachers punished for refusing to stand up, reci...

Moriya / Miyazki / Yamada Corp

• Miyazaki digs Yamada in deeper
• Ex-defense trader exec admits to payment of money ...
• Moriya denies doing favors for Yamada
• Moriya denies giving favorable treatment to any sp...

SDF / Defense Ministry

• Air force chief urges students to learn about fore...
• Defense Ministry floats internal reforms
• Permanent SDF overseas deployment law endangers de...
• 2 fishermen missing in MSDF destroyer collision to...

Japanese Politics

• If push comes to shove, DPJ won't
• Be 'ambitious' on fiscal reform, IMF tells Japan
• Briefly: Ozawa has 2 new best friends
• IMF urges Japan to implement ambitious reforms, ra...
• EDITORIAL: Reform of bureaucracy


• Homo Sapiens: New ambassador has unwavering trust ...
• POLITICAL PULSE / PM-wannabes jockey for position
• Poll: Support for Fukuda, Ozawa equal
• MOF panel warns against moves to increase Japan's ...
• Party branches leery of Fukuda


• Planned bill aims to redress non-Japanese war crim...
• Cross-party groups may spur upheaval / Growing num...
• City council votes down public call for vote on US...

Increased Spending for Defense

• US ambassador urges Japan to boost military spendi...
• US ambassador urges Japan to boost military spendi...
• US ambassador urges Japan to boost defence spendin...
• Schieffer:Japan should increase defense budget
• US ambassador: Japan should expand military budget...


• "The Price of Security in a Changing World"
• U.S. Ambassador Says Japan Must Boost Defense Budg...

Space Defense Bill

• EDITORIAL: Law on using space for defense
• New law will recast Japan's space policy
• DPJ joins ruling camp on space bill
• New space policy result of regional tensions
• Briefly: Law on use of space for defense OK'd


• Diet OK's military use of space / Law marks shift ...
• Japan to allow military use of space
• Diet OKs bill allowing space programs for national...
• Japan ends decades-old pacifist policy
• Japan Parliament Passes Bill Allowing Space Defens...


• Japan enacts 1st law allowing use of space for def...
• Japan parliament OKs bill allowing space programs ...
• Diet passes bill on defense in space
• Japan parliament OKs space defense bill
• Upper House panel passes bill on space

Okinawa

• Okinawans pay homage to island’s 1972 reversion to...
• Okinawa, Amami enter rainy season
• Release of U.S. chopper crash papers ordered


• Save the Dugongs--Stop the New US Marine Air Base
• Gov't ordered to present documents on U.S. helicop...
• Okinawa Peace Rally

Regional Issues

• Nanjing victim's libeler loses appeal
• China rejects U.S. claim on bolstered military abi...
• U.S. military cites growing China space, cyber thr...
• Concerns in Australia of a resurgent Japan

United States Forces Japan

• U.S. Navy hints at delay in carrier deployment to ...
• Fire breaks out aboard U.S. nuclear carrier due to...
• Illegal sword in luggage bounces U.S. Marine from ...
• Fire occurs at carrier G. Washington Thurs., no ra...
• US special military hardware on view


• INTERVIEW/ Richard Lawless: Japan-U.S. alliance fa...
• 'Flexible' approach to help Marines relocation to ...

SOFA Issues

• Counterfeiting conviction nets U.S. Marine suspend...
• When Rape Hobbles Bush Administration Policies
• Woman demands U.S. apology over alleged '02 rape b...
• Church members to rally for rape accuser
• Rape victim demands U.S. apology for serviceman's ...


• Indecent acts net marine 20 months
• Gunnery sergeant is second defendant convicted of ...
• US Military Jails Marine For Sexual Misconduct In ...
• US Marine sentenced to 20 months in prison for 'in...
• US Marine in Japan sentenced to 20 months in priso...


• Marine faces 20 months in prison for 'indecent act...
• Japan to pay compensation to Australian rape victi...
• “Compensation, 'but not justice', for Japan rape
• Japan to pay 3 mil. yen to victim of 2002 rape inv...
• Philippines to seek new probe of rape case in Japa...


• Japan to pay Australian assaulted by US soldier
• RP may appeal dropping of rape charges vs US soldi...
• DFA open to all options in advancing Pinay rape ca...
• Philippines to seek new probe of rape case in Japa...
• Locals say Hadnott's 36-month sentence is too shor...


• Hadnott pleads guilty to sex assault on teen
• Hadnott timeline: Four months of uneasiness
• Japan waived right to jurisdiction over U.S. milit...
• Prosecutors indict two Marines for 2006 taxi robbe...
• Japanese prosecutor drops rape charges against Arm...


• Court Martial convicts Marine NCO on sexual abuse ...
• Rice discusses sex-assault task force’s findings
• 2 Marines indicted in 2006 cab robbery

Japanese file appeal against US aircraft carrier

By YURI KAGEYAMA
Associated Press Writer
Mon May 26, 5:45 AM ET

TOKYO - Japanese seeking to block a nuclear-powered U.S. warship from being permanently based in Japan took their lawsuit to a higher court Monday.

The latest move by the 248 plaintiffs follows the May 12 rejection by a district court of their lawsuit demanding a halt to harbor work to accommodate the aircraft carrier USS George Washington, which is scheduled to be based at Yokosuka, south of Tokyo, starting August.

The carrier, which is relieving the retiring diesel-powered USS Kitty Hawk, will be the first U.S. Navy nuclear-powered vessel to be permanently based in Japan.

Photo: In this undated photo released by U.S. Navy, USS George Washington is operating in the Arabian Gulf. The Navy said Friday, May 23, 2008 that sailors extinguished a fire aboard the aircraft carrier several hours after flames were spotted Thursday near the auxiliary boiler room and air conditioning and refrigeration space in the rear of the nuclear powered ship. It said the fire has left one sailor with minor burns and 23 others with heat stress but propulsion plant was not damaged and the fire did not threaten the safety of the ship's nuclear reactor. The carrier is to be based in Yokosuka, Japan, starting in August 2008.

The appeal filed with the Tokyo High Court on Monday points to a May 22 fire aboard the warship as adding to the anxiety people have about nuclear power aboard the military vessel, according to documents from the plaintiffs' attorneys.

In their initial lawsuit, the plaintiffs argued that the harbor work to accommodate the ship would spread pollution, kill fish and damage the livelihood of fishermen. They said the warship could also leak radiation if there was an accident.

The USS George Washington's expected arrival has set off protests among many residents in the area.

Many in Japan, the only country to be attacked by nuclear weapons, are sensitive about any military use of nuclear technology. Some Japanese, especially the older generation, are outspoken pacifists and nervousness about the U.S. military presence in Japan is widespread.

The deployment of the USS George Washington is part of a security alliance that Japan has with the U.S., now its close ally.

Nuclear-powered warships have visited Japanese ports hundreds of times since 1964 and the U.S. government insists they are safe.

The move is part of the U.S. military's effort to modernize its forces in Asia, a region of potential flash points with North Korea and China.

The safety concerns about the USS George Washington were rekindled by this month's blaze, which the Navy said left one sailor with minor burns and 23 others with heat stress.

The Navy is investigating the cause of the fire, which it says started near an auxiliary boiler room and never threatened the safety of the ship's nuclear reactor.

The appeal from the Japanese plaintiffs is demanding a more thorough disclosure of information about the fire. It says the city was not notified about the blaze until more than a day later, and says a blaze starting near a boiler room raised serious safety questions.

Japan low key on defense bribery scandals

Malaysia Sun
Monday 26th May, 2008

(Editorial - The Japan Times)

Former Japanese Vice Defense Minister Takemasa Moriya is in the hot seat, having been accused of taking bribes from a defense contractor. Politicians however are loathe to delve into such matters.

Japan's Upper House Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee last week questioned a defense equipment trader under oath about his business and other ties.

Photo: former Vice Defense Minister Takemasa Moriya

Mr. Motonobu Miyazaki, former managing director of Yamada Corp. and founder of Nihon Mirise Corp., has been indicted on a charge of bribing former Vice Defense Minister Takemasa Moriya.

Although there were expectations that Mr. Miyazaki's testimony would shed light on politicians' involvement in defense-related business to gain privileges, the committee failed to extract meaningful statements from him. Lawmakers should have been more aggressive in conducting the hearing.

The committee session itself was unusual. Ruling party forces boycotted the session because opposition forces, which control the committee, decided to allow photographs to be taken of Mr. Miyazaki despite his request not to.

Mr. Miyazaki told the committee that Yamada Corp. paid about ¥100 million to the Japan-U.S. Center for Peace and Cultural Exchange, a Foreign Ministry-related organization, to join a project to dispose of chemical weapons abandoned by the Imperial Japanese Army in Kanda port in Fukuoka Prefecture. His testimony contradicted that of Mr. Naoki Akiyama, executive director of the organization, who in January, as an unsworn witness in the committee, had denied there was a payment. Mr. Miyazaki also said Yamada paid about $100,000 a year from 2003 to 2006 as a consultancy fee to Addback International Corp., a U.S. firm that Mr. Akiyama advises.

He acknowledged meeting with Mr. Akiyama and former Defense Minister Fumio Kyuma, and golfing or dining with politicians such as former defense chief Fukushiro Nukaga, now finance minister, but the panel failed to unravel the relationships. The Diet should not stop delving into ties among defense-related firms, politicians and Mr. Akiyama's organization.

Long March to an Apology

Op-Ed Contributor
Published: May 26, 2008
Washington

By MINDY KOTLER

LESTER TENNEY, an 87-year-old veteran of World War II, plans to travel to Japan today to seek a meeting with the prime minister and an apology for the hardship and misery he and other American prisoners of war endured in that country. For a variety of reasons, beginning with the State Department’s stance on the issue, it is an apology that he is unlikely to receive.

In the fall of 1940, Mr. Tenney enlisted in the 192nd Tank Battalion, Company B, of the Illinois National Guard, which was sent to the Philippines a year later.

When the Japanese attacked in December 1941, the American and Filipino forces were unprepared. A three-month siege on the Bataan Peninsula left Mr. Tenney and his comrades starving and sick. On April 9, 1942, the American commanders surrendered, and the 65-mile Bataan Death March began.

The march lasted four to seven days (for some it was 14), in the tropical sun with no food, water, medicine or rest. The Japanese guards beat, beheaded, bayoneted, buried alive and shot the Americans and Filipinos at will.

When they reached the town of San Fernando, the P.O.W.’s were herded into boxcars and packed so tightly they could hardly move. Men gasped for air in the rising heat and died standing up. Those who survived the four-hour ride then had to stumble six miles to Camp O’Donnell.

But Mr. Tenney’s ordeal was just beginning. Herded onto a “hell ship,” he and his comrades were sent to Japan to work in mines and factories and on docks owned by companies like Mitsui, Mitsubishi, Kawasaki and Nippon Steel. Beatings and other abuses continued. Food and medicine were in short supply; Red Cross food boxes were never delivered to prisoners. Mr. Tenney spent more than two years in a Mitsui coal mine so dangerous that some Japanese miners refused to work there. The death rate for the Allied prisoners of Japan in World War II was 27 percent, far greater than the rate for British and American soldiers in German captivity, about 4 percent.

Since the war ended, the Japanese government has either ignored or denied efforts by American former prisoners of war to obtain compensation or an apology. Japanese companies have sought to suppress historical documentation of forced P.O.W. labor. In 2005, one of Japan’s most prominent magazines, Bungei Shunju, published an article arguing not only that the Bataan Death March was less severe than reported but also that the testimony of the survivors was “gathered based upon the assumption that an atrocity of the Death March did take place.” Remarkably, members of Japan’s Parliament plan to introduce a bill having to do with prisoners of World War II — but it is meant to provide back pay and pensions for Korean and other non-Japanese camp guards who had been convicted as war criminals for abusing Allied P.O.W.’s. [see Asahi article below]

More troubling in some ways, however, is the American government’s attitude toward the legal claims that former P.O.W.’s have filed in American and Japanese courts. In many cases, the State and Justice Departments have supported arguments by Japanese corporations that the 1951 San Francisco Treaty between the Allies and Japan waived all compensation claims. The State Department has also on occasion joined forces with the Japanese Embassy to argue against legislation in Congress asking for compensation from either the American or Japanese governments.

Australian, British and Dutch prisoners held by Japan during World War II have received apologies from Japanese prime ministers and invitations to visit Japan to encourage healing, understanding and education. Their own governments have also compensated them.

Lester Tenney, the current and most likely the last commander of the veterans’ organization American Defenders of Bataan and Corregidor, wants only the same: an apology and an honorable closure of this horrible chapter in American-Japan relations. And he hopes that this time the American government, which so far has not supported his request for a meeting with Japanese officials, will not abandon him.

Mindy Kotler is the director of Asia Policy Point, a research center that studies Asian regional security.

Program Manager Job for DPRI

Department: Department Of The Navy
Agency: Navy, US Marine Corps
Job Announcement Number: OK-08-093

Program Manager
Salary Range: 80,302.00 - 105,420.00 USD per year
Open Period: Friday, May 23, 2008 to Thursday, June 05, 2008
Series & Grade: YC-0340-03/03
Position Information: Full-Time Permanent

Job Summary:
This position is located at Defense Program Review Initiative, Futenma Relocation Facility, Facilities Engineer Division, MCB S. D. Butler Camp Foster Okinawa, Japan

Major Duties:
This position is located in the Defense Policy Review Initiative Program Management Office (DPRI PMO), Facilities Engineer Division, Marine Corps Base, Camp S. D. Butler. As the Deputy DPRI Program Management Officer, the incumbent manages and directs all DPRI projects including Futenma Replacement Facility (FRF), Guam Relocation, Iwakuni Runway Replacement (IRRP), and Okinawa Consolidation (OkiCon), coordinating his/her efforts with higher headquarters and focusing on project management schedules within the GOJ-funded constraints. The incumbent reports to the Assistant Chief of Staff, Facilities Engineer Division (Colonel , USMC ), who also serves as the DPRI Program Management Officer. Major duties include the following: Incumbent is held responsible and is the primary process owner for establishing and leading the organizational structure, operational policies, personnel, budget and logistics for a MCBJ wide program by optimizing the provisions of DPRI using standard business practices of cost reduction/efficiency, production output and projections, staffing levels and departmental budgets. Plan, direct, control and coordinate all function of the MCBJ DPRI; develop new operating concepts and methods in order to meet the organizations goals and objectives and act as the main consultant to the AC/S FE Division on matter pertaining to DPRI, including, but not limited to projected schedules and their associated critical paths, master planning, and host nation and POLMIL relationships. Provide guidance, attend meetings, and make commitments on behalf of the DPRI PMO. Interfaces with host nation officials as senior technical authority on all issues with regard to DPRI. Coordinate all functions of the DPRI PMO through subordinate military supervisors including two USMC Lieutenant Colonels and one USN Commander, who serve as Project Management Officers (PMOs) for FRF< IRRP and OkiCon. Develop short and long term plans to keep the DPRI PMO at the forefront of project management originality, master planning innovations and engineering technology. Evaluate future mission requirements and changes thereof to develop sound projections for the Program Objective Memorandum (POM) and Program Review (PR). Responsible for developing responses for milestones and reports for POM, PR, and various data calls from MCB Butler, MARFORPAC and HQMC. Evaluate components and processes within DPRI for weaknesses and inefficiencies and develop the means t enhance the performance of the DPRI PMO and ensure the objectives are met through completion of the Agreed Implementation Plans (AIP) within DPRI. Determine impact of mission changes on manpower requirements and prepare justification for special studies to improve efficiency within the DPRI PMO.

Defense company Yamada files 795 million yen lawsuit against gov't

May 26, 2008

Defense trading firm Yamada Corp. filed a lawsuit Monday demanding roughly 795 million yen from the government in connection with a defense equipment contract.

In the claim filed in the Tokyo District Court, Yamada Corp. claims that part of the cost of engines for the C-X next-generation transport aircraft and other equipment that it supplied to the Ministry of Defense went unpaid.

In the first round of oral proceedings at the court on Monday, the government indicated that it was prepared to fight the lawsuit.

Yamada Corp.'s lawsuit claims that the company formed a contract in fiscal 2007 to supply two C-X engines and missile alarm devices to the ministry for about 1.42 billion yen. However, it emerged that the company had padded bills for supplying defense equipment in the past, and the Ministry of Defense subtracted the inflated amount when making its payment.

Click here for the original Japanese story

(Mainichi Japan) May 26, 2008

Japanese worried about nuclear safety file appeal to stop US aircraft carrier's arrival

May 26, 2008

TOKYO (AP) -- Japanese seeking to block a nuclear-powered U.S. warship from being permanently based in Japan took their lawsuit to a higher court Monday.

The latest move by the 248 plaintiffs follows the May 12 rejection by a district court of their lawsuit demanding a halt to harbor work to accommodate the aircraft carrier USS George Washington, which is scheduled to be based at Yokosuka, south of Tokyo, from August.

The appeal filed with the Tokyo High Court on Monday points to a May 22 fire aboard the warship as adding to the jitters people have about nuclear power aboard the military vessel, according to documents from the plaintiffs' attorneys.

The USS George Washington's expected arrival has set off protests among many residents in the area.

Japan, the only country to suffer atomic bombing, tends to be sensitive about the military use of nuclear technology. Some Japanese, especially the older generation, are outspoken pacifists and nervousness about the U.S. military presence in Japan is widespread.

The United States dropped an atomic bomb on the city of Hiroshima on the morning of Aug. 6, 1945, killing or injuring at least 140,000 people. Three days later a second was dropped on Nagasaki, killing at least 60,000 people.

The deployment of the USS George Washington is part of a security alliance that Japan has with the United States, its No. 1 ally.

Nuclear-powered warships have visited Japanese ports hundreds of times since 1964, and the U.S. government insists they are safe.

The USS George Washington -- relieving the retiring USS Kitty Hawk -- will be the first U.S. Navy nuclear-powered vessel to be permanently based in Japan.

The move is part of the U.S. military's effort to modernize its forces in Asia, a region of potential flash points with North Korea and China.

The safety concerns about the USS George Washington were rekindled by this month's blaze, which the Navy said left one sailor with minor burns and 23 others with heat stress.

The Navy is investigating the cause of the fire, which it says started near an auxiliary boiler room and never threatened the safety of the ship's nuclear reactor.

The appeal from the Japanese plaintiffs is demanding a more thorough disclosure of information about the fire. It says the city wasn't notified about the blaze until more than a day later, and says a blaze starting near a boiler room raised serious safety questions.

In their initial lawsuit, the plaintiffs argued that the harbor work to accommodate the ship would spread pollution, kill fish and damage the livelihood of fishermen. They said the warship could also leak radiation if there was an accident.

Related articles

* Fire breaks out aboard U.S. nuclear carrier due to be stationed in Japan

(Mainichi Japan) May 26, 2008

US Marine exposes himself to Okinawa woman

May 26, 2008

NAHA -- A U.S. Marine Corps private has been arrested for flashing his private parts at a woman here, police said.

Malik Bashet, 26, a private first class stationed at Kadena Air Base, was arrested for indecent exposure.

The Marine denies the allegations, saying he was only urinating.

Police said that the Marine pulled his trousers down past his thighs and exposed himself to a 28-year-old woman walking through the city of Okinawa on Friday. The woman alerted the police and an officer arrived on the scene and arrested the U.S. military member.

Police said the Marine was drunk at the time of his arrest.

(Mainichi Japan) May 26, 2008

EDITORIAL :: An onion barely peeled

Monday, May 26, 2008

The Upper House Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee last week questioned a defense equipment trader under oath about his business and other ties. Mr. Motonobu Miyazaki, former managing director of Yamada Corp. and founder of Nihon Mirise Corp., has been indicted on a charge of bribing former Vice Defense Minister Takemasa Moriya.

Although there were expectations that Mr. Miyazaki's testimony would shed light on politicians' involvement in defense-related business to gain privileges, the committee failed to extract meaningful statements from him. Lawmakers should have been more aggressive in conducting the hearing.

The committee session itself was unusual. Ruling party forces boycotted the session because opposition forces, which control the committee, decided to allow photographs to be taken of Mr. Miyazaki despite his request not to.

Mr. Miyazaki told the committee that Yamada Corp. paid about ¥100 million to the Japan-U.S. Center for Peace and Cultural Exchange, a Foreign Ministry-related organization, to join a project to dispose of chemical weapons abandoned by the Imperial Japanese Army in Kanda port in Fukuoka Prefecture. His testimony contradicted that of Mr. Naoki Akiyama, executive director of the organization, who in January, as an unsworn witness in the committee, had denied there was a payment. Mr. Miyazaki also said Yamada paid about $100,000 a year from 2003 to 2006 as a consultancy fee to Addback International Corp., a U.S. firm that Mr. Akiyama advises.

He acknowledged meeting with Mr. Akiyama and former Defense Minister Fumio Kyuma, and golfing or dining with politicians such as former defense chief Fukushiro Nukaga, now finance minister, but the panel failed to unravel the relationships. The Diet should not stop delving into ties among defense-related firms, politicians and Mr. Akiyama's organization.

Fukuda a Lame Duck with Bird Flu in the Polls

Click for Japan Times Editorial Cartoons

U.S. carrier hit by fire, faces delay

Sunday, May 25, 2008

YOKOSUKA (Kyodo) A U.S. Navy commander hinted Saturday that a fire earlier this week on the aircraft carrier USS George Washington might delay its scheduled deployment to Yokosuka, Kanagawa Prefecture, in August.

Rear Adm. James Kelly, commander of U.S. Naval Forces Japan, told reporters there could be a "possible impact on George Washington's schedule" because of the fire.

While some people in the port city have voiced concern about the safety of the nuclear-powered vessel since the fire, the admiral said there was nothing to fear.

"This is not something for citizens of Yokosuka to worry about," Kelly said. There is "nothing wrong with the nuclear power plant or propulsion plant or major engineering systems," he said.

He also said two sailors, rather than one as announced earlier, had been treated for burns from the fire, which broke out as it was traveling in the Pacific Ocean off South America on Thursday morning.

Ruling bloc divided over new law on SDF dispatch

The Yomiuri Shimbun

The ruling parties have begun examining the introduction of permanent legislation that would stipulate the functions of Self-Defense Forces personnel when dispatched on missions overseas.

A joint Liberal Democratic Party and New Komeito project team held its first meeting on the issue Friday, with the parties adopting differing stances.

With the new Antiterrorism Law, which provides the legal basis for the Maritime Self-Defense Force's refueling mission in the Indian Ocean, to expire in January, the LDP hopes to continue the MSDF's operations through enactment of a permanent law during an extraordinary Diet session expected to convene in autumn.

New Komeito favors a more cautious approach, as the party believes the timing and environment are not right following the collision between an MSDF Aegis-equipped destroyer and a fishing boat, and a bribery scandal at the Defense Ministry.

At the extraordinary Diet session, therefore, it is highly likely that the current Antiterrorism Law will be revised to extend the MSDF deployment to the Indian Ocean.

The project team decided on three main points of basic policy at the meeting:

-- Maintaining the government's interpretation of the Constitution, which prohibits exercising the right to collective self-defense.

-- Maintaining civilian control over the MSDF mission on the basis of approval from the Diet or similar authority.

-- Submission of the bill by the government.

The above points were decided after taking into account New Komeito's cautious stance over expanding the role of the SDF in overseas missions.

Former LDP Deputy President Taku Yamasaki, the project team leader, made the party's position clear following the team's meeting. "We hope to create an environment in which the government can submit a bill during the extraordinary Diet session," Yamasaki told reporters.

However, Natsuo Yamaguchi, deputy chairman of New Komeito's Policy Research Council, illustrated the differences in stances between the two ruling parties on the issue. "We shouldn't assume that a bill [for a permanent law] will be submitted to the Diet, nor passed into law," Yamaguchi said.

The project team will hold meetings twice weekly until mid-June to draw up an outline of the bill.

A number of contentious points need to be ironed out before a draft bill is drawn up. These include:

-- Whether to permit participation in activities not in accordance with U.N. resolutions.

-- Whether to incorporate details of activities such as escort operations, security enforcement or ship inspections.

-- Whether to relax the right to use weapons.

-- When to require Diet approval.

(May. 25, 2008)

Standing law on overseas dispatch of SDF needed

The Yomiuri Shimbun

It is time to break the political habit of making a new special measures law whenever something important happens. At this time, when Japan is not under attack, in-depth discussions should be held on international peace cooperation activities by Self-Defense Forces in a calm manner toward the development of permanent legislation in respect of such activities.

A joint Liberal Democratic Party and New Komeito project team tasked with compiling a permanent law on the dispatch of SDF members abroad decided at its first meeting Friday to draft an outline of such a bill by the end of the current Diet session.

The new Antiterrorism Law, which provides the legal basis for the Maritime Self-Defense Force's refueling mission in the Indian Ocean, will expire in January. It would be best to enact the permanent law at the extraordinary Diet session in autumn, but the ruling coalition parties have not yet reached agreement on this.

SDF troops have been sent to the Indian Ocean and Iraq, respectively, since the old Antiterrorism Law was enacted in 2001 and the special measures law for reconstruction of Iraq took effect in 2003. Since then, development of permanent legislation has been an outstanding issue.

===

Mission statements missing

To allow for rapid and flexible deployment of the SDF, it is natural that principles governing the dispatch of SDF personnel and the list of missions they can perform should be decided before they are actually sent abroad with Diet approval.

With the revision of the Self-Defense Forces Law in 2006, international peace cooperation activities have been upgraded to a primary duty of the SDF from a secondary one. Nonetheless, there is no law stipulating the basic functions of SDF personnel who are dispatched on missions overseas. This situation can only be described as abnormal.

In the past, the SDF's activities were confined to training, to hone their capability to defend Japan against an armed attack. But nowadays they perform a variety of real missions in and out of the country. The laws need to be adapted to this new reality.

This permanent legislation is very significant for Japan's national security. All Diet members should join discussions to reach a consensus on it. The Democratic Party of Japan, which is the dominant party in the House of Councillors, cannot be allowed simply to look on as a spectator. Why doesn't the party work on such a bill by itself and hold talks with the ruling coalition parties?

The contentious points of the envisaged permanent legislation have already become obvious.

The first question is whether a U.N. Security Council resolution should be made a prerequisite for the SDF dispatch.

We feel skeptical about such a prerequisite being set. It should be considered as just one of the conditions for deciding on a dispatch.

===

Let SDF do their jobs

Power games influence Security Council resolutions. A resolution cannot be approved if one of the five permanent members of the council exercises a veto over it.

Japan should have the option of being able to send SDF troops to participate in international peace cooperation activities without such a resolution.

The second issue is the type of overseas mission to be allowed. SDF missions have so far been limited to logistic support, ceasefire monitoring and humanitarian and reconstruction assistance. But protective activities and ship inspections should be added to this list.

If ship inspection is added to the list of missions allowed for SDF members, it will open the way for MSDF ships to play an active part in maritime interdiction operations in addition to refueling vessels of other countries in the Indian Ocean.

Also, standards on the use of weapons for SDF troops should be relaxed. SDF members should be allowed to use their weapons with fewer restrictions to eliminate any obstruction to carrying out their missions effectively.

(From The Yomiuri Shimbun, May 25, 2008)
(May. 25, 2008)

U.S. Navy hints at delay in carrier deployment to Yokosuka due to fire

May 24 06:11 AM US/Eastern

fire+ (AP) - YOKOSUKA, Japan, May 24 (Kyodo)—A U.S. Navy commander hinted Saturday that the deployment of the carrier USS George Washington to Yokosuka, planned for August, could be delayed due to a fire that broke out on the nuclear-powered vessel.

U.S. Naval Forces Japan Commander Rear Adm. James Kelly told reporters the accident could possibly have an "impact on George Washington's schedule."

Kelly also said two sailors, rather than one as announced earlier, were treated for burns after the fire aboard the U.S. Navy vessel while it was traveling in the Pacific Ocean off South America on Thursday morning.

Air force chief urges students to learn about foreign views of WWII

May 24 05:45 AM US/Eastern

(AP) - TOKYO, May 24 (Kyodo) — Air Self-Defense Force chief Gen. Toshio Tamogami, in a rare move for a top Self-Defense Forces officer, gave a lecture at a university on Saturday calling on students to support the SDF and learn more about foreign views on Japan's wartime military and World War II.

"There are many views in Japan that Japan went to war because it was an aggressive country...But there are many reports (in foreign countries) suggesting Japan was not. I want you to learn not only the one-sided views in Japan but both," Tamogami told nearly 1,000 people at the University of Tokyo's Yasuda Auditorium.

The chief of the Defense Ministry's Air Staff Office denied that he was stating a personal opinion, quoting historical documents and newspapers from countries such as France and Britain.

Tamogami also called for students of Japan's most prestigious university to help improve the reputation of the SDF as many in Japan remain skeptical about the forces' credibility due to a spate of scandals and incidents involving them.

"There is a deep-rooted view in Japan that whatever the SDF do, it will not result in anything good. And the wartime Japanese military has been said to have done bad things and many people think that if they let the military do whatever it wants, it will lead to war."

"But...I want students to learn both sides and ponder what the reality was," Tamogami said.

The general was speaking at an event organized by the university's National Security Forum, a students' society, as part of a two-day university festival through Sunday.

Yokosuka says to closely watch U.S. handling of vessel fire

May 23 10:55 PM US/Eastern

YOKOSUKA, Japan, May 24 (AP) - (Kyodo)—A local civic group opposed to the imminent deployment of the U.S. aircraft carrier George Washington and a Yokosuka city official said Saturday they will closely watch how the United States handles the aftermath of the fire that took place aboard the nuclear- powered carrier on Thursday.

Masahiko Goto, a co-leader of the group, said, "The aircraft carrier is loaded with weapons, jet fuel and other hazardous materials lumped together in a narrow space, and the fire this time demonstrated the potential danger" such an incident may pose.

"We would like to closely watch if the U.S. Navy will see to it that information about this trouble is released to citizens," said Goto, a lawyer who leads the citizens' group for examining the issue of making Yokosuka the home port for the aircraft carrier.

Masashi Suzuki, a municipal official of the division in charge of U.S. base-related measures, said he was informed of the incident Friday night by the Foreign Ministry.

"I was told that it was a small fire," he said. "Since there was no abnormality in the nuclear reactor and other parts and there would also appear to be no change in schedule, we would like to watch the situation" surrounding the carrier.

One sailor was treated for burns and 23 others for heat stress after the fire aboard the U.S. Navy vessel while traveling in the Pacific Ocean off South America on Thursday morning. The Defense Department said the Navy is investigating the cause.

Fire breaks out aboard U.S. nuclear carrier due to be stationed in Japan

May 24, 2008

WASHINGTON -- Dozens of crewmembers aboard the carrier USS George Washington were injured after the vessel -- due to be stationed at the Yokosuka base in Japan in August -- caught fire while navigating in the Pacific earlier this week, the U.S. Navy said.

Photo: USS George Washington

One sailor sustained minor burns and 23 others suffered heat stress after the fire broke out at around 7:50 a.m. on Thursday, the U.S. Navy announced on Friday. There was no damage done to the vessel's nuclear reactor.

The incident occurred as the warship was sailing off South America on its way to San Diego, California, before heading for Japan to be deployed at the U.S. Navy's Yokosuka base in Kanagawa Prefecture in mid-August. It will be the first time that Japan will host a nuclear aircraft carrier.

According to the U.S. Navy, the fire started near an air-conditioning and refrigeration room and the auxiliary boiler room at the vessel's stern, and spread to adjacent rooms until it was extinguished several hours later.

Photo: Crewmembers aboard the USS George Washington after the blaze.

The fire, which occurred during a refueling operation with the frigate USS Crommelin, did not affect the nuclear vessel's navigation system, the Navy said. The cause of the fire and the extent of the damage caused are now being investigated.

The George Washington left its home port in Norfolk, Virginia, in April and is slated to call at Hawaii for a ceremony to mark its replacement with the USS Kitty Hawk, which is currently deployed at the Yokosuka base and is due to retire, before heading to Yokosuka.

Related articles

* Court rejects suit demanding halt of harbor work for US nuclear-powered carrier

(Mainichi Japan) May 24, 2008

Ban lifted on school trips to Yasukuni

Saturday, May 24, 2008
Compiled from Kyodo, Staff report


Off-limits since '49, war-related Tokyo shrine now OK for kids

The government Friday declared null and void a 1949 state-imposed ban on public schools organizing field trips to Tokyo's war-related Yasukuni Shrine.

The government clarified the point in reply to a query by Takeo Hiranuma, a nationalist ex-trade minister from the ruling Liberal Democratic Party who is now an independent Lower House lawmaker.

Hiranuma, along with several LDP hawks, was involved in obscuring the international outcry over the wartime sex slave issue and blocking discussion on having a female head the Imperial family.

The government's answer in a document the Cabinet endorsed Friday said, "It is permissible for schoolchildren to visit Yasukuni Shrine to learn about Japanese history and culture as part of school education."

The Shinto shrine in Chiyoda Ward honors Japan's war dead, as well as convicted war criminals, who were dedicated at Yasukuni in the 1970s.

In 1945, the Occupation forces banned the government from forcing citizens to engage in state-sponsored Shinto practices and also prohibited promotion of militarism.

According to the government document, the vice education minister at the time subsequently issued an instruction prohibiting public schools from having their students visit Yasukuni or other religious places for the purpose of worshipping on school excursions.

The document said the Occupation ban expired after Japan regained its sovereignty when the peace treaty with its wartime foes took effect in 1952.

In March, Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Minister Kisaburo Tokai said: "The education vice minister's instruction was drawn up under unusual circumstances shortly after the war's end. Now there is no need to treat Yasukuni differently from other Shinto shrines."

Naoki Ogi, an expert on education issues, reacted sharply to the lifting of the ban.

"It's OK for the government to confirm the 1949 ban is no longer valid. But isn't it going too far to say, 'schools have got permission to visit Yasukuni?' "

Ogi warned that Friday's Cabinet decision could be used as an excuse to instill patriotism in classrooms.

A recent controversy over the shrine focused on a restriction of freedom of expression after some 40 LDP lawmakers held an unprecedented preview of Chinese director Li Ying's award-winning documentary "Yasukuni" in March.

Following the preview, which was widely taken as effective censorship, several cinemas that had initially decided to screen the film canceled it for fear of possible intimidation by rightwingers.

EDITORIAL: The space program

05/24/2008

In our editorial Thursday (Friday in the IHT/Asahi) on the newly enacted law that opens the way to Japan's space development for defense purposes, we urged the government to lay down clear principles for military use of space in the process of producing related legislation. The basic space law has effectively scrapped the long-standing "nonmilitary" principle of the nation's space program.

But it is not the only issue raised by the law, which prescribes a broad set of rules for space development efforts by both the public and private sectors.

The law defines the government's responsibilities and roles in space exploration. It requires the government to take measures to ensure a more comprehensive and strategic approach to space programs, such as the creation of a "space development strategic headquarters" headed by the prime minister. It will lead to a radical change in the organization for space development.

Japan's space program has been hampered by a compartmentalized administrative structure and the pluralized policy process. A shift to a more coherent approach to space development is welcome.

Whether that will happen, however, depends on the specific changes in the organizations and systems that are to be worked out according to the law.

There is no doubt that space technology is increasingly important for society. Many products and services indispensable to daily life are based on space technology, including weather forecasts and satellite car navigation systems.

Meanwhile, space exploration is changing dramatically, with countries like India, China and South Korea emerging as serious players.

Japan's stature in the space community has declined over the past decade or so due to a series of failed rocket launches and troubles with satellites.

We hope Japan will be able to upgrade its space technology in coming years so that it can improve the quality of people's lives and also contribute internationally.

One of the primary goals of America's NASA, the model for government space agencies, is space science research. Japan should try to acquire world leadership in certain areas of space science through projects like missions involving the Hayabusa asteroid explorer.

Given its fiscal constraints, however, Japan should not spread its resources thin by expanding its space program too widely.

The business community was the champion of the new space legislation. Promoting the space industry is indeed important.

But the government should not cater to the interests of the business community with wasteful spending like huge expenditures on roads and dams of dubious utility. The government must define the scope of its efforts to promote development of Japan's space technology through a cautious, rational assessment of cost effectiveness.

The GX midsize rocket project, which has avid supporters within the Liberal Democratic Party, has been criticized for serious delays in technology development and swelling budget overruns. What to do with this project may prove to be the first big test for the new space development regime prescribed by the law.

More worrisome is the possibility that the envisioned expansion of military applications of space technology could undermine the transparency of the space program.

The government has refused to disclose any crucial information on how the current information-gathering satellite is being used even though it is described as a multi-purpose satellite. It has failed to fulfill its responsibility to provide taxpayers with vital information about this satellite.

To improve its space program, the government needs to eliminate waste, develop realistic plans that are not overly ambitious and review them if necessary, disclosing as much related information as possible.

A disciplined stance is crucial for space development because this is an area that involves huge amounts of taxpayer money.

--The Asahi Shimbun, May 23(IHT/Asahi: May 24,2008)

Counterfeiting conviction nets U.S. Marine suspended sentence

Date Posted: 2008-05-24

A Marine who last year created counterfeit American currency on a photo copier in his on-base barracks, then circulated the phony money in local Okinawa communities has been found guilty by a Naha District Court.

The G.I., who used the counterfeit bills to pay restaurant and taxi fares, was sentenced to four years probation, with the terms suspended as long as he behaves. The prosecution had wanted the Marine locked up for three years.

The judge, in rendering his decision, said leniency was necessary. “Sure, he did selfish and greedy things, and he will be punished,” the judge said, “but he just had a baby and he hadn’t done anything bad before this.” The judge told the court the Marine “has to have a chance to live and for rehabilitation.

Okinawans pay homage to island’s 1972 reversion to Japan

Date Posted: 2008-05-24

Peace marches drew thousands over the past week as Okinawa commemorated the prefecture’s reversion to Japanese control 36 years ago.

Okinawa was officially returned to Japan May 15, 1972, after being under U.S. administration and control since the end of World War II. Peace marches, which have been an annual event during the commemoration, which some years included ceremonies.

Ginowan City’s Kaihin Park was the focal point of this year’s three-day march May 16th ~ 18th, with several thousand Okinawan and a similar number of mainland Japanese beginning the walk from three different start points across Okinawa. Shiko Sakiyama, chairman of the Okinawa Peace Campaign Center, led the speakers at Kaihin Park.

“We have a process for a great campaign to make a peaceful Okinawa,” Sakiyama told the assembled crowd, “and we must get rid of military bases.” Ginowan City’s anti-bases mayor, Youichi Iha, echoed the call that “we have to fight until the military bases are gone from Okinawa.” Iha also made the appeal that “bases should not be spreading to all of Japan.”

Most of the peace marchers were older Okinawans, mainland Japanese and members of activist anti-military or anti-bases groups. The younger generation, says a professor at Okinawa Kokusai University, doesn’t even remember the days when Okinawa was under American administration.

Professor Manabu Sato conducted his own survey on the question, asking his students the significance of May 15th. Only 13% of his students knew the answer, he says. Not only that, they knew nothing about the term ‘rebirth’ which some attributed to Okinawa’s new life after reversion. Students told Sato “We are Japanese since birth. There is no special ceremony for rebirth and nobody cares about rebirth anymore. It was 36 years ago.”

Other students said they learn history in school, but that classroom lessons are easily forgotten when school finishes. Professor Sato says “It’s very important to let students understand about rebirth, and also the importance of May 15th. Another student told the professor “I’ve heard about rebirth but haven’t had a chance to discuss it, so I don’t know the day or the word. Nobody speaks about rebirth anymore.”

Illegal sword in luggage bounces U.S. Marine from departure flight

Date Posted: 2008-05-24

A 27-year-old Marine has missed his flight home and is now in Okinawa Prefectural Police custody after a sword was found in his checked luggage.

Michael D. Spivey was checking in at Naha Airport for his flight leaving Okinawa en route to his new duty station in California when security screeners detected a sword inside his luggage. A police spokesman says screeners found the sword inside a metal tube in the baggage. The sword blade was 14” long, a violation of the Japan Swords and Firearms Control Law, which bars possession of swords or knives with blades longer than 6”.

Spivey was taken into police custody Sunday, and is being held by Okinawa authorities. The Okinawa Prefectural Police spokesman in Tomishiro says Spivey acknowledged possessing the sword, which he told them was a gift from a Filipina friend.

The Swords and Firearms Control Law also prohibits firearms, and switchblade knives with blades longer than 2.2”. A U.S. Marines spokesman says an investigation is continuing in the incident.

Fire occurs at carrier G. Washington Thurs., no radioactive leaks

May 23 05:30 PM US/Eastern

(AP) - WASHINGTON, May 23 (Kyodo) — One sailor was treated for first-degree burns and 23 others for heat stress after a fire on the U.S. Navy aircraft carrier George Washington burned for hours Thursday, CNN television reported Friday, citing the U.S. Navy.

CNN said there were no fatalities on the nuclear-powered ship.

The fire that occurred in the Pacific Ocean off South America was classified as "serious," Navy spokesman Cmdr. Jeff Davis told CNN.

The spokesman told Kyodo News no radioactive leaks were detected.

Smoke initially was detected in air-conditioning and refrigeration spaces before spreading to other areas, causing "extreme heat" in the ship, Davis was quoted as saying.

He said it took several hours to contain and then extinguish the blaze.

CNN said the ship's nuclear propulsion system was not damaged, and the George Washington is continuing toward a scheduled port call in San Diego, California.

The 102,000-ton George Washington, with a crew of more than 3,000 sailors, left Norfolk, Virginia, in early April. It is scheduled to arrive in August at Yokosuka, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan, replacing the conventional U.S. aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk.

The George Washington, the only U.S. aircraft carrier to be forward- deployed permanently, is a Nimitz-class carrier commissioned in 1992 that carries more than 80 aircraft.

In 2005, Japan agreed for the first time to allow the United States to base a nuclear-powered carrier in the country as part of a broader deal on the realignment of U.S. military forces on Japanese territory.

Tokyo was initially reluctant to accept a nuclear-powered carrier.

When Rape Hobbles Bush Administration Policies

Published on Friday, May 23, 2008
by Ann Wright


Sexual Assault and Rape by US Military in Japan Lead to a Major International Incident

One would hope that behavior that requires the “regrets” of the President of the United States and the Secretary of State and the stand down of United States military forces for “reflection” and retraining in ethics and leadership would be punished severely enough to send a clear signal that the behavior will not be tolerated.

Yet the history of sexual assault and rape of women around U.S. military bases, particularly in Okinawa, reveals a military institutional acceptance of this criminal behavior and the lack of enforcement of military regulations against such behavior by senior military officers.

Many in Okinawa and in the United States are watching the U.S. military’s response to the latest rapes and sexual assaults to see if this pattern will change.

Since 1945 when US military stormed onto the island of Okinawa to dislodge Japanese military in World War II, Okinawan women and girls have been sexually assaulted and raped by U.S. military personnel. The Okinawans know the history of every assault. 30 women were raped in 1945, 40 in 1946, 37 in 1947 and the count goes on year after year. The first conviction of a US military soldier for rape was in 1948.

During my recent trip to Japan, I met with members of the organization Okinawan Women Act Against Military Violence. According to reports compiled from police records and other sources by that organization, hundreds of Okinawan and Japanese women have been sexually assaulted and raped by US military since 1945.

In the latest series of incidents, in April, 2008, the U.S. military in Japan charged a Marine with rape and other violations of the Uniform Code of Military Justice in the alleged sexual assault of 14-year old girl in Okinawa. U.S. Marine Staff Sergeant Tyrone Hadnott, 38, who had been in the Marines 18 years, was charged with the February 10, 2008, rape of a child under 16, abusive sexual contact with a child, making a false official statement, adultery and kidnapping. In February, Japanese authorities had released Hadnott after the girl dropped the allegations against him, but the Marine Corps conducted its own investigation to see if Hadnott violated codes of military justice.

The rape accusation against Hadnott stirred memories of a brutal rape more than a decade ago and triggered outrage across Japan. Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda said that Hadnott’s actions were “unforgivable.”

The February 11, 2008 arrest of Hadnott by Okinawan police on suspicion of raping a 14-year-old girl he picked up on a motorcycle outside an ice cream parlor in Okinawa City on February 10, triggered an international incident.

The same day, on February 11, Okinawa Governor Hirokazu Nakaima and Japanese Foreign Minister Masahiko Komura lodged protests with the United States government.

On February 12, Okinawa police recommended a charge of rape to the Okinawa Public Prosecutors Office and hundreds of Okinawans staged protests at the headquarters gate to Camp Foster, Japan.

Japanese Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba expressed concern the alleged rape could affect the planned realignment of U.S. troops in Japan.

On February 13, Lieutenant General Wright, commander of all US military forces in Japan, U.S. Ambassador to Japan Thomas Schieffer and Lt. Gen. Richard Zilmer, commander of U.S. Marines in Japan, met with Okinawa Governor Nakaima to express their concern. They promised steps will be taken to prevent future incidents.

On February 28, on an official visit to Japan, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice also expressed her regrets to Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda and Foreign Minister Mashiko Komura. “I earlier had had a chance to express the regret to the prime minister on behalf of President (George W.) Bush, on behalf of myself and the people of the United States for the terrible incident that happened in Okinawa,” Rice said at a joint news conference held after she spoke with Foreign Minister Masahiko Komura. “We are concerned for the well-being of the young girl and her family.”

In a press conference with Komura, Rice said the United States will try to prevent such incidents from recurring and said the U.S. Forces in Japan and the U.S. Embassy would be reinforcing military discipline. Rice also said that Okinawa is “extremely important” for the security of the Asia-Pacific region and it is important for the U.S. and Japan to go ahead with the U.S. forces reorganization.

Rice did not mention publicly the Bush administration’s push for Japanese participation in the Iraq war by providing more refueling ships and logistics aircraft, which has sparked outrage in the Japanese public as it violates the renunciation of war Article 9 of their constitution.

Lt. General Zilmer, commander of U.S. Marines in Japan, ordered a two-day stand-down for all Marines in Japan for “ethics and leadership” training. The incident also led to tight restrictions, for a time, for American troops and their families at the U.S. base on Okinawa. The U.S. military in Japan also formed a sexual assault prevention task force after the incident.

On May 15, 2008, a U.S. military court-martial sentenced Hadnott to four years in prison, with one year suspended, after convicting him of abusive sexual conduct with a Japanese teenager in Okinawa. Four other charges, including rape of a child under 16, making a false official statement, adultery and “kidnapping through inveigling,” or trickery, were dropped in a plea bargain.

When asked specifically by a Japanese news reporter, a U.S. Marine public affairs officer stated that Hadnott’s name has been placed on the U.S. National Sex Offenders list, yet the Stars and Stripes military newspaper reports that Hadnott will have to place himself on the sex offenders registry after he completes his 36-month jail sentence.

On May 16, 2008, charges were dropped against a soldier accused of raping a 21 year-old Filipino woman in February 18, 2008. The Naha, Okinawa, District Public Prosecutor said his office did not have sufficient evidence to indict Sergeant Ronald Edward Hopstock Jr., 25, of the 1st Battalion, 1st Air Defense Artillery Regiment, a U.S. Army Patriot missile battery on the U.S. Air Force’s Kadena Air Base, Okinawa.

According to police, after the incident, the woman was hospitalized for more than a week and received outpatient treatment for two weeks. At the time of the incident, the woman had been in Japan only three days, police reports said. Hopstock remains restricted to Kadena Air Base and is closely supervised by officials.

However, like the U.S. Marines in the Hadnott case, the U.S. Army said it will conduct its own investigation, according to Major James Crawford, a U.S. Army spokesman at Camp Zama, Japan.

On May 9, 2008, U.S. Marine Lance Corporal Larry Dean, 20, was convicted of “wrongful sexual contact and indecent acts” in the gang rape of a 19-year-old woman in Hiroshima, Japan in October, 2007, and sentenced no more than one year in jail and a dishonorable discharge. He was also convicted of “fraternization and violating military orders about liberty and alcohol” but cleared of rape and kidnapping charges. Three other Marines will be court-martialed later in May, 2008 on charges of gang-raping the young woman.

In another incident, in early May, 2008, another young 14-year-old Japanese girl reportedly was assaulted by a U.S. military service member. The case is under investigation by both Japanese and U.S. military police.

In the 1995 case that is referenced by virtually every Okinawan one speaks with, three American servicemen kidnapped and gang-raped a 12-year-old Okinawan schoolgirl. In August 2006, one of the perpetrators of the 1995 rape, strangled and raped a 22-year-old female college student in Georgia, after which he killed himself.

In 2002, Marine Major Michael Brown was charged with attempting to rape a Filipina bartender at a club on a U.S. military base. Following a 19-month trial, on July 8, 2004, Brown was convicted by the Japanese District Court of “attempting an indecent act” and “destruction of property” but was acquitted of the rape charge. The court gave Brown a one-year prison sentence, suspended him for three years, and fined him US$1,400. The Japanese Judge said Brown was given a light sentence because the 21-year Marine veteran had no prior criminal record. Brown appealed the verdict to Japan’s Supreme Court which dismissed the appeal in July 2004. Brown was transferred by the U.S. military to Marine Corps Base Quantico, Virginia in August 2004.

In October, 2005, Brown was arrested and charged with kidnapping an 18-year-old girl from a flea-market in Milton, West Virginia. Brown was subsequently indicted in January, 2006 on felony kidnapping and grand larceny charges and, as of May, 2008, currently awaits trial scheduled to take place in Huntington, West Virginia. In the meantime, the U.S. Marine Corps demoted Brown to Captain and allowed him to retire at that rank on February 1, 2006.

In 2006, a U.S. civilian employed by the U.S. military employee was jailed for nine years for raping two women on Okinawa.

While the vast majority of US military personnel do not commit criminal acts while in Japan, the continued presence after 60 years of such a large number of US military, and the horrific crimes committed by a small minority of U.S. military, mean that America’s military presence in Japan and Okinawa is deeply resented and many Japanese call for the removal of U.S. bases in Japan.

Sexual assault and rape of women in countries where U.S. military forces are stationed must be stopped, as must the rape of 1 in 3 women in the US military who are raped by their fellow military service members.

Ann Wright is a retired US Army Reserves Colonel with 29 years of military service. She also was a US diplomat who served in Nicaragua, Grenada, Somalia, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Sierra Leone, Micronesia and Mongolia. She was on the small team that reopened the US Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan in December, 2001. She resigned from the US diplomatic corps in March, 2003 in opposition to the Bush administration’s decision to invade and occupy Iraq. She is the co-author of “Dissent: Voices of Conscience,” profiles of government insiders who have spoken and acted on their concerns of their governments’ policies.

Gov't lifts ban on public school trips to Yasukuni Shrine

May 22 11:42 PM US/Eastern

TOKYO, May 23 (AP) - (Kyodo) — The government on Friday declared null and void the 1949 government instruction to ban public schools from organizing trips to the war-related Yasukuni Shrine.

In a response to a query by Takeo Hiranuma, an independent parliamentarian, the government said in a document decided at a Cabinet meeting, "It is permissible for schoolchildren to visit Yasukuni Shrine to learn about Japanese history and culture as part of school education."

The Shinto shrine in central Tokyo honors Japan's convicted War Criminals alongside the war dead who fought in the Japanese military.

In 1945, the Allied occupation forces, which took command after Japan's surrender in World War II, banned the Japanese government from forcing citizens to practice any state-sponsored variety of Shintoism and also prohibited it from promoting militarism.

According to the government document, the then vice education minister subsequently issued an instruction prohibiting public schools from having their students visit the shrine or other religious places for the purpose of worshipping on school excursions.

The document said the occupation authority's ban expired after Japan regained its sovereignty when its peace treaty with its wartime enemies took effect in 1952.

Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Minister Kisaburo Tokai said in March, "The education vice minister's instruction was drawn up under unusual circumstances shortly after the war's end. Now there is no need to treat Yasukuni Shrine differently from other Shinto shrines."

US special military hardware on view

2008/05/23 10:10

State-of-the-art weaponry for special operations has been shown to the media at a US military installation in Florida.

The US Special Operations Command, headquartered in Tampa, Florida, oversees various special warfare units of the army, air force, navy and marines.

Among the weapons that drew most attention at Wednesday's viewing was the latest model of the V-22 Osprey aircraft.

It is designed to replace conventional transport helicopters and is scheduled to be deployed at US bases in Okinawa, Japan.

The V-22 has a higher speed and a longer range than conventional helicopters, and is expected to play a major role in transporting commando units.

Also on view was the latest version of the MRAP armored vehicle, designed to support anti-terrorist operations in places like Iraq and Afghanistan.

It is fitted with thick armor aimed at protecting soldiers inside from roadside bombs. High-precision equipment allows the crew to have a clear view of the outside without getting out of the vehicle.

A US officer said the vehicle helps enhance survival rates in anti-terrorism operations.

High-performance rafts for sea-based operations were also on display.

2 teachers punished for refusing to stand up, recite 'Kimigayo'

May 23 08:21 AM US/Eastern

TOKYO, May 23 (AP) - (Kyodo) — The Tokyo education board on Friday punished two teachers of public schools for refusing to stand up at the schools' enrollment ceremonies in April when the "Kimigayo" anthem was being recited, the board said.

A high school teacher was reprimanded with a one-month pay cut, while a teacher at a special-needs school received an admonitory warning. The two immediately requested that the personnel commission of the metropolitan government review the decisions and annul them.

The punishments are based on a notice issued by the education board on Oct. 23, 2003, directing school principals to order teachers to stand and sing the anthem or else be reprimanded. Since the notice was issued, 410 teachers and school clerks, including the two, have been punished.

There is growing criticism that the instruction violates the constitutionally guaranteed freedom of thought and conscience, with the punished high school teacher saying, "It is not acceptable that the administrative body intervenes in thought and conscience."

Miyazaki digs Yamada in deeper

Friday, May 23, 2008
Kyodo News



Accused briber tells Diet trader's money was linked to chemical arms cleanup off Fukuoka

The key codefendant in the bribery trial of former Defense Vice Minister Takemasa Moriya said Thursday his company paid about ¥100 million to a Foreign Ministry-linked organization over a state project to dispose of wartime chemical weapons abandoned by the military.

Motonobu Miyazaki, 69, former managing director of defense equipment trader Yamada Corp., gave the sworn testimony before the House of Councilors Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee. He claimed the money was paid to deal with "local matters" pertaining to the project, without elaborating.

Miyazaki's account contradicts unsworn testimony by a senior official of the Foreign Ministry-related Japan-U.S. Center for Peace and Cultural Exchange.

On Jan. 8, Naoki Akiyama, executive director of the center, denied that his organization got ¥100 million from Yamada Corp., which was willing to join the project to dispose of chemical weapons found on the seabed off Fukuoka Prefecture. Akiyama, 58, gave the unsworn testimony to the same committee of the Upper House, which is controlled by the opposition camp.

Miyazaki, who is accused of paying bribes to Moriya, also told the committee he took part in meetings with Akiyama and former Defense Minister Fumio Kyuma.

Miyazaki meanwhile denied he had consulted with Kyuma over another government project — the relocation of a U.S. Marine Corps contingent from Okinawa to Guam.

He also admitted playing golf and dining with a number of politicians, including former Defense Minister Fukushiro Nukaga, the current finance minister, but claimed such outings were infrequent.

Members of the Liberal Democratic Party-New Komeito ruling bloc boycotted the day's session after the opposition-controlled committee allowed media organizations in to tape or take still images.

Miyazaki claimed his friendly links with Akiyama began when Yamada joined the chemical weapons-disposal project and the trading house paid about $100,000 a year as a consultancy fee to U.S.-based Add-Back International Corp., in which Akiyama serves as an adviser.

Prosecutors are continuing to investigate Akiyama on allegations that he evaded taxes for consultancy fees he received via several U.S.-based companies.

Miyazaki is the main codefendant on trial with Moriya, 63, who stands charged with taking about ¥12.5 million in bribes and committing perjury for allegedly giving false testimony in the Diet.

On April 21, both Moriya and Miyazaki pleaded guilty to the charges against them in the opening session of their Tokyo District Court trial.

If push comes to shove, DPJ won't

Friday, May 23, 2008
By MASAMI ITO
Staff writer

Party seeks to prove it's qualified to rule, but avoids censuring Fukuda to force election

Yasuo Fukuda and his Cabinet are sinking, and political analysts say the prime minister's condition is critical. So this would seem like the perfect time for the Democratic Party of Japan to pounce.

Photo: Reading the tea leaves: Democratic Party of Japan leader Ichiro Ozawa (left) and deputy Naoto Kan get ready to vote on the road tax bill at the House of Representatives on May 13.

Lawmakers in the DPJ, the largest opposition force, have repeatedly stressed their intention to corner Fukuda into dissolving the Lower House and calling a snap election.

But instead of seizing the chance to submit a censure motion against the prime minister in the Upper House, which is controlled by the opposition, the DPJ has opted to take the more conventional approach of fighting the Liberal Democratic Party openly in the Diet.

A big reason for this is that the DPJ is not sure how much the public would support a censure motion, according to a senior lawmaker from New Komeito, the LDP's ruling coalition partner.

Lawmakers from both sides generally feel that once the opposition parties submit a censure motion against the prime minister and it's approved, all proceedings in the Upper House will come to a halt.

While there is no explicit rule to this effect, lawmakers say the opposition parties would contradict their own censure motion if they were to continue holding committee sessions and deliberate on government-submitted bills in the presence of the prime minister.

If the opposition camp had submitted the censure motion immediately after the ruling bloc overrode the Upper House on May 13, passing the road tax bill on the strength of its two-thirds majority in the Lower House, the DPJ would have refused to hold deliberations in the upper chamber for more than a month until the June 15 end of the current Diet session.

And stopping the Diet for a month would have been seen negatively by the public, said the New Komeito lawmaker, who asked not to be named.

"The DPJ couldn't read how voters would react" if the Diet proceedings stopped in the Upper House, he said. On the other hand, "I think the prime minister was worried, too, that he might be forced to dissolve the Lower House if the DPJ had submitted a censure motion."

Shuji Kira, a second-term DPJ lawmaker, agrees that worries over the public reaction was one factor behind the party's inaction. But he said another major reason was that Fukuda looked certain to keep the Lower House intact even if the DPJ had submitted a censure motion.

"The LDP has assumed a defiant attitude," Kira said. "The DPJ has read that no matter what kind of measures the DPJ takes against the LDP, it has no intention of dissolving (the Lower House) in a situation when it is at a disadvantage."

Analysts agree it is highly unlikely an election will take place before Japan hosts the Group of Eight summit in July.

"No matter how low the support rate for the LDP is, the party can still rule — even if that is not desirable," said Yasunori Sone, a professor of political science at Keio University in Tokyo.

"The right to dissolve (the Lower House) is solely in the hands of the prime minister, and it will not be easy (for the DPJ) to force an election," Sone said.

A Kyodo News survey released May 2 found that the support rate for Fukuda's Cabinet had plunged to 19.8 percent, while public anger, and distrust continue to mount over the "provisional" tax surcharge on gasoline and the new health insurance system for people aged 75 and older that deducts premiums from their pension benefits.

According to the survey, the support rate for the DPJ reached 30.3 percent, up from 25.7 percent in the previous poll, while the LDP's support rate was only 24.3 percent, down from 27.6 percent.

Yet Sone said rising support for the DPJ won't change the political landscape, at least for now.

Unlike a vote of no confidence in the Lower House, which would force Fukuda to dissolve the chamber or the Cabinet to resign en masse, a censure motion in the upper chamber carries no such power.

"Because a censure motion is not legally binding, Fukuda is not going to resign nor dissolve" the Lower House, Sone said. "All the DPJ would be able to do is boycott Diet deliberations. And it wouldn't be able to keep that up for a month (without drawing increasing public criticism)."

The DPJ's Kira openly admitted that the public still has doubts over whether his party could run the nation.

"Honestly speaking, I think there are few people who are actively supporting the DPJ at the moment," Kira said. "Looking at the way the LDP has been handling things and at the sloppy management of the government, the public feels it is time to put an end to the LDP's rule, but at the same time, I believe people still are unsure they can rely on the DPJ."

The party has yet to show it can take the reins of power.

"The public wants us to prove we have the ability to run the government," Kira said. "By choosing not to submit a censure motion and stop Diet deliberations, we are killing two birds with one stone — we can continue to highlight the incompetence of the government while revealing what we would do if we were in power."

With less than a month before the Diet closes its doors for the season, DPJ lawmakers said they are ready to focus on policies that directly affect the people, including the pension issue and the unpopular health insurance system for the elderly.

"The DPJ is more powerful than it has been before," DPJ Vice President Yoshiaki Takaki said. "Many young (DPJ) lawmakers are burning (with intensity) to steer the nation's politics."

Takaki stressed that Fukuda and his predecessor, Shinzo Abe, managed to retain the ruling bloc's comfortable majority in the Lower House thanks to the popularity of Abe's predecessor, Junichiro Koizumi. And the LDP is afraid to lose its two-thirds majority in the Lower House in a general election.

"The sooner the election, the better," Takaki, a former DPJ Diet affairs chief, said. "To truly reflect the will of the public, we must let the public choose its leader."

Woman demands U.S. apology over alleged '02 rape by sailor

Friday, May 23, 2008
Kyodo News

An Australian woman demanded an apology Thursday from Washington over her alleged rape by a U.S. Navy sailor in Japan in 2002 and called for the man to be placed in custody, while meanwhile questioning a legal system under which Tokyo compensates her on his behalf.

"I deserve an apology from the U.S. government," the woman, who only called herself "Jane," said at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan. "I want justice and the legal system the U.S. government has failed to give me."

The woman also urged U.S. authorities to collar the man, who left the navy after returning to the United States, referring to a pledge made by Lt. Gen. Edward Rice, commander of U.S. Forces Japan, that the U.S. would enhance support for rape victims and increase accountability. Japanese prosecutors opted not to charge the man.

"Bring back the man that raped me. And I and other rape victims here in Japan will then believe you," she said. "Show me this accountability."

The Defense Ministry said Monday it would pay ¥3 million in compensation to the woman on behalf of the ex-servicemen, who in November 2004 had been ordered by the Tokyo District Court, reportedly in absentia, to pay her damages for the assault in Yokosuka, Kanagawa Prefecture.

Despite the state's decision not to press criminal charges, the district court ordered him to pay ¥3 million in damages.

The unusual payment will be made in accordance with a 1964 Cabinet decision that allows Japan to compensate victims who have not been compensated by the U.S. government, Japanese officials said.

"I don't want Japanese people to pay for your crimes," the woman said. "Pay back to (the) Japanese people that tax money."

Be 'ambitious' on fiscal reform, IMF tells Japan

Friday, May 23, 2008
Kyodo News

The International Monetary Fund on Thursday urged Japan to implement "ambitious" fiscal reforms to reduce its huge public debt and put its finances in order.

Daniel Citrin, deputy director of the IMF's Asia and Pacific Department, told reporters in Tokyo that the government's medium-term fiscal policy is not sufficient to address growing demand from the nation's aging population.

Citrin, in Tokyo as head of an annual IMF mission to consult the government on economic policy, noted that the government is maintaining a target of achieving a budget surplus on a primary balance basis at the central and local government levels in fiscal 2011.

"We believe a much more ambitious fiscal plan over the next several years will be appropriate," he said, adding that comprehensive tax reforms, including raising the consumption tax, will be necessary to effect further fiscal adjustments.

Citrin said expenditure cuts are reaching their limit and Japan will not be able to count on a natural increase in tax revenues amid its moderate economic growth.

On monetary policy, the IMF official welcomed the Bank of Japan's present wait-and-see position.

The BOJ should hold interest rates steady until concerns over domestic and overseas economies ease, he added. The BOJ has kept its key short-term interest rate at 0.5 percent since it raised it from 0.25 percent in February 2007.

EDITORIAL: Law on using space for defense

05/23/2008

After just a total of four hours of debate in both houses, the Diet on Wednesday enacted a law to open the door for Japan to make use of space for military purposes.

The new basic space law represents a clear departure from a 1969 Diet resolution that limited Japan's space development to peaceful purposes. But the new law changes that decades-old policy and allows military use of space, stating that space programs must be carried out in ways that are "beneficial for Japan's national security."

Actually, the Self-Defense Forces are already using multipurpose information-gathering satellites, aka spy satellites.

Now, the law makes it legally possible for Japan to operate not just spy satellites but also early-warning satellites that watch for signs of enemy missile attacks.

Space technology has made dramatic progress in the past four decades, with huge implications for Japan's security.

Be that as it may, the abrupt way this change in fundamental principle concerning space development was rushed through enactment--with hardly any parliamentary debate--is extremely troubling.

There is nothing wrong with the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and New Komeito party coalition and the opposition Minshuto (Democratic Party of Japan) agreeing on key policy issues.

But they should not have pushed the legislation through as quickly as they did without allowing a long and informed public debate on this important shift in space policy.

The law raises a number of issues and concerns that need to be addressed.

Article 1 of the law says Japan's space development should be consistent with "the pacifist principles of the Constitution." But it does not clearly specify what kind of program is deemed "beneficial for Japan's national security."

The following principles should be confirmed through the process of formulating and debating related laws and regulations.

First, for Japan to deploy offensive weapons in space would clearly violate the Constitution's principle of self-defense. It is simply out of the question for this nation to attack satellites or use satellites for attacks on ground targets.

Second, the government must also ensure that Japanese space programs do not in any way heighten international tensions or provoke a new arms race.

It might be possible to win public support, for instance, for the operation of an intelligence-gathering satellite that is more sophisticated and capable than the current one if it is aimed at keeping watch on North Korea's moves, since that country is hostile to Japan and developing nuclear arms despite international rules.

But it would be a completely different story if Japanese satellites were to be incorporated into a future missile defense system that views China and Russia as potential security threats to Japan.

Japan's involvement in such a system would raise tensions across East Asia and worldwide and could trigger a new arms race. There is no way for Japan to justify playing such a role.

Besides, there is a lesson to be learned from the fact that a U.S. plan to deploy a missile defense system in Europe, allegedly in response to security threats posed by Iran and other countries, has provoked strong protests from Russia.

Japan must stay in touch with reality. Some pundits argue that powerful spy satellites with a high reconnaissance capability could be used as an effective deterrence to attack.

But it is hard to believe Japan needs a sophisticated early-warning system costing huge amounts of money. This issue should also be weighed after we consider the security roles divided between Japan and the United States.

If the transparency of space programs is undermined by claims of national security, the nation's entire space development program could become compromised.

The Diet has a duty to rigorously scrutinize each specific plan for military use of space and thereby establish solid principles for such use of space.

--The Asahi Shimbun, May 22(IHT/Asahi: May 23,2008)

Briefly: Ozawa has 2 new best friends

05/23/2008
THE ASAHI SHIMBUN

Ichiro Ozawa is in the dog house again.

The leader of the opposition Minshuto (Democratic Party of Japan), an avid dog lover, acquired two puppies at his home in Tokyo in March, an aide has revealed.

The Shiba dogs are called Kuro and Chai. "They're cute and always waiting for me to come home," Ozawa was quoted as saying.

His previous dog, Chibi, also a Shiba, died last October after 18 years in the Ozawa household.

In 2006, Ozawa posed with a different dog (shown in photo)--that looked like Chibi--in a television commercial for his party. It was soon after he assumed the party leadership.

(IHT/Asahi: May 23,2008)

New law will recast Japan's space policy

Koichi Yasuda, Takeshi Endo and Chikara Shima / Yomiuri Shimbun Staff

The space law passed Wednesday by the Diet is an indication of the government's view that development in outer space is an important part of a national strategy.

The law expands the nation's scope for utilization of space and establishes a headquarters for future strategic space development policies.

Photo: Space Basic Law passed by majority vote in the House of Councillors plenary session on May 21, 2007 11:10.

Japan's space development policy lags behind Western countries and China. Because of this, the government faces many difficult tasks.

Japan's space development competitiveness is ranked seventh in the world, lower than China, India and Canada, a U.S. research company announced in February.

Yoichi Iida, chief of the Economy, Trade and Industry Ministry's section for space industries said: "Until now, Japan's space policy lacked a view on how to utilize outer space. In the past, space-related projects were only used for academic purposes and technological development. The nation was unable to see the big picture."

The nation's budget for space projects is one-fourteenth the United States' and one-half the the size of the European Union's. With little public sector demand, Japan's space industry has shrunk.

According to the Society of Japanese Aerospace Companies, sales of space development-related equipment fell from about 370 billion yen in fiscal 2000 to 223.6 billion yen in fiscal 2005.

The passage of the space law was prompted by concerns among lawmakers over the critical nature of the current situation.

Political observers have said the key to rebuilding the nation's space strategy is a revision of the 1969 government interpretation of a Diet resolution over the U.N. Outer Space Treaty.

Until Wednesday, the government interpreted the treaty to mean that the use of outer space should be limited to nonmilitary purposes.

The international community, however, interprets the treaty in a way that allows the use of outer space for military purposes as long as they are not offensive.

China, a newcomer to the field, views space development as an essential part of its national strategy. In 2005, China successfully orbited a manned spacecraft around the Earth. China also is planning its own global positioning system.

In 2007, China launched 10 rockets into space, while India launched three the same year. Japan only launched two rockets in 2007.

The space law enables Japan to develop reconnaissance satellites for defense purposes. Thus increased demand for space-related products is expected from the public sector.

The government also is considering tax breaks and other financial incentives to encourage investment in the aerospace industry.

As a result of the bill, a national aerospace strategy headquarters will be set up in the Cabinet Office. The headquarters, chaired by the prime minister, will develop a national aerospace plan and carry out space-related policies.

It is inevitable that space-related entities, now parts of ministries and agencies, will be drastically reorganized.

If a new government entity is created to take over the space development planning divisions of ministries and agencies, the Education, Science and Technology Ministry's Space Activities Commission, which has led the planning of national space development programs, should be scaled down.

If the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, which owns advanced rocket and satellite technologies, also takes charge of defense, it will no longer fall under the education ministry's jurisdiction.

Even though the government plans to establish a new space development entity in the coming year, a dramatic reorganization involves the risk of derailing current space development efforts.

However, some believe that because the basic law was made at the initiative of lawmakers, bureaucrats might try to resist the planned changes.

(May. 23, 2008)

DPJ joins ruling camp on space bill

The Yomiuri Shimbun

Wednesday's basic space law was the first security-related legislation passed through the Diet jointly by the ruling parties and the Democratic Party of Japan since control of the House of Councillors was taken by the opposition camp.

While DPJ President Ichiro Ozawa has stepped up his party's confrontational approach against the ruling coalition, repeatedly calling for the House of Representatives to be dissolved and for a general election by the end of this year, the DPJ cooperated with the ruling parties to pass the space law.

According to Masayuki Naoshima, chairman of the DPJ's Policy Research Committee, the bill was passed partly because, "Japan's space development lags far behind other countries."

Political observers said the DPJ cooperated on the bill because they wanted to demonstrate that the party was capable of replacing the current government.

In a meeting of the DPJ'S science and technology policy panel in December last year, the party shifted to a pro-space-development stance, but maintained that all development must be defensive.

At the time, DPJ Public Relations Committee Chairman Yoshihiko Noda, also the panel chair, said: "In the field of national security, the nation should be able to benefit from utilization and development of outer space. There is no need to hold ourselves back if we have the ability."

Liberal Democratic Party lawmakers led by former Education, Science and Technology Minister Takeo Kawamura submitted the legislation as a lawmakers-sponsored bill in March 2006 at a party panel meeting.

The bill was said to have been presented in this manner because it would have taken too long as a government-sponsored bill, and would likely have been slowed by bureaucracy in the Education, Science and Technology Ministry, the Economy, Trade and Industry Ministry and other governmental bodies.

After consultation with New Komeito, the ruling parties' bill was submitted to the House of Representatives in June 2007.

(May. 23, 2008)

Church members to rally for rape accuser

By Natasha Lee, Stars and Stripes
Pacific edition, Friday, May 23, 2008

TORII STATION, Okinawa — Parishioners from Yomitan Catholic Church are expected to hold a peace walk Saturday in front of Torii Station to show support for a Philippine woman who accused a U.S. soldier of rape in February.

The planned walk was prompted after Japanese prosecutors dropped charges last week against Sgt. Ronald Hopstock Jr., 25, of the 1st Battalion, 1st Air Defense Artillery Regiment, saying they lacked sufficient evidence to move forward with a trial.

The Army has said it will conduct its own investigation.

Father Rommel Cruz, who is organizing the walk, said the prosecutors’ actions were a disservice to the alleged victim, and that the walk is to push for the Army to carefully examine the incident.

"We’re not demonstrating against the U.S. base; we just want to show the public that the Filipino church community wants justice," Cruz said. "We want the military to look at this case and not use the Japanese judgment as their basis, but to start from zero and look into the case more thoroughly."

The woman, 21, told Japanese police she was raped by Hopstock at an Okinawa City hotel Feb. 18 after an encounter at a club. Police reports said the unidentified woman was working as a dancer under an entertainer’s visa. According to the reports, the woman was hospitalized for more than a week.

Hopstock has denied the claims and maintained that he paid the club to have sex with the woman. He remains restricted to Kadena Air Base and under military supervision.

Army spokesman Maj. James Crawford said the investigation is still in the beginning stages.

Army officials on Okinawa said they were unaware of the planned walk.

Crawford said the parishioners can conduct their walk as long as their actions don’t put servicemembers and their families in jeopardy.

"That’s their right," he said.

Cruz said at least 150 people are expected to participate in Saturday’s walk, which will start at the Yomitan Starbucks coffee shop. The group will also hold a public prayer, he said.

Cruz said the church also plans to caravan near a Japanese police station outside Gate 2 of Kadena Air Base at a later date.

Rape victim demands U.S. apology for serviceman's crime

May 22 08:01 AM US/Eastern

TOKYO, May 22 (AP) - (Kyodo) — An Australian woman demanded Thursday that the U.S. government apologize for her rape by a U.S. serviceman in Japan in 2002 and that it try to detain the man, while questioning a legal system under which the Japanese government will compensate her on his behalf.

"I deserve an apology from the U.S. government," the woman who called herself "Jane" told the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan. "I want justice and the legal system the U.S. government has failed to give me."

The woman also urged U.S. authorities to detain the man, who left the military after returning to the United States, referring to a pledge made by U.S. Forces Japan top commander Lt. Gen. Edward Rice at a recent press conference that the United States will enhance support for rape victims and increase accountability.

"Bring back the man that raped me. And I and other rape victims here in Japan will then believe you. Show me this accountability," the woman said.

The Japanese Defense Ministry decided Monday to pay 3 million yen in compensation to the woman on behalf of the former U.S. soldier who was ordered by the Tokyo District Court in 2004 to pay damages for raping her in Yokosuka, Kanagawa Prefecture.

On the woman's case, Japanese prosecutors decided against indicting the man but in November 2004, the Tokyo District Court ordered him to pay 3 million yen in damages.

The unusual payment will be made in accordance with a 1964 Cabinet decision that allows the Japanese government to compensate victims who have not been compensated by the U.S. government, according to Japanese officials.

The woman said, "I don't want Japanese people to pay for your crimes. Pay back to Japanese people that tax money."

IMF urges Japan to implement ambitious reforms, raise sales tax

May 22 05:57 AM US/Eastern

TOKYO, May 22 (AP) - (Kyodo) — The International Monetary Fund on Thursday urged Japan to implement "ambitious" fiscal reforms, including raising the consumption tax, to reduce its huge public debts and put state finances in order.

Daniel Citrin, deputy director of the IMF's Asia and Pacific Department, told a group of reporters in Tokyo that the Japanese government's medium-term fiscal policy is not sufficient to address growing demand from the nation's aging population.

Citrin, who was in Tokyo as the head of an annual IMF mission to consult with the Japanese government on economic policy, noted that the government is maintaining a target of achieving a budget surplus on a primary balance basis at the central and local government levels in fiscal 2011.

"We believe a much more ambitious fiscal plan over the next several years will be appropriate," he said, adding that comprehensive tax reforms, including raising the consumption tax and broadening the income tax base, will be necessary to implement further fiscal adjustments.

Citrin said expenditure cuts are reaching the limit and Japan will not be able to count much on a natural increase in tax revenues amid its moderate economic growth.

The government is expected to hold a debate later this year on whether to raise the sales tax from the current 5 percent to meet growing social security costs. But any sales tax hike is likely to dampen already weak private consumption and could drag on economic growth, at a time when the economic outlook remains uncertain, observers say.

Turning to Japan's monetary policy, the IMF official welcomed the present position of the Bank of Japan, saying its wait-and-see stance is "an appropriate stance."

He added that the BOJ should hold interest rates steady until concerns over domestic and overseas economies ease. The BOJ has kept its key short-term interest rate at 0.5 percent since it raised it from 0.25 percent in February 2007.

Citrin also hailed the central bank's efforts to expand dialogue with financial markets, saying this step should help anchor inflation expectations during the period of transition to a more volatile price situation in the future.

Although Japan's consumer price index has been on an upward trend recently on the back of surging commodities and energy prices, few signs of any evidence underlining core inflation expectations can be seen, the IMF official said.

"We also believe that the BOJ should continue its flexible approach to meeting liquidity needs, which we believe has been quite successful in maintaining stability in money markets here during the period of financial instability in the global markets," he said.

Regarding the May 12 earthquake in China's Sichuan Province that has claimed over 51,000 lives, Citrin dismissed speculation that the disaster would slow the fast-growing Chinese economy.

"We don't think it is going to have a major impact, in particular contribution to manufacturing," he said, adding "reconstruction activities could even boost its actual gross domestic product" as seen in the aftermath of the 1995 Great Hanshin Earthquake.

Ex-defense trader exec admits to payment of money to gov't-linked body

May 22 05:41 AM US/Eastern

(AP) - TOKYO, May 22 (Kyodo) — A key codefendant in the bribery trial of former Vice Defense Minister Takemasa Moriya said Thursday his company has paid about 100 million yen to a Foreign Ministry-linked organization over a Japanese government project to dispose of chemical weapons abandoned by the Imperial Japanese Army in northeastern China at the end of World War II.

Motonobu Miyazaki, 69, former managing director of defense equipment trader Yamada Corp., gave the testimony as a sworn witness before the opposition-controlled House of Councillors' Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee.

Miyazaki's testimony contradicts that given by a senior official of the Foreign Ministry-related body, the Japan-U.S. Center for Peace and Cultural Exchange.

On Jan. 8, Naoki Akiyama, executive director of the center, denied allegations that his organization got the 100 million yen from Yamada Corp., which was willing to join the chemical weapons-disposal project in China. Akiyama, 58, provided the testimony as he spoke as an unsworn witness at the same upper house committee.

Miyazaki, who is accused of giving bribes to Moriya, also told the committee session that he took part in meetings with Akiyama and former Defense Minister Fumio Kyuma.

Miyazaki denied allegations that he had consulted with Kyuma over another Japanese government project to move U.S. Marines stationed in Okinawa to Guam.

He also admitted to having -- although "not frequently" -- played golf or dined together with a number of politicians, including former Defense Minister Fukushiro Nukaga, who is currently the finance minister.

Members of the governing Liberal Democratic Party and its coalition partner New Komeito party boycotted the day's session, after the opposition-controlled committee allowed media organizations to tape or take still images at the session.

At the outset of the committee session, Miyazaki said he is "reflecting on my conduct deeply and offering an apology for raising a scandal and causing much trouble to the Japanese people."

Miyazaki testified that his friendly links with Akiyama began over Yamada's joining the chemical weapons-disposal project and that Yamada paid about $100,000 a year as a consultancy fee to Add-Back International Corp., a U.S.-based firm, in which Akiyama serves as an adviser.

Prosecutors have continued investigations into Akiyama on suspicion of evading taxes for allegedly receiving consultancy fees by way of several U.S.-based companies.

Miyazaki is the main codefendant of former Vice Defense Minister Moriya, 63, who is accused of taking about 12.5 million yen in bribes and to charges of perjury for giving false testimony in the Diet.

On April 21, both Moriya and Miyazaki pleaded guilty to the charges against them in the opening session of the trial at the Tokyo District Court.

ADDED ENTRY: NOTE
For a Wikipedia take on this issue, Click
As always, caveat emptor - "Let the buyer beware".

China rejects U.S. claim on bolstered military ability in space

May 22 05:11 AM US/Eastern

BEIJING, May 22 (AP) - (Kyodo) — China on Thursday rejected a claim by a U.S. military official that it is aggressively boosting military capabilities in space.

"China has consistently called for the peaceful use of space," Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said at a regular press conference.

"China has never participated in any arms race in space, it is not currently engaged in such activities and will not do so in the future," he added.

In Washington on Tuesday, U.S. Army Brig. Gen. Jeffery Horne of the U.S. Strategic Command said China is pursuing its ability to shoot down satellites and other space capabilities.

"We cannot accept such remarks," Qin said.

In January 2007, China test-fired a missile and destroyed one of its own defunct satellites, triggering international calls of concern. Beijing has said the experiment posed no threat to other countries and that it has no plan for another test.

INTERVIEW/ Richard Lawless: Japan-U.S. alliance faces 'priority gap'

05/22/2008
BY YOICHI KATO THE ASAHI SHIMBUN

The Japan-U.S. alliance is struggling with a "priority gap." Both countries seem to have no problem agreeing on shared values, common strategic objectives and basically every policy of alliance management.

That includes the relocation of the U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma in Okinawa Prefecture, which was the main pillar of the 2006 "Roadmap for Realignment Implementation."

But when it comes to the implementation of actual policy, Japan and the United States are often out of step. Some experts suggest the alliance is actually in a state of drift.

Following are excerpts of an interview with Richard Lawless, former U.S. deputy undersecretary of defense, who headed negotiations on the realignment of U.S. Forces in Japan, which culminated in the roadmap:

* * *

Question: How do you view the current state of the Japan-U.S. alliance?

Answer: Since the beginning of the Fukuda administration, we have had a bit of a drift in the implementation of the agreements of alliance transformation, for example, the relocation of the U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma to the new facility in the north of the (Okinawa) island. It is now facing an additional delay, we've been told, of at least a year. If this project stalls, as it is now, it stalls everything else, including the departure of 8,000 Marines and 9,000 family members from Okinawa to Guam. These things cannot be executed individually, independent of one another.

Q: Will the U.S. government accept modification of the Futenma relocation plan?

A: No. There are three very good reasons. First of all, the plan that the United States accepted was offered by the Japanese government. It wasn't necessarily the one we wanted. But the Japan side said that they have studied all the issues and decided that this is the best plan and that Americans have to live with it. They also said that they absolutely guarantee us that they can execute it. So we compromised and accepted the Japan plan with the condition that they absolutely promise us that they will execute this exact plan.

Reason number two is, when you begin changing things, it never stops and will result in additional delay.

The last point, if the United States were to begin talking with Japan about any change, such a discussion would re-insert the United States into the equation--the decisions in the special equation that exists between the central government of Japan and the government of Okinawa.

Q: Why do we have a drift in the implementation of alliance transformation?

A: I think the execution of alliance transformation has come into a state of drift because the top levels of the Japanese government may be somewhat distracted by other issues. For example, the Ministry of Defense not only is in the process of becoming a new institution, it has its own problems with the Atago incidents, has had its problems with procurement scandals. And now we have Defense Minister (Shigeru) Ishiba, who is incredibly intelligent and brilliant in terms of strategy and understanding technology. He is very heavily focused on the so-called defense reform law.

It appears that a good deal of the focus on our alliance transformation that did exist under the Koizumi and Abe governments does not exist under this government. What we really need is a top-down leadership that says, "Let's rededicate ourselves to completing all of these agreements on time; let's make sure that the budgeting of the money is a national priority." We've got a problem here in the United States that if it looks like to our Congress that Japan has decided that these are agreements in name only and there's something that can be delayed, watered down, or in some way mitigated, and they're not really that important to Japan, the U.S. Congress will take a very negative view and also begin making adjustments.

It is not deteriorating the capabilities of the alliance. However, if we didn't transform the alliance and make it more inter-operative, make it more integrated, make it more capable, that we would begin to lose momentum and it would begin to lose relevance, and it would begin to lose relative capability in the region.

The last point is, the losers in this case would be the people of Okinawa. We made a whole bunch of promises to them. If we can't execute against the promises we made, the people of Okinawa have every right to be unhappy. I don't think in the first instance they should blame the United States of America, which is prepared to get on with doing what it's supposed to do.

Q: Do you think it is a good idea to issue a new joint security declaration?

A: I think it's a great idea, if the underlying execution is credible. But it is a bad idea, if we're going to make another declaration at the same time that we're failing to execute the fundamentals of an agreement that we reached three years before. When you make a new declaration, it had better be backed up with real execution. Otherwise it's hollow, and every person in Japan and the United States will know this. But more importantly, everybody else in the region will know this.

Q: What are the challenges that the alliance now faces?

A: The biggest challenge, I think, is to recognize that there is a new tempo in Asia, a tempo of policymaking that hasn't existed at this particular speed and determination over the past 50 years. Other nations in the region are adapting to the pace that is being set by the more aggressive nations. Not militarily aggressive, but aggressive in terms of developing new systems and deploying operational deployment systems. Japan has had the luxury of having a relatively slow decision-making cycle that typically takes seven to nine years. In that same period of time, other countries in the region have made three different decisions and executed all of them. The alliance can't move any faster than one of its partners. Right now, Japan clearly is not making adjustments and developing the alliance in its own best interest. Somehow it has to find a way to change its own tempo of decision-making, deployment, integration and operationalizing this alliance. Otherwise, Japan becomes marginalized and the alliance becomes increasingly marginalized.

* * *

The writer is chief of The Asahi Shimbun's American General Bureau in Washington.

(IHT/Asahi: May 22,2008)

EDITORIAL: Reform of bureaucracy

05/22/2008

Even though they are both bills submitted by the government, we wonder why the ruling coalition is so eager about the ones concerning road specific taxes and passive about proposed legislation on reforming the national government employee system?

Defying objections by the opposition camp, the coalition used its two-thirds majority in the Lower House to ram the road-related bills through the chamber. On the other hand, even though Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda is keen to win Diet passage of the bill to reform the civil service system, the ruling coalition parties appear lackadaisical in passing it.

Maintaining the higher temporary gasoline tax rate and securing tax revenues for road construction lead to protecting the vested interests of politicians and related industries. Meanwhile, civil service reform is aimed at changing the way bureaucrats have been traditionally sharing such interests with politicians and industry officials.

Because of this sense of fellowship, some members of the Liberal Democratic Party were less than enthusiastic about the bill from the start. However, taking measures to rectify the harmful effects of sectionalism and a bureaucracy-led administration so as to advance reform and make the best use of the abilities of government employees can no longer be avoided in this era of declining birthrates and aging of society. The future interest of the entire nation is at stake.

The mainstay of the government bill currently under deliberation in the Lower House is the establishment of a "Cabinet personnel agency" to examine appointments of senior government officials.

Originally, the idea was to crack open the closed personnel system, which was criticized as benefiting only ministries and neglecting national interests, by transferring authority over personnel affairs from individual ministries to the personnel agency. But actually, the bill submitted to the Diet was a watered-down version to have individual ministries draft their own plans.

Meanwhile, the counterproposal put together by the opposition Minshuto (Democratic Party of Japan) calls for the establishment of a "Cabinet personnel bureau," similar to the "personnel agency," and to have it manage senior personnel appointments in a unified way. It is close to the original government bill.

A center to promote personnel exchanges between the public and private sectors will start by the end of the year. But Minshuto also opposes the proposed system for the center to find jobs for retiring government officials and is calling for the abolition of amakudari, the practice of outgoing high-ranking government officials landing lucrative posts in the private sector. It also insists on a phased extension of the mandatory retirement age to 65.

While most Minshuto members are opposed to the government plan, some members say it is better to pass the government bill than do nothing. Their reasoning is this: If both the government- and Minshuto-proposed bills were scrapped, it would only benefit bureaucrats who are intent on maintaining the status quo.

It is clear what must be done. Before anything else, the two sides should initiate consultations to hold earnest discussions on their differences.

Although the LDP tends to side with bureaucrats, some members are pushing for the reform in the hope of giving the administration buoyancy. If they are serious about it, they should use the Minshuto plan as leverage to add punch to the watered-down government bill, thereby making it more effective.

The Diet is due to close in less than four weeks. Although there is little time left, isn't there a way to separate portions of the bill that are acceptable to both sides, such as having the Cabinet manage personnel appointments in a unified fashion, and make them into law?

After that, the ruling and opposition parties should each list points on which they disagree on their manifestoes and put them before voters when the Lower House election is held.

--The Asahi Shimbun, May 21(IHT/Asahi: May 22,2008)

Okinawa, Amami enter rainy season

May 21 10:07 PM US/Eastern

NAHA, Japan, May 22 (AP) - (Kyodo) — Okinawa and Kagoshima Prefecture's Amami Island area are believed to have entered the rainy season Thursday, the first areas of Japan to do so, local meteorological observatories said.

That is the third-latest on record for Okinawa since such statistics were first compiled in 1951. It was 14 days later than average and six days later than last year.

The Amami area entered the season 12 days later than average.

The Okinawa Meteorological Observatory attributed the delay in entering the season to the late formation of the seasonal rain front under the influence of a high pressure system over the Pacific.

The observatory predicts rainy or cloudy weather for the week ahead in the Okinawa area.

New space policy result of regional tensions

Thursday, May 22, 2008
By KAKUMI KOBAYASHI
Kyodo News

Shift away from nonmilitary uses prompted by China's military buildup, ballistic missile threat posed by North Korea

In a significant departure from Japan's decades-old adherence to the nonmilitary use of space, the Diet passed a new law Wednesday allowing use of space for national security purposes, avoiding discussion on whether the law is valid under the war-renouncing Constitution.

While many lawmakers say Japan still holds to a "nonaggression" principle in space projects, pundits warn that in the face of China's growing military presence in space and North Korea's ballistic missile development, the law could inevitably take Japan's defense capabilities beyond constitutional restrictions.

The law permits Japan to use and develop space in ways that contribute to its national security, a sharp contrast with the past position that the use of space should be limited to peaceful purposes only.

Although Japan has no immediate plans for a new defense project in space, there is speculation that the law will help boost the space industry and lead to the development of an early warning satellite to detect signs of a ballistic missile launch and to the development of a full-scale spy satellite capable of identifying objects as small as 15 cm in diameter.

Japan already has intelligence-gathering satellites but these are thought to fall short of military-level performance.

"The new space law is a preparatory step for Japan to have its own early warning satellite," a veteran lawmaker who formerly headed the Defense Agency, the predecessor of the Defense Ministry, said.

Setsuko Aoki, an expert on space law, indicated Japan should join in the military use of space with other countries.

"If so, Japan would have a greater say in international efforts to create peace and raise transparency in satellite operations" through future space projects such as the joint management of satellites with other parts of Asia, said the professor at Keio University's Policy Management Department.

It appeared unrealistic for Japan to maintain its "peaceful use only" position when space technologies have developed to the point where it is difficult to draw the line between military and civilian use, Aoki said.

"Production of higher-resolution spy satellites or early warning satellites would benefit Japan's space industry for the time being. That is a hidden purpose of the law," she added.

Despite Japan's global reputation as a high-tech nation, the country's space industry lags "more than 10 years" behind other countries, including China, India and the United States, she said.

The law was sponsored by a bipartisan group of lawmakers from Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda's Liberal Democratic Party-New Komeito ruling coalition, as well as the Democratic Party of Japan, the main opposition presence in the Diet.

The lawmakers presented a bill for the space law to a House of Representatives panel on May 9 and pushed it through the Lower House and the House of Councilors in less than two weeks.

Atsushi Fujioka, an expert on the U.S. economy at Ritsumeikan University, said the lawmakers apparently wanted to pass the bill before U.S. President George W. Bush leaves office.

"If the Democrats take power in the United States, a new president could be less interested in space projects, including a missile shield," and the Japanese lawmakers thought it would be more difficult to enact this kind of space law under such conditions, said Fujioka, a professor of the university's College of Economics.

The Japanese Communist Party and Social Democratic Party opposed the law.

SDP Secretary General Yasumasa Shigeno warned there is something dangerous behind the law.

The party is known for its peace-oriented policy and fully backs Article 9 of the Constitution, which "forever" renounces war.

Fujioka, another opponent of the law, warns Japan could face difficulties if it tries to involve itself deeply in defense programs in space with the U.S.

"Now is the time when the main theater of war is space. . . . I believe the United States has about 300 satellites and one-third of the total are for military use," Fujioka said.

"In the U.S. attack on Iraq, for example, roughly 70 percent of missiles were precision-guided by satellites," Fujioka said.

China shocked Japan and other countries in January 2007 when it destroyed an aging weather satellite some 850 km above Sichuan Province with a ballistic missile, showing it was capable of wiping out satellites in orbit.

"Space projects are expensive, and it is hard to predict how much they will cost before they begin," Fujioka said, urging Japan to invest more money and energy in bread-and-butter issues such as addressing the widening gap between rich and poor and the collapsing pension system.

Whether to use space for defense purposes has been a politically sensitive topic for decades.

After ratifying the U.N. Outer Space Treaty in 1967, the Diet adopted its own resolution in 1969, which stated that the development of objects for use in space, and of the rockets to put them there, should be limited to peaceful uses only.

The resolution strongly affected space policy, and successive governments stopped short of expanding it to include defense capabilities.

But in 1998, North Korea test-launched a Taepodong-1 ballistic missile, part of which flew over Japanese territory. The incident shocked the government, prompting it to beef up its missile shield.

Japan has launched four satellites since 2003 to gather intelligence, including information on North Korea's missile-related facilities.

But the satellites have a resolution no higher than 1 meter, a commercial-use level, for fear that a better-performing satellite could draw criticism that Japan was trying to expand its defense capability into space.

Release of U.S. chopper crash papers ordered

Thursday, May 22, 2008

NAHA, Okinawa Pref. (Kyodo) The Fukuoka High Court has ordered the government to present it with documents on Japan-U.S. talks about the 2006 crash of a U.S. Marine Corps helicopter in Okinawa that it has refused to disclose to an Okinawa citizen, lawyers said.

Presiding Judge Osamu Nishi issued the order on May 12 during an appeal from the citizen against a lower court rejection of his demand for the government to disclose all the documents.

In the decision, Judge Nishi said the court will decide if the government-rejected information disclosure was proper.

The court battle involves the crash of a CH-53 Sea Stallion helicopter on the campus of Okinawa International University in Ginowan on Aug. 13, 2006. The university is located adjacent to the marines' Futenma Air Station.

The crash damaged the walls of the main university building and injured the three crew members aboard the chopper.

According to the Fukuoka District Court's decision in November 2006, the man, a resident of Naha, demanded that the Foreign Ministry disclose documents on Japan-U.S. talks over the crash.

In December 2004, the ministry refused to disclose all or part of 19 out of the 24 sets of documents on the talks.

Dissatisfied with the Foreign Ministry's decision, the man sued for disclosure of all the documents.

When the Fukuoka District Court rejected the suit, it said Japan's security relations with the United States might be damaged if the documents are released without Washington's consent.

The Foreign and Justice ministries are currently in talks about filing an objection against the high court order, an official said.

Nanjing victim's libeler loses appeal

Thursday, May 22, 2008
By MINORU MATSUTANI
Staff writer

The Tokyo High Court on Wednesday upheld a lower court defamation ruling, ordering a historian and a publishing company to pay a combined ¥4 million to a female Nanjing Massacre survivor for calling her an impostor in a book about the atrocity.

Dismissing appeals from both the plaintiff and the defendants, the court ruled that Shudo Higashinakano's book, "The Nanking Massacre: Fact versus Fiction — A Historian's Quest for Truth," defamed the plaintiff and severely hurt her pride.

Higashinakano, 60, said in his book that Xia Shugin, 79, lied in her accounts of the massacre. He also accused her of posing as a victim and claimed the Imperial Japanese Army's infamous massacre of Chinese civilians never took place.

Xia said she was pleased overall. "I'm very happy with the ruling," Xia said in a statement distributed afterward. "I would like to represent victims of the Nanjing Massacre and show gratitude that the facts of the incident were recognized."

According to Xia's accounts, some 20 Imperial army soldiers stormed into her house at around 10 a.m. on Dec. 13, 1937. Xia, then 8, and her 4-year-old sister survived the intrusion despite being bayoneted — but all seven other members of her family, including a newborn, were slaughtered.

Xia was filmed after the attack by a U.S. missionary who was traveling with the Red Cross in Nanjing. The footage is frequently cited by historians as key evidence that the Nanjing Massacre took place.

In the book published by Tokyo-based Tendensha, Higashinakano argues that there were inconsistencies in many of Xia's recollections, and that the 8-year-old captured by the missionary's motion picture camera is someone else.

The high court said there is "no grounds for recognizing that argument."

The district court ruled last November.

Indecent acts net marine 20 months

Thursday, May 22, 2008
Compiled from Kyodo, AP

IWAKUNI, Yamaguchi Pref. — A U.S. general court-martial has sentenced a 35-year-old marine to 20 months behind bars and a bad conduct discharge for "conspiracy to engage in indecent acts" against a Japanese woman in Hiroshima last October.

Jarvis Raynor, a 35-year-old gunnery sergeant, was found guilty Tuesday of stealing cash from the 20-year-old woman and committing indecent acts in public, but other charges, including rape and kidnapping, were dropped as a result of a plea bargain.

Raynor's actual sentence is expected to be less than 18 months.

He is the second marine to be sentenced among four accused over the incident.

Larry A. Dean, a 20-year-old lance corporal, was given a two-year prison term May 9. Dean, who was 19 at the time of the incident, was found not guilty of conspiracy to kidnap or rape and guilty of "committing wrongful sexual contact and indecent acts."

The remaining two — Gunnery Sgt. Carl M. Anderson, 39, and Sgt. Lanaeus J. Braswell, 25 — will be court-martialed in June at the U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni in Yamaguchi Prefecture.

Homo Sapiens: New ambassador has unwavering trust in America

05/22/2008
BY TSUTOMU ISHIAI, THE ASAHI SHIMBUN

The United States impressed young Ichiro Fujisaki as a "dynamic country" when he watched a televised debate in 1960 between presidential candidates Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy.

Photo: Ichiro Fujisaki

He was a junior high school student in Seattle where his father was stationed in the diplomatic service. After he joined the Foreign Ministry in 1969, Fujisaki returned to the United States for university study and traveled across the country.

Fujisaki, now 60, will take up the post of Japan's ambassador to the United States in early June, succeeding Ryozo Kato, 66, who is retiring.

The career diplomat has an unwavering trust in the United States despite recent signs of an economic slowdown.

"It's not just its economic and military might, it has that immeasurable confidence that other countries place in it," Fujisaki says. "It will never wane."

In the latter half of the 1990s, he was a minister at the embassy in Washington as "Japan bashing" evolved into "Japan passing" during Bill Clinton's presidency.

Fujisaki built up numerous personal connections while coping with those difficult times.

Some pundits see his appointment as designed to better deal with a possible new Democratic Party administration.

However, Fujisaki quickly brushes aside that idea.

"What is important is to squarely deal with those in power at any time," he says. In fact, he has broad ties among Republicans as well.

To maintain the bilateral alliance, "It is important not to take the other side by surprise, nor to take the other for granted," he says.

Among his many postings, Fujisaki served as a sherpa for Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi at the 2004 Group of Eight Summit.

It came at a time when a rift between Washington and the United Nations was widening over the U.S.-led war in Iraq.

Fujisaki maintained that the United Nations should take the lead in the reconstruction of Iraq.

His subordinates say Fujisaki is able to make intelligent big-picture assessments based on his detailed knowledge of specifics.

He previously served as Japan's permanent representative to the U.N. Office in Geneva and other international organizations there.

During that time, he was known to insist that his team maintain an "all-Japan" perspective in all debate and negotiations, such as at the World Trade Organization, instead of attempting to represent their respective ministries back in Tokyo.

Fujisaki has also served as chief of the North American Affairs Bureau and as deputy foreign minister.

His late father Masato served as ambassador to Thailand, and after retirement from the diplomatic corps, as a Supreme Court justice.

While he was a minister in Washington, his family raised a puppy called Skipper that was to be a guide dog but instead became a police sniffer dog.

The dog, which has since been retired, has joined the Fujisaki family again and will be moving back to Washington with them soon.

(IHT/Asahi: May 22,2008)

Briefly: Law on use of space for defense OK'd

05/22/2008
THE ASAHI SHIMBUN

The Diet on Wednesday enacted a law enabling Japan to use space for national defense purposes, a departure from the policy of pursuing space development only for peaceful use.

The law, jointly submitted by the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, coalition partner New Komeito and opposition Minshuto (Democratic Party of Japan), was approved at the Upper House plenary session.

The Lower House passed the bill on May 13.

The basic law on the use of space stipulates that space development should be carried out "in the interests of our country's national security." The legislation is expected to speed space development programs while paving the way for the government to develop and deploy its own spy satellites with advanced missile-surveillance capabilities.

Under the new law, the prime minister and a Cabinet member will be in charge of a strategic headquarters for space development set up under the Cabinet to handle space development policies.(IHT/Asahi: May 22,2008)

Diet OK's military use of space / Law marks shift toward space strategy

The Yomiuri Shimbun

The Diet on Wednesday passed a law allowing space to be used for military purposes, including allowing Japan to possess early-warning satellites that could be used as part of a missile-defense system and to jointly develop with the United States satellites for defense purposes.

The bill, backed by the Liberal Democratic Party, its coalition partner New Komeito and the main opposition Democratic Party of Japan, cleared the House of Councillors at a plenary session Wednesday morning.

The passage of the law marks a dramatic shift in Japan's strategy for space development, shifting it from strictly research purposes. Until now, space-related issues have usually been dealt with by the Education, Science and Technology Ministry, an arrangement that some observers felt placed too much emphasis on research and development.

It marks the first time since July that the DPJ and the ruling bloc have passed a jointly submitted national security-related bill through the divided Diet. The ruling parties hold a majority in the House of Representatives, while the opposition bloc controls the upper house following last year's upper house election.

The new law emphasizes the development and utilization of space, based on the U.N. Outer Space Treaty, which prohibits the deployment of nuclear and other arms in space, as well as on the defense-only principles of the Constitution.

The law proposes space development for security purposes based on the following aims:

-- Improving people's livelihoods.

-- Eliminating threats to human lives.

-- Contributing to international peace and Japan's national security.

In addition, the law also includes provisions for the establishment of a new strategy headquarters, headed by the prime minister, to deal with space development, in order to strengthen Japan's competitiveness in the global space industry.

Once the new office is created, a Cabinet member will be appointed to oversee development, while a space bureau will be established within the Cabinet Office within a year of the law going into force.

The law aims to set up a tax system and other monetary measures that will enhance the technical capacity of the nation's space industry and promote private sector investment in the field.

Since 1969, when the Diet adopted a resolution that restricted the use of space to peaceful purposes, successive governments have limited the nation's space development to "nonmilitary" purposes.

However, North Korea's launch of ballistic missiles, most recently in 2006, prompted some observers to call for the launch of early-warning satellites.

(May. 22, 2008)

Defense Ministry floats internal reforms

The Yomiuri Shimbun

The Defense Ministry has produced a set of proposals aimed at internal reform that would allow its operations to be managed by mixed units of personnel drawn from both civilian and uniformed staff.

The plans--presented Wednesday to a panel established by the Prime Minister's Office to deal with the reforms--said a series of scandals involving the ministry and Self-Defense Forces, including confidential information leaks and bribery, stemmed from "organizational problems."

The ministry cites five reasons for the scandals, including unclear lines of authority between the ministry's civilian and uniformed personnel, and different approaches to providing support to a defense minister.

Based on this, the ministry proposes that functions of administrative bureaus staffed by civilians, Ground Staff Office, Maritime Staff Office and Air Staff Office be split into three parts, which would be jointly managed by the ministry's civilian and uniformed personnel.

According to the proposals, the three functions are defense policymaking and planning, including public relations activities; operation of SDF units; and unified equipment procurement.

Under the reforms, the Joint Staff Office would become part of an office charged with handling the operation of SDF units, headed by the chief of the Joint Staff Office.

The proposals presented two plans: One to integrate all three functions within the Internal Bureau, and another to set up two new organizations, which--in addition to the bureau--would deal either with the operation of SDF units or the procurement of equipment. The draft left the final choice to the panel.

They also propose the abolition of the defense counselor system, the introduction of advisers to the defense minister, and the introduction of a defense council comprising the minister, vice minister and civilian and uniformed personnel from the ministry.

Ministry officials and members of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party have expressed concerns over private reform proposals put forward by Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba. As such, the ministry's draft proposal includes several ideas on the reorganization of the Internal Bureau and Joint Staff Office.

(May. 22, 2008)

Gunnery sergeant is second defendant convicted of lesser charges; two trials remain

By Travis J. Tritten, Stars and Stripes
Pacific edition, Thursday, May 22, 2008

MARINE CORPS AIR STATION IWAKUNI, Japan — An Iwakuni gunnery sergeant will spend 18 months in prison and get a bad-conduct discharge from the Marine Corps for his role in an alleged gang rape last year.

Gunnery Sgt. Jarvis Raynor, 34, pleaded guilty to adultery, indecent acts, fraternizing, stealing money and breaking liberty rules during a court-martial Tuesday.

Prosecutors dropped charges of rape and kidnapping against Raynor, a 17-year Marine and father of five. He had faced more than 21 years in prison.

A Hiroshima woman said Raynor and three other Iwakuni Marines kidnapped her from a nightclub and took turns raping her in a deserted parking lot Oct. 14.

Lance Cpl. Larry Dean, 20, was sentenced to no more than one year in prison and a dishonorable discharge for drinking alcohol underage, fraternizing, breaking liberty policy and wrongful sexual contact during a court-martial early this month. He was acquitted of rape and kidnapping.

Gunnery Sgt. Carl Anderson, 39, and Sgt. Lanaeus Braswell, 25, will be tried for the alleged rape and related charges next month.

The four men went out to a club district in Hiroshima in October to celebrate Anderson’s retirement.

Raynor admitted allowing the two junior Marines to drink alcohol in his car and to break liberty restrictions by staying off base all night.

The four Marines also performed indecent acts with the Japanese woman in a parking lot in plain view of each other and the public, he said.

Raynor said he committed adultery later that night when he went to his mistress’ apartment in Hiroshima and had sex with her.

He said he regretted allowing the night in Hiroshima to get out of control and regretted socializing with junior Marines, though he said the alleged victim should "step up to the plate" and accept some responsibility for the sexual encounter.

Raynor’s wife, Gunnery Sgt. Shalanda Raynor, testified that she gave birth to twin daughters in January.

"It hurts because we have to be embarrassed and have it rehashed over and over. It’s like picking a wound and never having it heal," Shalanda Raynor said. "The only way we can have closure and bring our family back together is to have [my husband] come back home."

The Marine Corps did not grant Raynor the right to be at his children’s birth during his confinement, she said.

"I felt worthless, I felt helpless, I felt useless," Raynor said. "It is the most horrible, embarrassing and, God willing, the roughest time of my whole life."

The alleged victim, who was a 19-year-old minor at the time, said she has had trouble sleeping, eating and working since the incident.

"There have been many days I can’t sleep even with sleeping pills," she said through an interpreter.

The Marines had sex with the woman six times in the parking lot and she said it was never consensual.

"I was raped," she said during her third court appearance since March.

US ambassador urges Japan to boost military spending amid splurge by Asian neighbors

May 20, 9:42 AM EDT
By TOMOKO A. HOSAKA
Associated Press Writer

TOKYO (AP) -- Japan should boost defense spending instead of decreasing it as Tokyo's Asian neighbors expand their military budgets, the U.S. Ambassador to Japan said Tuesday.

Over the last decade China has increased military expenditures by an average of 14.2 percent annually, and South Korea's defense budget has grown 73 percent, said J. Thomas Schieffer, U.S. ambassador in Japan since 2005.

Photo: U.S. Ambassador to Japan Thomas Schieffer gestures during a press conference in Tokyo Tuesday, May 20, 2008. Schieffer urged Tokyo to shoulder a bigger portion of the bill to defend itself, especially as its Asian neighbors are expanding military budgets and the costs maintaining security in the region grow. "The U.S.-Japan alliance has been the linchpin of both our foreign policies in the Pacific," Schieffer said. "Nothing has changed in the world to alter that. What has changed is the level of technology and the cost of modern weapons."

In contrast, Japan's ratio of defense spending to gross domestic product has been declining despite its growing concerns over potential military threats, he said.

Japan's Ministry of Defense expects a budget of 4.74 trillion yen (US$46 billion; €30 billion) this fiscal year through March 2009, down 0.8 percent from the previous year - a trend Schieffer called "troubling."

"We believe that Japan should consider the benefits of increasing its own defense spending to make a greater, not lesser, contribution to its own security," Schieffer said in a speech at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan.

Japanese defense department officials were not immediately available for comment.

Schieffer also urged Japan, which is looking to buy new fighter jets, to choose planes and equipment that are compatible with U.S weapons systems.

"The more joint operational we become, the better off we will be," he said.

Roger Buckley, a professor of international studies at Temple University Japan, doubts the U.S. can convince Japan to pay significantly more for defense given the current political climate.

Economic realities aside, a recent spate of crimes involving U.S. servicemen in Japan has heightened public frustration with the American military presence, he said.

"This is an attempt to change Japanese thinking," Buckley said. "But the best you can do is try to nudge Japan."

The U.S. maintains about 50,000 troops in Japan, about half of whom are stationed on the southern island of Okinawa.

The U.S.-Japan security alliance is based on an agreement signed in 1960 that obligates both countries to provide mutual military support in the event of an armed attack. The treaty takes into account Japan's constitutional restrictions that prohibit overseas deployment of its armed forces.

FOCUS: Fukuda, Lee play up 'new era' in ties, leaving touchy issues in back

Apr.21.2008 22:14
TOKYO, April 21 KYODO

Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda and South Korean President Lee Myung Bak emphasized their intentions to raise their countries' relations to a higher dimension through enhanced cooperation in a wide range of bilateral and global issues following their meeting in Tokyo on Monday.

But conspicuously missing in their talks in Tokyo were sensitive topics between the neighboring countries such as how to settle differences in the two countries' perception of history and the territorial dispute over islets in the Sea of Japan.

Fukuda and Lee agreed on many things, including cooperation in dealing with the North Korean nuclear and abduction issues and expanding bilateral youth and other people exchanges, tackling global warming and providing development aid to poor countries.

They also welcomed the resumption of the so-called "shuttle diplomacy" in which top leaders of the two countries are to make reciprocal visits at least once a year and which had been suspended since 2005, as agreed during their first meeting in February.

Their emphasis on amity was apparent in their first talks held in Seoul where Fukuda attended Lee's inauguration ceremony and was the first visiting dignitary to hold talks with the new South Korean president.

"There was already a friendly atmosphere during their first summit meeting, and at (Monday's) summit meeting as well, the mood was very relaxed throughout," a Japanese Foreign Ministry official said.

In February, the two leaders agreed to resume "shuttle diplomacy" and build a "new era" of relations based on closer bilateral ties as well as cooperation on a range of issues facing the international community.

In addition to their two meetings so far, Fukuda and Lee may have three more opportunities to travel to each other's nations this year, according to the official.

Fukuda said he will visit South Korea in the latter half of this year under the "shuttle diplomacy" arrangement, while Lee confirmed he will come to Japan again in July to attend an outreach dialogue session of the Group of Eight summit in Hokkaido.

The official said there might be yet another occasion for the South Korean leader to visit Japan as Tokyo has proposed to host a trilateral summit meeting with China later this year based on an agreement between the leaders of the three countries last November to hold talks outside the ASEAN-related framework.

Through such meetings, as well as more that may take place on the sidelines of international conferences in third countries, Fukuda and Lee are expected to build mutual trust on a personal level that could hold the key to whether they will eventually be able to discuss thorny issues, pundits say.

In their talks Monday as well as in February, Fukuda and Lee did not hold specific discussions on their territorial row, their countries' differences in perceptions of history and the war-related Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo, according to the ministry official.

This was in stark contrast with the time the "shuttle diplomacy" arrangement was suspended in 2005, when then Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and South Korean President Roh Moo Hyun clashed over the former's visits to Yasukuni Shrine.

South Korea and other victims of Japan's aggression before and during World War II had protested Koizumi's repeated visits to the shrine while he served as prime minister between 2001 and 2006.

Visits to the shrine by Japanese public figures are considered controversial because 14 Class-A war criminals are among those honored there and because it was the bastion of military government-sponsored Shintoism, which was linked to the rise of militarism in Japan before World War II.

While the bilateral relationship cooled under Koizumi and Roh, it made improvements after Shinzo Abe became Japanese prime minister in September 2006 and chose South Korea along with China as the first countries to visit.

With Fukuda, who took office last September, seen to place importance on Japan's Asian diplomacy and Lee emphasizing "pragmatic" diplomacy centering on building on economic ties, the mood has turned even more harmonious.

When asked at a press conference Monday how he would handle the situation in the event outstanding topics such as the territorial dispute or history-related issues come to the forefront again, Lee's first reaction was, "I didn't want to be asked that question."

But he went on to reiterate his future-oriented stance, saying, "We must always remember past history, but we should not be bound by the past in a way that would interfere with our path toward the future."

Concerning the possibility that Japanese politicians may make remarks in the future that could irritate South Koreans, Lee said there is "no need to react sensitively to each opinion they may utter."

But a senior Japanese Foreign Ministry official expressed concern that the possible flaring up of bilateral political issues may not be the only thing that could change Lee's stance toward Japan, saying it may make a turn for the worse depending on how South Koreans perceive his accomplishments.

"The pressure on the president is far greater that we can imagine in Japan," the official said. "Even if concerns over history issues do not come to the fore again, there is a possibility of a shift away from placing importance on Japan resulting from economic issues."

==Kyodo

Japan to allow military use of space

12.30pm BST

* Justin McCurry in Tokyo
* guardian.co.uk,
* Wednesday May 21 2008

Japan's estrangement from its postwar pacifism continued today with the enactment of a law ending its 40-year ban on the military use of space.

The law signals Tokyo's determination to expand its military capability amid concern over China's ballooning defence budget and North Korea's development of ballistic and nuclear missiles.

The move will be welcomed by the US, whose ambassador in Tokyo, Thomas Schieffer, called on Japan to end its self-imposed cap on defence spending of less than 1% of GDP.

While the US defence budget has almost doubled over the past decade, Japan's military spending will total 4.78 trillion yen this year, down 0.5% from 2007.

"Our capabilities have increased dramatically because we are spending more on defence than we were 10 years ago," Schieffer said this week.

"That helps Japan. I don't think it is unfair of us to suggest that Japan needs to look at that and make an assessment. A hard choice, perhaps, but Japan needs to spend more on defence," he said.

Opposition parties agreed to support the new law following guarantees that space development would be strictly "non-aggressive" and remain within the parameters of the postwar constitution, which forbids the use of force to settle international disputes.

Space programmes, the law says, must "contribute to establish a safe society, remove various threats to people's lives and ensure peace and safety of international society, as well as the national security of our country".

The change will, however, enable Japan to use more sophisticated military satellites to spy on North Korea and as part of a missile defence shield it is jointly developing with the US. Until now, military development in space has been hampered by a 1969 law limiting space exploration to "peaceful uses".

The aerospace industry has long complained that Japan's postwar pacifism stifled efforts to compete with its regional rivals in space.

It currently spends about 250bn yen a year on space development, far below what many believe to be appropriate for the world's second-biggest economy. Keidanren, Japan's influential business federation, lobbied hard to bring an end to the ban, which, experts say, has left the country's space development 10 years behind that of China and India.

"In the future there will be more satellites and rockets used for space security, so that is a positive factor for the space industry," Satoshi Tsuzukibashi, a Keidanren official, told Reuters.

China demonstrated its technological superiority in space last year when it used a missile to shoot down a weather satellite, a move that drew condemnation from Tokyo.

Fears that Japan is the prime target for North Korean ballistic and nuclear missiles grew after Pyongyang test-fired Taepodong missiles in 1998 and 2003.

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Japan's biggest aerospace company, is expected to spearhead the development of a new generation of spy satellites.

Diet OKs bill allowing space programs for national security

May 21, 2008

TOKYO (AP) -- Japan's National Diet voted to allow the nation's space programs to be used for defense for the first time Wednesday as part of Tokyo's push to give its military a greater international role.

The upper house of parliament approved the legislation with an overwhelming 221-14 vote. The vote followed earlier approval by the lower house, thereby lifting a 1969 ban on military use of outer space.

The law, one of several moves in recent years by Japan to give greater freedom to its armed forces, allows the military to develop more advanced spy satellites for intelligence gathering and missile defense.

However, the law says that the space programs will have to be limited to defense only as defined in the nation's pacifist Constitution. The U.S.-drafted 1947 Constitution prohibits Japan from offensive warfare.

The law came with a supplementary resolution to ensure transparency and review within two years of enactment, said ruling Liberal Democratic Party lawmaker Hiroshi Okada, who chairs the upper house Cabinet affairs committee.

The law states that space programs must "contribute to establish a safe society, remove various threats to life of the people and ensure peace and safety of international society, as well as the national security of our country."

It does not specify what the programs will be used for, but the satellite network and other assets could be used for surveillance, planning and for a missile defense shield Japan is building with the United States.

The law also urges the government to beef up the budget and support for space research and development to make the industry more competitive. It also urges the government to coordinate university researchers and private institutions to promote the effort.

Under the new law, the defense minister joins a special taskforce responsible for Japan's future space projects, paving the way for the military to possess and develop spy satellites.

The space law is Tokyo's latest effort in recent years to ease controls on the military, which is euphemistically called Self-Defense Forces.

Japan upgraded the Defense Agency to ministry status last year, sent troops on a humanitarian mission to Iraq in 2004 for the first deployment in a combat zone since World War II.

(Mainichi Japan) May 21, 2008

US Military Jails Marine For Sexual Misconduct In Japan

05-21-08 0524ET

TOKYO (AFP)--A court martial has sentenced a U.S. Marine to 20 months in prison for sexual misconduct against a woman in Japan, the U.S. military said in a statement.

The case was one of a series of alleged crimes by U.S. troops in Japan that have sparked public anger, leading Washington to pledge tougher discipline.

Gunnery Sergeant Jarvis Raynor, 35, would also be discharged for "bad conduct" following Tuesday's court martial, the U.S. military said.

He was among four Marines accused of gang-raping a 19-year-old woman in the western city of Hiroshima in October.

One of the four had already been given a two-year prison term and dishonorable discharge for sexual misconduct earlier this month.

Japanese prosecutors dropped the case due to a lack of evidence. The military decided to court martial them instead.

A rape charge against Raynor was dropped under a plea bargain. He was found guilty of lesser offenses including engaging in indecent acts and violating military orders.

U.S. troops are stationed in Japan under a security treaty with the country, which has been constitutionally pacifist since World War II. Tensions with local communities have been strained by a series of high-profile crimes.

In the southern island of Okinawa - home to more than half of the 40,000 U.S. troops based in Japan - a U.S. military court Friday sentenced a U.S. Marine to four years in prison for sexually abusing a 14-year-old Japanese schoolgirl.

Japan ends decades-old pacifist policy

Article from: Reuters
By Yoko Kubota in Tokyo
May 21, 2008 06:17pm

JAPAN has passed a law allowing military use of space, ending a decades-old pacifist policy as it casts a wary eye on North Korea's nuclear ambitions and China's rising spending on its armed forces.

The law, which allows the military to launch its own satellites for spying and warn of missile launches but rules out offensive weapons in space, was approved by parliament's opposition-controlled upper house, a sign of rare consensus in Japan's divided political arena.

Japan's space scientists and industry have long complained that the separation of space development from the military since 1969 hampers technological process in the sector.

Japan's powerful Keidanren business lobby had pushed for the law along with a relaxation of the country's ban on arms exports in order to help the nation's defence industry compete globally.

"The key point is that rather than just focusing on research and development like before, this new law will balance R&D, the industry, and security," Satoshi Tsuzukibashi, a director at one of Keidanren's industrial affairs bureau, said.

"In the future, there will be more satellites and rockets used for space security, so that is a positive factor for the space industry," he added.

The legislation mandates the creation of a new cabinet level post to oversee Japan's space security, a move that could help pry more funding out of tight-fisted finance bureaucrats worried about the nation's bulging public debt.

Lance Gatling, an aerospace consultant in Tokyo, said the law might not mean a sudden big boost in space security spending, but would lead to better coordination among ministries. He said the new cabinet post showed the importance of the law.

"It's not simply another small organisation that's underneath some large organisation," Mr Gatling said.

"This is a top level effort by Japan, as it should be."

Japan's space program is run by Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), with an annual budget of around ¥183 billion ($1.8 billion) but others such as the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) also play a role in aerospace.

Japan has long held concerns about China's space and military programs and North Korea's nuclear and missile capabilities.

In January 2007, China alarmed the world by using a missile to shoot down one of its own disused satellites, demonstrating its burgeoning prowess in space and military hardware.

Japan was also shocked when North Korea fired a ballistic missile right over the country in 1998.

Tokyo already has spy satellites, launched to keep an eye on North Korea and controlled by a government department, but these provide far poorer resolution than other governments' military satellites.

Tokyo this week came under renewed pressure from the United States, its closest security ally, to increase its military spending, long subject to an unofficial cap limiting the defence budget to less than 1 per cent of gross domestic product.

Washington's ambassador to Tokyo Thomas Schieffer said on Tuesday that Japan should share the costs of defending itself with the United States.

Japan's pacifist constitution prohibits maintaining a military, but has been interpreted to allow armed forces for self-defence.

Subsequent governments have been stretching the limits of that interpretation, for example by sending troops to southern Iraq in 2004-2006 on a non-combat, reconstruction mission.

Japan Parliament Passes Bill Allowing Space Defense

By Sachiko Sakamaki and Takashi Hirokawa

May 21 (Bloomberg) -- Japan's parliament authorized the use of outer space for defense purposes, signaling increased spending on rockets and satellites for spying.

The upper house passed the bill into law today after lower house approval last week. The legislation provides for a new cabinet position to oversee Japan's space program, including defense.

The bill follows Japanese criticism of China's use of a missile to shoot down a weather satellite last year. Japan's defense ministry called the military test a threat to "satellites around the world, whether they are civilian or military," according to a March report.

"We can now use space for broader purposes including national security," Satoshi Tsuzukibashi, a deputy director of Japan's biggest business group, Nippon Keidanren, said. "This is a positive development."

Today's approval by the opposition-controlled upper house is an exception after it rejected other measures backed by Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda this year. The Democratic Party of Japan, the country's biggest opposition party, helped draft the bill along with the ruling coalition.

"This is a bill that promotes the use of satellites and space only for peaceful purposes," Nobutaka Machimura, Chief Cabinet Secretary, said today.

The law vows to uphold the "pacifist spirit" of Japan's constitution while using space to contribute to security, according to a copy. It also says Japan should promote its own aerospace industry and "autonomously develop, launch, track and operate its own satellites."

Japan must spend more on defense to keep up with its Asian neighbors, U.S. Ambassador J. Thomas Schieffer said yesterday in Tokyo.

China increased its 2008 defense budget by a record 19.4 percent. Chinese President Hu Jintao said the buildup is needed to win "high-tech regional wars," China's official Xinhua News Agency reported March 10.

To contact the reporter on this story: Sachiko Sakamaki in Tokyo at Ssakamaki1@bloomberg.netTakashi Hirokawa in Tokyo at thirokawa@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: May 21, 2008 05:13 EDT

Japan enacts 1st law allowing use of space for defense purposes

May 21 04:58 AM US/Eastern

TOKYO, May 21 (AP) - (Kyodo)— Parliament on Wednesday enacted Japan's first law setting out the country's basic policy on the use of space, changing a decades-old principle that enshrined the "nonmilitary" use of space and paving the way for the development of defense equipment such as full-scale spy satellites.

The law stipulates that the use and development of space be carried out in ways that contribute to the security of Japan, relaxing the principle of nonmilitary use based on a parliamentary resolution in 1969 under the war-renouncing Constitution.

The bill for the law cleared the House of Councillors at a plenary session, ensuring the law's enactment as the House of Representatives had already passed the bill earlier this month.

Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda's Liberal Democratic Party and its ruling coalition partner the New Komeito party as well as the main opposition Democratic Party of Japan supported the bill, while the opposition Social Democratic Party and the Japanese Communist Party voted against.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka Machimura welcomed the enactment of the law jointly sponsored by the LDP, the New Komeito, and the DPJ.

"It is a very timely law" as it paves the way for the use of space and satellites for nonaggressive purposes in various ways at a time when science and technology have made remarkable progress, the top government spokesman told a press conference.

Machimura dismissed concerns that the law could take Japan's defense capabilities to a level beyond constitutional restrictions, saying, "Who in the world would think Japan would try to invade another country by using satellites? It's impossible."

The law changes Japan's policy on the use of space to "nonaggressive" from "nonmilitary" and allows the government to station equipment in space compatible with the defense-oriented policy, experts and government officials said.

The equipment includes early warning satellites that can detect signs of a ballistic missile launch and spy satellites that can view objects as small as 15 centimeters, they said.

Japan has already launched four satellites to gather ground intelligence since 2003, following North Korea's launch in 1998 of a ballistic missile, part of which flew over Japan.

But the capabilities of the satellites are limited to spotting objects as small as 1 meter, a level adequate for commercial use, for fear that satellites with a higher performance could draw criticism that Japan is trying to expand its military capabilities in space.

'Flexible' approach to help Marines relocation to Guam: U.S. commander

May 21 04:35 AM US/Easterna

(AP) - TOKYO, May 21 (Kyodo) — The top commander of the U.S. military in Japan suggested Wednesday that a more flexible approach by concerned parties, including the military and the Japanese government, would help to implement a plan to move U.S. Marines to Guam from Okinawa Prefecture by the target year of 2014.

In an interview with Kyodo News, Lt. Gen. Edward Rice also offered reassurance that no threat to safety is posed by the carrier George Washington, which from August is to make Yokosuka, south of Tokyo, its home port, becoming the first nuclear-powered carrier to be based in Japan.

"The government of Guam, industry partners, the U.S. military and the government of Japan are working to determine how we can think creatively about how to make this work," Rice said, referring to the Marine relocation plan, a key item of a Japan-U.S. agreement on realignment of U.S. forces in Japan.

"There are needs to continue to be flexible all round to complete this," said Rice, who served as the commander of the 13th Air Force in Guam in 2005.

The remarks came after the U.S. Government Accountability Office warned earlier this month that the planned relocation of Marines to Guam from Okinawa could be delayed, citing the new host's infrastructure and both governments' fiscal burdens.

"There may be restrictions in place in terms of who can come to Guam to do the work. The government of Guam might be able to be more flexible" about whom they allow to come in to do the work, Rice said. He did not elaborate.

The commander also denied the U.S. side can meet a request by Okinawa to slightly redesign the plan to build a relocation facility in Nago for the U.S. Marine Corps' Futemma Air Station in Ginowan.

"It's very easy to fall into the thinking that a small change in one place won't affect the rest of the program. It's our view that a small change can very well affect the rest of the program," Rice, 52, said.

Referring to the planned deployment of the George Washington to the U.S. Naval base in Yokosuka to replace the Kitty Hawk, Rice said, "I'm absolutely confident that we will operate this ship safely."

The Kitty Hawk will depart from the Yokosuka base on May 28 and be decommissioned as the last fuel-powered carrier in the U.S. Navy.

The city of Yokosuka in Kanagawa Prefecture supports the deployment of the George Washington but some citizens are opposed to it or are calling for more disclosure of information about the nuclear-powered ship, citing safety concerns.

There is "not one single incident of release of radioactivity or an environmental issue" with nuclear-powered vessels of the U.S. Navy in 40 years, Rice said.

"Sometimes it isn't well understood this isn't just about defending against an attack on Japan, it's about regional stability that underpins the economic prosperity of Japan," he said.

Additional Information on General Rice

LtGen Rice's Biography

Sexual Assault Prevention Task Force Findings Press Briefing opening statement
Press Briefing on Sexual Assault Prevention Task Force Findings
Lieutenant General Edward A. Rice, Jr.
Commander, U.S. Forces Japan
The New Sanno Hotel, Tokyo, Japan, 16 May 2008

USFJ Commander's article in Japan Defense Focus
United States Forces, Japan Commander on the US-Japan Alliance
By: Lt Gen Edward A. Rice, Jr.
Commander, U.S. Forces, Japan/5th Air Force

USFJ Commander's speech to JAAGA on 19 March 2008
Lieutenant General Edward A. Rice, Jr.
Commander, U.S. Forces Japan
Japan America Air Force Goodwill Association Speech
Tokyo, Japan, 13 May 2008

USFJ Commander Q & A Videos
Five of the seven videos (below) listed on the United States Forces Japan home page had broken links on May 21. Perchance corrections or updates will be made in the future.

Alliance With Japan
Sorry, the page you tried to reach does not exist
http://www.yokota.af.mil/shared/media/document/AFD-080303-005.wmv

Command Initiatives
Link working May 21
http://www.yokota.af.mil/shared/media/document/AFD-080303-009.wmv

The People of USFJ
Sorry, the page you tried to reach does not exist
http://www.yokota.af.mil/shared/media/document/AFD-080303-007.wmv

Arrival of USS GW
Link working May 21
http://www.yokota.af.mil/shared/media/document/AFD-080303-011.wmv

Immediate Concerns
Sorry, the page you tried to reach does not exist
http://www.yokota.af.mil/shared/media/document/AFD-080303-008.wmv

Period of Reflection
Sorry, the page you tried to reach does not exist
http://www.usfj.mil/%3Chttp://www.yokota.af.mil/shared/media/document/AFD-080303-010.wmv

How You Can Help
Sorry, the page you tried to reach does not exist
http://www.yokota.af.mil/shared/media/document/AFD-080303-012.wmv

Japan parliament OKs bill allowing space programs for national security

May 21, 4:21 AM EDT
By MARI YAMAGUCHI
Associated Press Writer

TOKYO (AP) -- Japan's parliament voted to allow the nation's space programs to be used for defense for the first time Wednesday as part of Tokyo's push to give its military a greater international role.

The upper house of parliament approved the legislation with an overwhelming 221-14 vote. The vote followed earlier approval by the lower house, thereby lifting a 1969 ban on military use of outer space.

The law, one of several recent moves to give greater freedom to the armed forces, allows the military to develop advanced spy satellites for intelligence and a missile defense shield being built jointly with the United States.

Japan has grown increasingly concerned about regional threats as China has used its economic muscle to modernize its military. North Korea's development of long-range missiles and atomic weapons is also a primary security worry in Tokyo.

The law - passed a day after U.S. Ambassador Thomas Schieffer urged Tokyo to boost its military spending - limits military use of space programs to defense only. The U.S.-drafted 1947 constitution prohibits Japan from offensive war.

The legislation came with a supplementary resolution to ensure transparency and review within two years of enactment, said ruling Liberal Democratic Party lawmaker Hiroshi Okada, who chairs the upper house Cabinet affairs committee.

The law states that space programs must "contribute to establish a safe society, remove various threats to life of the people and ensure peace and safety of international society, as well as the national security of our country."

It does not specify what the programs will be used for, but the satellite network and other assets could be used for surveillance, planning and for a missile defense shield Japan is building with the United States.

The law also urges the government to beef up the budget and support for space research and development to make the industry more competitive. It also urges the government to coordinate university researchers and private institutions to promote the effort.

Under the new measure, the defense minister joins a special task force responsible for Japan's future space projects, paving the way for the military to possess and develop spy satellites.

The space law is Tokyo's latest effort in recent years to ease controls on the military, which is euphemistically called Self-Defense Forces.

Japan upgraded the Defense Agency to ministry status last year, sent troops on a humanitarian mission to Iraq in 2004 for the first deployment in a combat zone since World War II.

Tokyo has also ramped up its military cooperation with the United States, which bases about 50,000 troops in Japan under a security treaty.

Schieffer, in a speech to reporters on Tuesday, urged Japan to break its post-World War II military spending of 1 percent of GDP as a way of burden-sharing with the U.S. and keeping pace with growing military might in China and elsewhere in the region.

Tokyo has pushed ahead with plans for a joint missile defense system with Washington since North Korea shocked Japan by firing a missile over the archipelago into the Pacific Ocean, showing the country was within striking range.

Diet passes bill on defense in space

2008/05/21 14:09

Japan's Diet on Wednesday passed legislation authorizing the use of space for military purposes, overturning government policy that had strictly prohibited it.

The bill was compiled by the governing Liberal Democratic and New Komeito parties, and the largest opposition Democratic Party.

The new law will allow Japan to develop and use intelligence satellites, as long as their use is exclusively for defense purposes. One of the aims of the law is to help Japan detect signs from space of missile tests by North Korea and other threats.

The law stipulates that Japan's exploration and use of space must uphold the pacifist principles of its Constitution.
But it also stipulates that space exploration and use should contribute to the country's security, thus relaxing the strict ban on the use of space for military purposes.

The new law calls for consolidating space policies currently handled by several government ministries and centralizing authority within the Cabinet.

The smaller opposition Communist and Social Democratic parties voted against the bill, saying it could lead to unbridled militarization of space and trigger another arms race.

Save the Dugongs--Stop the New US Marine Air Base

Ann Wright's Blog #2 from Japan
Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Okinawa—Land of Protests Against US Militarism

The southern island of Okinawa is protest-central for Japanese discontent against the large continued US military presence for the last 63 years, since the end of World War II. 23,000 US military and 25,000 military families members live and work on 34 bases on the island of Okinawa. While the US has returned 30 bases to the Japanese Self Defense force, the remaining bases including two major airbases (with loud aircraft noises), and four large marine bases (with artillery and helicopters) are continuing sources of anger for the most of the Okinawan population. Those Okinawans who are making money from the presence of US military, are not so opposed to the occupation.

Okinawans have protested loudly about the US military presence for decades. As a result, the US Marines have been pressured to close one air base that is in an extremely congested urban area. But the location where they want to build a replacement airbase by dumping dirt into the ocean, is in the pristine, coral laden waters of f another Marine base where the endangered marine mammal, the dugong, lives. Okinawans’ protests have been critical in the postponement of construction of the new airbase for 10 years. Now a US federal district court have stepped in and ordered the Department of Defense to conduct an environmental impact study on the area proposed for the airbase.

Each day ten to twenty Okinawans take to the waters in the area called Henoko in kayaks and zodiac boats to watch and photograph what the Marines do. They took us out in one of the boats to see the waters, look for dugongs and observe the activities of the Marines.

Their activist camp provides a base and educational center for the groups, Japanese and international, that come to help. A second activist tent on the beach is filled all day with very politically astute senior citizens who chat with visitors about their refusal to allow their bay to be filled in for a marine air base, and who keep eagle eyes watching their bay.

The Marines have placed very sharp concertina wire on the beach to keep activists away from their activities. The activists have decorated the wire with colorful pieces of cloth with statements: close US bases, save the dugongs.

Japan parliament OKs space defense bill

By MARI YAMAGUCHI
Associated Press Writer
Tue May 20, 11:11 PM ET

TOKYO - Japan's parliament voted to allow the country's space programs to be used for defense for the first time Wednesday as part of Tokyo's push to give its military a greater international role.

The upper house of parliament approved the legislation with an overwhelming 221-14 vote. The vote followed earlier approval by the lower house, thereby lifting a 1969 ban on military use of outer space.

The law, one of several moves in recent years by Japan to give greater freedom to its armed forces, allows the military to develop more advanced spy satellites for intelligence gathering and missile defense.

However, the law says that the space programs will have to be limited to defense only as defined in the nation's pacifist constitution. The U.S.-drafted 1947 constitution prohibits Japan from offensive warfare.

The law came with a supplementary resolution to ensure transparency and review within two years of enactment, said ruling Liberal Democratic Party lawmaker Hiroshi Okada, who chairs the upper house Cabinet affairs committee.

The law states that space programs must "contribute to establish a safe society, remove various threats to life of the people and ensure peace and safety of international society, as well as the national security of our country."

It does not specify what the programs will be used for, but the satellite network and other assets could be used for surveillance, planning and for a missile defense shield Japan is building with the United States.

The law also urges the government to beef up the budget and support for space research and development to make the industry more competitive. It also urges the government to coordinate university researchers and private institutions to promote the effort.

Under the new law, the defense minister joins a special taskforce responsible for Japan's future space projects, paving the way for the military to possess and develop spy satellites.

The space law is Tokyo's latest effort in recent years to ease controls on the military, which is euphemistically called Self-Defense Forces.

Japan upgraded the Defense Agency to ministry status last year, sent troops on a humanitarian mission to Iraq in 2004 for the first deployment in a combat zone since World War II.

US ambassador urges Japan to boost military spending amid splurge by Asian neighbors

May 21, 2008

TOKYO (AP) -- Japan should boost defense spending instead of decreasing it as Tokyo's Asian neighbors expand their military budgets, the U.S. Ambassador to Japan said Tuesday.

Over the last decade China has increased military expenditures by an average of 14.2 percent annually, and South Korea's defense budget has grown 73 percent, said J. Thomas Schieffer, U.S. ambassador in Japan since 2005.

In contrast, Japan's ratio of defense spending to gross domestic product has been declining despite its growing concerns over potential military threats, he said.

Japan's Ministry of Defense expects a budget of 4.74 trillion yen (US$46 billion) this fiscal year through March 2009, down 0.8 percent from the previous year -- a trend Schieffer called "troubling."

"We believe that Japan should consider the benefits of increasing its own defense spending to make a greater, not lesser, contribution to its own security," Schieffer said in a speech at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan.

Japanese defense department officials were not immediately available for comment.

Schieffer also urged Japan, which is looking to buy new fighter jets, to choose planes and equipment that are compatible with U.S weapons systems.

"The more joint operational we become, the better off we will be," he said.

Roger Buckley, a professor of international studies at Temple University Japan, doubts the U.S. can convince Japan to pay significantly more for defense given the current political climate.

Economic realities aside, a recent spate of crimes involving U.S. servicemen in Japan has heightened public frustration with the American military presence, he said.

"This is an attempt to change Japanese thinking," Buckley said. "But the best you can do is try to nudge Japan."

The U.S. maintains about 50,000 troops in Japan, about half of whom are stationed on the southern island of Okinawa.

The U.S.-Japan security alliance is based on an agreement signed in 1960 that obligates both countries to provide mutual military support in the event of an armed attack. The treaty takes into account Japan's constitutional restrictions that prohibit overseas deployment of its armed forces.

(Mainichi Japan) May 21, 2008

US Marine sentenced to 20 months in prison for 'indecent acts'

May 21, 2008

TOKYO (AP) -- An American Marine accused in an alleged gang rape of a Japanese woman last year was sentenced to 600 days in prison Tuesday for "committing indecent acts" with a woman, but cleared of rape charges, the U.S. military said.

A U.S. court-martial also found Gunnery Sgt. Jarvis D. Raynor, 35, guilty of larceny, "conspiracy to engage in indecent acts," violating military orders and adultery, according to a statement by the Marine Corps Air Station in Iwakuni in southern Japan.

His sentence includes a demotion in rank to private and a "Bad Conduct Discharge."

Raynor is the second Marine sentenced by a military court-martial for the alleged rape and robbery of a 20-year-old woman in the southern city of Hiroshima in October.

Earlier this month, Lance Cpl. Larry A. Dean, 20, was sentenced to two years in prison for his involvement in the case. Two others -- Gunnery Sergeant Carl M. Anderson, 39, and Sgt. Lanaeus J. Braswell, 25 -- will be court-martialed in June.

Japanese authorities investigated the incident, but local prosecutors dropped the case in November.

About 50,000 U.S. troops are based in Japan under a security pact between the two countries. Many Japanese complain of crime, pollution and noise associated with the bases.

Japanese anger over the U.S. military presence has grown in recent months following an alleged rape in February of a 14-year-old girl by an American serviceman on the southern island of Okinawa, as well as the killing of a taxi driver near a U.S. naval base in Yokosuka, south of Tokyo.

Related articles

* GI's confined to quarters, but Okinawa's sex spots say the show must go on
* US Marine sentenced to 4 years on sex charge with Japanese teen in Okinawa
* Breast-grabbing U.S. Marine sent to prosecutors on drinking charge
* Marine sentenced for wrongful sexual conduct in Hiroshima gang-rape case
* Gang rape court-martial begins at U.S. base in Iwakuni

(Mainichi Japan) May 21, 2008

Upper House panel passes bill on space

Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Kyodo News

An Upper House committee approved a bill Tuesday intended to allow the use of space for defensive purposes, an important step on the road for the Defense Ministry to develop and operate spy satellites.

The full House of Councilors will put the bill to a vote later this week.

The move is a departure from Japan's decades-long policy of limiting the development and use of space to nonmilitary purposes.

The bill for the "basic law on space" proposes that Japan develop and use space to contribute to its security, relaxing a nonmilitary provision on space inserted in a resolution that was issued by the Diet in 1969.

On the other hand, the bill would also require Japan to abide by the space treaty, honor its international commitments and maintain the pacifist spirit of the Constitution when developing and using space.

The space treaty, which came into force in 1967, governs activities in the exploration and use of outer space.

Permanent SDF overseas deployment law endangers democracy

Wednesday, May 21, 2008
By CRAIG MARTIN
Special to The Japan Times

PHILADELPHIA — The Japanese government wants permanent legal authority to send military forces overseas. Letting it have it would be a mistake for many reasons, but one seldom raised is the impact the move would have on the nature of Japan's democracy. A law conferring permanent authority to deploy troops would eliminate important institutional checks and balances on the government's use of the military, causing a further weakening of the separation of powers in Japan.

It would also run counter to the recent trend in other democracies to increase accountability in the process of deciding to use armed force.

As it stands now, the government (meaning the executive branch, the Cabinet) has to have specific legislation passed by the Diet, such as the Anti-Terrorism Special Measures Law (the ATSML), to obtain the required legal authority to deploy troops outside of Japan. A new law is required each and every time the government wants to dispatch the Self-Defense Forces (SDF), whether for the purpose of U.N. peacekeeping or to provide humanitarian support for collective security operations such as those in Afghanistan.

Such legislation establishes the operating parameters, such as limiting the SDF to noncombat zones and defining the conditions under which it may use force in self-defense, and typically specifies clear time limits for the deployment. New legislation is also required to extend the time limits of such laws before they expire.

The government was embarrassed last year by its inability to get Diet approval for an extension of the ATSML for another year, forcing it to withdraw the SDF from the Indian Ocean.

The government, and many policy pundits, believe that the requirement to obtain legislative approval for each deployment is cumbersome, time-consuming, and when the opposition controls one chamber of the Diet, a real obstacle to the implementation of policy. So it now wants a permanent law that would provide blanket authorization for the deployment of the SDF for participation in what it calls "international cooperation activities."

The term "international cooperation activities" (which also appears in the Liberal Democratic Party's proposed amendment to Article 9 of the Constitution) has no meaning under international law. It could be used to describe collective self-defense, or collective security operations authorized by the United Nations Security Council, both of which are understood to be prohibited by Article 9.

It could even include such operations as the invasion of Iraq, which was not authorized by the U.N. and is widely interpreted as having been an act of aggression in violation of international law.

Since the term is deliberately ambiguous, the law authorizing such "international cooperation" would have to provide broad and ambiguous criteria justifying the dispatch of the SDF. There would be no narrow parameters tailored to the specific circumstances for which the SDF were to be deployed, as have characterized the "special measures" laws authorizing each SDF deployment in the past. It would be tantamount to a blank check.

Such a blank check would eliminate the role of the legislature in the process of deciding upon and approving Japan's involvement in military operations abroad. Nor would the legislature have any power to block or otherwise restrain government after it has decided to deploy Japanese troops. The Cabinet would have authority to make the determination, in its sole discretion, as to whether the operation for which it sought to deploy Japanese troops met the criteria in the permanent law. Moreover, without a specific law setting the limits within which the SDF is required to operate, there would be no restraints on "mission creep" in which operations could develop into actual combat activity and escalate over time.

Advocates of the new law assert that the permanent law would not be for engaging in armed conflict, but only to authorize the dispatch of the SDF for humanitarian support efforts. But these assertions are both hollow and disingenuous. Given the language of "international cooperation," the SDF could be deployed for almost any purpose the government decides upon.

In the recent past, when there have been special laws both authorizing and limiting SDF operations, the SDF has been found to have violated the limits of those laws (as with the ASDF operations in Iraq), the government has tried to dismiss legal findings to that effect (as in its response to the Nagoya High Court case on ASDF operations in Iraq), and the SDF itself has tried to deceive both Cabinet and the Diet regarding such violations (as in the MSDF misrepresentations regarding the fueling of U.S. naval assets in the Indian Ocean).

Given this recent record, why should anyone think that eliminating such legal restraints and legislative oversight would not lead to even more unrestrained use of the military, in ways that may be utterly inconsistent with the Constitution?

Nor could the courts be relied upon to review such decisions as a check on government action. The courts are considered to be the third branch of government in the traditional separation of powers that is at the foundation of the modern democratic structure. In Japan, however, they have abdicated all responsibility for reviewing the executive's decisions with respect to the development and deployment of troops. The Supreme Court long ago held that such issues are "too political" to be the subject of judicial review, even where the government action is inconsistent with Article 9 of the Constitution.

The Supreme Court has also narrowed the test for standing, the legal basis upon which constitutional claims may be brought before the courts, to such a degree that using the courts to review government deployment of troops is all but impossible. There are virtually no circumstances in which anyone could demonstrate the "direct legal interest" necessary to advance a claim that would be accepted by the courts.

Lower courts have recently followed precisely these standards in dismissing a number of challenges to the deployment of the SDF to support operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. As the recent Nagoya High Court decision demonstrated, the lower courts will continue to dismiss such claims even when they believe the government's action is unconstitutional. Notwithstanding the judiciary's constitutional authority and responsibility, it will thus be no check on executive acts in this regard.

This elimination of checks on the executive power to engage in armed conflict runs counter to recent trends in other democracies around the world. Over the last 30 years there has been a movement toward greater transparency and democratic accountability in the process of deciding to use armed force.

The United States has always had a constitutional provision granting Congress the power to declare war and to confer authority for other actions incidental to armed conflict, though the exact scope of that authority has been hotly debated for over a hundred years. But after presidents began more aggressively ignoring the congressional authority, beginning with the Korean war and culminating in secret operations in Laos and Cambodia during the Vietnam war, Congress passed the War Powers Act to try to reign in the executive power.

While the war powers of the president and Congress continue to be controversial, it is worth noting that the president obtained specific congressional authority for the Gulf War in 1990, for the response to 9/11 that culminated in the invasion of Afghanistan, and for the invasion of Iraq.

In Germany, the Constitutional Court was called upon to consider the issue in the context of Germany's participation in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's operations in the former Yugoslavia in 1994. The court rather creatively interpreted the Basic Law as requiring the government to obtain specific legislative approval each and every time it sought to deploy armed forces in support of international operations. That continues to be the constitutional principle that governs German policy today.

Similarly, Prime Minister Gordon Brown has recently suggested constitutional changes for Britain, introducing the concept of requiring parliamentary approval of decisions to engage in armed conflict. Under the British constitutional system the decision to go to war has traditionally been within the scope of the "Royal Prerogative," meaning the sole discretion of the executive. That broad discretion of course contributed to such historic policy blunders as the conspiracy with France and Israel for the orchestrated attack on Egypt in the Suez crisis of 1956, which was decided upon without any informed parliamentary debate.

Canada, which has historically also operated under the Royal Prerogative, has more recently begun the practice of submitting decisions to participate in armed conflict to parliament for debate and approval. There was parliamentary debate before the final decision to participate in the first Gulf War in 1991, and there was legislative approval sought again this year for continued Canadian involvement in Afghanistan.

There are other examples that together establish the clear trend in the world's democracies to broaden legislative participation in the decision to use armed forces. That seems only reasonable, since the decision to engage in armed conflict is one of the most important and potentially significant a nation can make.

It may be cumbersome to obtain legislative approval for deploying military forces overseas, but that is as it should be. It is not a decision that should be made lightly. It should be made after well informed debate, with a clear understanding of objectives and limits.

Japan, more than most countries, ought to have a deep understanding of the horrors that can unfold from granting one branch of government a blank check to make decisions about war and peace, and how international "incidents" can develop into full-blown wars.

The government's recent high-handed dismissal of the Nagoya High Court judgment on the constitutionality of SDF operations in Iraq is just one more reminder of why it is essential to have meaningful and substantive democratic constraints on the executive power to use armed force in Japan.

Providing the government a blank check for the dispatch of the SDF is going in the wrong direction, and swimming against the tide.

Craig Martin is a Canadian lawyer, currently conducting doctoral research at the University of Pennsylvania on the interaction of constitutional and international law constraints on the use of armed force. He is a graduate and an adjunct faculty member of Osaka University Graduate School of Law and Politics. www.craigxmartin.com.

Takeshima Japanese, schools to be told

Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Kyodo News

The education ministry plans to clearly state in a supplement of the government's new educational guideline for junior high school students that a Seoul-controlled islet in the Sea of Japan is an "integral part of Japan," officials said Monday.

The supplement referring to the island called Takeshima in Japanese and Dokdo in Korean will be compiled around June or July for use from fiscal 2012, the officials at the Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Ministry said. The supplement, although nonbinding, serves as a guide for teachers and textbook publishers.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka Machimura said Monday the government has yet to decide how to describe territorial issues in the supplement, while reiterating the position that Takeshima is Japan's original territory.

"As the Japanese and South Korean leaders agreed to build future-oriented relations, we don't mean to play up this issue politically," the top government spokesman said, referring to the April summit of Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda and South Korean President Lee Myung Bak in Tokyo.

The move, however, drew immediate reactions from South Korea.

In Seoul, Lee urged Japan to refrain from claiming the disputed island as part of its territory.

He ordered Foreign Affairs and Trade Minister Yu Myung Hwan to ask Japan to change the plan if in fact Japan's move is found to be true, said Lee's spokesman, Lee Dong Kwan.

Following Lee's instructions, Yu called in Japanese Ambassador Toshinori Shigeie to seek an explanation about the issue.

According to the ministry spokesman, Yu termed Japan's move as "an unreasonable attempt to undermine our territorial sovereignty over Dokdo, which is an integral part of our territory." He also said it "runs contrary to (South Korea's) efforts to move toward the future in relations with Japan."

In response, Shigeie told Yu that Japan has not made any such decision yet.

All geography and social studies textbooks take up the dispute over the Russian-held islands off Hokkaido, as the current version of the guideline urges teachers to encourage students "to pay attention to issues involving our nation's territories," including the islands.

But only a few textbooks take up Takeshima, as the current version has no reference to the South Korea-garrisoned island, prompting lawmakers in the ruling Liberal Democratic Party to request the new guideline stipulate that Takeshima belongs to Japan.

In March 2005, then education minister Nariaki Nakayama told the Diet that educational guidelines should be revised to state that Takeshima is Japanese territory.

The education ministry is also considering in the supplement touching on uninhabited Senkaku islets controlled by Japan in the East China Sea that are part of a dispute with China by saying Japan has "no territorial disputes with China concerning our territory," effectively declaring that the islets belong to Japan.

First archival studies graduate course starts

Wednesday, May 21, 2008
By KEIJI HIRANO
Kyodo News

Gakushuin University in Tokyo has launched Japan's first graduate course for archival studies with the aim of training experts to maintain past as well as contemporary documents and hand them down through the generations.

Photo: Paper trail: Masahito Ando, director of the Graduate Course in Archival Science of Gakushuin University in Tokyo, lectures on archival research in a recent class.

The 12 students in the inaugural class — eight for master's degrees and four for doctorates — are expected to contribute to developments of archival systems, whose formulation in Japan is considered behind other nations.

"It's the mission of archivists to create a truly democratic society through protecting records on social, economic or cultural activities, and relaying them for posterity," said Masahito Ando, director of the Graduate Course in Archival Science. "I hope we can educate those who will assume this significant role."

Preservation of those records was considered merely "just putting old documents in storehouses" in postwar Japan, according to Ando, who was a professor in the Department of Archival Studies at the National Institute of Japanese Literature before becoming a professor at Gakushuin.

However, there have been increasing calls since around the 1980s to nurture professional archivists to keep records and pass the memory of overall human activities to later generations "as part of efforts to achieve a democratic society," he said.

Archivists are expected, for example, to work with national and local government officials to decide which administrative documents should be maintained and how they should be organized for the convenience of public access.

The importance of the duties of archivists is rising at a time when there is public focus on government mishandling of a massive number of pension records and data on hepatitis C infections via tainted blood products.

In the past, failure to keep administrative documents before and during the war has affected people's fates, with war-displaced Japanese forced to remain in China because they cannot be recognized as Japanese due to a lack of documents such as family registrations, Ando said.

A group of lawmakers compiled an "urgent proposal" last November to urge the government to bolster the management system of public documents "to enhance transparency of administration and achieve accountability."

Looking to enact a law to set up comprehensive rules to handle official documents, the group also called for establishing archival facilities in each prefecture and major cities, and educating archivists who will lead the envisaged system.

The lawmakers include former education minister Takeo Kawamura, former postal minister Seiko Noda and former Justice Minister Mayumi Moriyama.

Ando said he also expects companies to employ archivists "just like they hire corporate lawyers" and entrust them to manage in-house documents, in a period when businesses have been hit by such scandals as falsification of food expiration dates.

Companies are likely to hide or eliminate unfavorable records, but they could retain public trust if they maintain such records with the support of archivists and make use of them to improve their business activities, he suggested.

Formulating archives at educational facilities, including colleges, or in communities is another field in which archivists could take part.

Sachiko Ikenaga, a master's student with experience working in museums, said, "I hope I can establish a methodology to archive museums' actual operations and hand them down through the generations."

"If we can keep the 'archival heritage' of a community at a local archive," Ando said, "it would be a new educational base for local history, at which children could follow the steps of their seniors and share their wisdom for life in the future."

One of the many challenges archivists face is to collect documents on Japan's past colonial practices and share them with other parts of Asia, as some wartime history remains blank, Ando said.

"It's an urgent task to share archival sources with Asia. This will help fill the gap in historical perceptions between Japan and our neighbors," he said.

POLITICAL PULSE / PM-wannabes jockey for position

Tetsuya Harada

The recent end to a protracted tug-of-war between the ruling and opposition camps over the issue of road-related tax revenues--the main focus of the current Diet session--has been followed by conspicuous moves that may well signal that the question of who could take over the reins from Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda is being addressed.

This is particularly noticeable in the words and actions of some Liberal Democratic Party lawmakers who apparently harbor an ambition to rise to power.

The ordinary Diet session will close on June 15. This will be followed by the Group of Eight summit meeting in Toyakocho, Hokkaido, where the prime minister will seek to ensure a consensus is reached among the G-8 nations about how to combat the host of global environmental problems. By demonstrating his leadership during the three-day summit meeting that will open on July 7, Fukuda hopes to give his unpopular administration a shot in the arm. In fact, the public approval rating for his Cabinet has already fallen to the mid-20 percent range--or lower.

If his support rate does not take an upturn, a number of LDP members likely will feel apprehensive about their party's chances in the next House of Representatives election. This could prompt them to launch a move toward toppling Fukuda from power.

On April 27, the LDP was crushingly defeated by the leading opposition Democratic Party of Japan in the lower house by-election in Yamaguchi Constituency No. 2. That night, two LDP heavyweights--former Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori and Mikio Aoki, former chairman of the LDP's caucus in the House of Councillors--secretly visited the prime minister's official residence, where the three exchanged views about how the political situation could unfold in the months ahead.

Details of their conversation remain unknown. However, there is no doubt that the trio discussed what should be done to improve the Cabinet's sagging popularity in the wake of the LDP's electoral defeat.

According to sources, the topics taken up during their meeting included a possible cabinet reshuffle. Fukuda, Mori and Aoki reportedly explored three options for the reshuffle's timing--before the G-8 summit meeting, after the summit gathering and in September, when the term of the LDP's current leadership expires.

The meeting of the three on the night of their party's electoral loss has aroused speculation about what they discussed, given the massive political clout of Mori and Aoki.

Mori has been regarded as Fukuda's political guardian, while Aoki can still exert influence on the decision-making process of the LDP's caucus in the upper house.

Some observers in Tokyo's Nagatacho--the nation's political nerve center--suspect Fukuda may be increasingly negative about staying on as prime minister. Others speculate Fukuda might have told Mori and Aoki he wants to step down.

All this comes at a time when former LDP Secretary General Taro Aso, who has been seen as the most likely successor to Fukuda, is gradually but steadily stepping up efforts to increase his influence in the political community.

On Thursday, Aso attended a meeting of an association newly established to support him by Saitama Prefectural Assembly members who belong to the LDP. "Since October, I haven't assumed any responsible position [within the LDP or the Cabinet], so I've wanted to head back to the golf course. But it's not working that way," he joked.

Aso's unmistakable ambition to replace Fukuda as prime minister was obvious when he said: "I'm visiting various places [outside Tokyo] to give a lecture once every two days. That makes me feel Japan's future is anything but gloomy."

On the night of the Saitama meeting, Aso invited LDP Election Strategy Council Chairman Makoto Koga for dinner at a swish restaurant in Tokyo. This apparently carried a good deal of weight in that the two had been at odds for years.

The dinner meeting--held ostensibly to celebrate the merger of two LDP factions led by Koga and party Policy Research Council Chairman Sadakazu Tanigaki, respectively--did much to show the political community that Aso and Koga had mended their strained relations.

"I felt pleased to accept the invitation," Koga was quoted as telling Aso.

The merger of the Koga and Tanigaki factions created a group with 61 legislators, the third largest in the LDP.

Aso leads a 20-member faction. If his faction join hands with the expanded Koga faction, Aso likely will be able to gain the support of 81 lawmakers if he runs in a race for the LDP presidency. The combined strength of pro-Aso legislators could rival the Mori faction, the biggest in the LDP, with 86 members.

In September, Aso ran in the LDP race held to choose outgoing Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's successor as party president. Initially, Aso was seen as enjoying even greater popularity than Fukuda in the race. However, he was unable to obtain support from such major LDP factions as those headed by Mori and Koga.

As it turned out, Aso suffered the humiliation of being beaten by Fukuda, who had abruptly announced his decision to run.

Most LDP members believe Aso's effort to reconcile himself with Koga reflects his determination not to commit the same error made in last year's LDP election by removing all possible hindrances to his bid for premiership.

Another possible successor to Fukuda is former Defense Minister Yuriko Koike. She has been doing her best to raise her profile in political circles. For example, she has formed a policy study group with Kuniko Inoguchi and Yukari Sato, both junior LDP legislators whose electoral turfs are in Tokyo.

In June, the three are scheduled to publish a book titled "Tokyo Joshi Daisakusen" (Tokyo Women's Bold Strategy), hoping to advance proposals about how to meet challenges, including environmental problems and a sharp decline in the birthrate.

However, some observers suggest Koike is going a bit too far in projecting herself as a key figure in the current political setup.

Under the circumstances, according to sources, Fukuda plans to reshuffle his Cabinet in the summer or autumn after the G-8 meeting. This may be followed by a plan to establish a consumer agency during an extraordinary Diet session expected to be convened in autumn. All this is intended to impress the public with his efforts to implement policies under his own initiative, including the establishment of the consumer agency.

Some pundits have suggested Fukuda might readily step down, given his tendency not to cling to position or status.

When will the next lower house election be held? Who will become the next LDP president?

With these questions in mind, the ruling and opposition parties look set to enter a new round of battle as the Diet session nears an end.

Harada is a deputy political news editor of The Yomiuri Shimbun.

(May. 21, 2008)

Poll: Support for Fukuda, Ozawa equal

The Yomiuri Shimbun

Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda and Democratic Party of Japan leader Ichiro Ozawa share the same amount of support for their handling of recent political issues, according to survey conducted by The Yomiuri Shimbun on Saturday and Sunday.

Both politicians had an approval rating of 37 percent in the survey, in which 1,837 of the targeted 3,000 voters nationwide provided valid answers in face-to-face interviews.

The poll result highlighted Fukuda's declining ability to attract people's support ahead of the next House of Representatives election.

The poll marked the first time the approval rating of the Fukuda Cabinet has dipped below 30 percent--to 26.1--in a Yomiuri poll since the Cabinet was formed in October.

Previous polls, which were conducted by telephone, have given even starker results. A survey by Kyodo News conducted May 1-2 found only 19.8 percent of respondents supported the Cabinet, while NHK's May 9-11 survey showed only 21 percent of people backed the Cabinet.

According to the Yomiuri survey, 76 percent of Liberal Democratic Party supporters backed Fukuda while only 50 percent of supporters of New Komeito, the LDP's ruling partner, favored him.

Of the New Komeito supporters, more than 20 percent expressed support for Ozawa.

Seventy-eight percent of the DPJ supporters polled expressed approval of the party's leader.

Among respondents who said they had no specific party affiliation, 37 percent supported Ozawa, while 27 percent favored Fukuda.

In questions on qualities and capabilities as a leader, Ozawa comprehensively trumped Fukuda.

In a question on who had stronger leadership ability, 53 percent of respondents chose Ozawa, while only 27 percent considered Fukuda a stronger leader.

Asked about the political beliefs and goals of the two leaders, 45 percent favored Ozawa, while only 33 percent supported Fukuda.

Forty-nine percent said Ozawa had a better attitude toward political reforms while only 29 percent considered Fukuda as more reform-minded.

Ozawa was considered to be better at explaining himself by 42 percent of respondents as compared to 28 percent who described Fukuda as being more capable.

However, 55 percent considered Fukuda the friendlier of the two, while 25 percent regarded Ozawa as so.

===

Stemming the tide of disapproval

Despite the waning support for the Cabinet, the government and ruling coalition have found no effective measures to turn the tide while the opposition parties have become more aggressive in their criticism.

Asked Monday night about the result of the Yomiuri's latest poll, Fukuda said, "There is nothing I can do [to improve the rating]."

The poor result is believed to have been caused by people's disapproval of the reintroduction of the provisionally inflated gasoline tax rate and the new health insurance system for people aged 75 and older.

Hidehisa Otsuji, head of the LDP caucus in the House of Councillors, said at a press conference Monday: "Sometimes, the government and the ruling parties are required to make tough demands on people. It seems this situation has been reflected in the poll result."

The ruling coalition hoped the talks between Fukuda and Chinese President Hu Jintao on May 7 would help boost the Cabinet's popularity.

However, during the talks, no major development was observed in issues that have attracted people's attention, such as pesticide-tainted frozen gyoza made in China, so the talks were not evaluated favorably by all.

There has been no major movement in the LDP to replace Fukuda. A senior member of the party and former cabinet minister, said: "The ruling parties retain a majority in the lower house, but the opposition parties dominate the upper house. There are lots of difficult issues, such as medical problems. So no one will be able to manage the government."

A senior member of New Komeito said, "We just have to endure the situation."

Meanwhile, DPJ Secretary General Yukio Hatoyama said Monday: "The situation that the approval rating for the Cabinet is lower than that for the LDP means many LDP supporters consider the Fukuda Cabinet hopeless. So we need to have the lower house dissolved or we should at least seek to have the Cabinet resign en masse."

However, the DPJ has not obtained overwhelming support in the poll, either.

Some younger DPJ members believe Ozawa's attitude to oppose anything the ruling bloc does is not supported by voters.

(May. 21, 2008)

China, Taiwan should resolve issues peacefully: U.S. envoy

Wednesday, May 21, 2008
By Beryl Tung, The China Post

TOKYO, Japan -- The United States and Japan both hope Taiwan and China can resolve the issues between them in a peaceful way, U.S. Ambassador to Japan J. Thomas Schieffer said on Tuesday.

"Both governments have emphasized that the issues between China and Taiwan should be resolved peacefully. And both sides have said that neither China nor Taiwan should do anything to provoke the other into military action," Schieffer told a news conference for the international media in Tokyo.

"And I think that it's a wise policy," Schieffer continued. "It is one that gives us the greatest hope for both resolving issues and keeping peace in the neighborhood."

"No one will be served by someone trying to solve this problem by military means," he said.

Schieffer also said that Japan should increase its defense budget.

While China, Korea, Russia and the United States have increased their military budget considerably over the past ten years, defense spending in Japan is roughly the same as in 1998.

"We believe that Japan should consider the benefits of increasing its own defense spending to make a greater not lesser contribution to its own security," said Schieffer.

Japan's Ministry of Defense expects a budget of 4.74 trillion yen (US$46 billion; euro30 billion) this fiscal year through March 2009, down 0.8 percent from the previous year -- a trend Schieffer called "troubling."

Japan's 2007 defense white paper, released in July, expressed concerns about China's military buildup and said the balance of military power between Taiwan and China was shifting in Beijing's favor. Japan called for greater transparency from China on its defense capabilities.

Over the last decade China has increased military expenditures by an average of 14.2 percent annually, and South Korea's defense budget has grown 73 percent, said J. Thomas Schieffer, U.S. ambassador in Japan since 2005.

Schieffer emphasized the importance of the U.S.-Japan alliance, especially for regional security in Asia.

"Now, a different world order is emerging, but the strategic necessity of that alliance remains....because Japan and America in alliance is still the best formula for peace and stability in the Pacific."

The U.S. maintains about 50,000 troops in Japan, about half of whom are stationed in Okinawa.

The U.S.-Japan security alliance is based on an agreement signed in 1960 that obligates both countries to provide mutual military support in the event of an armed attack. However, the treaty takes into account Japan's constitutional restrictions that prohibit overseas deployment of its armed forces.

Schieffer also urged Japan, which is looking to buy new fighter jets, to choose planes and equipment that are compatible with U.S weapons systems. "The more joint operational we become, the better off we will be," he said.

Schieffer has been U.S. Ambassador to Japan since April 2005, and was previously U.S. Ambassador to Australia.

U.S. military cites growing China space, cyber threat

Tue May 20, 2008 3:49pm EDT
By Jim Wolf

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. military painted China on Tuesday as posing a growing threat to the United States and others in space and cyberspace.

China is "aggressively" honing its ability to shoot down satellites along with other space and counter-space capabilities, said Army Brig. Gen. Jeffrey Horne of the U.S. Strategic Command.

Photo: Visitors check the Long March 3A rocket at the Xichang Satellite Launch Centre in southwest China's Sichuan province October 18, 2007.

Such know-how has big implications for Beijing's potential to curb access in the Taiwan Straits "and well beyond," he told the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, a congressionally created advisory group.

Horne, deputy head of the Strategic Command's joint component for space, said recent Chinese People's Liberation Army writings suggested China might target an enemy's spy satellites along with navigation and early-warning spacecraft "to blind and deafen."

China's unannounced destruction of one of its own defunct weather satellites in January 2007 showed the PLA's ability to attack satellites operating in low-Earth orbit, he said.

The United States and the old Soviet Union demonstrated such anti-satellite capabilities of their own, initially in the 1980s.

Horne did not spell out the implications for any U.S. response to any Chinese attack on Taiwan.

Beijing deems the self-ruled island of 23 million people a breakaway province to be brought back to the fold, by force if necessary.

Horne said United States must "proactively protect our space capabilities."

Among arms makers eyeing this market are Lockheed Martin Corp, Boeing Co and Northrop Grumman Corp, the Pentagon's top three contractors by sales.

Another Strategic Command officer described cyber attacks as perhaps the most significant 21st century threat and said China was boosting its capability to carry them out.

Col. Gary McAlum, chief of staff of the command's Joint Task Force for Global Network Operations, quoted approvingly from a new report by Kevin Coleman of the Technolytics Institute.

China aims to achieve global "electronic dominance" by 2050, including the ability to disrupt information infrastructures, he cited the report as saying.

McAlum added to the commissioners: "I think we could discuss that date offline," by implication, suggesting he viewed it as a nearer-term threat than mid-century.

"Several Chinese advances have surprised U.S. defense and intelligence officials and raised questions about the quality of our assessments of China's military capabilities," he told the panel.

In a third presentation to the commissioners, a State Department official depicted China's nonproliferation record as mixed.

Chinese companies have kept on shipping weapons to Iran, despite evidence Tehran is supplying insurgents in Iraq and Islamist groups, said Patricia McNerney, principal deputy assistant secretary for international security and nonproliferation.

"Inevitably, some of this weaponry has found its way to insurgents and militants operating in Iraq, as well as Hizbollah terrorists," she said.

But the Chinese government's proliferation policies have improved.

"Working together, we can build upon our shared commitment to ensure an end to such proliferation activity," McNerney added.

(Editing by Andre Grenon)

US Marine in Japan sentenced to 20 months in prison for 'indecent acts'

May 20, 11:50 AM EDT

TOKYO (AP) -- An American Marine accused in an alleged gang rape of a Japanese woman last year was sentenced to 600 days in prison Tuesday for "committing indecent acts" with a woman, but cleared of rape charges, the U.S. military said.

A U.S. court-martial also found Gunnery Sgt. Jarvis D. Raynor, 35, guilty of larceny, "conspiracy to engage in indecent acts," violating military orders and adultery, according to a statement by the Marine Corps Air Station in Iwakuni in southern Japan.

His sentence includes a demotion in rank to private and a "Bad Conduct Discharge."

Raynor is the second Marine sentenced by a military court-martial for the alleged rape and robbery of a 20-year-old woman in the southern city of Hiroshima in October.

Earlier this month, Lance Cpl. Larry A. Dean, 20, was sentenced to two years in prison for his involvement in the case. Two others - Gunnery Sergeant Carl M. Anderson, 39, and Sgt. Lanaeus J. Braswell, 25 - will be court-martialed in June.

Japanese authorities investigated the incident, but local prosecutors dropped the case in November.

About 50,000 U.S. troops are based in Japan under a security pact between the two countries. Many Japanese complain of crime, pollution and noise associated with the bases.

Japanese anger over the U.S. military presence has grown in recent months following an alleged rape in February of a 14-year-old girl by an American serviceman on the southern island of Okinawa, as well as the killing of a taxi driver near a U.S. naval base in Yokosuka, south of Tokyo.

Marine faces 20 months in prison for 'indecent act' in Hiroshima

May 20 10:37 AM US/Eastern

IWAKUNI, Japan, May 20 (AP) - (Kyodo) — A U.S. general court-martial on Tuesday sentenced a 35-year- old Marine to 20 months in prison as well as a "bad conduct" discharge for "conspiracy to engage in indecent acts" against a Japanese woman in Hiroshima last October.

Jarvis Raynor, a gunnery sergeant, was found guilty of stealing cash from the 20-year-old Japanese woman and committing indecent acts in public, but other charges such as rape and kidnapping were dropped as a result of plea bargaining with the prosecution. The term of his actual sentence is expected to be less than 18 months.

He is the second Marine to be sentenced among four accused in connection with the incident that occurred in Hiroshima on Oct. 13-14 last year.

The remaining two -- another gunnery sergeant and a sergeant -- are set to be court-martialed in June at the U.S. Marine Corps' Iwakuni Air Station in Yamaguchi Prefecture.

In November, Japanese police sent investigative reports on the four to prosecutors on suspicion of gang-raping and robbing the woman, but the prosecutors decided not to indict them due to a lack of evidence. The U.S. military decided to hold courts-martial against them instead.

On May 9, a 20-year-old lance corporal was given a two-year prison term.

2 fishermen missing in MSDF destroyer collision to be declared dead

May 20 10:28 AM US/Eastern

YOKOHAMA, May 20 (AP) - (Kyodo) — The Japan Coast Guard is set to officially recognize as dead the two fishermen who went missing in February in the collision between a Maritime Self-Defense Force Aegis destroyer and a tuna trawler in the Pacific off the Boso Peninsula, investigative sources said Tuesday.

The coast guard then intends to establish a criminal case, possibly in early June, against the two MSDF members who were on duty on the destroyer Atago shortly before and at the time of the collision, on suspicion of professional negligence resulting in death.

Papers will be sent to prosecutors on the two MSDF members -- a 35- year-old lieutenant commander who was the destroyer's chief navigator shortly before the collision, and a 34-year-old lieutenant commander who was the chief torpedo officer and served as the chief night-duty officer at the time of the collision.

The two fishermen -- Haruo Kichisei, 58, and his 23-year-old son Tetsuhiro -- on the 7.3-ton trawler Seitoku Maru have been missing since it was hit by the 7,750-ton Atago in the Pacific off the Chiba coast, east of Tokyo, and sank around 4 a.m. on Feb. 19.

Under Japanese law, they cannot be declared dead until three months after the collision.

US ambassador urges Japan to boost defence spending

Tue May 20, 10:00 AM ET

TOKYO (AFP) - The US ambassador to Japan on Tuesday urged the pacifist nation to boost its defence spending in response to a military build-up in the region.

"I think the Japanese are getting a bargain in the (US-Japan) alliance on what we bring on the table," ambassador Thomas Schieffer told reporters.

Photo: US Ambassador to Japan Thomas Schieffer delivers a speech at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan in Tokyo. The US ambassador to Japan on Tuesday urged the pacifist nation to boost its defence spending in response to a military build-up in the region.

"Our capabilities have increased dramatically because we are spending more on defence than we were 10 years ago," he said.

"That helps Japan. I don't think it is unfair of us to suggest that Japan needs to look at that and make an assessment. A hard choice, perhaps, but Japan needs to spend more on defence," he added.

The United States has a security treaty under which it protects Japan, which has been officially pacifist since its defeat in World War II.

Japan's defence spending is currently limited to the equivalent of one percent of its gross domestic product (GDP) while its Asian neighbours are increasing their military budgets, Schieffer noted.

China's military spending has grown on average 14.2 percent a year over the past decade while South Korea's defence budget has increased by a total of 73 percent in the same period, he said.

"A lot of people in this neighbourhood are spending a lot more money on defence and yet the Japanese are not," Schieffer said.

Japan has recently sought to beef up its defence by buying high-tech military equipment including six Aegis destroyers fitted with anti-missile capabilities.

It is also seeking to buy an F-22 stealth fighter, but is waiting approval from the US Congress.

"But (Japan) cannot get the value for the yen that it spends if it doesn't reform its procurement practices," Schieffer said, urging greater transparency and competitiveness in awarding defence contracts.

He said that the use of multi-year military contracts and increased military cooperation with the United States would help Japan to reduce procurement costs.

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Gov't ordered to present documents on U.S. helicopter crash

May 20 09:35 AM US/Eastern

NAHA, Japan, May 20 (AP) - (Kyodo) — The Fukuoka High Court has ordered the government to present to the court documents on Japan-U.S. talks on the 2006 crash of a U.S. military helicopter in Okinawa which it had refused to disclose to an Okinawa citizen, lawyers said Tuesday.

Presiding Judge Osamu Nishi issued the order on May 12 in a trial on an appeal from the citizen against a lower court decision rejecting his demand that the Japanese government disclose all the documents.

In the decision, Nishi said the court will decide if the government's rejection of information disclosure is right or wrong.

"It is very necessary for the court to correctly acquire details of the documents," the three-judge high court panel said.

The court battle involves the crash of a CH-53 Sea Stallion chopper of the U.S. Marine Corps into the campus of Okinawa International University in Ginowan on Aug. 13, 2006. The university is located adjacent to the Marines' Futemma Air Station.

The crash damaged the walls of the main university building and injured three crew members, but no one on the ground was hurt.

According to the Fukuoka District Court decision given in November the man, who is a resident of Okinawa's capital Naha, demanded that the Foreign Ministry disclose documents on Japan-U.S. talks over the crash.

In December 2004, the ministry refused to disclose all or part of 19 out of the 24 sets of documents on the talks.

Dissatisfied with the Foreign Ministry's decision, the man filed a suit seeking disclosure of all the documents.

In November 2006, the Fukuoka District Court rejected the suit, saying that the relationship of trust between Japan and the United States might be damaged in the national security field if Japan discloses the documents without Washington's consent.

In Tokyo, an official at the Foreign Ministry's Status of U.S. Forces Agreement Division said the government does not think the freedom of information law allows the court to look into administrative documents.

The Foreign and Justice ministries are currently in talks to file an objection against the high court order, the official said.

Japan to pay compensation to Australian rape victim--gov’t

Agence France-Presse
First Posted 21:42:00 05/20/2008

TOKYO -- Japan will pay compensation of three million yen ($28,800) to an Australian woman who was raped in 2002 by a US sailor who never faced prosecution, the victim and the government said Monday.

The woman was raped in 2002 by a then sailor of the USS Kitty Hawk aircraft carrier in the naval port city of Yokosuka, south of Tokyo.

Japanese prosecutors dropped the case without pressing a criminal charge against the sailor.

The victim filed a civil case with the Tokyo District Court, which recognized the rape and gave her the right to seek compensation of three million yen from her attacker.

However, by the time of the ruling, the sailor had discreetly left the country without even telling his lawyer and the money has never been paid.

"Of course I'm deeply grateful for the Japanese government for using the taxpayers' money," the woman, who used the pseudonym of Jane, told Agence France-Presse.

"But it doesn't change very much to me because this person who raped me is still walking around," she said.

Under the Status of US Forces Agreement in Japan, compensation owed by US military personnel to crime and accident victims should be paid by the US government if the service members cannot afford to pay it themselves, but with a two year statute of limitation.

When the court gave the ruling, the two years had already passed. Now the Japanese defense ministry has decided to shoulder the payment instead, a defense ministry official confirmed, without giving further details.

The rare move follows as a series of criminal cases linked to the US military that has caused public uproar and prompted tighter restrictions on troop movements outside the bases.

In the southern island of Okinawa -- home to more than half of the 40,000 US troops based in Japan -- a US military court Friday sentenced a US Marine to four years in prison for sexually abusing a 14-year-old Japanese schoolgirl.

And earlier this month, a Marine was given a two-year prison term for sexual misconduct with a Japanese woman, but cleared of the charge of gang-rape.

A Filipina had also sought a rape charge against a US soldier in Okinawa, but prosecutors dropped the case last week.

Jane said the compensation she will receive would not change the fact that similar rape cases "keep on repeating over and over again."

"No one has ever, ever tried to help (me) from the US military," she said.

Schieffer:Japan should increase defense budget

2008/05/20 19:07

US Ambassador to Japan Thomas Schieffer says Japan should consider increasing its defense budget to ensure its own national security.

Speaking at the Foreign Correspondents' Club in Tokyo on Tuesday, Schieffer noted that Japan's neighbors in Northeast Asia have been increasing their military expenditures in recent years.

In particular, he said, China has been increasing its military budget by an average of more than 14 percent a year for the past 10 years, while Japan's defense budget for the current fiscal year is likely to remain under 1 percent of its gross domestic product.

He said Japan's military spending is the smallest when compared to NATO nations.

The US ambassador also talked about North Korea's operating record of its nuclear facilities that it submitted to the United States earlier this month.

He said the North's move is a positive step, but that further inspection is needed to verify whether valuable data is included.

He also said North Korea must address sincerely the issue of abductions of Japanese nationals, if it wants to return to the international community. He said he and US Assistant Secretary Christopher Hill are doing all they can to this end.

US ambassador: Japan should expand military budget

May 20, 5:23 AM EDT
By TOMOKO A. HOSAKA

TOKYO (AP) — Japan should boost defense spending instead of decreasing it as Tokyo's Asian neighbors expand their military budgets, the U.S. Ambassador to Japan said Tuesday.

Over the last decade China has increased military expenditures by an average of 14.2 percent annually, and South Korea's defense budget has grown 73 percent, said J. Thomas Schieffer, U.S. ambassador in Japan since 2005.

Photo: U.S. Ambassador to Japan Thomas Schieffer speaks during a press conference in Tokyo Tuesday, May 20, 2008. Schieffer urged Tokyo to shoulder a bigger portion of the bill to defend itself, especially as its Asian neighbors are expanding military budgets and the costs maintaining security in the region grow. "The U.S.-Japan alliance has been the linchpin of both our foreign policies in the Pacific," Schieffer said. "Nothing has changed in the world to alter that. What has changed is the level of technology and the cost of modern weapons."

In contrast, Japan's ratio of defense spending to gross domestic product has been declining, he said.

Japan's Ministry of Defense expects a budget of $46 billion this fiscal year through March 2009, down 0.8 percent from the previous year — a trend Schieffer called "troubling."

"We believe that Japan should consider the benefits of increasing its own defense spending to make a greater, not lesser, contribution to its own security," Schieffer said in a speech at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan.

Japanese defense department officials were not immediately available for comment.

Schieffer also urged Japan, which is looking to buy new fighter jets, to choose planes and equipment that are compatible with U.S weapons systems. "The more joint operational we become, the better off we will be," he said.

The U.S. maintains about 50,000 troops in Japan, about half of whom are stationed in Okinawa.

The U.S.-Japan security alliance is based on an agreement signed in 1960 that obligates both countries to provide mutual military support in the event of an armed attack. However, the treaty takes into account Japan's constitutional restrictions that prohibit overseas deployment of its armed forces.

"The Price of Security in a Changing World"

TRANSCRIPT excerpts
Address to The Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan:
"The Price of Security in a Changing World"

Ambassador J. Thomas Schieffer
May 20, 2008
Tokyo, Japan

AMBASSADOR SCHIEFFER: Well, thank you very much. It's always a great pleasure to be here at the Foreign Correspondents Club. The chance to address you is one that I enjoy, because so many distinguished people have had the opportunity over the years to use this platform to address some of the major issues facing Japan, and I'd like to do the same thing today, and to share some thoughts with you on one, I think, very important issue, and that's the price of security in a changing world. In particular, I would like to discuss with you the financial burdens both Japan and the United States will have to carry in order to support their security needs in the future.

Let me begin with this proposition. No potential adversary on earth can stand toe to toe with the United States in a conventional or nuclear confrontation and expect to prevail. This is not to say that America cannot be slowed or even defeated on the battlefield - the lessons of Iraq and Vietnam are painful reminders that conventional and nuclear superiority do not necessarily guarantee victory. But on the whole, the American military has sufficient firepower to defeat any conventional military force in the world.

...

QUESTION: I'm Yoshi Iinuma, the Oriental Economist. I would like to ask about the Futenma relocation issue. This has been in close talks for many years, and it has an aspect of something like a pork barrel public works project, and besides I know there is an argument even among American professionals that the need of staying - strategic need of keeping Marines in Okinawa is not as compelling as the United States want to keep Yokosuka or Kadena, and so I think the money that could be spent on Futenma could most effectively be used for another purpose, for another, say, joint collaboration for defense. So do you think any possibility in future of having a second thought or another thinking about Futenma relocation?

AMBASSADOR SCHIEFFER: No. I think that we very carefully calibrated what we could do in Futenma, to answer one question, and that was the question that Prime Minister Koizumi presented to President Bush at the very beginning of his prime ministership, and the first year of President Bush's presidency, and that was, is there some way that we could reduce the number of Marines in Okinawa without reducing the capability of the United States in theater. And we took that question to heart and we studied it with great intensity, and we came up with a formula that we believe that we could reduce the number of Marines in Okinawa by moving 8,000 of them to Guam, with 9,000 of their dependents. This is a major change in the force, but by keeping them in Guam, we keep them in theater. We believe that the number of Marines that are in Okinawa today is the minimum number that we can keep in this part of the world to have that capability, and if we reduce that, we would severely restrict the ability of the United States to act in not only the defense of Japan, but in the defense of the region, and so that's why we don't want to change that agreement. What we have to do, though, is we have to implement that agreement. We're happy to move those Marines, and we will move those Marines as soon as the facilities in Guam are built. And when those facilities in Guam are built, and the Futenma replacement facility is built, then we can close Futenma and reduce something that has been an irritant in the relationship, but until those pieces are moved around, we can't do it. And the longer it takes to implement the plan that we've agreed upon, the longer it will take to move those Marines. So I think that we've had the debate. We've had some very intense negotiations. Now we need to implement it.

...

QUESTION: Todd Crowell with Aegis [sic Asia] Sentinel in Hong Kong. My question is, how can it possibly cost $10 billion to move 8,000 Marines from one place to another? I'm not asking this in an argumentative way; I'm simply puzzled.

AMBASSADOR SCHIEFFER: Well that's a good question, because it's not just moving those 8,000 Marines; it's all of the things that go with them, from barracks to wharves to storage facilities to ammunition depots, to facilities to maintain and expand these very expensive weapons systems that accompany them, and it's not a question of just putting a Marine with a backpack on the boat and getting him there. It just costs that much because it costs that much. And there are so many moving parts to it that it is extraordinarily expensive. Now do I think that we could do it cheaper? I do. And I think that we ought to work at that. It gives us no extra security because it costs more. And that's really what I was trying to say in the speech. We need to look at how we spend this money, and we need to look at - in the United States we say ebite every nickel that goes through the joint.' We ought to do that because it doesn't necessarily have to cost what the sticker price is, if we work at it, but if we don't have procurement reform in both countries, it will cost that much or more. Now what we've done with the Japanese and American contractors, is we have said this is what we're prepared to do to move 8,000 people down here, and, with those specifications, and we've called upon each other to think of ways that could make it less costly and more efficient.

The End

7,628 total words

“Compensation, 'but not justice', for Japan rape

Peter Alford
May 20, 2008

AN Australian woman who was raped by a US navy sailor six years ago has finally won compensation - but not justice, she says - in the form of a payment of three million yen ($30,120) from the Japanese Government.

The payment, which should have been made by the rapist following a civil court judgment, comes instead from a little-known Ministry of Defence fund for compensating civilian victims of illegal behaviour by US military personnel in Japan.

"This money doesn't represent real justice to me," the woman, "Jane", told The Australian yesterday. "He should have paid that money, or the US military should have, not the Japanese Government.

"I plan to go on campaigning to expose the truth about US military rape in this country and I will keep on looking for him."

A Ministry of Defence official yesterday confirmed the settlement, which is believed to be the first paid from the fund to a foreign resident and one of only a handful to rape victims.

Jane, who cannot be identified under Japanese law, obtained a judgment in November 2004 from the Tokyo District Court that she had been raped by the sailor. It ruled she should receive an award of Y3million, plus costs.

She took her own action against the man, identified in court documents as Bloke T.Deans, after Kanagawa district police refused to lay criminal charges following her complaint of being raped near the Yokosuka naval base, south of Tokyo, on April 6, 2002.

Within two months of her suing Deans, he was discharged by US navy authorities and immediately left the country. This was not disclosed to Jane nor to the court for a further 11 months. The US navy has refused to take responsibility for Deans' absconding and she has been unable to locate him since.

Jane's lawyers sued the Kanagawa police on the grounds their botched investigation denied her proper justice and infringed her human rights.

However, after a case lasting more than two years, Tokyo District Court in December ruled that the Kanagawa police had fulfilled their responsibilities to Jane, and rejected her Y11million damages claim.

The reluctance of Japanese police to pursue investigations against US military personnel is well known.

In two recent cases, an alleged gang rape in Hiroshima and an alleged sexual assault on Okinawa, police refusal to prosecute was followed by US military prosecutions.

New curriculum manual to state claim over Takeshima islets

05/20/2008
THE ASAHI SHIMBUN

The education ministry will include Japan's sovereignty claim over the disputed Takeshima islets in its manual for revised school curriculum guidelines, a plan that drew immediate protests from South Korea.

The manual, used as a guide for teachers in preparing classes and for publishers in putting together textbooks, will state that Takeshima "is an integral part of our territory," sources said.

Although it has no legal binding power, the inclusion of the clause in the manual will likely encourage more publishers to refer to Takeshima in textbooks when the revisions take full effect in spring 2012, sources said.

The manual will be compiled around July.

Takeshima, known as Tokto in South Korea, is currently occupied by South Korean security personnel.

The ministry's plan prompted an immediate reaction from Seoul.

South Korean President Lee Myung Bak told the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade to "respond strictly" once the government gets confirmation of the plan, officials said.

The president's instructions were conveyed by Yu Myung Hwan, the minister of foreign affairs and trade, to Toshinori Shigeie, Japan's ambassador to South Korea, on Monday.

"If the reported plan is true, it is an attempt to undermine our sovereignty over Tokto, which is an integral part of our territory," Yu was quoted as saying. "Japan must immediately revise the plan."

Shigeie, who was summoned to the ministry for the meeting with Yu, said the plan is a policy for the future and has not yet been decided. He also said he will inform the Japanese government about South Korea's position, as expressed by Yu.

Calls to include Japan's sovereignty claim over Takeshima in the new curriculum guidelines had risen from some members of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party. The education ministry received similar views when it sought public opinion on its proposed guidelines.

However, Tokyo and Seoul resumed "shuttle diplomacy" with the Japan-South Korea summit last month, putting on hold inclusion of Japan's claim over the islets.

Currently, all junior high school civics and geography textbooks mention Tokyo's claim over the Northern Territories, which were seized by the former Soviet Union.

--The Asahi Shimbun, May 19(IHT/Asahi: May 20,2008)

Moriya denies doing favors for Yamada

The Yomiuri Shimbun

Takemasa Moriya, a former administrative vice defense minister being tried on bribe-taking charges, on Monday denied allegations he had provided favorable treatment to defense equipment contractor Yamada Corp.

"I've never offered advantages to any corporation," Moriya, 63, said during a hearing on his bribery case at the Tokyo District Court.

In Monday's hearing, Moriya detailed each phase of the ministry's defense equipment procurement.

"It was impossible for me to support a specified company in connection with matters that entailed accumulated involvement by many people, when I knew nothing [about what had actually happened in that process]," he told the court.

However, Moriya acknowledged that he had been entertained by Yamada through golf outings and received cash from the trading firm that specializes in defense equipment.

Meanwhile, prosecutors argued that Moriya had given favors to Motonobu Miyazaki, a former senior managing director of the firm, in the awarding of defense equipment contracts, including trading rights over the engine for the Air Self-Defense Force's C-X next-generation transport aircraft.

Moriya's actions were intended to return the favors extended to him in the form of entertainment and money, according to the prosecutors.

Miyazaki, 69, also is being tried in the bribery case.

At the outset of the hearing, Moriya rejected those allegations, insisting that he had thought about the purchase of each item in the nation's defense equipment exclusively from the standpoint of "whether it would serve the interests of the public and whether Self-Defense Forces personnel would be able to safely use it."

He also rejected the assertion that his meetings with officials from General Electric Co. of the United States, the manufacturer of the C-X engine, constituted a form of favorable treatment given to Yamada. "There's nothing unusual about [ministry officials] meeting with key figures from [defense equipment] manufacturers," he said.
(May. 20, 2008)

U.S. Ambassador Says Japan Must Boost Defense Budget

By Toko Sekiguchi

May 20 (Bloomberg) -- Japan must increase defense spendingto become an equal partner in its alliance with the U.S. and keepup with Asian neighbors, U.S. Ambassador J. Thomas Schieffer said.

"The Japanese are getting a bargain in this alliance," Schieffer told reporters in Tokyo.

The U.S. is pressuring Japan to spend more after China increased its 2008 defense budget by a record 19.4 percent.Chinese President Hu Jintao said the buildup is needed to win "high-tech regional wars," China's official Xinhua News Agencyreported March 10.

The U.S. doubled defense spending between 1998 and 2007 without including the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Schieffer said. Japan has spent about 1 percent of gross domestic producton defense since 1965.

Japan's constitution, written by U.S. occupation forces after World War II, renounces war as a sovereign right and forbids the country from having a military. Japan maintains troops for self-defense purposes.

Japan should also show "greater transparency andcompetitiveness" in awarding defense contracts and better safeguard classified material, Schieffer said. Japan's defense ministry replaced the head of its navy, fired two officers and cut the pay of 21 others in March after a series of scandals including a ship collision.

Two officers were fired for mishandling classified information about the Aegis radar system used on ships to track and defend against incoming missiles.

To contact the reporter on this story:Toko Sekiguchi in Tokyo at Tsekiguchi3@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: May 20, 2008 04:46 EDT

Wolfowitz takes helm of US-Taiwan Business Council

May 19 01:20 PM US/Eastern

Former World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz on Monday became chairman of the board of the US-Taiwan Business Council, the nonprofit bilateral organization said.

Wolfowitz succeeds William Brock as chairman of the council, created in 1976 to foster business and trade ties between the United States and Taiwan.

Photo: Paul Wolfowitz

Wolfowitz has a history of public service and international scholarship and "has long been an articulate supporter of Taiwan's vibrant democracy," the council said.

"He is well-versed in the complexities of the political, trade, and business relationship between the United States and Taiwan," it said. China claims the island as part of its territory.

"I have seen firsthand the important role that the US-Taiwan Business Council plays in bilateral relations, and I am honored to join its distinguished board as chairman," Wolfowitz said.

Wolfowitz is currently a visiting scholar in foreign and defense policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, a think tank in Washington.

He was forced to resign the top World Bank job last June after an internal probe found he violated rules by arranging a lucrative pay-and-promotion package for his girlfriend, a bank employee.

Wolfowitz consistently argued that he had acted in good faith in the matter.

Before joining the World Bank, Wolfowitz served as President George W. Bush's deputy defense secretary and was a proponent of the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq.

In January the State Department announced his appointment as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's chairman of the International Security Advisory Board.

In his decades of public service, Wolfowitz was also an ambassador to Indonesia, assistant secretary of state for East Asia and Pacific affairs and director of policy planning at the State Department.

Japan to pay 3 mil. yen to victim of 2002 rape involving U.S. soldier

May 19 11:26 AM US/Eastern

TOKYO, May 20 (AP) - (Kyodo) — Japan's Defense Ministry has decided to give 3 million yen in compensation to an Australian woman on behalf of a U.S. soldier who was ordered by the Tokyo District Court in 2004 to pay damages for raping her in 2002 in Yokosuka, Kanagawa Prefecture, ministry sources said Monday.

Under the Japan-U.S. State of Forces Agreement, a U.S. soldier is obliged to pay compensation for actions unrelated to his duties, but if he is insolvent the U.S. government has to assume the payment.

A U.S. law stipulates, however, that such payments remain valid for only two years after the incident in question.

The ministry's decision to extend the money is in line with a 1964 Cabinet decision that the Japanese government can offer relief to victims whom the U.S. government has failed to assist, the sources said.

The Yokosuka branch of the Yokohama District Public Prosecutors Office decided not to indict the soldier, but the Tokyo District Court in a civil lawsuit in November 2004 acknowledged that the U.S. soldier raped the woman and ordered the man to pay her 3 million yen in compensation.

Philippines to seek new probe of rape case in Japan

Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 22:34:00 05/19/2008

MANILA, Philippines -- The Philippines will press for a reinvestigation of the rape complaint filed by a Filipino woman against an American serviceman in Okinawa, after the Japanese prosecutor’s office dismissed it “for lack of probable cause to indict the suspect,” the Department of Foreign Affairs said Monday.

In a press conference, Foreign Undersecretary for Migrant Workers Affairs Esteban Conejos said the Philippine government was exploring “all options.”

Conejos said one remedy under Japanese criminal procedure was to file a motion for reinvestigation.

“Now that there is a decision, we are looking at ways on how to continue with the case. We have 15 days to make the appeal for the petition for reinvestigation,” he said.

“If you will recall, the rape case of a Japanese woman was also dismissed by the lower court. They had sought the initiation of court-martial proceedings. So this is the second option we are looking at. We will appeal the case with US military authorities,” Conejos said.

The DFA has hired a Japanese lawyer to assist in the legal battle of the 21-year-old Filipino victim.

The victim, whose name was withheld by the DFA, said she was raped by an American soldier on February 18 after she went out with him to eat in a hotel. She is now in the custody of the archbishop of Naha and the Philippine consul general in Okinawa.

A Japanese police report said hotel staff took her to a hospital when they saw her bleeding profusely after the alleged sexual assault. She was confined in the hospital for a week.

The victim later positively identified the suspect in a police line-up.

The US serviceman has denied the allegations and maintained that the woman consented to have sex with him. Cynthia D. Balana

MOF panel warns against moves to increase Japan's ODA

May 19 07:49 AM US/Eastern

TOKYO, May 19 (AP) - (Kyodo) — An advisory panel to the Finance Ministry on Monday warned against moves to increase the budget for Japan's official development assistance, citing the country's tight fiscal conditions.

"Considering the current fiscal situation, we cannot boost the ODA budget," Taizo Nishimuro, chairman of the Fiscal System Council, said at a press conference.

His remarks came after Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda indicated last week there will be a significant increase in official development aid to Africa before Japan hosts the Tokyo International Conference on African Development next week and the Group of Eight nations' summit in July.

Government sources have said Japan will announce its policy of doubling its ODA for Africa in five years during the May 28-30 TICAD meeting in Yokohama.

Nishimuro, chairman of Tokyo Stock Exchange Group Inc., said at the news conference that even if Japan cuts its total ODA amount, the country can still boost its aid to Africa. "It will be a matter of balance" in determining the aid allocation, he said.

The world's second-largest economy has been slashing its annual budget for aid expenditures for nine consecutive years. The economic and budgetary policy adopted by the Japanese government in 2006 states that ODA will be reduced by 2 to 4 percent annually on a general account basis for five years.

The panel chief said Japan should "firmly maintain" that policy.

Japan was overtaken by Germany and France last year and fell by two ranks to fifth place on the donor list of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the lowest since it last placed fifth in 1972.

Nishimuro, however, quoted a panel member as saying Japan's position in the ranking dropped as a result of increased repayment of the nation's previously extended yen loans and that the fact suggests that those loans were effective.

Moriya denies giving favorable treatment to any specific contractor

May 19 04:03 AM US/Eastern

TOKYO, May 19 (AP) - (Kyodo)—Former Vice Defense Minister Takemasa Moriya, who is accused of taking bribes from a defense equipment trader, on Monday denied giving favorable treatment to any specific defense contractor.

"I've never extended favorable treatment to any specific company," Moriya said in response to questioning by his defense counsel at the second session of his trial at the Tokyo District Court.

"I was not in a position to meddle in the selection of defense equipment (for the Self-Defense Forces) when a large number of officials (at the Defense Ministry) were involved in those processes over long periods of time," said Moriya, who was Japan's top defense bureaucrat for four years until last year.

Moriya made the denial to counter the prosecution's argument that he provided favorable treatment to Yamada Corp. over the ministry's procurement of equipment in eight cases that included the selection of jet engines for Japan's next-generation transport planes, code-named CX.

In the opening session of his trial on April 21, Moriya basically pleaded guilty to charges of bribery for allegedly taking about 12.5 million yen in bribes from Yamada and to charges of perjury for giving false testimony in the Diet.

His main co-defendant -- Motonobu Miyazaki, 69, a former managing director of Yamada -- also pleaded guilty to giving bribes to Moriya.

Judicial experts said Moriya's denial of favorable treatment to Yamada would not affect the court's decision on whether he is guilty or not.

Under the Penal Code, a public official is punishable if he or she accepts, solicits or promises to accept a bribe in connection with professional duties, irrespective of whether a benefit has been offered in return, they said.

Prosecutors have maintained that Moriya argued for a negotiated contract, not an open bidding, in the procurement of jet engines for CX planes.

In Monday's session, Moriya said he had no knowledge of a Finance Ministry advisory that calls for holding competitive biddings in procurement of equipment and services by government organizations.

The prosecutors have also argued that Moriya denounced a lower-level official who called for excluding traders and instead making direct deals with manufacturers.

Moriya said in court on Monday that he turned down the proposal because coordination work was necessary to change the ministry's method of procurement.

Moriya's two other co-defendants are Osamu Akiyama, 70, a former president of Yamada's U.S. subsidiary Yamada International Corp., and Tomonari Imaji, 57, a former executive director of Yamada Corp.

Imaji is being tried separately from the three others.

According to the indictment, Moriya received from Miyazaki about 8.86 million yen worth of overnight trips, including one-day golf outings, on 120 occasions from August 2003 to April 2007.

Moriya also allegedly received $32,000, or 3.63 million yen, in cash through the bank accounts of his wife and his younger daughter from Miyazaki from May 2004 to February 2006.

He is also charged with giving false parliamentary testimony in October and November 2007 over his golf outings and receiving cash.

Teaching guide to state Takeshima's ownership

2008/05/19 16:39

Japan's education ministry plans to state in a supplement to its new educational guideline that an island in the Sea of Japan claimed by Japan and South Korea is an integral part of Japan.

The island, effectively controlled by South Korea, is called Takeshima in Japanese and Dokdo in Korean.

The new guideline for junior high schools to be used from fiscal 2012 states that the Russian-held islands off Hokkaido are Japanese territories but it does not make any reference to the island in the Sea of Japan.

Ministry officials say the ministry has decided to make the statement in the supplement to the guideline as the government continues to state that the island is Japanese.
The supplement to be compiled in July, although nonbinding, is expected to serve as a guideline for teachers and textbook publishers.

The latest decision is likely to increase the number of Japanese textbooks that will state that the island belongs to Japan.

Japan to pay Australian assaulted by US soldier

2008/05/19 16:39

Japan's Defense Ministry is planning to pay compensation to an Australian woman who was sexually assaulted by a US serviceman 6 years ago.

The Australian woman sued the US serviceman for sexually assaulting her in Yokosuka, Kanagawa prefecture in April of 2002. Prosecutors did not bring criminal charges against him. A civil court later ordered him to pay 3 million yen or about 29,000 dollars in compensation to the woman but no payment was made because the US serviceman returned home during the civil trial.

Under the Japan-US Status of forces Agreement, the US government must pay compensation if a US soldier is unable to do so in a case that does not involve the soldier's official duty.

Under US domestic law, the deadline for the US government to pay is 2 years after an incident. No payment has been made because the civil court order was issued after the 2-year term expired.

Japan's Defense Ministry is likely to make the payment, based on a 1964 cabinet decision allowing the Japanese government to make payment for damages if no payment is made to a victim under the Japan-US Status of Forces Agreement. The Defense Ministry says this is a very unusual case.

DFA open to all options in advancing Pinay rape case in Japan

05/19/2008 03:49 PM

MANILA, Philippines - The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) on Monday said it is pushing for the Japanese government's reinvestigation of the rape case filed by a Filipina overseas worker against a US serviceman in Japan.

In a press conference, DFA Undersecretary Esteban Conejos said the Philippine government is considering "all options" including the reinvestigation after the Japanese court dismissed the case for lack of evidence.

"There is remedy under Japanese laws. The Criminal procedure is to file a motion for reinvestigation... Now that there is a decision, we are looking at ways on how to continue with the case. We have 15 days to make the appeal for the petition for re-investigation," Conejos said.

"We will continue to uphold the interest of our OFWs. This is the reason why we hired a female lawyer to advise us on the case... Right now we are not discounting any option. We are open to all options," he added.

Conejos said the Filipina victim is under the custody of the Archbishop of Naha and the Philippine Consul General in Okinawa.

In the press conference, Conejos also said Philippine authorities are considering to appeal to the US military to start court martial proceedings against the accused soldier.

"If you will recall the rape case of the Japanese woman was also dismissed by the lower court. They sought for the initiation of court martial proceedings. So this is the second option that we are looking at. We will appeal the case to US military authorities," Conejos said.

Earlier, the Japanese police said the alleged rape occurred last February 18 after the victim went out with the suspect to eat at a hotel.

A police report said that worried members of the hotel staff took her to the hospital when they saw her bleeding profusely after the alleged sexual assault. Japanese police said the victim was confined in a hospital for a week after the incident.

The victim later positively identified the suspect in a police line up.

The US serviceman has denied the allegations and maintained that the Filipina consented to have sex with him. - GMANews.TV

Philippines to seek new probe of rape case in Japan

May 19th, 2008

MANILA, Philippines -- The Philippines will press for a reinvestigation of the rape complaint filed by a Filipino woman against an American serviceman in Okinawa, after the Japanese prosecutor’s office dismissed it “for lack of probable cause to indict the suspect,” the Department of Foreign Affairs said Monday.

In a press conference, Foreign Undersecretary for Migrant Workers Affairs Esteban Conejos said the Philippine government was exploring “all options.”

Conejos said one remedy under Japanese criminal procedure was to file a motion for reinvestigation.

“Now that there is a decision, we are looking at ways on how to continue with the case. We have 15 days to make the appeal for the petition for reinvestigation,” he said.

“If you will recall, the rape case of a Japanese woman was also dismissed by the lower court. They had sought the initiation of court-martial proceedings. So this is the second option we are looking at. We will appeal the case with US military authorities,” Conejos said.

The DFA has hired a Japanese lawyer to assist in the legal battle of the 21-year-old Filipino victim.

The victim, whose name was withheld by the DFA, said she was raped by an American soldier on February 18 after she went out with him to eat in a hotel. She is now in the custody of the archbishop of Naha and the Philippine consul general in Okinawa.

A Japanese police report said hotel staff took her to a hospital when they saw her bleeding profusely after the alleged sexual assault. She was confined in the hospital for a week.

The victim later positively identified the suspect in a police line-up.

The US serviceman has denied the allegations and maintained that the woman consented to have sex with him.

( www.inquirer.net )

SKorea summons Japan envoy over disputed islands

May 19 01:49 AM US/Eastern

South Korea's foreign minister summoned the Japanese ambassador Monday to protest at what is seen as a renewed campaign by Tokyo to claim disputed islands.

Yu Myung-Hwan delivered a message of warning and protest through ambassador Toshinori Shigeie and said Seoul would closely watch the issue, the minister's office said.

The move followed media reports here and in Tokyo that the Japanese education ministry will describe the islands as its territory in a revised school curriculum handbook.

The changes will be completed by July for use from April 2012, the newspapers said.

Yu, quoted by a ministry spokesman, said that if the reports are confirmed Japan's claim over the islets would hurt efforts to develop better relations.

He also called for Japan's "quick correction" of any attempt to violate South Korea's territorial sovereignty.

The two tiny islands in the Sea of Japan (East Sea) -- known as Takeshima by Japanese and Dokdo by Koreans -- have long been an irritant in ties between South Korea and its former colonial master.

South Korea stations a small unit of maritime police on the islands but Japan has long claimed sovereignty. In February the foreign ministry in Tokyo renewed its claim in a document posted on its website.

The latest row could be a setback in efforts by new Korean President Lee Myung-Bak to build a relationship untainted by bitter memories.

In an urgent instruction Lee told the foreign ministry "to strongly ask Japan to rectify" its actions if the media reports are confirmed, his spokesman said.

The president, who took office in February, vowed to turn a new page in relations when he visited Tokyo in April.

The two countries "must not let the past hamper moves towards the future," he said after talks with Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda.

Japan took control of the islands in 1905 after its war with Russia and colonised the Korean peninsula from 1910-45. Seoul says the islands were first mentioned as Korean territory back in the 6th century.

The two rugged treeless islands cover a total area of 18.7 hectares (46 acres).

Gov't to state Japan's ownership of Takeshima in education guide

May 19 12:34 AM US/Eastern

(AP) - TOKYO, May 19 (Kyodo) — The education ministry plans to clearly state in a supplement of the government's new educational guideline for junior high school students that an island in the Sea of Japan claimed both by Japan and South Korea is an "integral part of Japan," ministry officials said Monday.

The supplement, which will refer to the island called Takeshima in Japanese and Dokdo in Korean, will be compiled around June or July for use from fiscal 2012, the officials at the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology said.

The supplement, although nonbinding, serves as a guidance for teachers and textbook publishers.

The ministry is also considering touching upon a group of islands in the East China Sea in dispute with China in the supplement by saying that Japan has "no territorial disputes with China concerning our territory," effectively declaring that it belongs to Japan.

The islands are controlled by Japan but also claimed by China and Taiwan. They are known in Japan as the Senkaku Islands, in China as Diaoyu and in Taiwan as Tiaoyutai.

All geography and civics studies textbooks take up disputes over Russian-held islands off Hokkaido, known as the Northern Territories in Japan, as the current version of the guideline urges teachers to encourage students "to pay attention to issues involving our nation's territories" including the islands.

But only a few textbooks take up disputes over Takeshima Island as the current version has no reference to the disputed island, prompting some lawmakers of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party to request that the new guideline clearly state that Takeshima Island belongs to Japan.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka Machimura said Monday the government has yet to decide how to describe territorial issues in the supplement, while reiterating Japan's position that Takeshima Island is Japan's original territory.

"As the Japanese and South Korean leaders agreed to build future- oriented relations, we don't mean to play up this issue politically," the top government spokesman said at a news conference, referring to the summit of Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda and South Korean President Lee Myung Bak in April in Tokyo.

In March 2005, then education minister Nariaki Nakayama told the parliament that educational guidelines should be revised so as to state that Takeshima Island is Japan's territory.

SKorea summons Japanese ambassador over islets dispute

May 18, 11:49 PM EDT

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -- South Korea lodged a protest Monday with Japan over a news report that said Tokyo planned to describe disputed islets between the two countries as belonging to Japan in school textbooks.

Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwan summoned Japanese Ambassador Toshinori Shigeie after Japan's largest newspaper, Yomiuri, reported Sunday that education authorities plan to refer to the islets as part of Japan's territory in middle school textbooks to be used from 2012.

Seoul effectively controls the rocky outcroppings - called Dokdo in Korean and Takeshima in Japanese - but Tokyo also claims ownership. The area surrounding the islets are believed to be rich in fish and possible undersea resources.

South Korea was still waiting for Japan's official response to the Yomiuri report, ministry spokesman Moon Tae-young said. He added that the summoning of the ambassador was aimed at conveying Seoul's position that Japan should not undermine South Korean sovereignty over the islets.

The Japanese ambassador, in response, said Tokyo has not worked out the guidelines for such a textbook as reported in Yomiuri, Moon said.

Japan colonized the Korean peninsula from 1910-1945 and many South Koreans still harbor strong resentment against the Japanese.

Concerns in Australia of a resurgent Japan

11:14 AM May 19

Recently declassified US government documents show concerns in Australia of a resurgent Japan, more than two decades after the end of World War Two.

Presenter: Bo Hill
Speaker: Professor Akio Watanabe, Vice Chairman of the Research Institute for Peace and Security in Tokyo; Dr Norman Abjorensen, Political Science Lecturer, Australian National University

BO HILL: The fear of nuclear armament in enemies states has occupied US and Australian authorities on and off for decades.

SFX newsreel: "Let's face it, the threat of hydrogen bomb warfare is the greatest danger our nation has ever known. Enemy jet bombers carrying nuclear weapons can sweep over a variety of routes.

BO HILL: It may not be surprising, then, that the following document written by the US embassy in Australia was sent to the US government in Washington last century.

It reads informal but serious comments made in private by responsible members of Australia's establishment indicate that mistrust and fear of a resurgent Japan are widely shared."

BO HILL: What may be surprising is that the document was sent on December 5th, 1969. Apparently prompted by the handing back of the militarised island of Okinawa by the US to Japan, the recently declassified US government document says there was a continued existence in Australia of an underlying anxiety about revised Japanese power in the Pacific. But how credible was the threat? Japan had renounced the right to wage war in a pacifist constitution following the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It was occupied by Allied Forces until 1951. And, US President Richard Nixon, in handing back Okinawa, unofficially warned the Japanese government of Eisaku Sato that a building of military capabilities should not include nuclear weapons. But Japan had its own concerns the nuclear threat of China. Japanese history professor, Akio Watanabe says, however this was negated by the extended hand of friendship from the US.

AKIO WATANABE: One of the possible reactions of the Japanese government to the Chinese nuclear weapons was ok, then, Japan also has to have nuclear weapons. That was a possible scenario. So in order to stop that kind of development, the United States government made a great effort to pacify that kind of concern on the part of the Japanese government by reassuring the protection of Japan.

BO HILL: So if the US government was not concerned about Japanese nuclear proliferation in 1969, why would Australians hold such fears? Australian political scientist, Dr Norman Abjorensen explains the atmosphere in Australia at the time.

NORMAN ABJORENSEN: This was only 24 years after the end of the hostilities of the Second World War. Australian soldiers who had been imprisoned by the Japanese were treated appallingly. This was an image, their emaciated bodies, the ones who survived, they were walking skeletons. These photographs had been published in the Australian media at the end of the Second World War and they still left a fairly indelible mark on the Australian psyche. So, a lot of people at the grassroots level, non elite people still had a great suspicion of Japan, a resentment about the past, there was a public fear about Japanese rearmament.

BO HILL: It wasn't a view, however, that was held by the powers in Canberra, says Dr Abjorensen.

NORMAN ABJORENSEN: Certainly the published public statements of the government of the time and of the various ministers in the diplomatic and trade areas don't represent a view like that they represent a constant optimistic view of the growing trade and diplomatic relationship with Japan.

BO HILL: So why did the US embassy in Canberra believe it worth reporting to Washington?

NORMAN ABJORENSEN: It probably reflects more than anything a lack of clarity on the Americans part about how the Australian Japanese relationship was evolving. America found it quite easy to overlook Pearl Harbour within the Cold War context because the previous enemy was now an ally. It wasn't so clear cut in Australia and I'm not sure that the United States representatives in Australia quite understood the very deep emotions that Japan still stirred in Australia. They were coloured more by the past than the present and I'm not sure the Americans ever really understood that.

SKorea summons Japanese ambassador over islets dispute

May 19, 2008

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -- South Korea lodged a protest Monday with Japan over a news report that said Tokyo planned to describe disputed islets between the two countries as belonging to Japan in school textbooks.

Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwan summoned Japanese Ambassador Toshinori Shigeie after Japan's largest newspaper, Yomiuri, reported Sunday that education authorities plan to refer to the islets as part of Japan's territory in middle school textbooks to be used from 2012.

Seoul effectively controls the rocky outcroppings -- called Dokdo in Korean and Takeshima in Japanese -- but Tokyo also claims ownership. The area surrounding the islets are believed to be rich in fish and possible undersea resources.

South Korea was still waiting for Japan's official response to the Yomiuri report, ministry spokesman Moon Tae-young said. He added that the summoning of the ambassador was aimed at conveying Seoul's position that Japan should not undermine South Korean sovereignty over the islets.

The Japanese ambassador, in response, said Tokyo has not worked out the guidelines for such a textbook as reported in Yomiuri, Moon said.

Japan colonized the Korean peninsula from 1910-1945 and many South Koreans still harbor strong resentment against the Japanese.

(Mainichi Japan) May 19, 2008

16,000 people evacuated after unexploded bomb found in western Tokyo

May 19, 2008

About 16,000 people were temporarily evacuated and services on a railway line were partially suspended while an unexploded bomb was being disposed of in western Tokyo on the weekend, local government officials said.

The Chofu Municipal Government on Sunday morning sealed off an area within a radius of 500 meters from where the bomb was found, and a Ground Self-Defense Force (GSDF) unit began to dispose of the dud at 11 a.m. The bomb was removed by noon.

As the team disposed of the bomb, about 16,000 people, including 150 inpatients at a nearby hospital, were temporarily evacuated.

Services on the Keio Railway Line were suspended between Tsutsujigaoka and Chofu stations for three hours, inconveniencing about 70,000 passengers.

The dud was a 1-ton bomb produced in the United States. Local officials suspect that the bomb fell from a U.S. B29 bomber that crashed after a Japanese fighter plane deliberately hit it in a suicide attack in April 1945.

(Mainichi Japan) May 19, 2008

Party branches leery of Fukuda

05/19/2008
THE ASAHI SHIMBUN

Many prefectural chapters of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party apparently have given up on Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda, a survey shows.

In an Asahi Shimbun poll of executives of the 47 prefectural LDP chapters, 22 chapters said the ruling party should choose a new leader before the next Lower House election.

Only 12 chapters said Fukuda should lead the LDP in the next election round.

While a Lower House election is not required until September 2009, the opposition parties have intensified pressure on Fukuda to dissolve the Lower House before then for a snap election.

The survey, conducted May 12-15, covered prefectural chapter executives, such as chapter secretaries-general.

Questions concerned the party leadership and the government's decision to send back to the Lower House for a second vote legislation to limit use of road taxes exclusively for road construction over the next decade.

The LDP membership is worried about Fukuda's ability to lead the party to victory in the next Lower House election. Those fears were touched off in part by the defeat of the LDP candidate in the April 27 by-election in the No. 2 district of Yamaguchi Prefecture.

The latest Asahi survey also produced ample evidence that LDP chapters were distancing themselves from Fukuda.

An official of the Saitama chapter said, "It will be difficult to fight an election with Fukuda leading because too many negative factors have piled up."

Some chapters pointed to Fukuda's lack of leadership ability. An Aichi chapter official said, "Fukuda cannot make decisions to actually implement policy."

The LDP will likely not be able to ignore opinions at the prefectural chapter level. When Yoshiro Mori was prime minister and also had low public support ratings, local assemblies passed resolutions urging Mori to step down as soon as possible. Such moves in part spurred Mori's decision to resign after a year in office.

LDP Secretary-General Bunmei Ibuki on Friday continued to defend Fukuda, saying the party leader was doing his best.

However, another executive said, "(Local chapters) are very sensitive to public opinion because they are close to the voters. The Cabinet will not be able to survive without a reshuffle."

When chapters that said Fukuda should be replaced were asked who would be a suitable replacement, the only name that came up was Taro Aso, the former LDP secretary-general. Seven chapters said Aso should replace Fukuda.

The executives of prefectural chapters of opposition Minshuto (Democratic Party of Japan) were also asked similar questions about their leader.

In contrast to the LDP groups, 44 Minshuto chapters said their party should keep Ichiro Ozawa on as leader to fight the next Lower House election.

Only Gifu and Tokushima prefectures said Ozawa should be replaced.

Fukuda also angered some LDP members because he pledged to release the road tax revenues to the general-use budget from fiscal 2009.

While 37 Minshuto prefectural chapters said they supported that position, 16 LDP chapters, about a third of all chapters, said they opposed the move.(IHT/Asahi: May 19,2008)

School curriculum guide to include Japan's sovereign claim over Takeshima isles

05/19/2008
THE ASAHI SHIMBUN

The education ministry will include Japan's sovereign claim over the disputed Takeshima islets in its manual for revised school curriculum guidelines to take effect in spring 2012, sources said.

The manual, used as a guide for teachers in preparing classes and for publishers in putting together textbooks, will state that Takeshima "is a unique territory to our nation," the sources said.

Although the guide has no legal binding power, the inclusion of the clause will likely have an impact on the editing of textbooks.

Takeshima, known as Tokto in South Korea, is currently occupied by South Korean troops.

Calls to include Japan's sovereign claim over Takeshima in children's education had risen from several members of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party. The education ministry received similar views when it sought public opinion on its proposed guidelines.

However, Tokyo and Seoul resumed "shuttle diplomacy" with the Japan-South Korea summit last month, putting on hold inclusion of Japan's claim over the islets.

Currently, all junior high school civics and geography textbooks mention Tokyo's claim over the Northern Territories, which are also claimed by Russia.(IHT/Asahi: May 19,2008)

Planned bill aims to redress non-Japanese war criminals

05/19/2008
BY AKIRA NAKANO, THE ASAHI SHIMBUN

A group of lawmakers plans to submit a bill to the Diet mandating government financial compensation for Korean and Taiwanese former Class B and Class C war criminals and their surviving families.

The move, led by Kenta Izumi, a Minshuto (Democratic Party of Japan) Lower House member, could come as early as the current Diet session.

At issue are those who worked as guards of POWs for the Imperial Japanese military during World War II. The non-Japanese were later denied the same pensions and other compensation paid to Japanese war criminals and their family members.

At the Allied Forces war trials, 321 Koreans and Taiwanese were convicted as "Japanese" of war crimes. The group included 23 Koreans and 26 Taiwanese who were executed.

The lawmakers' group will propose the government pay 3 million yen in compensation to each former Class-B and C war criminal, in "a humanitarian spirit."

Because people from Japan's former colonies were stripped of Japanese citizenship after the war, the government excluded them all from military pensions and other assistance paid to former Japanese soldiers.

Izumi said he was greatly moved by the story of Lee Hyok Nae, a Korean who worked at a POW camp run by Japan in Thailand and was later convicted.

Lee, 83, is now chairman of Doshin-kai, a group representing former Korean war criminals that since 1955 has urged Japan to act on the issue.

Hearing Lee's story, Izumi realized the Diet has never heard the views of these non-Japanese, the lawmaker said. He hopes the bill will receive cross-party support.

Lee was taken from his home on the Korean Peninsula, which from 1910 to 1945 was under Japanese colonial rule, at the age of 17 in 1942. After the war, he was sentenced to death for abusing POWs.

His sentence was later reduced, and he was released 11 years after Japan's defeat. He could not return to Korea because all those who worked for the Japanese military were viewed as collaborators.

"There's nothing more absurd--we were convicted as Japanese and then excluded from compensation because we became non-Japanese,'' Lee said. He said some Korean war criminals chose to kill themselves in disgrace.

In 1991, Lee, five other Koreans, and the bereaved families of other former war criminals filed a lawsuit seeking state redress and apology. The Supreme Court rejected that suit in 1999.

However, the court acknowledged they had made "serious and grave sacrifices and (suffered) damage'' and said compensation should be discussed in the Diet.

Only two of the plaintiffs who were war criminals are alive today.

Lee is grateful the Diet may finally consider redress. In April, Lee filed a civil suit at the Tokyo District Court to demand the government fully disclose diplomatic documents leading up to the 1965 normalization of diplomatic ties between Japan and South Korea.

Although Japan said the issue was settled by the 1965 treaty, South Korean diplomatic records recently released show that during the negotiations Tokyo promised to separately examine the war criminal issue.(IHT/Asahi: May 19,2008)

Wartime bomb haunts Tokyo suburb

05/19/2008
THE ASAHI SHIMBUN

Ground Self-Defense Force troops hoist an unexploded wartime bomb onto a truck in Chofu, Tokyo, Sunday after disarming and removing it from where it had lain buried near railway tracks in a suburb. About 16,500 residents of the area were evacuated during the two hours it took to remove the munition.

Photo: Wartime bomb haunts Tokyo suburb

The bomb was found about 3 meters below ground in March during a survey to prepare part of the Keio Line to be moved underground. The bomb is believed to have been aboard a U.S. B-29 bomber that crashed after a Japanese fighter plane rammed it. The bomb is about 1.8 meters long and 60 centimeters in diameter.(IHT/Asahi: May 19,2008)

16,000 evacuated in Tokyo over WWII bomb

The Yomiuri Shimbun

About 16,000 residents were evacuated from their homes in Chofu, western Tokyo, on Sunday, while work was carried out to remove an unexploded bomb believed to have been dropped during World War II.

The city government issued an evacuation order for about 8,000 households within a 500-meter radius of a construction site where the bomb was discovered.

The residents were evacuated to four primary and middle schools and other nearby facilities. City government officials visited houses and apartment buildings to ensure residents had been safely evacuated from the area after a siren had sounded at 8 a.m. to notify them of the operation.

About 140 inpatients at a hospital in the area were reportedly transferred to a nearby hospital.

A two-kilometer section of National Highway Route 20, known as the Koshu Kaido, was closed to traffic, and public transport also was suspended while the work was carried out.

Ground Self-Defense Force members began the operation to defuse the bomb at 11 a.m., and the city government called off the alert and declared the area safe at 11:36 a.m.

Train services on the Keio Line between Tsutsujigaoka and Chofu stations were suspended for more than three hours from 9:30 a.m.

The kickoff time of a J.League soccer match between Tokyo Verdy and Shimizu S-Pulse at Ajinomoto Stadium was pushed back from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m.

The city government said the U.S.-made bomb, which is about 1.8 meters long, has a diameter of about 60 centimeters and weighs one ton, was discovered about three meters underground while work was being carried out to lay underground railway lines near Kokuryo Station on the Keio Line on March 27.

(May. 19, 2008)

Cross-party groups may spur upheaval / Growing number of interparty groupings seen precursor to postelection realignment

The Yomiuri Shimbun

Moves to form cross-party leagues or policy study groups have been gathering momentum, possibly paving the way for a realignment of the political parties.

Since Dec. 13, new cross-party groupings have been set up, including two to be launched by the end of this week. The new groups are ostensibly aimed at breaking the current political impasse. Since the crushing defeat of the Liberal Democratic Party in last summer's House of Councillors election, the nation's politics have been hampered by a divided legislature, in which the opposition dominates the upper house while the LDP-New Komeito ruling coalition controls the House of Representatives.

But the main motivation for ruling party lawmakers' participation in the cross-party groups seems to be the possibility of a political realignment taking place after the next general election.

For Diet members of the major opposition Democratic Party of Japan, however, the main motivation for joining supraparty groups is gaining the upper hand in internal party struggles, analysts say.

===

Formulating policy

One of the suprapartisan groups, the Sentaku (laundry or choice) League of Diet Members, held a meeting of its global environment group in the Diet on Friday.

Among the members was the LDP's Yoriko Kawaguchi, a former foreign minister.

"If you view things from the standpoint of how the global environment should be in 2050, it's easy to see what should be done right now," she said.

A participant from the DPJ, former party Policy Research Committee Chairman Yukio Edano, expressed his gratitude to Kawaguchi, saying, "I'm glad to hear from you about what really matters to you."

The group was formed in March and has a membership of 170 lawmakers from four parties--the LDP, DPJ, New Komeito and People's New Party.

Another member from the LDP, Yoshihide Suga, vice chairman of the party's Election Strategy Headquarters, noted in the meeting, "If all of us can have a relationship conducive to exchanging views on policy matters in a straightforward way not hampered by party lines, this will certainly foster a mutually trustworthy, constructive atmosphere between the ruling and opposition camps."

Suga's remark hinted at the ruling coalition's desire to improve relations with the opposition to make it easier for government-sponsored bills to pass the Diet.

===

Rallying conservative forces

Many ruling bloc legislators in the nonpartisan groups seem to feel the need to prepare for future political turmoil, given that the LDP will likely suffer significant losses in the next lower house election due to flagging support for the administration of Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda.

One policy study panel seen as serving this objective is Shin-Hoshu (truth of conservatism) Policy Study Group, which comprises 70 Diet members and has former LDP Policy Research Council Chairman Shoichi Nakagawa as head.

Nakagawa is on record as wanting one group member--former Economy, Trade and Industry Minister Takeo Hiranuma, who now has no party affiliation--to serve as a catalyst in narrowing policy gaps between the DPJ and the ruling coalition.

Apparently in an effort to boost ties with Hiranuma, Nakagawa said, "We'd like to see Mr. Hiranuma and his allies reach agreement to create a new party that takes in some DPJ legislators after the next lower house election."

Hiranuma, for his part, has expressed a wish to establish a new party, and plans to pave the way by founding a policy study group called Yajin no Kai (Group of Mavericks) with Tamisuke Watanuki, head of the PNP.

Among other new groupings is the Group for Thinking and Doing the Right Thing, cochaired by former Chief Cabinet Secretary Kaoru Yosano and the former deputy chief of the LDP Policy Research Council, Hiroyuki Sonoda.

Some members of the group, including Yosano, are poised to establish a new party by bringing together like-minded lawmakers over such issues as the reform of Japan's debt-ridden public finances.

===

A bid to unsettle Ozawa?

Many in the DPJ are negative about the possibility of realignment after the next lower house contest, however.

Edano has said the idea of a new realignment is extremely unrealistic. The participation of DPJ members in the cross-party groups is simply aimed at "making prearrangements to ensure a channel of dialogue" with the LDP, which Edano says is destined to be the opposition after the birth of a DPJ government in the wake of its victory in the next lower house election.

But sources within the DPJ point out that DPJ members in favor of joining the suprapartisan groups, including Edano and party Vice President Seiji Maehara, are also the fiercest critics of Ichiro Ozawa, the party leader.

Their participation in the groups can thus be seen as part of a strategy to put Ozawa off balance in the DPJ's internal power struggle, according to the sources.
(May. 19, 2008)

RP may appeal dropping of rape charges vs US soldier

Pinoy Migration
5/19/2008 7:03 PM May 19, 2008
by TRINA LAGURA, abs-cbnNEWS.com

The Philippine government is studying whether to appeal the decision of Japanese prosecutors to drop the charges against an American soldier accused of raping a Filipina in Okinawa in February.

The Japanese prosecutors dropped the charges against the US soldier on May 15 reportedly due to lack of sufficient evidence.

The Philippine government can file the appeal within 15 days after the decision was made.

Esteban Conejos, Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) undersecretary for migrant workers affairs, said the Philippines can request the Naha District Public Prosecutor's Office to reinvestigate the case.

Conejos said he has already asked a Japanese lawyer hired by the Philippine government to carefully study the case of the Filipino woman.

He said the lawyer will determine what other options are available to the Filipina under Japanese law.

The decision on the case of the Filipina was made by Japanese prosecutors even as a US Marine was sentenced to four years in prison for sexually abusing a 14-year-old Japanese girl. This marine was later cleared of the more serious charge of rape.

The case of the Japanese girl sparked outrage among the Filipinos in Japan and led to an apology from US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. In contrast to the high-profile case of the Japanese minor, the alleged rape of the Filipina has drawn less attention.

The Filipino woman reported to police in February that she was raped by a member of the US Army in Okinawa, only days after the 14-year-old's alleged rape sparked outrage among Japanese residents.

The Filipina was injured and received medical treatment at a hospital after the alleged incident at a hotel in the city of Okinawa on February 18, according to local police. - With a report from Agence France Presse

Okinawa Peace Rally

GINOWAN City, Okinawa Prefecture, Ginowan Seaside Park, May 18.

A convention was held on the third and final day of the peace rally at Ginowan, which hosts the U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma.

Organizers expected 7,000 people to take part. The annual three-day peace march started on Friday, a day after the 36th anniversary of Okinawa's reversion to Japanese sovereignty.

16,000 people evacuate as dud disposed of in western Tokyo

May 18 12:40 AM US/Eastern

TOKYO, May 18 (AP) - (Kyodo) — About 16,000 people were evacuated while work was conducted to dispose of an unexploded bomb believed to have fallen during World War II along the Keio railway line in Chofu, western Tokyo, on Sunday.

Ground Self-Defense Force members began work at 9:30 a.m. and removed the fuse of the dud in a two-hour operation. The Chofu city government declared the area safe and called off the alert.

Photo: The Self-Defence Force's explosive ordnance disposal team began an operation Sunday morning and successfully removed the one-tonne US-made bomb buried some 3.5 metres below the ground, officials said.

The local government ordered people living in a radius of about 500 meters around the scene to evacuate and train services between Chofu and Tsutsujigaoka stations on the Keio line were suspended for about three hours.

The 180-centimeter-long, 60 cm-diameter dud, believed to be a 1-ton bomb which was apparently dropped from a U.S. B-29 bomber which crashed in April 1945, was found in March this year.

After a siren sounded at 8 a.m., firefighters and police called on residents in the area to evacuate from their houses. People took refuge at a primary school in the city. Some people were also seen leaving by car.

A 65-year-old unemployed man said he wanted to stay at home but had to take refuge for fear that the dud may have exploded.

About 150 inpatients at a hospital in the area were also moved to a nearby hospital in the city.

The starting time for a J-league soccer game to be held at Ajinomoto Stadium in the city was delayed by two hours to 6 p.m.

Prosecutors indict two Marines for 2006 taxi robbery

Date Posted: 2008-05-18

Nearly two years after a 64-year-old taxi driver was robbed in Okinawa City, the Naha District Public Prosecutor’s Office has indicted two U.S. Marines for the crime.

Two Marines assigned to Camp Schwab have been surrendered by the military to Japanese authorities in connection with the indictment for the July 4th robbery. Privates Edward L. Miller Jr., and Brandon K. Pearman are accused of ordering the taxi driver to pull off the road, where they allegedly knocked him down before running away with roughly ¥80,000 ($800). Miller, now 22, and Pearman, now 21, have both reportedly admitted to Okinawa Prefectural Police committing the crime.

Officials say a $2,000 reward was issued in September 2006 by the Navy Criminal Investigative Service. Police have not explained how they identified Miller and Pearman as suspects. No trial date has been set.

Japanese prosecutor drops rape charges against Army sergeant

Date Posted: 2008-05-18

A 25-year-old Army sergeant is free after the Naha District Public Prosecutor’s Office, citing a lack of sufficient evidence to indict him on rape charges, dropped the case.

Sergeant Ronald Edward Hopstock Jr., had been under investigation for raping a Filipina woman in an Okinawa City hotel during the night between February 17th and 18th. The soldier, assigned to the 1st Battalion, 1st Air Defense Artillery Regiment, admitted having sex with the young woman, but said “she agreed to come to the hotel with me.” A hotel clerk who checked the couple in about 10 p.m. February 17th said “they looked like a normal couple.” Hopstock had contended he paid the club where the entertainer worked, in order to take her out. He said he paid the club in order to have sex with the woman, an arrangement the woman denied knowledge of.

The woman was found the following morning by the hotel clerk. After she was taken to a hospital for examination, Okinawa Prefecture Police arrested Hopstock on suspicion of assault and battery on the Filipina entertainer. Takafumi Sato, the deputy chief prosecutor, says his office didn’t have sufficient evidence to bring the GI to trial, saying “suspicion is not imperfect, because they went together to the hotel, and then they stayed there.” Sato noted the woman never complained about Hopstock. or his conduct, “so we think from these conditions, the case should be dropped.”

The Army isn’t so sure. A U.S. Army spokesman at Camp Zama in mainland Japan, Maj. James Crawford, says the Army will conduct its own investigation. “We have cooperated with Japanese authorities,” he said, “and our lawyers will review everything and allegations will be investigated in accordance with Army policies. If that investigation concludes there was wrongdoing, appropriate action will be takne [sic].”

Hopstock, meanwhile, remains restricted to his duty station at Kadena Air Base. Crawford says Hopstock is being closely supervised by military officials.

Court Martial convicts Marine NCO on sexual abuse charges

Date Posted: 2008-05-18

A Marine staff sergeant has been found guilty of abusive sexual conduct charges by a military court martial and sentenced to four years in prison.

Tyrone L. Hadnott was convicted Friday at a court martial on Camp Foster for his involvement with a 14-year-old Okinawa girl last February. Hadnott, assigned to the 3rd Marine Division, had originally been arrested by Okinawa police February 11th and accused of raping the junior high school student after picking her up at an ice cream parlor in Okinawa City. The general court martial dropped rape charges, as well as charges of kidnapping through luring, adultery and making a false official statement.

The 38-year-old Hadnott, who waived his right to a pretrial investigative hearing, pleaded guilty to charges of abusive sexual contact with a child under the age of 16 during a pretrial agreement. He had admitted touching the young teen’s underwear after taking her to his Kitanakagusuku home, but denied raping her. He will serve three years in the brig, be reduced to the rank of private, forfeit all pay and allowances, and be given a dishonorable discharge.

Lt. Col. David S. Oliver, the Marine Corps presiding judge, tried the case after Hadnott and his attorney, Lt. Col. David M. Jones, asked he be tried by only a military judge, instead of by a court martial jury. Hadnott’s original arrest came after the girl claimed he raped her in a car in Chatan Town. Japanese prosecutors refused to prosecute Hadnott after the girl withdrew her accusation against him, saying she only wanted to be left alone.

The Marine Corps, after taking custody of Hadnott on February 29th, saw Maj. Gen. Robert B. Neller, the 3rd Marine Division commanding general, refer the staff sergeant to trial by general court martial.

Rice discusses sex-assault task force’s findings

By Vince Little, Stars and Stripes
Pacific edition, Sunday, May 18, 2008

TOKYO — The U.S. Navy is reviewing its overseas screening process for new personnel assigned to Japan while commanders across the services will share ideas on how to combat sexual assault, the senior U.S. military representative here said Friday.

Air Force Lt. Gen. Edward Rice, U.S. Forces Japan commander, disclosed findings of the special task force created three months ago following a series of high-profile rape cases involving American troops in Japan and Okinawa. The group was put together to review sexual assault prevention programs at U.S. bases.

He also said the task force found that all USFJ installations are in compliance with Defense Department and service-directed policies.

"We have already spent over 1 million man hours addressing this issue, and we will spend more in the future," Rice said. "Our focus on this did not begin with the task force, and it will not end as long as we have U.S. forces stationed in this country.

"When we take days down to invest in this training, it’s significant. ... We’re making a significant investment to prevent even one crime from happening."

Rice said all the services have a screening process that includes thorough performance and medical reviews of candidates for overseas assignments.

"Those who don’t get through it, don’t wind up coming here," he added. "The Navy wants to go back and make sure its screening process is as strong as it should be."

Rice said the U.S. military will rely on local commanders to devise training programs based on sexual-assault prevention guidance already in place.

"We’re providing the type of training and cultural awareness to give us every opportunity to be successful here. That will continue," he said. "It’s a process of sharing best practices. Good order and discipline starts at the local level."

Most U.S. bases have incorporated sexual-assault awareness sessions into newcomer orientations, he added.

Rice said some installations also are working with off-base establishments to follow "responsible" alcohol serving policies.

"This is a very important initiative since we know there is a strong link between alcohol and inappropriate behavior," he said.

The two countries also have agreed that the U.S. military will inform the Japanese government of any military deserters and ask local police to arrest them. A USS Cowpens sailor had been absent without leave for several weeks before he allegedly killed a taxi driver in March in the city of Yokosuka.

With 50,000 troops based in Japan and Okinawa, Rice said the overwhelming majority abide by laws and uphold the U.S. military’s high standards.

Crime by U.S. servicemembers is "significantly lower than a general population group of 50,000 people anywhere in the world," he added.

"That said, it’s not good enough for us," Rice said.

2 Marines indicted in 2006 cab robbery

Stars and Stripes
Pacific edition, Sunday, May 18, 2008

NAHA, Okinawa — The Naha District Public Prosecutors Office indicted two Marines on Thursday in the robbery of a cab driver nearly two years ago in Okinawa City.

Pvt. Edward L. Miller Jr. and Pvt. Brandon K. Pearman, both assigned to Camp Schwab, were immediately turned over to Japanese authorities, according to the indictment.

Miller, now 22, and Pearman, 21, are accused of attacking a 64-year-old cab driver about 4 a.m. July 4, 2006, in Okinawa City. After they told the driver to park the car on a roadside, one of them knocked him down before they fled with about $800 in cash, the indictment said.

In September 2006, the Naval Criminal Investigative Service offered a $2,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the suspects involved.

It was not immediately known how the two were identified as suspects and arrested so long after the incident.

A spokesman for Okinawa prefectural police has said that both admitted guilt.

A trial date has not been set.

City council votes down public call for vote on USS George Washington

By Hana Kusumoto, Stars and Stripes
Pacific edition, Sunday, May 18, 2008

YOKOSUKA, Japan — A second try at putting citizen acceptance of the USS George Washington to a vote of the people resoundingly failed Friday.

The Yokosuka City Council voted down putting the referendum to a vote 33 to 8 — garnering two more opposition votes than a similar referendum measure did in February 2007.

A citizens’ group collected more than 40,000 signatures calling for a referendum to get residents’ input on whether they approve or disapprove of the deployment of the George Washington, the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier slated to replace the conventionally powered USS Kitty Hawk in Yokosuka this August.

The group also called for votes on whether the city has given enough explanation on the nuclear carrier’s deployment.

The group’s leader called Friday’s outcome "extremely regrettable."

Yokosuka city mayor Ryoichi Kabaya maintained his position that the issue had no place in local government.

"Overall residents’ voices have become clear" as the council — the citizens’ representatives — voted against the referendum twice, he said.

However, the council voted unanimously to submit a letter asking the national government to ensure the safety of the nuclear carrier, develop effective crime prevention measures, and revise the U.S.-Japan Status of Forces Agreement.

The group leaders said the letter is a step forward and that the council could not ignore the concerns of the 40,000 residents who wanted a referendum. They said they will continue with their efforts.

Commander U.S. Naval Japan Forces spokesman Cmdr. David Waterman refrained from commenting on the decision, saying the vote was an issue between Yokosuka and its citizens.

Stars and Stripes reporter Allison Batdorff contributed to this story.

Locals say Hadnott's 36-month sentence is too short

By Chiyomi Sumida, Stars and Stripes
Pacific edition, Sunday, May 18, 2008

NAHA, Okinawa — Okinawans had mixed reactions to Friday’s court-martial and sentencing of Marine Staff Sgt. Tyrone Hadnott, who was given 48 months of confinement and a dishonorable discharge for molesting a 14-year-old Okinawa girl in February.

"I do not quite get it," said Shigeko Urasaki, a representative of an Okinawa women’s advocacy group, Women’s Net. "The sentence is too light for the vicious nature of the crime. What were the extenuating circumstances for his behavior?"

There were none, she said, adding that she regretted Hadnott was not tried under Japanese law. Japanese prosecutors decided to drop the case after the 14-year-old girl who accused Hadnott of raping her withdrew her complaint.

The girl said she did not want any more publicity.

Two men questioned in downtown Naha agreed the sentence seemed too light.

"He was lucky that the girl withdrew the complaint," said Kenji Kawasumi, 33, a Web designer from Tokyo. "Had he not been a servicemember, there would not have been so much media coverage, and the girl would not have changed her mind."

Said his friend, Akitoshi Funo, 38, owner of a business equipment sales company in Naha: "A three-year jail term is the same as the punishment for gambling in Japan. Is that all? It is almost like treating the seriousness of the crime as little more than being caught gambling."

A woman in her mid-40s in Ginowan, however, said she had mixed feelings about whether the sentence was too light.

"It’s hard to say, because at first she was not taken against her will," said the woman, who identified herself only by her last name of Matsumoto. "My biggest concern is for Okinawa’s society, where many underage children hang around late at night.

"Anyhow, it was the fault of the man, an adult. I cannot say if the sentence is long enough or not. All I want is for him to serve his prison term and pay for the crime."

Hadnott pleads guilty to sex assault on teen

By David Allen, Stars and Stripes
Pacific edition, Sunday, May 18, 2008

CAMP FOSTER, Okinawa — Marine Staff Sgt. Tyrone L. Hadnott will spend the next few years behind bars for molesting a 14-year-old Okinawa girl in February.

In a courtroom packed with a pool of Japanese reporters and representatives of the Okinawa prefectural government, Hadnott was sentenced by a military judge Friday to 48 months of confinement — with 12 months suspended — and a dishonorable discharge. The case attracted international attention and was one of several incidents that led to strict liberty restrictions on everyone affiliated with the military on Okinawa.

Under the terms of a pretrial agreement, Hadnott pleaded guilty to one count, admitting he fondled a 14-year-old girl he picked up on his motorcycle outside an ice cream parlor in Okinawa City on Feb. 10.

Charges of rape, adultery, kidnapping through luring, and making a false official statement were withdrawn and the sentence was limited under the agreement to 36 months. The remaining 12 months of the sentence were suspended. He also will have to register as a sex offender when he is released from prison.

Hadnott, 38, was demoted to E-1 and all his pay and allowances were suspended — except for $1,300 a month to be sent to support his 3-year-old daughter for six months. He faced a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison.

Hadnott, from Chicago, has been confined since Japanese police arrested him Feb. 11. He was released to military custody Feb. 28 when Japanese prosecutors chose not to indict him after the girl withdrew her criminal complaint, citing a desire for privacy.

During the half-day court-martial, Hadnott admitted he suspected the girl was underage when he gave her a ride to his off-base home, but he never pressed her to tell her age. He admitted the girl attempted to flee when he tried to kiss her, but he persuaded her to let him give her a ride home.

Instead, they drove in his van to a seaside park in Chatan, where he said he placed his hand between her pants and underwear.

"I’m guilty because I did not find out the victim’s age before I touched her," Hadnott told the judge, Lt. Col. David M. Oliver.

"I touched her in a sexual manner through her clothes, sir. I had a strong suspicion that she was under 16," he added.

Later, in an unsworn statement, Hadnott, a radio chief with Communications Company, Headquarters Battalion, 3rd Marine Division, at Camp Courtney, said the incident ruined his already rocky marriage. His Japanese wife had moved out of their home before the incident.

"Now she’s disgraced, she’s embarrassed," he said. "She told me that I don’t have a family no more and I can never see my daughter again."

Hadnott said he had no excuse for his actions that night. Standing before the judge while his mother sobbed softly on a bench behind him, he apologized to the victim, his own family, the Marine Corps and the United States.

"I never wanted to be the person that everyone hated," he said. "I have no words to express for how sorry I am for what I have done. I’d rather die than dishonor my country and the Corps."

He paused for a moment, the handwritten statement shaking slightly in his hands.

"I sit in my cell and stare at the toilet and see my career going down the drain," he said.

Hadnott has nearly 18 years of combined service in the Army and Marine Corps.

The prosecutor, Maj. Robert G. Palmer, asked for a sentence of eight years, arguing that Hadnott should be punished severely because the evidence showed a "concerted, determined effort for the accused to have sex with a 14-year-old girl."

"It’s reprehensible," Palmer said. "Children are supposed to be protected by adults. They are not sexual objects — period."

Added Palmer: "Marines are here on this island to protect the Japanese people. Not to seduce their children."

Hadnott’s defense attorney, Lt. Col. David Jones, asked for a nine-month sentence. He pointed out that a military psychiatrist examined Hadnott and found no evidence of pedophilia.

"He’s been castigated and condemned in the media and for the rest of his life anyone can go on the Web and see his name and read that he had raped a child," Jones said. "But what this case is not about is rape — nor kidnapping. What this case is about is he put his hands down her pants, and that’s it."

The only witness called to testify was Hadnott’s mother, a teacher, who said she gave birth to Hadnott when she was just 17 and unmarried. She said her son grew up without a strong father figure and had a learning disability. He was also immature, she said.

"Many times, he acts like he’s only 19 or 20 years old," she said.

She found out about her son’s arrest when she read a story in the Washington Post on Feb. 11.

"I can never shed enough tears for the victim, Japan and the United States," she said, wiping tears from her eyes.

Hadnott timeline: Four months of uneasiness

Stars and Stripes
Pacific edition, Sunday, May 18, 2008

CAMP FOSTER, Okinawa — The arrest of Marine Staff Sgt. Tyrone L. Hadnott, 38, for allegedly raping a 14-year-old Okinawa girl in February attracted international attention and sparked protests at area bases and calls for the U.S. to keepa tighter rein on the off-base behavior of servicemembers.

Here’s a timeline of the events leading up to Friday’s court-martial:

Feb. 11: Okinawa police arrest Hadnott on suspicion of raping a 14-year-old girl he picked up on a motorcycle outside an ice cream parlor in Okinawa City the night before. After days of questioning, Okinawa police say he admits that he kissed and pressed up against the girl, but denies raping her.

Feb. 11: Lt. Gen, Bruce Wright, commander of U.S. Forces Japan, says he is monitoring the situation closely. Okinawa Gov. Hirokazu Nakaima and Japanese Foreign Minister Masahiko Komura lodge protests.

Feb. 12: Okinawa police recommend a charge of rape to the Okinawa Public Prosecutors Office. Hundreds of Okinawans stage protests at the headquarters gate to Camp Foster as more Okinawa officials file official protests. Tokyo Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba expresses concern the alleged rape could affect the planned realignment of U.S. troops in Japan.

Feb. 13: Wright, U.S. Ambassador to Japan Thomas Schieffer and Lt. Gen. Richard Zilmer, commander of all Marines in Japan, meet with Nakaima in his Naha office and express their concern. They promise steps will be taken to prevent future incidents. Later, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice also expresses her regrets to Japanese officials.

Feb. 13: Zilmer orders a two-day stand-down for all Marines in Japan for "ethics and leadership" training.

Feb. 14: The Okinawa Prefectural Assembly issues a resolution that calls the incident a "malicious crime" and demands apologies and compensation to be paid to the alleged victim.

Feb. 17: An Army sergeant is held by military police on suspicion he raped a 21-year-old Philippine woman in an Okinawa City hotel.

Feb. 20: All U.S. personnel on Okinawa and at Marine bases in mainland Japan under the Status of Forces Agreement are restricted to their bases or off-base homes. The restriction follows several alcohol-related incidents involving Marines on Okinawa over the Presidents Day weekend. Wright calls for a "Day of Reflection" for all troops in Japan and forms a Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Task Force.

Feb. 28: Japanese police release Hadnott to military custody after Japanese prosecutors decide not to seek an indictment. The alleged victim dropped the criminal complaint. Chief prosecutor Yaichiro Yamashiki tells reporters that the girl said she "wanted to be left alone." The Marines say Hadnott could face charges under the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

March 3: Zilmer lifts the restriction to base and places a 10 p.m.-to-5 a.m. curfew on all active-duty servicemembers on Okinawa and at Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni and Camp Fuji. Zilmer’s order also prohibits the affected servicemembers from consuming alcohol off base.

March 13: The governments of communities hosting U.S. bases in Japan petition the national government to revise the SOFA. Japan’s major opposition party calls for the registration of all SOFA personnel who live off-base.

April 4: Curfew for servicemembers on Okinawa and Marine bases in mainland Japan is eased to midnight to 5 a.m. Consumption of alcohol outside the bases is still banned.

April 14: Zilmer lifts off-base alcohol ban for active-duty servicemembers. Cinderella Liberty policy remains in effect.

April 21: Maj. Gen. Robert B. Neller refers court-martial charges against Hadnott, who waived his right to a preliminary hearing.

Japan waived right to jurisdiction over U.S. military personnel in 1953

May 17 10:18 AM US/Eastern

(AP) - TOKYO, May 17 (Kyodo) — Japan waived its primary right to criminal jurisdiction in 97 percent of cases involving U.S. military personnel in the country during the five years following a secret pact it concluded with the United States in 1953 on waiving jurisdiction except in cases of material importance, according to declassified U.S. documents.

In 1958 the United States asked Japan to make the pact public and "affirm that it would be Japanese policy to do so in the future" but Prime Minister Nobusuke Kishi declined, one of the documents says.

The Japan-U.S. Status of Forces Agreement states that Japan has the primary right to exercise criminal jurisdiction over members of U.S. forces, with certain exceptions.

Of the documents kept at the U.S. National Archives, a telegram from Secretary of State John Foster Dulles to the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo, dated Oct. 2, 1958, called for "obtaining from Japan some publishable form of its statement of intention to waive its right to exercise jurisdiction over U.S. personnel in cases of material importance to it."

The telegram says the United States was "anxious (to) make (the) most of (a) favorable opportunity" of negotiating a revised Japan-U.S. security treaty.

Two days later, the U.S. ambassador to Japan met Kishi to discuss the offer.

A telegram from the envoy to the U.S. Department of State, dated Oct. 5, 1958, says, "I recalled our approach to Kishi last June 1957 to make public (the) Japanese intention to waive its right to exercise jurisdiction except in cases of material importance to it."

Japan replied that it "would be embarrassing and create real problems in Japan re status forces agreement if (a) confidential agreement were made public," according to the telegram.

"I said that without making (the) 1953 confidential minute public, it would be materially helpful to (the) U.S. to work out some public formulation on this matter in which Japan would refer to its past practice of not exercising such jurisdiction and affirm that it would be Japanese policy to do so in the future," it says.

A document formulated by the department in June 1957 says that of the 13,000 cases to which Japan had the primary right to criminal jurisdiction, it waived that right in 97 percent of the cases.

Criminal trials were conducted only in about 400 cases, it says.

Other Major News Services' Coverage of Marine Trial

US marine jailed for Japan assault
from aljazeera.net
UPDATED ON: FRIDAY, MAY 16, 2008
11:16 MECCA TIME, 8:16 GMT

Marines Given Jail For Japan Sex Assaults; Staff Sgt. Gets 4 Years, Lance Cpl. Gets 2 In Separate Cases, Both Cleared Of Rape
from www.cbsnews.com
TOKYO, May 16, 2008

Marine convicted of raping Okinawan teen to see 4 years
Marine convicted of raping Okinawan teen to see 4 years - The China Post
from www.chinapost.com.tw
Saturday, May 17, 2008

U.S. Marine guilty of Okinawa girl sexual abuse
from news.xinhuanet.com / www.chinaview.cn
Shared by you:
2008-05-16 17:16:58

Marine pleads guilty in Japan sex crime
from www.cnn.com
Friday May 16 2008

US marine jailed for abusing 14-year-old Japanese girl
Justin McCurry in Tokyo
from guardian.co.uk,
Friday May 16 2008 1.30pm BST

US Marine sentenced to 4 years on sex charge with Japanese teen in Okinawa
from www.iht.com / The Associated Press
Published: May 16, 2008

US Marine jailed for sexually assaulting Japanese teen
from www.monstersandcritics.com
May 16, 2008, 8:19 GMT

U.S. Marine guilty of abuse in Japan; American gets four years for abusive sexual conduct of 14-year-old girl
from www.msnbc.msn.com
updated 3:57 a.m. ET May 16, 2008

Marine sentenced for sex abuse of Japan teen
By Isabel Reynolds
from www.washingtonpost.com / Reuters
Friday, May 16, 2008; 5:12 AM

SDF Role in PKO (Peace Keeping Operations)

SDF personnel to be sent to Sudan for PKO
The Yomiuri Shimbun
May. 17, 2008

Ishiba OK with SDF dispatch to Sudan
Japan Times / Kyodo News
Saturday, May 17, 2008

Defense minister positive on dispatching SDF to Sudan
Kyodo
May 15 11:46 PM US/Eastern

Japan to dispatch team to Sudan to study possible SDF peacekeeping mission
THE ASAHI SHIMBUN
05/15/2008

Let SDF take greater role in U.N. operations
The Yomiuri Shimbun
April 15, 2008

GI's confined to quarters, but Okinawa's sex spots say the show must go on

WaiWai

A continuing string of crimes by members of the U.S. military based in Japan has stirred a growing sense of indignation among the locals. To drive home the point -- that rape, armed robbery, burglary and, recently, the murder of a Japanese taxi driver by a U.S. sailor -- are not to be tolerated, area commanders have been obliged to adopt increasingly draconian measures, such as imposing a nighttime curfew or restricting men to the base.

Photo: Uramono Japan (June)

Since the end of the Pacific War, the southernmost prefecture of Okinawa has played host to a huge U.S. military presence. As one means of sustaining the local economy, the island has long harbored a thriving sex industry catering to the soldiers, airmen, sailors and marines assigned there.

Before Okinawa reverted to Japanese administrative control in 1972, the authorities turned a blind eye to prostitution. But even afterwards the sex businesses has continued to flourish -- or did, at least, until the naughty Yanks were ordered to go to their rooms and stand in the corner.

Writing in Uramono Japan (June) Tamio Hirokawa, a 32-year-old businessman based in Fukuoka City, paid a recent visit and describes the relative inaction. His conclusion: Okinawa's night life, in its struggle to keep body and soul together, may soon be left with no choice but to alter operations, shifting away from catering to Yanks in uniform to servicing civilians from the Japanese main islands.

Truly, Hirokawa writes, the clusters of clubs and bars situated outside the bases on Okinawa must vie with Bangkok in terms of sheer raunchiness.

In Kinbu Village, adjacent to the big Camp Hansen Marine base in the central part of the island, establishments referred to as "go-go bars" feature lively ladies from the Philippines. Bikini-clad girls, who appear to be in their early to mid-20s, bump and grind their hips to the rhythmic percussion.

The system, Hirokawa writes, is similar to Thailand. First you make eye contact and if a smile results, you offer them a drink. Then the naughty negotiations begin.

Since most of the clientele is American, few girls speak Japanese, so a basic knowledge of English is a prerequisite for making headway.

Should the buyer and seller find themselves in accord, the latter will take their customers by the hand and lead them upstairs, to conduct a frenzied quarter-hour quickie in a cramped cubicle.

The shocker here is the cost: just 3,000 yen for 15 minutes. These prices -- considering the quality of the companionship -- are unbelievably low, Hirokawa raves.

Customers with a more generous budget also have the option of going off the premises to avail themselves of nearby love hotels, where charges range from 10,000 yen for one hour or 25,000 yen for three hours.

Hirokawa's next destination is "Whisper Alley," a sleazy thoroughfare lined with "discos" and other establishments behind the main drag in Okinawa City, located adjacent to the big Kadena Air Force Base. This was a former red-light area that went by the name of Koza, and it appears that little has changed from the years of the Vietnam War.

Inside the discos, a variety of foxy females are available for dancing and other forms of short-term recreation. Filipinas and what appear to be Okinawan ladies are in abundance. But what catches Hirokawa's eye are the Caucasians. Yes, he smirks with smug satisfaction, this is may very well be the only place in Japan where blonde Caucasian hookers are available in quantity, and at affordable prices. Their going rate is 10,000 yen per hour.

Some of these disco girls are also willing to go for all nighters, and Hirokawa himself claims to have scored twice in this manner.

Strapping young soldiers have been the traditional patrons of such establishments. But if the crackdown continues and curfews on off-base cavorting remain in force, shops catering exclusively to Americans will almost certainly be forced seek new sources of sustenance.

While Japanese males have shied away from such spots up to now, Hirokawa is convinced that the welcome mat is out, and visitors from the Japanese main islands will be welcomed with traditional Okinawan hospitality.

So, Hirokawa tells Uramono Japan readers, the Okinawa sex trade's current shortfall may have a silver lining, in the form of affordable fun as far as Japanese are concerned. Before the word gets around, he advises, now is the time to set sails for a sexy southern sojourn with plenty of subtropical shenanigans! (By Masuo Kamiyama, contributing writer)

(Mainichi Japan) May 17, 2008

Briefly: U.S. Marine gets 4 years confinement

05/17/2008
THE ASAHI SHIMBUN

NAHA--A U.S. Marine was sentenced to four years confinement Friday for abusive sexual contact with a 14-year-old girl at a general court-martial at Camp Foster near here.

Staff Sgt. Tyrone Luther Hadnott, 38, will only serve three years in prison.

As part of a pretrial agreement, Hadnott received a one-year reduction and had four other charges, including rape of a child under the age of 16, dropped.

He was also reduced in rank to private and given a dishonorable discharge.

Hadnott was arrested by Okinawa prefectural police in February for the alleged rape in Chatan, Okinawa Prefecture. He was released after the girl dropped her complaint, but the U.S. military picked up the case.(IHT/Asahi: May 17,2008)

Briefly: 7,000 expected at okinawa peace march

05/17/2008
THE ASAHI SHIMBUN

NAGO, Okinawa Prefecture--An annual three-day peace march started here Friday, a day after the 36th anniversary of Okinawa's reversion to Japanese sovereignty.

A total of 7,000 people are expected to take part over the three days. Participants will be divided into three routes, each covering more than 40 kilometers around U.S. bases and former battlegrounds.

A convention will be held Sunday in Ginowan, which hosts the U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma, after the routes converge in the city.(IHT/Asahi: May 17,2008)

Marine given a suspended sentence for counterfeit bill

By Chiyomi Sumida, Stars and Stripes
Pacific edition, Saturday, May 17, 2008

NAHA — A Camp Kinser Marine was given a three-year suspended prison sentence Wednesday for forging and passing counterfeit $20 bills.

Pfc. Phillip C. Scott had pleaded guilty at an April hearing in Naha court to scanning 42 copies of a $20 note in his barracks room and passing eight of them at off-base businesses last November.

Scott testified in the last hearing that he hatched the counterfeiting idea to send money to his pregnant fiancee in the States and to buy a new uniform to attend a Marine Corps ball. A total of $160 worth of bogus bills were, however, spent on off-base services, including cab fares and bar tabs.

During sentencing, Chief Judge Hiroyuki Yoshii said the motive to get quick and easy money was self-centered. He said Scott’s prison term was suspended because he expressed remorse, had no prior conviction and has a fiancee and newborn baby to support.

Prosecutor demands jail for 2 in cab robbery

By Chiyomi Sumida, Stars and Stripes
Pacific edition, Saturday, May 17, 2008

NAHA, Okinawa — A Japanese prosecutor Thursday demanded prison sentences for two Marines charged with robbing a cab driver in January in Okinawa City.

In the final argument in Naha District Court, prosecutor Hiroyuki Nakajima sought an eight-year prison term for Cpl. Joseph Wayne Riddle, 20, and five to eight years in prison for Pfc. Reginald Crapps, 19, both assigned to Marine Corps Air Station Futenma.

The defense attorneys asked for leniency, saying both Marines had deprived childhoods in which they were bounced from one foster home to another.

Both Riddle and Crapps expressed remorse. After offering apologies, Riddle asked the three-judge panel to show leniency to Crapps.

"He is considered as a juvenile in this country," Riddle said, adding that the crime was his idea.

In a preliminary hearing earlier this week, the two Marines pleaded guilty to attacking a 59-year-old cab driver and fleeing without paying the fare of 2,780 yen (about $27). The incident happened around 3:30 a.m. Jan. 7 in the Misato district of Okinawa City.

Riddle testified Thursday that he does not know his biological parents nor his birth name. He said he had lived in at least 15 foster homes before he was adopted by the Riddle family.

He also told the court that he had consumed 12 cans of beer in his barracks room before committing the robbery.

Crapps told the court that he had lived in at least 25 different foster homes. He said he had hardly any friends until he joined the Marine Corps and was assigned to Okinawa.

Nakajima argued that the court should give them harsh penalties.

Sentencing is set for June 5.

U.S. Marine in Japan gets 4 yrs in prison for 'abusive sexual contact'

May 16 09:56 AM US/Eastern

(AP) - NAHA, Japan, May 16 (Kyodo) — A U.S. Marine was sentenced to four years in prison on Friday at a general court-martial for abusive sexual contact with a teenage girl in Okinawa Prefecture in February.

U.S. Marine Staff Sgt. Tyrone Hadnott, 38, who had been charged with five violations of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, will actually serve two years and nine months, however.

One year has been suspended under a plea-bargain that saw Hadnott plead guilty to abusive sexual contact in return for which prosecutors dropped the other four charges, while three months of his detention while waiting for the court decision has been counted as part of the term to be served.

The U.S. Marine Corps in Japan held the general court-martial at Camp Foster, known in Japan as Camp Zukeran, in Okinawa. Hadnott apologized in court to the girl and her family.

He was sentenced to 48 months confinement, as well as to reduction to the rank of private, forfeit of all pay and allowances, and a dishonorable discharge.

"The Marine Corps does not tolerate sexual assault and has a comprehensive policy that reinforces a culture of prevention, response and accountability to ensure the safety, dignity and well-being of others," Marine Corps spokesman 1st Lt. Judd Wilson said in a release.

"We remain committed to maintaining an environment that rejects sexual assault and attitudes that promote such behaviors," he said.

Hadnott was arrested by Japanese police on Feb. 11 on suspicion of raping the girl, who attended a junior high school at the time, in a car in the town of Chatan, but Japanese prosecutors did not file criminal charges against him after the girl withdrew her accusation.

Under Japan's Code of Criminal Procedure, rape is an offense subject to prosecution only upon a complaint from the victim. Hadnott was later handed over to the U.S. military.

Following Hadnott's release by Japanese authorities, U.S. military authorities conducted an investigation.

A general court-martial handles serious crimes, such as murder and rape. It can sentence a defendant to death or life imprisonment.

There are two other levels of courts-martial -- summary and special. Summary courts-martial can confine a defendant for up to 30 days, while special courts-martial can confine defendants for up to a year.

USFJ top commander vows continued efforts to prevent crimes

May 16 06:41 AM US/Eastern

TOKYO, May 16 (AP) - (Kyodo) — The top commander of U.S. forces in Japan promised on Friday to continue the "tremendous investment" of efforts to prevent crimes by U.S. service members, as he announced the completion of a review and reinforcement of current sexual harassment and assault measures.

U.S. Forces Japan Commander Lt. Gen. Edward Rice also said he remains "optimistic" that the planned relocation of the U.S. Marine Corps' Futemma Air Station heliport functions will be completed by 2014 as agreed to bilaterally, despite continued wrangling between Tokyo and opposing local governments in Okinawa Prefecture.

Photo: U.S. Forces Japan Commander Lt. Gen. Edward Rice

Speaking to Kyodo News and other selected media in Tokyo, Rice said the USFJ's Sexual Assault Prevention Task Force, set up in February in light of the rape of a junior high school girl, "found that all USFJ components and installations are in full compliance with Department of Defense and service-directed policies."

Rice said the task force found no shortcomings in current mandated training. But he added that the USFJ is now assisting local commanders to tailor their programs to local environments by sharing best practices, which is deemed "the most effective means" of improving the current required training.

He also revealed that Tokyo and Washington are discussing "several constructive suggestions" from the Japanese government on other crime prevention measures, although he declined to provide further details.

The discussions are carried out in the Japan-U.S. Joint Committee, and Rice said, "My commitment is that we will do that over the coming weeks."

Asked to comment on the sentencing Friday of a U.S. Marine at a general court-martial for abusive sexual contact with a Japanese girl under the age of 16, Rice said, "I think this is an example of where we in the United States military will continue to hold our members accountable for their actions."

The incident in Okinawa Prefecture in February triggered outrage in Japan and led to the USFJ's setting up of the review task force. The 38-year-old Marine was sentenced to four years in prison but will only serve three years in accordance with a plea bargain.

As examples of specific measures taken by various USFJ components, he cited the Marines' working with local business establishments to adhere to responsible alcohol serving policies and expanding the Off Base Liberty Card Policy, which restricts off-base activities of U.S. personnel, to include all military ranks.

In an apparent attempt to ease concerns among the Japanese public, he also underscored that the crew of the USS George Washington, which will be the first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier to have its home port in Japan when arriving in Yokosuka, Kanagawa Prefecture, this summer, is engaging in "robust" anti-violence training.

Rice also stressed that those committing crimes comprise a "very, very small minority" among the 50,000 U.S. personnel stationed in Japan.

"We are working on the individual crimes here and we are making a tremendous investment...trying to make sure we do everything we can to prevent even one crime from happening," Rice said, adding that each incident is treated as a "serious" one and that the U.S. forces will "learn the lessons" from it.

"Sometimes, when we have incidents of unacceptable behavior...it becomes easy to lose sight of the vital role U.S. forces play in the defense of Japan and in ensuring peace, security and stability in the region," he said, in words that seem to implicitly criticize outbursts of public sentiment at each occasion of crime alleged to U.S. servicemen.

"The fundamental agreement between Japan and the United States has always been that the U.S. is willing to put its forces forward in Japan, to risk the lives of American soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines to defend Japan, and in return Japan would support the presence of these forces," Rice said.

US Marine gets 4 years on sex charge

By TOMOKO A. HOSAKA
Associated Press Writer
Fri May 16, 6:09 AM ET

TOKYO - A U.S. Marine accused of raping a 14-year-old Japanese girl was convicted of a lesser charge Friday during a court martial and sentenced to four years in prison in a case that inflamed public anger at the American military presence on Okinawa.

Staff Sgt. Tyrone L. Hadnott, 38, was found guilty of abusive sexual conduct, said Master Sgt. Chuck Albrecht. He said four other charges — rape of a child under 16, making false official statements, adultery and "kidnapping through inveigling," or trickery — were dropped.

Though Hadnott was sentenced to four years in prison, he will only serve a maximum of three years, with the fourth year of the sentence suspended under a pretrial agreement, the Marines said in a statement.

Japanese police apprehended Hadnott in February, but released him after the girl dropped charges. U.S. authorities then investigated the case under the strict military justice code.

Japan hosts some 50,000 American troops under a security treaty. About half of them are based on the tiny, congested island of Okinawa.

Hadnott's Feb. 11 arrest — as well as a series of other damaging criminal accusations against American troops — worsened resentment at the U.S. military presence on the southern island.

The incident prompted the U.S. military to severely restrict troop movements on Okinawa and elsewhere, and conduct an ongoing review of its anti-sexual assault education programs and guidelines.

Lt. Gen. Edward A. Rice, the commander of U.S. Forces Japan, told reporters Friday the military had completed a thorough review of anti-sexual assault guidelines and training.

"This is an example of we in the United States military will continue to hold our members accountable for their actions," Rice said of the Hadnott case. "He was found guilty and he will be held accountable for his actions."

Rice said that military anti-assault programs in Japan were found to be in compliance with Department of Defense rules.

Still, U.S. forces were taking additional measures such as integrating sexual assault awareness training into orientation programs for new arrivals and stepping up contacts with local businesses and other leaders to coordinate anti-crime efforts, Rice said.

"We're making a tremendous investment in trying to make sure we do everything we can to prevent even one crime from happening," he said.

Marine sentenced for sex abuse of Japan teen

Fri May 16, 2008 5:12am EDT
By Isabel Reynolds

TOKYO (Reuters) - A U.S. court martial sentenced a Marine to four years in prison on Friday for sexual abuse of a 14-year-old girl on the southern island of Okinawa, in a case that has sparked widespread public anger.

Many on the island, home to about half the nearly 50,000 U.S. military personnel in Japan, are calling for troop numbers to be cut back, citing concerns over crime, noise and pollution.

A string of incidents this year, including the killing of a taxi driver, have forced the United States, pacifist Japan's most important security ally since World War Two, to apologize and vow to raise standards of behavior.

Tyrone Hadnott, 38, was arrested by Japanese police on suspicion of rape following the incident in February, but released after the girl withdrew her complaint, a move some in Okinawa said was to escape public attention.

Hadnott was also given a dishonorable discharge at the half-day trial, a spokesman for Okinawa Marines said.

The case was a painful reminder for many of the gang rape of a 12-year-old girl by U.S. Marines in Okinawa in 1995, which provoked a wave of opposition to their presence.

Lt. Gen. Edward Rice, the commander of U.S. forces in Japan, reiterated on Friday that such crimes by servicemen should not be allowed to affect the security relationship between the two countries.

"I think this is an example of how we in the United States military will continue to hold our members accountable for their actions," he told a news conference in Tokyo.

"Even though he was not prosecuted under the Japanese judicial system, we found that there was enough evidence to prosecute him under the U.S. system," he added.

Rice said a survey last month of training programs aimed at preventing sexual assaults found that they were being carried out in line with U.S. government guidelines, adding that efforts would continue to improve awareness.

U.S. Forces agreed on Thursday to inform Japan promptly of the details of deserters, after a U.S. sailor who had gone missing was arrested for the murder of a Japanese taxi driver last month.

Rice also called on the Japanese to remember the strategic importance of U.S. bases on their soil.

"When you look at the larger issues at stake and the larger strategic landscape, it becomes very clear that the positive influence of these forces is something that is of great benefit to Japan and the other countries in the region," he said.

Eight thousand Marines are set to be moved from Okinawa to Guam under a realignment aimed at reducing the burden on the Japanese island. But local disagreements remain over the details of the plan, which also involves shifting the Futenma Marine base to a less populated part of the island.

Rice said he was optimistic that the plan would go ahead as scheduled by 2014.

(Reporting by Isabel Reynolds; Editing by Alex Richardson)

U.S. Marine Jailed for Sexual Abuse of 14-Year-Old in Okinawa

By Stuart Biggs

May 16 (Bloomberg) -- A U.S. military court sentenced aMarine to four years in prison for the sexual abuse of a 14-year-old girl on Japan's southern island of Okinawa, the U.S. Marinesin Japan said in an e-mailed statement today.

Staff Sergeant Tyrone Hadnott, 38, was cleared of rape andother violations of the military code, including kidnappingthrough luring and making a false statement. He pleaded guilty tothe charge of ``abusive sexual contact with a child under the ageof 16'' and was dishonorably discharged from the military, thestatement said.

Hadnott was accused of raping the girl on Feb. 10 in a casethat triggered anti-American demonstrations in Tokyo and Okinawa,home to 22,000 U.S. military personnel. The military placed himin custody after his release by Japanese police, who dropped allcharges at the request of the girl's family.

``The Marine Corps does not tolerate sexual assault and hasa comprehensive policy that reinforces a culture of prevention,response and accountability to ensure the safety, dignity andwell-being of others,'' Marine Corps spokesman 1st Lt. Judd A.Wilson said in the statement. ``We remain committed tomaintaining an environment that rejects sexual assault andattitudes that promote such behaviors.''

Hadnott waived his right to an investigative hearing beforethe court-martial and chose to be tried and sentenced by amilitary judge alone, rather than by court-martial members, thestatement said.

The case created tensions between the U.S. and Japan, withSecretary of State Condoleezza Rice expressing regret to Japaneseofficials over the incident during a visit on Feb. 27. The U.S.military restricted personnel in Okinawa to their bases exceptfor official activities following Hadnott's arrest.

Okinawa was under U.S. control from the end of World War IIto 1972. Protests erupted there in 1995 after three Americanservicemen were convicted of raping a 12-year-old girl, withlocal residents demanding the U.S. military leave the island. TheMarines plan to move 17,000 personnel and dependents to thePacific island of Guam, a U.S. protectorate, beginning in 2012.

To contact the reporter on this story:Stuart Biggs in Tokyo at sbiggs3@bloomberg.net.
Last Updated: May 16, 2008 04:49 EDT

Japan drops Filipina rape case against US soldier: prosecutors

Pinoy Migration
5/16/2008 6:26 PM
May 16, 2008

Agence France-Presse

NAHA, Japan - Japanese prosecutors in southern Okinawa said Friday they had dropped charges against a US soldier accused of raping a Filipina, one of a series of criminal cases linked to the American military.

"The reason is that we did not have sufficient evidence," said an official at the Naha district prosecutor's office in Okinawa.

The move came as a US Marine was sentenced Friday to four years in prison for sexually abusing a 14-year-old Japanese girl -- but cleared of the more serious charge of rape.

The alleged rape sparked mass protests in southern Okinawa, home to half of the more than 40,000 US troops in Japan. Outraged Japanese leaders called for stricter disciplinary measures for US forces.

In contrast to the high-profile case of the minor, which led to an apology from US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, the alleged rape of the Filipina has drawn less attention.

The woman reported to police in February that she was raped by a member of the US Army in Okinawa, only days after the 14-year-old's alleged rape sparked outrage among local residents.

The Filipina was injured and received medical treatment at a hospital after the alleged incident at a hotel in the city of Okinawa on February 18, according to local police.

During Rice's visit to Tokyo in February, a group of Philippine nationals in Japan staged a rally in front of the US embassy to protest the fact that her apology had only mentioned the teen's case.

Protests spread to the Philippines, a former US colony, where more than two dozen people rallied outside the US embassy and demanded an end to the US military presence in Asia.

US troops are stationed in Japan under a security treaty with the country, which has been constitutionally pacifist since World War II.

US Marine jailed for sexually abusing Japanese girl

by Harumi Ozawa
Fri May 16,
1:29 AM ET

CAMP FOSTER, Japan (AFP) - A US military court on Friday sentenced a US Marine to a minimum of three years in prison for sexually abusing a 14-year-old Japanese girl, in a case that triggered mass protests here.

But the court on southern Okinawa island -- home to more than half of the 40,000 US troops based in Japan -- cleared Staff Sergeant Tyrone Hadnott, 38, of rape and other charges including kidnapping through luring.

Hadnott, who pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of sexual abuse, had faced a maximum of 15 years in prison. The court sentenced him to 36 months in confinement, with the last 12 months suspended.

He also was dishonourably discharged from the US military.

Court-martialled at Camp Foster on Okinawa, Hadnott faced charges of rape and sexual abuse of a minor, making a false statement, adultery and "kidnapping through luring" in connection with the February incident.

The case outraged Japanese leaders who have called for stricter discipline on US troops, amid a string of crimes committed by US soldiers stationed in Japan, one of Washington's closest allies.

In February, Hadnott, who lived off base, picked up the girl on a motorbike and took her to his home. When she started crying, he offered to drive her to her home and allegedly raped her in his car, according to Japanese police.

But Japanese prosecutors declined to indict Hadnott after the teenager dropped the case, apparently because she did not want to be in the public glare. The case was then picked up by the US military.

In delivering the court's verdict, presiding judge Lieutenant Colonel David S. Oliver said the Marine was "ignorant of her true age."

Hadnott had waived his right to a pre-trial investigative hearing, likely resulting in the lesser sentence. Prosecutors had recommended an eight-year term.

Hadnott admitted he had touched the victim's underwear but insisted he had not raped her.

"I touched her in a sexual manner over clothing. I was gratifying my sexual desire, sir," he said, shaking his head after the judge asked why he did it.

"(There is) no excuse for my action and no way to express how sorry I am," he said.

The case rekindled memories of the gang-rape in 1995 of a 12-year-old girl by three US soldiers, which led to major protests and set in motion a process to reduce the number of US troops here.

The small southern island of Okinawa, which was under US control from 1945 to 1972, is strategically close to the Taiwan Strait.

After Hadnott's arrest, the US military moved quickly to try to calm anger and in a rare measure put troops and their families under a round-the-clock curfew in Okinawa for nearly two weeks.

A series of incidents has caused public uproar over crimes linked to US troops in Japan.

Last month, prosecutors indicted a US sailor on charges of stabbing to death a taxi driver near a US military base outside Tokyo.

And earlier this month, a Marine was given a two-year prison term for sexual misconduct with a Japanese woman, but cleared of the charge of gang-rape.

Defense minister positive on dispatching SDF to Sudan

May 15 11:46 PM US/Eastern

TOKYO, May 16 (AP) - (Kyodo) — Japanese Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba sounded a positive note Friday about dispatching the Self-Defense Forces to a U.N. peacekeeping mission in southern Sudan while denying the government has started to compile a specific plan on the matter.

"Prime Minister (Yasuo Fukuda) said in his policy speech in parliament that Japan will fulfill a role as a peace-fostering nation," Ishiba told a press conference. "Based on that, we will actively consider future measures" to deal with the Sudan situation.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka Machimura and Foreign Minister Masahiko Komura have expressed their willingness to send the SDF to join the U.N. Mission in Sudan.

But Ishiba denied Friday that the government has already begun working to map out concrete steps to help the U.N. peacekeeping mission in the African region, including dispatching a research mission.

The Japanese government is trying to send SDF personnel to the UNMIS headquarters in Khartoum as liaison officer, government sources said. Japan is also considering dispatching a Ground Self-Defense Force unit to southern Sudan if security conditions permit, they said.

Dispatching the SDF to conflict-prone regions is a sensitive matter in Japan under the country's pacifist Constitution.

Court-martial finds U.S. Marine guilty of rape of local girl

May 15 11:30 PM US/Eastern

NAHA, Japan, May 16 (AP) - (Kyodo) — The U.S. Marine Corps in Japan found a staff sergeant accused of raping a teenage girl in Okinawa Prefecture in February guilty Friday at a general court-martial of violating the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

Prior to the military trial at Camp Foster, known in Japan as Camp Zukeran, in Okinawa, U.S. Marine Staff Sgt. Tyrone Hadnott, 38, waived his right to an investigative hearing, paving the way for the U.S. military to file charges against him in a general court-martial.

Photo: Courtroom at Camp Zukeran in Okinawa

Hadnott was arrested by Japanese police on Feb. 11 on suspicion of raping the girl, who attended a junior high school at the time, in a car in the town of Chatan, but Japanese prosecutors did not file criminal charges against him after the girl withdrew her accusation.

Under Japan's Code of Criminal Procedure, rape is an offense subject to prosecution only upon a complaint from the victim. Hadnott was later handed over to the U.S. military.

Following Hadnott's release by Japanese authorities, U.S. military authorities conducted an investigation.

A general court-martial handles serious crimes, such as murder and rape. It can sentence a defendant to death or life imprisonment.

There are two other levels of courts-martial -- summary and special. Summary courts-martial can confine a defendant for up to 30 days, while special courts-martial can confine defendants for up to a year.

Futenma relocation floundering as sides can’t agree on runways

Date Posted: 2008-05-16

The shape, size and location of runways at the proposed replacement military airfield at Henoko are issues dragging progress deeper into the Oura Bay mud.

Six months after a major conference on the Futenma Marine Corps Air Station relocation took place at the prime minister’s official residence in Tokyo, absolutely nothing has happened. And that conference, the fourth between the central government and Okinawa leaders, came ten long months after the third. The agreement inked several years ago called for construction of the new airfield at Camp Schwab, near Nago City, with the twin V-shape runways extending out into Oura Bay.

Okinawa Prefecture wants to modify the plan, moving the runways 80 meters further offshore, a proposal that has drawn a flurry of negative responses from the U.S. and Japan’s central government. The Prefecture contends America won’t listen to the Okinawan opinion, and the Japanese position has been largely one of trying to get the U.S. and Okinawa to listen to each other.

“Yes, it’s possible to move the runway out a bit farther off shore,” says Nobutaka Machimura, the Chief Cabinet Secretary, “but not much.” The American side isn’t budging from the original plans, leading the American Ambassador to Japan, Thomas Schieffer, to tell Machida “don’t say it’s an easy way to an Okinawan. Don’t give the answer that we can move the runway farther offshore. The American military will get complaints.”

Old chemical weapons have MND, Urasoe City worried

Date Posted: 2008-05-16

Abandoned bombs have been uncovered in Urasoe City, and officials think they may be chemical weapons from decades ago.

The Ministry of National Defense has been keeping quiet about the discovery, and Urasoe City staffers say there’s been some panic about the chemical weapons in their city. The abandoned bombs were found in the city, but city officials were unable to get help from the Ministry of Defense or from Self Defense Forces, who said they didn’t know how to take care of the weapons.

Urasoe City Mayor Mitsuo Gima, who said the JSDF “sat on its hands because it never happened before and nobody knew how to collect chemical weapons”, appealed for help from the head of the Defense Agency, from various ministries, from Okinawa Prefecture and from the American Consulate General in Naha City. “Please take these weapons away from my city,” he pleaded. “Quickly remove them.”

Gima says he wanted the weapons moved out, but Defense officials said nobody “had the manuals for collections of chemical weapons.” The frustrated mayor said he did get a phone call from the Self Defense Force, but asks “if there’s no manual, should the government side panic?” After getting no help from government, Gima turned to the media.

Newspaper stories appeared on April 24th, and Gima himself met reporters last Thursday. He said he had not gone public with announcements earlier “because I didn’t want citizens to panic on hearing the rumors.” The U.S. military came to the Urasoe City mayor’s aid, taking the antiquated bombs into its possession.

The chemical weapons are now in storage at an ammunition magazine at Kadena Air Base.

Lost jobs, business failures increase homeless numbers

Date Posted: 2008-05-16

The number of homeless people in Okinawa is increasing, and local communities and agencies are scrambling to find ways to help those with no place to live.

A new survey by the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare shows the number of homeless at 167 in 2007, but already climbing to over 200 in January 2008. A local homeless support group says many of the homeless are mainland immigrants who moved to Okinawa to start businesses or begin second livelihoods that failed.

Local Okinawans classified as homeless have increased, largely due to reductions in the jobs market. Officials say most of the local homeless are single, without families to draw support from.

Naha City is serving as an advisor to the Welfare Section, and investigating actual homeless conditions on the island. At the same time, Naha City has instituted rules on resource garbage collection—collecting aluminum cans for recycling resale—that prohibit homeless from earning any money. The city has ruled only designated vendors may collect and transport the cans.

Other officials are checking homeless to see if they’re healthy, and others are assisting in getting homeless in contact with Public Employment Offices. The ‘Tie Up Society’ is helping homeless people. Yoshimi Minei represents the group, which has purchased a private residence for use by homeless, giving them an address required to file for public benefits.

Broken incinerator has Zamami residents angry at disposal costs

Date Posted: 2008-05-16

Zamami Village has two incinerators to dispose of garbage and trash, but neither is in operation, leaving residents no choice but to export their waste products to Haebaru Town.

The island village has one incinerator that’s broken, and another it recently purchased from a vendor. The new one doesn’t work, and Zamami Village says its’ because there’s no instruction manual. The mayor had purchased the incinerator from a vendor not sanctioned by the Village Assembly, and the vendor’s not cooperating.

In the meantime, trash is being transported to Haebaru Town, near Naha City, with Zamami residents picking up the ¥15 million transportation charges. Naha City’s mayor, Takeshi Onaga, had told the village he’d support them for a year, but it’s now 16 months later and trash is still being sent to Haebaru.

He’s sympathetic to Zamami Village appeals, but says his city can’t cover the transportation charges. Zamami Village officials say the transportation costs could bankrupt the tranquil island village. Residents are demanding the village elders do something to fix the problem.

Rowdy American GI’s stir neighbors’ wrath

Date Posted: 2008-05-16

Residents of a Sunabe neighborhood in Chatan Town say they’ve about had their fill of noisy, drinking American military personnel who are their neighbors.

The residents have filed a complaint with the real estate agency responsible for the house, saying “these people have parties almost every weekend, and until after midnight they make noise, drink and walk onto the patio without clothes.” The complaint cites a party on May 12th, where the revelry was still loud after 1:20 a.m. and people were walking outside only partially clad, screaming at each other.

The neighbors say “we can’t sleep because of their noise. It happens so often.” They say police have been called to quiet the neighbors, and on at least one occasion the residents have been summoned to the police station, too. Nothing works, they say, and the Americans never listen to requests for quiet. One neighbor says the Americans make promises, then break them and make more noise.

Residents are asking the real estate company to make the Americans move from the neighborhood, noting the GI’s even throw cigarette butts on the road and in neighbors’ houses and yards.

U.S. Marine's court-martial begins over alleged rape of local girl

May 15 09:10 PM US/Eastern

NAHA, Japan, May 16 (AP) - (Kyodo) — The U.S. Marine Corps in Japan began a general court-martial Friday for a staff sergeant accused of raping a teenage girl in Okinawa Prefecture in February in violation of the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

Prior to the military trial at Camp Foster, known in Japan as Camp Zukeran, in Okinawa, U.S. Marine Staff Sgt. Tyrone Hadnott, 38, waived his right to an investigative hearing, paving the way for the U.S. military to file charges against him in a general court-martial.

The accused may strike a plea bargain with the military authorities for a reduced sentence, legal experts said.

Hadnott was arrested by Japanese police on Feb. 11 on suspicion of raping the girl, who attended a junior high school at the time, in a car in the town of Chatan, but Japanese prosecutors did not file criminal charges against him after the girl withdrew her accusation.

Under Japan's Code of Criminal Procedure, rape is an offense subject to prosecution only upon a complaint from the victim. Hadnott was later handed over to the U.S. military.

Following Hadnott's release by Japanese authorities, U.S. military authorities conducted an investigation.

A general court-martial handles serious crimes, such as murder and rape. It can sentence a defendant to death or life imprisonment.

There are two other levels of courts-martial -- summary and special. Summary courts-martial can confine a defendant for up to 30 days, while special courts-martial can confine defendants for up to a year.

US Marine sentenced to 4 years on sex charge with Japanese teen in Okinawa

May 16, 2008

TOKYO (AP) -- A U.S. Marine accused of raping a 14-year-old Japanese girl was convicted of a lesser charge Friday during a court martial and sentenced to four years in prison in a case that inflamed public anger at the American military presence on Okinawa.

Staff Sgt. Tyrone L. Hadnott, 38, was found guilty of abusive sexual conduct, said Master Sgt. Chuck Albrecht, adding that four other charges -- rape of a child under 16, making false official statements, adultery and "kidnapping through inveigling," or trickery -- were dropped.

Japanese police initially apprehended Hadnott but released him after the girl dropped charges. U.S. authorities then investigated the case under the strict military justice code.

Japan hosts some 50,000 American troops under a security treaty. About half of them are based on the tiny, congested island of Okinawa.

Hadnott's Feb. 11 arrest -- as well as a series of other damaging criminal accusations against American troops -- worsened resentment at the U.S. military presence on the southern island.

The incident prompted the U.S. military to severely restrict troop movements on Okinawa and elsewhere, and conduct an ongoing review of its anti-sexual assault education programs and guidelines.

Related articles

* Marine sentenced for wrongful sexual conduct in Hiroshima gang-rape case
* Gang rape court-martial begins at U.S. base in Iwakuni
* American serviceman arrested for squeezing Aomori Prefecture teen's breasts

(Mainichi Japan) May 16, 2008

Sex slaves struggle to keep plight in focus

Friday, May 16, 2008
By DAVID MCNEILL
Special to The Japan Times

SEOUL — They're the dwindling survivors of a war crime who have fought 17 years for justice. Now amid a gathering revisionist movement in Japan, they live out their final days in the South Korean countryside with the worst fear of all: that the world will forget what happened to them.

Photo: Looking for closure: Wartime sex slave Kang Il Chul stands in the courtyard of Sharing House, a commune and museum in Gyeonggi Province, South Korea, for former "comfort women."

In South Korea, they call them "halmoni," or grandmothers, although many are so scarred mentally and physically that they have never married or had children. In Japan, they are known as "comfort women," a hated euphemism for their forced role of providing "comfort" to marauding troops in military brothels. But around the world, another, altogether starker term will follow them to their graves: sex slaves.

Kang Il Chul is one of a handful of the surviving women living out their final days in Sharing House, a museum and communal refuge two hours from Seoul. It is a stark, concrete building off a country road set in a sparsely populated area of rice fields and scraggly mountain forests. But she has found some peace here in Gyeonggi Province. "I am among my friends, who treat me well."

Aged 15, and the youngest in a family of 12, Kang says she was snatched near here in 1943 and sent north on a train to a Japanese army base in Manchuria. On her second night, and before she had even menstruated, she was raped.

Soldiers lined up night after night to abuse her. She has scars just below her neck from cigarette burns and says she suffers headaches from a beating she took at the hands of an officer.

"I still have blood tears in my soul when I think about what happened," she says, reaching for a Korean phrase that will express her memories. Like many of the women, she finds it traumatic to recall the past, crying and knotting a handkerchief, and swaying from side to side as she talks.

But she turns angry and slaps the table in front of her when former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is mentioned. "That horrible man," she spits. "He wants us to die."

Last year, Abe stunned the residents of Sharing House by claiming there is "no evidence" to prove the women were coerced "in the strict sense of the term," reversing an official position stated in 1993.

Amid a growing political storm and pressure from Japan's U.S. allies in Washington, Abe subsequently backtracked in a series of carefully worded statements that took the heat out of the controversy.

But the denial "terrified" Kang. "I felt that my heart had been turned inside out."

"The women's greatest fear is that when they die, the crimes against them will be forgotten," says Ahn Sin Kweon, director of Sharing House. "After they pass away it will be difficult to keep their memory alive because they won't be here to describe it themselves."

Thousands of women across Asia like Kang — some as young as 12 — were "enslaved and repeatedly raped, tortured and brutalized for months and years" by the Japanese military, according to Amnesty International.

Sexual abuse, beatings and sometimes forced abortions left many unable to bear children. Some were raped 30 times a day. Most survivors stayed silent until a small group of Korean victims began to speak out in the early 1990s.

Among the first was Kim Hak Soon, who was raped and treated, in her words, "like a public toilet" by the soldiers. "We must record these things that were forced upon us," Kim said before she died.

The call was eventually taken up by about 50 women, recalls Ahn. "Many weren't married or were living alone in small towns, barely able to scrape a living."

A Buddhist organization helped construct Sharing House on donated land in the 1990s and some survivors began coming, first out of curiosity, then for companionship.

"They were initially reluctant to stay because the more they were out in the spotlight, the more people knew that they were raped." Ahn says. "It is very difficult for women of that generation to discuss sexual matters openly, let alone these experiences."

Japan officially acknowledged wartime military slavery in a landmark 1993 statement by then Chief Cabinet Secretary Yohei Kono, an admission followed by the offer of redress from a small private fund, which expired last year.

But the so-called Kono statement has long baited Japanese revisionists, who deny that the military was directly involved. "The women were legal prostitutes in brothels, earning money for their families," said revisionist academic Nobukatsu Fujioka. "Mr. Kono's statement was a mistake and should be reversed."

A new book by Tokyo Christian University professor Tsutomu Nishioka, "Behind the Comfort Women Controversy: How Lies Became Truth," claims the women's support campaign is driven by "political propaganda" and "not one of its accusations is true."

Although Abe is out, replaced by the less ideological Yasuo Fukuda, Kang and fellow victims fear it is only a matter of time before the denials return to haunt them, perhaps with the next prime minister.

The struggle defines the final years of their lives: If they win, they have salvaged some of the dignity snatched from them as teenagers; if they lose, they will in effect be branded prostitutes. Says Kang: "We must fight or we will be forgotten."

When health allows, Kang, 82, drags herself from the quiet seclusion of the Gyeonggi countryside to a weekly demonstration outside the Japanese Embassy in Seoul.

The former sex slaves have been going there since the early 1990s and marked their 800th consecutive rally in February. Their demands, including punishing the former soldiers who raped them, an apology from the Emperor and the building of a memorial in Japan are angrily hurled against the walls of the embassy, but are unlikely to ever be met.

The Wednesday protest, as it is known, has become ritualized, tinged with sadness as the already small group of survivors is decimated by illness and mortality. Of 15 former Sharing House residents, just seven remain, most in poor health.

But the women are heartened by small victories. Last year, the U.S. Congress passed Resolution 121, calling on Tokyo to "formally apologize and accept historical responsibility" for the sex-slave issue.

Kang was one of the women who traveled to Washington in 2005 to testify. The resolution, sponsored by Japanese-American politician Mike Honda was fought hard by Tokyo, which sent lobbyists and Diet lawmakers to squash it.

An editorial in Japan's largest newspaper, the Yomiuri Shimbun, said there was not "one shred of evidence to substantiate" the claim that the Japanese government had systemically coerced and recruited the women. Many believe that but for Abe's bungled denial, the resolution would not have passed.

Today, a large banner showing a beaming Honda is draped across the main courtyard of the commune. A copy of Resolution 121, signed by Honda and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, hangs in manager Ahn's office.

"The resolution was very important for us because our priority is to keep the memory of the women alive; to keep a record of their lives," he says, recalling Honda's reception when he visited last November.

"He was treated like a hero. Honda called the women 'sisters' and said it was a measure of their value that they'd come through all this suffering and emerged out the other side. He described Sharing House as a living museum."

Surprisingly, perhaps, Ahn reserves much of his anger for his own government. "(South) Korea should more actively support us. We are upset that it doesn't stand up against the Japanese government."

Like many, he believes Seoul bartered away any compensation claims when it signed a friendship treaty with Japan in 1965 in return for millions of dollars in soft loans and grants. "It is up to Japanese people to criticize their own government."

Every year, he says, about 5,000 Japanese make the pilgrimage to his office. Their encounter with the victims is sometimes wrenching and tearful. Some stay as volunteers to help at the center.

But Kang is deeply suspicious of visiting Japanese journalists. "They want to show us weak and dying," she cries, again slapping the table in anger. "Especially the camera crews. They follow the oldest, sickest women around and film them, hoping to show everyone back home that we will all be gone soon."

Kang recalls the day she was taken. "The soldiers had a list with my name on it. They put me in a truck. My nephew came out to look at them. He was just a baby. The soldiers kicked him and he died."

Memories like that make her strong, she says. "Future generations will call us prostitutes. Either (the Japanese government) saves face, or we save ours."

EDITORIAL :: Misguided use of space

Friday, May 16, 2008

The Diet is expected to enact soon a bill establishing a basic law on space. The bill, passed by the Lower House in a plenary session, represents a drastic departure from Japan's traditional "peaceful purposes only" space policy and could lead to extensive use of space for military purposes. Regrettably, the bill sailed through the Lower House Cabinet Committee after only a few hours of deliberations on the same day that the Liberal Democratic Party, Komeito and the Democratic Party of Japan submitted it to the committee.

In a 1969 plenary session, the Lower House unanimously adopted a resolution limiting Japan's development of space to peaceful purposes under "open, autonomous and democratic" principles. The same principles have helped Japan make contributions in scientific space research, including asteroid and moon explorations.

But the bill says development and use of space must contribute not only to improvement in people's lives and creation of a safe society but also to the security of Japan, although it says such development and use must be based on the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, other international agreements and the pacifist principle of the Constitution.

The bill also calls for proper control of information related to space development. Under the bill, it would be legally impossible to place offensive weapons in space. Still the bill carries the danger of the government using space for military purposes under the veil of secrecy, including deployment of early-warning satellites for missile defense. Serious consideration should be given to the possibility of such deployment intensifying tension in the region and inviting a preemptive attack.

The bill's inclination to favor the commercialization of space development and its call for establishing a space development strategy headquarters, coupled with the information control clause, could throttle free and nonmilitary scientific space research. Faithful to the pacifist principle of the Constitution, Japan should push for a revision of the Outer Space Treaty to promote demilitarization of space.

EDITORIAL: Chemical weapons

05/16/2008

The Imperial Japanese Army brought a myriad of chemical weapons into China during World War II and abandoned them there as the conflict drew to a close. These poison gas weapons were buried underground or dumped in rivers.

After the war, abandoned shells and bombs caused a number of accidents, killing and injuring many Chinese citizens. The Chemical Weapons Convention came into force in 1997, requiring Japan to retrieve and dispose of the the ordnance.

The consulting company Pacific Consultants International (PCI) and its group companies won the exclusive contract from the government to retrieve the weapons. But the group apparently resorted to fraudulent means to milk the contract.

The former PCI president and four others were arrested Tuesday on suspicion of fraud. They allegedly swindled some 140 million yen from the government by padding project-related bills.

If the allegations are true, it means they sponged off a national project to fix a problem that had been left over from Japan's wartime past.

The allegations concerning PCI must be investigated thoroughly. What is hard to fathom is why the Cabinet Office awarded such an important project to the company, without open bidding. The project had the potential to affect Japan's diplomatic relations with China if anything went wrong.

PCI's past record is far from reassuring. The company was once accused of falsifying receipts to misuse public funds for a development aid project awarded by the government. This scandal led the Japan International Cooperation Agency to suspend the firm from participating in bidding for its aid projects.

The Cabinet Office claims it had no other choice but to rely on PCI because only a few Japanese companies are able to provide construction consulting services for overseas work. But the explanation is by no means convincing.

Disposing of chemical weapons is certainly an unusual task. But the Cabinet Office obviously had other options. Its own employees could have tackled the task with the help of experts, for instance. Or it could have invited foreign companies around the world to take part in bidding for the contract.

There are clearly good reasons to believe that the Cabinet Office ignored PCI's blemished reputation and left the project entirely to the company because that was the easiest option.

The question now is how the government should proceed with the task of removing the chemical weapons in China. The project is already behind schedule. This scandal should not cause any further delay.

The fraud allegations prompted PCI to pull out of the project. The Cabinet Office opened the project to bidding to select a new contractor, but no company responded to the call.

The Cabinet Office now plans to take over from the scandal-tainted consultancy such tasks as disposal planning, equipment procurement and subcontracting. The government should bolster the manpower and resources of the sections in charge of the project to pick up the slack.

Japanese troops dumped an estimated 300,000 to 400,000 poison gas weapons in China at the end of the war. Under the original plan, all the poisonous shells and canisters were supposed to have been recovered and disposed of by last spring.

The government spent nearly 50 billion yen on this operation by the end of fiscal 2006, but only 40,000 shells had been retrieved. As a result, the deadline for completion of the work has been extended to 2012.

A further extension of the deadline would be a heavy blow to Japan's international credibility. If for nothing else, the project must be put back on track immediately to eliminate the risk of serious hazards to Chinese lives as quickly as possible.

--The Asahi Shimbun, May 15(IHT/Asahi: May 16,2008)

Atago duty officer likely to face charges of professional negligence

05/16/2008
THE ASAHI SHIMBUN

The Japan Coast Guard plans to seek charges of professional negligence resulting in death against the duty officer of a destroyer that rammed a fishing boat in February, sources said.

The Maritime Self-Defense Force destroyer Atago collided Feb. 19 with the Seitoku Maru off Boso Peninsula in Chiba Prefecture, leaving two fishermen lost at sea.

The 3rd Regional Coast Guard Headquarters, based in Yokohama, will send papers to prosecutors shortly on the lieutenant commander who was on watch during the incident.

The duty officer--the most senior officer in command at the time--is suspected of failing to instruct other crew members to keep watch on a fishing fleet that had been spotted earlier, according to the sources.

The 7,750-ton Aegis destroyer rammed the 7-ton fishing boat, which broke apart and sank. Part of the boat was retrieved, but the two men aboard, Haruo Kichisei, 58, and his son Tetsuhiro, 23, were never found.

The coast guard has so far been investigating on suspicion of professional negligence endangering sea traffic.

In a maritime accident, however, missing people can be declared dead after three months--May 19 for the two men. After they are declared dead, the coast guard may seek charges of negligence resulting in death in the case, the sources said.

The 3rd regional headquarters believes the Atago crew members were primarily responsible for preventing a collision.

When a vessel crosses in front of another ship, the law for preventing collisions at sea in principle requires the ship that sees the other on its starboard side to take evasive action.

Analysis of the Atago's navigation records showed the destroyer's bow hit the port side of the Seitoku Maru, which was to cross the Atago's course from right to left.

But Atago crew members testified it was not until a minute before the collision that the destroyer, aware of the danger, reversed at full speed in an attempt to avoid the collision.

The coast guard suspects the duty officer, who was Atago's torpedo officer, failed to give instructions for continued watch and to take evasive action until just before the collision, according to the sources.

The 3rd regional headquarters is also cautiously investigating whether the Seitoku Maru crew were negligent, the sources said.

Meanwhile, the Yokohama Marine Accident Investigators' Office is finishing up its investigation before formally seeking an inquiry into the Atago duty officer and other crew members, including Capt. Ken Funato, the Atago's skipper.

Funato was on a sleep break at the time of the collision, leaving the duty officer in command of the ship.(IHT/Asahi: May 16,2008)

Massive Guam project advances

By Teri Weaver, Stars and Stripes
Pacific edition, Friday, May 16, 2008

A year ago, as military planners looked to add thousands of U.S. troops onto Guam, two critical issues loomed — the island’s aging commercial port and its ability to provide enough workers to fuel the construction project.

Now, a change to an immigration law and a plan for upgrading the port signal progress for the monumental $10.3 billion project, according to retired Marine Maj. Gen. David Bice, the man charged with leading the buildup effort on Guam.

The new immigration law, signed by President Bush last week, allows employers on Guam to hire seasonal workers for the next five years without counting toward the nation’s 66,000 annual limit, Bice said Wednesday.

Guam’s port authority has drafted a plan for $195 million of improvements needed to handle the military’s construction needs — which during peak building could increase cargo loads by six times today’s shipments, according to Bice and Carlos Salas, the interim general manager for the port authority.

"We’re very confident they will be able to meet our requirements," Bice, the executive director of the Joint Guam Program Office, said during a telephone interview from the island Wednesday.

But Bice and local officials acknowledge many challenges remain for the buildup, which is expected to bring the total number of servicemembers, DOD workers and dependents from 14,000 to an estimated 40,000 by 2014.

Guam’s aging infrastructure needs massive overhauls, improvements the island cannot afford on its own. Environmental surveys have just begun for a new home for the Marine Corps’ Air Station Futenma on Okinawa, a key relocation needed to move 8,000 Marines from Okinawa to Guam.

Local officials remain concerned that, even two years after the buildup was announced, plans could change mid-stream. In testimony for the Senate’s Committee on Energy and Natural Resources this month, Guam Gov. Felix Camacho noted an aborted plan in 1993 that promised the relocation of U.S. forces from the Philippines to Guam.

"The potential for over-expenditure … is real, particularly since we have no control over the timing and cost of relocation," Camacho, a Republican, told the committee.

Guam’s legislative speaker, Judith Won Pat, a Democrat, has similar worries. She and other local officials say they don’t know how much of the $10.3 billion will go to facilities outside the fence line.

"It’s very difficult for us," she said during a phone interview this month. "We can handle the normal increase. Now we are all being forced to make this large development and investment in infrastructure, when for us it’s going to be very difficult to do."

The concerns are not new to Bice, and he, too, is advocating for federal money for the island to manage the growth that will increase its population by nearly 25 percent.

"The ability of Guam to sustain that impact is dramatic," Bice said, noting that the military increase compares to adding 2.5 million people to New York City almost overnight.

"No community could handle that growth," he said.

Yet, while construction and upgrade plan discussions feel urgent, the funding process remains a complicated, bureaucratic crawl.

For the past year, Bice has been working with a special task force aimed at getting infrastructure projects for Guam — such as improving utilities, roads, health care and housing — into federal agency budgets. Likewise, Guam officials have sent representatives to those same offices explaining their concerns, Won Pat said.

Bice said the task force is prioritizing dozens of those needs. The goal is to get them into the federal budget for 2010, which will be presented to Congress next spring. It’s unlikely, however, that any of those requests will be public until that time, Bice said.

That leaves many looking to the port as an indicator about how, or whether, Guam and the federal government will work together as the military moves in.

"If they need this port, it behooves them to help us up front," said Guam Sen. James V. Espaldon, chairman of the legislature’s Committee on Tourism, Maritime, Military, Veterans and Foreign Affairs. "If it’s that critical, it behooves them to help us start."

Bice says his office is doing that. The project office has sought help from the Department of Transportation’s Maritime Administration office, a specialty office that assists commercial ports and shipping companies with security, building projects and transportation planning.

It’s a step that Salas, of Guam’s port authority, endorses.

"I thought it was very positive," said Salas, who met with Bice on Tuesday. "Funding is the main issue. They are going to try to work within our ability."

As of this week, the port and MARAD are working toward an agreement that would allow the MARAD to oversee all aspects of Guam’s port improvements — budget, design, compliance and environmental impact, Salas said. MARAD would also help the port authority search for federal dollars; in return, the office gets to keep 3 percent of the take.

Salas said he also learned that much of the steel, concrete and other equipment needed for full-scale construction won’t be sailing into the port until 2013. It’s a relief, he said, because the improvements likely will take at least two years.

"That’s good news," Salas said. "I think we can handle that."


Port Authority of Guam

Annual budget: $30 million a year.
Current debt: None.
Income: Based on fees paid by shippers and private businesses.
Fee: Averages $235 per container, but varies according to quantity of each load.
Net income: Averages $1 million to $4 million a year, which goes toward equipment purchases.
Workers: 350.

Guam’s only commercial port brings in about 100,000 ship containers each year. As the military expands on the island, that number will grow to at least 200,000 containers a year, according to Carlos Salas, the interim general manager for the port authority. Retired Marine Maj. Gen. David Bice, in charge of executing the military’s buildup plans, says the port’s business could grow to six times its current rate during the height of construction.

The port is due for an upgrade in about a decade, Salas said. But the military buildup — which will require military contractors to haul in thousands of tons of construction equipment, steel, concrete and other materials — has pushed the upgrade schedule forward.

The port deals with three types of cargo: containers, cement and break-bulk cargo (the items that won’t fit inside a ship container). Guam is working with a private company to pay for the upgrades needed to improve loading and unloading cement cargo.

That leaves an estimated $195 million needed to pay for other improvements: two new cranes, rebuilding the wharf and extending it by 900 feet, adding larger apron areas and expanding the container storage yard. The budget also includes a new security system, Salas said. Environmental studies and construction would take at least two years, but probably longer, he said.

Hadnott faces rape charge in military court

Stars and Stripes
Pacific edition, Friday, May 16, 2008

CAMP FOSTER, Okinawa — The court-martial of the Marine accused of raping an Okinawa teenager in February is scheduled to start Friday on Camp Foster.

Staff Sgt. Tyrone L. Hadnott, 38, has been charged with rape and abusive sexual contact of a child under 16, adultery, kidnapping through luring and making a false official statement, according to a Marine release.

Hadnott has been in the Camp Hansen brig since his release from Japanese custody Feb. 28. Japanese prosecutors chose not to indict him after the 14-year-old girl withdrew her criminal complaint, citing a desire for privacy.

According to Okinawa police, Hadnott met the girl at an Okinawa City ice cream shop Feb. 10 and drove her to his off-base home, where he attempted to molest her.

She got away, but he persuaded her to get into his van with the promise that he would drive her home, Okinawa police said. Instead, Hadnott took her to a park in Chatan where he raped her, Okinawa police said.

Police said Hadnott admitted to kissing and fondling the girl but denied raping her.

The alleged rape led to protests outside the gates of Marine bases on Okinawa. Following the accusation, all status of forces agreement personnel on Okinawa and on Marine bases in mainland Japan were restricted to military installations or off-base residences for two weeks. Servicemembers on Okinawa are still under a midnight-to-5 a.m. curfew.

Hadnott waived his right to an Article 32 investigative hearing, according to the release.

If convicted in the military court, Hadnott could be sentenced to life without possibility of parole. The maximum sentence he could have faced in a Japanese court was 15 years.

Foster MP cleared of molestation charges

By Cindy Fisher, Stars and Stripes
Pacific edition, Friday, May 16, 2008

CAMP FOSTER, Okinawa — Tears flowed for a Camp Foster staff sergeant and his wife when a jury announced Wednesday evening that he was not guilty of all charges associated with an allegation that he molested his teenage sister-in-law.

The wife had testified earlier Wednesday, the second day of the trial, that she didn’t believe her sister’s story that the staff sergeant had sex with the teen in the couple’s Camp Foster home Oct. 8, 2006, when the girl was 15.

The staff sergeant, a military policeman, had been charged with carnal knowledge, sodomy and indecent acts with a child under 16 and possessing child pornography.

"She’s lied since she was a little girl," the wife said of her sister. "There was no reason to believe her after she’s made up so many stories."

Both are the adopted daughters of a Department of Defense employee on Okinawa. In November 2006, slightly more than a month after the alleged incident was reported to the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, the teen moved to Florida to live with biological relatives.

In accordance with Stars and Stripes policy, the teenager, staff sergeant and family are not being named in order to protect the teen’s identity.

During closing remarks, prosecutor Capt. Paul Ervasti told the jury that "a lot of blows have been directed at" the alleged victim and this experience has changed her life for the worse.

"It’s time someone hold him accountable for what he did," Ervasti said.

"The nucleus of this case depends on her truthfulness and credibility," argued defense counsel Michael Waddington. "Who knows what her psychological problems are, but she can’t be believed."

Waddington also cast doubt on the testimony of the forensic experts and NCIS agents who testified, saying they only looked for evidence to support the government’s case and ignored any evidence that would exonerate his client.

"It’s rotten to the core and they cannot prove their case beyond a reasonable doubt," he said.

The jury reached its decision after less than three hours of deliberation.

U.S. forces to swiftly identify deserters for Japanese police arrest

May 15 06:18 AM US/Eastern

TOKYO, May 15 (AP) - (Kyodo) — Japan and the United States officially agreed Thursday to have the U.S. military provide information on its deserters immediately after desertions occur and enable Japanese police forces to make arrests, Japanese Vice Foreign Minister Itsunori Onodera said.

The U.S. military will also shorten the time needed to determine whether missing soldiers deserted or simply went missing, as part of the agreement by the Japan-U.S. Joint Committee in light of the arrest and indictment of a U.S. Navy deserter for allegedly robbing and killing a Japanese taxi driver in March.

A request to Japan's prefectural police forces for arrest will be made immediately after the U.S. military identifies a deserter. The U.S. side will provide as much information as possible, including the name, birth date, nationality, rank and photo of the personnel concerned, the Foreign Ministry said.

Under the U.S. forces' rules until now on the definition of deserters, a soldier would be automatically considered a deserter 30 days after going missing, and in cases less than 30 days, the U.S. authorities would determine whether he deserted or went missing.

But in order to prevent the recurrence of crimes such as the March robbery-murder, Onodera said the U.S. military will shorten the time required and designate a missing soldier as a deserter if his or her whereabouts is not confirmed within one to two days.

The Japan-U.S. Status-of-Forces Agreement does not require the U.S. side to inform Japan of any deserters or missing troops, but Onodera said Thursday's agreement was made as part of improved implementation of the accord, which governs the operations of U.S. forces in Japan.

Yokosuka, where the March murder occurred, and other local authorities hosting U.S. military facilities have called for establishing the system.

The Japanese and U.S. governments have also agreed on new arrangements for the U.S. forces to reveal information on personnel and families living off base, in light of a rape case in Okinawa in February.

City assembly panel rejects referendum plan on U.S. carrier

May 15 06:07 AM US/Eastern

YOKOSUKA, Japan, May 15 (AP) - (Kyodo) — A committee of the Yokosuka municipal assembly on Thursday voted down a proposed ordinance for holding a referendum on the deployment, slated for August, of a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier at the U.S. Navy base in the city, saying that the result of any referendum, even if it were implemented, would not be legally binding.

Nine of the 11-member panel voted against holding the referendum, saying that the city should accommodate the carrier George Washington so long as the state maintains a security pact with the United States. Two voted for holding the referendum.

The city assembly is expected to take a vote on the proposal at a plenary meeting scheduled for Friday, but with a majority of assembly members having already expressed their opposition, the proposal will likely be turned down.

Ahead of the committee meeting, the leader of a civic group that asked the city to hold the referendum, lawyer Masahiko Goto, said, "Conducting the referendum does not contradict efforts of the city and the city assembly at ensuring the safety of citizens and there are no reasons for the city assembly to oppose it."

Goto, along with four other people, expressed their views on the proposed referendum at the plenary assembly ahead of the committee meeting.

Prosecution of 2 MSDF officers to be sought over destroyer collision

May 15 04:34 AM US/Eastern

YOKOHAMA, May 15 (AP) - (Kyodo) — The Japan Coast Guard will seek to prosecute two night-duty officers of the Aegis destroyer Atago over a collision with a fishing boat in February in waters off Tokyo Bay in February that resulted in the loss of two fishermen, investigative sources said Thursday.

The coast guard plans to establish a case against the two Maritime Self-Defense Force officers on suspicion of endangering traffic through professional negligence and to file an investigative report on them with prosecutors, possibly in June, the sources said.

One of the two is a 34-year-old lieutenant commander who was the destroyer's chief torpedo officer and served as the chief night-duty officer at the time of the collision between the 7,750-ton Atago, which is equipped with the sophisticated Aegis air defense system, and the 7.3-ton fishing boat Seitoku Maru.

The other is a 35-year-old lieutenant commander who was the destroyer's chief navigator and served as the chief night-duty officer until shortly before the collision.

Coast guard investigators suspect the two officers were negligent in maintaining proper surveillance of a fleet of fishing vessels ahead of the destroyer's course, improperly handed over the night-duty command, and failed to avoid a collision with the Seitoku Maru, the sources said.

Under the Penal Code, those who through professional negligence endanger the passage of a train or vessel, or cause a train to derail or crash, or a boat to capsize or sink, shall be punished by imprisonment of up to three years or a fine of up to 500,000 yen.

The coast guard is also considering filing allegations of professional negligence resulting in death against the two officers, the sources said.

The two fishermen -- a father and son -- remain officially missing, but under Japanese law cannot be declared dead by the coast guard until three months after the collision.

Investigations so far have shown that all the night-duty officers on the destroyer's bridge were changed 10 minutes before the collision at around 4 a.m. on Feb. 19.

When he handed over the night-duty command to the former chief torpedo officer, the former chief navigator downplayed the possibility of a collision with the fishing fleet by saying the vessels would pass behind the Atago.

The Atago had an obligation to avoid a collision under the sea disaster prevention law. It conducted a reenactment of the collision near the site in April.

Meanwhile, the two former chief night-duty officers are also expected to face a marine accident inquiry. Maritime accident investigators, who are equivalent to prosecutors in a criminal trial, are also expected to designate the then captain of the destroyer and the MSDF's 3rd escort flotilla to which the destroyer belongs as defendants in the inquiry.

A maritime accident inquiry is an administrative procedure that is intended to discover the cause of a sea collision in order to prevent recurrences.

U.S. Marine in Okinawa gets suspended prison term for dollar forgery

May 15 04:14 AM US/Eastern

(AP) - NAHA, Okinawa, May 15 (Kyodo) — The Naha District Court on Thursday sentenced a U.S. Marine stationed in Okinawa to three years in prison, suspended for four years, for forging 42 $20 bills and making purchases with them outside U.S. military facilities.

"The defendant committed a premeditated act carried out with significant cunning but there is the mitigating fact of the recent birth of his baby that needs to be taken into consideration," Presiding Judge Hiroyuki Yoshii said, explaining the reason for suspending the sentence.

According to the court, Pfc. Philip Scott, 20, who is assigned to the Makiminato Service Area of the U.S. Marine Corps in Urasoe in Japan's southernmost prefecture, produced the bills with a color printer at his barracks and used them to pay taxi fares and restaurant food in November last year.

Public prosecutors had demanded three years in prison.

Guam peace group erects cenotaph for war dead

Thursday, May 15, 2008
Kyodo News

A pacifist organization of Japanese nationals living on Guam has erected a cenotaph to commemorate the deaths of tens of thousands of people there during World War II.

Photo: In memoriam: A cenotaph dedicated to those who died in the battle of Guam is erected in Agat in April.

The group, Peace Ring of Guam, is planning a ceremony Sunday to unveil the memorial on the coast in the village of Agat, the scene of some of the bloodiest fighting.

Japan occupied Guam in late 1941. U.S. forces landed in July 1944 to retake the island. The fighting saw some 20,000 people from both sides lose their lives, including about 700 indigenous Chamorros.

The cenotaph, 1.7 meters high and 2.4 meters wide, is made of dark brown marble. It is engraved with the kanji for "wa," meaning peace, rendered by the late Shoichi Yokoi, a Japanese soldier who hid in the jungle on Guam until 1972 without knowing the war was over.

It also bears the message "Peace is everything" in the Chamorro language.

"We want many people to visit the cenotaph and share the historical pain involving not only the Japanese and Americans but also Chamorros," said Kensuke Haga, vice president of the organization.

Australia fretted Japan would get nukes in '60s

Thursday, May 15, 2008

WASHINGTON (Kyodo) Australia was wary that Japan might arm itself with nuclear weapons after the United States agreed in the late 1960s to return Okinawa to Japan, according to a recently declassified U.S. government document.

The document, dated Dec. 5, 1969, was crafted by the U.S. Embassy in Canberra to report on Australia's reaction to the agreement reached on Nov. 21 that year between Prime Minister Eisaku Sato and President Richard Nixon on Okinawa's reversion.

"Informal but serious comments made in private by responsible members of Australia's establishment indicate that mistrust and fear of a resurgent Japan are widely shared," the document said.

Australia fought against Japan during World War II as a member of the Allied Forces led by the United States and Britain, with Darwin in its north suffering air raids by the Imperial Japanese Army and many Australian prisoners of war dying in POW camps.

While noting Australian press reaction to the Japan-U.S. deal was "temperate," the document said "it betrayed the continued existence in Australia of an underlying anxiety about revived Japanese power in the Pacific."

It said the Courier-Mail newspaper of Brisbane made "the most gratifying comment" that Tokyo and Washington reached an agreement "which should satisfy both the U.S. and Japan, and not give America's allies, including Australia, grounds for fear."

But it said the paper's opinion "was not shared by others."

The document quoted the Age newspaper as observing that "Japan can no longer maintain a "low posture" after Okinawa's reversion. It also quoted the paper as predicting that the U.S. nuclear umbrella for Japan "is temporary, and before long a new Japan will emerge from beneath it."

EDITORIAL :: Contradictory road-tax law

Thursday, May 15, 2008

Resorting to a two-thirds majority in the Lower House on Tuesday, the ruling bloc enacted by revote a bill to use revenue from gasoline and liquefied petroleum gas taxes for road-related projects for 10 years from fiscal 2008. The action was taken after the opposition-controlled Upper House had voted it down. Under the bill, the infrastructure minister will work out a 10-year road construction plan.

Before the revote, the Cabinet had endorsed a policy of ending the exclusive allocation of revenue from road-related taxes to road-related projects and thus freeing it up for general-purpose use from fiscal 2009 — Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda's proposal.

Enactment of the bill was a contradictory move on the part of the ruling parties and Mr. Fukuda. Their failure to submit a bill consistent with Mr. Fukuda's proposal points to his weak political leadership. A new bill needs to be enacted to remove the contradiction. At any rate, a row with the opposition forces over the road-related taxes appears over since the Democratic Party of Japan opted not to pass a censure motion against Mr. Fukuda in the Upper House. Now the ruling and opposition forces face the task of keeping the Cabinet-endorsed policy alive and starting discussions on how best to use the freed-up tax revenue.

Some roads are essential to people's daily lives. Serious efforts must be made to avoid using freed-up tax revenue for wasteful road construction projects not based on a strict assessment of future traffic volumes, and to let local governments make autonomous decisions on construction of truly necessary roads. Mr. Fukuda must resolve to control the behavior of "road-tribe" lawmakers in forming the fiscal 2009 budget.

Through Diet deliberations the DPJ plans to intensify attacks on Mr. Fukuda, whose approval rate has dropped to around 20 percent. If so, the No. 1 opposition party should present a policy proposal on the use of freed-up tax revenue that is a true alternative to the ruling bloc's policy in such fields as social welfare, education and environmental protection.

PCI considers liquidation after latest arrests

05/15/2008
THE ASAHI SHIMBUN

Pacific Consultants International, a company that won a diplomatically sensitive but lucrative project in China, said it would suspend operations after its former president was rearrested on suspicion of defrauding the government.

The company, based in Tama, western Tokyo, is considering liquidating itself, sources said.

Former PCI chief Masayoshi Taga, 62, was arrested Tuesday on suspicion of defrauding the Cabinet Office of about 141 million yen by overcharging for personnel costs in a project to dispose of Japanese chemical weapons abandoned in China at the end of World War II.

Four others, including two former PCI managers, were also arrested in the fraud case.

Taga was initially arrested April 23 on suspicion of aggravated breach of trust in connection with the project in China, causing a loss of about 120 million yen to the company.

PCI and its group companies won orders worth about 30 billion yen from the Cabinet Office between fiscal 1999 and fiscal 2006 for the weapons disposal project.

The amount accounted for about two-thirds of the Cabinet Office's budget to get rid of the thousands of chemical weapons.

According to the investigation, PCI asked the Cabinet Office to pay personnel expenses for its engineers involved in a fiscal 2004 portion of the project. However, the company actually used engineers from subcontractors, whose wage levels were lower than PCI's.

PCI has long been implicated in shady business practices, but it continued to win contracts.

"We had heard nothing good (about PCI), but we had no other choice because there are few companies that can provide consultation services for overseas construction projects," said a Cabinet Office official who was once in charge of the projects.

In 2006, the Board of Audit said PCI overcharged the Japan International Cooperation Agency 140 million yen for official development assistance projects by padding costs and making fictitious contracts.

The four others arrested on Tuesday were: Tsutomu Kurihara, 56; Nobuo Kuga, 56; Hiroyuki Endo, 68; and Taku Maeda, 50.

Kurihara and Kuga were PCI managers at the time. Endo is a former president of Abandoned Chemical Weapons Disposal Corp., a wholly owned subsidiary of PCI's holding company. Maeda is a former director at the subsidiary.

Of the four arrested in April on suspicion of aggravated breach of trust, former PCI Presidents Tamio Araki, 71, and Shota Morita, 66, were indicted Tuesday.

Taga and another former executive were not charged on grounds that they played only subordinate roles.(IHT/Asahi: May 15,2008)

Japan to dispatch team to Sudan to study possible SDF peacekeeping mission

05/15/2008
THE ASAHI SHIMBUN

Despite safety concerns, Japan plans to show it is actively engaged in addressing African problems by dispatching an investigative team to Sudan for a possible Self-Defense Forces' peacekeeping mission, sources said Thursday.

The team will be sent as early as June to determine if the situation in southern Sudan meets the five principles allowing for SDF involvement in the U.N. operations, including consent of the African country.

The plan was agreed upon Tuesday in a meeting between Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka Machimura, Foreign Minister Masahiko Komura and Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba. They decided that the security situation in southern Sudan, where the United Nations PKO activities are to be conducted, has become relatively stable since the civil war ended in 2005 after more than 20 years of fighting, the sources said.

The Foreign Ministry has been pushing for the dispatch of SDF members for peacekeeping operations in Sudan, but the Defense Ministry had been cautious because of safety concerns.

However, African issues will likely be at the top of the agenda when the Group of Eight summit is held at Lake Toyako, Hokkaido, in July. Japan, as host of the summit, wants to show a positive attitude toward peace-building in Sudan. Under these circumstances, the Defense Ministry accepted the plan to dispatch the investigative team.

Although the SDF members would not operate in the Darfur region in western Sudan, where the situation remains unstable, security concerns remain among some government officials.

"It would be difficult to send (SDF) troops to Africa," a senior government official said.

According to government sources, the investigative team will consist of about 20 members from the Foreign Ministry, the Defense Ministry, the Ground SDF and the Cabinet Office's Secretariat of the International Peace Cooperation Headquarters.

In early June, they will visit the head office of the United Nations Mission in Sudan in the capital of Khartoum, as well as its branch office in Juba, a major city in the southern part of the country.

They will also discuss the situation with troops sent by other countries.

In Sudan in 1983, the Arab-led government tried to introduce Islamic laws for the entire country, igniting a civil war involving Christians in the south.

The war continued until January 2005, when a peace accord was reached. (IHT/Asahi: May 15,2008)

EDITORIAL: Topsy-turvy politics

05/15/2008

The Lower House on Tuesday approved, in a second round of voting, a bill to limit the use of road-specific tax revenues to road construction for 10 more years. This controversial bill was another that cleared the Lower House due to the governing coalition's two-thirds majority.

Lately, many upside-down political situations have come to pass that in the past would have been unthinkable.

First, the Maritime Self-Defense Force's refueling mission in the Indian Ocean was called off. Then it was resumed. Next, gasoline prices fell, only to surge again.

Although one could say this is the price the country has to pay for being a democracy, the shoddy state of today's politics must appall many voters.

The main reason for such topsy-turvy situations is this: The ruling Liberal Democratic Party won the Lower House election by a landslide two years and eight months ago. Then, 10 months ago, the opposition Minshuto (Democratic Party of Japan) took the most seats in the Upper House. Neither party is willing to acknowledge the other's "victory," and their obstinacy is the main reason the nation's political engine keeps stalling.

A decisive playoff vote is ultimately the only way to end this deadlock, and Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda ought to dissolve the Lower House as soon as possible and call an election.

But the prime minister is unlikely to do that for some time. His Cabinet's voter approval rating has slumped to around 20 percent, while Minshuto supporters now outnumber LDP supporters in surveys.

Ironically, the more the Cabinet approval rating slides, the louder calls grow within the ruling coalition to delay the Lower House election--this from members who don't want to risk losing their seats. So the Fukuda administration keeps getting a reprieve. If the showdown continues to be postponed, what will happen this fall?

・Assuming the road-specific tax revenues are actually pooled into the general revenues account next fiscal year, what should that money be spent on? The road lobby is hardly likely to give up its vested interests. The prime minister has been offering to negotiate policy with Minshuto, but the latter will never agree to that.

・To increase the government share of basic pension costs to 50 percent from the present one-third, the government will have to decide this autumn whether to raise the consumption tax. Minshuto will likely dig in its heels on the issue.

・The anti-terrorism special measures law expires next January. If this law is to be extended, a bill to that effect must be approved.

Having a two-thirds majority in the more powerful Lower House, the ruling coalition could force its bills through and get its way on each of these issues.

But each time it does that, it will prolong the chaos the country has experienced since the opposition camp became the majority force in the Upper House last year.

The people's disenchantment with this sort of political stalemate will only deepen.

Of course, even if the Lower House is dissolved and a snap election called, the power balance in the Diet won't change if the ruling coalition wins again. The coalition will likely lose its two-thirds majority.

However, the national political outlook will be refreshed to reflect the new will of the people.

And moves toward policy concessions, political reorganization or a new coalition can all be dealt with later.

We suspect the prime minister hopes the Group of Eight summit this summer, or perhaps a Cabinet reshuffle, will change his dismal situation. But without an election showdown, the nation's political engine will just keep stalling.

Both the ruling and opposition parties ought to be reshaping their manifestoes now in anticipation of the next Lower House election.

And the first thing the prime minister should do is explain exactly how he intends to spend those freed-up road-specific tax revenues.

The ruling and opposition parties alike must find the courage to show the public exactly where they stand on important matters such as health care for the elderly, the pension system and whether they plan to raise the consumption tax rate.

--The Asahi Shimbun, May 14(IHT/Asahi: May 15,2008)

POLITICAL PULSE / Hiranuma typhoon on horizon? / Ex-LDP 'postal rebel' considering creation of a new party

Koichi Akaza

With public approval ratings for the Fukuda Cabinet plummeting, speculation that the House of Representatives will be dissolved for a snap general election is growing more remote.

Against such a background, moves toward political realignment are becoming stronger. The most noticeable example is that of former Economy, Trade and Industry Minister Takeo Hiranuma, a lower house member who does not belong to any political party.

Appearing on a TV talk show Sunday, Hiranuma expressed his intention to study a plan to form a new party, saying: "It's necessary to send to the Nagatacho political arena politicians with firm political beliefs who would not be influenced by short-term benefits. I'm not against establishing a new party if we can come together as one force before a general election."

Hiranuma, who once sought a return to the Liberal Democratic Party, has changed course because he feels a political distance from Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda, observers said.

When Hiranuma belonged to the LDP in 2005, he opposed privatization of postal services pushed by then Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, becoming one of the rebels against postal reform within the ruling party. He failed to obtain an LDP ticket for the general election held that autumn after Koizumi dissolved the lower house to seek a public mandate on postal privatization, but was elected as an independent candidate. Afterward, Hiranuma was forced to leave the LDP together with others who rebelled on the postal privatization issue.

Hiranuma maneuvered to return to the LDP in late December 2006 following Shinzo Abe becoming prime minister in September that year. Conservative and hawkish Abe, who is closer to Hiranuma than Koizumi in terms of political philosophy and beliefs, is a longtime political ally of Hiranuma. Therefore, Hiranuma might have judged that he could be welcomed back to the LDP warmly as long as Abe took the helm of the LDP and led the government.

That scenario did not play out, and Hiranuma did not return to the LDP. He refused to sign a pledge not to oppose postal privatization that would have permitted him to return to the LDP. The pledge conditions, which included a provision that would have forced him to resign his Diet seat if he was found to be in violation of the agreement, were set by then LDP Secretary General Hidenao Nakagawa.

Others who initially opposed postal privatization signed the pledge and returned to the ruling party.

The LDP suffered a major setback in the House of Councillors election last summer that resulted in the collapse of the Abe administration in September and the establishment of the Fukuda administration. Since then, the issue of Hiranuma's possible return to the LDP has not been heard in the Nagatacho political nerve center. This is partly because Hiranuma suffered a stroke immediately after the commotion over his bid to return to the LDP and was recuperating. But Nagatacho watchers point out that Hiranuma's desire to return to the LDP has weakend because of the difference in the political stances of Fukuda, who is more liberal and pro-China, and Hiranuma, who calls for a hard-line approach toward China.

Hiranuma, however, has been maintaining a close relationship with Abe and the LDP's other conservative elements. These include Taro Aso, who is one of the leading candidates to replace Fukuda as LDP president and prime minister. Thus, Hiranuma is considered a conservative advocate outside of the LDP and remained a lawmaker with no party affiliation.

Recently, Hiranuma has been active. He met with Democratic Party of Japan President Ichiro Ozawa on April 28, followed by a meeting two days later with LDP Secretary General Bunmei Ibuki. The meeting with Ozawa was seen as a surprise because Hiranuma had had few personal contacts with Ozawa. Many observers believed that Hiranuma would not approach a DPJ so strongly tainted with liberal colors.

Moreover, Hiranuma conferred with Tamisuke Watanuki, head of the People's New Party, and Muneo Suzuki, chief of New Party Daichi, last Thursday and agreed to establish a study group named "Yajin no Kai" (Group of Mavericks).

Hiranuma's moves are getting attention because political prospects remain chaotic and uncertain given a divided Diet where the ruling coalition parties control the lower house and the DPJ-led opposition camp dominates the upper house.

The next general election, to be held, at the latest, in September next year when the term of the lower house members expires, is regarded as a crucial election to choose between the LDP and the DPJ as a governing party. However, if either party fails to gain a majority in the election, it is possible that a third party will hold a deciding vote. If a new party led by Hiranuma gains enough seats, it will be able to become a third force.

Former Kochi Gov. Daijiro Hashimoto, who expressed his intention to run in the next general election, is said to have a keen interest in a new, powerful party.

Hiranuma is shifting to a plan to form a new party partly out of consideration for the postal rebels who lost seats in the 2005 election. He has kept up financial assistance to them and has attended their speeches. In order for his potential party to win seats in the next election, Hiranuma considers it advantageous to stir a supportive wind for them by creating a new party.

Hiranuma, his voice still feeble, has yet to completely recover from his stroke. That being the case, he is daring to risk his political life, observers said.

Can a Hiranuma-led new party become a reality? If so, can it play a central role in an expected political power game?

At any rate, his moves have further muddled already uncertain prospects for a future political course.

Akaza is political news editor of The Yomiuri Shimbun.
(May. 15, 2008)

Japan urged end death penalty, aid "comfort women

Wed May 14, 2008 2:38pm EDT
By Robert Evans

GENEVA (Reuters) - Japan was urged by friends and critics in the United Nations Human Rights Council on Wednesday to abolish the death penalty and take concrete steps to settle the long-standing issue of wartime "comfort women".

In a review of the Asian power's rights performance, it was also accused of mistreating minorities and failing to give equal treatment to women and urged to improve its handling of immigration and to set up a national human rights body.

In response, Japan said it could not drop the death penalty because public opinion favored it for "extremely vicious crimes", while it had expressed apologies and remorse over "comfort women" and was "in good faith" on the issue.

It was also working to improve its legislation on gender equality and the treatment of foreign migrants and workers.

The calls for ending, or at least suspending, capital punishment came from Britain, France, Portugal and Luxembourg and a range of other European and Latin American countries which maintain close relations with Tokyo.

Portugal told the 53-member Council that use of capital punishment in Japan was growing, saying in 2007 46 people had been sentenced to death, the most since 1980. Luxembourg said there had been 20 hangings since the end of 2006.

The Japanese delegation said the government had no figures on executions or death sentences and could not confirm those cited by the European Union states, which have all long ago abandoned capital punishment.

Appeals on the "comfort women" -- the estimated more than 200,000 in east Asian countries forced to work as sex slaves for Japanese soldiers in World War Two -- came from South Korea, France and the Netherlands, among others.

But North Korea said the wartime practice -- widespread mainly on the Korean peninsula and in China -- was a "crime against humanity" and declared that Japan should bring the perpetrators to justice and compensate the victims.

In a less accusatory tone, South Korea called on Japan to "respond sincerely" to calls from U.N. human rights bodies over recent years to address the sex slave issue more comprehensively.

Last year both the U.S. Congress and the Canadian parliament passed resolutions calling for a formal Japanese apology over the issue, a move criticized by Japan as not helpful to relations with its North American allies.

Japan acknowledged in 1993 there had been a state role in forcing Korean and Chinese women into military brothels and in 1995 set up a fund to provide compensation to survivors.

But many refuse to accept the money, saying the compensation should come directly from the Japanese government in recognition of its responsibility. Nationalist groups in Japan say there were no sex slaves and that the women were prostitutes.

(Editing by Janet Lawrence)

Public money earned via fraud used to bribe foreign officials: ex-PCI head

May 14 01:10 PM US/Eastern

(AP) - TOKYO, May 15 (Kyodo) — A former president of a consulting firm at the center of a high-profile fraud case has told prosecutors that he used part of illegally earned public money to bribe foreign public servants to help the company obtain orders for official development assistance projects, investigative sources said Wednesday.

In questioning by the Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office, Masayoshi Taga, 62, a former president of Pacific Consultants International, admitted he used the money to bribe high-ranking Southeast Asian government officials as a way of expediting PCI's lobbying for Japanese ODA projects, the sources said.

Taga was served a fresh arrest warrant Tuesday on suspicion of swindling the Japanese government out of 140 million yen by overcharging for a fiscal 2004 government-awarded project aimed at disposing of chemical weapons abandoned by the former Imperial Japanese Army in China at the end of World War II. He was also arrested in April on suspicion of aggravated breach of trust in connection with the project.

According to Taga, who was then the PCI board director in charge of weapons disposal business, he was instructed by his then superior, former PCI President Shota Morita, 66, to use part of the illegal money to bribe foreign public servants to smooth PCI's ODA business, said the investigative sources.

Taga told the prosecutors that he used the money as told by Morita, the sources said. Morita was earlier indicted over the alleged breach of trust in connection with the weapons disposal project.

A former senior PCI official earlier told the prosecutors that the consulting company remitted several hundred million yen to a Hong Kong company affiliated with a former PCI board director in 2004 or later, according to the sources.

Nominally, the money was allocated as "field research" expenses but was handed to high-ranking Southeast Asian government officials via local agents as a way of expediting PCI's lobbying for Japanese ODA projects, the sources said.

The former senior official and others had worked out the bribing scheme by October 2003. Under the scheme, they decided to use money from the next year to smooth PCI's ODA business. PCI is one of Japan's leading consulting firms in ODA-related projects.

Bribing foreign public servants is prohibited under the law to prevent unfair competition.

PCI, which is based in Tama in the western suburbs of Tokyo, received 1.75 billion yen for the weapons disposal project in China in fiscal 2004 from the Cabinet Office. The project began in accordance with an agreement reached between Japan and China in July 1999, whereby Japan would provide money, technology and facilities to dispose of the weapons.

Defense Ministry gives 16 mil. yen to fisheries cooperatives over Atago search

May 14 12:57 PM US/Eastern

(AP) - TOKYO, May 15 (Kyodo) — The Defense Ministry has given 16 million yen to five fisheries cooperatives as a token of its gratitude for their help in searching for two fishermen who went missing in a collision in February between their fishing vessel and a destroyer in the Pacific off the coast of Chiba Prefecture, sources familiar with the matter said Wednesday.

The 7,750-ton Atago, an Aegis destroyer of the Maritime Self-Defense Force, collided with the 7.3-ton Seitoku Maru, on Feb. 19, leaving the fishing vessel's two crew members -- Haruo Kichisei, 58, and his 23- year-old son Tetsuhiro -- missing, presumed dead.

The five fisheries cooperatives, including one which Seitoku Maru belongs to, mobilized a total of about 200 vessels to search for the two fishermen, the sources said.

Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba earlier told the Diet that the ministry was looking for a way to "show sincerity" to those who had to temporarily suspend fishing operations in order to participate in the search.

Investigations into the collision are still under way. Last month, the Japan Coast Guard conducted the reenactment of the collision.

The coast guard is eyeing sending papers on a 34-year-old MSDF lieutenant commander to prosecutors possibly this month on suspicion of professional negligence causing danger to sea traffic. The officer headed the crew on duty when the accident occurred.

Gov't, ruling parties not to seek extension of Diet session

May 14 11:23 AM US/Eastern

TOKYO, May 15 (AP) - (Kyodo) — The government and ruling coalition parties have decided not to seek an extension of the ongoing regular Diet session and will end it on June 15, sources close to the matter said Wednesday.

The decision comes after parliament passed a bill Tuesday to maintain certain tax revenues earmarked for road building for 10 years from the current fiscal year through a revote by the ruling coalition of the Liberal Democratic Party and the New Komeito party in the House of Representatives.

The government and the ruling parties believe the prospect has emerged that the major remaining bills will pass the Diet as the main opposition Democratic Party of Japan has indicated it will not submit a censure motion against Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda for the time being and will participate in deliberations and voting on other bills.

In a meeting on Wednesday by members including LDP Diet Affairs Committee Chairman Tadamori Oshima, LDP Secretary General Bunmei Ibuki and Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka Machimura, Oshima explained that it is not necessary to extend the Diet session and the others did not oppose this, the sources said.

Some members of the ruling coalition had sought to extend the session by about 10 days, assuming that a censure motion against the prime minister would be submitted in the opposition-controlled House of Councillors.

But instead of immediately submitting the motion, the DPJ has decided to step up its attacks in parliament over issues of public concern such as pensions and the new health insurance system for the elderly.

Many members of the ruling parties are also likely to have judged it better to end the Diet session early to reduce the possibility of a "contingency situation" such as the dissolution of the lower house and a general election.

7,000 Japanese sue over Atsugi jet noise

By Hana Kusumoto and Teri Weaver, Stars and Stripes
Pacific edition, Thursday, May 15, 2008

Neighbors seek $53 million in damages plus 12-hour overnight ban on military flights

A civil lawsuit hearing of more than 7,000 residents living near Naval Air Facility Atsugi seeking compensation from jet noise damages began Monday at Yokohama District Court, according to the plaintiffs.

Four residents gave statements in court Monday saying the "Japanese government hasn�t done anything when the noise is at the illegal level," and that "one won�t know how it is on the illegal level until one actually lives there," according to the secretary general of the plaintiffs� group, Hideaki Saito.

The suit, the fourth of its kind by Atsugi area residents, seeks approximately 5.3 billion yen (about $53 million) in damages allegedly incurred over the past three years. The amount has increased since they filed the suit in December because the number of plaintiffs has increased by about 900, the plaintiffs said. Residents also want a ban on military flights between 8 p.m. and 8 a.m. and are demanding no flights of aircraft with engine noise exceeding 70 decibels at any time.

Officials at South Kanto Defense Bureau, a local branch of the defense ministry that deals with U.S. military base issues, declined to comment because the hearing is ongoing.

However, Saito said, the Japanese government submitted a statement to the court claiming the lawsuit should be rejected since the levels are tolerable and the residents moved to the area knowing about the jet noise.

U.S. Navy officials at Atsugi were unable to respond by deadline.

The U.S. and Japanese governments agreed in May 2006 to relocate Atsugi-based Carrier Air Wing 5 squadrons to Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni by 2014.

However, plaintiffs said they will continue to suffer until then and that there�s no guarantee that the noise will be reduced.

Ninety residents of Atsugi filed the first of the four lawsuits in 1976. The second suit was filed in 1984 by 161 residents. Damages for noise were awarded in both, but flight suspensions were ruled out.

In the third lawsuit, more than 4,900 residents were awarded a combined 4 billion yen (about $34.8 million at the time) for noise damages.

The next hearing is scheduled for July 30.

Camp Foster MP pleads not guilty to molesting tee

By Cindy Fisher, Stars and Stripes
Pacific edition, Thursday, May 15, 2008

CAMP FOSTER, Okinawa � A Camp Foster military policeman pleaded not guilty at a court-martial Tuesday to charges of carnal knowledge, sodomy and indecent acts with his then-15-year-old sister-in-law and possession child pornography.

Prosecutor Capt. Paul Ervasti told a jury that the staff sergeant molested his wife's sister, who is the adopted dependent of a Department of Defense employee on Okinawa, when she was visiting their Camp Foster home Oct. 8, 2006, while his wife was out.

The teen reported the alleged abuse to her school nurse two days later, according to court testimony.

The teen was then taken to the Naval Investigative Criminal Service where her adopted mother greeted her with disbelief and harsh words, testified the school nurse and an NCIS special agent.

The mother also refused to allow a sexual-assault examination to be performed on the teen, NCIS special agent John Connell testified.

In accordance with Stars and Stripes policy, the teenager and the staff sergeant are not being named to protect the teen�s identity.

"Think of all the lives that have been turned upside down because of the accused who in a moment chose to have sex" with the teen, Ervasti said.

"That's not the case. He's not a statutory rapist, he's not a sexual predator," countered defense counsel Michael Waddington.

Also, the child pornography found on the Marine's personal computer was actually there because of searches done by the teen after the staff sergeant installed anti-porn software on her home computer at her mother's request, Waddington said.

This is not the first time the teenager, who has a history of lying, has made a false accusation or lied to get out of trouble, Waddington told the jury.

The teen was sentenced to serve 75 hours of community service in 2005 for falsely claiming a classmate raped her in October 2005, he said.

The girl, who has been living with a biological relative in Florida since November 2006, refused to return to Okinawa to testify but did make a video deposition April 28 after being served with a federal subpoena.

In her deposition shown Tuesday, she admitted that she had frequently lied in the past, including claiming her classmate raped her in 2005, and "I had gotten into trouble a little bit for looking at pornography on our computer at home."

But, she said, she didn't use the staff sergeant's computer to search for porn. She said he told her the kinds of words to use when searching for porn and how to erase it from the computer's file history so nobody would know about it.

The trial was scheduled to resume Wednesday.

Two Futenma Marines admit they attacked cab driver

By Chiyomi Sumida, Stars and Stripes
Pacific edition, Thursday, May 15, 2008

NAHA, Okinawa - Two Marines assigned to Marine Corps Air Station Futenma pleaded guilty in Japanese court Tuesday to robbing and beating a cab driver in January in Okinawa City.

During an opening hearing in Naha District Court, Cpl. Joseph Wayne Riddle, 20, and Pfc. Reginald Crapps, 19, admitted before a three-judge panel that they attacked a 59-year-old cab driver with a liquor bottle and fled the scene without paying the fare of 2,780 yen (about $27) Jan. 7 in the city's entertainment district.

According to the indictment, the pair hailed the taxi at a convenience store near Camp Foster's Kitamae Gate at about 3 a.m. and told the driver to take them to the Mihara section of Okinawa City. Riddle told the driver to stop in an isolated area. As Crapps got out, Riddle from the back seat repeatedly hit the driver on the head with the glass bottle while Crapps punched the cabbie in the face, prosecutor Yukio Nakajima said.

After the driver managed to get out of the car, they chased after him and hit him with the bottle, Nakajima said.

Riddle's attorney, Miyatomi Harushima, told the court that his client moved among 15 foster homes as a child.

Crapps' attorney, Satoshi Kawamitsu, said his client also had gone through many hardships as he lived in 20 different foster homes.

Riddle and Crapps are expected to testify, and the prosecutor is to recommend sentences, at the next hearing scheduled for Thursday.

5 arrested in scandal over WWII weapons removal in China

May 14, 2008

TOKYO (AP) -- Five Japanese company officials were arrested for alleged fraud in a widening scandal over a government project to remove chemical weapons abandoned in China at the end of World War II.

The five from consulting firm Pacific Consultants International and its affiliate, Abandoned Chemical Weapons Disposal Corp., are accused of swindling about 140 million yen (US$1.1 million) from the Japanese government, the Tokyo District Public Prosecutor Office said in a statement.

Relations between Beijing and Tokyo are sensitive because of Japan's invasion and brutal occupation of much of China in the 1930s and '40s. Japan is required to clean up its abandoned weapons under a 1997 international chemical weapons convention.

Since 2004, the Japanese government has disbursed 23 billion yen (US$222 million) to help dispose of 400,000 chemical weapons that retreating Japanese troops left in northeast China at war's end.

China says poisons leaking from the abandoned weapons have killed about 2,000 people since 1945, compounding enduring resentment toward Japan's occupation.

In 2004, Pacific Consultants International established Abandoned Chemical Weapons Disposal Corp. as the sole agent to manage the government project.

But the project is far behind schedule, with only 10 percent of the poisonous shells and canisters recovered. Japan has been forced to extend the deadline for completing the disposal by five years to 2012, and work on a disposal plant has not even begun.

The project also faces opposition from Japanese conservatives who defend the country's wartime aggression in Asia and question the authenticity of the abandoned weapons.

Four other executives, including Tamio Araki, former president of Pacific Consultants International, were arrested in April in the case.

Northeast China was a hub of Japan's wars in Asia, and Tokyo used the area to stockpile its chemical weapons.

In 2003, one person was killed and 43 others were injured when construction workers broke open a buried barrel of poison gas in the northeastern Chinese city of Qiqihar.

(Mainichi Japan) May 14, 2008

Breast-grabbing U.S. Marine sent to prosecutors on drinking charge

May 14, 2008

MISAWA, Aomori -- A U.S. serviceman arrested on suspicion of indecently assaulting a Japanese woman has been referred to public prosecutors on suspicion of driving while intoxicated, law enforcers said.

Misawa police referred the 22-year-old serviceman, James Littlejohn, to the Hachinohe branch of the Aomori District Public Prosecutors Office on Tuesday on suspicion of violating the Road Traffic Law. He has reportedly admitted to the allegations.

Investigators accuse Littlejohn of driving under the influence of alcohol on a prefectural road in Oirase, Aomori Prefecture, at about 4:50 a.m. on May 2, while he was on the run from an incident in which he allegedly indecently assaulted a woman, groping her breasts and buttocks.

Related articles

* American serviceman arrested for squeezing Aomori Prefecture teen's breasts

(Mainichi Japan) May 14, 2008

Road-tax bill clears Diet

Wednesday, May 14, 2008
By MASAMI ITO
Staff writer


Opposition hits Cabinet-ruling bloc split on revenue role, forced vote

The ruling bloc rammed a bill through the Diet on Tuesday that allows the government to use road-related taxes solely for nationwide road construction for the next 10 years, even though the Cabinet agreed earlier in the day to free up those revenues starting next April.

Photo: Seats of contention: Diet members attend a plenary session of the Lower House on Tuesday where the controversial road-tax bill was endorsed.

The Democratic Party of Japan-led opposition camp condemned the bill as being totally inconsistent with Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda's promise to free up road tax revenues, currently used exclusively to fund road construction, for general expenditures starting in fiscal 2009.

Even members of the ruling bloc expressed reluctance over voting on the bill.

The bill was rejected Monday by the opposition-controlled Upper House and sent back to the Lower House for a second vote. Article 59 of the Constitution stipulates that a bill rejected in the upper chamber can be approved with a two-thirds majority vote in the House of Representatives, as happened Tuesday.

Since the opposition seized control of the House of Councilors in last July's election, the ruling bloc of the Liberal Democratic Party and New Komeito has used the two-thirds vote three times.

In an attempt to reaffirm Fukuda's pledge, the Cabinet earlier Tuesday endorsed a plan to free up revenues from the road-related taxes starting in fiscal 2009, which starts next April. The Cabinet plan calls for the current system to end with drastic tax reforms slated for the end of this year.

"For the current fiscal year, we had already earmarked the road-related taxes (for road construction)," Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka Machimura said in the morning. "But the term of validity is one year."

By clarifying the one-year period of validity, instead of the 10 underscored in Tuesday's bill, the Cabinet appeared to be trying to appease the opposition. The ruling bloc didn't want to touch the bill, fearing further controversy.

DPJ deputy chief Naoto Kan slammed the contradiction between what the Cabinet agreed on and the bill's parameters.

"This is completely incoherent. (The Fukuda Cabinet) said it would free up the road-related tax revenues, (but then the ruling bloc passed the) bill to continue earmarking revenues for the next 10 years," Kan said. "The Cabinet itself just denied its own endorsement" by letting the Diet pass the bill.

Fukuda and New Komeito leader Akihiro Ota agreed in April to draft a bill by year's end officially stipulating that road-related taxes would be used for general purposes. But Machimura said its details and the timing of its submission to the Diet have yet to be determined.

A Cabinet endorsement "is just a conclusion reached by the Cabinet," said DPJ Diet affairs chief Kenji Yamaoka. "If the Fukuda administration changes," it's possible the Cabinet decision will be nullified.

The Cabinet also said Tuesday that it would hold discussions on the provisionally added tax rates on gasoline and other auto-related levies. But Fukuda has pointed out that no other country is lowering gasoline prices, especially from the standpoint of the need to address climate change.

Gasoline taxes and the road construction budget have been key issues in the current Diet session, which ends June 15.

Amid strong protests from the DPJ, the "provisionally" added rates on gasoline and other auto-related taxes expired temporarily at the end of March, bringing down pump prices by about ¥25. The rates were imposed in the 1970s as a temporary step but have been in place ever since.

But one month later, the ruling bloc used its two-thirds majority in the Lower House and reinstated the higher rates for another 10 years, drawing harsh public criticism.

Fresh warrant, more arrests in PCI case

Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Kyodo News

Prosecutors said they served a fresh arrest warrant Tuesday on a former president of major construction consultancy Pacific Consultants International on suspicion of fraud.

Masayoshi Taga, 62, is suspected of overcharging the government for a project to dispose of chemical weapons abandoned by the Imperial Japanese Army in northeastern China at the end of World War II, including for personnel costs for subcontractors, according to investigative sources.

Taga was arrested last month along with three other former senior PCI officials on suspicion of aggravated breach of trust in connection with the project.

The amount that PCI allegedly swindled out of the government is expected to reach at least ¥100 million for fiscal 2004, the investigative sources said.

PCI, based in Tama, western Tokyo, received ¥1.75 billion for the project in fiscal 2004 from the Cabinet Office.

The prosecutors on Tuesday also arrested four other officials of PCI and an affiliate, Abandoned Chemical Weapons Disposal Corp., as Taga's accomplices in the alleged fraud.

Investigators from the Tokyo District Public Prosecutor's Office searched a number of locations linked with the suspects.

Referendum on nuclear carrier proposed to Yokosuka assembly

Wednesday, May 14, 2008

YOKOSUKA, Kanagawa Pref. (Kyodo) A proposed ordinance to hold a referendum on the deployment of a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier to the U.S. Navy's Yokosuka base in Kanagawa Prefecture was submitted to the city assembly Tuesday.

The proposal, which Mayor Ryoichi Kabaya submitted during an extraordinary session of the assembly, is expected to be voted down because most assembly members are against holding a referendum on whether to allow the deployment of the USS George Washington.

Kabaya submitted the proposal after he received a petition bearing the signatures of about 48,600 voters collected by a local citizens' group seeking an ordinance for the vote — well above the 2 percent of eligible city voters required under the local autonomy law.

The assembly will hear opinions from the leader of the citizens' group Thursday, followed by an assembly committee vote later in the day. A final vote will be held during a plenary session Friday.

The assembly voted down a similar proposal in February 2007. Kabaya said at the time that a referendum is not the right way to judge issues over which a municipality has no authority, such as the deployment of an aircraft carrier. Kabaya became mayor in 2005.

Replacing the conventionally powered USS Kitty Hawk, the George Washington will arrive in August.

Kato exits touting stronger U.S. ties

Wednesday, May 14, 2008

WASHINGTON (Kyodo) Departing Ambassador to the U.S. Ryozo Kato said Monday the bilateral alliance has improved during his more than 6 1/2-year stint, thanks to Japan's consistency, strengths and support of Washington.

"The Japan-U.S. alliance has been strengthened," he said at his farewell news conference when asked how the alliance had changed since he took up the post.

Kato attributed the stronger alliance to the importance that the leaders in the administration of President George W. Bush placed on relations with Japan, as well as to Japan's power in economic, technological and cultural fields, and Tokyo's consistent policies.

He said Japan's support for the U.S.-led war on international terrorism following the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, had significant impacts on the alliance's evolution.

Despite policy, Lower House passes road-specific tax bill

05/14/2008
THE ASAHI SHIMBUN

The ruling coalition on Tuesday railroaded a bill through the Lower House to limit the use of road-specific tax revenues specifically for road construction for another decade.

Passage of the bill came hours after the Cabinet formally approved a policy that would free up such revenues for general purposes starting next fiscal year.

The conflicting nature of the bill and the government's policy on road-tax revenue has sparked criticism in the political world, even among lawmakers in the ruling coalition.

The bill was rejected Monday in the opposition-controlled Upper House. But the legislation was passed in a second vote in the Lower House, where the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and coalition partner New Komeito hold a two-thirds majority.

The Cabinet's approval Tuesday is designed to support Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda's policy of allowing the use of road-specific tax revenues for general purposes from fiscal 2009.

The move apparently appeased coalition lawmakers who had earlier pointed out that the bill contradicted Fukuda's policy.

But opposition parties, including Minshuto (Democratic Party of Japan), demanded the scrapping of the bill, saying the Cabinet's approval does not resolve the inconsistencies.

The government by the end of the week plans to hold a first meeting of related Cabinet ministers to discuss road-specific tax revenues.

The Cabinet confirmed Tuesday that the government will continue to build "necessary" roads despite freeing up road-tax revenues for other purposes.

The use of tax revenues specifically for road construction has come under increasing criticism recently with revelations that the funds have been spent on leisure goods, karaoke machines, trips and other non-road purposes by land ministry bureaucrats and those at affiliated public entities.

The Cabinet's policy included the elimination of wasteful spending by road-related public corporations and halving the government's 10-year midterm road construction plan from fiscal 2008 to five years.

"(The government) will step up oversight of those corporations by outside experts and monitor and release the status of progress to obtain results acceptable to the public," Fukuda said in the Cabinet meeting.

Asked about the criteria for a road to be deemed "necessary," Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka Machimura told reporters that it is an issue to be discussed later.

The passage of the road-specific tax bill marked the climax of the current Diet session. Sources said the coalition would not extend the Diet session beyond the scheduled end on June 15.

The focus of attention in political circles now shifts to a possible Cabinet reshuffle after the Group of Eight summit in July.(IHT/Asahi: May 14,2008)

Ex-PCI head rearrested; consultant company may liquidate itself

05/14/2008
THE ASAHI SHIMBUN

Pacific Consultants International, a company that won a diplomatically sensitive but lucrative project in China, said it would suspend operations after its former president was rearrested on suspicion of defrauding the government.

The company, based in Tama, western Tokyo, is considering liquidating itself, sources said.

Former PCI chief Masayoshi Taga, 62, was arrested Tuesday on suspicion of defrauding the Cabinet Office of about 141 million yen ($1.35 million) by overcharging for personnel costs in a project to dispose of Japanese chemical weapons abandoned in China at the end of World War II.

Four others, including two former PCI managers, were also arrested in the fraud case.

Taga was initially arrested April 23 on suspicion of aggravated breach of trust in connection with the project in China, causing a loss of about 120 million yen to the company.

PCI and its group companies won orders worth about 30 billion yen from the Cabinet Office between fiscal 1999 and fiscal 2006 for the weapons disposal project.

The amount accounted for about two-thirds of the Cabinet Office's budget to get rid of the thousands of chemical weapons.

According to the investigation, PCI asked the Cabinet Office to pay personnel expenses for its engineers involved in a fiscal 2004 portion of the project. However, the company actually used engineers from subcontractors, whose wage levels were lower than PCI's.

PCI has long been implicated in shady business practices, but it continued to win contracts.

"We had heard nothing good (about PCI), but we had no other choice because there are few companies that can provide consultation services for overseas construction projects," said a Cabinet Office official who was once in charge of the projects.

In 2006, the Board of Audit said PCI overcharged the Japan International Cooperation Agency 140 million yen for official development assistance projects by padding costs and making fictitious contracts.

The four others arrested on Tuesday were: Tsutomu Kurihara, 56; Nobuo Kuga, 56; Hiroyuki Endo, 68; and Taku Maeda, 50.

Kurihara and Kuga were PCI managers at the time. Endo is a former president of Abandoned Chemical Weapons Disposal Corp., a wholly owned subsidiary of PCI's holding company. Maeda is a former director at the subsidiary.

Three others were arrested in April on suspicion of aggravated breach of trust: former PCI Presidents Tamio Araki, 71, and Shota Morita, 66; and Yoshitaka Fukuda, 60, a former director at Pacific Program Management Co., a PCI group company.

Araki and Morita were indicted Tuesday. Taga and Fukuda were not charged on grounds that they played only subordinate roles.(IHT/Asahi: May 14,2008)

Court-martial for alleged rape set for Friday

Staff report
Posted : Tuesday May 13, 2008 16:43:31 EDT

OCEANSIDE, Calif. — The general court-martial of a staff sergeant accused of raping a teenage girl in Okinawa, Japan, is scheduled to begin Friday, Marine officials said Tuesday.

Staff Sgt. Tyrone L. Hadnott, 38, has been charged under the Uniform Code of Military Justice with the rape of a child under age 16, abusive sexual contact with a child under age 16, making a false official statement, adultery and kidnapping.

Authorities have accused Hadnott of assaulting a 14-year-old girl Feb. 10. If convicted of all the charges, he faces a maximum sentence of life imprisonment without parole, forfeiture of all pay and allowances and a dishonorable discharge. He is a radio chief with Communications Company, Headquarters Battalion, 3rd Marine Division, at Camp Courtney, Okinawa.

Hadnott has denied he raped the girl. The division commander, Maj. Gen. Robert B. Neller, last month levied charges and referred the case to trial.

The staff sergeant was arrested by Japanese authorities, but was taken into military custody after local prosecutors dropped the charges when the teenager withdrew her complaint.

The alleged incident has incensed some local opposition to the U.S. military presence on Okinawa, a southern island with the largest concentration of U.S. military forces in Japan.

5 company officials arrested in Japan's scandal over WWII weapons removal in China

May 13, 8:43 AM EDT

TOKYO (AP) -- Five Japanese company officials were arrested on Tuesday for alleged fraud in a widening scandal over a government project to remove chemical weapons abandoned in China at the end of World War II.

The five from consulting firm Pacific Consultants International and its affiliate, Abandoned Chemical Weapons Disposal Corp., are accused of swindling about 140 million yen (US$1.1 million, �710,000) from the Japanese government, the Tokyo District Public Prosecutor Office said in a statement.

Relations between Beijing and Tokyo are sensitive because of Japan's invasion and brutal occupation of much of China in the 1930s and '40s. Japan is required to clean up its abandoned weapons under a 1997 international chemical weapons convention.

Since 2004, the Japanese government has disbursed 23 billion yen (US$222 million, �144 million) to help dispose of 400,000 chemical weapons that retreating Japanese troops left in northeast China at war's end.

China says poisons leaking from the abandoned weapons have killed about 2,000 people since 1945, compounding enduring resentment toward Japan's occupation.

In 2004, Pacific Consultants International established Abandoned Chemical Weapons Disposal Corp. as the sole agent to manage the government project.

But the project is far behind schedule, with only 10 percent of the poisonous shells and canisters recovered. Japan has been forced to extend the deadline for completing the disposal by five years to 2012, and work on a disposal plant has not even begun.

The project also faces opposition from Japanese conservatives who defend the country's wartime aggression in Asia and question the authenticity of the abandoned weapons.

Four other executives, including Tamio Araki, former president of Pacific Consultants International, were arrested in April in the case.

Northeast China was a hub of Japan's wars in Asia, and Tokyo used the area to stockpile its chemical weapons.

In 2003, one person was killed and 43 others were injured when construction workers broke open a buried barrel of poison gas in the northeastern Chinese city of Qiqihar.

Road-related tax bill passes Diet in lower house revote

May 13 08:13 AM US/Eastern

TOKYO, May 13 (AP) - (Kyodo) — Parliament passed a bill Tuesday to maintain certain tax revenues earmarked for road building for 10 years from the current fiscal year through a revote by the ruling parties in the House of Representatives, overriding the opposition-controlled upper house's rejection of the bill and putting an end to a protracted road tax row with the opposition camp.

Prior to the vote, however, the Cabinet endorsed a policy stipulating an end to the specified use of road-related tax revenues from fiscal 2009 to show that Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda's earlier proposal to free up the revenues for general expenditures stands firm.

Photo: Meeting in Cabinet Conference Room before the lower house vote on May 13. Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda (right).

The bill won final Diet approval by a 336-133 vote in a lower house plenary session on Tuesday, a day after the opposition-controlled House of Councillors rejected the bill. The bill first passed the lower house on March 13.

Fukuda stressed that he had no choice but to hold a revote amid resistance from the opposition parties and that the bill had "to be passed to implement this (fiscal) year's budget," which was enacted late March.

Asked whether he is determined to stake his job on realizing his proposal to free up the road tax revenues, Fukuda told reporters that it is an issue "I, as well as the (ruling) party must bear responsibility for" if it is not realized.

Meanwhile, the revote drew harsh criticism from the opposition parties, with main opposition Democratic Party of Japan leader Ichiro Ozawa saying the move "left a stain" on the nation's political history.

Instead of immediately submitting a censure motion against Fukuda, the DPJ is expected to step up its attacks in parliament over issues of public concern such as pensions and the new health insurance system for the elderly.

Photo: House of Representatives plenary assembly of May 13th afternoon, approved by 2/3 or more. Secretary General Ibuki (the central left) Prime Minister Fukuda shaking hands (right).

Under constitutional provisions, a bill rejected by the upper house can become law if it is approved by the lower house for a second time with a two-thirds majority of the members present.

It is the third time that the ruling coalition of the Liberal Democratic Party and the New Komeito party has resorted to a lower house revote to pass bills it deems important since the opposition parties took control of the upper house following an election last July.

The last revote was held April 30 to reinstate gasoline and other road-related tax surcharges which expired in March due to resistance from the opposition parties.

The legislation put to the revote -- a bill to revise the special law on financing road maintenance outlays -- is designed to enable the government to continue allocating revenues from the gasoline tax and liquefied petroleum gas tax for road maintenance for 10 years from fiscal 2008.

The bill also includes maintaining a system to distribute a quarter of gasoline tax revenues to local governments -- about 700 billion yen per year, a sizable source of revenue for many local governments.

Photo: The House of Representatives plenary assembly session re-vote on May 13.

"This (revote) was required by any means so as not to trouble local areas and not to give a negative impact to the overall economy. We're not doing it out of choice," Fukuda told reporters.

Finance Minister Fukushiro Nukaga told a press conference earlier in the day that he believes "local governments will be relieved to find that they can implement road budgets" following the passage of the bill.

The DPJ basically supports the idea of freeing up the taxes, saying that limiting the use of huge tax revenues solely to road building has been conducive to wasteful spending on vested interests.

But the party has argued that the bill contradicts Fukuda's proposal to free up the road-related tax revenues from fiscal 2009 and that the government should scrap it and resubmit a new bill that includes the contents of the proposal.

To fend off such criticism, the Cabinet stipulated in its "basic policy" on road tax revenues endorsed Tuesday that the bill's provision specifying the use of tax revenues for road projects for 10 years will "not be applied from fiscal 2009."

It also says the government will "steadily build roads that are deemed necessary" even after the tax revenues are freed up.

The government will also set up a meeting of concerned ministers to discuss such issues in detail, according to the policy.

Fukuda also told reporters that he wants the opposition parties to participate in the discussions to consider how to free up the revenues.

Putting an end to the setting aside of road-related tax revenues specifically for road projects has been a task that Fukuda's predecessors have also worked on.

But even the overwhelmingly popular Junichiro Koizumi failed to achieve that goal when he was prime minister amid resistance from LDP lawmakers serving the interests of road builders.

U.S. Marine's court-martial to begin over alleged rape of Japan girl

May 13 07:49 AM US/Eastern

NAHA, Japan, May 13 (AP) - (Kyodo) — The U.S. Marine Corps in Japan said Tuesday it will begin a general court-martial Friday for a staff sergeant accused of violating the Uniform Code of Military Justice over the alleged rape of a 14- year-old Japanese junior high school girl in Okinawa in February.

U.S. Marine Staff Sgt. Tyrone Hadnott, 38, was arrested by Japanese police on Feb. 11 on suspicion of raping the girl but Japanese prosecutors did not file criminal charges against him after the girl withdrew her accusation.

The military trial will be held at Camp Foster, known in Japan as Camp Zukeran, which is located in an area encompassing the cities of Ginowan and Okinawa, the village of Kitanakagusuku and the town of Chatan, in the southern part of Okinawa Island.

The court-martial will be open to representatives of local news organizations, the 3rd Marine Expeditionary Force said in a statement.

The defendant "has been charged with two violations of Article 120: rape of a child under the age of 16 and abusive sexual contact with a child under the age of 16," the statement said.

"He has also been charged with one violation of Article 107 (making a false official statement), and two violations of Article 134 (adultery and kidnapping through luring)," it said.

A general court-martial handles serious crimes, such as murder and rape. It can sentence a defendant to death or life imprisonment.

There are two other levels of courts-martial -- summary and special. Summary courts-martial can confine a defendant for up to 30 days, while special courts-martial can confine defendants for up to a year.

The Uniform Code of Military Justice requires the holding of an investigative hearing to decide whether a general court-martial should be convened.

But Hadnott has waived his right to an investigative hearing, paving the way for the U.S. military to file charges against him in a general court-martial and for the accused to strike a plea bargain with the military authorities for a reduced sentence, legal experts said.

Under Japan's Code of Criminal Procedure, rape is an offense subject to prosecution only upon a complaint from an alleged victim. Hadnott was later handed over to the U.S. military.

Following Hadnott's release by Japanese authorities, U.S. military authorities conducted an investigation.

Crimes attributed to U.S. military personnel have sparked an uproar in Okinawa, which hosts the bulk of the U.S. military presence in Japan, particularly since the alleged rape of the 14-year-old girl.

Last week at the Marines' Iwakuni base in Yamaguchi Prefecture, a U.S. general court-martial sentenced a Marine to two years in prison and a dishonorable discharge after finding him guilty of "wrongful sexual contact" with a Japanese woman in Hiroshima in October last year.

Australia wary of Japan's nuke option after Okinawa's reversion

May 13 07:43 AM US/Eastern

WASHINGTON, May 13 (AP) - (Kyodo) — Australia was wary that Japan might arm itself with nuclear weapons after the United States agreed in the late 1960s to return Okinawa to Japan, according to a recently declassified U.S. government document.

The document dated Dec. 5, 1969, was crafted by the U.S. Embassy in Canberra to report on Australia's reaction to the agreement reached on Nov. 21 that year between then Japanese Prime Minister Eisaku Sato and U.S. President Richard Nixon on Okinawa's reversion.

"Informal but serious comments made in private by responsible members of Australia's establishment indicate that mistrust and fear of a resurgent Japan are widely shared," the document said.

Australia fought against Japan during World War II as a member of the Allied Forces led by the United States and Britain, with Darwin in its north suffering air raids by the Imperial Japanese Army and many Australian prisoners of war dying in Japanese detention camps.

While noting Australian press reaction to the Japan-U.S. deal was "temperate," the document said "it betrayed the continued existence in Australia of an underlying anxiety about revived Japanese power in the Pacific."

It said the Courier-Mail newspaper of Brisbane made "the most gratifying comment" that Tokyo and Washington reached an agreement "which should satisfy both the U.S. and Japan, and not give America's allies, including Australia, grounds for fear."

But it said the paper's opinion "was not shared by others."

The document quoted the Age as observing that "Japan can no longer maintain a "low posture" after Okinawa's reversion. It also quoted the Australian newspaper as predicting that the U.S. nuclear umbrella for Japan "is temporary, and before long a new Japan will emerge from beneath it."

Okinawa reverted to Japan on May 15, 1972, with the United States giving up the right to freely use its military bases there as it did during the occupation period, including maintaining nuclear arsenals.

The declassified document was found at the U.S. National Archives by Yasuko Kono, a professor of Japanese political and diplomatic history at Hosei University in Tokyo.

Japan lower house OKs space defense bill

By MARI YAMAGUCHI
Associated Press Writer
Tue May 13, 5:57 AM ET

TOKYO - Japan's powerful lower house of parliament voted Tuesday to allow the country's space programs to be used for national defense, the latest move by Tokyo to give more freedom to the tightly controlled military.

The legislation, which is expected to be approved by the upper house as well, is primarily aimed at letting the military use Japan's civilian-controlled spy satellite network for defense as defined by the pacifist constitution.

"Space development has become increasingly important," the bill says. It says space programs must "contribute to ensure peace and safety of international society, as well as the national security of our country."

The bill does not specify what the programs will be used for, but the satellite network and other assets could be used for surveillance, planning and for a missile defense shield Japan is building with the United States.

The bill would overturn a ban on military use of space imposed on the country's nascent space program in 1969. The U.S.-drafted 1947 constitution prohibits Japan from offensive warfare.

The legislation stipulates that all members of the Cabinet, not just the education, science and technology ministers, will be responsible for Japan's future space projects. The inclusion of the defense minister would pave the way for the military to possess and develop spy satellites.

The legislation also would establish a special space task force led by the prime minister and create a new post of space development minister.

The move is the latest in recent years to loosen controls on the military, which is technically known as a self-defense force.

The Defense Agency was upgraded to ministry status in 2007, and Japanese troops were sent to a combat zone for the first time since World War II in 2004, although the mission in Iraq was strictly humanitarian.

Both the ruling coalition and the largest opposition party support the bill. Some pacifist lawmakers from the Communist and Social Democratic parties boycotted Tuesday's vote, saying the bill contradicted the principle of a civilian-controlled space program.

The nation's largest newspaper, Yomiuri, praised the bill and urged its quick enactment.

"It is only natural to use space development for Japan's national security," it said in a weekend editorial, adding that it was needed to counter the threat of North Korea's missile program.

The left-leaning Asahi newspaper, however, raised concerns that the legislation "may escalate friction with neighboring countries."

Japan Lower House Passes Bill Allowing Space Defense

By Sachiko Sakamaki and Takashi Hirokawa

May 13 (Bloomberg) -- Japan's lower house authorized the use of outer space for defense purposes, signaling increased spending on rockets and satellites after China shot down a weather satellite in a military test last year.

The upper house may pass the bill into law as early as next week, said Yoshihiko Noda, an opposition Democratic Party of Japan lawmaker who worked on the bill. The DPJ holds the most seats in the upper house.

The legislation provides for a new cabinet position to oversee Japan's space program, including defense. Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd., Japan's largest aerospace company, is among companies that may win contracts, said Kazuto Suzuki, an associate professor at Tsukuba University northeast of Tokyo.

"This is a historic shift of Japan's space program from research and development to practice," said Suzuki, author of a book on European space policy.

Japan's defense ministry has criticized China's missile test, saying it threatened "satellites around the world, whether they are civilian or military," according to its annual East Asian Strategic Review, published in March.

Chinese President Hu Jintao promised during a May 6-10 visit to Japan his nation won't spark an arms race with its neighbors or pose a military threat to "any country."

'Pacifist Spirit'

Japan should uphold the "pacifist spirit" of its constitution while using space to contribute to security, according to a draft of the bill obtained from the ruling Liberal Democratic Party. Japan's parliament passed a resolution limiting space exploration to "peaceful uses" in 1969.

The bill also says Japan should promote its own aerospace industry and "autonomously develop, launch, track and operate its own satellites."

The bill will allow Japan to acquire higher-resolution spy satellites, said Masahisa Sato, a ruling Liberal Democratic Party lawmaker from the upper house and former army officer.

The DPJ, which has opposed Japanese naval refueling missions in the Indian Ocean, supports the legislation because it doesn't contradict the constitution, Noda said.

Japan's constitution, written by U.S. occupation forces after World War II, renounces war as a sovereign right and forbids the country from having a military. Japan maintains troops for self-defense purposes.

"It's not as if we're going to start a military expansion in outer space," Noda said.

Japanese companies sold 235 billion yen ($2.3 billion) of rockets, launch equipment and related software in 2006, according to the Society of Japanese Aerospace Companies statistics.

"The bill clearly promotes Japan's space industry," said Takatoshi Hosoya, president of the Tokyo industry group that represents 146 rocket, satellite and airplane makers. "It's a good opportunity to gain strength domestically and expand internationally."

World satellite sales reached $106.1 billion in 2006, the Washington, D.C.-based Satellite Industry Association said in a report.

To contact the reporter on this story: Sachiko Sakamaki in Tokyo at Ssakamaki1@bloomberg.netTakashi Hirokawa in Tokyo at thirokawa@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: May 13, 2008 05:45 EDT

Lower House passes road tax bill

2008/05/13 16:11

The Lower House of Japan's Diet passed a bill on Tuesday to earmark gas and other tax revenues for road projects for the next 10 years.

Overriding the bill's rejection in the opposition-dominated Upper House on Monday, the more powerful Lower House passed the bill with a two-thirds majority.

In the plenary session, the opposition camp said passage of the bill contradicts a Cabinet decision earlier in the day to pave the way for road-related taxes to be used for general purposes starting fiscal 2009.

But the ruling coalition said the Cabinet decision deals with spending in the next fisal year and thereafter. The passage of the bill enables the government to continue allocating revenues from the gasoline and other taxes for road construction and maintenance this year.

This is the third time the ruling coalition of the Liberal Democratic Party and the New Komeito party has resorted to a Lower House revote to pass bills since the opposition parties took control of the Upper House last July.

SDF member who attempted suicide had protest message against Fukuda

May 13 01:55 AM US/Eastern

TOKYO, May 13 (AP) - (Kyodo) — A 20-year-old Ground Self-Defense Force corporal who was arrested last week after attempting to commit suicide in the Diet building premises had a message of protest against Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda's foreign policy, the Metropolitan Police Department said Tuesday.

Shungo Suzukida was given a fresh arrest warrant on Tuesday for allegedly breaking into the premises of the parliament building and possessing a knife with an around 20-centimeter blade with no legitimate reason.

The department's Public Safety Bureau said it found the message on a USB memory stick belonging to Suzukida discovered in a coin-operated locker at Kokkaigijidomae metro station near the Diet building.

Suzukida was posted in April to the Self Defense Forces' physical training school in Tokyo's Nerima Ward from a GSDF unit in Kumamoto Prefecture, according to the police.

He was arrested last Thursday just after scaling the fence enclosing the parliament premises and subsequently attempting suicide there. Though he stabbed himself in the abdomen, he did not seriously injure himself, according to the police. He was taken to hospital before being released for treatment.

According to informed sources, Suzukida had connections with several nationalist groups based in Tokyo and sometimes took part in street protests staged by such groups.

Japan’s Casino Idea Finds Mixed Reactions On Cash-Strapped Okinawa

Andrew Gellatly, 13/05/2008
GamblingCompliance Ltd.

Okinawa has long been touted as one of the prefectures in Japan most likely to embrace the regeneration benefits of casino liberalization, however recent polls ahead of elections in the southerly island indicate that its politicians, and its residents, are ambivalent.

Governor Hirokazu Nakaima is known to back the introduction of casinos to Okinawa, the most populous island in the chain of economically impoverished Ryukyu islands, but in recent polls the question of whether Okinawa should introduce casino gambling saw more of the 72 candidates looking for seats in the prefecture assembly opposed to casinos than in favour.

Responding to a newspaper poll, 22 candidates said casino gambling could bring benefits while 27 were opposed. Another 23 were undecided or declined to answer.

Hirokazu Nakaima has supported the introduction of casinos to Okinawa since his election in 2006, but public opinion continues to be divided, with a 50-50 split among the general population over whether legalized casino gambling should be adopted.

Since the end of the Second World War, the US military have maintained a significant presence in Okinawa and the Ryukyu islands, with the United States Forces in Japan (USFJ) continuing to station over 27,000 personnel there.

While the economic benefits of the bases have been (and continue to be) significant, a vast majority of Okinawans oppose the large presence of the USFJ and demand the reduction and removal of US military bases from Okinawa.

While, at present, the closure of the bases has been indefinitely postponed, the threat of US withdrawal has created economic uncertainty for Okinawa and helped breed anti-Japanese sentiment among those who support independence for the Ryukyu islands.

Other administrative regions mulling the benefits of casinos include Tokyo and the neighbouring Kanagawa prefecture, where proposals along the lines of private finance initiatives are being considered. Tropical Okinawa has always been touted as a very likely site for a resort casino.

According to Toru Mihara, advisor to the LDP’s casino study group, were casinos to be given the go-ahead in Japan, federal gambling taxes would likely be set below 10 percent, leaving considerable latitude for prefectures to raise revenues or encourage indirect economic development effects

However Mihara, told GamblingCompliance that while financiers are already definitely interested in funding casino projects in Japan, “there has so far been little dialogue between the gambling industry and the regional authorities.”

“Someone needs to represent the industry, but at the moment nobody is speaking of the realities,” says Mihara.

In the meantime, he notes, “many ministries including the ministries of land, infrastructure and transport will also have to become involved, along with the Prime Minister’s office and the police, before any definite progress can be made.”

China's new naval base triggers US concerns

May 12 10:33 PM US/Eastern

China's new underground nuclear submarine base close to vital sea lanes in Southeast Asia has raised US concerns, with experts calling for a shoring up of alliances in the region to check Beijing's growing military clout.

The base's existence on the southern tip of Hainan Island was confirmed for the first time by high resolution satellite images, according to Jane's Intelligence Review, a respected defence periodical, this month.

It could hold up to 20 submarines, including a new type of nuclear ballistic missile submarine, and future Chinese aircraft carrier battle groups, posing a challenge to longstanding US military dominance in Asia.

China should not pursue such "high-end military options," warned Admiral Timothy Keating, the top commander of US forces in Asia, in an interview with the Voice of America last week.

He underlined America's "firm intention" not to abandon its dominating military role in the Pacific and told Beijing it would face "sure defeat" if it took on the United States militarily.

Worried mostly about Taiwan's security, Washington has often questioned China's military expansion on the back of rapid economic growth.

But American military experts attending a forum on China's naval expansion in Washington Monday said the nuclear submarine base underscored Beijing's interest in projecting power beyond the Taiwan Strait.

"The most important thing about the Hainan development is that if you look at the map, there is really nowhere China could go except south," said Arthur Waldron, an expert at the University of Pennsylvania, referring to the South China Sea and critical sea lanes, including the Strait of Malacca straddling Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore.

"This Hainan facility is going to raise questions in the minds of all of the neighbours because this is a fixed facility and cannot be removed," Waldron said. "My own sense is that it is going to make ripples and waves."

He said Washington should "tighten" its alliances in Asia to check China's growing military might and develop "interoperability" capabilities among allies such as Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, the Philippines and Singapore, as well as Indonesia and Malaysia.

James Lyons, an ex-commander of the US Pacific Fleet, said the United States needed to reestablish high-level military ties with the Philippines as part of efforts to enhance US deterrence in the wake of China's naval expansion.

He said "operational tactics" used against the former Soviet Union during the Cold War should be applied against China.

He suggested US leasing a squadron of F-16 fighter jets and navy vessels to the Philippines, where Washington once had naval and air bases, as part of the deterrence strategy.

"We don't need a permanent base but we need access," Lyons said, suggesting also that Japan play a more "meaningful" role in protecting critical sea lanes in the region.

"Again the Soviets, we raised that deterrence equation and we won the war without firing a shot basically ... there is no cheap way out and we have to improve our posture in the Western Pacific along with our allies," he said.

Richard Fisher, an expert of China military affairs at the International Assessment and Strategy Center, a US think tank, expected US confrontation with China as Beijing modernized its nuclear ballistic missile submarines, referred to in military jargon as SSBNs.

"Absent a higher military diplomatic relationship with the Chinese, I foresee a period of growing confrontation in the South China Sea," he said.

"If they are going to be maintaining SSBN patrols within guarded areas of the South China Sea, the US has no choice but to maintain contacts or to monitor these SSBNs so as to be able to take them out in the event they come to threaten the US -- just as we did against Soviet SSBNs during the Cold War," he said.

The Hainan facility, he said, was a timely replacement for Beijing's first nuclear ballistic missile submarine base at the Bohai Gulf north of the country, which he added was too shallow to support nuclear deterrent patrols.

The Chinese would not allow the American navy to enter the air space and waters around the Hainan base uncontested, Fisher said.

"There is a very strong likelihood that there would be incidents at sea and that ships and aircraft and their crew members could be lost," he said.

Referendum on carrier deployment proposed to Yokosuka assembly

May 12 09:36 PM US/Eastern

YOKOSUKA, Japan, May 13 (AP) - (Kyodo) — A proposed ordinance to hold a referendum on the deployment of a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier at the U.S. Navy's Yokosuka base in Kanagawa Prefecture was submitted to the Yokosuka city assembly Tuesday.

The proposal, which Mayor Ryoichi Kabaya submitted during an extraordinary session of the assembly, is likely to be voted down as the majority of assembly members are said to be against holding a referendum on whether to allow the deployment of the George Washington.

The mayor submitted the proposal to the city assembly as he received signatures from about 48,600 voters collected by a local civic group opposing the deployment for a petition to enact the ordinance -- well above 2 percent of the eligible voters in the city required under the local autonomy law to submit such a petition.

The assembly will hear opinions from the leader of the civic group Thursday, followed by an assembly committee vote later in the day. A final vote will be held during the assembly's plenary session Friday.

The city assembly voted a similar proposal down in February 2007. Kabaya said at the time that a referendum is not the right way to judge issues over which a municipality has no discretion, such as the deployment of a nuclear carrier. Kabaya became Yokosuka mayor in 2005.

Replacing the Kitty Hawk, the George Washington will be stationed in Yokosuka in August, the first nuclear-powered carrier to be based in Japan.

Japan envoy Kato says alliance with U.S. strengthened during his tenure

May 12 09:18 PM US/Eastern

(AP) - WASHINGTON, May 12 (Kyodo) — Outgoing Japanese Ambassador to the United States Ryozo Kato said Monday the Japan-U.S. alliance has been strengthened during his tenure of more than six and a half years.

"The Japan-U.S. alliance has been strengthened," he said at a farewell news conference when asked about a difference between the alliance at the time of his arrival in Washington as ambassador and that of today.

Photo: Ryozo Kato

Kato attributed the stronger alliance to the importance attached by leaders of U.S. President George W. Bush's administration to relations with Japan, as well as to Japan's power in economic, technological and cultural fields, and Tokyo's consistent policy stance.

He said Japan's support for the U.S.-led fight against international terrorism following the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks on the United States had significant impacts on the evolution of the bilateral alliance.

"I am sure the Americans, including leaders of the administration, think very highly of Japan," he said. "We should strive not to allow such perception of Japan to disappear but to be maintained."

Kato became Japan's longest-serving ambassador to the United States last August, breaking the previous record set by Koichiro Asakai from 1957 to 1963.

He was appointed ambassador in September 2001 as Japan's 29th ambassador to the United States since 1906 when the post was created, and assumed his duties in late October that year.

During his tenure, the Bush administration launched a war in Afghanistan in 2001 and another in Iraq in 2003, while former Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi established strong personal relations with Bush.

Kato is scheduled to leave Washington later this month and will be replaced by former Ambassador of Japan's Permanent Mission in Geneva Ichiro Fujisaki.

Asked about the possibility of becoming the next commissioner of Japanese baseball, Kato said only that he will wait and see how a procedure of selecting the commissioner will go.

Since last year, Nippon Professional Baseball has been searching for a successor to acting commissioner Yasuchika Negoro. Kato was viewed as a suitable successor for NPB, which is hoping to become more international, as he is well-versed in major league baseball.

Kato has a close relationship with Softbank Hawks manager Sadaharu Oh and is well-known in baseball circles.

"I am aware of news reports about my future, but nothing will be determined unless a necessary procedure ends," Kato said. "I would like to devote myself to my current duties before thinking about my new life."

Suit fails to halt dredging for nuclear-fueled flattop

Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Compiled from Kyodo, AP

YOKOSUKA, Kanagawa Pref. — A group of 635 plaintiffs from Tokyo and five neighboring prefectures lost a suit Monday in which they sought to stop the central government from undertaking dredging work to accommodate a nuclear-powered U.S. aircraft carrier in Yokosuka, Kanagawa Prefecture.

The plaintiffs, who oppose the planned deployment of the USS George Washington, plan to appeal the ruling issued by the Yokosuka branch of the Yokohama District Court.

The dredging "work should not impose a danger to leading a peaceful life beyond the limit of tolerance," presiding Judge Tsuyoshi Ono said.

In August, Ono said the court did not recognize that the deployment of a nuclear-powered warship posed a specific safety hazard to people living outside the base.

In a rare move, however, he called on the government to gather information on the safety of the carrier through diplomatic negotiations to alleviate the concerns of the residents.

In the lawsuit, which was filed last July, the plaintiffs, from Tokyo and Kanagawa, Ibaraki, Saitama, Chiba and Yamanashi prefectures, claimed that residents in the Tokyo metropolitan area would be exposed to grave danger, including death from radiation, in the event of a nuclear accident.

The plaintiffs also argued that the dredging will disperse toxic sludge, potentially damaging the local fishing industry.

The central government demanded that the claims be dismissed as groundless.

The government began dredging last August with the city of Yokosuka's consent, according to the court. It will dig about 15 meters into the base of the harbor to accommodate the George Washington, which is larger than conventional carriers.

The deployment of the George Washington, which will replace the USS Kitty Hawk, marks the first time a U.S. Navy nuclear-powered vessel will be permanently based in Japan. The move is part of the U.S. military's effort to modernize its forces in East Asia — an area of potential flash points with North Korea or China.

Nuclear-powered warships have visited Japanese ports hundreds of times since 1964.

Photo:

Upper House snubs road tax bill; override set

Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Kyodo News

The opposition-controlled House of Councilors voted down a bill Monday aimed at enabling the government to continue allocating gasoline tax revenues for road maintenance for another 10 years.

Photo: Bump in the road: Transport minister Tetsuzo Fuyushiba (front row) looks on as the opposition-controlled House of Councilors rejects the government's road tax bill by a margin of 126-108 Monday afternoon.

The bill is expected to eventually gain Diet approval because the ruling parties plan to hold an overriding vote Tuesday in the more powerful House of Representatives.

It will be the third time the Liberal Democratic Party-New Komeito ruling coalition has resorted to a Lower House override to pass bills since the opposition camp took control of the Upper House last July.

The last override was held April 30 to reinstate gasoline and other road-related tax surcharges that expired in March due to resistance from the opposition parties.

The legislation put to a vote Monday — a bill to revise a special law on financing road maintenance outlays — is designed to enable the government to continue allocating revenues from the gasoline tax and liquefied petroleum gas tax for road maintenance for 10 years from fiscal 2008.

The Democratic Party of Japan, the main opposition party, has said the bill contradicts Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda's proposal to free up gasoline and other road-related tax revenues, which are currently used solely on roads, for general expenditures starting in fiscal 2009.

Limiting the use of huge tax revenues solely to roads has been conducive to wasteful spending on vested interests, the DPJ says.

Aware of the criticism, Fukuda's Cabinet is expected Tuesday to endorse a policy that stipulates ending the system of earmarking certain tax revenues for roads from fiscal 2009.

Of the 234 votes cast Monday, 108 favored the bill and 126 were against.

DPJ Secretary General Yukio Hatoyama said Monday prior to the vote that the Upper House rejection would be "the voice of the people" and that it "wouldn't make sense to forcibly revote on the bill by ignoring" that will.

He also reiterated that the DPJ won't submit a censure motion against Fukuda immediately after the expected Lower House override and will instead seek his resignation by stepping up attacks against the government and ruling parties in Diet deliberations.

DPJ members Yasuhiro Oe and Hideo Watanabe defied the party's position and voted for the bill. The two had also rebelled against the DPJ leadership by supporting a government nominee for deputy BOJ governor in an Upper House vote last month.

Oe said the DPJ's opposition to the road tax bill is "unrealistic" and leaves rural areas fretting over the road construction budget.

Despite their criticism of the party leadership, both Oe and Watanabe said they have no plans to leave the DPJ.

Two other DPJ members and members of Kokumin Shinto (People's New Party) were absent from Monday's vote.

The bill cleared the Lower House on March 13 and was voted down Friday by the Upper House Financial Affairs Committee because the DPJ and the Japanese Communist Party voted against it.

The bill also includes maintaining a system to distribute one-fourth of gasoline tax revenues to local governments — about ¥700 billion per year.

The Lower House can hold an overriding vote to pass a bill if the Upper House rejects it or holds no vote within 60 days of receiving the bill.

Top medal eluded 'East L.A. Marine'

Tuesday, May 13, 2008
By ADRIAN SAINZ
The Associated Press

Film questions if race was factor in Hispanic's Medal of Honor snub

MIAMI (AP) Armed but alone, U.S. Marine Pfc. Guy Gabaldon roamed Saipan's caves and pillboxes, persuading enemy soldiers and civilians to surrender during the hellish World War II battle on the island.

Photo: Taken prisoner: U.S. Marines' Guy Gabaldon (right) and James Gilmer walk with a captured Japanese soldier somewhere in the Pacific during World War II. Gabaldon was hailed a hero for persuading more than 1,000 Japanese to surrender during the battle for Saipan in 1944.

Using the Japanese language skills he learned as a boy, he warned the Japanese they would die if they stayed hidden and told them marines were not torturers as they had heard. The marines, he said, would feed them and give them medical care. Many agreed, and Gabaldon, just 18, led them back to U.S. lines.

By the battle's end, Gabaldon had coaxed more than 1,000 Japanese out of the steamy caves. He was praised as being brave and compassionate, and he received a Silver Star — later upgraded to a Navy Cross. His actions were recounted on television and in movies.

Now, almost two years after his death, there is a renewed campaign to give Gabaldon the Medal of Honor, the nation's highest military award. A new documentary, "East L.A. Marine," asks whether Gabaldon's Hispanic heritage prevented him from receiving the medal, though others blame his tough and outspoken nature.

Critics question whether Gabaldon deserves the medal, saying his feats do not measure up to those of others on Saipan.

"It's a much bigger issue than any of us realize," said Steve Rubin, who directed the documentary, which became available online on May 6. "Guy is a symbol not only of a hero in war, but a man who treated people humanely. He killed people, sure, but having grown up essentially as a Japanese, he treated them as human beings."

Growing up in the Boyle Heights neighborhood of Los Angeles, Gabaldon became close with a Japanese-American family and made friends with Japanese boys. He also picked up the language as he delivered Japanese newspapers and picked crops with Japanese-Americans.

After Japan attacked Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, more than 100,000 people of Japanese heritage, including Gabaldon's friends, were sent to internment camps.

"He got very upset when the government put the Japanese in concentration camps," said his second wife, Ohana Gabaldon, who lives in Old Town, Fla.

Gabaldon joined the marines in 1943, becoming a scout and interpreter, and hit the shore of Saipan in the Northern Mariana Islands on June 15, 1944.

Combat was often in close quarters in jungles and caves, and more than 3,200 Americans and 23,800 Japanese were killed, according to a 1994 U.S. Marine Corps pamphlet, "Breaching the Marianas: The Battle for Saipan."

Civilians, some of whom were prisoners of Japanese soldiers, hid in caves. They included women and children, and were hungry and suffering from shell shock, Hansen's disease and dengue fever. Fearing the Americans, Japanese civilians blew themselves up with grenades or jumped off cliffs.

Gabaldon did his share of killing, but one day he ventured alone behind enemy lines and brought back a group of Japanese prisoners. Gabaldon was scolded by his commander, Col. John Schwabe, but went out alone again and returned with more Japanese.

Satisfied, Schwabe let Gabaldon continue.

"He would go up to the mouth of that cave and jabber, jabber, jabber, and pretty soon somebody would dribble out," Schwabe said in the documentary.

Eventually, Gabaldon had rounded up 1,000 to 1,500 Japanese — including a purported 800 in one day.

"Through his efforts, a definite humane treatment of civilian prisoners was insured," according to a marine corps document detailing Gabaldon's credentials for a Silver Star.

Interviewed in the documentary, Gabaldon discussed his motivation.

"Being raised in the barrio, every day is a fight," Gabaldon said, using the Spanish word for neighborhood. "You're fighting to survive in the barrio, and I think that might have had something to do with my personality, my makeup. I knew I was doing something that had never been done in World War II."

Gabaldon was wounded in January 1945 and evacuated to a hospital, according to the document provided by the Marine Corps History Division.

Schwabe said in a 1960 letter that there was confusion after Saipan over who was responsible for recommending Gabaldon for the Medal of Honor.

In June 1957, he was featured on the TV show "This is Your Life." Two Japanese friends also appeared.

In 1960, the movie "Hell to Eternity" was released detailing Gabaldon's life and exploits on Saipan. The movie starred Jeffrey Hunter, who clearly was not Hispanic and at 1.83 meters tall looked nothing like 1.62-meter-tall Gabaldon.

"That part of him is completely obliterated . . . people who are familiar with this issue are really appalled by that," said Maggie Rivas-Rodriguez, a University of Texas journalism professor who interviewed Gabaldon and hundreds of other men and women of the World War II generation.

However, the film started a push for the Medal of Honor and Schwabe officially recommended him for the honor. In December 1960, the Pentagon upgraded Gabaldon's Silver Star to a Navy Cross, but the Medal of Honor never came.

Gabaldon, who eventually settled in Florida, suffered a stroke in the late 1990s but never mellowed or abandoned his love for fishing and other adventures, his wife said. He died in September 2006 at age 80.

Gabaldon's wife said he talked about racism he experienced as a serviceman. But Gabaldon never lost his love for the marines: "He was a marine first, and then Guy," Ohana Gabaldon said.

However, he was hurt that he never learned why he hadn't gotten the Medal of Honor, leading him and others to wonder whether his ethnicity played a part, his wife said.

"Nobody came up with the truth," Ohana Gabaldon said. "I guess what Guy wanted to hear from the marine corps is that 'We goofed.' He told me he wasn't going to see the Medal of Honor in his lifetime."

The documentary compares Gabaldon's exploits to others who did win the Medal of Honor, including the U.S. Army's Audie Murphy, the most decorated soldier in World War II.

In the film, narrator Freddie Prinze Jr. asks: "What caused this inequity? Was it because Guy Gabaldon was of Hispanic heritage? Was it because he had a big mouth and wasn't afraid to say what he felt?"

University of the South professor Harold J. Goldberg said in his book "D-Day in the Pacific: The Battle of Saipan" that some marines estimated that Gabaldon captured only about half of the number he claimed.

Marine Sgt. David Dowdakin said in the book that while Gabaldon had advocates, "the rest of us think he is an importuning glory-seeker who is playing the race card. But, then, the two traits often go together: bravery and glory-seeking."

Capt. Amy Malugani, a marines spokeswoman, said in an e-mail to AP that the marines are precluded from discussing if any individual has been recommended for a medal.

But Malugani also said the Secretary of the Navy is reviewing of the service records of each Jewish and Hispanic-American veteran who won the Navy Cross for actions during World War II, the Korean and Vietnam wars, and Operation Desert Storm, to determine if any should be awarded the Medal of Honor.

Gabaldon's widow said politics could be involved in the decision.

"We're becoming not so much a minority anymore," said Ohana Gabaldon, who is of Japanese and Mexican descent. "Maybe this is the time that the Latino vote counts, what Washington cares about so much.

"They can take the opportunity to right a wrong and be aware of what Latinos have done for this country."

Upper House nixes bill on road taxes

05/13/2008
THE ASAHI SHIMBUN

The opposition-controlled Upper House on Monday voted down proposed legislation designed to maintain road tax revenues exclusively for road construction for another decade.

The move paves the way for the ruling coalition to re-submit the same bill to the Lower House today and pass it into law courtesy of its two-thirds majority in the chamber.

The last time the Lower House passed into law a bill that had been voted down by the Upper House was in January when it approved a proposal to resume the Maritime Self-Defense Force mission of providing fuel to ships of other navies in the Indian Ocean as part of the U.S.-led fight against terrorism in Afghanistan.

On Monday, the road construction revenue bill was defeated with Minshuto (Democratic Party of Japan), the Japanese Communist Party and the Social Democratic Party voting against it. Kokumin Shinto (People's New Party) abstained from the vote.

The bill was first passed in the Lower House on March 13. While deliberations in the Upper House began on April 16, real debate never got off the ground due to the growing confrontation between the ruling coalition and opposition camps.

The Upper House Financial Affairs Committee voted down the bill on May 9 after only six hours of questions and answers on the proposed legislation.

Minshuto officials blasted the ruling coalition for its stated intention of re-submitting the road construction revenue bill to the Lower House following a similar move in late April that reinstated special gasoline tax rates.

Minshuto Secretary-General Yukio Hatoyama told reporters Monday morning: "Ignoring public opinion in favor of using road tax revenues for general budget use and passing the legislation is not a rational decision. We will vigorously oppose the move."

However, Minshuto made clear it is not yet ready to follow through on a threat to submit a censure motion in the Upper House against Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda.

Meanwhile, the ruling coalition on Monday submitted a motion to Lower House Speaker Yohei Kono requesting a second vote on the road construction revenue bill.

The Fukuda Cabinet is expected to approve a basic policy today related to road tax revenues that officials hope will help fend off criticism that passing legislation to extend the use of road tax revenues for road construction for the next decade runs counter to a recent promise made by Fukuda to use such revenues for general budget use from fiscal 2009.

Asked about the second vote on the road construction revenue legislation, Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka Machimura said, "We will have to explain it carefully so that we can obtain the understanding of the public that we are implementing the appropriate policies."(IHT/Asahi: May 13,2008)

Defense body probed over tax

The Yomiuri Shimbun

Prosecutors are investigating an executive director of a defense-related body on suspicion of evading income tax, it has been learned.

More than 100 million yen in consultancy fees earned between 2003 and 2006 by three U.S.-based companies is allegedly unaccounted for. The three companies are all connected to Naoki Akiyama, executive director of the Japan-U.S. Center for Peace and Cultural Exchange--an incorporated body whose board of directors includes a number of lawmakers representing defense-related interests.

Photo: Naoki Akiyama, executive director of the Japan-U.S. Center for Peace and Cultural Exchange, arrives at Narita Airport on May 11th.

The special investigative squad at the Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office is investigating Akiyama on suspicion he had personal income from the U.S. companies in violation of the Income Tax Law. As part of the consultancy contract documents were forged, the prosecutors have asked U.S. judicial authorities to cooperate in investigating the U.S. companies.

According to sources, the companies which received the consultancy fees include Add-Back International Corp. and the Council for National Security (CNS).

Akiyama is a corporate adviser to Add-Back and served as an executive board member at CNS when it was set up in 2003.

Between 2003 and 2006, the three companies earned several hundred million yen in consultancy fees from defense-related companies. The fees included about 200 million yen from Yamada Corp., a trading firm that specializes in defense equipment.

But when Add-Back signed contracts with companies in and after 2003, some of the contract documents featured the name of a man registered as the company's representative executive, but who died in 1994.

Japanese prosecutors thus concluded the documents were forgeries and asked U.S. authorities to investigate what happened to the consultancy fees.

As a result, prosecutors found at least 100 million yen was unaccounted for and suspect that this sum was taken by Akiyama.

(May. 13, 2008)


Background Reading from Forbes Magazine:

With Japan's course set, a bilateral military-industrial complex can go to work. At the hub of a murky mix of politics and money is Naoki Akiyama, head of Japan's National Security Research Group and the Japan-American Cultural Society. The son of a military officer (he declines to give details or supply a résumé), Akiyama says he was working for a politician 20 years ago and searching for a not-so-offensive "theme" that would sell Japan on a stronger military. The Strategic Defense Initiative and antiballistics fit perfectly, he says.

Operating in the shadow of Japan's parliament from an office that bristles with models of high-tech weapons and U.S. mementos (like a cloth embroidered with a Camp David logo and a letter from Vice President Dick Cheney), Akiyama arranges bilateral symposiums on military issues, defense-related trips for Japanese pols to the U.S. and expos for American and domestic weaponsmakers in Japan. Lockheed Martin built a full-scale mock-up of its PAC-3 interceptor at one such event in the Parliamentary Museum last November, a month before Japan relaxed its arms export ban to pursue its antimissile mission with the U.S.

Akiyama, who is funded by Japanese politicians and U.S. and Japanese defense contractors, also arranges private meetings between them, the Japanese trading companies that broker U.S. weapons and defense officials. Asked about reports that he set up a meeting between senior military brass and Mitsubishi Group executives at a plush company guesthouse, Akiyama refuses to respond directly. "Japan offers good technology and can learn from the U.S.," he says. "I connect the people involved."

Ex-PCI head to face fresh arrest warrant for alleged fraud

May 12 01:12 PM US/Eastern

TOKYO, May 13 (AP) - (Kyodo) — Prosecutors are set to serve a fresh arrest warrant Tuesday on a former president of major consultancy firm Pacific Consultants International on suspicion of fraud in connection with a government- awarded project to dispose of chemical weapons abandoned by the Imperial Japanese Army in China during World War II, sources close to the case said Monday.

Masayoshi Taga, 62, who was arrested last month along with three other former senior company officials on suspicion of aggravated breach of trust over the project, is now suspected of swindling the Cabinet Office out of a large sum by overcharging for the project, including for personnel costs, they said.

Besides Taga, prosecutors are expected to arrest around four others as accomplices, including a senior PCI official and an executive of an affiliated firm involved in the project, they said.

Taga and the others are suspected of outsourcing part of the project without the consent of the Cabinet Office and including unauthorized personnel expenses for engineers at the subcontracted firms in bills, according to the sources.

PCI received 1.75 billion yen for the project in fiscal 2004 from the Cabinet Office. It is believed that the company swindled the government out of over 100 million yen during the year through March the sources said.

Taga and three others, including Tamio Araki, 71, another former PCI president, were arrested in late April on charges of causing damage to the company of around 120 million yen in 2004-2005 in connection with the project.

The chemical weapons disposal project commenced in accordance with an agreement reached between Japan and China in July 1999, whereby Japan would provide money, technology and facilities to dispose of the weapons.

Could pacifist Japan militarize outer space?

Meanwhile, back in outer space...

Or, more precisely, back on Mother Earth, with an eye to changing the status quo in the heavens, and maybe soon: Even as the United States' wearily militarized economy plods along, richly rewarding defense-contractor corporations like Halliburton and Blackwater Worldwide, and even as Russia's armed forces boldly strut their tanks and ballistic missiles in Moscow's Red Square, over in Japan, a parliamentary committee has a approved a bill that is expected to be submitted soon to a full session of the national Diet. The proposed new law "would allow Japan's military [its Self-Defense Forces] to launch its own surveillance satellites and an early-warning satellite as part of the missile-defense system it is building in cooperation with its top ally, the United States." Japan's ruling coalition, led by the Liberal Democratic Party, and main opposition parties have agreed on the bill, which "is certain to pass." (Reuters; see also the Toronto Star)

Photo: Into outer space: In September 2007, a Japanese rocket carrying a probe blasted off from the island of Tanegashima, more than 600 miles south of Tokyo

Japan's post-World War II, national constitution explicitly states that the country must maintain a pacifist position, not maintaining a standing army or any means by which to make war. However, Japanese politicians and scientists paid close attention when, in January of last year, "China alarmed the world...by using a missile to shoot down one of its own disused satellites, demonstrating its burgeoning prowess in space and military hardware. Pacifist Japan's space scientists complain that separation of space development from the military under a policy maintained since 1969 is one reason why its own technological progress has been slower....Unlike China, Japan has never attempted a manned space flight. Tokyo's spy satellites, launched to keep an eye on neighboring North Korea and controlled by a government department, provide far poorer resolution than other governments' military satellites." (Reuters)

Japan's Asahi Shimbun reports that the bill the Diet will consider soon "calls for promoting development programs in space that contribute to the nation's security. It would also enable non-invasive defense activities under the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, to which Japan is a signatory." (The U.S. Department of State's Website notes about that four-decades-old accord that it "was the second of the so-called 'non-armament' treaties; its concepts and some of its provisions were modeled on its predecessor, the Antarctic Treaty." Like that agreement, the Outer Space Treaty "sought to prevent 'a new form of colonial competition' and the possible damage that self-seeking exploitation might cause.") The Outer Space Treaty, notes Asahi Shimbun, "recognizes the use of space 'in the interest of maintaining international peace and security' and that outer space 'is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation.'"

Photo: May 3, 2008: The U.S. space shuttle Discovery at Cape Canaveral, Florida; the American spacecraft is scheduled to deliver the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's Japanese Experiment Module-Pressurized Module and the Japanese Remote Manipulator System to the International Space Station later this month

If the proposed new law is passed, and the Japanese government's current ban on its defense forces' use of high-grade spy satellites is lifted, "Japan could make a missile-surveillance satellite the core of the nation's missile-defense system. Until now, the [Self-Defense Forces] had to rely on civilian-sector satellites....The new bill also calls for setting up a strategic headquarters in the [national government's] cabinet for space development, headed by the prime minister. The bill calls for appointing a state minister in charge of space affairs and enhancing Japan's space industry, satellite use, scientific exploration and international cooperation." (Asahi Shimbun; see also Kyodo News in the Japan Times)

Photo: Russian armored personnel carriers rolled through Red Square during a Victory Day military parade in Moscow last Friday

Britain's Telegraph notes that the proposed new law the Japanese parliament will soon consider "specifies that any use [of the spy satellites for which it would allow] must be 'non-aggressive,' but Japan is concerned about China, which is already trying to counter the huge lead that the [U.S.] has in space-warfare technology. The timing [of the news of the Japanese bill] is embarrassing for President Hu Jintao of China," who just completed a high-profile, diplomatic visit to Japan that was "aimed at cementing the improvement in relations between the two Asian rivals....Japan is also collaborating with the U.S. in developing a missile-defense shield, much to the consternation of China and Russia."

Posted By: Edward M. Gomez (Email)

May 12 2008 at 05:39 AM

Is Japan trying to militarise space?

Monday, May 12, 2008

A new law expected to be passed by the Japanese parliament will allow the country to have a military presence in space for the first time.

But don't panic. Japan isn't gearing up to make space into a shooting gallery. The country wants to bolster its space operations so it can keep a wary eye on North Korea and China, and so it can develop its own space industry.

Japan has been feeling uneasy and bolstering its defenses in recent years - in December, for example, it launched a sea-based interceptor that destroyed a test missile over the Pacific in the first test of the country's missile-defence system, which is based on US technology. North Korea sparked the unease by pressing for the development of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles. China's anti-satellite test last year only added to the anxiety.

Yet the resolution that first established Japan's space agency in 2003 limited it to peaceful purposes. When Japan decided it needed a spy satellite to watch North Korea, for example, the government had to go through a series of contortions to satisfy its own rules - including having the office of the prime minister operate the satellite.

The new bill will allow Japan's Ministry of Defense to deploy satellites for non-aggressive missions, including communications, surveillance and weather observations, as is routinely done by the military agencies of other countries. Industry is backing the move as a step towards creating a powerful space industry. The government is expected to follow by establishing a central space policy council to develop a national space strategy.

"This is a major change in Japanese space policy," says space policy expert John Logsdon of George Washington University in Washington, DC, US.

For many years, scientists and engineers have run the country's space programme for their own purposes. Logsdon told New Scientist that the change will "allow Japan to carry out military programmes as long as they are non-aggressive, and raise the profile of space within Japanese government".

Ideally that would allow Japan to develop a more ambitious and more coherent space programme. But will that really work? And in the long term, might efforts to improve the country's defences lead Japan to consider putting interceptors in orbit? Where will this "defensive" strategy end?

Jeff Hecht, contributor

Japan court rejects US nuclear carrier suit

By SHINO YUASA
Associated Press Writer
1 hour, 4 minutes ago

TOKYO - A Japanese court Monday rejected a lawsuit demanding a halt to harbor work to accommodate a U.S. nuclear-powered aircraft carrier that is to be based south of Tokyo starting in August, a court spokeswoman said.

The suit by 635 plaintiffs aimed to stop the deepening of the harbor in Yokosuka, site of the U.S. naval base where the nuclear-powered USS George Washington is to be deployed, replacing the aging diesel-powered USS Kitty Hawk.

The carrier has sparked protests among Yokosuka residents who fear it poses a health danger. Many in Japan, the only country to be attacked by nuclear weapons, are also sensitive about any military use of nuclear technology.

Yoshie Ueki, a spokeswoman for the Yokohama District Court, said the court turned down the suit. She did not provide any further information about the case.

The plaintiffs had argued the harbor work, which began last year, would spread pollution, kill fish and damage the livelihoods of fishermen. They also argued the warship would threaten people in surrounding areas with possible radiation leakage should an accident occur.

But presiding Judge Tsuyoshi Ono rejected their claims, saying the harbor work posed no danger to nearby residents, according to Kyodo News agency.

The deployment of the USS George Washington marks the first time a U.S. Navy nuclear-powered vessel will be permanently based in Japan. The move is part of the U.S. military's effort to modernize its forces in East Asia — an area of potential flash points with North Korea or China.

Nuclear-powered warships have visited Japanese ports hundreds of times since 1964, and the United States has provided firm commitments to Tokyo regarding their safe use of Japanese harbors.

The United States has about 50,000 troops stationed in Japan under a mutual security pact.

Upper House votes down road tax bill

2008/05/12 14:40

Japan's opposition-controlled Upper House has voted down a bill to allow gasoline and other tax revenues to be allocated for road construction for another 10 years.

But the bill is likely to be enacted on Tuesday as the ruling block plans to override the Upper House decision through a second vote in the Lower House.

In the Upper House plenary session on Monday, the ruling Liberal Democratic Party said building necessary roads is part of the state's strategy. It says the bill reflects calls from the public and local governments.

The opposition Democratic Party said a new bill should be submitted to implement Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda's proposal to free up the road-related taxes for general expenditures from the next fiscal year.

Following the Upper House vote to reject the bill, Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka Machimura said scrapping the bill would be an irresponsible action. He cited the impact on public finances, including those of local governments.

Democratic Party Secretary General Yukio Hatoyama defended the opposition's stance, saying the bill contradicts Prime Minister Fukuda's words. Hatoyama said his party will fiercely oppose the bill's enactment.

Under Japan's Constitution, a bill rejected by the Upper House can be passed into law by a second vote in the Lower House with a two-thirds majority.

Coast guard marks 60 year anniversary

2008/05/12 14:17

The Japan Coast Guard has held a ceremony to commemorate the 60th anniversary of its foundation.

The ceremony was held in central Tokyo on Monday in the presence of the Emperor and Empress as well as Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda, cabinet ministers and diet members.

The Emperor said that he appreciates the Coast Guard officers' long time efforts overcoming various dangers and difficulties to maintain maritime security. He also expressed gratitude for lighthouse keepers in charge of isolated islands and remote areas.

Prime Minister Fukuda said that there are growing concerns over sea safety.

In this connection, he referred to international disputes over marine interests, piracy, the intrusion of spy ships, and the transportation of weapons of mass destruction by sea. He said there are growing expectations for the Coast Guard to maintain sea safety and the overall control of the ocean.

Upper house rejects road tax bill, lower house set to override it

May 12 12:03 AM US/Eastern

TOKYO, May 12 (AP) - (Kyodo)—The opposition-controlled House of Councillors on Monday voted down a bill aimed at enabling the government to continue allocating gasoline tax revenues for road maintenance for 10 years from this fiscal year.

But the bill is expected to eventually gain Diet approval because the ruling parties plan to hold a revote on Tuesday at the more powerful House of Representatives to override the upper house decision with the two-thirds majority they have in the chamber.

Photo: House of Councillors votes down gasoline tax revenue bill on May 12.

It will be the third time the ruling coalition of the Liberal Democratic Party and the New Komeito party has resorted to a lower house revote to pass bills it deems key since the opposition parties took control of the upper house following an election last July.

The last revote was held April 30 to reinstate gasoline and other road-related tax surcharges which expired in March due to resistance from the opposition parties.

The legislation that was put to the vote on Monday -- a bill to revise a special law on financing road maintenance outlays -- is designed to enable the government to continue allocating revenues from the gasoline tax and liquefied petroleum gas tax for road maintenance for 10 years from fiscal 2008.

The main opposition Democratic Party of Japan has said the bill contradicts Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda's proposal to free up gasoline and other road-related tax revenues, which are currently earmarked for road building, for general expenditures from fiscal 2009.

Limiting the use of huge tax revenues solely to road building has been conducive to wasteful spending on vested interests, the DPJ says.

Aware of the criticism, Fukuda's Cabinet is expected to endorse before holding a revote on Tuesday a policy that stipulates ending the system of earmarking certain tax revenues for road-building from fiscal 2009.

The bill passed the lower house on March 13 and was voted down Friday by the upper house Committee on Financial Affairs because the DPJ and tiny opposition Japanese Communist Party voted against it.

The bill also includes maintaining a system to distribute one-fourth of gasoline tax revenues to local governments -- about 700 billion yen per year.

Under the Constitution, the lower house can hold a revote to pass a bill if the upper house rejects it or holds no vote within 60 days of receiving the bill -- in this case from Monday.

Residents lose suit over deployment of U.S. carrier in Yokosuka

May 12 12:01 AM US/Eastern

YOKOSUKA, Japan, May 12 (AP) - (Kyodo) — A group of 635 residents from Tokyo and five neighboring prefectures lost a suit Monday in which they sought to stop the state from undertaking dredging work to accommodate a nuclear-powered U.S. aircraft carrier at the U.S. Navy base in Yokosuka, Kanagawa Prefecture.

The plaintiffs, who are opposed to the planned deployment of the George Washington, are set to appeal the ruling issued by the Yokosuka branch of the Yokohama District Court.

Presiding Judge Tsuyoshi Ono said, "(Dredging) work should not impose a danger to leading a peaceful life beyond the limit of tolerance."

On the question of safety concerning the deployment of the aircraft carrier in August, the judge said the court cannot recognize specific danger to the lives of residents outside the base but called on the state to gather information on safety through diplomatic negotiations to alleviate the concerns of the residents.

In the lawsuit filed last July, residents from Tokyo and Kanagawa, Ibaraki, Saitama, Chiba and Yamanashi prefectures claimed that residents in the Tokyo metropolitan area would be exposed to grave danger such as death from radiation in the event of a nuclear accident.

The plaintiffs also argued that dredging will disperse toxic sludge in the sea, potentially damaging the fishing industry.

The state requested that such claims be dismissed because they are groundless.

The state began dredge works last August with consent from Yokosuka City, according to the ruling. It will dig about 15 meters into the base of the harbor so as to accommodate the George Washington, which is larger than conventional carriers.

The George Washington, which will replace the Kitty Hawk, is the first nuclear-powered carrier to be stationed in Japan.

Japan Coast Guard commemorates 60th anniversary

May 11 09:39 PM US/Eastern

TOKYO, May 12 (AP) - (Kyodo) — The Japan Coast Guard held a ceremony Monday commemorating the 60th anniversary of its founding with Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda and other leaders attending.

Congratulatory video messages have arrived from the heads of its counterparts in the United States, South Korea, Russia and other countries.

At the ceremony, Emperor Akihito, Fukuda and Land, Infrastructure and Transport and Tourism Minister Tetsuzo Fuyushiba will deliver speeches.

The organization was founded in May 1948 as the Maritime Safety Agency of Japan under the leadership of the United States, before Japan's Self-Defense Forces were established.

The agency engaged in minesweeping operations in the Sea of Japan during the Korean War in 1950. Its major mission became enforcing laws against smuggling and piracy, and maritime search and rescue operations.

The agency changed its English name to the Japan Coast Guard in April 2000.

Countries like Britain, the former Soviet Union and China opposed the existence of the MSA, concerned about the possibility of a military resurgence in Japan.

In 1998, antiterrorism squad members of the MSA, called Special Security Teams, received instruction from the U.S. Navy special commando group known as the SEALs.

This generated public criticism that the training may be against a Japanese law banning agency members from undergoing military training.

Though the agency was founded on May 1, the first chief of the agency raised its flag and started its official activities on May 12, which made it the commemoration day for the birth of the JCG.

Defense chief seeks leaner staff offices

Monday, May 12, 2008
Kyodo News

The Defense Ministry plans to downsize the four staff offices of the Self-Defense Forces by transferring some of their personnel to military units and ministry bureaus as part of efforts to reform the troubled ministry and the SDF, according to ministry sources.

The plan by Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba also addresses chronic staff shortages among SDF units.

Ishiba is aiming to cut the combined staff of the joint, ground, maritime and air staff offices by 2,000 to 800, transferring 1,000 to ministry bureaus to double their staff to 2,000 and the remaining 1,000 to SDF units, the sources said.

The envisioned reform is in response to a collision involving a destroyer and a trawler in February, which was attributed to a lax watch on the part of the destroyer.

Ishiba told a news conference Friday he will push the reorganization to create "a sense of unity" among bureaucrats and uniformed personnel.

But he acknowledged that it won't be easy to get the ministry's staff on board, saying, "There is no objection to the purpose of the planned reform, but there are various opinions on how."

Many people in the ministry and the SDF view the plan as overly drastic.

Row that demonized China

Monday, May 12, 2008
By GREGORY CLARK

So now we know, officially, that the U.S. military contemplated a nuclear attack on China during the 1958 Taiwan Strait crisis. But what few realize is how this then led to a violent slanging match between Beijing and Moscow, which in turn was to lead to the Vietnam and other Indochina wars, which in turn were to lead to far more casualties and damage than could have been inflicted by the planned nuclear attack that U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower fortunately vetoed back in 1958.

I was peripherally involved, working at the time in the East Asia section of Australia's External Affairs Department. We realized the seriousness of the U.S.-China confrontation over the so-called Offshore Islands — islands very close to the Chinese mainland over which Beijing normally would have had legal claim but which the Nationalist government in Taiwan was determined to defend, partly to maintain its own claim to the Chinese mainland.

Beijing's bombardment of the islands, if successful, would have severely damaged Nationalist prestige. The United States was determined not to let that happen, even though just a few years earlier, in 1949, it had tacitly accepted Beijing's claim to Taiwan. (It reversed its position with the outbreak of the 1950-53 Korean War.)

Even in distant Canberra we had hints of the U.S. nuclear plans. But our concern disappeared when Beijing ceased the bombardment. Soon after, however, we were to run into another bombardment, this time in the form of Beijing's violent and never-ending ideological attacks on the Soviet Union and its leader Nikita Khrushchev, and the Soviet ideological response. The entire affair was puzzling. Why would the two communist monoliths be at each other's throats arguing obscure points of ideological doctrine?

Beijing seemed to be playing the role of Marxist-Leninist hardliner determined to upend an allegedly soft-line, revisionist Moscow. But when you looked more closely at what both sides were saying about each other, it was often hard to see any genuine ideological difference. Indeed, on aid to communist movements abroad, Moscow was a hardliner, accusing Beijing of soft-pedaling.

When you looked at events before the dispute the mystery deepened. On many issues — East Europe policy especially — Beijing had been the moderate and Moscow again the hardliner. In November 1957, Mao Zedong had even endorsed Moscow's claim to be leader of the communist bloc.

So why the determined effort just a few years later to prove that Moscow had no right to be the leader? Something was out of place, even allowing for typical communist verbal violence. Indeed, some U.S. military strategists believed the entire dispute was a hoax aimed to lull the West into dropping its guard.

Soon after, I was in Moscow and tried to find out what was going on. Gradually I began to realize that it had nothing to do with ideology. But it did have a lot to do with nuclear weapons.

The chronology of events was all-important. Before 1958 the Chinese had suffered two U.S. nuclear threats, one in 1953 in an Eisenhower bid to end the Korean War and then in 1954 during the first Offshore Islands dispute.

Clearly if a nonnuclear China was to recover the Offshore Islands, not to mention Taiwan, it had to have Soviet nuclear backing. It thought it had this with its Oct. 15, 1957, agreement with Moscow on "new technology for nuclear defense" under which Beijing has claimed it was to receive "a sample of an atomic bomb and the technical data concerning its manufacture." Yet less than two years later, on June 20, 1959, Moscow canceled that agreement.

Clearly something must have happened between those two dates to change Moscow's mind and that something could only have been the 1958 Taiwan Strait crisis over the Offshore Islands.

Some have since argued that personal antagonism between the haughty Mao Zedong and the plebeian Khrushchev underlay the dispute. And it is true neither had much love for the other. But personal love rarely enters affairs of state. For in June 1957 when Soviet hardliners (the so-called anti-Party group) moved to unseat Khrushchev, at a crucial stage the Chinese came out in support of Khrushchev.

Just a few months later the Chinese got the nuclear support agreement they wanted so badly. Beijing only turned anti-Khrushchev after Khrushchev had turned anti-Beijing. So why did Khrushchev renege on the agreement?

In 1957 he had been fighting for his political life and was keen to keep Beijing on-side. By 1959, however, his moves for detente with the West (which had begun in 1954 incidentally with his "Geneva Spirit" diplomacy leading to an important concession to Japan over the Northern Territories dispute, which Tokyo then promptly upended in a bid to seek more concessions) had matured to the point where he could visit Camp David and come away describing Eisenhower as a "a man of peace."

Clearly none of that would have been possible if he had been supporting Beijing in a nuclear confrontation with the U.S. over Taiwan. He had no choice but to cancel the agreement, but not before he made a little-known offer of Soviet military support provided it was under Soviet control — an offer Beijing contemptuously rejected.

This in turn provided the grist for Beijing's ideological attacks on Moscow — that the U.S. was the implacable enemy, that Moscow's detente hopes were a sellout for communist ideals, and so on. Meanwhile, Beijing set out determinedly to develop its own nuclear weapons, which it successfully tested in 1964.

Seen in this context it is clear that both Moscow and Beijing were acting in defense of what they saw as their justified national interest. Beijing's concern over Taiwan has become even clearer since the end of the Cold War.

Khrushchev's efforts to end the Cold War were sadly to end with his overthrow by Moscow hardliners in 1964. But few Western observers at the time seem to have realized the clash of national interest that the U.S. had provoked. Instead they preferred to see it in purely ideological terms — as dangerous hardline communists in Beijing opposed to moderate communists in Moscow.

This, together with the distorted version of 1959 Tibet events and the 1962 frontier dispute with India, led directly to the image of a belligerent China on the move in Asia, and the Washington-Canberra decision to intervene in Vietnam.

Indeed, in Moscow in 1964, I was to sit in on a bizarre attempt by an Australian foreign minister, Paul Hasluck, acting on U.S. request, to persuade the "good" Soviet communists to work to restrain the "bad" Chinese communists over Vietnam. Premier Alexsei Kosygin's chilly response to Hasluck said it all: "We would like to see our Chinese comrades doing much more to assist the brave Vietnamese people suffering U.S. aggression."

For the U.S.-British military and spy agencies keen to justify Western interventions in Asia, the Sino-Soviet ideological dispute coinciding with the 1959 Tibet uprising and the 1962 Sino-Indian frontier dispute were godsends. Indeed both former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, and Robert McNamara, former U.S. defense secretary, have since admitted that these exaggerated views of China were crucial to their own Vietnam intervention policies.

When I left the foreign service in 1965, I managed to have published my own inside — and since authenticated — view of both disputes. But there is little a single individual can do against the weight of conventional opinion backed by the black information activities from Washington and London. The academics, pundits, editorialists and the many others determined to see China as an aggressive monster won the day. And many Vietnamese lost their lives as a result.

Gregory Clark is vice president of Akita International University. A Japanese translation of this article will appear on www.gregoryclark.net, where relevant chapters from his 1968 book "In Fear of China" can also be found.

EDITORIAL: Battle over road funding

05/12/2008

After raging for four long months, the bitter partisan battle over the gasoline and other vehicle-related taxes earmarked for road construction is now reaching its final stage.

During an Upper House committee session Friday, Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda grumbled about the way main opposition Minshuto (Democratic Party of Japan) has responded to his proposal to scrap the long-standing road-funding system. "Since I proposed at the end of March to transfer the earmarked road funds to the general revenue account, I have eagerly waited for one and a half months for Minshuto to agree to talks over the idea and propose amendments," he said in connection with government plans to extend the program for 10 more years.

His remarks came just before the bill was voted down by the committee, which was controlled by lawmakers from the opposition camp. The bill is expected to be rejected by the chamber's plenary session May 12. The ruling coalition led by Fukuda's Liberal Democratic Party intends to enact the bill by using its two-thirds majority in the Lower House to override the Upper House veto. With his querulous words, Fukuda may have been indicating that he is actually uncomfortable about ramming the legislation through. The bill clearly contradicts Fukuda's promise. While he has vowed to do away with the system to wall off these road tax revenues at the end of the current fiscal year and mingle the money with general revenue in the next fiscal year, the bill aims to keep the program alive for another decade.

The easiest and most logical way to make the bill consistent with Fukuda's plan would have been a revision to ensure that the measure will expire in one year. Some lawmakers in the LDP and its junior coalition partner, New Komeito, had sought this change.

The government and the ruling coalition are solely responsible for the politically awkward act of bulldozing the bill through the Diet without such an amendment. Fukuda's attempt to put the blame on Minshuto is unacceptable. The ruling camp could have proposed a revision to the bill. At the committee session, Fukuda stressed that prefectures and municipalities would be in trouble if central government spending on roads is blocked. Indeed, state subsidies amounting to some 700 billion yen for local road projects financed by the earmarked tax receipts would be stalled unless the bill is passed. That would put local governments in a bind.

If so, the ruling camp should have made serious overtures of compromise to the opposition bloc. It could have separated the road subsidies from the bill to secure funds for them through independent legislation, for instance, or offered other measures to transfer a portion of the central government revenues to local treasuries. It is true that Minshuto is currently not keen to make political compromises because of its confrontational stance toward the government under its strategy focused on forcing a dissolution of the Lower House for a snap election. But Fukuda should have trotted out a succession of shots at persuading the opposition party into talks for a deal. But he stuck to an inflexible strategy aimed at keeping the bill intact.

He had good reasons for avoiding any step that could tick off the so-called "road tribe," those LDP politicians serving the interests of the road-building industry. And he probably didn't want to break with a legislative tradition: the government usually doesn't amend a bill after submitting it to the Diet.

Instead of making serious efforts to strike a deal with Minshuto, the Fukuda government opted to wait for 60 days after the bill was sent to the Upper House so that it could use the ruling coalition's supermajority in the Lower House to enact it under a constitutional provision.

According to a recent Asahi Shimbun poll, the government's tactics doesn't go down well with voters, who apparently regard them as an arrogant abuse of the ruling camp's strength in the Lower House. The poll found 54 percent of the respondents critical of the ruling coalition's move to restore the gasoline tax surcharges that expired at the end of March by using a two-thirds majority in the Lower House. Only 29 percent supported the action. As for the planned railroading of the bill to extend the road-funding system, 59 percent voiced opposition, while 28 percent showed support.

The poll findings indicate the public is not sold on Fukuda's argument for the move. The government has promised a formal Cabinet endorsement of Fukuda's pledge. But it is doubtful whether that will help win public support for this legislative action.

--The Asahi Shimbun, May 10(IHT/Asahi: May 12,2008)

Miura not needed in L.A., court says

05/12/2008
BY TAKESHI SASAKI
THE ASAHI SHIMBUN

LOS ANGELES--Kazuyoshi Miura can remain in custody in Saipan while an L.A. court hears arguments over whether his arrest warrant is valid for the 1981 fatal shooting of his wife, a judge said.

Los Angeles Superior Court will hold the next hearing of the closely watched case on June 16, using live video images transmitted from Saipan, Judge Steven Van Sicklen said Friday.

The court is looking into a motion from Miura's defense team to invalidate his arrest warrant.

At issue is whether Miura, 60, can be indicted in the United States for a crime for which he has been acquitted by a Japanese court.

In the previous hearing on April 23, prosecutors argued that the Los Angeles court cannot rule on a serious crime unless the accused is present in the courtroom.

Japan's Supreme Court acquitted Miura of the murder charge in 2003. Now he is accused of not just murder but conspiracy charges in connection with the death of his wife Kazumi.

Kazumi was shot and fell into a coma in Los Angeles in 1981 and died in Japan the following year. Miura, then a dealer of imported goods, was at the scene of crime and suffered a gunshot wound.

Miura has been detained in the U.S. territory of Saipan, where he was arrested in February.

Van Sicklen brushed aside prosecutors' claims, saying it would be unnecessarily expensive to bring Miura all the way to Los Angeles.

The judge also ordered prosecutors to submit translated records of Miura's trials in the Japanese courts by the next hearing. Prosecutors said they will seek help from Japanese authorities.

After Friday's hearing, Mark Geragos, Miura's defense attorney, said he expects the next hearing will be the last and that his client will be released.

Prosecutors plan to consider filing a complaint, a spokesperson for the prosecution said, adding it is regrettable that their arguments have not been accepted.

Double-jeopardy rules under the U.S. Constitution prohibit trying someone twice for the same crime. In 2004, however, the criminal code of the state of California was revised to allow someone tried in a foreign country to stand trial again at a U.S. court.

Defense attorneys said the revisions do not apply to Miura's case retroactively because he was acquitted in 2003.(IHT/Asahi: May 12,2008)

Permanent law needed to send SDF overseas

The Yomiuri Shimbun

Progress on establishing a permanent law to govern the dispatch of Self-Defense Forces personnel overseas has been significantly delayed. To resolutely continue the fight against terrorism, the government cannot continue repeated use of temporary measures.

The new Antiterrorism Law that provides the legal basis for the Maritime Self-Defense Force's refueling missions in the Indian Ocean expires in January next year. There is no time to lose in drafting a permanent law to replace the current Antiterrorism Law, if it is to be passed during the extraordinary Diet session in autumn.

The ruling parties should set up a project team as soon as possible and start a concrete discussion on the matter.

The ruling parties initially planned to establish the project team in late February. Following a collision between the MSDF Aegis-equipped destroyer Atago and a fishing boat in February, however, New Komeito became reluctant to set up the team, saying the timing and environment were not right. The team has yet to be launched.

Compiling a permanent bill before the autumn Diet session will be difficult unless an outline of the bill is completed during the current Diet session. If this is not done, the measures that the government could take would be pretty much limited to reextension of the new Antiterrorism Law.

===

Ruling parties must act

The Atago-fishing boat collision has nothing to do with the establishment of the permanent SDF dispatch law. New Komeito should actively commit to establishing the ruling parties' project team.

The Democratic Party of Japan also should actively participate in debate over the permanent law.

The DPJ has agreed to upgrading the SDF's international peace cooperation activities to one of its primary duties. The main opposition party incorporated the establishment of the permanent law in its alternative plan for the new Antiterrorism Law. The DPJ plan was approved by the House of Councillors and taken over for further deliberation at the House of Representatives. It is time to consider what the country's contribution to international cooperation should be, setting aside partisan differences.

Under what kind of circumstances would SDF troops be dispatched overseas? What kind of missions would they take on? These and other issues should be fully discussed.

===

Transcending party politics

In late April, a nonpartisan group of junior lawmakers comprising members of the Liberal Democratic Party, DPJ and New Komeito seeking to establish a national security system for the new century resumed its activities for the first time in three years. About 110 lawmakers from the group meet weekly to discuss the permanent law and the right to collective self-defense.

We hope the group will play its part and contribute to active debate over the permanent law.

Also, what must not be forgotten is the work of a government committee comprised of security and diplomacy experts that is discussing the reestablishment of the legal basis for the national security apparatus. Shunji Yanai, former ambassador to the United States, chairs the panel.

Although the committee, which was established under the administration of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, has not met since its last gathering in August, it has decided to submit a report based on its discussions to Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda sometime soon.

Among the items the report will address, it is expected to propose rules on the use of weapons by SDF troops taking part in international peace cooperation activities be eased to bring them in line with international standards. Such a proposal should be properly examined in debate over the permanent law.

(From The Yomiuri Shimbun, May 12, 2008)
(May. 12, 2008)

Japan wary of China’s panda diplomacy

By David Pilling in Tokyo
Published: May 11 2008 20:04

The death of Ling Ling, the only panda belonging to Tokyo’s Ueno Zoo, just a few days before Hu Jintao’s five-day state visit to Japan last week seemed like the hand of fate. China’s president, who left on Saturday, seized the moment, offering to lend Japan not one but two replacement pandas.

Officially, Japan was delighted. But the popular reaction has not been so clear cut. Typical was the comment from Akiko Domoto, the governor of Chiba prefecture, who said: “We shouldn’t be fooled by these pandas.”

The governor argued that on issues such as China’s exploitation of disputed underwater gas reserves or its food-safety standards, Beijing could not be trusted. It was in Ms Domoto’s prefecture that several people fell ill after eating Chinese-made frozen dumplings, an incident that has still not been satisfactorily explained.

One Japanese woman told a television interviewer the money would be better spent on welfare. When magazines pointed out that China charged $1m rental (£512,000, €646,000) on a pair of pandas, some of the warm fuzzy feeling was lost. China, in fact, stopped giving away pandas because of international pressure to protect endangered species.

The fact that China’s panda diplomacy has partially misfired shows the mistrust that remains despite efforts by both leaders to improve relations.

When the first Chinese pandas, Kang Kang and Lan Lan, arrived in Ueno Zoo in 1972, China was among the Japanese public’s most popular nations. Now, it has sunk towards the bottom. Japanese people have seen too much footage of Chinese people stoning their consulates, booing their football team and calling them “pigs” and “devils”.

Mr Hu’s charm offensive last week, in which he lavished praise on Japan’s post-war development and its 60-year maintenance of peace, only went so far. Many in Japan resent the Chinese Communist party for playing the anti-Japanese card in the past and for teaching about Japan’s wartime atrocities in schools.

The panda backlash is far from universal. Takashi Sugino, a Tokyo government official responsible for Ueno Zoo, said that whatever Japan paid was a bargain, given the advances in panda-breeding research that had resulted. “It is not like renting videos,” he said.

Motoyasu Ida, in charge of education at Ueno Zoo, said pandas easily paid for themselves. Many of the 3.6m visitors to the zoo in 2006, who spent a total of Y1bn (€6.28m, £4.97m, $9.72m) on admission fees, came to see the panda, he said. In the week following Ling Ling’s death, 11,000 visitors had signed condolence books.

Naoko Shinomiya, an administrative assistant in Tokyo, said many of her friends were cynical about panda diplomacy. But she said it was vital that Asia’s two biggest powers put their differences aside. If pandas could help, she was all for it.

Ms Shinomiya added the $1m fee had to be put in context. “Compared with the money the Japanese government wastes, it is ­nothing.”

FM: President's "warm spring" visit to Japan a complete success

2008-05-11 02:55:55
www.chinaview.cn

Special Report: President Hu Visits Japan
· President's visit to Japan has achieved great successes and produced the desired results.
· The visit has helped deepen economic and trade cooperation between China and Japan.
· Hu said the future of the Sino-Japanese friendship rests on the youths of the two countries.

Photo: Visiting Chinese President Hu Jintao (L) and Nara Prefecture Governor Shogo Arai (2nd R) unveil the statue of Great Master Jianzhen (Ganjin Wajyo) (688-763), a prominent Buddhist monk of the Tang Dynasty of China (618-907), in Nara, Japan, May 10, 2008.

BEIJING, May 10 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Hu Jintao's just-concluded "warm spring" visit to Japan has opened up new prospects for the development of strategic and mutually beneficial relations between the two countries, Chinese Foreign Minister YangJiechi said on Saturday.

During his state visit, the first by a Chinese president to Japan in a decade, President Hu held fruitful talks with Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda, Yang told Chinese journalists accompanying Hu on the tour.

During his stay in Japan from May 6-10, Hu met with Japan's Emperor Akihito, leaders of both houses of parliament and political parties of Japan, as well as old Japanese friends of China, and had extensive contacts with leaders of economic circles, representatives of friendly organizations, young people and people from other walks of life.

The five-day visit, made with a pragmatic approach, has achieved great successes and produced the desired results.

The Japanese government attached great importance to President Hu's visit, Yang said. Emperor Akihito, Prime Minister Fukuda and House of Representatives Speaker Yohei Kono attended many events of Hu's itinerary, and the Chinese president's visit was greeted with great enthusiasm by the Japanese public, he said.

BLUEPRINT FOR SINO-JAPANESE RELATIONS

During the visit, President Hu and Prime Minister Fukuda issued a six-point joint statement on all-round promotion of strategic and mutually beneficial relations between the two countries. The statement has become the fourth important document between the two countries, with the other three being the China-Japan Joint Statement issued on Sept. 29, 1972, the China-Japan Treaty of Peace and Friendship signed on Aug. 12, 1978, and the China-Japan Joint Declaration released on Nov. 26, 1998.

The statement confirms the guiding principles for long-term development of Sino-Japanese relations, and is of great significance to consolidating the political foundation of bilateral ties, promoting strategic mutual trust, building an overall framework for a long-term, healthy and stable development of China-Japan ties, and deepening bilateral strategic and mutually beneficial relations, he said.

The two sides also issued a joint press communique on boosting bilateral exchanges and cooperation, covering 70 cooperation projects between the two countries.

Both sides confirmed that China and Japan are cooperation partners, with neither side posing any threat to the other, and that they will support each other's peaceful development, handle issues existing between the two countries through dialogue and negotiations, increase high-level and political exchanges, build a mechanism for high-level regular visits between leaders of the two nations, strengthen communication and dialogue between the governments, parliaments and political parties of the two countries.

ECONOMIC AND TRADE COOPERATION

The visit has helped deepen economic and trade cooperation between China and Japan.

During the visit, President Hu stressed that China and Japan are one of the most important trading partners for each other and that the two economies are highly complementary to each other. He called for efforts to open new key areas of cooperation.

Hu laid stress on cooperation in energy saving and environmental protection and called for increased cooperation between enterprises of the two countries, in regional and global economic affairs in particular.

The visit has borne fruits in the fields of energy saving technology, sewage disposal and the development of a recycling economy in urban areas, with both sides witnessing the exchange of notes on seven cooperation agreements.

The two sides also agreed to push forward full cooperation in the fields of finance, information, trade, investment, small- and medium-sized enterprises and intellectual property rights protection.

Both sides vowed to continue dialogue at the ministerial level to explore ways of developing energy cooperation.

STRENGTHENING PERSONNEL, CULTURAL EXCHANGES

Hu pointed out that broadening personnel and cultural exchanges is the most effective and reliable way of deepening mutual understanding and friendship between the two peoples, Yang said.

Delivering a speech at Waseda University, Hu said the future of the Sino-Japanese friendship rests on the youths of the two countries.

CONSENSUS, COOPERATION IN REGIONAL, INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS

President Hu noted that the two countries' coordination and cooperation are indispensable to the rejuvenation of Asia, Yang said.

Hu said both China and Japan should make contributions to Asia's revival, and work together to cope with global challenges and build a harmonious Asia and world, according to the Chinese foreign minister.

The two sides pledged joint efforts to maintain peace and stability in Northeast Asia and facilitate the process of six-party talks, Yang said.

The two sides agreed to strive to promote regional cooperation in East Asia and contribute to building a peaceful, prosperous, stable and open Asia, in line with the principles of openness, transparency and tolerance, he said.

The two sides agreed to strengthen cooperation in the fields of climate change and environmental protection.

The two sides decided to cooperate in coping with climate change after 2012 within the framework of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, as well as in line with the principle of "common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities" and the Bali Roadmap, he said.

China's Hu ends Japan stay with temple visits

Reuters - Sunday, May 11

NARA, Japan, May 10 - Chinese President Hu Jintao paid his respects at Buddhist temples on the last day of a visit to Japan on Saturday, adding a pointedly religious note to a trip aimed at cementing warmer ties between the Asian rivals.

Hu's five-day state visit, the first to Japan by a Chinese leader in a decade, was intended both to ease strains with Japan over energy, security and wartime history and quell international pressure over unrest and a subsequent crackdown in Tibet.

On the day of his return to Beijing, Hu visited Japan's ancient capital of Nara, about 400 kilometres west of Tokyo, and paid his respects at two Buddhist temples before heading off to meet regional officials and visit the headquarters of Japanese electronics maker Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. .

"I believe that the trip has resulted in achievements," Kyodo news agency quoted Hu as telling Nara Governor Shogo Arai. "I think this will greatly promote bilateral ties in the future."

The Chinese President, who also serves as chief of the country's officially atheist Communist Party, bowed in respect before a statue of a Chinese Buddhist monk in Toshodaiji temple, an official of the temple told a group of reporters.

At a time when China has faced widespread criticism over its controls in Tibet from exiled Tibetans and Western human rights groups, Hu's temple visit appeared intended to deflect criticism that his government is hostile to religion.

The two temples both said they have been receiving protest calls from Tibet supporters complaining about Hu's visit, and security was tight in Nara, as it was for his entire stay.

Outside Toshodaiji temple, a cluster of about 50 protesters denouncing Chinese rule in Tibet shouted "Free Tibet". One of the protesters was taken away by police after he tried to unfurl a Tibetan flag in front of the temple before Hu's arrival.

Shortly after Hu left the ancient capital, about 150 protestors walked through central Nara, carrying Tibetan flags and banners saying "Free Tibet".

China recently held talks with representatives of the Dalai Lama, Tibet's exiled Buddhist leader. But Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda and other foreign leaders have urged Hu to engage in more substantive dialogue to address tensions in Tibet.

"VERY SUCCESSFUL"

Standing outside the ancient Horyuji temple while Hu inspected its bells and Buddhist statues, Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi told Reuters that he was pleased with Hu's visit to the long-time rival neighbour.

"It was very successful," Yang said before slipping off to join the thick phalanx of guards and officials accompanying the Chinese leader.

After Nara, Hu made a stop at the headquarters of electronics giant Matsushita, maker of Panasonic goods, one of the top sponsors of the Beijing Olympics. He chatted and made jokes to Japanese and Chinese employees and asked the firm to cooperate in the field of environmental protection technology.

Like much of Hu's trip, the final day was dominated by ceremony rather than substance.

Besides the serious summitry with Fukuda, Hu announced China would lend two giant panda bears to a Tokyo zoo, spoke to university students, admired ballet dancers, and briefly played ping-pong with a star Japanese player.

China and Japan remain divided by friction over Japan's bid for a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council and its misgivings about China's economic clout, military growth and export safety.

Many Chinese are also still bitter about Japan's brutal occupation of much of China from 1931 to 1945, while many Japanese distrust Beijing's assertion that its rise presents no economic or security threat.

Hu avoided harsh words on history and repeatedly stressed that he wanted to narrow differences and find common ground between the two biggest Asian economies. Chinese state media have lavished upbeat attention on Hu's trip.

He also talked up the most substantive achievement of his visit -- an announcement that the two sides were close to finding agreement over undersea gas in the East China Sea.

Beijing and Tokyo disagree over how to define their exclusive economic zones in the sea, which may hold hefty gas reserves.

On Friday evening, Hu met Toru Hashimoto, Governor of Osaka in western Japan.

Asked about the meeting, Hashimoto told reporters: "I heard the President's thoughts, such as 'you can choose a friend but you can't choose a neighbour' and 'the mission of a politician is to search for a common benefit.'"

(Additional reporting by Toru Hanai and Yoko Kubota, Editing by Linda Sieg and Alex Richardson)

Hu concludes summit with Osaka, Nara events

Sunday, May 11, 2008
By ERIC JOHNSTON
Staff writer

Security thick as pro-Tibet demonstrators dog Chinese leader

NARA — Amid the tightest security of his trip, Chinese President Hu Jintao concluded his visit to Japan in the Kansai region this weekend, dining with Osaka political and business leaders on Friday night and seeing the sights in the ancient capital of Nara on Saturday.

Photo: Nice to meet you: Chinese President Hu Jintao shakes hands with Shunkai Matsuura, head of Toshodaiji Temple, in Nara in front of a model of an ancient Chinese ship Hu donated to the temple on Saturday.

The Chinese president was dogged by pro-Tibet independence demonstrators Saturday in Nara, where a scuffle between police and protesters broke out at Toshodaiji Temple, which was founded in 759 by Ganjin, the Chinese Buddhist priest who was invited to Japan to train Japanese monks.

One person was taken away and another was slightly injured, an eyewitness said.

"About 100 people, including about 50 demonstrators, gathered at Toshodaiji and were quietly demonstrating. But when one of the demonstrators cried out 'Free Tibet,' five plainclothes policemen jumped on him and took him away," said Fumiko Tanaka, a Nara resident who took part in the demonstration.

"We were quickly surrounded by the police, and in the pushing and shoving, the person beside me fell," she said.

Nara Prefectural Police confirmed that there was a demonstration at Toshodaiji Temple but said they were unable to confirm whether anyone was arrested.

Fearing pro-Tibetan democracy and human rights protests of the kind that occurred during Hu's stay in Tokyo last week, police beefed up their presence Friday in central Osaka, where Hu met with Osaka Gov. Toru Hashimoto, other prefectural governors, and about 150 members of the Kansai business community.

Nearly two weeks before Hu's visit and not long after the Olympic torch passed through Japan, Osaka subway stations began broadcasting announcements asking people to cooperate with police, saying they were performing spot checks of pedestrians and cars in advance of the G8 finance ministers meeting in June.

Photo: Bowing to a Buddhist: Chinese President Hu Jintao prays for Ganjin, the Chinese priest who spent more than 10 years getting to Japan to teach Buddhism and founded Toshodaiji Temple in 759, at his grave in Nara on Saturday.

However, an official of the Osaka Prefectural Government, speaking anonymously, admitted that the real reason the checks began in April was the Hu visit.

Security in Nara was even tighter Saturday after local media reported that the pro-Tibet demonstration would take place.

Police officers from not only Nara, but also Kyoto and Aichi Prefectures were patrolling Nara Park early Saturday morning.

Hu's visit to Nara also included stops at Horyuji temple, a World Heritage Site, and the remains of the former Nara Palace.

Since Hu's trip to Kansai was about promoting trade and cultural ties, local politicians and business leaders, visibly nervous at the prospect of demonstrations disrupting the visit, went out of their way to avoid all references to political issues.

An Osaka-based NGO sent a written appeal to Osaka Gov. Hashimoto calling on him to raise the issue of China's persecution of the Falun Gong with Hu. But the Osaka governor avoided human rights issues during a meeting with Hu held just before hosting a formal dinner.

"I prefer to leave political issues to Tokyo," Hashimoto told reporters after the dinner.

Instead, Hu and Kansai business leaders discussed ways in which environmental technology exchanges between the two countries could further progress.

Hashimoto, who has already visited Shanghai, has promised that Osaka Prefecture — despite its ¥5 trillion deficit and sweeping budget cut proposals for the next fiscal year — will exhibit at the Shanghai Expo in 2010.

Nara Gov. Shogo Arai, along with transport minister Tetsuzo Fuyushiba and two dozen members of Nara's economic and cultural communities, met with Hu for about an hour and a half on Saturday afternoon.

Hu gave a bust of Ganjin to the Nara Prefectural Government as a present.

Hu answers calls for rapprochement

Sunday, May 11, 2008
By NAOKO AOKI

OSAKA (Kyodo) Chinese President Hu Jintao's trip to Japan this week, the first by a Chinese leader in a decade, was marked by less bitterness about the war and more publicity events aimed at wooing a wary Japanese public.

Behind the lighter tone and Hu's charm offensive, analysts say, is a desire to improve the overall climate for bilateral relations, even as the former opponents continue to struggle with difficult disputes.

"There are still a lot of problems to be resolved, there are no illusions there," said Joseph Cheng, a professor of political science at City University of Hong Kong.

But the countries "understand they must contain their problems, not allow the relations to deteriorate," he said.

Diplomatic relations between Japan and China began recovering after former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's prompt 2006 trip to China, which helped ease tensions provoked by former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's annual visits to war-linked Yasukuni Shrine.

Hu made notably fewer comments about Japan's invasion of China than did former President Jiang Zemin, who got the Japanese public's attention during the previous visit in 1998.

During a banquet hosted by the Emperor, Jiang discussed the huge damage inflicted during the war by Japanese troops. The comments drew negative reactions from the Japanese public.

In sharp contrast, Hu did not make explicit references to the war during a speech he made at a banquet hosted by Emperor Akihito on Wednesday. He only said bilateral ties could be seen at a new starting point, when "reviewing the past and looking to the future."

Hu's five-day visit was sprinkled with events designed to reach out to the Japanese public. The centerpiece was a speech delivered at Waseda University in Tokyo, Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda's alma mater, that was broadcast live throughout the country.

A telegenic moment for Hu followed that event during a table tennis rally with Japanese player Ai Fukuhara and Chinese Olympic gold medalist Wang Nan.

Hu's offer to lend Japan two giant pandas at Japan's request became the subject of TV talk shows, which treated the issue in a largely positive manner, despite controversy over the costly leasing fees and perceptions that paying them could be construed as financially backing China's bloody crackdown in autonomy-seeking Tibet.

Even if Hu's trip succeeds at improving public sentiment, the two countries still face a range of tricky problems.

Hu and Fukuda reported progress in solving the ongoing row over gas exploration rights in the East China Sea, but other issues — including the food-poisoning dispute caused by Chinese-made "gyoza" (dumplings) consumed in Japan, remain unresolved.

"Bilateral areas of cooperation are extensive, and it is only natural that differences occur," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao said in Tokyo earlier this week, answering critics who said the trip has produced few concrete results.

"But if both sides can think about issues from a bigger perspective and deal with them appropriately, they can be solved," Liu said.

The improvement of relations with Japan is important to China, which views their recent plunge as the "most conspicuous failure in Chinese diplomacy" in recent times, according to Cheng.

"If relations go bad, then China would be pushing Japan toward the embrace of the United States and there would be even closer Japan-U.S. security cooperation," an outcome China does not want, Cheng said.

The Japanese government, on the other hand, came under pressure from the business community when ties with China deteriorated. China is Japan's largest trading partner, and many Japanese companies have manufacturing bases in the country.

"Both sides understand that the rationale for better relations is there, and so they are steering away from problem areas and are trying to improve the atmosphere," Cheng said. "This is what they are trying to do at the moment."

At least one taxi driver in Osaka, one of the cities Hu visited, said he now has a good image of the Chinese leader.

'Yasukuni' screened in Osaka

Sunday, May 11, 2008

OSAKA (Kyodo) A movie theater in central Osaka began screening the controversial documentary "Yasukuni" on Saturday, becoming the first theater to do so in the Kansai region.

The Seventh Art Theater in Yodogawa Ward will run the film by Chinese Director Li Ying till June 6. Depending on viewer turnout, the showing will be extended, it said.

Despite the rain, the 140-seat theater was packed before Saturday's first showing at 9:30 a.m., and the theater had to rent a the banquet room at a Chinese restaurant in the same building to screen it for more people.

About 100 people saw the film at the restaurant. No disturbance by rightwing groups was observed.

The film has stirred heated controversy since four Tokyo cinemas and one in Osaka decided to cancel shows in April under pressure from rightwing groups and allegations by some lawmakers and critics that "Yasukuni" is anti-Japanese.

The film depicts events and people connected to Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo, which Japan's neighbors view as a symbol of its fervent wartime militarism. The Shinto shrine is dedicated to the nation's war dead, including Class-A war criminals.

"I don't think the film is giving out a strong message, and how to interpret the film is left to the people who see the film," Akiko Inoue, a 22-year-old female graduate school student, said after seeing the film. "I think it stirred controversy because some people took it too extremely."

"Theaters are for showing films. Making judgments on films is up to the viewers," a Seventh Art manager said.

Miura need not show up in L.A., judge says

Sunday, May 11, 2008

LOS ANGELES (AP) A Japanese man accused of killing his wife does not have to be in a Los Angeles courtroom when his attorney argues for the charges to be dismissed, a judge said Friday.

Kazuyoshi Miura, 60, is in custody in Saipan, a U.S. territory where he was arrested in February. Authorities say he had his wife shot during a visit to Los Angeles in 1981. She died in Japan a year later, and in 1994 Miura was convicted of the murder in that country; a Japanese court later overturned the verdict.

Los Angeles authorities, who first thought the Miuras were robbery victims, issued an arrest warrant for Kazuyoshi Miura in 1988 but weren't able to arrest him until he went to Saipan this year.

In March, defense attorney Mark Geragos filed motions to quash the arrest warrant and dismiss the felony complaint for extradition. Geragos said that trying Miura for murder in Los Angeles after he was tried in Japan would violate double-jeopardy rules.

But prosecutors contended the motions could not be argued unless Miura was present. He should not be allowed to "telephone in his defense," Deputy District Attorney Alan Jackson said during a hearing Friday before Superior Court Judge Steven Van Sicklen.

The judge disagreed.

"It makes no sense to me to insist that the person be here when their presence isn't required," Van Sicklen said.

A written order on his decision was expected next week.

Most states prohibit trying someone twice for the same crime. In 2004, the California Legislature passed a law to allow someone tried in another country to stand trial again.

Geragos contends changes in the law don't apply as they came after Miura's conviction was overturned in Japan.

The Japanese clothing importer said he and his wife were vacationing in Los Angeles in 1981 when robbers shot him in the leg and her in the head. The attack, in broad daylight on a busy downtown street, fed fears U.S. cities were dangerous.

Defense Ministry seeks leaner staff offices

May 10 07:48 PM US/Eastern

TOKYO, May 11 (AP) - (Kyodo) — The Defense Ministry will drastically downsize the four staff offices of the Self-Defense Forces to transfer some of their staff to SDF units and ministry bureaus as part of efforts to reform the troubled ministry and the forces, according to ministry sources.

Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba has come up with the plan as many SDF units are chronically short staffed, with a collision involving an Aegis destroyer of the Maritime Self-Defense Force and a trawler in waters off Chiba Prefecture in February attributed to a lax watch.

Ishiba is aiming to cut the combined quota of the joint, ground, maritime and air staff offices by 2,000 to 800, transferring 1,000 to ministry bureaus to double their staff to 2,000 and the remaining 1,000 to SDF units, the sources said.

Ishiba told a press conference Friday that he will push the reorganization to create "a sense of unity" among bureaucrats and SDF officers, and to strengthen the staff helping the minister.

But he also admitted that it would not be easy to enlist the support of a majority of the ministry's staff, saying, "There is no objection to the purpose of the planned reform but there are various opinions on how."

With many in the ministry and the SDF viewing the plan as "too drastic," Ishiba may present a number of ideas to the next session of the chief Cabinet secretary's panel on reform of the ministry later this month, the sources said.

Hu leaves after touring Nara sites

The Yomiuri Shimbun

Chinese President Hu Jintao toured Horyuji and Toshodaiji temples in Nara Prefecture, both of which have historical ties to China, on Saturday and left for China in the afternoon after visiting an electronics manufacturer in Osaka Prefecture.

It was the first time a Chinese president has made an official visit to Nara Prefecture.

Photo: Chinese President Hu Jintao, center, visits Horyuji temple in Ikarugacho, Nara Prefecture, on Saturday.

At Horyuji temple in Ikarugacho, founded by Prince Shotoku, who dispatched official diplomatic delegations to China in the early seventh century, the temple's chief priest, Genmyo Ono, explained to Hu the world's oldest wooden buildings, including the Kondo main hall and five-story pagoda.

"Prince Shotoku spread Buddhism in Japan and founded Horyuji temple. What remains at the temple is a fruit of the two countries' exchanges," Hu said.

At Toshodaiji temple in Nara, Hu viewed a seated statue of Jianzhen, a Chinese priest from the Tang dynasty (618-907) who built the temple and introduced the Buddhist religious precepts to Japan. Hu donated a 1.5-meter-long wooden model ship from the dynasty era to the temple as a symbol of friendship.

Groups holding Tibetan flags protested near the two temples. However, no major disruptions were reported.

(May. 11, 2008)

Miura extradition put on hold / L.A. court to probe double jeopardy issue; defendant to stay in Saipan

Tatsuhito Iida / Yomiuri Shimbun Correspondent

LOS ANGELES--A U.S. judge tentatively ruled Friday that former company president Kazuyoshi Miura, accused of conspiring in the murder of his wife, should not be extradited from Saipan until he had heard arguments by prosecutors on the issue of double jeopardy.

At the second hearing on Miura's case, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Steven Van Sicklen said the court would look into the issue of double jeopardy, which prohibits people from being tried for the same offense twice, at the next hearing set for June 16. Miura would appear by closed-circuit TV from Saipan, where he has been in custody since his February arrest in the U.S. Pacific territory.

Miura, 60, is being held on charges alleging he arranged the November 1981 shooting in Los Angeles of his wife, Kazumi, who died in Japan a year later. He was later acquitted of murder charges in Japan.

Miura's defense team filed a motion to void Miura's arrest warrant, arguing that he could not be indicted again because the California Penal Code, before its revision in 2004, guaranteed protection from double jeopardy regardless of rulings handed down by foreign courts.

Claiming hearings require the defendant's presence, prosecutors have insisted full-fledged arguments on the double jeopardy issue are unnecessary at this stage of the legal process, which is focusing on the validity of the arrest warrant.

However, at Friday's hearing, the judge ordered prosecutors to present detailed arguments on the issue.

Dismissing the prosecutors' demand to extradite Miura to Los Angeles, he said, "It makes no sense to me to insist that the person be here when their presence isn't required."

He also said transferring a person who is more than 11,000 kilometers from Los Angeles would incur enormous cost to the state.

The judge also asked the defense to submit English translations of documentation of Miura's trial in Japan, as he had yet to learn about the details of the case despite extensive media coverage.

Miura's lawyer, Mark Geragos, welcomed the judge's decision, saying, "I hope the case will be thrown out [at the next hearing] and Mr. Miura will be freed."

Sandi Gibbons, a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office, said prosecutors were not disappointed with the decision, noting the judge wants to look into the main issue of the case.

(May. 11, 2008)

Decentralization panel to act boldly

Akihisa Aoyama and Shinya Yamada / Yomiuri Shimbun Staff Writers

The government's Committee for the Promotion of Decentralization--the panel tasked with working out ways to transfer powers from the central government to local governments--will release its first recommendations later this month.

Photo: A high-ranking bureaucrat of the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry (left, foreground) attends a debate session open to the public with members of the Committee for the Promotion of Decentralization on Friday afternoon in Tokyo.

In a final round of talks between committee members and officials of ministries and agencies, almost all the bureaucrats were opposed to the envisioned decentralization.

Given that expediting transfer of administrative and legislative powers and the authority to handle fiscal affairs from central government to local entities is one of Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda's top priorities, the success of decentralization will be a key test of his leadership.

It has long been said, both in and outside government, that this country, with its population rapidly graying and a declining birthrate, will be unable to meet the challenge of global competition without far-reaching changes to its political system.

The decentralization policy envisages ending the centralized administrative framework of government--the system that has prevailed in Japan since the Meiji Restoration in 1868.

The decentralization committee aims to help local governments become competent enough to run their own affairs based on a mandate from local residents.

But officialdom in Tokyo has put up strong resistance to the planned decentralization, since it would mean erosion of the power of ministry and agency bureaucrats, and a reduction in the revenue sources at their disposal.

The committee comprises seven members, all appointed by the prime minister, including its chairman, Uichiro Niwa, chairman of trading house Itochu Corp. Other members include Prof. Masako Ii of Hitotsubashi University's graduate school of international and public policy, and Naoki Inose, the vice governor of Tokyo.

===

Bureaucrats fiercely opposed

In the last round of discussions Friday between committee members and bureau chief-level bureaucrats from ministries and agencies, the latter remained fiercely opposed to decentralization.

Among items the bureaucrats opposed was a proposal by the panel to shift administration of Hello Work public employment security offices from the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry to prefectural governments, including Tokyo and Hokkaido.

Arguing against this proposal, Toshiaki Ota, employment security bureau chief at the ministry, said, "Should the powers [to administer the employment offices] be transferred to local governments, there would be nobody to take care of unemployment affairs across prefectural borders."

A decentralization committee member responded that matters directly affecting the day-to-day lives of people, such as job placement services, should be handled by local governments that are better informed about local conditions.

But the ministry remains as opposed as ever.

The decentralization panel has been holding discussions since April 17 with bureau chiefs from the Construction and Transport Ministry, the Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Ministry, the Education, Science and Technology Ministry, the Environment Ministry and the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry.

Not one of the bureau chiefs was in favor of decentralization.

Among the reasons cited by officials for opposing decentralization were the need to retain central oversight of the work of local entities, and what they saw as a lack of competence at local government level.

But Niwa is skeptical of these arguments.

He was quoted by his aides as saying, "In their heart of hearts, no ministry or agency bureaucrat really has any desire to improve conditions for local entities."

"Instead they're intent on keeping their powers and revenue sources intact to bolster their air of superiority--an attitude I've never been able to stand," Niwa was cited as saying.

Indications are that the committee's first recommendations, due toward the end of this month, will be bold.

The first set of recommendations will focus on the advisability of transferring powers from the central government to local governments over the administration of roads, rivers, city planning and land use.

They also will tackle the transfer of power over social welfare programs to local entities.

Niwa has said the recommendations will serve as powerful encouragement for local communities that are "willing to take responsibility for making their own areas better places to live."

===

Legislation scheduled for FY09

The latest round of decentralization is the second since a first wave in the latter half of the 1990s, which centered on mergers of cities, towns and villages with the aim of enhancing administrative efficiency.

The second round is intended to streamline central government bureaucracy through a thorough review of the division of roles between central and local levels.

Apparently bearing in mind that his leadership is at stake over this question, Fukuda has instructed Cabinet members to "act resolutely as politicians, not with regard to the parochial interests of individual ministries and agencies."

The decentralization committee is scheduled to issue three sets of recommendations by next spring.

Based on the recommendations, the government plans to decide in a Cabinet meeting on a "decentralization promotion program," presenting a package of bills for decentralization projects to the Diet before the end of fiscal 2009.

After receiving the first set of recommendations from the committee, the government will work out the specifics of decentralization plans at a meeting of the Headquarters for Promoting Decentralization Reform, which comprises all Cabinet members with Fukuda as head.

The measures adopted by the headquarters will be incorporated in the Basic Policies for Economic and Fiscal Reform for 2008, which the government will adopt in June.

===

Fruits of decentralization

What changes will ensue if decentralization proceeds? City planning is likely to be one of the most affected areas.

Currently, when the governments of the nation's big three urban areas--Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya--plan to build a road with four lanes or more or a park of 10 hectares or more, they must obtain agreement from the Construction and Transport Ministry, as the ministry says such plans should be subject to supervision by the central government from the standpoint of its land utilization policy.

A decision whether to permit conversion of farmland into land usable for other purposes also needs the go-ahead from central government, or the Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Ministry, if the land in question covers more than two hectares, for the reason of "ensuring stable supply of food."

Similar restrictions apply to other aspects of land and river management.

If these powers of central government are handed over to local governments, the local entities will be able to conduct their own urban planning in line with the wishes of local residents.

The decentralization committee's first set of recommendations will call for all roads but arterial ones under the jurisdiction of the central government, and all rivers except major ones flowing through several prefectures, to be shifted to local government administration.

The committee argues that it is desirable to bring the administration of roads and rivers closer to the people who use them. It also believes decentralization of city planning will help drive reform of central government administration.

If administrative powers regarding roads and rivers are transferred to local governments, the number of officials at the Construction and Transport Ministry overseeing the ministry's regional offices can be slashed by about 27,000, according to the decentralization panel.

Since there are about 210,000 central government employees working at such local offices, the abolition or integration of the offices as a result of decentralization will definitely be conducive to downsizing central government, the committee said.

(May. 11, 2008)

Marine sentenced for sexual misconduct

By Travis J. Tritten, Stars and Stripes
Pacific edition, Sunday, May 11, 2008

Lance corporal gets dishonorable dischage, likely to spend no more than a [sic]

MARINE CORPS AIR STATION IWAKUNI, Japan — An Iwakuni lance corporal was sentenced to no more than one year in prison and a dishonorable discharge Friday for his role in the alleged gang rape of a Japanese minor.

Lance Cpl. Larry Dean was found guilty of wrongful sexual conduct, fraternizing with his superiors, drinking while underage and disobeying liberty restrictions during his court-martial.

He was the first of four Iwakuni Marines to face charges in the Oct. 14 incident.

During a night out in Hiroshima, he and the three other Marines picked up a 19-year-old woman from a club and drove her to a deserted parking lot, where they had sex with her six times.

The woman said she was kidnapped and raped by the four men.

Gunnery Sgt. Carl M. Anderson, Gunnery Sgt. Jarvis D. Raynor and Sgt. Lanaeus J. Braswell still face courts-martial for their roles in the incident.

“At any time that night, I could have found a taxi or a train and gone home but I didn’t,” said Dean, a Marine Corps general mechanic. “I deeply regret that.”

Before the sentencing Friday, Dean’s father, a disabled minister, told the court-martial judge his son was a good student who attended church and was rarely in trouble.

“All along the way, the teachers and everyone spoke well of him and his brain,” Larry Dean Sr. said. “They expected great things from him, as I did.”

He said his son had continued to send him money, between $1,800 and $2,500, while in confinement leading up to the court-martial.

Still, if Dean had committed crimes, he should stand accountable, his father said.

“I love my son, but I love justice more,” he said.

The alleged victim testified she still has difficulty working, sleeping and leaving the house alone since the incident.

The woman’s symptoms are consistent with symptoms of severe trauma, according to a military psychiatrist who testified last week.

Dean had sex with the woman twice in the parking lot and was the last man to copulate with her, according to court-martial evidence.

He told investigators the woman seemed to “give up” but that he had sex with her again anyway.

The court-martial judge, Maj. Charles Hale, sentenced Dean to 730 days of confinement, but that sentence was reduced due to a plea agreement.

Dean agreed to plead guilty to fraternization, underage drinking and breaking liberty policy, and agreed to assist in the prosecution of the other three Marines. In exchange, his prison sentence was limited.

Hale also gave Dean credit for being confined since the Oct. 14 incident and said he would likely spend less than one year in prison if he fulfilled his plea agreement.

The prosecution had asked the judge for a 10-year prison sentence.

Courts-martial for Anderson and Raynor begin May 19. They face a string of charges including rape and kidnapping.

Braswell is scheduled to be tried in June, according to trial dates released by the air station public affairs office.

Okinawans have mixed feelings on U.S. military

By David Allen and Chiyomi Sumida, Stars and Stripes
Pacific edition, Sunday, May 11, 2008

CHATAN, Okinawa — Local attitudes on Okinawa concerning the U.S. military are mixed.

Photo: Masao Shimoji, 57, a physics and math teacher at the University of Maryland on Okinawa, is a native of the island. He says many Okinawans his age have a bias against GIs from the days of military occupation, when there were many more U.S. troops and much more trouble. "They were really rowdy and obnoxious and they terrorized the Okinawans," he says.

In areas near U.S. bases, Okinawans generally support the U.S. military presence, both as a major employer — the bases are the third-largest employer on the island — and because they’ve gotten to know Americans.

In a popular shopping area known as American Village in Chatan, most people stopped on the street supported the bases.

“Having the military here is good for us,” said a 59-year-old man from Okinawa City who would identify himself only by his family name — Miyagi.

“The military contributes to Okinawa’s economy and provides local residents with job opportunities,” he said. “The unemployment rate on Okinawa is very high.”

Photo: Sumi Shimajiri, of Naha, said she reluctantly supports the U.S. bases on Okinawa. “If I had a choice, it is better without it. But in reality, it is hard to say yes or no.”

He said he returned from Yokosuka nine years ago after he had a stroke while working at Yokosuka Naval Base and has grown to respect the troops of today.

“U.S. servicemembers today behave far better than those who were stationed here back in ’60s and ’70s, the trouble times when many servicemembers acted rowdily in Koza and other downtown districts,” he said.

A 57-year-old physics and math teacher at the University of Maryland, Masao Shimoji, said many Okinawans his age have a bias against GIs from the days of military occupation, when there were many more U.S. troops and much more trouble.

Photo: Go Kuwao, from Naha, says the "occupation mentality" on the part of the U.S. military is a problem. “From the military’s perspective, Okinawa is a place they won in World War II at the cost of many Americans. The occupation mentality that prevails in the military community on Okinawa causes many problems even to this day."

“They were really rowdy and obnoxious and they terrorized the Okinawans,” he says. “It was so bad that something our parents would do to make us behave was to threaten to sell us to the GIs.

“Military people today behave very well, but the old image persists,” he said.

Shimoji, a native Okinawan, spent 30 years in the U.S. and said the current situation cannot last forever. “Japan someday will decide to amend its constitution and have a strong military. The next best thing is to have the U.S. here.”

He said the local media are perceived by many Americans to be biased.

Photo: “I think the military presence contributes to job opportunities for many Okinawa people,” says Tsutomu Kiuna of Okinawa City. “It is true that incidents do occur. But it is not fair to focus only on incidents committed by military people."

“But you have to remember the media follows the public sentiment — if they didn’t the people would look elsewhere for their news. And the public sentiment is that they don’t want the U.S. military.”

Tsutomu Kiuna, also from Okinawa City, said Okinawa needs the jobs the military brings.

“I think the military presence contributes to job opportunities for many Okinawa people,” he said. “It is true that incidents do occur. But it is not fair to focus only on incidents committed by military people. Similar crimes are also committed by Okinawans.”

On Kokusai Street in Naha, the prefectural capital, the feelings were a bit different.

One shopper said there seems to be no choice but to accept the U.S. presence.

Photo: "Having the U.S. military here is good for us,” said a 59-year-old man from Okinawa City who would only give his family name, Miyagi.

“If I had a choice, it is better without it,” said Sumi Shimajiri. “But in reality, it is hard to say yes or no.

“When an incident committed by a servicemember occurs, it makes me feel that it is best not to have the military. But on the other hand, it is also a reality that there are many people who make a living by working on base.”

Go Kuwao, 78, a bartender, said the U.S. occupation mentality causes all the problems.

“From the military’s perspective, Okinawa is a place they won in World War II at the cost of many Americans,” he said.

“We feel resentment, not against American people in general, but against servicemembers and civilians who still hold that occupation mentality deep inside their minds and think that they can do whatever they want to and can get away with it on this island.”

Okinawa's newspapers: At war with the U.S. military?

By David Allen and Chiyomi Sumida, Stars and Stripes
Pacific edition, Sunday, May 11, 2008

Crimes allegedly committed by U.S. troops usually get big play in Okinawa newspapers

CHATAN, Okinawa — Ask military public affairs officers in private and they’ll tell you Okinawa is one of the most political places they’ve been assigned.

They say, if there’s a bad angle to be found in a story about Marines cleaning a local beach, the Japanese-language newspapers will find it. And if there’s a report of a crime committed by an airman or a sailor, protests by island officials and rallies by well-organized anti-base groups are sure to follow.

Photo: Japanese media cover a crowd that is protesting outside Camp Foster's Building 1 Gate on Feb. 22 after the alleged rape of an Okinawa middle school girl by a Marine staff sergeant earlier that month.

Crimes by U.S. servicemembers on the Japanese mainland don’t generate the same sense of public outrage. But on Okinawa, even a report of a drunken Marine stumbling into a stranger’s house and falling asleep on the sofa is likely to get at least a formal complaint filed by the local town or city hall.

The irony? Americans connected to the military commit far fewer crimes per capita than their Okinawan counterparts.

In an op-ed piece that ran in the Japan Times in February, frequent contributor Michael Hassett examined crime statistics released by the National Police Agency and determined that the arrest rate for Americans on Okinawa under the Status of Forces Agreement in 2006 was about half that of the prefecture’s general population. He was stunned.

The amount of press given to incidents on Okinawa had made him believe U.S. troops on Okinawa were running amok.

Photo: The editorial stance for the Ryukyu Shimpo, an Okinawa newspaper, is a U.S. military-free Okinawa, says Takeshi Kakazu, the paper's editor in chief. However, the Okinawan people are very friendly toward individual Americans, he said.

“Shocked? I am!” he wrote. “It’s particularly surprising when you consider that almost half the U.S. military population is 25 years old or younger.”

Hassett said the statistics made him wonder if it was “hypocritical to give such disproportionate media exposure to crimes committed by U.S. servicemembers when the data shows that their adherence to our laws apparently exceeds our own?”

Anti-base groups on Okinawa say they seek to make their home a “military free” island and frequently cite the crimes committed by U.S. troops as a major reason to send them packing. To placate the groups, the U.S. and Japan agreed in 1996 to reduce the amount of land used by the bases on Okinawa by 21 percent.

But the pace of returning the base properties has slowed, and the bases continue to cover nearly a fifth of the prefecture’s main island.

The U.S. military also is a main contributor to Okinawa’s economy — either directly, through land leases, rental housing, off-base shopping and jobs, or indirectly through special subsidies from the national government.

Incentive to complain

There’s a sense in some circles that Okinawa gets noticed by Tokyo only when it complains about the bases. But it dare not complain too loudly, lest the reason for the subsidies disappears.

Photo: Masaaki Gabe, professor of international relations at the University of the Ryukyus, says Okinawa officials will always use incidents involving SOFA-status personnel to “ensure Tokyo will provide economic incentives” for accepting the current plan to realign U.S. forces in Japan.

In a study published in Armed Forces & Society (July 2006), political science professors Alexander Cooley and Kimberly Marten argue that “the Japanese government’s unique system of ‘burden payments’ provides incentives to Okinawa to both highlight the negative effects of the U.S. presence and to support the continuation of the bases for economic reasons.”

The professors date the current anti-base movement to an incident in 1995 when two Marines and a Navy corpsman abducted a 12-year-old schoolgirl from a sidewalk in the village of Kin and took her to a deserted beach, where she was gang raped.

“The incident immediately propelled the U.S. military presence into the national and international spotlight,” they wrote. They say that then-Gov. Masahide Ota was able to manipulate the public outcry into a campaign for a public referendum on the bases with the goal of ridding the island of all U.S. bases by 2015.

He also refused to sign paperwork that would compel anti-base landowners to renew their leases, forcing Tokyo to exercise a little-used law to sign in his place.

But although Okinawans did vote against the bases in 1996, some 40 percent of the registered voters didn’t show. It was an unusually low voter turnout that some observers cited as a “silent no.” It also spelled doom for Ota in his re-election bid two years later, when he was defeated by a candidate from the Liberal Democratic Party, which is committed to preserving the U.S.-Japan security alliance.

Ota’s successor, Keichi Inamine, knocked Ota for being overzealous in his approach to what is commonly called “Okinawa’s burden” of hosting the bulk of U.S. forces in Japan. In the following years, Inamine was able to wheedle economic payoffs and subsidies that help sustain the U.S. presence, Cooley and Marten say.

Their findings are supported by some Japanese political observers.

“In the past, people on the mainland, including the national media, paid little attention to military or any other issues on Okinawa,” Kozo Hiramatsu, professor of acoustic environmental studies at Kyoto University, said in a recent Stars and Stripes interview. “The high-profile 1995 rape incident changed the whole political and social climate surrounding Okinawa.”

Hiramatsu has been involved in Okinawa issues since the early 1980s as one of the leading scholars on the effects of aircraft noise on the local populace.

“The rape incident elevated Okinawan issues to national issues,” he said.

Reducing the burden

Hiramatsu said there may be more to the protests than the desire of activists to evict the military altogether — as the Philippines did — or for officials to complain about the “burden” in order to gain subsides from Tokyo.

“Some groups target these incidents as a means to turn public opinion against the U.S. military in order to prepare the way for Japan adopting a full-fledged military of its own by revising the pacifist Article 9 of the constitution,” he said.

Photo: “In the past, people on the mainland, including the national media, paid little attention to military or any other issues on Okinawa,” says Kozo Hiramatsu, professor of acoustic environmental studies at Kyoto University. The high-profile 1995 rape of a 12-year-old Okinawa schoolgirl changed the whole political and social climate surrounding Okinawa, he claims. "The rape incident elevated Okinawan issues to national issues."

Cooley and Marten contend the subsidies from Tokyo help balance the natural anti-military mind-set of the Okinawa public — an identity formed when the island was forcibly annexed to Japan in 1879, then suffered a battle during World War II in which nearly a third of the islanders died and in which Japanese soldiers ordered civilians to kill themselves rather than be taken prisoner.

That was followed by a 27-year occupation by the U.S. marked by protests and riots against the military presence that radicalized the island’s institutions, especially educators, labor unions and newspapers.

“The island’s two major newspapers — Ryukyu Shimpo and The Okinawa Times — are strongly antibase in their editorial stances and coverage of U.S.-Okinawa community relations,” the Cooley-Marten report states. “Each commands 200,000 readers, giving the antibase view great prominence.”

It’s a claim the editor of The Okinawa Times denies. One U.S. officer said he was told by the editor of another newspaper that his paper’s editorial position was slanted against U.S. bases.

“I was told straight out by an editor that they want us — the military — to go away,” the officer said, asking not to be named.

U.S military and State Department personnel on Okinawa declined to officially comment for this story. However, in October 2005, former U.S. Consul General Thomas G. Reich told a group of local journalists, “This small island probably has the most complex politics of any place in Japan.”

In a recent story in Marine Times, Lt. Gen. Richard Zilmer, the senior U.S. military officer on Okinawa, said a “vocal minority” of Okinawans and a “very, very anti-base media” at times portrays servicemembers as “criminals and thugs.”

“We can never afford to have any incidents happen out in town,” Zilmer told the newspaper. “We want to make sure that everyone — everyone — understands the political implications of bad behavior here in Okinawa.

“This relationship is very, very fragile here with the local community.”

Masaaki Gabe, professor of international relations at the University of the Ryukyus, said Okinawa officials will always use incidents involving SOFA-status personnel to “ensure Tokyo will provide economic incentives” for accepting the current plan to realign U.S. forces in Japan. The plan calls for the eventual transfer of some 8,000 Marines and their families to Guam.

Said Gabe: “Money is a very powerful, manipulative tool.”

And although the Okinawa press may be biased, Gabe said, it also represents the views of its readers.

Newspapers on Okinawa claim fair reporting

By David Allen and Chiyomi Sumida, Stars and Stripes
Pacific edition, Sunday, May 11, 2008

NAHA, Okinawa — Of Okinawa’s two major newspapers, one — the Ryukyu Shimpo — admits it has an anti-military stance and the other — the Okinawa Times — claims it merely reflects the attitude of the island’s people.

They both say they fairly report the news. It’s not their fault a good deal of the news about the U.S. military presence is unfavorable, they say.

“In our 60-year history, we have never produced our paper under the banner of anti-American, or anti-military,” said Satoshi Yagi, assistant managing editor for the Okinawa Times. “What is wrong is wrong; this is what we focus and shed light on.”

Photo: The Okinawa Times has "never produced our paper under the banner of anti-American, or anti-military. What is wrong is wrong; this is what we focus and shed light on,” says Satoshi Yagi, the paper's assistant managing editor.

The Okinawa Times, published since July 1, 1948, has a circulation of 200,000.

“It is hard for us to figure out why some people view our paper as biased,” Yagi said. “If people say our way of reporting is biased, I would like to see a concrete example.”

He denied the paper shapes public opinion, and it conducts reader polls every five years.

“As far as the military bases are concerned, our polls indicate the majority want a gradual reduction of the bases,” he said. “Those who demand an immediate and total closure of the bases are very small in number and have become smaller and smaller over time.”

He said the Okinawans have a unique perspective concerning the military.

“Okinawa was under U.S. military occupation for 27 years,” he said. “During the occupation era, newspapers were published under censorship of the military and the human rights of the Okinawan people were largely ignored and taken lightly.

“We, the local media, have reported their voices, which we believe contributed to the military changing its approach toward crimes committed by its members,” said Yagi.

That is why Okinawans react to crimes committed by servicemembers more vocally than mainland Japanese, he said.

But on the flip side, he added, “When it comes to individual interactions with Americans, Okinawans are more open and welcoming.”

He said subsidies from Tokyo, meant to “ease” the prefecture’s burden of hosting more than half the U.S. troops in Japan, are a fact of life.

“Voices are raised when they suffer from noise or crimes committed by military members. And it is our job to cover the voices of the community and people we serve.”

Media critics claim that some time ago a journalist organization on the island passed a resolution to actively campaign against the bases.

It’s probably a misconception confused with the formation of the now 700-member Council of Mass Media Labor Unions of Okinawa, organized in 1969 to take part in the movement to return Okinawa to Japan, said Kan Miyagi, the council’s secretary-general.

“Our slogan today is for the revision of the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty and the reduction and removal of the military bases,” he said. “This is what we believe in as labor union members. But can we force [newspaper] management to comply with the union’s goal? Of course not.”

He said each media outlet chooses its own editorial stances and questioned whether any newspaper was biased.

“To oppose the existing newspapers on Okinawa, a right-leaning newspaper, Okinawa Jiho, was established in 1968,” he said. “But it had to close the business because they could not get support from Okinawan readers.”

One newspaper on Okinawa makes no bones about its anti-base stance.

Photo: Takeshi Kakazu, the editor in chief of the Ryukyu Shimpo, one of the daily newspapers in Okinawa, says the paper's editorial stance is for a military-free Okinawa.

Takeshi Kakazu, editor in chief of the Ryukyu Shimpo, said his paper’s goal is to be rid of the military.

“The ideal for Okinawa is to become a military-free island,” he said, claiming the editorial position reflects the sentiment of the Okinawans.

The Ryukyu Shimpo is 115 years old, dating from September 15, 1893. Its current circulation is about 205,000.

Like other papers in Japan, the fate of Ryukyu Shimpo was controlled by militarism that swept through the country during World War II, Kakazu said. It was put under control of the Japanese Imperial Army from 1940 until May 1945.

“Military bases on Okinawa were formed in a way that created strong anti-military sentiment among Okinawan people,” Kakazu said. “Every single Okinawan who survived the Battle of Okinawa was taken to concentration camps when the war ended. By the time they were released from the camps, many of them found their homes had been enclosed with barbed-wire fences.

“Much of the military bases on Okinawa are on land that was forcibly taken from residents,” he said. “Considering these facts, we cannot help but to deny the legitimate presence of military bases.”

Kakazu, however, denied that the paper is biased against Americans.

“People may say that highlighting a trespassing incident by a servicemember is not fair, but from Okinawan people’s standpoint, a stranger breaking into their home is just as frightening as a robbery attempt,” he said.

“One thing we want people in the military to understand is that the Okinawan people are very sensitive to crimes committed by servicemembers,” he said.

However, the anti-military sentiment should never be mistaken as anti-American. “Okinawan people are more pro-American than any other people in the rest of Japan.”

Military buildup threatens to overwhelm Guam

By Karen Jowers - Staff writer
Posted : Saturday May 10, 2008 7:34:38 EDT

Governor pleads for immediate federal assistance

If Guam doesn’t get money soon from the federal government to help prepare for the massive military buildup coming to the island in the next few years, it could affect not only the island’s permanent residents but also the quality of life for the service members and families who will move there, the island’s governor told lawmakers.

“No American community can shoulder the challenges of a 30 percent increase in population” in such a short time, Guam Gov. Felix Camacho said.

Guam’s population of about 171,000 includes about 14,000 people connected to the Defense Department, but that is expected to triple, to more than 40,000, in a five-year period, said David Bice, executive director of the Joint Guam Program Office for the Navy’s assistant secretary for installations and environment.

That includes 8,000 Marines and their 9,000 family members relocating from Okinawa to Guam by 2014, as well as the addition of about 1,000 airmen at Andersen Air Force Base.

Including active-duty airmen, reservists and dependents, the population of Andersen will swell from about 8,500 to nearly 12,000 by early in the next decade.

The people of Guam expect the federal government to underwrite the costs directly related to the military buildup, Camacho told the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee on May 1.

Guamanians are worried about the potential strains on their port, roads, electrical system, health care system, wastewater system and social programs.

Camacho noted that military personnel and their families “will travel the same roads, use the same resources and live in the same community we all share today. ... We want to be ready so we can continue to provide America’s front lines with a home away from home, without jeopardizing the basic services the government of Guam provides to the local community.”

Although Guam’s government has been working to improve roads, schools and other infrastructure, it is unfair to expect any community to take on such exponential growth in such a short timeline, he said.

Because of its strategic location in the western Pacific and its status as U.S. soil, Air Force leaders envision Guam becoming a major staging ground from which to project air power throughout Asia.

Buildup has already begun

The ramp-up is already underway. Andersen has hosted continuous long-range bomber deployments since 2004, and the base began construction in 2006 on a $242 million Expeditionary Combat Support Training campus.

The campus will host the 554th Red Horse Squadron and a combat communications squadron, both relocating from South Korea.

Andersen also expects to gain a permanent tanker presence as soon as fiscal 2009, and the base is slated to receive the first of seven Global Hawk surveillance drones in 2009 or 2010.

The Navy plans to build a transient nuclear aircraft carrier-capable pier at Apra Harbor and beef up its submarine presence, and the Army plans to put a ballistic missile defense task force on the island.

The most pressing concern, Camacho said, is Guam’s only civilian seaport, which expects to see six times the number of containers it now handles to support the construction boom.

The port will bear the brunt of incoming military cargo and will be a critical chokepoint to support the buildup, he said. Expanding the port will cost an estimated $195 million, Guam officials said.

Local officials have been taking steps on their own to prepare, he said. For example, the master plan for expansion of the port is before the Guam legislature.

But officials have received little Defense Department guidance, and uncertainties about the buildup contribute to the difficulty of crafting a fully formed plan, said Brian Lepore, the Government Accountability Office’s director of defense capabilities and management.

Commitments between the U.S. and the government of Japan, Camacho said, were made “without consideration of our capacity.”

“We support this, and recognize it will bring an economic boon to Guam in the way of jobs,” Camacho said. “But our lives will be forever changed.”

Guam Delegate Madeleine Bordallo said she is calling for memos of understanding between the government of Guam and its federal counterparts, as a step toward identifying sources of funds to pay for improvements to the civilian infrastructure, as well as ensure continuity in the realignment process.

China's Hu concludes Japan visit, calls trip successful

May.10.2008 20:00
OSAKA, May 10 KYODO

Chinese President Hu Jintao concluded his trip to Japan on Saturday, calling it a success as he toured the western part of the country on the last day of his five-day state visit.

Hu, the first Chinese head of state to visit Japan in a decade, left abroad a special Air China flight from Osaka International Airport in the late afternoon.

Photo: China's Hu visits Nara on last leg of official visit to Japan. Chinese President Hu Jintao (center in front) walks near the five-story stupa of Horyuji Temple.

The trip has ''succeeded in a satisfactory manner,'' Hu told reporters after a lunch hosted by Nara Gov. Shogo Arai in Osaka's neighboring Nara Prefecture.

''I believe that this trip has achieved the expected results,'' Hu said earlier, at the outset of his talks with Arai that was open to the press. ''I think this will greatly promote bilateral ties in the future,'' he said.

In Nara, Hu toured two ancient temples -- Horyuji and Toshodaiji -- amid rain in the morning.

Hu joined his palms together in a Buddhist prayer and greeting gesture as he was met by Horyuji chief priest Genmyo Ono, who guided the Chinese president through the grounds including the Kondo main hall, the oldest surviving wooden building in the world.

A group of about 50 people, including Japanese and Tibetan students, gathered outside Toshodaiji, holding Tibetan flags and a large banner reading ''Free Tibet,'' but no major disruption occurred.

Security was tight in Nara for the first visit to the prefecture by a Chinese head of state. A total of about 3,000 policemen, including those from other prefectures, were deployed for the event, according to Nara prefectural police.

''What is most important for the people of China and Japan today is to inherit the spirit of Jingzhen ... and promote and develop bilateral relations,'' Hu said at the talks with the Nara governor, referring to a Chinese Buddhist priest who founded Toshodaiji in 759.

The priest, known as Ganjin in Japanese, spent over 10 years trying to travel to Japan in order to teach Buddhist precepts. Despite losing his eyesight during the course of his attempts, he did not waver from that purpose.

Hu later visited the headquarters of Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. in Osaka. Matsushita was one of the first Japanese companies to invest on a large scale in China, establishing a joint venture in Beijing in 1987.

The Chinese leader held summit talks with Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda on Wednesday and agreed to promote relations, which have been on an improvement trend after their deep freeze for five years from 2001.

==Kyodo

Op-Ed :: The future of the Japan-US alliance

10.05.2008
by JOSEPH S. NYE, JR.

Many analysts currently detect malaise in Japan about its alliance with the United States. Some of this relates to North Korea's nuclear weapons and a concern that the US will not adequately represent Japan's interests (such as accounting for Japanese citizens abducted by North Korea years ago).

Other issues concern the basing of US marines in Okinawa and sharing the costs of moving some to Guam. The list is long, but they might best be thought of as "housekeeping" issues: Many a couple can quarrel over them without contemplating divorce.

There is a deeper level of concern, however, which relates to Japan's fear of being marginalized as the US turns toward a rising China. For example, some Japanese complain that China is receiving far more attention than Japan in the American election campaign. Such anxiety is not surprising: US and Japanese defense capabilities are not symmetrical, and that is bound to agitate the more dependent party.

Over the years, various suggestions have been made with a view to making the alliance more symmetrical, including that Japan become a "normal" country with a full panoply of military capabilities, even nuclear weapons. But such measures would raise more problems than they would solve. Even if Japan implemented them, they would still not equal the capacity of the US or eliminate the asymmetry. It is worth noting that during the Cold War, America's European allies had similar anxieties about dependency and abandonment, despite their own military capabilities.

The real guarantee of American resolve to defend Japan is the presence of US troops and bases, and cooperation on issues -- such as ballistic missile defense -- aimed at protecting both Americans and Japanese. Moreover, there are two good answers to the question of whether the US would abandon Japan in favor of China: values and threat.

Japan and the US, unlike China, are both democracies, and they share many values. In addition, both Japan and the US face a common challenge from China's rise and have a strong interest in ensuring that it does not become a threat. The US regards a triangular Japan-China-US relationship as the basis of stability in East Asia and wants good relations between all three of its legs. But the triangle is not equilateral, because the US is allied with Japan, and China need not become a threat to either country if they maintain that alliance.

On the other hand, China's power should not be exaggerated. A recent poll indicates that one-third of Americans believe that China will "soon dominate the world," while 54 percent see its emergence as a "threat to world peace." To be sure, measured by official exchange rates, China is the world's fourth-largest economy and it is growing at 10 percent annually. But China's income per capita is only 4 percent that of the US. If both countries' economies continue to grow at their current rates, China's could be larger than America's in 30 years, but US per capita income will still be four times greater. Furthermore, China's lags far behind in military power and lacks America's "soft power" resources, such as Hollywood and world-class universities.

China's internal evolution also remains uncertain. It has lifted 400 million people out of poverty since 1990, but another 400 million live on less that $2 per day. Along with enormous inequality, China has a migrant labor force of 140 million, severe pollution, and rampant corruption. Nor has its political evolution matched its economic progress. While more Chinese are free today than ever before in Chinese history, China is far from free. The danger is that party leaders, trying to counter the erosion of communism, will turn to nationalism to provide ideological glue, which could lead to an unstable foreign policy -- including, for example, conflict over Taiwan.

Faced with such uncertainty, a wise policy combines realism with liberalism. By reinforcing their alliance, the US and Japan can hedge against uncertainty while at the same time offering China integration into global institutions as a "responsible stakeholder." The greatest danger is that an escalating fear of enmity in the three countries becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. In that sense, the US-Japan alliance rests on deeply rooted joint interests.

There is a new dimension to the alliance, however, and to the relationship with China. This year, China surpassed the US as the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases. China argues, correctly, that it is still behind the US and Japan in per capita emissions, but this does not reduce the costs imposed on the world (including Japan and the US). A cooperative program that helps China to burn its coal more cleanly is in the interests of all three countries.

In general, transnational threats such as climate change or pandemics can cause damage on a scale equivalent to military conflict (in 1918, avian influenza killed more people than died in World War I). Responding to such threats requires cooperation, soft power and non-military instruments -- and this is an area in which Japan is a much more equal and important ally. If anything, the new and growing dimension of transnational threats, when added to traditional security concerns, makes the future of the Japan-US alliance look more promising than ever.

Joseph S. Nye, a former US assistant secretary of defense, is University Distinguished Service Professor at Harvard and author, most recently, of "The Powers to Lead."

FOCUS: Eased pressure, charm offensive mark Hu's Japan trip

May.10.2008 14:26
OSAKA, May 10 KYODO

Chinese President Hu Jintao's trip to Japan this week, the first by a Chinese leader in a decade, was marked by less talk of the bitter wartime past and a number of publicity events aimed at wooing the wary Japanese public.

Behind the eased pressure and charm offensive, analysts say, is a desire to improve the overall mood of bilateral relations, even as the countries continue to face a series of difficult disputes.

"There are still a lot of problems to be resolved, there are no illusions there," said Joseph Cheng, professor at the City University of Hong Kong.

But the countries "understand they must contain their problems, not allow the relations to deteriorate."

The countries' ties entered on a recovery path after a 2006 trip to China by then Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, which helped ease tensions triggered by visits to the war-linked Yasukuni Shrine by Abe's predecessor, Junichiro Koizumi.

Hu made notably fewer comments about Japan's invasion of China compared with the previous visit to Japan by a Chinese head of state 10 years ago, which left both sides bitter.

During his 1998 trip, then President Jiang Zemin talked about the huge damage caused by Japanese troops at a banquet hosted by the Japanese emperor, a move that triggered a negative reaction from the Japanese public.

In sharp contrast, Hu made no explicit mention of the wartime past in a speech at his banquet hosted by Emperor Akihito on Wednesday, saying only that bilateral ties are at a new starting point when "reviewing the past and looking to the future."

Hu's five-day visit has been sprinkled with events aimed at reaching out to the Japanese public, the centerpiece of which was a speech delivered at a Japanese university, broadcast live throughout the country.

A telegenic moment came after that event, when he had a table tennis rally with Japanese player Ai Fukuhara and Chinese Olympic gold medalist Wang Nan.

Hu's offer to lend Japan two giant pandas at the request of Japan has also been the subject of television talk shows, which have treated the issue in a largely positive light, although some controversy remains because of the potentially costly lease fees.

Even if Hu's trip does succeed in improving overall public sentiment, the two countries still face a range of tricky problems.

Hu and Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda reported progress in solving a row over gas exploration rights in the East China Sea, but other issues, including food poisoning cases in Japan caused by Chinese-made frozen meat dumplings, remain unresolved.

"Bilateral areas of cooperation are extensive, and it is only natural that differences occur," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao said in Tokyo earlier this week, refuting critics who have said that the trip has produced few concrete results.

"But if both sides can think about issues from a bigger perspective and deal with them appropriately, they can be solved," Liu added.

The improvement of relations with Japan is important for China, which views their previous deterioration as the "most conspicuous failure in Chinese diplomacy" in recent times, according to Cheng.

"If relations go bad, then China would be pushing Japan toward the embrace of the United States and there would be even closer Japan-U.S. security cooperation," an outcome China does not want, Cheng said.

The Japanese government, meanwhile, came under pressure from the country's business community when relations with China deteriorated. China is Japan's largest trading partner, and many Japanese companies have manufacturing bases in the country.

"Both sides understand that the rationale for better relations is there, and so they are steering away from problem areas and are trying to improve the atmosphere," Cheng said. "This is what they are trying to do at the moment."

At least one taxi driver in Osaka, one of the cities Hu visited, said he now has a good image of the Chinese leader.

"His visit has been awful for traffic because of all the security, so I'm not happy about that," said 55-year-old Katsutoshi Suzuki.

"But I saw him on TV, and I like him. He has a nice smile."

==Kyodo

Mr. Fukuda's Final Days

May 2008
by Tobias Harris
Posted May 10, 2008

Tokyo—Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda and Chinese President Hu Jintao were all smiles this week as Mr. Hu toured Japan and the two men did their best to improve strained relations between their two nations. But political conditions within Japan make it unlikely that the two leaders will make significant progress in solving the contentious issues in the relationship.

No matter how statesman-like Prime Minister Fukuda may appear, the Japanese public has largely abandoned him, and his own party, the Liberal Democratic Party of Japan (LDP), is increasingly discontent with his leadership. From here on out Mr. Fukuda will have a hard time taking bold initiatives—in China policy or any other area—and is likely nearing the end of his tenure.

Speculation about a premature end to Mr. Fukuda’s premiership has raged since February, when public opinion polls began recording a sharp spike in the prime minister’s disapproval rating. Even the conservative Yomiuri Shimbun, whose opinion polls tend to reflect the newspaper’s editorial line, showed the prime minister’s disapproval rating climbing to 58.4% as of April 14, nearly double his 30% approval rating. The left-of-center Asahi Shimbun recorded a similar gap a week later, with 60% disapproving and only 25% approving of the prime minister.

Until recently, Mr. Fukuda shrugged off the parade of dismal poll numbers and ignored discordant voices within the LDP, not least because he could rely on the support of the party’s senior leaders, many of whom are in his cabinet. But that all changed after the LDP’s embarrassing defeat in the by-election held in Yamaguchi prefecture’s second district on April 27. The first by-election since Mr. Fukuda took office last autumn, it was considered a test of his leadership of the LDP, a test which the prime minister failed. Hideo Hiraoka, the opposition Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) candidate, defeated Shigetaro Yamamoto, the LDP candidate, by approximately 22,000 votes out of the 212,540 cast.

It wasn’t exactly a fair test for Mr. Fukuda. Mr. Hiraoka won the district in 2000 and 2003 before losing narrowly (588 votes) in 2005, a showing still strong enough to send him to the Diet via proportional representation. The LDP’s Mr. Yamamoto, on the other hand, was a first-time candidate who had recently retired from the transportation ministry. The stream of senior LDP politicians who visited the district to campaign for Mr. Yamamoto wasn’t enough, and Mr. Hiraoka won by the greatest margin of victory of his four campaigns.

But regardless of the DPJ’s strengths in the district, Mr. Fukuda’s inability to bring home a victory in a prefecture known as a “conservative kingdom”—Shinzo Abe, the former prime minister, represents its fourth district—has stripped him of whatever lingering claims he has to the LDP leadership.

His policy agenda, insofar as it exists, has been stymied, whether by the bureaucracy, LDP opponents, or the restive DPJ. On the signature issue of the current Diet session, the future of Japan’s “temporary” gasoline surcharge and the system whereby all gasoline tax revenue is earmarked for road construction, Mr. Fukuda produced a compromise plan—which calls for phasing out the road construction fund from 2009 while reintroducing the expired temporary surcharge —that pleases no one. Reformists in the LDP feel that the prime minister’s plan doesn’t go far enough; the road “tribe,” advocates of the status quo in road construction, feel that it goes too far. The DPJ wants to see an end to both the temporary tax and the road construction fund. Mr. Fukuda has attempted to placate everyone and as a result has pleased no one, least of all the Japanese people, who are increasingly discontent with both the Fukuda government and the LDP.

As the by-election showed, even traditional LDP constituencies are dissatisfied. A major factor in the size of the LDP’s defeat in Yamaguchi was the government’s poorly executed rollout of modifications to senior health-care a week before the election. This frightened and angered elderly voters, who customarily support the LDP in large numbers, and sent them into the arms of the DPJ. This continues the trend seen in last summer’s upper house elections, in which the DPJ performed well in LDP-leaning rural prefectures due in large part to discontent over the government’s mismanagement of pension records.

In short, LDP backbenchers now see Mr. Fukada as an electoral liability. Mr. Fukuda may limp through the remainder of the Diet session and survive to host the G-8 summit in Hokkaido from July 7-9, but it is unlikely that he will remain in office shortly thereafter. The LDP’s poor performance on April 27 seems to have been enough to convince party elders that Mr. Fukuda is not fit to lead the LDP into the general election that may come by year’s end.

In the meantime, the campaign to replace Mr. Fukuda, already active before the by-election, will likely intensify in the months leading up to the G-8 summit. Many believe that replacement will be Taro Aso, runner-up in last year’s leadership election. In a recent poll by the Jiji wire service that asked which politician would make the best prime minister, Mr. Aso ranked a close second behind Junichiro Koizumi, the beloved former prime minister—and far ahead of Mr. Fukuda. Whether Mr. Aso will be able to fix the broken LDP is another matter entirely.

Mr. Harris is a former aide to a DPJ member of the House of Councilors. He is now a freelance writer and author of Observing Japan (www.observingjapan.com), a Japanese politics blog.

China's Hu wraps up Japan tour

May 9 10:02 PM US/Eastern

Chinese President Hu Jintao will Saturday visit the sights of Japan's ancient capital of Nara, wrapping up his five-day tour aimed at mending strained ties.

On the final day of his trip, only the second visit ever by a Chinese head of state to the country, Hu is due to visit the Toshodaiji Temple, a revered Buddhist temple built by Chinese monk Ganjin in 759 when the city was Japan's capital.

The choice of Nara is seen as a bid to remember times when bilateral relations were amicable, unlike the two countries' tortured recent history tainted by Japan's militarism before and during World War II.

"If you look at the old days, you might find a clue as to how we pursue 'the mutually beneficial strategic partnership,'" Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda said Thursday at a dinner with Hu, referring to his visit to Nara Saturday.

"Japan and China are learning together, helping each other, connecting to and contributing to the region and the international community. Such two countries can never be those which seek hierarchy," Fukuda said.

Hu is also to visit the Horyuji Temple, the world's oldest surviving wooden structure, which was built more than 1,300 years ago, the remains of an ancient palace, and the headquarters of Japanese electronics maker Matsushita Electric Industrial in Osaka, before heading home.

The two leaders on Wednesday agreed to start regular summits to ease decades of tension coloured by Japan's brutal invasion of China, and pledged that Asia's two largest economies would not see each other as a threat.

During his stay in Japan this week, Hu has not been short on friendly gestures, offering to lend two giant pandas to a Japanese zoo and shedding his jacket and glasses to show off his table tennis prowess.

The Chinese president has repeated conciliatory remarks aimed at improving ties, praising Japan's "peaceful" role in world affairs and voicing gratitude for Japan's decades of low-interest loans to China since the end of World War II.

This new spirit of friendship makes a stark contrast to the atmosphere just a few years ago.

Jiang Zemin, the only other Chinese president to come to Japan, publicly berated his hosts on his 1998 visit for not offering a stronger apology over the past, foreshadowing a decade of tension between Asia's two largest economic powers.

China broke off high-level dialogue with Japan during the 2001-2006 premiership of Junichiro Koizumi, citing his insistence on visiting a shrine that venerates Japanese war dead including war criminals.

For his part, Fukuda, a long-time advocate of stronger ties with Asia, has also worked to improve Japan's relationship with China and is impressed with Hu.

"I received an impression that he is a very sincere individual," Fukuda said Friday in an interview with China Central Television, according to Jiji Press.

"I think he is a very good person to work with."

But despite the optimism surrounding improved ties, progress in resolving specific disputes seems slow, including over lucrative gas fields in the East China Sea, even though Fukuda said the two countries believed "a solution is in sight."

And China's clampdown in Tibet has overshadowed Hu's visit, with thousands of protesters demonstrating in Tokyo on his arrival Tuesday. On Thursday, more than 100 protesters waved Tibetan flags on the university campus where Hu gave a speech.

Tibet's government-in-exile says more than 200 people have been killed in the Chinese crackdown. China denies this and instead blames Tibetan "rioters" and "insurgents" for killing 21 people.

Fukuda said he raised the Tibet issue with Hu. Japan also said that China had agreed to a resumption of a regular dialogue on human rights, which had been suspended since 2000.

China's Hu wraps up Japan tour

May 9 10:02 PM US/Eastern

Chinese President Hu Jintao will Saturday visit the sights of Japan's ancient capital of Nara, wrapping up his five-day tour aimed at mending strained ties.

On the final day of his trip, only the second visit ever by a Chinese head of state to the country, Hu is due to visit the Toshodaiji Temple, a revered Buddhist temple built by Chinese monk Ganjin in 759 when the city was Japan's capital.

The choice of Nara is seen as a bid to remember times when bilateral relations were amicable, unlike the two countries' tortured recent history tainted by Japan's militarism before and during World War II.

"If you look at the old days, you might find a clue as to how we pursue 'the mutually beneficial strategic partnership,'" Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda said Thursday at a dinner with Hu, referring to his visit to Nara Saturday.

"Japan and China are learning together, helping each other, connecting to and contributing to the region and the international community. Such two countries can never be those which seek hierarchy," Fukuda said.

Hu is also to visit the Horyuji Temple, the world's oldest surviving wooden structure, which was built more than 1,300 years ago, the remains of an ancient palace, and the headquarters of Japanese electronics maker Matsushita Electric Industrial in Osaka, before heading home.

The two leaders on Wednesday agreed to start regular summits to ease decades of tension coloured by Japan's brutal invasion of China, and pledged that Asia's two largest economies would not see each other as a threat.

During his stay in Japan this week, Hu has not been short on friendly gestures, offering to lend two giant pandas to a Japanese zoo and shedding his jacket and glasses to show off his table tennis prowess.

The Chinese president has repeated conciliatory remarks aimed at improving ties, praising Japan's "peaceful" role in world affairs and voicing gratitude for Japan's decades of low-interest loans to China since the end of World War II.

This new spirit of friendship makes a stark contrast to the atmosphere just a few years ago.

Jiang Zemin, the only other Chinese president to come to Japan, publicly berated his hosts on his 1998 visit for not offering a stronger apology over the past, foreshadowing a decade of tension between Asia's two largest economic powers.

China broke off high-level dialogue with Japan during the 2001-2006 premiership of Junichiro Koizumi, citing his insistence on visiting a shrine that venerates Japanese war dead including war criminals.

For his part, Fukuda, a long-time advocate of stronger ties with Asia, has also worked to improve Japan's relationship with China and is impressed with Hu.

"I received an impression that he is a very sincere individual," Fukuda said Friday in an interview with China Central Television, according to Jiji Press.

"I think he is a very good person to work with."

But despite the optimism surrounding improved ties, progress in resolving specific disputes seems slow, including over lucrative gas fields in the East China Sea, even though Fukuda said the two countries believed "a solution is in sight."

And China's clampdown in Tibet has overshadowed Hu's visit, with thousands of protesters demonstrating in Tokyo on his arrival Tuesday. On Thursday, more than 100 protesters waved Tibetan flags on the university campus where Hu gave a speech.

Tibet's government-in-exile says more than 200 people have been killed in the Chinese crackdown. China denies this and instead blames Tibetan "rioters" and "insurgents" for killing 21 people.

Fukuda said he raised the Tibet issue with Hu. Japan also said that China had agreed to a resumption of a regular dialogue on human rights, which had been suspended since 2000.

Photo:

Japan-China relations rest on the young learning modern history: Hu

Saturday, May 10, 2008
By REIJI YOSHIDA
Staff writer

Visiting Chinese President Hu Jintao and Kanagawa Gov. Shigefumi Matsuzawa agreed that the future of relations between the two countries lies in teaching modern history to young people, the governor told reporters Friday.

Photo: Industrial tour: Chinese President Hu Jintao visits a PET bottle recycling plant run by the JFE group in Kawasaki on Friday morning.

However, there was no discussion of Japan's wartime past with China during the luncheon at a Yokohama hotel that was also attended by Yokohama Mayor Hiroshi Nakada, Matsuzawa said after the meeting.

During the luncheon, Matsuzawa said the prefecture plans to make it mandatory for all local high school students to study Japanese history.

Matsuzawa said that when he commented that young Japanese in general do not know much about the country's modern history, compared with Chinese students, Hu also lamented that many young Chinese know little about China's modern history.

"Only by learning history will you be able to understand international situations and understand what you should do and what you should teach the following generations," Matsuzawa quoted Hu as saying.

Since Hu arrived Tuesday in Japan for a five-day stay, he has in meetings with Japanese leaders played up improved bilateral relations, which had soured during Junichiro Koizumi's 2001-2006 stint as prime minister in part because of his repeated visits to Tokyo's war-linked Yasukuni Shrine.

Hu has avoided discussing sensitive issues pertaining to Japan's wartime aggression in China in an apparent effort to soothe a public still prone to nationalism and an often hostile sense of rivalry.

During a speech Thursday at Tokyo's Waseda University, hundreds of students and activists protested outside the hall to call for Tibetan freedom. For his part, Hu said he doesn't believe the protesters represented the sentiment of the majority of Japanese toward him, according to Matsuzawa.

During the luncheon, Hu also showed particular interest in Kanagawa's efforts to promote the use of electric automobiles to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, the governor said.

Matsuzawa said Hu asked him to detail the prefecture's endeavor, noting the importance of cutting gas emissions in the transportation sector in China's overall effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

After visiting Yokohama, home to Japan's largest Chinatown, Hu later in the day flew to Osaka to meet local political and business leaders.

Hu is scheduled to visit Nara's Horyuji Temple and Toshodaiji Temple on Saturday, then pay a visit to the headquarters of Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. in Osaka before returning to Beijing the same day.

Japan Diet to end peaceful-use space policy

Saturday, May 10, 2008
Kyodo News

Japan's Diet is poised to enact a bill that is intended to allow the use of space for defense purposes, in a departure from the country's decades-long policy restricting the development and use of space to nonmilitary purposes, lawmakers said Friday.

On Friday, a House of Representatives panel passed the bill with backing from members of the governing Liberal Democratic Party, its coalition partner, the New Komeito party, and the main opposition Democratic Party of Japan.

The bill, proposed jointly by the three parties, is highly likely to be enacted during the current 150-day regular session of the Diet running through June 15, after clearing the full lower house and the second chamber, the opposition-controlled House of Councillors.

Members of the Japanese Communist Party cast ballots against the bill in the day's session of the lower house's Cabinet Committee.

The bill for the basic law on space proposes that Japan develop and use space to contribute to the promotion of its security, paving the way for the Defense Ministry to develop and operate spy satellites.

The bill will ease the "non-military" principles of Japan's space development called for in the 1969 Diet resolution. The bill says Japan will pursue space development "in ways to contribute to its national security," but on the basis of the pacifist principles of its war-renouncing Constitution and in line with international treaties and agreements on the use of space.

In explaining the bill during the Lower House committee session, LDP member Yoshitaka Sakurada said the bill is intended to place space development as a key part of Japan's national strategy "at a time when (space technologies like) the Global Positioning System has become an important part of people's daily lives and given the changes in the international situation and security environment."

Hidekatsu Yoshii, a Japanese Communist Party member of the committee who voted against the bill, said the proposed law would promote the use of space in missile defense. He also expressed concern that it may enable the government to limit information disclosure on the nation's space development in the name of defense secrets.

The bill also calls for establishing a Cabinet organization, to be led by the prime minister, that will work out a basic space development program for implementation of various space projects.

For the moment, panel turns aside road tax bill

Saturday, May 10, 2008
By MASAMI ITO
Staff writer

An Upper House panel rejected a contentious bill Friday to use road-related tax revenue exclusively to pay for road construction for the next 10 years — even though it will likely be rammed through the Diet by the ruling coalition next week.

The Democratic Party of Japan-led opposition camp voted down the bill, arguing that it contradicts Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda's promise to free up the road-related taxes for general use beginning in fiscal 2009.

The full opposition-controlled Upper House is expected to vote down the bill early next week. However, the Liberal Democratic Party-New Komeito ruling coalition is then expected to use its two-thirds majority in the Lower House to ram the bill through the Diet.

Article 59 of the Constitution stipulates that a bill rejected by the House of Councilors can be approved by a two-thirds vote in the lower chamber.

The bill and Fukuda's proposal "are completely inconsistent," DPJ lawmaker Yoriko Madoka told the Upper House committee meeting. "If (Fukuda and the ruling bloc) intend to free up (the road-related tax revenue in the next fiscal year), why don't you just scrap (the bill)?"

Fukuda, on the other hand, argued that his proposal starts from fiscal 2009 and the bill is necessary to secure the road construction budgets of local governments for the current fiscal year.

"You say scrap the bill, but it's not that easy," Fukuda said. Scrapping the bill "would just cause confusion. We would have to change the budget (for fiscal 2008), wouldn't we?"

Fukuda's Cabinet is set to officially endorse the plan Tuesday to enable revenue from road-related taxes to be used for general purposes starting in fiscal 2009.

Gasoline tax rates and the road construction budget have been key issues in the current session of the divided Diet.

Although considered provisional, the added higher levy on gasoline and other auto-related taxes have been in place virtually without interruption since the 1970s. The revenue has been used only to fund road construction.

By refusing to vote on the bill in the Upper House to extend the tax rates, the opposition camp allowed them to expire on March 31, thus temporarily bringing down gasoline prices by about ¥25 per liter. Just one month later, the ruling bloc was able to override the upper chamber with a second vote in the Lower House that extended the special rates for another 10 years.

While stressing that the abolition of the extra tax rates would take a ¥2.6 trillion bite out of the state coffers, Fukuda relented at the end of March and said he would allow the revenue from those taxes to be freed up for other purposes beginning in fiscal 2009.

Marine gets two years over sex assault of Japanese woman

Saturday, May 10, 2008
The Associated Press

A U.S. Marine accused in an alleged gang rape of a Japanese woman last year was sentenced to two years in prison Friday for "wrongful sexual contact and indecent acts," but cleared of rape, the U.S. military said.

Lance Cpl. Larry A. Dean, 20, was one of four marines facing court-martial for the alleged rape of a 19-year-old woman in Hiroshima in October.

Dean was also found guilty Thursday of "fraternization and violating military orders about liberty and alcohol," but cleared of rape and kidnapping charges, according to a statement by the U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni in Yamaguchi Prefecture.

Dean was also dishonorably discharged. His sentence also included the forfeiture of all pay and allowances, and a reduction in rank to private.

The other marines charged are Gunnery Sgt. Carl M. Anderson, 39, Gunnery Sgt. Jarvis D. Raynor, 34, and Sgt. Lanaeus J. Braswell, 25. Anderson and Raynor will be court-martialed later this month and Braswell in June, Master Gunnery Sgt. John Cordero said Friday.

Japanese authorities investigated the incident, but prosecutors dropped the case in November.

About 50,000 U.S. service members are based in Japan under a security pact between the two countries. Many Japanese complain of crime, pollution and noise associated with the bases.

Japanese anger over the U.S. military presence has grown in recent months following an alleged rape in February of a 14-year-old girl by an American serviceman in Okinawa, as well as the killing of a taxi driver near a U.S. naval base in Yokosuka, Kanagawa Prefecture.

Opinion :: Japan needs a dose of Koizumi's old magic

Saturday, May 10, 2008
By TOM PLATE

LOS ANGELES — I wish more people understood Japan better. I wish I understood Japan better.

It's not that Japanese people are so utterly inscrutable; that's an almost racist proposition.

And it's not that Japan itself is so impossibly mysterious; other countries and cultures (which will remain nameless) come much more readily to mind as inscrutable.

Understanding Japan, however we come to understand it, is vitally important. The country remains one of the world's economic powerhouses, and its exceptional culture of literature and movies has injected deep roots into humanity's consciousness.

We should never forget, either, that Japan is the only nation on which nuclear weapons have been dropped. What's more, its foreign policy is adjusting to new circumstances, however slowly, as China rises and the West (and the rest) has to change with this obvious reality.

Underestimating Japan, as China's rise proceeds apace, would be a huge mistake. Notice a recent news story, in The New York Times reporting the surge in American auto-buying of smaller cars that offer notably superior gas mileage. The story pictured three models as the leaders: two were Japanese. Of course.

It's almost as if Japan Inc. rolls on even as Japan's political establishment nearly comes to a dead stop. Such disconnects — between an economic powerhouse and a political midget — add up to an almost perfect storm.

Virtually all observers agree, therefore, that Japan is getting ready to install a new prime minister — once again! Yes, Japan tends to go through leaders like Hollywood stars go through spouses or doctors through nurses.

The Oriental Economist — the invaluable English-language monthly out of New York that's practically a political intelligence digest about Japan — concludes, as if banging down a gavel: "Yasuo Fukuda's days as prime minister are numbered. His clumsy handling of both the Bank of Japan (BOJ) transition and the gasoline tax has sealed his fate.

"This is partly because his missteps come at a crucial time for the Japanese economy, and partly because his repeated miscalculations and gaffes show he is simply not up to the job."

There's another reason for Fukuda's decline: He is not — remotely — Junichiro Koizumi, the most recently successful Japanese prime minister. Koizumi retired after a brilliant five-year run in the fall of 2006, and, wisely, has stayed retired. Like a successful Vegas gambler, he knows the only way you leave the wagering table a winner is to leave with a lot more chips than you sat down with. But stay long enough at the political-poker table, and before you know it, you'll be down to your last yen.

Before he niftily departed center stage, Koizumi set a new high standard for public expectations of what constitutes a first-rate Japanese prime minister. Telegenic looks, in this age of TV politics, are essential. Fukuda, though he may be a nice man and even a superior human being to Koizumi, projects the image of every tired, ineffectual and miscast prime minister ever inflicted on the proud and needy Japanese.

For the rest of the world, Japan is easier to do business with when its leader knows what he is doing. Koizumi sought to re-sculpture the interior of the Japanese economy. While all too firmly nationalistic, he was also a campaigner for acceptance of less government in those areas where the profit motive would be strong enough to fuel private enterprise. My liberal friends in America would regard that economic philosophy as Republican or even rightwing.

But in Japan such a challenge to the status quo is more likely to be viewed as a kind of leftism. Koizumi's big economic thing was privatization of the leathered Japanese postal service. Now, more of the same elsewhere in the economy is seen as just the tonic the country needs. And more and more people are looking for Koizumi to sprinkle the last of his political magic.

You have to believe that he is too smart to want to stride back onto the playing field for a second run as prime minister when his legacy is already secure. But behind the scenes he can be working to create a new political coalition in the Diet that could serve as a true force for change.

Koizumi, made prime minister by the Liberal Democratic Party, was never a great fan of the LDP. In fact, critics say that the long-ruling LDP is not very liberal and not very democratic and when you come to think of it, more a shaky coalition of self-interested blocks than a coherent party.

Before he left office, Koizumi had shaken up the party, which is to genuine political change what calcium is to an old drainage pipe. Now, in post-prime ministerial sainthood, he may just have enough clout to bring a Third Force into Japan's calcified politics. Here's hoping he gives it his best shot.

Professor Tom Plate teaches issues of the media and politics of contemporary Asia at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Booklet on sexual slavery printed to fill omissions in history texts

Saturday, May 10, 2008
By KEIJI HIRANO
Kyodo News

A booklet describing the sexual slavery carried out by the Imperial Japanese Army has been published to serve as a bridge between the victims and those who haven't had a chance to learn about the wartime atrocities.

Photo: Atrocity in brief: "Field Work — `Comfort Women' of the Japanese Army," is a pamphlet detailing the wartime sexual slavery perpetrated by the Imperial Japanese Army.

"Field Work — 'Comfort Women' of the Japanese Army," compiled by the Women's Active Museum on War and Peace in Tokyo (WAM), is a general history of sex slavery — why it was started, how it was managed, how "comfort women" were procured and what happened to them after the war — and includes testimony from former comfort women from 10 countries.

The booklet also serves as a guide to WAM, which debuted in August 2005 on the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II as Japan's only resource center on sexual slavery.

The museum greets visitors with large portraits of 155 women who have come out to identify themselves as former sex slaves. It also features exhibits, video footage and documents related to the atrocities.

"We hope this booklet will contribute to handing down the historical truth to the next generation," said Mina Watanabe, secretary general of WAM.

During the war, the Imperial army set up "comfort stations" to prevent soldiers from raping local women and from contracting sexually transmitted diseases. The military also tried to boost morale by "assigning" women to the troops.

Thousands of women and girls in Japanese colonies or occupied areas were either recruited by force or coaxed into becoming comfort women, and beaten if they tried to escape from the stations. Military doctors surgically enlarged the vaginas of those victims who were not yet fully matured.

A South Korean woman testified in the booklet that she was 14 when she was abducted to an airfield in China, where she was forced to do heavy labor and repeatedly raped.

After the war ended in 1945, she was left behind in China and stayed there until 2000, when she finally decided to go home for the first time in 58 years. After she arrived, however, she was not welcomed by her siblings because she had been a sex slave.

Another woman, from what is now Indonesia, who said she was raped by 10 to 15 Japanese soldiers on a daily basis, recalled undergoing an abortion without anesthetic at age 14, when she was five months' pregnant. "It was a boy and he was still alive," she said. "The sense of guilt and agony still remains that I killed my own child."

The 64-page booklet covers legal developments stemming from lawsuits former comfort women have filed against the Japanese government and how the government has responded since 1991.

While some voices are still calling for a review of the 1993 statement made by then Chief Cabinet Secretary Yohei Kono, in which he acknowledged the Imperial army's role in forcing women into sexual servitude and apologized to the victims, WAM is urging the government to strictly abide by the statement so the justice the women seek will be served.

Japan's resurgent nationalism, meanwhile, has reduced the number of educational references to wartime sex slavery in junior high history textbooks. In fiscal 1997, all textbooks addressed the issue; today, according to the booklet, 83 percent of students are issued textbooks that don't even mention the sexual slavery.

"We tried to make the booklet easy to understand even for junior high school students," WAM's Watanabe said. "We hope it will be used as a supplementary reader when their textbooks do not refer to the issue, and that it will attract students on school excursions to this museum."

Briefly: U.S. Marine sentenced in 'rape' case

05/10/2008
THE ASAHI SHIMBUN

IWAKUNI, Yamaguchi Prefecture--A U.S. general court-martial here Friday sentenced a 20-year-old Marine to two years' confinement and a dishonorable discharge for "wrongful sexual contact and indecent acts" against a teenage girl in Hiroshima last October.

But the lance corporal, based at the U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni and aged 19 at the time of the incident, was cleared of rape and kidnapping charges.

According to base officials, he will have his confinement reduced to one year as he testified in a plea bargaining against three other Marines also accused in the alleged sexual assault case.

The girl, aged 19, originally said she was gang-raped by the four servicemen, but Japanese prosecutors dropped the case due to insufficient evidence.(IHT/Asahi: May 10,2008)

Bill to let SDF deploy own spy satellites

05/10/2008
BY TOMOOKI YASUDA, THE ASAHI SHIMBUN

The ruling and opposition parties on Friday submitted to the Diet a bill to lift a ban on the use of space for defense purposes and allow Japan to deploy its own spy satellites.

The bill, which will give the Cabinet greater decision-making powers on overall space-related matters, passed the Lower House Cabinet Committee the same day.

The ruling Liberal Democratic Party, junior coalition partner New Komeito and opposition Minshuto (Democratic Party of Japan) plan to pass the bill in the Diet during the current session. Debate is expected to focus on the breadth of permissible activities of the Self-Defense Forces and how much authority the government will be given to keep such activities secret.

Currently, Japan's space development programs are restricted to peaceful purposes under a 1969 Diet resolution, and the government has adhered to the principle of non-military use of space.

The new bill calls for promoting development programs in space that contribute to the nation's security. It would also enable non-invasive defense activities under the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, to which Japan is a signatory.

That treaty recognizes the use of space "in the interest of maintaining international peace and security" and that outer space "is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation."

Passage of the bill will open the way for the SDF to possess and use satellites, particularly high-grade spy satellites, currently banned by the government. If the ban is lifted, Japan could make a missile surveillance satellite the core of the nation's missile defense system.

Until now, the SDF had to rely on civilian-sector satellites. Although the government put into orbit an intelligence-gathering satellite after North Korea launched a ballistic missile over Japan in 1998, the image-definition capability was limited to civilian-sector levels.

The new bill also calls for setting up a strategic headquarters in the Cabinet for space development, headed by the prime minister. The bill calls for appointing a state minister in charge of space affairs and enhancing Japan's space industry, satellite use, scientific exploration and international cooperation.

The bill will also review the activities and functions of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA).

The ruling coalition submitted a similar bill in June 2007. Minshuto, while in general agreement with the content, cited concerns within the party that the bill could lead to an expanded military use of space.

The opposition party agreed to jointly submit the new bill after a statement was included in the first article that said the use of space will be conducted in accordance with the Constitution's spirit of pacifism.

The bill also calls for setting up an exclusive office within the Cabinet Office for space affairs within a year after the law goes into effect.(IHT/Asahi: May 10,2008)

EDITORIAL: Stubborn bureaucrats

05/10/2008

It is really distressing to see how bureaucrats are stonewalling the various policy efforts to decentralize the government.

The committee to promote decentralization, set up last year in the Cabinet Office, is working hard to publish its first set of recommendations shortly, hopefully by the end of this month. As part of its efforts to put together proposals, the panel is holding open debates with senior officials of the ministries and agencies involved. At the same time, Hiroya Masuda, the minister of internal affairs and communications, who is also responsible for decentralization, is holding talks with other ministers over various ideas to distribute more administrative powers and functions to local governments.

The proposals that have been floated by the committee include the following: allowing prefectural governments to manage some national highways and class-A rivers and grant permission to convert farmland to other uses; transferring the right of personnel management over public school teachers and clerical workers from the prefectural to municipal governments; and relaxing the unified standards for welfare facilities and allowing local governments to set their own standards.

The ministries and agencies, however, are doing their best to block most of these proposals, flatly rejecting some and sidetracking others.

Last month, alarmed by the situation, Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda chided bureaucrats for their uncooperative attitude. "The responses of ministries and agencies have been insufficient. I hope ministers will make their decisions on how to deal with this challenge as politicians," he said. The disturbing bureaucratic stonewalling has prodded Masuda into early negotiations with the other ministers concerned over the committee proposals before they are made public.

The committee is trying to overhaul the administrative structure to allow local governments to pursue plans for more balanced regional development and make welfare and education programs better tailored to regional realities. That's not all. Another important aim of the reform is to bring the policymaking process closer to people to make it easier to check policy decisions and eliminate bureaucratic overlapping, which wastes taxpayers' money.

With tax revenue expected to keep dwindling amid the aging and shrinking of the population, the need to promote such changes is vital. Yet, bureaucrats are standing in the way of the reforms, brandishing flimsy claims that sound quite familiar. Officials opposing the proposal to transfer the power to permit the conversion of farmland to prefectures say it is necessary for the central government to secure sufficient farmland from the viewpoint of stable food supply for the entire nation. The bureaucratic argument against regionalized standards for welfare facilities is that it is necessary to ensure certain standards for the treatment of users and their quality of life.

These claims are anything but convincing. The bureaucrats, it seems, are only fighting to protect their own powers, even at the expense of national interests. It is the job of political leaders to make hidebound members of the officialdom accept necessary changes. This blatant sabotage of crucial reforms by bureaucrats, who are apparently betting that the current government doesn't have the necessary political muscle, must not be allowed.

Without being daunted by the formidable resistance from the bureaucracy, the committee should make bold proposals and press Fukuda to carry them out. To make sure that the panel's recommendations will be implemented without dilution, Masuda needs to win support for the ideas from the ministers in advance.

While he was serving as governor of Iwate Prefecture, Masuda, previously a bureaucrat at the former Construction Ministry, earned a reputation as a champion of administrative reform by transferring certain powers to municipal governments. It is because of his track record as a reformist governor that Masuda was recruited as the minister in charge of decentralization.

It is not clear how long Fukuda will be able to remain in office. And the fact that Masuda is not a Diet member may work against his efforts. Still, we hope that he will be able to capitalize on his impressive administrative record as a prefectural governor to persuade ministers, who tend to speak for the parochial interests of their ministries, to support the reforms this nation badly needs.

--The Asahi Shimbun, May 9(IHT/Asahi: May 10,2008)

Editorial :: Japan's space strategy should be reviewed

The Yomiuri Shimbun

It is a matter of course that space be developed and utilized from the perspective of helping protect national security. A basic law on space should be established during the current Diet session, and the nation's strategy on space should be reexamined at the initiative of political leaders.

A basic space bill jointly submitted by the Liberal Democratic Party, the Democratic Party of Japan and New Komeito passed the House of Representatives Cabinet Committee on Friday.

The bill allows the use of space for defense purposes. By creating a headquarters for space development strategy in the Cabinet Office, the bill aims to facilitate the comprehensive implementation of space policy for the nation's security and industrial development.

Although the nation spends about 250 billion yen annually on space development, the scope of research and development projects in this field have been limited. The projects have therefore failed to significantly foster technological innovation for industrial applications.

One of the reasons lies in the 1969 Diet resolution that limited the use of space to peaceful purposes.

In Diet deliberations at that time, "peaceful" purposes were interpreted as "nonmilitary" ones. This has prevented the nation from conducting certain space-related activities, such as launching satellites for defense purposes.

===

Current law ties Japan's hands

The bill sponsored by the three parties is meant to redefine the peaceful use of space by taking into account the positions of both the U.N. Outer Space Treaty, which upholds a nonaggression policy, and the pacifist Constitution, which touts an exclusively defense-oriented policy.

It was significant that the DPJ joined the ruling parties to submit the bill, which would unshackle the nation from a situation that is unusual in terms of international perspectives.

The capabilities of intelligence satellites that were introduced in 2003 in the wake of the test-firing of a Taepodong missile by North Korea are limited to the same level as those of private sector satellites. Meanwhile, the development of early-warning satellites that can detect missile launches also has been put on hold.

Another problem is that even if Japan develops advanced rocket engines, it may not sell them to U.S. companies that might launch military satellites.

If the bill is enacted, the nation could go ahead with space-utilization projects without such constraints.

===

Cooperative approach needed

Newly emerging economies such as China and India have started full-fledged work on the development and use of space in cooperation with the United States, Russia and some developing nations.

To ensure it is not left behind, Japan must rectify slow decision-making processes that result from bureaucratic sectionalism and strengthen cooperation among industries, the government, academia and other nations by clearly demonstrating its long-term space strategy.

The government has lacked a "control tower" for space development and use. At the envisaged headquarters for space development strategy headed by the prime minister, government officials should work together to rebuild the nation's space strategy.

At the DPJ's request, the bill included a provision that a tentatively named space bureau be set up in the Cabinet Office a year or so after the legislation comes into force. We hope that a substantive system to rebuild the nation's space policy will be established.

(From The Yomiuri Shimbun, May 10, 2008)(May. 10, 2008)

U.S. marine gets 1 year over sexual misconduct

The Yomiuri Shimbun

YAMAGUCHI--A U.S. court martial sentenced a U.S. marine to two years in prison, later reduced to one year after a plea bargain, and gave him a dishonorable discharge Friday over a gang rape in Hiroshima in October.

The 20-year-old corporal was one of four marines then stationed at the U.S. Marine Corps' Iwakuni Air Station in Iwakuni, Yamaguchi Prefecture, suspected of attacking a 20-year-old Japanese woman.

On Thursday, the marine was ruled not guilty of rape and kidnapping, but presiding military Judge Maj. Charles Hale ruled he was guilty of violating the Uniform Code of Military Justice because an illegal act had been committed when the marine had nonconsensual sex with the woman.

Speaking at the court, the marine said he accepted all the rulings and deeply regretted what he had done.

Trials of the other three suspects will be held on or after May 19.

(May. 10, 2008)

Family of slain woman wants admiral to testify

By Hana Kusumoto, Stars and Stripes
Pacific edition, Saturday, May 10, 2008

YOKOSUKA, Japan — The family of a Japanese woman who was beaten to death by a USS Kitty Hawk sailor in 2006 wants the commander of U.S. naval forces in Japan to testify in a civil trial.

Attorneys for the family of Yoshie Sato said Wednesday that bringing Rear Adm. James Kelly to court is necessary because the imprisoned sailor, Seaman William Oliver Reese, could not answer questions about education and discipline of sailors.

Attorneys said Reese told them Wednesday at the prison that he never received training about proper conduct in another country nor was he told about crimes committed by U.S. servicemembers that had occurred before he killed Sato. Sato’s family is seeking 200 million yen ($1.6 million) in compensation from the Japanese government and Reese. They also claim the U.S. Navy could have prevented the incident. Reese also could not identify who his Navy supervisor had been, which is why, attorneys said, they have to bring Kelly into the courtroom.

“Without knowing who his boss is, we have no choice but to call Kelly to testify,” attorney Shinsuke Nakamura said.

The court is expected to decide whether to ask Kelly to appear in court before the July 2 hearing scheduled for 1:30 p.m. at Yokohama District Court.

“It’s ongoing litigation, so it would be inappropriate to comment right now,” said Cmdr. David Waterman, spokesman for Commander Naval Forces Japan. “We’re standing by to hear the decision of the judge.”

Reese was convicted of fatally beating Sato and taking 15,000 yen (about $130 at the time) from her purse. He was sentenced to life in prison June 2, 2006.

Stars and Stripes reporter Allison Batdorff contributed to this report.

Marines accused of breaking into tavern

Pacific edition, Saturday, May 10, 2008

GINOWAN, Okinawa — Two Marines assigned to Marine Corps Air Station Futenma were in Okinawan police custody Thursday for breaking into a tavern near the air station’s main gate, according to a spokesman for Okinawa prefectural police.

Cpl. Andrew W. Jones, 23, and Lance Cpl. Christian Mackenzie Pons, 20, were found sitting at a table at the pub about 12:30 a.m. when the owner returned from an errand and found the wooden entrance door broken, the police said. Police officers responded to a call from the owner and arrested the Marines, who were under the influence of alcohol, the spokesman said.

They reportedly told investigators they did not remember how they got into the tavern or why they were there. The Marines violated the midnight-to-5 a.m. curfew for servicemembers, said Master Sgt. Charles Albrecht, a Marine spokesman. He said “it is too early to tell” whether they will be punished for breaking the curfew.

Marine found not guilty of rape

By Travis J. Tritten, Stars and Stripes
Pacific edition, Saturday, May 10, 2008

Lance corporal convicted of sexual misconduct for sex without consent

MARINE CORPS AIR STATION IWAKUNI, Japan — An Iwakuni lance corporal was found not guilty Thursday of kidnapping and raping a Japanese woman in October.

Lance Cpl. Larry Dean was, however, found guilty during his court-martial of sexual misconduct for having sex with the woman without getting her consent.

Dean pleaded guilty Tuesday to a list of lesser charges including having sex in the view of others, fraternizing with superiors, breaking liberty rules and drinking while underage. He was to be sentenced Friday.

Three other Iwakuni Marines — Gunnery Sgt. Carl M. Anderson, Gunnery Sgt. Jarvis D. Raynor and Sgt. Lanaeus J. Braswell — also face courts-martial for allegedly kidnapping the 19-year-old from outside a city club and gang raping her in a deserted parking lot Oct. 14.

The woman sat in the back of the courtroom Thursday and sobbed as the verdict was read by the judge, Maj. Charles Hale.

Hale said the woman appeared willing to have sex that night by leaving the club parking lot with the Marines and allowing them to touch her naked body.

“She gave the appearance of consent,” Hale said.

The Marines had sex with the woman six times after arriving at the second parking lot, Hale said.

After his first contact, Dean noticed she wasn’t enjoying sex with the men anymore but had sex with her a second time anyway, making him negligent and guilty of sexual misconduct, Hale said.

The alleged victim said she was raped by the men and pretended to enjoy it at first because she feared for her life.

Since the incident, the woman said she has difficulty sleeping, working and being alone.

“The things I did alone, I can no longer do alone,” the woman said through an interpreter. “I really have to build up my courage just to go outside.”

She took the stand Tuesday and for two days during a preliminary investigative hearing in February. Stars and Stripes does not identify the victims of alleged sexual assault.

The woman left Club Chinatown in Hiroshima to have consensual sex with Braswell in a vehicle in the club parking lot, according to testimony and investigators.

The other men entered the vehicle and drove to another deserted parking lot where they all had sex with her at least once, according to court records.

They forced her out of the vehicle and took 12,000 yen from her purse before leaving her lost and disoriented, according to testimony.

Police picked up the woman wandering the streets around 3 a.m. with her blouse and belt undone.

The Marines were arrested while attempting to re-enter the air station.

As part of a plea agreement, Dean agreed to assist the prosecution of the other Marines in exchange for a cap on any possible prison sentence.

The next court-martial is scheduled to begin later this month.

Japan to allow military use of space: lawmakers

Fri May 9, 4:42 AM ET

TOKYO (AFP) - Japanese lawmakers voted Friday to allow the military use of space, breaking a decades-old taboo in the officially pacifist country which has an increasingly ambitious space programme.

The move came during a rare fence-mending visit to Japan by President Hu Jintao of China, which alarmed Japan last year by conducting a test to shoot down a satellite.

Photo: Japanese lawmakers (pictured here on April 9) voted Friday to allow the military use of space, breaking a decades-old taboo in the officially pacifist country which has an increasingly ambitious space programme.

A lower house committee voted to reverse a 1969 parliamentary resolution that limited Japan's use of space to non-military applications.

The bill is certain to pass in parliament as both Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda's Liberal Democratic Party and the main opposition Democratic Party, which controls the upper house, support it.

Lawmakers said that Japan still opposed putting weapons into space but that the 1969 restrictions had stifled innovation, hurting Japanese companies.

Advocates also said that Japan wanted to remove any legal obstacles to building more advanced spy satellites.

"The bottom line of this bill is to stand on the principle of the peaceful use of space but for the government to use space technology to improve people's livelihoods," said a secretary to a ruling-party lawmaker who requested anonymity.

The opposition Japanese Communist Party was against the bill, fearing it would lead to a stronger military.

Japan's US-imposed post-World War II constitution says the country will never again wage war. Japanese troops have not fired a shot in anger since 1945, although the country has one of the world's largest defence budgets.

Japan has stepped up military research after North Korea stunned the world in 1998 by firing a missile over the Japanese mainland into the Pacific.

A think-tank linked to the Japanese defence ministry has also warned that China's space programme could pose a military threat.

China last year became the third country to shoot down an object in space after the United States and the former Soviet Union, when it downed an old weather satellite with an anti-satellite missile, raising Japanese fears.

Japan has been stepping up its space programme and is now conducting the most extensive probe of the moon since the US Apollo missions of the 1960s and 1970s.

Upper house panel votes down road tax-related bill

May 9 04:21 AM US/Eastern

TOKYO, May 9 (AP) - (Kyodo) — An opposition-controlled House of Councillors panel on Friday voted down a bill that would enable the government to continue allocating gasoline tax revenues for road maintenance from fiscal 2008 that started in April.

The upper house is also expected to take the same action in a plenary session on Monday, but the bill can eventually gain Diet approval because the ruling parties hold a two-thirds majority in the more powerful House of Representatives which can override upper house decisions by holding a revote.

The envisioned revote, likely to be held Tuesday, would be the second time for the ruling parties to resort to such measures to seek passage of road tax-related bills.

The latest revote was held on April 30 to reinstate gasoline and other road-related tax surcharges which expired in March due to resistance from the opposition parties.

The bill, which was voted down Friday by the upper house Committee on Financial Affairs, would enable the government to continue allocating gasoline tax and liquefied petroleum gas tax revenues for road maintenance for 10 years from fiscal 2008.

The bill passed the lower house on March 13.

Under the Constitution, the lower house can hold a revote to pass a bill if the upper house rejects the bill or holds no vote within 60 days of receiving it -- in this case from Monday.

The government and the ruling coalition of the Liberal Democratic Party and the New Komeito party need to have the road tax-related bills pass the Diet to implement the fiscal 2008 budget.

But from fiscal 2009, they have agreed to free up road-specific tax revenues for general expenditures. The main opposition Democratic Party of Japan has criticized that the road-related tax revenues, currently earmarked for building roads, are serving as a hotbed of wasteful spending for vested interests and that they should be fully allocated for general spending from fiscal 2008.

Remarks After Meeting with Defense Minister Ishiba

John D. Negroponte, Deputy Secretary of State
Ministry of Defense
Tokyo, Japan
May 9, 2008

QUESTION: Could you tell us what kind of discussions you had with Defense Minister Ishiba?

DEPUTY SECRETARY NEGROPONTE: In general terms, I’d be pleased to answer that question. We had a very good meeting. We talked about the importance of the U.S.-Japan alliance. We talked about the resumption of refueling activities in the Indian Ocean. We talked about the importance that both of our countries attach to being as supportive as we can of the government of Afghanistan. And we talked, perhaps above all, about the base realignment, the defense realignment process that is taking place here in Japan with respect to United States forces, and the importance that both of our governments attach to implementing the agreements that we have reached on a timely basis. And then lastly, we also had the opportunity to discuss very briefly the importance that our two governments attach to ballistic missile defense and to information-sharing activities between our two governments.

Released on May 9, 2008

Japan Diet to enact bill allowing use of space for defense purposes

May 9 02:37 AM US/Eastern

TOKYO, May 9 (AP) - (Kyodo) — Japan's Diet is poised to enact a bill that is intended to allow the use of space for defense purposes, in a departure from the country's decades-long policy restricting the development and use of space to nonmilitary purposes, lawmakers said Friday.

On Friday, a House of Representatives panel passed the bill with backing from members of the governing Liberal Democratic Party, its coalition partner, the New Komeito party, and the main opposition Democratic Party of Japan.

Photo: Japanese lawmakers (pictured here on April 9) voted Friday to allow the military use of space, breaking a decades-old taboo in the officially pacifist country which has an increasingly ambitious space programme.

The bill, proposed jointly by the three parties, is highly likely to be enacted during the current 150-day regular session of the Diet running through June 15, after clearing the full lower house and the second chamber, the opposition-controlled House of Councillors.

Members of the Japanese Communist Party cast ballots against the bill in the day's session of the lower house's Cabinet Committee.

The bill for the basic law on space proposes that Japan develop and use space to contribute to the promotion of its security, paving the way for the Defense Ministry to develop and operate spy satellites.

But it requires the country to abide by the space treaty, honor its international commitments and maintain the pacifist spirit of the Constitution in developing and using space. The space treaty, which came into force in 1967, governs state activities in the exploration and use of outer space.

In the panel session on Friday, LDP member Yoshitaka Sakurada argued in favor of a new space law, saying that Japan needs to establish its own state strategy on the development and use of space.

Space activities, such as the global positioning system, have come to play an important role in daily life, while Japan needs to cope with the changing global security and international situations, Sakurada said.

JCP member Hidekatsu Yoshii opposed the bill and said it might encourage Japan to promote the use of space in its missile defense program or might lead to a restriction of information disclosure in the name of maintenance of state secrets.

The bill also calls for establishing a prime minister-led Cabinet organization that will work out a basic space development program for implementation of various space schemes. The prime minister will head the organization.

Japan's 1969 parliamentary resolution restricts the country's use of space to nonmilitary purposes.

US Marine gets two years in Japan sex case: military

Fri May 9, 2:17 AM ET

TOKYO (AFP) - The US military said Friday it had given a Marine a two-year prison term and dishonourable discharge for sexual misconduct with a Japanese woman, even though he was cleared of charges of gang-rape.

The case in Hiroshima was one of a series of alleged crimes by US troops that has stirred public anger in Japan, a close US ally, leading Washington to pledge tougher discipline.

Photo: Young Japanese women hold banners during a major rally against the US military at a park in Okinawa after a string of serious miscondut by its soldiers including alleged rapes in the Japan's southern island province, in March. The US stations more than 40,000 troops in the country under a security alliance reached after World War II, when Japan renounced the right to wage war.

Lance Corporal Larry Dean, 20, is one of four Marines who was court-martialled after a young woman said that they gang-raped her in a car in October in the western city.

The military decided to court-martial the men even though Japanese prosecutors dropped the case, reportedly because the alleged victim had changed her story and may have consented to sex with one man.

A court-martial found that Dean was guilty of "wrongful sexual contact and indecent acts" along with violating military orders.

But the military judge, Major Charles Hale, found him not guilty on charges of rape and conspiracy to rape, a military statement said.

The judge on Friday sentenced Dean to two years confinement and dishonourably discharged him from the military. His rank was reduced to private and he was forced to forfeit pay.

A woman, who was 19 at the time of the incident in October, said the soldiers raped her in a car and then stole her money. But the court-martial also cleared Dean of charges of kidnapping or receiving stolen property.

It was the first verdict announced for the four servicemen.

In line with rules at court-martials, the case was automatically sent to a military appeals court, the statement said.

The United States stations more than 40,000 troops in the country under a security alliance reached after World War II, when Japan renounced the right to wage war.

Japanese leaders have called for tighter controls on US troops after a series of incidents including the murder of a taxi driver by a US deserter and a Marine's alleged rape of a 14-year-old girl on the southern island of Okinawa.

More Chinese submarines in South China Sea

By ANDREI CHANG
Column: Military Might
Published: May 09, 2008

Hong Kong, China — Over the past 20 years, China's military investment has grown faster than any other country. The bamboo curtain that formerly enveloped the country has become a copper curtain.

Furthermore, China has become more difficult to negotiate with than even the former Soviet Union. The tactic of deceiving one's opponent or competitor is deeply engrained in traditional Chinese culture, not only an aspect of communist morality. The ability to deceive one's opponent is evidence of cleverness, not something to feel guilty about, and is a traditional strategy in the Chinese art of war.

This is a basic, uncompromising difference between countries with a Christian or Buddhist culture and China's traditional culture, mixed with communist "ethics."

For example, the Chinese navy is enlarging its underground submarine facility and has started to deploy more 094 SSBNs (nuclear ballistic missile submarines), 091 SSNs (nuclear attack submarines), and KILO 636M SS (diesel powered submarines) in Sanya city on the southern island of Hainan.

Since 2002 China has constructed the largest submarine underground tunnel in Sanya. Satellite photos taken in February revealed that one of the latest 094 SSBNs had entered the new Yalong Naval Base at Sanya. It is too early to say whether it is permanently deployed there, or whether it is just a stopover.

Kanwa Defense Review Monthly has obtained photos from a special correspondent which show that not only the 094 SSBN, but also the new KILO 636M diesel submarines are located at the Sanya submarine base.

The Chinese navy has been enhancing its submarine fleet power in the South China Sea, presumably to block Taiwan and Japan in case of war, and also to secure sea routes in the Indian Ocean to protect its oil shipments from the Middle East. Of course, the submarine fleet is also a threat to South Asian countries that have territorial disputes with China.

Despite the fact that the 094 SSBN was already in Sanya, the April edition of China Defense Daily, an official publication of the People's Liberation Army, denied this fact and published fabricated photos of the submarine it claimed had been created and posted on the Internet to make it appear that the 094 SSBN was in Sanya. The China Defense Daily went to the trouble of explaining in detail how the fake Internet photos were made.

The article criticized Kanwa Defense Review for propagating the "China threat" theory by reporting "false" news about the submarines.

It is widely believed among Western military observers that the PLA has used many fabricated photos and news reports to support its psychological war against the outside world over a long period of time.

The author had the opportunity in February to discuss with Indian and U.S. naval experts in New Delhi the reasons for the appearance of the 094 SSBN in Sanya. The Indian and U.S. experts believe that the submarine was not engaged in tests at sea. Naturally, the Indian expert wondered if the 094 deployment was aimed at India. The U.S. expert speculated that the submarine may have been deployed there because the waters in the South China Sea are deep and make it more difficult to detect the 094.

The U.S. expert agreed with the author's analysis that the submarine's key strike targets would be Hawaii and the southern parts of the United States, should the 094 be deployed at Sanya. The Indian expert suggested that if the 094 was indeed deployed at Sanya, it would be easier to disperse the No. 1 Nuclear Submarine Flotilla and No. 2 Nuclear Submarine Flotilla. It would be difficult to destroy the two submarine flotillas simultaneously in the event of war.

The Indian expert also indicated that Indian observers have not noticed any PLA nuclear submarines or conventional submarines entering the Indian Ocean in recent years. The author's analysis is that a major part of the PLA Navy's attention has been placed on preparations for a "military struggle" against Taiwan.

A submarine design expert from the Russian Rubin Design Bureau said in New Delhi that his company was surprised at the PLA Navy's fast-paced construction of the 094 SSBN and "Yuan" Class diesel-powered submarine (SS).

"It was a very fast construction pace, but the quality seems less than perfect," he said. The overall design of the 094 is coarse, and the tall SLBM cabin will inevitably increase resistance in the water and create substantial noise. Meanwhile, the number of drainage holes on the hull has been carefully calculated and the holes look closable.

The Russian expert, who has designed different models of submarines, indicated that from the images released so far, the 094 seems to have been equipped with towed array sonar. The assessment of the Russian expert is consistent with the author's earlier judgment. The March 2008 issue of Kanwa Defense Review mentioned China's hastiness in building and designing the 094, believing that it reflected the dated mindset of the Chinese submarine designers. The conclusion is that the design of the 094 SSBN may be compared to the concept of the Yankee-II SSBN built in the 1970s by the Soviet navy.

There have been disputes among experts at the Rubin Design Bureau concerning the exterior structure of the Yuan SS. Some experts believe that the design plagiarized the features of the KILO 636, therefore physically the Yuan looks like an imitation version of the KILO. This assessment is understandable.

Other experts from the Rubin Design Bureau have pointed out that the design of the Yuan's hull plagiarized the KILO design, and the design of the tail rudder borrowed the concept of the Amur Class diesel submarine.

China's plagiarism in the design of the Yuan has given rise to heated disputes within the Russian military industry. With its full economic recovery in recent years, Russia is leaning closer to Western practices in many aspects and Russian society has begun to pay greater attention to the importance of intellectual property rights. This overall trend has started to have some impact on the Russian military industry.

The case of the J-11B fighter, whose design is largely copied from Russia, also resulted in heated disputes over China's plagiarism of Russian weapon systems. Western military observers in New Delhi pointed out that Russia had exported to China intact KILO 636 submarines in a deal that did not involve any technology transfer. Although the case of the Yuan SS is different from that of the J-11B, it may very likely have some impact on the issue of technological restrictions concerning Russia's arms exports to China.

One thing certain is that Russia and China have not initiated new rounds of negotiations on the purchase of more KILO or new generation Amur submarines. This means China has no further need for KILOs, unless the Yuan's performance is considered substandard by the PLA Navy. Currently, two Yuan class submarines have been launched and are undertaking sea tests.

--

(Andrei Chang is editor-in-chief of Kanwa Defense Review Monthly, registered in Toronto Canada.)

Schwab Marines help Henoko community with beach clean-up

Lance Cpl. Tyler J. Hlavac

HENOKO, Okinawa (May 9, 2008) -- Marines from Camp Schwab strengthened their bond with the Henoko community as they assisted in a beach cleanup here April 29.

Fifteen Marines from 4th Marine Regiment, 3rd Marine Division, participated in the cleanup, working alongside the Henoko Senior Citizen's Association, staff members of the Nago City Multimedia Center and students from the Okinawa National College of Technology.

Photo: Pfc. Terry Davis takes a break from cleaning the beach to look at a Japanese boy's sand drawing at Henoko beach April 29.

The cleanup was organized to prepare the Henoko beach area for annual dragon boat races in June and to celebrate the birthday of the Showa Emperor Hirohito, according to Fumio Iha, the Camp Schwab community relations specialist.

Emperor Hirohito was well known as a botanist and encouraged Japanese people to appreciate and preserve the plant life on earth. Many Japanese people commemorate the late emperor's life by performing various environmental activities on the emperor's birthday.

The beach cleanup has become an annual event for the Henoko residents and Schwab Marines.

"Marines have been helping clean this beach every year since 2000," said Iha. "Camp Schwab has been adopted by Henoko as their 11th residential district, and because of that, the Henoko community looks forward to the Marines from Schwab participating in all of their community projects and recreational activities, such as the dragon boat races."

The beach cleanup afforded the Marines a chance to get to know their fellow community members, said Pfc. Terry Davis, an administration clerk with 4th Marines.

"I really enjoy coming out to events like this, practicing my Japanese and getting to know the community," Davis said. "We definitely improved our relations with the community and developed friendships, if nothing else."

Toshikatsu Shimabukuro, the president of the Henoko Senior Citizen's Association, said the community was grateful for the Marine's help.

"I'd like to thank everyone involved in the cleanup for their efforts here today," said Shimabukuro, speaking through a translator. "We cleaned the beach really well, and removed a lot of debris, which was a big problem here. Everyone out here today is recognized as part of the community."

Marine sentenced to 2 years in prison for 'wrongful sexual contact'

May 9 12:37 AM US/Eastern

IWAKUNI, Japan, May 9 (AP) - (Kyodo) — A U.S. court-martial sentenced a Marine to two years in prison Friday, the day after finding him guilty of "wrongful sexual contact" with a Japanese woman in Hiroshima last October.

Military judge Maj. Charles Hale, who presided over the court-martial at the U.S. Marine Corps' Iwakuni Air Station in Yamaguchi Prefecture, also gave the Marine, a 20-year-old lance corporal, a dishonorable discharge. He was 19 at the time of the incident.

The Marine's prison term is expected to start in October as he pleaded partially guilty in plea bargaining with the prosecution and the term of his detention so far is to be counted in the prison sentence, military experts said.

In Friday's session, the prosecution demanded the accused receive 10 years in prison. The defense sought six months.

The lance corporal was the first of four U.S. Marines charged with alleged sexual assault and disobedience in violation of the Uniform Code of Military Justice in connection the alleged gang-raping of the 20-year-old woman Oct. 13-14, 2007. Courts-martial for the other three are scheduled to begin from later this month to June.

The accused pleaded not guilty at the opening session Tuesday of his court-martial.

On Thursday, the court-martial found him guilty of "conspiracy to violate military orders about liberty and alcohol, and conspiracy to commit indecent acts."

He was found guilty of "committing wrongful sexual contact and indecent acts," but not guilty of conspiracy to kidnap or rape.

Japanese police sent investigative reports on the four U.S. Marines to prosecutors in November in connection with the alleged gang-rape, without arresting them as they found inconsistencies in the woman's testimony.

After the Japanese prosecutors decided not to indict the four Marines, the U.S. military launched the court-martial.

Marine guilty of wrongful sexual contact of Japanese woman

Fri May 9, 12:32 AM ET

TOKYO - A U.S. Marine accused in an alleged gang rape of a Japanese woman last year was sentenced to two years in prison Friday for "wrongful sexual contact and indecent acts" but cleared of rape, the U.S. military said.

Lance Cpl. Larry A. Dean, 20, was one of four Marines facing court-martial for the alleged rape of a 19-year-old woman in the southern city of Hiroshima in October.

Dean was also found guilty Thursday of "fraternization and violating military orders about liberty and alcohol" but cleared of rape and kidnapping charges, according to a statement by the Marine Corps Air Station in Iwakuni in southern Japan.

Dean was also dishonorably discharged. His sentence also included the forfeiture of all pay and allowances, and a reduction in rank to private.

The other Marines charged are Gunnery Sgt. Carl M. Anderson, 39, Gunnery Sgt. Jarvis D. Raynor, 34, and Sgt. Lanaeus J. Braswell, 25. Anderson and Raynor will be court-martialed later this month and Braswell in June, said Master Gunnery Sgt. John Cordero on Friday.

Japanese authorities investigated the incident, but local prosecutors dropped the case in November.

About 50,000 U.S. troops are based in Japan under a security pact between the two countries. Many Japanese complain of crime, pollution and noise associated with the bases.

Japanese anger over the U.S. military presence has grown in recent months following an alleged rape in February of a 14-year-old girl by an American serviceman on the southern island of Okinawa, as well as the killing of a taxi driver near a U.S. naval base in Yokosuka, south of Tokyo.

China puts positive spin on relations with Japan

By David McNeill in Tokyo
Friday, 9 May 2008

Pandas and ping-pong helped sweeten politics yesterday on day three of the Chinese President Hu Jintao's state trip to Japan, which is warming frigid ties between the two old enemies despite being marred by controversy over Tibet.

On the first visit to Japan by a Chinese leader in a decade, Mr Hu, 65, played table tennis with the Olympic hopeful Ai Fukuhara, surprising millions of TV viewers by giving the 19-year-old a run for her money.

A beaming Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda praised Mr Hu's "strategic" playing, adding: "I'm glad I didn't play him. He was a bit scary," said a housewife, Junko Sugimoto, watching at home.

The Chinese leader has scored a diplomatic coup by offering Tokyo two giant pandas to replace Ling Ling, who died of old age last week. More than 10,000 people have queued up at Ueno Zoo to sign a book of condolence to the beloved panda, one of the most famous symbols of Sino-Japanese ties.

Mr Hu's goodwill visit has been dogged, however, by pro-Tibet supporters, hundreds of whom shouted slogans yesterday outside Tokyo's Waseda University, where he told his audience that the two nations should be partners, not rivals, despite their troubled history. "Both sides should support the other side's peaceful development, and see the other's development as an opportunity, not a threat," he said.

Mr Hu said Japan's Second World War aggression had brought about "enormous misfortune to the Chinese people" and "also greatly harmed the Japanese public". But he added that Japan has nothing to fear from a more powerful China. "We will not engage in an arms race and will not become a threat to any country," he said.

Last year Beijing stunned Tokyo by carrying out an unannounced anti-satellite weapon test, and its sharply rising military budget – £18bn – has raised fears that Asia faces a new arms race. Japan's announced military budget for 2006 was £21bn. Bilateral trade is booming but diplomacy has only recently begun thawing after a decade of bitter disputes.

The two leaders have been criticised during Mr Hu's trip for glossing over their differences. Mr Fukuda praised China's recent decision to negotiate with representatives of the Dalai Lama but has otherwise treaded carefully around the Tibetan minefield.

Mr Hu, meanwhile, who needs Tokyo's diplomatic support for the coming Olympics, has taken a more conciliatory approach to history than the last Chinese leader to visit Japan, Jiang Zemin, who demanded an apology for Japan's wartime aggression when he came 10 years ago.

Disgruntled security guard closer to getting compensation

Date Posted: 2008-05-09

A Japanese security guard working at U.S. Marine Corps Base Okinawa is drawing support from the Public Employment Office in his harassment suit against his supervisor.

The case has been running for months, after the man finally complained “My boss applied power harassment to me, not giving me any job for nine months.” In his legal complaint, the guard said he’d been told only to “sit down at this chair, don’t move at all, and don’t even read a newspaper.” When the complaint went forward, the supervisor shifted the guard to other positions three times in less than six months.

The guard is appealing for consolation money from the government, and the Public Employment Office acknowledges it has asked the Marines’ Military Police section to pay employment insurance to the man. The man has provided 150 letters documenting the case, including his unwanted moves from job to job. The Public Employment Office says they believe the man is entitled to compensation.

Environmental damage charged as Awase tidelands work resumes

Date Posted: 2008-05-09

Construction resumed in the Awase tidelands over the weekend, bringing a new round of demands from opponents that it stop because of damage to coral.

The Committee Members of Protection of Awase Tidelands has again issued a call for the government to stop construction, charging “there is no future at all to do this construction.” Rep. Tomo Kobashigawa and Katsuhide Hisaya, together with four other Committee members, has demanded the Okinawa Prefecture General Bureau construction section stop all work. “You guys don’t think about our future,” they told Prefecture officials.

The Committee is accusing the Prefecture of breaching rules and fishing regulations, and also of permitting damage to coral extraction. Kobashigawa says the Prefecture is illegally dealing with coral. “The Prefecture made damages,” he says, and “it must file a report telling who’s telling the right thing. We have to know.” The lawmaker says “we are the ones doing the right things, and we want the construction to stop right now.”

Prefecture officials contend the construction actions are lawful, and that they are far enough advanced not to be stopped.

New Special Measures Agreement in effect

Date Posted: 2008-05-09

A new bilateral agreement between the U.S. and Japan is in effect, restoring the system in which Japan provides financial support to American military bases.

The ¥140 billion agreement, which went into effect May 1st, runs through 2010. The earlier agreement expired the end of March, and a new agreement had been stalled by opposition leaders in the House of Councilors. The opposition lawmakers had voted against the new measure, charging it included money for hiring employees for morale, welfare and recreation facilities such as bowling alleys and clubs, instead of for maintaining bases.

The agreement, approved by the House of Representatives in early April, after Japanese law was invoked that gives the Lower House precedence under the Constitution over House of Councilors rulings.

Communist Party Rep. accuses U.S. of ignoring Y-plate parking laws

Date Posted: 2008-05-09

Japanese law requires owners to show proof they have legal parking spaces for their cars, but a Communist Party politician is charging the U.S. military with blatantly overlooking that law.

Tetsushi Inoue, a representative of the Communist Party of Japan and a member of the House of Councilors, says virtually none of the American military personnel with Y-plate licenses have the required registration permits required by law. He’s demanding an investigation by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism on how many vehicles owned by Americans have been registered with Japanese police. The law, he notes, requires all people living off base to register with local police stations, showing proof they have a legal parking spot.

Inoue says American leaders have not kept the promise made in 2004, when the requirement was instituted, that the U.S. military would comply. He says practically no Y-number plate vehicles are registered with Japanese police. The Ministry says more than 3,000 vehicles were registered with Y-plates during the January ~ March period, but only four Y-number plates have been recorded with police proving “Certification of Legal Parking Space, known as Shakoshomeisho in Japanese.

Every Japanese car owner is required to have a Shakoshomeisho, and Americans became liable under the rule in 2004. Communist party officials are upset at the non-compliance. “American military people living off base have lied to us,” a lawyer said. “They are operating against the law, and we must take strict action.” He says “if Y-plates don’t have the legal certifications to park off base, then they shouldn’t have a car.”

Marine sentenced for wrongful sexual conduct in Hiroshima gang-rape case

May 9, 2008

IWAKUNI, Yamaguchi -- A U.S. Marine accused in an alleged gang-rape of a Japanese woman in Hiroshima was sentenced to two years' confinement and a dishonorable discharge after being convicted of "wrongful sexual misconduct and indecent acts" in a court-martial on Friday.

The 20-year-old lance corporal was also found guilty of conspiracy to commit indecent acts, but was found not guilty of rape.

A total of four Marines were reported to Japanese public prosecutors on suspicion of gang rape following the incident in October last year, but the Hiroshima District Public Prosecutors Office did not file charges against them.

Court-martials for the three remaining Marines are due to be held from May 19 onwards.

Hearings in the court-martial of the lance corporal began on Tuesday. On Thursday, the court-martial found the Marine guilty of wrongful sexual misconduct, judging that he realized (partway through) that the female victim was not consenting. However, due to the absence of physical violence or threats that are requirements for the crime of rape under U.S. military law, he was cleared of rape.

During questioning of the defendant on Friday, he said he deeply regretted his actions. The prosecution then demanded that he be jailed for 10 years. The defense said the facts that he was the youngest of the four and held the lowest rank should be taken into consideration, and argued the sentence should be restricted to six months.

(Mainichi Japan) May 9, 2008

Marines nabbed over trespassing

Friday, May 9, 2008

NAHA, Okinawa Pref. (Kyodo) Japanese police arrested two U.S. Marines on Thursday on suspicion of trespassing in an Okinawa bar-restaurant after business hours.

Cpl. Andrew Jones, 23, and Lance Cpl. Christian Pons, 20, of the Marine Corps Air Station Futenma both deny the allegation, police said.

The two, who were drunk when arrested, are suspected of violating the curfew imposed on all U.S. military personnel in the prefecture following the alleged rape of a local schoolgirl.

China mooted forum with U.S., Japan

Friday, May 9, 2008

WASHINGTON (Kyodo) China proposed to the United States last year launching a trilateral dialogue framework including Japan to discuss a broad range of Northeast Asian issues, according to U.S. and other officials.

Although Japan was positive about it, the U.S. was reluctant and the proposal was shelved, the officials said.

But because Washington did not reject the proposal outright, there is room for the next administration to look into it, a U.S. official said. A next president will be inaugurated in January.

The proposal was put forward informally by then Deputy Foreign Minister Dai Bingguo, who is now a state councilor, to Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte last spring. China wanted the framework to start as a dialogue forum among vice ministerial-level officials from the three countries to discuss Northeast Asian affairs ranging from political to economic.

After internal discussions, Japan responded favorably, the officials said. Tokyo judged that such a forum would have no negative impact on the Japan-U.S. alliance and would be useful for discussing economic and other issues.

Washington relayed to Beijing its reluctance to accept the proposal due in part to concerns that the forum could anger South Korea, a U.S. ally, the officials said.

Another reason was the likelihood that a trilateral dialogue would produce little tangible progress. For instance, not much could be gained in the security field because Japan and the United States are allies, while China is not, they said.

Hu shows mettle in pingpong friendly

05/09/2008
THE ASAHI SHIMBUN

Chinese President Hu Jintao went up against a formidable opponent in Tokyo on Thursday: Japanese Olympian Ai Fukuhara.

In the closest he got to pingpong diplomacy, Hu played a friendly rally with Ai-chan, 19, who ensured that he had his moments.

Photo: Meets his match? Chinese President Hu Jintao plays against table tennis star Ai Fukuhara at Waseda University in Tokyo on Thursday.

Earlier, in a speech at Waseda University, Hu, 65, stressed the importance to China of improved relations with Japan.

The speech was co-sponsored by the university, the Foreign Ministry and friendship organizations.

In contrast to his predecessor, Jiang Zemin, who dwelled heavily on the history issue during a speech he gave at Waseda in 1998, Hu stressed the future of relations between the two Asian powers.

As a security measure, most Waseda students were not informed of the event in advance.

While a crowd of students gathered outside the university auditorium where the speech was held, only about 200 seats were set aside for Waseda students in the auditorium that seats 900 or so people.

A number of protesters demanding Tibetan independence had to shout out their slogans over cheers from Chinese students who greeted Hu.

After the speech, Hu tried a different approach to improving bilateral ties by playing table tennis with Fukuhara and others from Japan and China.

While Hu showed off a smash or two, Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda could only stand by and watch, apparently taken aback at Hu's ability.

Earlier in the day, Hu met with four former prime ministers to discuss bilateral issues.

Yasuhiro Nakasone said, "While there are many bilateral issues concerning Japan and China, we have to resolve them in a cordial manner."

Shinzo Abe stressed the need to improve the human rights conditions of Tibetans.

While the breakfast meeting involved former prime ministers from the Liberal Democratic Party, Junichiro Koizumi was noticeable for his absence.

Koizumi's repeated visits to Yasukuni Shrine caused bilateral relations to plummet to their lowest level in decades.(IHT/Asahi: May 9,2008)

Marines in Japan living a new, limited life

By Gidget Fuentes - Staff writer
Posted : Thursday May 8, 2008 19:16:25 EDT

OKINAWA, Japan — It’s 8:30 on a Friday night, and the neon-lit streets and sidewalks of American Village are splashed with flashing lights from the large ferris wheel that anchors the U.S.-styled outdoor mall in Chatan Town.

Young couples holding hands dash across the street. Schoolgirls dart into some of the shops. Diners occupy all the stools at a conveyor-belt sushi eatery, while nearby, a few teenagers sip drinks outside a Starbucks café.

Inside the Double Decker, a small bar and restaurant, Kazuyuki Tomihama worked behind the stately wooden bar. Several locals seated in thick cushioned seats chatted quietly. But on this weekend, few Americans stepped up to the bar for one of his artfully decorated drinks.

Photo: Marines and their friends dance at the Globe & Anchor Bar on base at Camp Foster in Okinawa where Marines were able to consume alcohol and didn't have a 10 p.m.curfew keeping many Marines on base. Bar owners off-base suffered a loss in business during the curfew and celebrated the lifting of the curfew recently.

Despite the name, very few Marines, sailors or other U.S. service members stationed on this island visited American Village, most skipping dining, shopping and hanging out in its neighborhood bars because of stricter rules dictating off-duty liberty.

A 10 p.m. curfew in effect at the time deterred many service members from venturing outside the confines of the military bases here to enjoy a meal or shop. Under existing rules, those of legal drinking age are banned from drinking alcohol anywhere except on base.

The restrictions, slightly eased in early April to a midnight curfew — also known as “Cinderella liberty” — has forced many service members to stay on base for nighttime entertainment on this island nearly 1,000 miles south of Tokyo.

The red-felt pool tables at the Globe & Anchor drew Lance Cpl. Josh Rippel and a few buddies to the enlisted club at Camp Foster that Saturday night. If they wanted to hit a local club or pool hall out in one of Okinawa’s popular districts, they’d have to skip the beer and return to base just as their local peers would be getting ready for a night out.

“Before, we’d go out and stay out in town,” said Rippel, 23, a motor vehicle operator with Combat Logistics Battalion 4. “I try to go out and find different places to eat,” including the popular curry houses that serve variations of the Okinawan dish.

He and a friend, Pfc. Charlie Callaway, 21, sipped beers between matches around the pool table, which drew several contenders, including Pfc. Angel Vega, 21, a basic water support technician. Vega, decked out in a Chicago Bears jersey, smiled and winced at his play as he and Rippel stepped around the table.

“We’re here a lot more than we did before,” Callaway said of the club. “We can’t do anything we did off base because of the curfew.”

If they were back in the states, they wouldn’t have to plan their nighttime fun within the confining box of Japan liberty rules. But here, officials say, liberty matters most.

Liberty rules

Top Marine and Navy commanders here defend the restrictions and liberty policies as necessary measures to ensure and encourage good behavior and avoid any trouble outside the base or involving locals, to protect the delicate relationship with the Japanese government.

Outside of Iraq, Japan has the largest concentration of forward-deployed Marines and sailors. The military presence bolsters the U.S.-Japan security alliance that dates back to post-World War II, but there are pockets of vocal opposition to the U.S. military presence on Okinawa, where the U.S. military is the third-largest local employer.

A spate of recent incidents, including allegations of rape by U.S. service members and armed robbery by dependent teenagers, set off the loudest protest here in recent years. The most serious accusations were of rape: one case involves a staff sergeant who allegedly assaulted a teenage girl, while another involves four Marines who allegedly gang-raped a woman.

In Yokosuka, a naval base near the entrance to Tokyo Bay that’s home to the Navy’s 7th Fleet, the fatal stabbing of a cab driver, allegedly by a sailor, drew strong protest from Japanese officials and prompted Navy officials to impose a curfew and ban alcohol consumption.

The restrictions in Okinawa were the strictest ever imposed.

“I think our presence out in town, off base, became in itself an issue,” said Lt. Gen. Richard Zilmer, the senior military officer on Okinawa, during an interview at his Camp Courtney office.

A “vocal minority” and “a very, very anti-base media” pressed their complaints, at times portraying U.S. service members as criminals and thugs, said Zilmer, who commands III Marine Expeditionary Force and Marine Corps Bases-Japan and serves as the Okinawa Area Coordinator. He laid down the law, at one point prohibiting all military personnel, their dependents and anyone else who falls under Status of Forces Agreement rules in Japan from venturing off base.

Zilmer called for a “cooling off” period of reflection and review of policies that govern conduct, ethics, alcohol abuse and relationships with locals.

“We can never afford to have any incidents happen out in town,” he said. “That has changed dramatically” since the 1970s. Back then, in a society considered among the safest in the world, off-base incidents didn’t draw as much venomous press as today.

This spring saw the return of uniformed “courtesy” patrols in Okinawa — Navy officials in Yokosuka also beefed up patrols there — and saw new agreements among bar, club and restaurant owners in Okinawa to ban underage drinking, limit alcohol promotions and allow entry to the patrols. Officials expanded their orientation briefs for newcomers.

“We want to make sure that everyone — everyone — understands the political implications of bad behavior here in Okinawa,” Zilmer said.

“They need to understand what’s at stake when they go outside the gates. It’s not just going out to Oceanside, it’s not going out to Jacksonville. They are going out into another nation, and there are great expectations that they will represent the United States and their services,” he said. “We can’t afford any mistakes out there.”

Japan history and sensitivities

The U.S. military relationship with residents and elected officials in Okinawa, especially, is considered more fragile and the most sensitive.

For five centuries, Okinawans lived as part of the Ryukyu kingdom, an archipelago stretching south from Japan’s Kyushu island to Taiwan, until 1879, when Japan overthrew the emperor, abolished the kingdom and merged it into the prefecture. By early 1944, Japanese military occupied the islands and mobilized Okinawans, forcing many to build airfields from farmlands and turned ancestral tombs into military fortifications to fight the United States and allies during World War II. That fall, U.S. air raids against Japanese forces, which survivors called the “typhoon of steel,” caused hundreds of casualties among Okinawans.

The Battle of Okinawa, which began in the spring of 1945, resulted in 12,250 Americans and 92,000 Japanese troops killed, along with 94,000 Okinawans caught up in the fighting, some plunging to their deaths from coastal cliffs for fear of rape and torture. Many older Okinawans remember the battle and the transition from their more agrarian roots.

To this day, many Okinawans consider themselves Okinawans first, Japanese second. Some retain grudges against the central government, recalling “that Japan would sacrifice Okinawa to protect the mainland,” said Carmela A. Conroy, deputy principal officer at the U.S. Consulate General office in Naha, Okinawa’s prefecture capital.

“Okinawans were horribly transformed by their war experiences and even brutality by the Japanese,” Conroy said. “They really are treated like third-class or even fourth-class citizens.”

The United States returned Japan to local control in 1952, and its economy flourished. But Okinawa stayed under U.S. control until 1972. “This, too, is a great sense of complaint for Okinawans,” she noted. “People in their 40s remember the occupation.”

Officials and observers say that vocal anti-U.S. or military sentiments, even by elected officials, should be viewed through the lens of Japanese politics. These include local conservatives who support the U.S.-Japan alliance but also placate their constituents who want less or no military presence and reformists who oppose having even Japan’s self-defense forces on the island.

The anti-military drumbeat continues in local newspapers. While prompting the stricter liberty rules and restrictions, the recent incidents haven’t drawn the sort of huge protests last seen in 1995, when two Marines and a sailor were charged with and later convicted of raping a 12-year-old girl. Small protests remain, with some locals paid by left-wing groups opposed to the U.S. bases.

Zero tolerance

In Japanese and Okinawan society, U.S. service members are regarded highly, like police and other authorities deemed worthy of respect, which, in turn, means higher expectations of behavior and trust. Alleged crimes are few relative to the larger population of U.S. service members here, but a single incident can fuel opposition and backlash.

“There are national political implications of even one service member acting out in town,” Zilmer said. “And it’s larger than just the service members,” noting that the rules include civilian contractors and other SOFA-status personnel.

Zilmer and other leaders often talk and meet with local officials in a continual effort to build and hold their trust.

“This relationship is very, very fragile here with the local community,” he said. “I do not take that for granted.

“There is an alliance that’s at stake here, the mutual treaty that we’ve had in Japan since 1960,” he said, adding that the most-recent rape allegation “has drawn us all close to the edge.”

At the same time, top leaders know they must justify the broad restrictions on a population of service members, most of whom avoid trouble and follow the rules. Restrictions seem illogical to many, who say they’re unfairly punished along with the wrongdoers. But officials believe most understand it’s necessary in Japan.

“I think 99.9 percent of our Marines do not cause trouble,” said Col. Russell I. Jones, who commands 1,300 members of Headquarters and Service Battalion at Marine Corps Base Camp Smedley D. Butler in Okinawa. “I think they get it.”

“Here, everything is magnified,” Jones said. “The balancing act that General Zilmer has ... is how to do everything we can that is reasonable and gets the numbers as low as possible.”

Hu makes friends with old foe

By David Pilling and Mure Dickie
Published: May 8 2008 19:02

If diplomacy were built on goodwill gestures alone, there would be few worries about the state of Sino-Japanese relations.

In aid of fostering better ties between Asia’s two economic giants, Hu Jintao, the Chinese president, played table tennis yesterday with a Japanese star, met Japanese ballet dancers and gave a rosy speech to students at Tokyo’s Waseda University as part of his five-day state visit to Japan.

Photo: Chinese President Hu Jintao plays table tennis

Hu Jintao, the Chinese president, played table tennis with a Japanese star, met Japanese ballet dancers and gave a rosy speech to students at Tokyo's Waseda University as part of his five-day state visit to Japan

The day before, he had offered to lend Japan two pandas and praised his neighbour’s postwar record of peace in a speech that touched only fleetingly on the wartime history that had bedevilled relations until a thaw 18 months ago.

Mr Hu said: “To remember history is not to nurse hatred but to use it as a mirror to look forward. Cherish peace and let the Chinese and Japanese people be friends for generations.”

He said Japan had nothing to fear from China and that it would never use its growing military strength. Instead, they should treat each other as “partners, not rivals” and “an opportunity, not a threat”.

However, demonstrations at Waseda University, one of the most liberal in Japan, showed there is much work to be done at a popular level, where sentiment has, if anything, grown more bitter in recent years.

Outside the university gates a small crowd of rightwing protesters shouted through megaphones: “Why is Waseda allowing this assassin to talk? Get Hu out of Japan.” Inside, a few hundred pro-Tibet demonstrators shouted slogans and waved Tibetan flags. Others held up placards alluding to a recent scare over Chinese-made gyoza dumplings, an incident that shook the Japanese public’s wavering faith in Chinese safety standards.

In China, the constructive approach at a leadership level has been underscored by media coverage of Mr Hu’s trip.

Sina.com, the country’s leading news portal, produced a montage of a smiling Mr Hu standing against a backdrop of Mount Fuji and cherry blossoms, carefully ignoring the fact he had arrived several weeks after this year’s flowering had disappeared from most of Japan.

An article in the overseas edition of the Communist party’s People’s Daily newspaper used mixed-metaphors to lavish praise on the trip, describing it as “a milestone, a new start and an engine for the development of Sino-Japanese relations”.

China’s International Herald Leader ran a series of articles calling for a better understanding of a nation that has often been lambasted in the official Chinese press. “Leaders of the two countries have resumed meetings and the smoke of the war beacons and cannon is gradually clearing,” the newspaper said. “Now what is most needed is to open a window again, to discover Japan, to understand Japan.”

But the warmth of Chinese media coverage has not dispelled lingering animosity in the population, particularly among young people reared on a “patriotic education” stressing the brutality of the Japanese occupation.

Chinese internet users were barred from posting comments on most online coverage of Mr Hu’s visit. But on the few websites where they could, some criticised his failure to win concessions on territorial and other issues. “This was a trip that sold out the interests of the people of the whole nation,” wrote one commentator on the popular Netease portal.

Tong Zeng, a veteran of Chinese anti-Japan demonstrations who believes Tokyo has not done enough to compensate war victims, said fellow activists believed that improvement in ties was a good thing but were disappointed that historical issues were unresolved. “If Chinese people don’t believe those issues will be settled,” he said, “the tendency of strong hatred against Japan will remain and could explode again.”

Woman testifies she initially lied about gang rape

By Travis J. Tritten, Stars and Stripes
Pacific edition, Friday, May 9, 2008

MARINE CORPS AIR STATION IWAKUNI, Japan — A Hiroshima woman testified Wednesday she was gang raped by four Iwakuni Marines but originally lied about the incident to Japanese authorities.

The alleged victim took the stand during the second day of Lance Cpl. Larry Dean’s court-martial, which also included testimony by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service and a military clinical psychiatrist.

Dean pleaded not guilty to raping and kidnapping the woman, who was 19 years old at the time. He admitted Tuesday to having sex with her in a Hiroshima parking lot, drinking underage and breaking liberty rules.

He is the first of the four Marines to face trial over the alleged rape Oct. 14. Courts-martial are scheduled in coming weeks for Gunnery Sgt. Carl M. Anderson, Gunnery Sgt. Jarvis D. Raynor and Sgt. Lanaeus J. Braswell.

The woman said she was taken against her will to a dark parking lot in Hiroshima early in the morning of Oct. 14 and raped at least five times.

“Against me were four big guys and they had already committed rape,” the alleged victim testified. “I couldn’t doubt that they might kill me, too.”

The woman said she lied to police and prosecutors for weeks about the rape because she believed the Marines would escape punishment and feared her mother would be ashamed over the incident. Stars and Stripes does not disclose the names of alleged victims of sexual assault.

Japanese authorities decided not to pursue the case in November after weeks of investigation and almost daily interviews with the alleged victim.

Dean’s defense attorney said the woman is a constant liar who wants to protect her reputation and get revenge for being treated “like trash” by the Marines.

“She decided to lie her way through the process,” said Lt. Eric Wimberger, defense attorney for Dean. “She is motivated by reputation and what others think of her.”

During questioning by the defense Wednesday, the woman said she did not loudly object or ask to get out when the four men drove away from a Hiroshima club while she was partially naked in the back seat.

She also said she did not fight the men as they had sex with her because she feared they would beat her.

“I did not choose to resist with my body or voice” although she was being raped, she said through an interpreter.

After the incident, the woman told Japanese police and prosecutors she cried “stop, stop, stop” when the vehicle pulled away, Wimberger said.

“You are lying either in that statement [to Japanese authorities] or today,” Wimberger said.

Prosecutors admitted the woman, a key piece in their case against Dean, gave inconsistent statements to investigators.

“But there is one unmistakable theme in all those interviews ... she was raped,” Maj. Robert Palmer said. “This is not a barroom situation gone bad. This is a vicious rape.”

A clinical psychiatrist who specializes in treating trauma among servicemembers testified Wednesday that the woman’s actions were consistent with those of other trauma victims.

“No matter what they do, they think nobody will believe them,” Danielle Sanchack said. “They see people around them as perpetrators instead of just people.”

Victims often go to great lengths to avoid confronting their trauma, including lying to police, Sanchack said.

Meanwhile, NCIS said Dean originally tried to conceal he had sex with the woman twice in the parking lot that night, Special Agent Jeff Henson said.

Dean noticed the woman’s demeanor changed after she had sex with the first two men but he decided to have sex with her again anyway, Henson said.

“The only thing [Dean] indicated to us is she didn’t want to be having sex,” he said. “She had given up.”

Dean told NCIS that rape was one of his first thoughts after being arrested, Henson said.

Dean’s court-martial is expected to last through Friday.

Hu enjoys table tennis with top players, impresses Fukuda

May 8 09:41 AM US/Eastern

TOKYO, May 8 (AP) - (Kyodo) — Chinese President Hu Jintao entertained Japanese and Chinese youths by playing table tennis on Thursday with Beijing Olympics qualifier Ai Fukuhara and Chinese Olympic gold medalist Wang Nan, impressing Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda and other spectators in an event at Tokyo's Waseda University.

It had been speculated that Fukuda, 71, might also grip the racket but Fukuda shied away from doing so, apparently after watching an energetic, serious-faced Hu beat Japanese teen player Fukuhara in five of the eight rounds of rally they had.

Photo: Chinese President Hu Jintao beat Japanese teenager Ai Fukuhara at table tennis at Waseda University on May 8. Japanese Prime Minister Fukuda watched from the background.

Fukuda later in the day told reporters that he "chickened out in the face of good players."

He also called Hu's way of playing the sport "very strategic," apparently evoking a phrase Fukuda and Hu repeatedly used in the past few days to describe what they hope bilateral relations should be -- "strategic, mutually beneficial."

At the event planned as part of Japan-China youth exchanges, Hu, along with Fukuda and about 100 students from the two countries, was first watching Fukuhara and Wang play. But the 65-year-old Chinese president suddenly took off his jacket and glasses and surprised the audience by joining the play and hitting smashes.

Fukuda said after the game, "I'm glad I didn't play table tennis (with Hu)."

Fukuda also told Fukuhara she seemed to be "overwhelmed" during Hu's play. Fukuhara smiled and said, "Yes."

A Chinese female student who watched the match said of Hu, "As the state president of the table tennis kingdom, he exhibited wonderful skills."

The Chinese president arrived in Japan on Tuesday for the first visit to the country by a Chinese head of state in 10 years. He will leave on Saturday.

After playing table tennis, Hu said, "I firmly believe that the seed of friendship will grow to a big tree."

The event recalled the "ping-pong diplomacy" of the 1970s in which the exchange of players from the United States and China marked a thaw in relations between Washington and Beijing and paved the way for the historic visit to communist China by President Richard Nixon in 1972.

When Fukuda visited China last December, Fukuda played a game of catch with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao.

U.S. Marine found guilty of wrongful sexual contact with Japan woman

May 8 09:20 AM US/Eastern

IWAKUNI, Japan, May 8 (AP) - (Kyodo) — A U.S. court-martial on Thursday found a U.S. Marine guilty of "wrongful sexual contact" with a Japanese woman in Hiroshima last October.

The court-martial at the U.S. Marine Corps' Iwakuni Air Station in Yamaguchi Prefecture, which set aside an allegation of rape, is expected to sentence the Marine, a 20-year-old lance corporal, on Friday.

The U.S. military began the court-martial Tuesday after Japanese law enforcement authorities decided not to prosecute the lance corporal and three other Marines.

The four were accused of gang raping the woman after meeting her at a dance event last October.

Courts-martial for the other three are scheduled to begin from later this month to June.

The Hiroshima prefectural police sent papers on the four to public prosecutors in November in connection with the alleged gang rape. But the police did not arrest the four as they found inconsistencies in the woman's explanations.

The Hiroshima District Public Prosecutors Office decided not to indict the four Marines.

Chinese president's meeting with former Japanese prime ministers excludes Koizumi

May 8, 2008

TOKYO (AP) -- Chinese President Hu Jintao, on a fence-mending visit to Japan, had breakfast with former Japanese prime ministers Thursday, but in a sign that not all bygones are forgotten one very important name was dropped from the guest list -- Junichiro Koizumi.

Koizumi strained ties repeatedly with Beijing by visiting the Yasukuni Shrine, which many see as a symbol of Japan's militarist past, during his tenure in office from 2001-2006.

Hu also got a thumbs down from a right-leaning alumni association of Waseda University, where he was to speak later Thursday.

In a statement signed by several dozen alumni, Hu was called "the chief executive of oppression over the right to ethnic self-determination and human rights of the Tibetans." The letter requested Hu's scheduled visit to the university, one of Japan's most prestigious, be called off.

Despite such bumps, Hu's five-day visit to Japan has been designed to stress good ties and cooperation between Asia's two giants. Hu arrived Tuesday, becoming the first Chinese president to visit Tokyo in 10 years.

On Wednesday, Hu and Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda met for a meticulously choreographed summit to fortify a rapprochement launched immediately after Koizumi left office in 2006 with relations at their lowest point since World War II.

The two pledged to work together on everything from climate change to North Korea and territorial disputes, and Fukuda hinted -- without elaborating -- that the neighbors were on the verge of settling a spat over maritime gas deposits.

They also announced Tokyo and Beijing would hold annual summits, a step to prevent a recurrence of the decade-long gap in visits to Japan by Chinese presidents since Jiang Zemin's rocky trip to Tokyo in 1998.

"I hope this will be a year of progress in Sino-Japanese ties that will define the bilateral relationship far into the future," Fukuda said at the opening of the summit.

Hu seconded that in a joint news conference afterward.

"Our relations are at a new starting point, and we have a new chance," Hu said. "Japan and China have an important responsibility to assure peace in Asia."

There appeared to be little substance to the talks, however.

The most concrete agreement so far was over pandas.

Hu offered to loan a couple of pandas to Japan following the death last week of 22-year-old giant panda Ling Ling at Tokyo's largest zoo, and Fukuda thanked him. Local media reports said the two could play Pingpong during his university visit.

The two sides' determination to emphasize the positive illustrated how economics over political rivalry.

China, with Hong Kong included, is Japan's largest trading partner, having eclipsed the United States. Bilateral trade reached US$237 billion last year, according to Chinese statistics.

"For Japan, China has become the fastest growing export market," Hu told business leaders Wednesday. "For China, Japan is the largest foreign investor. I believe there is a huge potential."

(Mainichi Japan) May 8, 2008

China's development not threat to Japan, Hu says

May 8 07:54 AM US/Eastern

TOKYO, May 8 (AP) - (Kyodo) — China and Japan should view each other not as rivals but as partners, Chinese President Hu Jintao said Thursday, at a time when the Japanese public casts a wary eye on the fast-paced development of its giant neighbor.

In a speech at Tokyo's Waseda University, Hu also made his most extensive remarks yet on Japan's wartime aggression since his visit here began Tuesday, calling history "a textbook" for all to learn from.

The speech in the afternoon was the centerpiece of the day's events aimed at reaching out to the Japanese public, which also included a visit to a ballet troupe and a table tennis rally with a Japanese player.

China and Japan "should recognize each other's development objectively and accurately, and see each other as cooperative partners, not rivals," Hu said in the speech at a university hall, which was broadcast live in both Japan and China.

"Both sides should support the other side's peaceful development, and see the other's development as an opportunity, not a threat," he said.

Outside, hundreds of activists and students gathered to protest China's policy on Tibet, holding Tibetan flags and shouting "Free Tibet!"

A smaller group of several dozen was also at the site to support Hu's visit, waving Chinese flags and chanting, "China-Japan Friendship" and "One China."

China sees the recent violence in Tibet as part of a separatist movement instigated by the Dalai Lama, an allegation Tibet's exiled spiritual leader has repeatedly denied.

In the speech, Hu said the Japanese military's invasion of China in the past "greatly damaged friendly ties" and "not only brought about enormous misfortune to the Chinese people but also greatly harmed the Japanese public."

He added that while China does not want history to be forgotten, "that is not for continuing ill feelings" but to learn from the past.

The comments -- believed to be meant for public consumption in Japan and China as they were broadcast live in both countries -- were the most extensive yet during his trip to Japan, which is the first by a Chinese head of state in a decade.

A joint statement issued by the two countries after Hu's talks with Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda on Wednesday focused less on Japan's wartime aggression than previous documents between the two countries.

Wartime history was also not explicitly mentioned by Hu during his speech at a dinner hosted by Emperor Akihito on Wednesday.

That was in contrast to the 1998 visit by then President Jiang Zemin, who had repeatedly mentioned the history issue during his stay, leaving both sides bitter.

In the speech, Hu also repeated that China has a defensive military policy and does not aim at hegemony.

China "will not engage in an arms race and will not become a threat to any country," he said.

Later in the day, Hu played table tennis with Ai Fukuhara, a Japanese player who has qualified for the Beijing Olympics, at an event at the university.

Hu took three of the five points in a rally with Fukuhara, prompting Fukuda to say, "I'm glad I didn't participate."

"It was very strategic," the Japanese premier added.

In the morning, Hu met with some former Japanese prime ministers for talks on topics ranging from bilateral relations to Tokyo's bid to host the 2016 Olympics.

Yasuhiro Nakasone, one of the participants, told reporters afterward that the talks were held in a "cozy" atmosphere. Others attending the event included Shinzo Abe, Fukuda's predecessor.

Former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, whose repeated visits to the war-linked Yasukuni Shrine triggered a deterioration in bilateral ties, was absent from the event.

Hu also visited the Matsuyama Ballet troupe in Tokyo, which has performed in China in the past.

"Thank you," he said in Japanese after the troupe performed for the president.

Hu is scheduled to visit a Chinese school in Yokohama and ancient temples in Nara, western Japan, before heading home on Saturday.

Campus protests as China's Hu courts Japan public

By Yoko Kubota
Thu May 8, 7:38 AM ET

TOKYO (Reuters) - Chinese President Hu Jintao, on a symbolic visit to cement warming ties with Japan, urged the two Asian powers to look to the future as partners not rivals, but protests outside even as he spoke suggested some bumps ahead.

Hu wants to build goodwill after a summit with Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda, when they agreed to focus on cooperation after years of rancor over Japanese wartime aggression.

Photo: Pro-Tibet supporters participate in an anti-China rally outside the Waseda University while Chinese President Hu Jintao was on a visit to the university in Tokyo May 8, 2008.

In a speech at Tokyo's elite Waseda University, Hu touched on Japan's 1931-1945 invasion and occupation of part of China, saying the "unfortunate history caused not only great misfortune among Chinese people but also great suffering for the Japanese people.

"To remember history is not to nurse hatred, but to use history as a mirror and look forward to the future. Cherish peace, safeguard peace, let Chinese people and Japanese people be friends generation by generation," Hu said to applause, in a speech broadcast live on Japan's NHK public television.

Hu lavished praise on Japan, expressed admiration for the hardworking Japanese and urged the two countries to "recognize each other's development objectively and accurately and consider each other as partners for cooperation, not rivals ... not as threat, but an opportunity."

Both leaders want Hu's visit to be a success -- Fukuda because of low support ratings that could force him from office and Hu because he wants to shake off international pressure over unrest in Tibet that could mar the Beijing Olympics in August.

But even as Hu spoke, about 200 protesters waved signs outside the university gate saying "Free Tibet" and "No Pandas, No Poison Dumplings," the latter referring to Hu's offer to lend two pandas to a Tokyo zoo and a row over Chinese-made dumplings laced with pesticide that made several Japanese people ill.

RIVAL RALLIES

Sino-Japanese ties chilled during Junichiro Koizumi's 2001-2006 term as Japanese prime minister, when he outraged Beijing with his visits to Yasukuni Shrine for the war dead, seen in much of Asia as a symbol of Japan's past militarism.

They have since improved, and experts said the main purpose of what is only the second state visit by a Chinese leader was to cement a shift to friendlier ties by the Asian rivals, closely linked by trade and investment despite rows over the past.

"The fact that the visit is taking place is an achievement," said Andrew Horvat, a professor at Tokyo Keizai University.

Many ordinary citizens in both countries, though, are wary of the other nation, while anti-Chinese feelings among some Japanese have been stirred by Beijing's reaction to Tibetan unrest.

"I just want to say 'Free Tibet'. I want to say 'No' to China's oppression of human rights," said 29-year-old Atsushi Hanazawa, who carried a guitar along with a Tibetan flag.

Some Waseda students were more concerned about getting to class. "I can't get through the gate. It's a pain," said 18-year-old Takuhiro Waki of the protest.

About two dozen right-wing activists yelled anti-Chinese slogans such as "Hu Jintao, Go Back to China." Earlier, some right-wing Waseda alumni protested against Hu's speech in a blog.

Nearby around 50 Chinese students held their own rally, yelling "Go, China" in Chinese, "Sino-Japanese Friendship" in Japanese, and "Yes, We Can" in English.

"When I hear the anti-Chinese slogans, I feel that the Chinese people's character has been maligned," said 28-year-old Chinese graduate student Cao Shunrui.

But he added that the leaders' summit was positive. "The most important thing is moves to understand each other," he said.

"VERY STRATEGIC"

In Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang dismissed the protests as the actions of a small handful of individuals that would "not stop the development of China-Japan relations and won't undermine the China-Japan friendship."

Hu is also seeking to convince his own skeptical citizens that the two nations should draw closer, and on Thursday he stressed that his country had much to learn from Japan.

The latest stage of Hu's trip, which lasts until Saturday, began with breakfast with former Japanese prime ministers.

Koizumi did not attend.

Hu later shed his suit jacket to play ping-pong at Waseda with popular players from both countries, but Fukuda, 71, declined to pick up a paddle.

"I'm glad I didn't play ping-pong with him," Fukuda told reporters. "He's very strategic. I thought you can't be too careful."

(Additional reporting by Chris Buckley, Teruaki Ueno and Chisa Fujioka in Tokyo and Lindsay Beck in Beijing; Writing by Linda Sieg; Editing by Alex Richardson)

Japan's former premier Koizumi absent at breakfast with Hu

Posted : Thu, 08 May 2008 08:39:06 GMT

Tokyo - Visiting Chinese President Hu Jintao met with Japan's former prime ministers on Thursday and vowed to develop Beijing-Tokyo relations from "a long-term perspective."On his third day in Japan, Hu met with former prime ministers Yasuhiro Nakasone and Shinzo Abe, but Abe's predecessor Junichiro Koizumi was conspicuously absent from the breakfast table.

Koizumi decided to forgo the meeting so as not to disrupt the improving bilateral relations as he feared his presence would remind participants of the tensions between the two nations, according to Kyodo News Agency.

His repeated visits to Yasukuni Shrine during his 2001-2006 tenure angered China, South Korea and other Asian nations that suffered atrocities under Japan's rule during World War II. The shrine honours Japanese veterans, including war criminals.

The visits soured regional relationships and triggered protests in China and elsewhere in East Asia.

Hu's arrival marks the first visit to Japan by a Chinese head of state in 10 years.

Former prime minister Abe said at the meeting he hoped the human rights of the Tibetan people would improve because of the Beijing Olympics.

The Chinese president on Wednesday held summit talks with Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda.

Although they failed to reach a settlement over development rights to natural resources in the East China Sea Wednesday, the summit meeting was seen as a success as the two nations recognized each other as important partners and agreed to cooperate on long-lasting peace and friendship, Mainichi Shimbun said Thursday.

During the breakfast meeting, Hu told the former Japanese premiers, "The responsibilities borne by our two nations in the world are becoming more and more significant. We should further develop Chinese-Japanese relations from a long-term perspective."

Nakasone said he regarded the Chinese leader as a "straightforward and honest politician" and highly valued the outcome of the summit talks.

But, "whether that can be realized will depend on the efforts of people in both nations as well as ours (as politicians) to build mutual trust," Nakasone was quoted as saying after the meeting.

"Just having a document won't do unless both nations work to implement it," he added.

Hu and Fukuda on Wednesday signed a fourth joint statement issued by the two nations and pledged to enhance "mutually beneficial ties."

In the statement, China praised Japan's contribution to world peace and stability since the end of the war, which should be highly regarded as a meaningful response from China, Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper reported Thursday.

The two leaders agreed to resume talks on human rights issues, which had stalled in January 2000, when Japan and the United States urged China to improve the rights situation in China at the United Nations, the statement said.

The two nations also signed a declaration on climate change, sayingthey will work together to halve greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

Japan and China also agreed to continue talks on development rights to offshore oil and gas fields and to reach an accord on the issue before the Group of Eight summit in July, Kyodo quoted sources as saying.

China was reported to be ready to compromise and include the Chunxiao field in a joint project.

Chinese president Hu says his country no military threat

Thu May 8, 4:21 AM ET

TOKYO (AFP) - Chinese President Hu Jintao, on a visit to repair ties with Japan, pledged Thursday that his country would never become a military threat.

Both Japan and its main ally, the United States, have repeatedly voiced concerns about China's military spending, which has grown by double digits every year for two decades.

"China will take defensive military policy and will not join any arms race," Hu said in an address at Tokyo's prestigious Waseda University that was broadcast live in Japan.

"We will not become a military threat to any country and we will never assert hegemony or be expansionistic," he said.

Hu is the first Chinese leader in a decade to visit Japan, which has been working to repair ties with Beijing.

Relations between Asia's two largest economies have long been mired by disputes linked to Tokyo's past aggression in China.

In rare public remarks for a Chinese leader that triggered roaring applause, Hu thanked Japan for its years of low-interest loans, saying they helped his country to develop.

"We have achieved unprecedentedly large growth, but we are also aware that we are the world's biggest developing country," Hu said.

"We have a long way to go to build a greater society for more than one billion people and to achieve affluence for all people of the nation. We have to continue to make efforts patiently."

Hu stressed China would maintain its "open-door" policy to foreign investment but would "continue to move ahead with our ideology of socialism with Chinese characteristics."

2 U.S. Marines nabbed over trespassing in Okinawa

May 8 02:00 AM US/Eastern

NAHA, Japan, May 8 (AP) - (Kyodo) — Japanese police arrested two U.S. Marines on Thursday on suspicion of trespassing in a bar restaurant after business hours in Okinawa Prefecture.

Corporal Andrew Jones, 23, and Lance Corporal Christian Pons, 20, of the Marine Corps Futemma Air Station were drunk when they were arrested and both of them deny the allegation, the police said.

The two are also suspected of violating the curfew imposed on all U.S. military personnel in the prefecture following the alleged rape of a local junior high school girl in February.

The U.S. Marine public affairs officers were not immediately available for comment.

According to the investigation, the two suspects broke into the establishment in Ginowan by breaking the locked door around 12:30 a.m. Thursday near the Futemma base after the manager and others had left after closing for the day.

The manager, a 61-year-old woman, who returned after about half an hour saw the suspects in her bar restaurant and called the police.

The two were arrested by police officers at the site.

Nakasone says Hu's visit opening 'new era' in ties

May 7 11:31 PM US/Eastern

TOKYO, May 8 (AP) - (Kyodo) — Former Japanese Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone on Thursday praised the ongoing visit by Chinese President Hu Jintao as carrying historic significance in opening a "new era" in bilateral ties, but called for efforts from the people of both countries to realize the goals of the joint statement signed by the nations' leaders a day earlier.

At a breakfast meeting in a Tokyo hotel, Hu told Nakasone and other former Japanese premiers, "The responsibilities borne by our two nations in the world are becoming more and more significant. We should further develop Sino-Japanese relations from a long-term perspective."

Hu, in Japan for a five-day visit, also described his talks with Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda on Wednesday as having gone "very well," saying they reached a common understanding on a broad array of issues and that the joint statement carries significance as a guide to bilateral ties from now on.

Speaking to reporters afterward, Nakasone described Hu as a "straightforward and honest politician" and expressed hopes that warming Sino-Japanese relations will take root during Hu's term through 2012.

Nakasone also said the president promised to consider his proposal of holding in the fall a trilateral summit among Hu, Fukuda and South Korean President Lee Myung Bak. The three nations have already agreed to aim for such a meeting by the end of the year.

"I think both Fukuda and Mr. Hu Jintao expressed their own views relatively frankly and candidly, which I evaluate positively," Nakasone said of the summit talks. "They took up the issues of major concern one by one without trying to avoid them."

On the joint statement on promoting "strategic, mutually beneficial ties," the fourth such landmark document since Japan and China established diplomatic relations in 1972, Nakasone said it brings hope "that the tide will turn to a new direction and mark the start of a new era."

"However, whether that can be realized will depend on the efforts of people in both nations as well as ours (as politicians) to build mutual trust," the former premier said. "Just having a document won't do unless both nations work to implement it."

At the breakfast, which Nakasone described as having taken place in a "cozy" atmosphere, former Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori called for Beijing's support for Tokyo's bid to host the 2016 Olympics. Nakasone said Hu laughed when Mori joked that he expects China will come with a strategy to sweep the medals.

Other former prime ministers at the breakfast included Fukuda's predecessor Shinzo Abe, who urged Hu to resolve the Tibetan issue, and Toshiki Kaifu.

Former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, whose repeated visits to the war-linked Yasukuni Shrine triggered a deterioration in bilateral ties, was absent from the event.

The move is widely believed to have been initiated by Koizumi, who decided to stay away to prevent reminding participants of the period of worsening ties now they have entered an improvement phase.

Man arrested for allegedly stealing radioactive substance in Chiba

May 7 11:23 PM US/Eastern

(AP) - CHIBA, Japan, May 8 (Kyodo) — Police arrested an employee of a subcontractor Thursday on suspicion of stealing a container bearing a radioactive substance last month from a company in Ichihara, Chiba Prefecture, police officials said.

Tomonori Iso, 40, has admitted to allegations of taking away iridium 192 in a hermetic stainless steel container kept at Non-Destructive Inspection Co., they said.

The man resembles the person caught by a security camera removing the container at around 1:40 a.m. on April 5, they said.

The substance was 2 millimeters long but those exposed to it could suffer vomiting a day or so later and acute radiation damage within three days, the Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Ministry said earlier.

The company checks damage to products using radioactivity or ultrasound without destroying them.

China's Hu turns to table tennis diplomacy in Japan

By Chisa Fujioka
40 minutes ago

TOKYO (Reuters) - Chinese President Hu Jintao's campaign to woo a wary Japan shifts from the summit podium to ballet dancers, university students and perhaps a ping-pong table on Thursday for a day of diplomatic theatre.

Photo: Chinese President Hu Jintao (top) poses with ballet dancers as they visit THE Matsuyama Ballet company in Tokyo. Hu said that Japan had nothing to fear from his country's rise and engaged in a round of ping-pong diplomacy on a visit aimed at easing decades of tension.

In the middle of a five-day state visit, the Chinese leader is seeking to build goodwill after his summit with Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda, when they agreed to focus on cooperation after years of rancor over Japanese wartime aggression.

Hu and Fukuda said on Wednesday they were on track to settle a volatile feud over undersea gas.

But experts said the main purpose of what is only the second state visit by a Chinese leader was to cement a shift to friendlier ties between the Asian rivals, linked by trade and investment but long divided by rows over a bitter wartime past.

"The fact that the visit is taking place is an achievement," said Andrew Horvat, a professor at Tokyo Keizai University.

"It's a breakthrough, and at the same time it is also the culmination of an incremental process that began when Koizumi stepped down," he said.

Sino-Japanese ties chilled during Junichiro Koizumi's 2001-2006 term as Japanese prime minister when he outraged Beijing with his yearly visits to Tokyo's Yasukuni Shrine for the war dead, seen in much of Asia as a symbol of Japan's past militarism.

Both leaders need the summit to be a success, Fukuda because he faces low public support ratings that could force him from office, and Hu because he wants to shake off international pressure over unrest in Tibet that could mar the Beijing Olympics in August.

Tibet was back in focus on Thursday when the Olympic torch was lit at the top of Mount Everest, the crowning moment of a relay which had been dogged by protests on its world tour.

BREAKFAST, BALLET, PING-PONG

Japanese media generally welcomed Hu's efforts to ease

worries about his country's economic rise, military ambitions, growing exports and tainted dumplings, but lamented the lack of concrete results and pointed to risks ahead.

"More than anything, the fact that pragmatism was placed in the forefront by both leaders, Fukuda and Hu, is the significance of this summit," the Asahi newspaper said in an editorial.

"But no matter how many beautiful words are lined up, what is important is whether or not these are reflected in real policies. If one looks at the problems between the two countries, this will not be easy," the paper said.

The latest stage of Hu's trip, which lasts until Saturday, began with breakfast with former Japanese prime ministers. Koizumi did not attend, and one Japanese government source told Reuters the decision to stay away was Koizumi's own.

"I've come to your country at a time of a warming spring," Hu later told the speaker of the Japanese parliament's lower house.

"I hope that this visit will enhance mutually beneficial strategic relations between China and Japan."

Hu was later to enliven his stiff diplomatic pitch with a visit a ballet troupe with links to China, a speech to students at Tokyo's Waseda University and a ping-pong event with popular players from both countries.

Chinese and Japanese reports have said Hu, a regular player, may even coax Fukuda, 71, to pick up a paddle.

China's campaign to charm Japan follows years of diplomatic chill and sometimes violent anti-Japan protests in 2005.

On Thursday, China's state media were dominated by upbeat words for Hu's trip and Japan.

The People's Daily said China could learn from its neighbor.

"In social development, Japan can provide some experiences and models to draw on," said a commentary on the front page of the paper's overseas edition. (Additional reporting by Chris Buckley, Yoko Kubota and Linda Sieg, Editing by Michael Watson)

Court-martial starts for gang rape

Thursday, May 8, 2008

IWAKUNI, Yamaguchi Pref. (Kyodo) A 20-year-old lance corporal pleaded not guilty Tuesday as a court-martial at the U.S. Marine Corps' Iwakuni Air Station in Yamaguchi Prefecture over the alleged gang rape of a Japanese woman in the city of Hiroshima last October.

The U.S. military began the court-martial for one of the four marines accused of gang-raping the woman after Japanese authorities decided not to proceed with a prosecution.

The defendant, whose court-martial began Tuesday, was charged with alleged sexual assault and disobedience in violation of the U.S. Uniform Code of Military Justice, the Iwakuni base said. He was 19 at the time of the incident.

Courts-martial for the other three are scheduled to begin from later this month to June.

Japanese police sent papers in November to public prosecutors on the four on suspicion of gang-raping the woman from the night of Oct. 13 to the early hours of Oct. 14 after meeting her at a dance event and forcing her into a car.

But police did not arrest the four after they came across inconsistencies in the woman's story.

Emperor, Hu push ties at Imperial banquet

Thursday, May 8, 2008
Kyodo News

Emperor Akihito hosted visiting Chinese President Hu Jintao at a dinner Wednesday evening and expressed hope the two nations can promote forward-looking bilateral ties, especially through youth exchanges.

Offering a toast at the Imperial Palace banquet, Hu underscored his hope for enhanced relations as well.

Photo: To your health: Emperor Akihito and Chinese President Hu Jintao hold a toast during a dinner banquet at the Imperial Palace on Wednesday evening.

"Reviewing the past and looking to the future, we have every reason to believe that China-Japan relations are at a new historical starting point with new opportunities for further growth," Hu said.

"I believe nurturing friendship between young people in both countries through youth exchanges carries great significance," the Emperor said in his speech at the dinner. "I hope the two peoples will look back together on our long history and deepen friendly ties oriented toward the future."

The Emperor also wished Beijing success in hosting the Olympic Games in August. "I sincerely hope that the Games will serve as an opportunity to deepen friendship among all the people of the world," he said.

Neither touched in their speeches on Japan's wartime aggression in China — an issue taken up by former Chinese President Jiang Zemin at the Imperial Palace dinner 10 years ago.

Earlier on Wednesday, the Emperor told Hu after a welcoming ceremony that Japanese children were "delighted" to hear about China's offer to lease it a pair of giant pandas, the Imperial Household Agency said.

At the banquet, the Emperor referred to the decades-long effort between Japan and China to prevent the extinction of the Japanese crested ibis, describing it as a symbol of friendship between the two countries.

The Japanese crested ibis, known by its scientific name Nipponia Nippon, was once found in various parts of Japan but went extinct in the wild in 2003.

Using three ibises received from China, Japan has been able to artificially breed the internationally protected bird to rebuild its population to more than 100, the Emperor said.

The banquet was attended by Empress Michiko, Hu's wife, Liu Yongqing, Crown Prince Naruhito, Prince Akishino and Princess Kiko.

Yokosuka residents call for vote on U.S. nuclear-powered flattop

Thursday, May 8, 2008

YOKOSUKA, Kanagawa Pref. (Kyodo) A group of residents in Yokosuka, Kanagawa Prefecture, filed a request Wednesday with Mayor Ryoichi Kabaya for a local referendum on whether to support the planned deployment of a nuclear-powered U.S. aircraft carrier, group members said.

The group's plea is unlikely to get anywhere, however, as most members of the municipal assembly are against holding a plebiscite.

Kabaya is expected to convene an extra session of the assembly this month to discuss the proposal, city officials said.

The assembly voted down a similar move in 2007.

To request such a referendum requires signatures of at least 2 percent of the city's population.

The group submitted the signatures of 48,600 residents, well above the 7,100 needed.

The conventionally powered aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk was deployed to the U.S. Navy base in Yokosuka in 1998.

Japan eyes SOFA with Iraq for ASDF mission

Thursday, May 8, 2008
Kyodo News

Japan is eyeing beginning negotiations with Iraq to conclude a status of forces agreement to stipulate the legal status of Air Self-Defense Force personnel conducting missions there, sources said.

Japan has decided to seek the pact as U.N. Security Council Resolution 1790, which authorizes the current deployment of multinational forces in Iraq, will expire at the end of this year, the sources said.

Members of the Self-Defense Forces have so far been subject to a SOFA between Iraq and the multinational forces there.

But this SOFA will expire when the operation of the multinational forces comes to an end at yearend in line with the resolution.

The domestic law authorizing the ASDF mission in Iraq will expire at the end of July 2009, but the government is worried that continuing the mission will become difficult unless it concludes a SOFA with Iraq, the sources said.

Because concluding a SOFA would not require any legal revisions or budget, the government believes it would be unnecessary to seek Diet approval.

But opposition parties are likely to object to the idea, particularly after a recent court ruling found the ASDF mission unconstitutional.

A SOFA would exempt ASDF personnel in Iraq from such things as local criminal prosecution and taxation.

In 2003, Japan signed a SOFA with Kuwait as the ASDF has taken part in transport activities between Kuwait and Iraq.

When SDF personnel take part in U.N. peacekeeping operations, they are subject to a SOFA between the United Nations and the government of the country to which they are dispatched.

The United States has already negotiated a SOFA with the Iraqi government.

Fukuda, Hu promote 'strategic' interests

05/08/2008
THE ASAHI SHIMBUN

Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda and visiting Chinese President Hu Jintao signed a joint statement Wednesday on promoting a mutually beneficial strategic relationship without referring to "apologies" or "reflection" over Japan's wartime actions in China.

The summit between Fukuda and Hu earlier Wednesday was their first since Fukuda visited China in December last year.

Photo: Chinese President Hu Jintao and Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda respond to questions at a news conference Wednesday following their meeting.

Hu arrived in Tokyo on Tuesday for a five-day visit, the first by a Chinese president since his predecessor, Jiang Zemin, arrived here in 1998, which was the last time a joint statement had been signed by the two countries.

During a joint news conference after the signing ceremony, the two leaders indicated that major progress had been made on the sensitive issue of joint development of gas fields in the East China Sea.

"We were in agreement that an early agreement should be reached after hammering out the details," Fukuda said.

Hu added, "The total picture for resolution of the issue has come into view. We agreed to accelerate the discussions in order to reach an agreement as soon as possible."

While there was no announcement of which specific area in the East China Sea would be subject to joint development, a Japanese government source said, "About the only issues remaining are the technical details."

Government officials are hoping that an agreement on joint development can be reached in time for the Group of Eight summit in July at Lake Toyako, Hokkaido. Hu is scheduled to visit Japan again at that time to attend meetings on the sidelines of the G-8 summit.

During their meeting, Fukuda and Hu touched on the importance of resolving the recent health scare caused by tainted frozen gyoza dumplings from China.

"It was an incident that had the potential of leading to the death of a number of individuals and cannot be left with a vague resolution," Fukuda said. "It will not be beneficial to either Japan or China to leave the matter unresolved."

Hu agreed that there was a need for further cooperation by the two nations in investigating the matter.

The two leaders also discussed recent rioting and a police crackdown in Tibet that led to protests against the Olympic torch relay in various parts of the world.

Hu touched upon the recent start of discussions between Beijing and representatives of the Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism.

"A major door will be kept open through dialogue," Hu said. "We are opposed to activities that lead to the breakup of our country as well as any action to destroy or interfere with the Beijing Olympics. We will continue the dialogue."

Fukuda asked that discussions continue, saying, "It is a fact that voices of concern are spreading in the international community."

While Fukuda expressed his hopes for a successful Summer Olympics, he left unclear whether he would attend the Opening Ceremony in August.

By not directly mentioning Japan's atonement for its military activities in China before and during World War II, the joint statement signed by Fukuda and Hu sets the stage for a future-oriented approach toward improving ties. Instead, the statement said both countries will "continue to explore a new phase of bilateral relations by squarely facing history."

The statement also said Beijing "thinks much of Japan's standing and role in the United Nations," but it did not include a direct expression pointing to China's support of Japan's bid to become a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council.

As for the Taiwan issue, Japan maintained its position made clear in the 1972 Joint Communique when Tokyo and Beijing normalized diplomatic ties. Japan said in the declaration that it "fully understands and respects the position of the Chinese government."

The two leaders confirmed in the document that Tokyo and Beijing will be actively involved in building an international framework to combat global warming in and after 2013, when the Kyoto Protocol has expired.

China in another statement on climate change said for the first time that Japan's proposed sector-specific approach to curbing greenhouse gas emissions was an "important measure."

Meanwhile, Fukuda thanked Hu at the beginning of Wednesday's meeting for his announcement on Tuesday that China was prepared to lend Japan a pair of giant pandas following the death last week of Ling Ling, the last remaining giant panda at Ueno Zoo.

While the discussions between Fukuda and Hu were cordial, everything was not totally friendly in Tokyo as protests were held by those supporting independence for Tibet.(IHT/Asahi: May 8,2008)

Editorial :: Making the Japan-China joint statement work

The Yomiuri Shimbun

We hope the leaders of Japan and China will work hard to make the joint statement they signed bear fruit--a statement that calls for "the comprehensive promotion of a mutually beneficial relationship based on common strategic interests."

The statement, signed by visiting Chinese President Hu Jintao and Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda after their summit talks Wednesday, underscored that both sides were "resolved to face history and to continuously open up new phases in the strategically beneficial relations of the two nations."

The statement also said that China viewed positively the steps Japan had made as a peaceful nation in the postwar period and Japan's contribution to international peace and stability.

China has shown similar sentiments since former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's visit to China in 2006, which was seen as a breakthrough in bilateral relations. But Wednesday's joint statement is meaningful because China's stance was clearly stated in a political document.

===

Beyond historical issues

Former Chinese President Jiang Zemin, who came to Japan 10 years ago, was at the time insistent on issues regarding the perception of history. The joint statement from that time said that squarely facing the past and correctly understanding history are important foundations for further developing bilateral relations. The statement also said Japan expressed "deep remorse" for its wartime aggression against China.

It can be said that China this time chose not to unnecessarily use the history issue as a diplomatic gambit.

From now on, both Japan and China should recognize their responsibilities as major powers and expand their common interests through mutually beneficial cooperation. This constitutes the core of a mutually beneficial relationship based on common strategic interests.

But the summit talks also revealed that it will not an easy task to establish such a new relationship.

Regarding the dispute over the development of gas fields in the East China Sea, Fukuda said it had been confirmed that a solution was in sight. But a final settlement has yet to be made. This issue is a good example of the great difficulties involved in pursuing mutually beneficial relations when such things as maritime interests and territorial disputes are involved.

Japan should expedite a final push to get China to agree to setting areas for gas field development, which stretch over a median line of the two nations in the East China Sea.

===

Adding weight to words

One of the reasons for Hu's visit to Japan is said to be an effort to ease emotional confrontations seen between the people of the two nations.

If so, China should more sincerely work on its investigations into the poisoning of frozen gyoza imported from China to Japan, and get to the truth. Fukuda reportedly said during the talks that it would be unacceptable to let the incident simply fade away. This is a given, and it is necessary to ensure the incident does not lead to any future snags in relations.

Fukuda expressed Japan's intention to help make the upcoming Beijing Olympics a success. In doing so, Japan needs to also keep saying things that must be said on Tibet. Doing this will then give weight to the joint statement, which states the two nations will closely cooperate toward further understanding, and the pursuit of basic and universal values recognized by the international community.

(From The Yomiuri Shimbun, May 8, 2008)
(May. 8, 2008)

Fukuda, Hu agree to boost ties / Joint statement future-oriented; gas issue 'close to resolution'

The Yomiuri Shimbun

Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda and Chinese President Hu Jintao agreed in talks Wednesday that the two countries would develop and strengthen their strategic, mutuallbeneficial relationship, signing a joint statement to that effect.

Photo: Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda and Chinese President Hu Jintao hold a press conference Wednesday after the two held talks in Tokyo.

The two also said the natural gas exploration issue in the East China Sea was close to being resolved.

Hu is the first Chinese leader to make a state visit to Japan in about 10 years.

The two held talks for about 90 minutes beginning at about 10:30 a.m. Five members of the Fukuda Cabinet, including Foreign Minister Masahiko Komura, Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka Machimura and Finance Minister Fukushiro Nukaga, attended the talks with officials of the Chinese side, which included Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi.

Asked at a press conference afterward about the issue of natural gas exploration in the East China Sea, Fukuda indicated the two countries had moved closer to agreement.

"We saw a great development [in discussions over the issue] and confirmed that a solution is in sight," he said.

Hu also stressed there was a major development, adding, "We've had a vision of the issue's resolution, so I feel happy."

According to sources, the two countries agreed the approximate area where the two would launch a joint gas exploration project.

The joint statement signed by the two leaders after the talks was the fourth political document between the two countries, following a joint statement in 1972, the peace and amity treaty in 1978 and a joint declaration in 1998.

The latest statement is future-oriented, noting that "the two countries squarely face a shared history [of the two nations] and look toward the future, and jointly create a better future of the world." The document is in marked contrast to the contentious atmosphere that surrounded then Chinese President Jiang Zemin's November 1998 visit to Japan. On that occasion, the Chinese repeatedly mentioned historical issues connected to Japan's conflict with China, causing bilateral friction.

Fukuda and Hu also confirmed in the statement that they would promote wide-ranging exchanges between the two nations, including alternating visits by each country's leader at least once a year and a high-level reciprocal visit in the security sector.

Other issues mentioned in the statement include promoting bilateral cooperation on the safety of foods and other products, after imported Chinese-made frozen gyoza were found contaminated with pesticides, as well as cooperation in the area of energy and environment.

Concerning Tibet, Fukuda expressed appreciation for the talks held Friday in Shenzhen, southern China, between the Chinese government and a delegation sent by the Dalai Lama, calling them "the first step toward a full-scale dialogue."

However, he added, "I hope China will make further efforts to dispel the concerns of the international community on the issue."

The joint statement also contains a sentence with Tibet in mind: The two countries agreed to work in close cooperation to understand and pursue universal values.

Meanwhile, Fukuda and Hu released a joint statement on global warming. According to the statement, China will actively participate in negotiations on a framework to cut greenhouse gas emissions beginning in 2013, after the Kyoto Protocol-formulated framework ends.

Questioned about whether Fukuda will attend the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics in August, the prime minister said: "I hope the Games will see success. I want to positively consider participating in the opening ceremony. I hope the Beijing Olympics will be celebrated by the whole world."

===

China to loan pandas to Ueno Zoo

Hu on Tuesday said China will loan a pair of giant pandas to Tokyo's Ueno Zoo, where giant panda Ling Ling died last week and left the zoo without a panda for the first time in 36 years.

At an informal dinner hosted by Fukuda, Hu said: "Some days ago, I heard that Ueno Zoo's Ling Ling had died. I was very sorry to hear of his death.

"Pandas are loved by Japanese people, and a symbol of friendship between China and Japan. I understand the Japanese people's feelings toward Ling Ling," Hu said. Fukuda expressed his gratitude to Hu.

Pandas will be loaned to Ueno Zoo in the name of research.

Ling Ling, who arrived in Japan in 1992, died of heart failure at the age of 22 on April 30. His death left the zoo without a giant panda for the first time since 1972, when Kang Kang and Lan Lan were given to the zoo by China. Ling Ling's death hit the zoo hard, because the panda has been a symbol of Ueno Zoo, known as the first zoo in Japan to breed the animal.

The government had asked China to arrange the loan of a panda couple as a symbol of Japan-China friendship.

Fukuda and Hu also agreed the two countries will cooperate to protect the crested ibis, a bird in danger of extinction and designated for special protection in Japan.

(May. 8, 2008)

Emperor welcomes Hu at Imperial Palace banquet

The Yomiuri Shimbun

The Emperor welcomed Chinese President Hu Jintao at a banquet at the Imperial Palace on Wednesday, and expressed hope that the two countries would be able to strengthen bilateral relations.

"Developing friendship among young people is of great significance," the Emperor said in a speech at the banquet, referring to youth exchange programs between the two nations.

This year marks the 30th anniversary of the signing of the peace and friendship treaty between Japan and China. To commemorate this, 2008 has been designated the "Japan-China Youth Friendship Exchange Year," and a number of exchange programs have been planned.

"I hope people in both our countries will look back over our long history together and deepen ties of friendship for the future," the Emperor said.

The Emperor also wished China success for the Beijing Olympics in August, saying, "I sincerely hope [the Olympic Games] will serve as an opportunity to promote goodwill among people around the world."

At the banquet, hosted by the Emperor and Empress, Hu expressed similar hopes for future Japan-China relations. "The two countries' long, historic friendship is a valuable asset for both countries. It's something we should cherish together," he said.

During a toast, Hu described the 1992 visit by the Emperor and Empress to China as a "beautiful memory for people of both countries."

The banquet was attended by 147 people, including artist Ikuo Hirayama and others who have contributed to fostering bilateral ties.

Earlier in the day, the Emperor and Hu held talks at the palace--the Emperor's first talks with a Chinese head of state since a 1998 meeting with Hu's predecessor, Jiang Zemin.

At a welcome ceremony held at the palace's east garden, Hu and his wife, Liu Yongqing, were also greeted by Crown Prince Naruhito, and Prince Akishino and his wife, Princess Kiko.

According to the Imperial Household Agency, following the welcome ceremony, the Emperor and Hu discussed last week's death of Ueno Zoo's giant panda, Ling Ling.

Hu was quoted by the agency as saying: "I am sorry to hear the news that Ling Ling died. I've decided to lease a panda couple to Japan so that the Japanese people can [continue to] enjoy viewing the animal. I hope Japanese young people, especially children, will be able to see the pandas."

The Emperor said children would be delighted to see the pandas, the agency said.

The two also discussed the endangered crested ibis, the agency said.

"I've heard that Your Majesty has a deep interest in the fate of the crested ibis. In China, our breeding program has successfully attained a population level of 1,000 birds," Hu was quoted by the agency as saying.

The Emperor was quoted as responding: "In Japan, we've been worried that the bird would become extinct in this country. However, a bird-protection program is progressing. We have a plan to release the birds into the wild this year."

Hu's visit marked the third time the Emperor had met a high-ranking Chinese government official during a state visit, following former Premier Hua Guofeng's visit in 1980 and Jiang's in 1998.

(May. 8, 2008)

Diet stalemate sparks reform calls / 'Overly strong' upper house seen as cause of legislative deadlock

Tadashi Toriyama and Katsumi Takahashi / Yomiuri Shimbun Staff Writers

Diet affairs have been thrown into chaos as a result of the divided Diet in which the ruling coalition parties control the House of Representatives and the opposition camp dominates the House of Councillors. This has led to various instances of legislative deadlock. One such instance was the difficulty experienced in appointing a new governor of the Bank of Japan, a position that was left vacant for the first time in the postwar period because of the political standoff.

This deadlock has led to talk of the power balance between the lower and upper houses emerging as a new constitutional issue.

Japan has a parliamentary system in which a prime minister nominated by the majority party in the Diet forms a cabinet responsible for executing administrative policy. The Constitution stipulates the superiority of the lower house over the upper house in choosing the prime minister and only provides the lower house with the right to vote on a no-confidence resolution against the cabinet. There can be little doubt that Japan's parliamentary system has been established on the premise that the will of the lower house takes precedence over that of the upper house.

The lower house's supremacy is also made clear in the Constitution when it comes to voting on the budget and the ratification of treaties.

Nevertheless, the constitutionally approved powers of the nation's upper house are extremely strong compared with those of other countries with a two-chamber system. Constitutional scholars have long expressed concern that the "overly strong" upper house has the potential to cause a paralysis in the functioning of the Diet.

The main opposition party, the Democratic Party of Japan, won the upper house election last year, gaining 109 seats. The DPJ went on to form the largest bloc in the upper house together with the People's New Party and New Party Nippon, taking command of 120 seats, close to a majority. It was at this point that the hitherto academic question of the balance of power in the Diet became a matter of reality.

Among the casualties in the battle for control of the Diet was a new Japan-U.S. special agreement on the so-called sympathy budget, which the government uses to help pay expenses incurred by U.S. military forces stationed in Japan. Approval of the special agreement was postponed until April due to the intense confrontation between the ruling and opposition parties over a package of tax-related bills. No sympathy budget agreement was in force for nearly a month starting April 1.

Even though the lower house's supremacy in approving international pacts is clearly stipulated in the Constitution, that the handling of one became so chaotic shows how serious the problem of the divided Diet has become.

Concerning the passage of ordinary bills, Article 59, Paragraph 2 of the Constitution states: "A bill passed by the House of Representatives upon which the House of Councillors makes a decision different from that of the House of Representatives, becomes law when passed a second time by the House of Representatives with a majority of two-thirds or more of the members present."

The government and ruling coalition--the Liberal Democratic Party and New Komeito--have taken advantage of this provision to enact important laws, such as one on the new antiterrorism law and a package of tax-related bills including one reviving the "provisional" gasoline tax rate.

The passing of a bill for a second time by the lower house is premised on the bill being voted down by the upper house as in the case of the new antiterrorism law. But Article 59, Paragraph 4 states that the lower house can interpret as a rejection the failure of the upper house to take final action within 60 days of receiving a bill passed by the lower house--time in recess excepted.

This still means the government and ruling parties are unable to do anything with the bill during the 60-day period if the upper house does not vote on it.

A package of tax-related bills, including one on the "provisional" gasoline tax rate, was passed by the Diet by applying Article 59, Paragraph 4 for the first time in 56 years. By the time this legislation was passed, though, it was so behind schedule that the "provisional" gasoline tax rate had already ceased to be in force.

The rate was reinstated after one month. In the meantime, gasoline prices fluctuated radically, disturbing people's daily lives.

Government nominees for the governorship of the central bank were rejected twice by the upper house, leaving the post temporarily vacant.

Since the emergence of the divided Diet, a growing worry over the critical state of the current two-chamber parliamentary system's has led some experts to make concrete proposals for reassessing the relationship between the Diet's two chambers.

The National Congress for 21st-century Japan--a group consisting of representatives from business, academia, media, local government and other sectors of society--put forward urgent reform proposals in November that can be implemented without revising the Constitution. The proposals included reexamining the method for selecting members of joint committees of both houses to make the bodies more effective, and adopting a subcommittee system for discussing the revision of bills and for building consensus between the ruling and opposition parties.

A team at the LDP's National Vision Project Headquarters put together a report detailing draft proposals on reform of the bicameral system last month. The proposals include constitutional revisions for easing the requirements for passing a bill a second time in the lower house by lowering the current requirement for a two-thirds majority to a simple majority, and shortening the period required for interpreting inaction by the upper house as a rejection from the current 60 days to 30 days, except time taken for recess.

With Japan seemingly heading toward a system in which the two main parties battle for control of the government, the constitutional issues that have emerged as a result of the divided Diet will remain in place whichever party is in power in the future.

Given this situation, it is essential for deeper and more meaningful debate to take place on the relationship between the two chambers without regard for short-term partisan interests.

(May. 8, 2008)

Constitutional panels dormant 9 mths on

The Yomiuri Shimbun

The divided Diet has not only left the nation's government incapable of fulfilling its duties, it has also delayed debate by the legislature over amendments to the Constitution.

This situation has developed due to a lack of progress in implementing the National Referendum Law, which the Diet passed in May 2007 for the purpose of defining procedures for amending the supreme law. This standstill can be attributed to inaction on the part of the Democratic Party of Japan since it claimed a near majority in the upper house.

In August, deliberative panels on the Constitution were established in both chambers of the Diet under the National Referendum Law. However, the leading opposition party has opposed the establishment of regulations governing the panels, such as what constitutes a quorum in the meetings. This has left the panels unable to select chairmen and members for about nine months.

Given these circumstances, it is uncertain when the panels will be able to start their sessions.

"As long as the current Fukuda Cabinet is in office, there's just no time for calm debate [on amendments to the Constitution]," DPJ Secretary General Yukio Hatoyama said. His remark illustrates his party's increasingly confrontational stand against the government.

On Thursday, a suprapartisan group of Diet members seeking to draft a new constitution held a meeting. Attendees included Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka Machimura, who attended as a representative of the government.

In an address before the meeting, Machimura described the current stalemate in discussions about constitutional reform as "negligence on the part of the Diet." His remark indicates that the government has had little choice but to blame the DPJ for the delay because of its numerical superiority in the upper house.

The National Referendum Law states that the Diet must devote itself to studying issues relating to constitutional amendments until the end of 2010, meaning the deliberative councils are not permitted to submit a new constitution draft or have it examined in the Diet until after that time.

The list of themes to be addressed by the deliberative councils during this time includes:

-- Whether the age of majority should be lowered from 20 to 18.

-- A review of regulations on government employees conducting political activities.

-- A study of the pros and cons of introducing referendums on issues that could require amendments to the top law.

However, the addressing of these issues has yet to even begin.

All this has left the Liberal Democratic Party increasingly uncertain about when it will be able to implement steps necessary for each phase in its efforts to revise the Constitution.

About one year ago, the LDP was very clear about what it would do in the period up until the end of 2010. In preparation for its push for constitutional reform, the LDP wanted to spend about two years gathering opinions from academics and specialists and holding meetings with members of the public for the purpose of isolating the key issues relating to constitutional reform. This would be followed in the third year of efforts to realize constitutional reform by narrowing down the list of items subject to amendment.

This timetable reflected the LDP's desire to take plenty of time to bring together conflicting opinions held by the DPJ and New Komeito, both of which differ with the LDP over specific items subject to constitutional reform. However, the continued delay in establishing the procedural framework under the National Referendum Law means the loss of one year in the LDP's time frame.

Taro Nakayama, chairman of the LDP's Council on the Constitution, emphasized the need to start the Diet panel meetings as soon as possible, saying: "There are only two years left [until the end of 2010], so if the panels start meeting, it'd be good if they could meet three times a week."

(May. 8, 2008)

Japan and China cement relations

By David Pilling in Tokyo and Mure Dickie in Beijing
Published: May 7 2008 18:46

The leaders of Japan and China agreed on Wednesday on measures, including annual summit meetings and stepped-up civil and military exchanges, to cement a recent improvement of relations after talks in Tokyo that Japanese officials described as “extremely productive and meaningful”.

Hu Jintao, China’s president, the first head of state to visit Japan in a decade and only the second ever, said: “Prime Minister (Yasuo) Fukuda and I believe that Sino-Japanese relations are at a new historic starting point.”

The joint statement is billed as the fourth important document to be signed since the two countries restored diplomatic relations in 1972.

Mr Hu is on a five-day state visit to Japan intended to mark a further improvement in relations that had deteriorated badly during the five years to 2006 when Japan’s then prime minister, Junichiro Koizumi, made annual visits to Yasukuni shrine, a war memorial.

In spite of the attempt to build on momentum during Mr Hu’s visit, the two sides failed to resolve a lingering and potentially dangerous dispute about gas resources in the East China Sea. However, both sides agreed there had been “great progress” and that an agreement on joint exploitation of hydrocarbons was “in sight”.

In remarks analysts reckoned raised the stakes to conclude a deal, Mr Hu said: “Prospects for settling the dispute are already in view and I’m happy about this.”

Japan also considered a “major achievement” the fact China had signed a joint document acknowledging the importance of Tokyo’s call for a halving of carbon emissions by 2050 and an industry-by-industry, sectoral approach to carbon cuts as an alternative to mandatory targets.

Japan considers its strategy vital for getting China, as well as India, to sign up to a post-Kyoto protocol from 2013. However, the statement fell well short of an agreement by China to limit the emissions of its own industries. Beijing’s leaders have long insisted climate action should not undermine developing nations’ economic futures.

Jeff Kingston, professor of Asian studies at Tokyo’s Temple University, said lack of progress on substantive issues should not obscure the fact Asia’s two biggest economies were finally talking to each other.

Beijing had been “holding out an olive branch to Japan” since Mr Koizumi left office, he said. There were several issues pending – including disputes about territory and resources, and public antagonism on both sides – but the fact the two countries had institutionalized regular contacts by summits and other high-level exchanges was a big breakthrough, he said.

Mr Hu welcomed Japan’s ambition for a bigger international role, but stopped short of endorsing Tokyo’s hope to secure a permanent seat on the UN Security Council. Beijing also agreed to lend Japan two pandas. Ling Ling, the only Japanese-owned panda, died in Tokyo’s Ueno Zoo last week.

There was practically no mention of history, an issue that dogged previous summits. But Mr Fukuda said he wanted China to be more transparent about its military buildup. He also urged Beijing to talk to Tibetan leaders. Mr Hu’s arrival in Tokyo was marked by a 1,300-strong demonstration, large for Japan, against Beijing’s perceived crackdown on Tibet.

Ruling coalition, DPJ to jointly propose bill for space use

May 7 08:57 AM US/Eastern

TOKYO, May 7 (AP) - (Kyodo) — The ruling coalition and the main opposition Democratic Party of Japan basically agreed Wednesday to jointly submit a bill to allow the use of space for defense purposes, lawmakers said.

The bill featuring a provision to allow the Self-Defense Forces to develop and manage intelligence satellites will be submitted to the Cabinet Committee of the House of Representatives as early as Friday, they said.

While the ruling parties -- the Liberal Democratic Party and the New Komeito party -- and the DPJ aim to pass the bill during the current Diet session, the Japanese Communist Party will oppose it on the grounds it would pave the way for militaristic use of space.

A 1969 parliamentary resolution has restricted Japan's use of space to nonmilitary purposes, but the bill will stipulate that space use needs to contribute to security, according to the lawyers.

China's Hu, DPJ's Ozawa agree to further Japan-China relations

May 7 08:50 AM US/Eastern

TOKYO, May 7 (AP) - (Kyodo) — Visiting Chinese President Hu Jintao and main opposition Democratic Party of Japan leader Ichiro Ozawa agreed Wednesday to work on further improving bilateral relations based on mutual trust and enhanced reciprocity, DPJ members said.

Hu also met separately at a Tokyo hotel with other senior lawmakers, including Liberal Democratic Party Secretary General Bummei Ibuki and New Komeito party chief Akihiro Ota from the ruling coalition, and Japanese Communist Party leader Kazuo Shii and Social Democratic Party head Mizuho Fukushima from the opposition.

Photo: Hu shakes hands with Ozawa on May 7th in Tokyo.

In his talks with Ozawa, Hu noted that China has focused its efforts on building its economy in the past 30 years but is still the world's largest developing country with aspects of imbalance in society, adding it wants to continue sustainable development, the DPJ members said.

Ozawa said that Japan and China will be "able to resolve anything" if they put their powers together, the members said. The DPJ president did not mention specific issues but was likely speaking in a general sense, they said.

Ibuki asked Hu to resolve outstanding issues, such as the food- poisoning cases in Japan triggered by Chinese-made frozen meat dumplings, LDP lawmakers said.

A total of 10 people from three families in Japan fell ill between December 2007 and January this year after eating pesticide-tainted frozen dumplings that were made in China, leading police in both countries to investigate the case.

On Tibet, Hu sought understanding and support from New Komeito's Ota on China's stance, saying its door is open for dialogue with Tibetans, according to New Komeito members.

China accuses Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama and his supporters of having organized riots and antigovernment protests in March in an attempt to split Tibet from the rest of China, an allegation the Nobel Peace Prize laureate denies, saying he is merely seeking greater genuine autonomy for Tibet to protect its religion, language and culture.

Talks were held Sunday between Chinese government officials and envoys of the Dalai Lama in the first dialogue between the two parties since riots in Lhasa in March that sparked the other protests and violence.

On moves to denuclearize North Korea under the six-party talks, Hu told the SDP's Fukushima that the situation is "showing positive progress," according to her party's lawmakers. China is the host of the multilateral negotiations, which also involve the United States, South Korea and Russia.

The six-party talks came to a standstill after North Korea missed an end-of-2007 deadline to make a full declaration of its nuclear facilities and programs, and the United States and North Korea have been holding discussions to try to make headway.

Desecration of the Dead: Bereaved Okinawan Families Sue Yasukuni to End Relatives' Enshrinement

by Tanaka Nobumasa

Translated by Steve Rabson

Bereaved families from Korea and Taiwan earlier filed lawsuits in Tokyo and Osaka seeking to end their relatives’ enshrinement at Yasukuni, raising a central issue in the storm of controversy surrounding the shrine. Filed in Naha District Court on March 19, the Okinawa litigation challenges Yasukuni‘s application of the Law for Protection of War Victims and Bereaved Families to perpetuate enshrinements that distort the truth about the Battle of Okinawa.

Five plaintiffs are opposing the enshrinement of ten of their relatives who died in the war, two in the Western and South Pacific, and eight in the Battle of Okinawa. One plaintiff lost four family members, both parents, an older sister, and a younger brother. What all of them have in common is that they can no longer bear to have their relatives, whose lives were taken cruelly and senselessly, fraudulently recast as “heroic spirits who died for the nation” and labeled as “gods.” As residents of Okinawa, where state militarization is a daily reality, they also worry that the government could exploit their relatives again as “enshrined spirits of war heroes.”

Article Continues ... Click

Tanaka Nobumasa is a non-fiction writer and author of the prize-winning book The People Who Recover the Constitution.

Steve Rabson is professor emeritus of East Asian Studies, Brown University, the author of Righteous Cause or Tragic Folly: Changing Views of War in Modern Japanese Poetry, and a translator of Okinawan literature.

This article was published in the April 4, 2008 Shukan Kinyobi. Slightly abridged and translated by Steve Rabson. Published at Japan Focus on May 7, 2008.

Marine pleads not guilty in alleged gang rape

By Travis J. Tritten, Stars and Stripes
Pacific edition, Thursday, May 8, 2008

MARINE CORPS AIR STATION IWAKUNI, Japan — An Iwakuni Marine pleaded not guilty during the opening of a court-martial Tuesday to charges of raping and kidnapping a 19-year-old Hiroshima woman.

But Lance Cpl. Larry A. Dean admitted to the court Tuesday he had sex in a public parking lot with the woman, fraternized with superiors and drank alcohol while underage. He is the first of four Marines to face trial for the alleged gang rape of the woman in Hiroshima in October.

Dean’s court-martial will continue through the week with witness testimony and the presentation of evidence.

Three other Iwakuni Marines also are to be prosecuted in courts-martial in coming weeks — Gunnery Sgt. Carl M. Anderson, Gunnery Sgt. Jarvis D. Raynor and Sgt. Lanaeus J. Braswell. All have been confined at the air station since the incident.

Dean faced 25 years and six months in prison, demotion, dishonorable discharge and the forfeiture of all pay and benefits. But a plea agreement will limit the amount of time he can spend in jail and the punishments he can receive, according to judge Maj. Charles Hale.

As part of the agreement, Dean admitted to the other charges.

In exchange, he will assist in the prosecution of the other Marines and agreed to testify at their trials, Dean said.

Dean has been confined 172 days since he disobeyed liberty policies and left the air station for the night to party in a club district of Hiroshima with Braswell, Raynor and Anderson.

He was 19 years old at the time and said he illegally drank beer bought by Braswell, who was his boss, before meeting with the gunnery sergeants and traveling to Hiroshima.

Dean said neither he nor Braswell had permission to be off base between midnight and 5 a.m. They had planned to stay out until after 5 a.m. and return to avoid punishment, Dean said.

The alleged victim of the gang rape testified in February that she left a club to have consensual sex with Braswell in a vehicle and the others entered the vehicle.

Dean said the men were drinking and took the woman to a parking lot in a residential area where he had sex with her in a public place while the others were watching.

The woman said she was raped at least five times by the Marines.

The accused

¶ Lance Cpl. Larry A. Dean, 20, enlisted in 2006 — pleaded guilty to fraternizing with superiors, underage consumption of alcohol, disobeying liberty policy and having sex in front of other servicemembers and in a public place; pleaded not guilty to rape and kidnapping charges.

¶ Gunnery Sgt. Carl M. Anderson, 39, enlisted in 1987 — charged with conspiracy; failure to obey an order or regulation; rape, sexual assault and other sexual misconduct.

¶ Gunnery Sgt. Jarvis D. Raynor, 34, enlisted in 1991 — charged with conspiracy; failure to obey an order or regulation; rape, sexual assault and other sexual misconduct; and larceny.

¶ Sgt. Lanaeus J. Braswell, 25, enlisted in 2002 — charged with conspiracy; failure to obey an order or regulation; false official statements; rape, sexual assault and other sexual misconduct.

Source: U.S. Marine Corps

Yokosuka residents call for referendum on nuclear-powered flattop

May 6 11:27 PM US/Eastern

YOKOSUKA, Japan, May 7 (AP) - (Kyodo) — A group of residents in Yokosuka, Kanagawa Prefecture, filed a request Wednesday with Yokosuka Mayor Ryoichi Kabaya for a local referendum on whether to support the planned local deployment of a nuclear-powered U.S. aircraft carrier, group members said.

The group's plea for the city authority to set up an ordinance authorizing such a referendum is believed unlikely to be realized because the majority of municipal assembly members is against holding the plebiscite.

The mayor is expected to convene an extra session of the assembly in mid-May to discuss the ordinance, city officials said.

The assembly previously voted down a similar ordinance in 2007.

Collecting signatures of at least 2 percent of the municipal population is needed under law to demand setting up an ordinance.

The group submitted to the mayor the signatures of 48,600 residents, well above the 2 percent -- or about 7,100 people.

An 82,000-ton conventional aircraft carrier was deployed to the U.S. Navy base in Yokosuka in 1998, following the Midway and the Independence.

The George Washington, the first nuclear-powered carrier to be stationed in Japan, is scheduled to be deployed at Yokosuka in August to replace the Kitty Hawk.

Gang rape court-martial begins at U.S. base in Iwakuni

May 7, 2008

IWAKUNI, Yamaguchi -- A court-martial held over the alleged gang-rape of a Japanese woman by four U.S. servicemen opened at Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni on Tuesday, with a 20-year-old lance corporal denying accusations against him.

The proceedings of the court-martial were opened to the Japanese media. It was the first time for an open court-martial to be held at the base.

The four are accused of dragging a 19-year-old woman they met at a nightclub in Hiroshima's Naka-ku into a vehicle in the predawn hours of Oct. 14, 2007, raping her, and then stealing about 12,000 yen in cash from her purse.

During the hearing on Tuesday, the lance corporal, who was aged 19 and held the lowest rank at the time of the alleged crime, pleaded innocent to the accusations against him including rape and abduction. The 20-year-old has reportedly admitted having sexual relations with the woman along with the other three suspects. In the remaining proceedings, it is expected that he will argue that the sexual relations were consensual.

Hiroshima Prefectural Police sent documents on the four to public prosecutors after receiving a complaint from the woman, but the Hiroshima District Public Prosecutors Office did not indict them.

Court-martials for the remaining three are due to open by the end of June.

Related articles

* American serviceman arrested for squeezing Aomori Prefecture teen's breasts
* U.S. Marine faces court-martial over alleged rape in Okinawa

(Mainichi Japan) May 7, 2008

Casino gambling brings mixed responses from political candidates

Date Posted: 2008-05-08

The question of whether Okinawa should introduce casino gambling has brought a three-way split among the 72 candidates looking for seats in the Prefecture Assembly.

Responding to a newspaper company poll, 22 say casino gambling could bring innovation and benefits, which 27 are opposed. Another 23 candidates said they were undecided, or didn’t answer. Okinawa’s Governor, Hirokazu Nakaima, is pushing casino proponents to get people involved, but there’s a 50-50 split among the general population whether legalized casino gambling’s a good idea.

Candidates were much more sure of themselves on the need for increased public transportation on Okinawa. Asked about whether they’d support a road rail tram, light rail system or some other form of rail transportation, 67 said they would, while only one turned thumbs down.

Potential lawmakers aren’t impressed with a government plan to restructure the country’s prefectures into larger administrative entities, including once suggestion Okinawa should be merged with the Kyushu area by 2018. The majority, 59 candidates, said Okinawa should remain separate from mainland restructuring, while six think the current system is good. Seven others said there needs to be more careful thought before decisions are reached.

An Okinawa Prefecture plan to seek reimbursement from companies found guilty of bid rigging in order to obtain projects also met with a variety of viewpoints by the candidates running for the May 30th elections. Six said the Prefecture should stop pursuing the money, while 32 think the companies involved in bid rigging should cough up some restitution for damages. Another 14 demand the involved companies pay everything back to the Prefecture, while still another 20 couldn’t figure how the Prefecture should be handling the chaotic situation.

Court-martial begins for U.S. Marine over alleged rape in Hiroshima

Wednesday, May 7, 2008

IWAKUNI, Yamaguchi Pref. (Kyodo) A 20-year-old lance corporal pleaded not guilty Tuesday as a court-martial began at the U.S. Marine Corps' Iwakuni Air Station in Yamaguchi Prefecture over the alleged gang rape of a Japanese woman in Hiroshima City last October.

The U.S. military began the court-martial for one of the four Marines accused of raping the woman after Japanese law enforcement authorities did not pursue prosecution against them.

The defendant whose court-martial began Tuesday was charged with alleged sexual assault and disobedience in violation of the U.S. Uniform Code of Military Justice, the Iwakuni base said.

He was 19 at the time of the incident.

Courts-martial for the other three are scheduled to begin from later this month to June.

Japanese police sent papers in November to public prosecutors on the four on suspicion of gang raping the woman after meeting her at a dance event and forcing her into a car from the night of Oct. 13 to the early hours of Oct. 14.

But the police did not arrest the four as they saw inconsistencies in the woman's explanations.

The Hiroshima District Public Prosecutors Office decided not to indict the four Marines.

Japan, China issue joint document on mutually strategic relations

05/07/2008
THE ASAHI SHIMBUN

Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda and visiting Chinese President Hu Jintao signed a joint statement Wednesday on promoting "relations of mutually strategic interests" without referring to "apologies" or "reflection" over Japan's wartime actions in China.

The summit between Fukuda and Hu earlier Wednesday was their first since Fukuda visited China in December last year.

Hu arrived in Tokyo on Tuesday for a five-day visit, the first by a Chinese president since his predecessor, Jiang Zemin, arrived here in 1998, which was the last time a joint statement had been signed by the two countries.

At the start of their meeting at the Prime Minister's Official Residence, Fukuda extended "a hearty welcome to Hu's visit in the year marking the 30th anniversary of the treaty of peace and friendship that Japan and China sealed."

Hu responded that Japan and China are blessed with an opportunity to further expand their ties.

The document said the leaders of the two countries will reciprocate visits each year.

By not directly mentioning Japan's atonement for its role in China before and during World War II, the joint statement sets the stage for a future-oriented approach toward improving ties. Instead, the statement said both countries will "continue to explore a new phase of bilateral relations by squarely facing history."

The Chinese side in the joint statement said it appreciates the fact that "Japan has maintained a path as a pacifist country for more than 60 years after the end of World War II."

The statement also said Beijing "thinks much of Japan's standing and role in the United Nations," but it did not include a direct expression pointing to China's support of Japan's bid to become a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council.

As for the Taiwan issue, Japan maintained its position made clear in the 1972 joint declaration when Tokyo and Beijing normalized diplomatic ties. Japan said in the declaration that it "fully understands and respects the position of the Chinese government."

The joint document fell short of directly referring to China's crackdown in Tibet, which has sparked criticism from around the world.

But the statement said Japan and China will "cooperate closely to promote understanding and the pursuit of basic and universal values acknowledged by the international community."

The document was also vague on the possibility of joint development of gas fields in the East China Sea. It simply spelled out the principles of making the sea an area of "peace, collaboration and friendship."

The two leaders confirmed in the document that Tokyo and Beijing will be actively involved in building an international framework for fighting global warming in and after 2013, when the Kyoto Protocol expires.

China in another statement on climate change said for the first time that Japan's proposed sector-specific approach to curbing greenhouse gas emissions was an "important measure."(IHT/Asahi: May 7,2008)

U.S. Marine pleads not guilty in court-martial over alleged rape

May 6 08:06 AM US/Eastern

(AP) - IWAKUNI, Japan, May 6 (Kyodo) — A 20-year-old lance corporal pleaded not guilty Tuesday as a court- martial began at the U.S. Marine Corps' Iwakuni Air Station in Yamaguchi Prefecture over the alleged gang rape of a Japanese woman in Hiroshima City last October.

The U.S. military began the court-martial for one of the four Marines accused of raping the woman after Japanese law enforcement authorities did not pursue prosecution against them.

The defendant whose court-martial began Tuesday was charged with alleged sexual assault and disobedience in violation of the U.S. Uniform Code of Military Justice, the Iwakuni base said.

He was 19 at the time of the incident.

Courts-martial for the other three are scheduled to begin from later this month to June.

Japanese police sent papers in November to public prosecutors on the four on suspicion of gang raping the woman after meeting her at a dance event and forcing her into a car from the night of Oct. 13 to the early hours of Oct. 14.

But the police did not arrest the four as they saw inconsistencies in the woman's explanations.

The Hiroshima District Public Prosecutors Office decided not to indict the four Marines.

Court-martial begins for U.S. Marine over alleged rape in Hiroshima

May 6 04:32 AM US/Eastern

IWAKUNI, Japan, May 6 (AP) - (Kyodo) — A court-martial began Tuesday at the U.S. Marine Corps' Iwakuni Air Station in Yamaguchi Prefecture for one of four Marines accused of raping a Japanese woman in Hiroshima City last October.

The U.S. military began the court-martial after Japanese law enforcement authorities did not pursue prosecution against them.

The defendant whose court-martial began Tuesday was charged with alleged sexual assault and disobedience in violation of the U.S. Uniform Code of Military Justice, the Iwakuni base said.

He is a 20-year-old lance corporal who was 19 at the time of the incident.

Courts-martial for the other three are scheduled to begin from later this month to June.

Japanese police sent papers in November to public prosecutors on the four on suspicion of gang raping the woman after meeting her at a dance event and forcing her into a car from the night of Oct. 13 to the early hours of Oct. 14.

But the police did not arrest the four as they saw inconsistencies in the woman's explanations.

The Hiroshima District Public Prosecutors Office decided not to indict the four Marines.

Article 9 conference concludes

May 6 03:05 AM US/Eastern

CHIBA, Japan, May 6 (AP) - (Kyodo) — A three-day conference on Article 9 of Japan's Constitution ended Tuesday after issuing a declaration in which the participants pledged to build an international campaign to support the war- renouncing constitutional provision "as a shared property of the world."

"Article 9 is not just a provision of Japanese law; it can also act as an international peace mechanism that can be adopted by other states to maintain peace throughout the world," the declaration noted in the conclusion of the Global Article 9 Conference to Abolish War at a conference center in Chiba Prefecture.

More than 22,000 people, including 150 from 31 countries, took part in the meeting from Sunday in total, according to organizers.

The declaration also calls on governments around world to "promote and protect all human rights, recognize and consecrate the inherent human right to live in peace...and strengthen accountability and reparation mechanisms for cases of human rights violations."

"Decrease military expenditures and invest instead in health, education and sustainable social development," it says in addressing nations throughout the world.

Kasim Turki, a 31-year-old former soldier from Iraq who attended the meeting, said he had been told that the military defends people and the state but that it is actually a tool for destruction.

He said he reaffirmed at the conference the importance of creating peace through nonviolence in line with "the spirit of Article 9."

He added that another impressive experience for him at the conference was to meet a former enemy -- an American who had served in Iraq -- and that the two have realized there are people like themselves on the other side on the front line.

The participants of the conference issued another statement in which they asked the leaders of the Group of Eight nations to "put an end to the open-ended U.S.-led 'war on terror' that generates fear and repression and promotes hatred and violence; and instead address the root causes of terrorism through international cooperation, using international law and respecting human rights."

The request was made prior to the G-8 summit in Hokkaido in July.

"It has been recognized through the meeting that Article 9 has a universal significance to the world," said Tatsuya Yoshioka, co-chair of the executive committee organizing the event. "It is the meaningful international contribution for Japan to expand the spirit of Article 9" rather than sending troops overseas, he added.

Article 9 stipulates, "The Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes."

The organizing committee, which consists of 50 nongovernmental organizations, including Peace Boat and Japan International Volunteer Center, as well as 50 individuals, hopes to hold a second Article 9 conference in the future, Yoshioka said.

Article 9 conference calls for spread of pacifism in Asia

Tuesday, May 6, 2008
By KAZUAKI NAGATA
Staff writer

CHIBA — The spirit of the war-renouncing Article 9 of the Constitution should not only be protected but also extended to other Asian countries, panelists at a symposium said Monday.

On the second day of the three-day Global Article 9 Conference to Abolish War held at the Makuhari Messe convention hall in Chiba, a number of symposiums, meetings and performances were held to voice support for Article 9.

At a symposium titled "Realizing the Spirit of Article 9 in Asia: On the basis of historical recognition and the realignment of the U.S. forces," panelists agreed that the pacifist Constitution has aided and will continue to contribute to the prosperity of Japan and the surrounding region.

Gus Miclat, executive director of the Philippine-based advocacy and solidarity group Initiatives for International Dialogue, said Japan's wartime imperialism and propaganda held back the nation's development.

It was only after Japan espoused pacifism following the end of World War II that the country prospered and became the world's second-largest economy, he said.

Article 9 "may have been the secret engine" for Japan's prosperity, as it has spread a sense of security in the Asian region and "allowed Japan to develop and prosper in peace," Miclat said.

He added that Article 9 is "a historical breakthrough . . . incarnating the necessity of the human race and revolving (around) human harmony and peace. . . . In fact, Article 9 should be replicated all over the world."

Another panelist, Ban Zhong Yi, a film director and journalist from China, also voiced the importance of Article 9, saying that it needs to be protected with support among Japanese as well as neighboring Asian countries.

He said he would like to spread the spirit of Article 9 to China.

"However, before I do that, I think what needs to be done is to make a supportive environment, which is to make a steady ground where they can share the same ideas," he said.

Caution needed over defense reforms

The Yomiuri Shimbun

The organizational reform of the Defense Ministry charged with handling national defense cannot afford to fail. Extreme caution must be taken in advancing discussions on the issue.

The ruling Liberal Democratic Party has compiled its proposals for reforming the ministry. The main pillars are to bring together civilian officials and Self-Defense Forces officers in the ministry's administrative bureaus, now mainly staffed by civilians, and move the operation and planning bureau in charge of the operations of military units from among the administrative bureaus into the Joint Staff Office.

The mixture of civilian and uniformed personnel in the administrative bureaus will help promote smooth communications between them. It also is expected to be beneficial in terms of cultivating human resources in that the officers will get administrative experience.

The integration of the operation and planning bureau into the Joint Staff Office is aimed at unifying and streamlining the operations of military units, but it also raises the question of what will replace it among the administrative bureaus.

The SDF's top priority is efficient operation of its military units. But in practice, the SDF needs to consider public opinion, the situation in the Diet and the government's interpretation of related laws and regulations and other factors. As the SDF also is required to negotiate on operational matters with other countries and relevant ministries, the administrative bureaus play a vital role in operations.

===

Ministry's sweeping changes

The LDP's proposals represent a step closer to the heart of the problem, but the Defense Ministry is working on drafting a more radical reform plan under the direction of Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba.

In addition to the integration in terms of operations of military units, in the Defense Ministry's reform plan, the procurement functions of the administrative bureaus, and the Ground Staff Office, Maritime Staff Office and Air Staff Office also are likely to be integrated into a single entity. The personnel assigned to the three staff offices, which currently number 700 to 800, would be drastically reduced. The three chiefs of staff would be removed from the operational chain of command and instead act as advisers to the defense minister.

The unification of defense buildup operations is aimed at streamlining operations, but some experts point out that there is no need to reorganize the ministry to achieve this when a simple change in the procurement system could accomplish the same goal.

The uniformed personnel oppose the planned large cut in personnel in the three staff offices, fearing it could lead to the elimination of the staff offices. There also are many civilian officials who recommend moving cautiously.

===

Risk vs reward

Will the reform really bring about sufficient merits in return for taking the risk of inviting trouble and dampening morale in the ministry?

Ishiba apparently intends to create a system under which Cabinet members can directly issue orders to SDF units without going through the three chiefs of staff. He wants to strengthen civilian control by changing the ministry and the SDF into organizations that are easy for Cabinet members to use.

However, while such a setup would be easy to use for Ishiba, who has ample military expertise, the same would not necessarily be true for his successors.

What is vital is not to transform them into easy-to-use organizations, but to change them into organizations that will work effectively.

The starting point of the ministry reform is to prevent the recurrence of scandals, such as the release of incorrect data on the quantity of fuel a Maritime Self-Defense Force ship provided to a U.S. ship in the Indian Ocean, the leakage of secret information on Aegis-equipped destroyers, a bribery case involving a former administrative vice defense minister and the recent collision between an Aegis destroyer and a fishing boat. Many in the ministry and the SDF fear that the current reform is heading in an irrelevant direction. It is necessary for the LDP and the ministry to explain the reform in a more comprehensive way.

(From The Yomiuri Shimbun, May 6, 2008)
(May. 6, 2008)

Meetings to discuss Guam buildup plan

By Teri Weaver, Stars and Stripes
Pacific edition, Tuesday, May 6, 2008

Recently released draft offers few new details

The Joint Guam Program Office will hold a series of village meetings this month to discuss the newly released draft master plan for the anticipated military buildup on Guam.

The plan contains few new details about the proposed move of 8,000 Marines from Okinawa to Guam, a new Army ballistic missile defense unit and a pier capable of receiving an aircraft carrier a few times a year, a military spokesman acknowledged on Thursday.

Marine Corps Capt. Neil A. Ruggiero said the plan’s contents are a sign that the military has been as forthcoming as possible during the past two years, since the U.S. and Japan agreed to move III Marine Expeditionary Force from Okinawa to Guam.

“We’ve been keeping the public informed,” Ruggiero said Thursday.

One local legislator disagreed.

“I was expecting something a little more definitive,” said Guam Sen. James V. Espladon [sic], a Republican who chairs the island’s Committee on Tourism, Maritime, Military, Veterans and Foreign Affairs. “We waited all this time. We’ve been waiting around for this?”

The 11-page draft plan restates many of the military’s objectives for the buildup, including a goal to use existing military-controlled land to absorb the increase in buildings and living spaces.

Most of the future Marine Corps home would be on current Navy and Air Force-controlled land at the northern end of Guam, on Andersen Air Force Base and the Naval and Computer Telecommunications Station at Finegayan.

The possible locations for some training areas have yet to be determined, according to the plan. The military may look for additional land on Guam and the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas Islands for both firing and non-firing training areas, the report reads.

No site has been proposed for the Army’s air defense unit, the report reads.

The plan is in draft form because the EPA must approve an environmental impact statement before the military can start any construction, Ruggiero said.

The military expects a decision on the environmental statement by 2010, according to the draft plan.

A “working-level” master plan is expected out this summer, the plan reads.

The buildup is expected to bring nearly 40,000 servicemembers, family members and workers to the island by 2014. The island’s current population is about 171,000. The estimated cost of the moveis $10.3 billion, with Japan paying about $6 billion of the total.

Learn more about the Guam buildup

The Joint Guam Program Office and the government of Guam will hold village meetings next week to discuss the increase of U.S. military forces on Guam. The meetings will include a question and answer session, small-group discussions and information displays. Attendees will include retired Maj. Gen. David F. Bice, head of the program office; Capt. Robert Lee, acting director of the program office in Guam; Rear Adm. William French, commander, Naval Forces Marianas; and other Pentagon officials.

The meetings will run from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.

* May 12 — Mangliao [sic], Mangliao [sic]Community Center
* May 13 — Yigo, Yigo Gymnasium
* May 14 — Dededo, Dededo Senior Center
* May 15 — Yona, Yona Community Center

Article 9 cherishes people around world, symposium panelists say

May 5 05:23 AM US/Eastern

CHIBA, Japan, May 5 (AP) - (Kyodo) — The war-renouncing Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution serves to cherish people not only in Japan but also in other countries, panelists at a series of symposiums in a public meeting on the Constitution said Monday.

The symposiums were held as part of a three-day Global Article 9 Conference to Abolish War at the Makuhari Messe International Convention Complex in Chiba Prefecture from Sunday.

Photo: May 5 CHIBA, Japan. Panelists at a symposium at the Global Article 9 Conference to Abolish War talk about the significance of the constitutional provision at the Makuhari Messe convention center in Chiba Prefecture on May 5.

Based on her decades-long experience of supporting the victims of sex slavery by the former Imperial Japanese Army, Rumiko Nishino said, "After coming out, all of the former 'comfort women' told us not to start a war again and not to make young women into comfort women."

"Article 9 has contributed to making Japan a country that does not possess military forces and does not wage war, and it has functioned as a mechanism to ensure security in Asia," Nishino, chief of the Women's Active Museum on War and Peace, said.

"It is necessary to abide by this constitutional provision to fulfill the wishes of former comfort women," Nishino told an audience of some 700 people.

The museum in Tokyo was established in August 2005 on the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II as Japan's only resource center on sex slavery.

At another symposium during the conference, Masaji Shinagawa, lifetime secretary of the Japan Association of Corporate Executives, said, "It is human beings that can wage war and that can stop waging war, and I have been thinking since the end of World War II about which side I should stand on."

"And I believe it would be unforgivable to revise Article 9," he added, referring to calls for constitutional revision particularly among ruling party politicians.

The ruling Liberal Democratic Party has compiled a new draft constitution to enable Japan to possess military forces for self- defense by revising the second clause of Article 9 that prohibits Japan from possessing land, sea and air forces as well as other war potential.

Japan's parliament passed a bill in May last year to set referendum procedures for constitutional amendment, establishing the first legal framework to rewrite the pacifist Constitution since it went into force in 1947.

Asaho Mizushima, professor of law at Waseda University, told the symposium that Japan needs to obtain the approval of other Asian countries if it wants to revise the Constitution, rather than gaining consensus only within the country through a referendum.

Thousands vow to protect Japan's Constitution from changes

May 5, 2008

TOKYO (AP) -- Thousands of activists, artists and scholars gathered Sunday for an international peace conference outside Tokyo, vowing to promote the Japanese Constitution's war-renouncing Article 9 as a global standard and prevent the clause from being weakened.

Participants in the three-day "Global Article 9 Conference to Abolish War" held in Chiba prefecture included Nobel Peace Prize laureate Mairead Corrigan Maguire of Northern Ireland and Beate Sirota Gordon, an original drafter of the Japanese Constitution in 1947.

"We believe that Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution constitutes a world-class model for peace and should be protected as a global treasure for future generations," the event's organizers said in a statement.

But, it added, "there are increasingly vocal calls from within Japan to get rid of this article of the constitution."

Article 9 prohibits the use of military force as a means of settling international disputes. Critics have said that a Constitutional change could rattle Asian neighbors with bitter memories of past Japanese imperialism.

The Japanese Constitution, drafted by U.S. occupation officials after World War II, has never been amended.

Last year, parliament approved a plan for a constitutional referendum, with a possible vote as early as 2010. The legislative victory was a major boost for then-Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's drive to give the armed forces a larger global role.

Organizers of Sunday's event, including the groups Peace Boat and the Global Partnership for the Prevention of Armed Conflict, say the principles of Article 9 can be applied globally to issues such as human rights, disarmament, the environment and development.

Similar gatherings are to be held in Hiroshima on Monday and in Sendai and Osaka on Tuesday.

(Mainichi Japan) May 5, 2008

Payments to defense 'fixer' under scrutiny

05/05/2008
THE ASAHI SHIMBUN

Prosecutors are investigating bank accounts held by various companies to determine if they were used to secretly funnel money to defense industry "fixer" Naoki Akiyama.

Sources close to the investigation said Japanese and U.S. defense contractors and trading companies transferred about 300 million yen over two to three years to the accounts of Los Angeles-based Addback International Corp.

According to reports, Addback International sells expressway sound insulation barriers. Akiyama was once an adviser to the corporation's Japanese subsidiary.

Officials from several companies were questioned about the nature of certain payments by the Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office after it obtained documents recording transfers to Addback International accounts, sources said.

Akiyama has also been linked to the defense equipment trading house Yamada Corp. Sources at that company said its transfers to Addback International accounts were payments to Akiyama for consulting fees.

At least 10 companies are believed to have transferred about 10 million yen each annually, sources said.

Yamada's U.S. subsidiary, Yamada International Corp., transferred $200,000 in 2003 and 2004 (about 22.4 million yen at 2003-2004 exchange rates) to the U.S. company.

In 2005, Yamada International transferred $200,000 (about 22 million yen at 2005 rates) to a different account held by a U.S. nonprofit organization called the Council for National Security, based in Washington, D.C.

Addback International's registered address with the California state government is an office in a building in downtown Los Angeles.

However, as of January this year, no signs indicating the company's office were found at that building. Instead, a different firm was based there.

The Council for National Security is also said to own a room in a Tokyo condominium that is the registered address of Addback International's Japanese subsidiary.

Questioned in the Diet in January, Akiyama was asked if Addback International had received consulting fees intended for him. He answered that he could not respond because it was a confidential company matter.

Akiyama was also asked whether the Council for National Security had co-hosted forums with the Japan-U.S. Center for Peace and Cultural Exchange, a Tokyo-based organization for which Akiyama was executive director.

Akiyama said the two organizations co-hosted events several times, but he had only dealt with the Council for National Security in an ordinary manner.(IHT/Asahi: May 5,2008)

Nobel Peace Prize winner hits moves to change Article 9

Monday, May 5, 2008
By JUN HONGO, AKEMI NAKAMURA
Staff writer

CHIBA — Altering the war-renouncing Article 9 of the Constitution could threaten the safety of Asian people and trigger a regional arms race, Nobel laureate Mairead Corrigan-Maguire told a symposium Sunday.

Photo: Peacemaker: Nobel Prize Prize winner Mairead Corrigan- Maguire speaks at the Global Article 9 Conference to Abolish War, at Makuhari Messe in Chiba on Sunday.

Speaking at the Global Article 9 Conference to Abolish War held in Makuhari Messe in the city of Chiba, the winner of the 1976 Nobel Peace Prize expressed distress over recent moves to revise the Constitution.

"Many of us are concerned to know that there are those, both in the government and the wider Japanese society, who wish to endanger such peaceful policies and abandon Article 9 and Japan's peace Constitution," Corrigan-Maguire told the packed convention center.

"All peace-loving people must unite to oppose such a backward step," said the 64-year-old, who was awarded the Nobel for her efforts in promoting a peaceful resolution to the Northern Ireland dispute.

The three-day international conference kicked off a day after the 61st anniversary of the enforcement of the Constitution. It was organized by nongovernmental groups, including Japan-based Peace Boat.

Organizers said the meeting will provide an opportunity to discuss the significance of the constitutional article that endorses demilitarization and what people can do to promote its spirit.

While it stipulates that Japan renounces war as a sovereign right and that it will not maintain land, sea and air forces, the ruling Liberal Democratic Party has been keen to make amendments.

The LDP-led ruling coalition passed a national referendum law last year establishing procedures to revise the Constitution.

"The war in Iraq has shown that even the strongest, biggest army in the world can not keep peace in a single city. It proves that aggression never instates peace," Tatsuya Yoshioka, director of Peace Boat and a representative of the event's organizing committee, said during the opening remarks.

"Article 9 is a treasure of all mankind. It must be protected," he said.

The conference's organizing committee and more than 100 supporters adopted a declaration urging governments around the world to reduce arms, work on peacemaking and abolish war.

The declaration said Article 9 can work as an international peacemaking mechanism and that other countries can introduce similar ideas into their constitutions. It also called for starting a global movement to promote the spirit of Article 9.

Cora Weiss, president of the Hague Appeal for Peace, said it is important that people in Japan try to keep the original intention of Article 9 because lawmakers' interpretations can take out its "heart."

"That is what I hope we will campaign against and try to keep the true intention, the original intention of Article 9 and not allow interpretation to meet our military appetite," she said.

The event is being supported by more than 70 groups, and 100 peace activists and legal experts from more than 43 countries. The organizing committee said approximately 10,000 people attended the opening-day sessions.

EDITORIAL: The Constitution today

05/05/2008

What a difference a year makes. Witness the dramatic shift in the political landscape surrounding the Constitution. Saturday was Constitution Day, marking the 61st anniversary of the day it took effect.

Remember last year at this time? Former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe had made amending the Constitution a central issue in the campaign for the Upper House election that July. His government, in fact, enacted a law on the formal procedures for constitutional referendums as part of his strategy. Abe also set up an advisory panel to reexamine the government's long-held constitutional interpretation of the right to collective self-defense.

Today, political momentum to amend the Constitution, which lay behind these initiatives, has completely disappeared. In clear contrast with Abe, Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda shows little enthusiasm for revising the Constitution. Fukuda has also shelved the proposed review of the government's position on the issue of Japan's right to collective self-defense.

Polls have shown the public is now less willing to embrace changes in the pacifist Constitution. A recent survey by the Yomiuri Shimbun, the leading newspaper championing the cause, found that respondents opposed to constitutional amendments outnumbered those in favor of them for the first time since 1993. An Asahi Shimbun poll showed 66 percent of respondents were opposed to altering the war-renouncing Article 9, compared with 23 percent who said they supported the idea.

The argument for revising the Constitution began to gain momentum in the 1990s, mainly because of pro-amendment campaigns by some voices in the media and politicians. But opinion polls consistently showed that pocketbook issues, such as business conditions and pensions, topped the list of voters' concerns. The issue of constitutional amendments consistently ranked lower in priority.

It looks like the public's interest in revising the Constitution has declined in tandem with a lessening in politicians' zeal for revising the Constitution over the past year. The change was partly due to the U.S. fiasco in Iraq, which has doused public interest in the issue.

It is, of course, possible that a revision of Article 9 will reemerge as a big topic of policy debate in Tokyo amid a political realignment. But currently, the political mood clearly suggests that any uncompromising argument for changing the Constitution, especially the kind made by advocates who would like to see the Self-Defense Forces act as conventional military forces do, cuts little ice with the public.

Growing poor amid such wealth

Last year, while fierce political debate raged over Article 9, more serious issues with constitutional implications emerged that escaped large public attention.

Economic globalization, which has advanced at a heady pace, and the explosive spread of the Internet and cellphones have radically altered society. The new realities created by these changes pose serious policy challenges that went beyond the scope of the traditional debate on the Constitution.

For example, consider the growing ranks of a new underclass of society, the "working poor."

Intensifying cross-border competition has driven companies to make desperate efforts to cut labor costs. As a consequence, the number of nonregular, temporary workers, which includes both part-timers and dispatched workers, has grown sharply in recent years. Such workers now comprise a third of the working population.

Such workers face higher job insecurity and low wages, which leaves an increasing number of them with no choice but to claim welfare benefits.

Admittedly, some workers have only themselves to blame for their miserable financial situations. In today's society, people have far weaker ties with others than in the past, and many individuals find themselves isolated. Once an isolated individual falls into poverty, it is usually very difficult to climb back out of that hole.

In the decades after the end of World War II, Japanese people worked very hard to build a wealthy society.

Just as that goal appeared to have been achieved, however, a huge hole opened in Japan's social safety net.

This spring, an "anti-poverty festival" was held in Tokyo. The event featured a musical stage show that depicted the plight of the "new poor."

The play's opening scene was set in a cramped Internet cafe, filled with young people who were basically living there. Each spoke up about their anxieties and daily hardships as they were clicking away on keyboards.

One of them had collapsed from overwork. Another lost his job when his employer went bankrupt--and never paid him all his wages. Another character, a young man, was struggling to escape from a life of temporary day jobs.

At the end of the play, all the characters recited a passage from the Constitution: which states: "All people shall have the right to maintain the minimum standards of wholesome and cultured living." This sentence is the first in Article 25.

The characters thus strongly expressed the wide gap between what the Constitution promises and reality for the working poor.

Freedom of speech under threat

In a democratic society, anyone should be able to speak out freely. The Constitution guarantees freedom of speech. Living in a country with a militarist past, all Japanese would agree that freedom of speech must be protected at all cost.

But recent events have raised concerns that this vital constitutional principle may be under threat.

In February, a luxury hotel in Tokyo's Minato Ward unilaterally canceled its contract to provide a venue for a meeting of the Japan Teachers Union. The hotel management, worried about protests from rightist groups, even refused to obey a court order to honor the contract, after its action had been judged illegal.

Last month, several movie theaters said they would not screen "Yasukuni," a documentary film on the war-linked shrine by a Tokyo-based Chinese director. They did so after a group of conservative lawmakers expressed doubts about a government-affiliated organization that partly funded the film.

The anonymity of the Internet makes it a double-edged sword. This medium gives people a powerful way of reaching global numbers of people. But it enables people to slander, harass and violate the privacy of others through irresponsible postings. Such actions seriously threaten freedom and human rights.

We have yet to find the wisdom and means of protecting freedoms and rights in this new reality.

Meanwhile, several scandals also raised doubts about whether government employees, which the Constitution calls "servants of the whole community," are performing their roles properly. The scandals that hit the Social Insurance Agency and the Defense Ministry suggest otherwise. The government employees in the scandals apparently acted in ways that went against the spirit of the Constitution.

The Constitution is the fundamental law of the nation. It lays down the basic rights of the people. Obviously, it is important for all Japanese to ponder afresh its grave importance in their lives.

How should people's livelihoods be protected amid such circumstances? What should be done to ensure that no one is intimidated and prevented from expressing their opinions? We must not flinch from looking at the wide, deep gap between what the Constitution guarantees and reality today.

The Constitution points the way toward changing that unhappy reality and creating a better society for all. This perspective is essential for truly constructive debate on the Constitution.

--The Asahi Shimbun, May 3(IHT/Asahi: May 5,2008)

Poll: 66% want Article 9 to stay as is

05/05/2008
THE ASAHI SHIMBUN

Article 9 of the Constitution, which renounces war and bans Japan from maintaining military forces, should not be revised, said 66 percent of voters in a recent Asahi Shimbun survey. That figure is a sharp increase from 49 percent in a similar survey last year.

In the nationwide poll to mark Constitution Day, only 23 percent of respondents said they believed the article should be revised, down from 33 percent a year ago.

While 56 percent of voters said the Constitution should be amended, 54 percent of those in favor of amendment said Article 9 should remain intact, compared with 37 percent who said the article should be revised.

The telephone survey was conducted April 19 and 20, prior to Saturday's 61st anniversary of the Constitution's introduction. Of the 3,600 people surveyed, 2,084, or 58 percent, gave valid responses.

The survey showed that voters are less concerned about the issue of revising the pacifist article than during last year's survey. A year ago, the government of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe pushed much public debate over the amendment, a long-time goal of his Liberal Democratic Party.

Abe also fueled debate over Japan's collective self-defense, long interpreted by the government as unconstitutional.

Under Abe's successor, Yasuo Fukuda, the Diet debated the constitutionality of dispatching Maritime Self-Defense Force troops to the Indian Ocean to provide logistic support for the United States-led war in Afghanistan.

The recent survey also found that 56 percent of respondents believe it is necessary to amend the Constitution at some point, compared with 31 percent who said it should not be changed.

In comparison, 58 percent a year ago said the Constitution needed revision, while 27 percent said it did not.

In the latest survey, 74 percent of those in favor of amendment said they believe the Constitution should underscore civil rights and reflect social institutions that have become widely accepted in recent years.

Of those who support revision, 13 percent said they think there is a problem with Article 9, while 9 percent said that the Japanese people should themselves write a new Constitution. Meanwhile, 52 percent of all respondents said constitutional amendment is a "realistic issue," while 35 percent said it will be a long time before it happens.

Asked why amendment is not a pressing issue, 71 percent said that the public is not ready to see it happen, while 19 percent blamed political gridlock in the Diet and 5 percent said the issue lost its momentum with Abe's departure.

Asked to rate the current state of the Diet, in which the opposition controls the Upper House, while the ruling coalition controls the Lower House, 62 percent said it is unfavorable. However, 58 percent said they opposed revising the Constitution to strengthen Lower House authority over the Upper House, compared with 23 percent that supported such a change.(IHT/Asahi: May 5,2008)

Shrine wants 'uncleared' scenes cut; director says no

The Yomiuri Shimbun

Yasukuni Shrine has asked the maker of the documentary "Yasukuni" to cut scenes from the film that they say contain "unauthorized" footage, but the filmmaker is not planning to comply with the request.

In a letter dated April 11, the shrine asked director Li Ying to cut the scene of a ritual at the shrine, saying he was not permitted to film it.

The shrine also asked him to cut scenes showing close-ups of shrine personnel and visitors for which it said the filmmaker had not obtained permission from these people to shoot their images.

According to the shrine, the documentary's production company, Dragon Films, made three requests for permission to shoot footage of the shrine, but on none of these occasions did it specify that the footage was intended for a documentary to be called "Yasukuni."

Kazuo Hizumi, lawyer for Li and Dragon Films, said: "When you see news and other footage of the shrine, it's hard to believe that every single person seen in it has been asked for permission. It's a place that attracts many people and a lot of attention, and I believe members of the public seen there are usually taking images of it, too."

(May. 5, 2008)

Public interest in 'Yasukuni' high

Takashi Kondo, Yasuko Onda and Aki Nakamura / Yomiuri Shimbun Staff

Despite anxiety over possible interference by protesters, audiences packed the Tokyo theater where the controversial documentary film "Yasukuni" was commercially screened for the first time in the country, indicating high interest in the film among the public.

The screening of the film by Chinese director Li Ying started under tight security Saturday at Cine Amuse, which is housed on the fourth floor of a building in an area crowded with restaurants and shops in Shibuya, Tokyo.

The film originally was scheduled to be screened from April 12 at five movie theaters in Tokyo and Osaka. However, after some politicians demanded to see the film before its commercial release, rightist groups launched campaigns trying to prevent public screenings of the film. A series of incidents eventually prompted the five theaters to cancel the scheduled screening.

Before the first screening of the film started at 10:30 a.m., vehicles of the Metropolitan Police Department already were parked in front of the building housing the theater. Police officers as well as employees of the theater and the film's distributing agency stood at the entrance of the building in an effort to ensure viewers' safety.

Inside the theater, security guards were stationed not only in the lobby, but also in two halls where the film was screened, each of which have 107 seats. Security guards sat either side of the screen, and the first row of seats was kept empty. Plainclothes officers also kept their eyes on the audience in the rear of the halls.

Because the building accommodates not only the theater, but also restaurants and other establishments, stringent rules were set regarding media interviews and photography in the building.

Arriving at the building at 6 a.m., an 18-year-old male student was the first to line up for the screening. A long line had formed by the time the theater opened. Both Japanese and non-Japanese journalists started flocking to the theater around 10 a.m.

Noticing the unusual atmosphere, some passersby stopped in front of the building.

The theater screened the film a total of eight times in the two halls without any problems. All seats were sold, according to the theater.

"I wanted to see the film with my own eyes, not only through media reports," said a 74-year-old man from Tokyo. "I didn't find the film as biased as I'd anticipated."

As for images of wartime scenes and Emperor Showa that were shown near the end of the film, the man said he did not feel uncomfortable to see such images, adding that he already was a sixth-year primary school student when World War II ended.

A 23-year-old female company employee from Fujisawa, Kanagawa Prefecture, said she did not find the film as radical as some reports had led her to believe. "I thought the film was like a 'textbook' designed for non-Japanese viewers to easily understand Yasukuni," she said.

Meanwhile, many in the audience criticized some theaters' decision to cancel the screening of the film.

"I found their actions outrageous. Even if [the film] has some political aspects, freedom of expression must be respected," said a Tokyo lawyer, 60.

"I felt there was something awful about the series of disputes over the film because some people seemed to be trying to prevent free discussions about this work," said a 56-year-old woman working for a hospital in Nagasaki.

On the other hand, some people expressed dissatisfaction over the movie's content.

"I couldn't understand [through the film] what Yasukuni really is," a 51-year-old Tokyo woman said.

"The film was watered down in the second half, and the last part was made by simply joining up old images," a 83-year-old Tokyo man said.

The film is scheduled to be screened at 23 theaters across the country, including those in Osaka, Hiroshima and Kyoto.

"I'm pleased to hear that the screening started without problems," said Yoshiaki Negishi, owner of Metro Cinema in Fukui, where the film is scheduled to be screened from July 12. "Now we can feel at ease in making preparations."

Nonfiction writer Shinobu Yoshioka said movie theaters should take pride in offering people a place to enjoy a range of movies.

"Movie theaters should be a place where a variety of works can be shown to the public," Yoshioka said. "If they cancel screening a film, they're not fulfilling their purpose."

Movie critic Tadao Sato said those who have seen the film must have understood that the director had produced the film in a balanced manner.

"If many audiences found the film neutral, it means that they took it coolheadedly," Sato said, adding that he was pleased that the film was safely screened on the first day.

(May. 5, 2008)

Guam buildup still lacking specifics

By Teri Weaver, Stars and Stripes
Mideast edition, Monday, May 5, 2008

The Joint Guam Program Office will hold a series of village meetings this month to discuss the newly released draft master plan for the anticipated military buildup on Guam.

The plan contains few new details about the proposed move of 8,000 Marines from Okinawa to Guam, a new Army ballistic missile defense unit and a pier capable of receiving an aircraft carrier a few times a year, a military spokesman acknowledged on Thursday.

Marine Corps Capt. Neil A. Ruggiero said the plan’s contents are a sign that the military has been as forthcoming as possible during the past two years, since the U.S. and Japan agreed to move III Marine Expeditionary Force from Okinawa to Guam.

“We’ve been keeping the public informed,” Ruggiero said Thursday.

One local legislator disagreed.

“I was expecting something a little more definitive,” said Guam Sen. James V. Espladon [sic], a Republican who chairs the island’s Committee on Tourism, Maritime, Military, Veterans and Foreign Affairs. “We waited all this time. We’ve been waiting around for this?”

The 11-page draft plan restates many of the military’s objectives for the buildup, including a goal to use existing military-controlled land to absorb the increase in buildings and living spaces.

Thousands convene for int'l Article 9 confab

May 4 12:40 AM US/Eastern

CHIBA, Japan, May 4 (AP) - (Kyodo) — Thousands of people gathered Sunday at the Makuhari Messe International Convention Complex in Chiba Prefecture to express their support for the war-renouncing Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution and to discuss how to realize the principle of Article 9 throughout the world.

During the three-day Global Article 9 Conference to Abolish War, participants, including Nobel laureate for peace Mairead Corrigan Maguire and Beate Sirota Gordon, one of the drafters of the Constitution, will share their experiences of promoting peace.

Symposiums and workshops will be held so that participants can seek ways to apply the idea behind Article 9 in various fields, such as environmental conservation and denuclearization, according to the executive committee organizing the event.

"We believe we can make full use of Article 9 to tackle current global issues, such as poverty and terrorism," Akira Kawasaki, one of the organizers, said.

The committee consists of 50 nongovernmental organizations, such as Peace Boat and Japan International Volunteer Center, as well as 50 individuals.

The committee will also hold one-day meetings to promote Article 9 in Hiroshima on Monday and in Sendai and Osaka on Tuesday during Japan's Golden Week spring holidays.

"We aim to create a new international movement to realize 'peace without force' through the ideal of Article 9," Kawasaki from Peace Boat said.

The organizers expect some 20,000 people to take part in the conferences in the four venues -- 10,000 in Makuhari, 5,000 in Osaka and 2,500 each in Hiroshima and Sendai, according to Kawasaki.

Article 9 stipulates, "The Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes."

The ruling Liberal Democratic Party drafted a new Constitution to enable Japan to possess military forces for self-defense, revising the second clause of Article 9 that prohibits Japan from possessing land, sea and air forces, as well as other war potential.

Thousands rally for Japan constitution

2 hours, 43 minutes ago

TOKYO - Thousands of activists, artists and scholars gathered Sunday for an international peace conference outside Tokyo, vowing to promote the Japanese Constitution's war-renouncing Article 9 as a global standard and prevent the clause from being weakened.

Photo: Demonstrators take to the streets in a demonstration in support of the Article 9 of the Japanese constitution which prohibits the maintenance of armed forces to settle disputes, in Tokyo Saturday May 3, 2008. An estimated 4,300 people took part in the rally.

Participants in the three-day "Global Article 9 Conference to Abolish War" held in Chiba prefecture included Nobel Peace Prize laureate Mairead Corrigan Maguire of Northern Ireland and Beate Sirota Gordon, an original drafter of the Japanese Constitution in 1947.

"We believe that Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution constitutes a world-class model for peace and should be protected as a global treasure for future generations," the event's organizers said in a statement.

But, it added, "there are increasingly vocal calls from within Japan to get rid of this article of the constitution."

Article 9 prohibits the use of military force as a means of settling international disputes. Critics have said that a constitutional change could rattle Asian neighbors with bitter memories of past Japanese imperialism.

The Japanese Constitution, drafted by U.S. occupation officials after World War II, has never been amended.

Last year, parliament approved a plan for a constitutional referendum, with a possible vote as early as 2010. The legislative victory was a major boost for then-Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's drive to give the armed forces a larger global role.

Organizers of Sunday's event, including the groups Peace Boat and the Global Partnership for the Prevention of Armed Conflict, say the principles of Article 9 can be applied globally to issues such as human rights, disarmament, the environment and development.

Similar gatherings are to be held in the Japanese cities of Hiroshima on Monday and Sendai and Osaka on Tuesday.

Article 9 hailed on Constitution's birthday

Sunday, May 4, 2008
By AKEMI NAKAMURA
Staff writer

Marking the 61st anniversary of the enforcement of the postwar Constitution, hundreds of people gathered Saturday in Tokyo's Hibiya Park to call for keeping Article 9, which renounces war.

Photo: In support of peace: Demonstrators march and sing in support of Article 9 of the Constitution on a street in Tokyo Saturday.

Japan should keep Article 9 to avoid becoming an aggressive military force, said Ann Wright, a diplomat-turned-activist from the United States who participated in the gathering, which was organized by pacifist civic groups.

Wright was formerly a colonel in the U.S. Army and served as a diplomat. She resigned in 2003 to protest the Iraq war.

"It's very important also to retain your Constitution of not selling weapons to other countries and to always be a nuclear free country," she said. "My country is totally opposite."

She also said the Constitution, which was basically drafted by the U.S., is a model the rest of the world must emulate.

In recent years, the ruling Liberal Democratic Party has been making steady progress toward amending the Constitution with an eye to changing Article 9, which prohibits Japan from possessing a military and renounces the use of force as a means of settling international disputes.

In 2005, the LDP unveiled a draft of its proposal for a new Constitution. In it, Article 9 recognized the Self-Defense Forces as a legitimate military that would be allowed to take part in international missions to maintain peace.

Two years later, under the hawkish stint of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, the LDP-led ruling coalition passed a law that spelled out the procedures for holding a referendum on amending the Constitution.

Now Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda is gearing up to propose a permanent bill that would allow Japan to dispatch the SDF overseas for humanitarian activities and take part in international peace keeping operations at any time.

"I sense a growing crisis over the move," said Mizuho Fukushima, leader of the Social Democratic Party. "The permanent law could directly connect war to the SDF, which is prohibited by the Constitution."

Based on his experience during and right after World War II, Eiji Ishizawa, 80, from Fujisawa, Kanagawa Prefecture, said Japan must never again be involved in war.

"Whenever I recall the orphans left behind in the charred ruins of Tokyo (after the war), my heart aches," said Ishizawa, who was in the Imperial Japanese Navy. "I was responsible for the children having to face such a hardship. I don't want any children to go through that again."

Hundreds flock to see 'Yasukuni'

Sunday, May 4, 2008
By TAKAHIRO FUKADA
Staff writer

A Tokyo movie theater on Saturday became the first in the nation to screen the controversial documentary "Yasukuni," drawing hundreds of viewers throughout the day despite drizzling rain.

Photo: Taboo preview: A man reads a leaflet about "Yasukuni" in Tokyo on Saturday.

People started arriving at Cine Amuse in Shibuya hours before the first screening, but despite expectations, no rightwing protests or speaker trucks were seen in the area.

The theater will show "Yasukuni" eight times a day on two screens, one with English subtitles, until Friday, and more than 20 other theaters nationwide will follow suit, distributor Argo Pictures said.

The 123-minute film tells the story of Yasukuni Shrine by focusing on the annual surrender day celebrations that take place there each year and the people who attend them. The Shinto shrine is dedicated to Japan's war dead and served as its spiritual pillar during the war. Class A war criminals are enshrined there as well.

The documentary shows footage of festivities recorded at the shrine on Aug. 15 during one of Japan's surrender day anniversaries marking the end of World War II, and is interspersed with interviews with related people and footage from the war.

Overall, viewer opinions of "Yasukuni" were positive.

"The movie was good because it made a series of very good reports to try to get very close to the truth," said Noboru Toike, a 50-year-old university lecturer from Kawasaki who came to see it because he is interested in the Imperial system.

"(The film) dealt with some muddy things that Japanese people think about, but without looking away from them," he said. "My understanding (of the shrine) was deepened."

Etsuko Ishizaka, a 58-year-old housewife from Tokyo, said she thought people should see the film.

"Yasukuni shrine is romanticizing" the war, she said. "There is a possibility that contemporary children might wage another war. I want many young people to see it."

Shinichiro Hanada, a 47-year-old Tokyoite, initially had doubts about the filmmaker's intentions but said he liked it overall.

"I hope the people who saw this movie will deepen their debates on the issues of Yasukuni, enshrining (Class A war criminals), the Constitution, and the issue of defense," Hanada said.

"I felt something intentional in (the director's) editing of the final scenes — Emperor Showa, and presumably the Nanjing massacre," he added.

Other viewers, including Hiroshi Kawahara, the head of the nationalist group Doketsusha, were reportedly displeased by "Yasukuni."

"The film is anti-Japan, and an insult to Yasukuni and our devotion to it," Kawahara told the Associated Press. "But Yasukuni's dignity cannot be shaken by a film like this."

The film shows people shouting "Tenno heika banzai!" ("Long live the Emperor!") and an American holding the Stars and Stripes. Some Asian youngsters are shown protesting the war-dead commemoration ceremony and getting beaten up as a voice in the background yells, "Chinese go home!"

Despite the shrine's earlier requests to delete and alter "misrepresenting pictures," the distributor screened the film as scheduled.

"We received the film 'Yasukuni' (from the producer) because there is no problem with screening . . . We will just screen it using the normal procedure," a company official said. "For example, (we) are not being called by the court to be told to delete or not to screen."

The distributor's president, Yutaka Okada, said the day one was a success.

"I am very glad that (the screening) started without trouble, anyway," Okada said in front of the theater.

Security at the theater was tight before the screening began, Okada said.

"I think we will be able to continue to screen (the film) smoothly now," he said.

Yasukuni Shrine has claimed that Chinese director Li Ying did not follow due process when filming inside its premises and said that some of the contents misrepresent the facts.

The shrine renewed its displeasure after the screening.

"It is extremely regrettable that the film, which could cause misunderstandings of this shrine, was screened," the shrine said in a statement. "(We) will continue to ask (the filmmaker) to delete and correct problematic pictures, so that untrue things will not spread with the screening of this movie," it said.

Iwakuni survey to help base expand for thousands of incoming residents

By Travis J. Tritten, Stars and Stripes
Pacific edition, Sunday, May 4, 2008

Thousands of new residents are coming to Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni, Japan, and base officials said work will begin this month to make their housing comfortable.

The base’s current servicemembers, spouses and dependents will be surveyed in the coming weeks to find out what they think about housing needs and local support services, said U.S. Navy Lt. Joe Dunaway, who is helping to coordinate the effort.

That information will be used to negotiate with the Japanese government and eventually build the new housing needed to support the U.S.-Japan military realignment plan.

The plan includes the relocation of a carrier-based air wing from Naval Air Facility Atsugi, Japan, and an aerial refueling squadron from Marine Corps Air Station Futenma on Okinawa, according to the base public affairs office.

The base population will swell from 5,400 to 10,400 residents by 2014, the public affairs office said.

“This is an opportunity for the community to have input in the future development of the base,” Dunaway said. “We are having significant growth here in Iwakuni, and this is an historic time for the base.”

About 1,100 new housing units likely will be built in the next five to six years by the Japanese government, Dunaway said.

But before the housing is started, the U.S. and Japanese governments must hash out an agreement on what housing facilities will be created and where they will be located, he said.

“It is likely the new housing will be a satellite area, so we are looking at what services we need to push with the Japanese government to provide at this satellite housing area,” Dunaway said.

That’s where the resident housing survey comes in.

The first step will be polling a group of stakeholders — a cross-section of Iwakuni residents — who will help guide the survey topics and questions, according to Dunaway.

Sometime this month, survey letters and e-mails will go out to residents around the base.

“That is so we get a statistically random sample of the community,” Dunaway said.

Any resident will also be able to log onto a Web site and fill out the survey, he said.

The realignment plan also will require other extensive construction including school buildings, roads and hangars, according to the public affairs office.

Those projects must also be hashed out between the Japanese government and U.S. Forces Japan.

X-ray training at Yokota dental clinic at odds with Japanese law

By Vince Little, and Hana Kusumoto
Pacific edition, Sunday, May 4, 2008

Japan requires a license before giving X-rays

YOKOTA AIR BASE, Japan — Several Japanese employees unlicensed to give X-rays to patients did so in a recent training program at Yokota’s dental clinic, officials said.

The Air Force apparently was unaware it violated Japanese law but has suspended all training until the matter is resolved, a Yokota spokesman said.

U.S. Forces Japan and the ministry of defense were still in talks late Friday.

Capt. Chris Watt, a 374th Airlift Wing spokesman, said such training is common in U.S. dental clinics, and it didn’t become an issue until a Japanese base workers union questioned the practice.

“Our laws seem to differ, and that’s what they’re talking over now,” he said. “They’re trying to work out whether or not they can continue this training, or stop it. We’re guests in their country, but they’re working with U.S. military personnel who are operating under U.S. law. … We’ve never had to look at it before.”

Japanese base employees are governed by Japanese law.

Under Japan’s Radiological Technologists Law, only licensed physicians, dentists and radiological technicians can take X-rays, due to concerns of radiation exposure.

Violators face up to a year in prison and a 500,000-yen fine.

About 20 Japanese employees working as dental hygienists or dental assistants at Yokota have taken part in the X-ray training since last fall, with roughly half completing it, the Tokyo Shimbun reported Friday.

Japanese seeking a license must complete schooling and pass a national exam given by the ministry of health, labor and welfare.

Watt said the training was carried out under close supervision of fully qualified personnel with the 374th Dental Squadron.

“It was on-the-job training — similar to what we do with our personnel, too,” he said.

Defense ministry spokesmen said they have made several requests to the U.S. military for Japanese workers not to take X-ray images, including the last one made on April 24.

He confirmed the Japanese government was following up on the matter with the U.S. military. The spokesman said the ministry is also checking whether the practice occurs on other U.S. bases.

Teens caught shoplifting prompts base warnings

By Allison Batdorff, Stars and Stripes
Pacific edition, Sunday, May 4, 2008

YOKOSUKA NAVAL BASE, Japan — Shoplifting isn’t a prank — it’s a crime that could get you barred from all U.S. military bases in Japan.

While no decision has been made, four Yokosuka teenagers face debarment after allegedly shoplifting at Yokota Air Base, Yokosuka’s commanding officer Capt. Daniel Weed and base attorney Lt. Jonathan Flynn told town meeting audiences last week.

The teens were caught after traveling to Yokota for an extracurricular event, the officers said.

While staying away from the specifics — the investigation is ongoing — Flynn told Negishi and Yokosuka audiences that bases are “serious about shoplifting” due to reported increases in stolen merchandise.

Moreover, U.S. Forces Japan said that when someone is barred from one base, they are barred from all bases in Japan unless a base commander makes an exception, Flynn said.

“Decisions that you make anywhere in Japan can follow you around anywhere,” Flynn said.

Capt. Chris Watt, a 374th Airlift Wing spokesman at Yokota, said a decision in the teens’ case might take a few weeks.

The base can also take less harsh measures, such as limiting someone for a specific period from a specific base facility, he said. In the meantime, Weed warned parents to “keep an eye on your kids.”

“Every inch of the exchange has cameras and the tapes are rolling” Weed said.

Commercial screening of documentary 'YASUKUNI' starts

May 3 08:22 AM US/Eastern

TOKYO, May 3 (AP) - (Kyodo) — The first commercial screening of the controversial documentary film "YASUKUNI" by Chinese Director Li Ying started Saturday at Cine Amuse in Tokyo's Shibuya Ward.

Reflecting strong interest in the film, which has drawn political heat from some quarters, the first show of the day was sold out one hour before it started at 10:30 a.m. By around 2:30 p.m., all tickets had been snapped up for the rest of the day.

Photo: Movie "Yasukuni" opens in Tokyo's Shibuya. Also a police patrol was dispatched to the cinema as a precaution.

"Because of the press coverage (of the controversy surrounding the film), I wanted to see and judge the contents for myself," said an 18- year-old Tokyo university student who lined up at the cinema from 6 a.m.

In an effort to ensure safety following protests by some rightwing groups, police officers stood at the entrance of the building housing the cinema. Plainclothes officers were also seen inside the theater, while security guards sat beside the screen during the show.

The documentary depicts events and people connected to Tokyo's Yasukuni Shrine, dedicated to the nation's war dead. The shrine is controversial as it is regarded as a symbol of Japan's past militarism by neighboring countries since it also honors Class-A war criminals.

After seeing the film, Mutsuo Kawai, 44, said, "It highlighted the problem of the legacy of militarism in Japan," while a 71-year-old man said, "No scenes were particularly moving, and I just don't understand why it has drawn such attention."

Yasukuni Shrine has once again asked the production company that made the film to delete certain scenes because the company had not received prior permission to film certain facilities at the shrine, sources familiar with the matter said Saturday. The shrine had made the same request once before, but the film's distributors decided to go ahead with the commercial screening anyway.

The film will run till May 9 at Cine Amuse, while Cinequanon in Tokyo's Yurakucho and the Seventh Art Theater in Osaka will commence screenings on May 10, according to the distributor, Argo Pictures.

Theaters in Hiroshima, Kyoto, Niigata and Okinawa have also decided to screen the film.

"The first show began without incident," Yutaka Okada, president of Argo Pictures, told reporters shortly after 11 a.m. "I thank you for your support."

"YASUKUNI" was originally scheduled to be shown on April 12, but four Tokyo cinemas and one Osaka theatre decided to cancel screenings after allegations by some lawmakers and critics that the film is anti- Japanese.

The film won the best-documentary award at the 32nd Hong Kong International Film Festival. It was also shown at international film festivals in South Korea, Germany and the United States.

Japan war shrine film stirs free speech debate

May 3, 3:20 AM EDT
By MARI YAMAGUCHI
Associated Press Writer

TOKYO (AP) -- Yasukuni war shrine is Japan's ultimate taboo subject. A symbol of the country's militaristic past, the shrine is revered by nationalists, despised by Japan's Asian neighbors, and rarely mentioned in public by anyone else.

On Saturday, that taboo faced a test with the premiere of a documentary film that has drawn protests from right-wingers, spooked theater owners and won praise from Japanese who say it's time to openly discuss the shrine.

"Yasukuni" focuses on Aug. 15, 2005, when thousands thronged the shrine to mark the 60th anniversary of Tokyo's World War II surrender. The shrine honors the 2.5 million Japanese who fell in wars from the late 1800s until 1945.

Like the shrine itself, which has a museum depicting Japan's wartime conquests as a noble enterprise, the film has been a magnet for controversy. The Tokyo opening on Saturday was accompanied by heavy police presence, though by early afternoon, the sold-out screenings were shown without incident.

The film was partially funded by $73,500 from a government-linked agency, was directed by a Chinese citizen, and includes graphic footage of Japanese soldiers executing civilians - three elements that have earned the ire of nationalists.

"The film is anti-Japan, and an insult to Yasukuni and our devotion to it," said Hiroshi Kawahara, who heads the nationalist group, Doketsusha. "But Yasukuni's dignity cannot be shaken by a film like this."

Pacifists and the victims of Japanese aggression - such as China and the Koreas - abhor Yasukuni as a glorification of militarism and a symbol of Tokyo's failure to fully atone for its past imperialism in the region.

Nationalists and many conservative Japanese, however, see the shrine as a legitimate way to honor the war dead just like other countries honor their fallen soldiers, and accuse critics of trying to cow Japan into paralyzing war guilt.

The opposition nearly scuttled the opening. The threat of right-wing violence intimidated several theaters in Tokyo into canceling plans to show it, and the distributor delayed the original April 12 premiere by several weeks.

The film's supporters say such trouble is typical in Japan, where a high value on consensus discourages open debate, and threats of violence or embarrassment can easily stifle free speech.

Those tendencies, critics say, mean that controversial issues rarely get a public airing, particularly those dear to nationalists, such as Yasukuni, the imperial family, and Japan's wartime conquests.

The film does not shy away from the ugly side of Japanese imperialism, but shows both sides of the dispute.

Nationalists in military garb shout prayers to the war dead, while bereaved families of the former Imperial Army soldiers bow before the shrine. Then-Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi is also shown worshipping there.

But the shrine's critics are also shown. Pacifist protesters are injured in a scuffle with police, and Taiwanese and Japanese families are shown arguing to have their relatives' names removed from the shrine's list of honorees.

Distributor Argo Pictures says the film will be screened at 23 venues across the nation, starting with a Tokyo cinema Saturday. The film has already been shown at festivals including Sundance and Berlin International.

"I'm so glad that the screening started safely," said Argo President Yutaka Okada. "So far we haven't had trouble at all, and I hope this continues throughout the day. We've provided ample security to cover all possible problems."

After watching the movie Saturday, Midori Matsuoka, a 62-year-old actress, said the movie was "well done" and didn't deserve the controversy it has attracted.

"It's not anti-Japanese, it's anti-war" she said of the film. "I didn't think much about what kind of shrine Yasukuni is. But after seeing the movie, I thought I should learn more about the history of my own country."

For director Li Ying, a Chinese citizen who has been based in Japan for nearly 20 years, the film could help the country finally confront unresolved aspects of its own history.

"This is a test for Japan's ability to overcome the Yasukuni problem and develop a healthy pride and become a truly civilized nation," he said last month.

Legacy of late Fukuda resurrected

By HIROSHI YAMAZAKI
UPI Correspondent
Published: March 03, 2008

Tokyo, Japan — A legacy of Takeo Fukuda, the late father of current Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda, is being revived through dialogue between former politicians and religious leaders, says a veteran diplomat.

Nagao Hyodo, former Japanese ambassador to Poland and Belgium, said Thursday there is resurgent momentum toward the United Nations' adoption of a "Universal Declaration of Human Responsibilities," proposed by a group of statesmen in 1998. The draft declaration was submitted to the U.N. General Assembly in that year to mark the 50th anniversary of the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

The document was the brainchild of the "Old Boys' Summit," formally known as the InterAction Council, an annual forum of former heads of state and government that had been meeting since 1983. It was originally proposed by the late Fukuda.

Hyodo, a seasoned expert on Russian affairs, was the keynote speaker at a forum of diplomats, intellectuals and peace activists organized by the Japanese Chapter of the Universal Peace Federation in Tokyo. He explained to the audience, including nine ambassadors resident in Tokyo, how the declaration of responsibilities was formulated by renowned world statesmen and submitted by major nations, including India and China, to the United Nations, but killed by the major Western democracies.

While the human rights declaration has been enshrined as a solemn watchdog over potential abusers, the world continues to observe grave violations of the rights it seeks to protect. Something more must be injected into public policy, the old boy politicians say. Through yearly deliberations, they have ended up discussing universal concepts of ethics, hence coming up with the need for human responsibilities to balance human rights. Hyodo calls it an "invisible, broader concept of human security."

After the senior Fukuda passed away in 1995, Helmut Schmit, former German chancellor and one of the active members of the OB Summit, took over the initiative and eventually compiled the 19-article draft on responsibilities.

The preamble says the declaration "builds on the wisdom of religious leaders and sages down the ages who have warned that freedom without acceptance of responsibility can destroy the freedom itself, whereas when rights and responsibilities are balanced, then freedom is enhanced and a better world can be created."

When the document was made public, however, human rights activists vehemently opposed it, fearing that it would undermine their achievements. Reflecting on their anxiety, Hyodo said, "Major democracies such as the USA and Europe killed the draft."

But he is again upbeat about its prospect, as efforts by UNESCO, begun in 1997, and the Davos Conference in 2007, are directed toward formulating some sort of universal ethics.

In Hyodo's opinion, the interfaith movement is an important paradigm in establishing a universally acceptable ethical code of conduct. He recalled that the late Fukuda was especially concerned about the religious factors behind many conflicts. Thus he took the initiative in 1987 to hold a special assembly in Rome, Italy, among world religious leaders and OB Summit members.

This sacred-secular formula has been repeated, judged even more important after 9/11, leading to a conference dubbed "Bridging the Divide" in 2003 in Jakarta, Indonesia.

Based on Thursday's conference, Hyodo commended some of the UPF's propositions, including the setting up of a permanent interfaith institution and promotion of interfaith education. "UPF is doing its work in exactly the same direction (as the OB Summit)," he remarked.

An African ambassador urged the forum to deepen the debate into more real issues, such as dealing with poverty. Another ambassador questioned the usefulness of a code of conduct in governing the ongoing war on resources, which he said is behind many conflicts in Africa these days.

The UPF is a non-governmental organization in special consultative status with the U.N. Economic and Social Council. According to Katsumi Ohtsuka, chairman of the Japan chapter, the group is "committed to peace-building, human development and good governance through dialogue, education and service."

Satellite Photos Reveal China's Secret Nuke Submarine Base In Hainan

May 2, 2008 11:41 p.m. EST
Windsor Genova - AHN News Writer

Washington, D.C. (AHN) - China is building a secret nuclear submarine base in its southern island province of Hainan, based on satellite photos passed to American and British media.

The photos were taken by the commercial satellite imaging company DigitalGlobe in November and published in the military magazine Jane's Intelligence Review. They show a harbor in Sanya with hillside tunnels that military analysts believe are passages to a cavern that can hide many submarines. Sanya is a tourist destination in the southern tip of Hainan.

China's latest 094 nuclear submarine can be seen at the base, along with jetties with moored warships and piers that can accommodate two carrier groups or attack ships.

The American Foreign Policy Council (AFPC) described the photos as significant additional evidence of China's military build-up. According to Foxnews.com, AFPC senior fellow Stephen Yates said the base is China's "point of force projection out into the South China Sea."

The Pentagon has been aware of the construction of the submarine base for two years.

Foxnews.com, one of the recipients of the photos, tried to call the Chinese embassy in the U.S. capital to get a comment but its calls were not returned.

American serviceman arrested for squeezing Aomori Prefecture teen's breasts

(Mainichi Japan) May 3, 2008

TOKYO (AP) -- A U.S. serviceman has been arrested for the alleged sexual assault of a Japanese woman, the latest in a series of criminal accusations sparking anger against American military bases in Japan.

James Littlejohn, a 22-year-old airman first class who belongs to the Misawa Air Base in northern Japan, was arrested Friday on charges of groping a 19-year-old woman in Hachinohe, said a spokesman from police in the city near Misawa. He spoke on condition of anonymity, citing policy.

Littlejohn allegedly hugged the woman from behind, then forcibly touched her breasts and buttocks, the police spokesman said.

He then fled in his car, but was taken into custody after police stopped his automobile based on a description from the woman.

The case is a fresh embarrassment to some 50,000 American troops stationed in Japan under a security pact, following higher-profile arrests earlier this year.

A 22-year-old Nigerian in the U.S. Navy was charged in April with fatally stabbing a taxi driver south of Tokyo. A U.S. Marine charged with raping a 14-year-old girl in southern Okinawa in February is to be court-martialed.

The rape and a series of other damaging criminal accusations against U.S. troops have inflamed long-simmering anger at the American military presence, which is blamed for crime, pollution and crowding.

Deputy Cmdr. Joel Malone of the Misawa Air Base attempted to smooth relations with officials in Hachinohe and Misawa following Littlejohn's arrest.

"We take every incident such as this very seriously and we will cooperate with investigation," he told Hachinohe Mayor Makoto Kobayashi in a partially televised visit. Kobayashi demanded the Air Force step up troop discipline.

The rape accusation prompted the U.S. military to severely restrict troop movements on Okinawa and elsewhere, and conduct a review of its anti-sexual assault education programs and guidelines.

Marines' move to Guam may be delayed

Saturday, May 3, 2008

WASHINGTON (Kyodo) A plan to relocate U.S. Marines to Guam from Okinawa Prefecture by 2014 is facing delays due to the new host site's lack of infrastructure and fiscal constraints on the part of both governments, a U.S. government agency said Thursday.

The U.S. Government Accountability Office said in a report submitted to the Senate that some Defense Department and Guam officials "believe that this is an optimistic schedule."

The relocation plan inked by Washington and Tokyo is part of a bilateral agreement in May 2006 to realign the U.S. military presence in Japan by 2014.

Any delay in relocating the marines to Guam could affect another key element of the agreement — relocation of the U.S. Marine Corps Futenma Air Station's heliport facility from downtown Ginowan to Nago, both in Okinawa.

While noting uncertainties over the final size of the military population and the kind of military facilities to be built, the GAO report touches on the possibility that an environmental impact assessment could be delayed.

It refers to "the complexities of moving thousands of marines and their dependents to Guam, and the need to obtain sufficient funding from the governments of the United States and Japan to support the move."

Japanese X-ray staff at U.S. air base unlicensed

Saturday, May 3, 2008
Kyodo News

Some of the Japanese employees at the U.S. Air Force's Yokota Air Base have been taking X-rays of U.S. military personnel and civilian employees without a license, labor sources said Friday.

Under Japanese law, only physicians, dentists and licensed radiological technicians can take X-rays.

The air base in western Tokyo serves as the headquarters of U.S. Forces Japan. About 20 Japanese employees have received professional training in taking X-rays, but some have been doing so without a proper license, which must be acquired from the health, labor and welfare minister, the sources said.

Japanese employees at U.S. military bases in Japan are nominally hired by the government to work for U.S. forces, and domestic laws are applied to them.

The Japan Garrison Forces Labor Union, which was formed by Japanese employees at U.S. military bases in Japan, said it has asked the Defense Ministry to stop the practice.

The union, known as Zenchuro, said air base's dental unit introduced digital-type radiological equipment in October 2007. At the time, base authorities told all Japanese employees at the dental unit to undergo training and to take X-rays when necessary.

After receiving the training, some of the 20 employees began taking X-rays at the base in March this year, the union said.

Japan's radiological technician law restricts the use of radiography because of the radiation exposure risk. Those who take X-rays without a license can be punished by up to a year in prison or a fine of up to ¥500,000.

The Defense Ministry said it will ask the U.S. forces in Japan about the matter. The U.S. public relations office declined to comment, saying the matter is under investigation.

U.S. airman arrested

Japanese police arrested a 22-year-old U.S. serviceman Friday on suspicion of molesting a Japanese woman in Hachinohe, Aomori Prefecture, near the U.S. Air Force's Misawa Air Base.

The serviceman, who is stationed at the air base, allegedly grabbed the 19-year-old woman from behind on a street in Hachinohe at around 3:45 a.m. Friday, and is suspected of forcibly touching the woman's buttocks.

The suspect, identified as James Littlejohn, had allegedly consumed alcohol.

The woman was alone and on her way home after visiting a friend, police said.

A spokesman for the air base declined to comment.

Under Japanese law, the maximum penalty is 10 years in prison for forcibly committing an indecent act on another person.

Japan peace groups to unveil WWII monument in Guam

Saturday, May 3, 2008
Kyodo News

Japanese peace groups are set to unveil a cenotaph in Guam on May 18 to honor the more than 20,000 Japanese and U.S. soldiers and islanders who lost their lives in the Battle of Guam in 1944.

Peace Ring of Guam, a Guam-based nonprofit organization, and its Japanese arm have erected the monument by the sea in Agat Village, one of two locations on the western coast where U.S. forces landed and fought Japanese troops.

Kensuke Haga, vice president of the Guam group, said he hopes many Japanese tourists will visit the Agat WWII Peace Memorial Monument and learn about wartime incidents on the resort island, including how Japanese soldiers massacred members of the local Chamorro ethnic group.

"We want to share the pain Japan inflicted on the Chamorro people during the war to create true friendship between Japan and Guam," Haga, 59, said.

Guam, a popular tropical resort for Japanese tourists, is known as the site where some 8,000 marines based in Okinawa will be moved to in line with a 2006 Japan-U.S. agreement on realigning U.S. military forces in Japan.

"But the number of people who know about Guam's war history is very limited" and it was this reality that prompted the peace group to build the cenotaph, Haga said.

The kanji for "wa" (harmony) is engraved in the center of the marble cenotaph, which is 2.4 meters wide × 1.7 meters high and cost ¥3.6 million.

The character is based on the calligraphy of former soldier Shoichi Yokoi, who was found in a jungle in Guam in 1972 believing that Japan and the United States were still at war.

The village of Agat has provided a site for a planned tourist center where the cenotaph stands.

Agat Mayor Carol Tayama said she welcomes the project because she has worked hard to "encourage harmony between the Japanese and Chamorros." Mayor Tayama also added, "I am very proud we can have the monument to signify the feeling we have."

Japan invaded Guam, a U.S. possession since 1898, in December 1941. The U.S. reoccupied the 550-sq.-km island after landing July 21, 1944, on the western coast at Agat and Asan. It is believed that nearly 20,000 Japanese soldiers and more than 1,000 U.S. soldiers as well as some 700 islanders were killed in the battle, according to Haga and the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry.

Peace Ring of Guam Japan, based in Tokyo, plans to send a delegate to the ceremony.

Rule of law comes under fire

Saturday, May 3, 2008
By CRAIG MARTIN
Special to The Japan Times

Government response to high court ruling on SDF operations in Iraq

PHILADELPHIA — The government's reactions to the Nagoya High Court's April 17 decision that Japanese operations in Iraq are unconstitutional, raise profoundly disturbing questions about the rule of law and the democratic separation of powers in Japan.

Representatives of the government, and of the military, have made public statements contradicting the findings of the court, rejecting its conclusions, and dismissing the relevance and significance of its constitutional interpretation. The prime minister has stated that the judgment will have absolutely no impact on the government's continued use of the military in Iraq.

This response by the executive branch of government to a judicial decision in a constitutional democracy is difficult to comprehend. It raises questions about the extent to which the rule of law is respected. It provokes concerns about the continued normative power of the Constitution. It creates serious doubts about the proper distribution of power among the three branches of government within the democratic structure of the state.

The case arose when approximately 1,100 plaintiffs commenced the lawsuit in an attempt to prevent the continued operation of the Self-Defense Force (SDF) in Iraq. It was one of more than a dozen cases around the country challenging the deployment of the SDF in support of operations in both Afghanistan and Iraq. The Nagoya High Court, while dismissing the claims of the plaintiffs for token compensation (for mental distress) and an injunction prohibiting further deployment of the Air Self-Defense Force (ASDF) in Iraq, held that the activity of the ASDF was in violation of Article 9 of the Constitution.

Specifically, the court held that ASDF activity was being conducted in a combat zone in violation of the Iraq Special Measures Law (Iraq SML), which authorized the deployment of the SDF. It also held that the ASDF activity was a necessary and integral component of the use of force by coalition forces in Iraq, and thus itself constituted the use of force in violation of Article 9 of the Constitution, which prohibits Japan from using force as a means of settling international disputes.

The court dismissed the plaintiffs' claims because they lacked standing. While recognizing that the Constitution conferred upon the plaintiffs a personal right to live in peace, the court held that the ASDF operations did not directly infringe that right, or any other individual or direct legal interest of the plaintiffs, so as to give them a legal basis to advance their claims. But the determination that the plaintiffs did not have standing for their specific claims did not in any way prevent the court from also deciding that the government deployment of the ASDF in Iraq was in violation of Article 9(1) of the Constitution.

The Constitution provides that the Supreme Court, and such other inferior courts as are established by law, are the sole repository of judicial power in Japan (Art. 74). It further provides that the Constitution is the supreme law of the land, and that no law or other act of the government that is inconsistent with it is to have any force and effect (Article 98). Finally, the judiciary, ultimately the Supreme Court as the court of last resort, has the sole power to determine the constitutionality of any law or other act of government (Article 81).

It is very clear, therefore, that the Nagoya High Court had every authority, and indeed a responsibility, to interpret the constitutionality of the operations of the ASDF and the Iraq SML. It was also acting within its jurisdiction in determining whether the operations violated the limits prescribed by the Iraq SML itself. One of those limits restricted all SDF activity to noncombat zones.

The question of whether Baghdad constituted a combat zone as defined in the Iraq SML, and whether the ASDF transportation of armed coalition forces to the combat zone in Iraq itself constituted the use of force, were therefore proper questions for the high court to consider.

Its judgment with respect to those questions, on the basis of evidence before it, and its application of the law and interpretation of the Constitution for that purpose, was a fulfillment of its constitutional role.

Yet Chief Cabinet Secretary Machimura stated publicly that the government "could not accept such a court ruling" because it was inconsistent with the government's own determination that Baghdad airport was not a combat zone.

Such comments suggest that the executive is spurning a proper legal determination by the judiciary, and substituting its own judgment on a legal question, for which the executive has no constitutional authority (ironically, there was actually evidence given in the trial, by a representative of the Defense Ministry, that the Baghdad airport was susceptible to attack and had occasionally come under attack).

Similarly, the prime minister stated that the decision of the court, which held that his government's policy was in violation of one of the three fundamental principles of the Constitution, would have no impact on the continued deployment of the ASDF to Iraq. This tends to reflect contempt for the judiciary's sole authority in interpreting the Constitution and the constitutionality of the laws and acts of government. In the context of the careful separation of powers in a constitutional democracy, the executive is thereby emasculating the judicial branch and trying to usurp its authority.

Most egregiously, Adm. Takashi Saito, the chief of staff of the SDF, publicly stated that the ASDF mission in Iraq does not play an integral part in the use of force, directly contradicting the judicial determination by the Nagoya High Court. Whether it constitutes a use of force or not is a question of law, which the courts have the sole authority to decide.

Given Japan's history of militarism in the 1930s, during which the military disdained and then usurped the fundamental democratic institutions of the state, such a flagrant demonstration of disrespect for a judicial decision by the most senior military officer ought to be viewed as being entirely unacceptable and the cause for serious concern.

Because the high court held that the plaintiffs lacked standing to claim the remedy they sought, the requested injunction was not issued, and so the government's response is not formally in contempt of a court order. But that does not mean that the high court's judgment that a government policy is unconstitutional can be simply ignored and dismissed as irrelevant. To ignore judicial determinations of unconstitutionality is to weaken the institutional power and authority of the judiciary and thus unbalances the separation of powers, and undermine the integrity of the Constitution itself. Ultimately, such practice may threaten the democratic structure of the state.

As the government continues to work toward Japan taking a more active role in the international collective security system, it will need to convince both the Japanese people and the other countries in the region that the rule of law and other institutions of constitutional democracy are secure and respected in the Japanese political system.

Such high-handed flouting of the Constitution, the law and the judiciary as was reflected in this case does not help.

Craig Martin is a Canadian lawyer, currently working on a doctorate at the University of Pennsylvania on the relationship between constitutional and international law constraints on the use of armed force. He is also a graduate of and visiting lecturer at Osaka University, Graduate School of Law and Politics. www.craigxmartin.com

EDITORIAL :: Judicial independence infringed

Saturday, May 3, 2008

Documents unearthed at the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration show that the United States exerted pressure on Japan after a district court made a historically famous 1959 ruling that the U.S. military presence in Japan violated principles of the war-renouncing Constitution. The pressure worked and the Supreme Court overturned the ruling. This incident provides food for thought on how a nation's judiciary should maintain its independence.

Seven people were arrested in July 1957 after they entered the U.S. Tachikawa base in Sunagawa, Tokyo, while demonstrating against a land survey for base expansion. The Tokyo District Court acquitted the seven March 30, 1959, ruling that U.S. forces in Japan provided a "war potential" prohibited by Article 9 of the Constitution, and that their presence violated the Constitution.

A March 31, 1959, telegram to the U.S. State Department from U.S. Ambassador Douglas MacArthur II, a nephew of Gen. Douglas MacArthur, supreme commander of the Allied occupation forces in Japan, shows that in meeting with Foreign Minister Aiichiro Fujiyama earlier that day, the ambassador urged Japan to appeal the case directly to the Supreme Court, skipping the Tokyo High Court. The government did so.

An April 24, 1959, telegram from MacArthur to Washington shows that in a private conversation, Supreme Court Chief Justice Kotaro Tanaka told MacArthur that the case would be given priority. On Dec. 16, 1959, the top court ruled that the Constitution did not call for defenselessness and nonresistance and did not prohibit provision of security by a foreign country, and that the judiciary should not pass judgment on the Japan-U.S. Security Treaty since it had a highly political nature that concerned Japan's very existence. Thus it ordered a retrial and the seven were eventually found guilty.

Such astounding contact between a chief justice and a foreign diplomat, and other cases — such as the government's response to a recent Nagoya High Court ruling — are a reminder that people in the judiciary must strive to do their utmost to maintain their independence.

Govt OK's U.S. work on multiple warheads

The Yomiuri Shimbun

The Japanese government has given its approval for the introduction of multiple warheads in the next-generation interceptor to be used in the naval theater missile defense system Japan and the United States have been jointly developing, sources said Friday.

U.S. defense officials have been calling for the early introduction of multiple-warhead interceptor missiles in response to moves by Russia and China to develop new types of ballistic missiles.

The U.S. House of Representatives Armed Services Committee in May last year raised Japan's approval of the move as a condition for changing the sea-based missile to a multiple-warhead type. With Japan's approval, development of a multiple warhead-type missile by the United States will move up into top gear, the sources said.

The United States started looking into the development of multiple warhead missiles around 2006 to counter moves by Russia and China, which have been developing multiple-warhead intercontinental ballistic missiles and submarine-launched ballistic missiles of a similar type.

At first the United States asked if Japan would cooperate in the joint development of the multiple warhead missile but Japan refused based on the following reasons:

-- It would delay completion of the barely started joint development of the Standard Missile-3 Block II (SM-3 Block II) beyond the target year of 2014, hiking development costs.

-- North Korea was believed not to have multiple-warhead type ballistic missiles.

However, if the United States alone proceeds with the development of the multiple-warhead missile, Japan will not be asked to bear an additional burden in terms of the missile's development costs. Also, it is now believed there will be no delay in the current development of a revised single-warhead type system. Therefore, Japan has given its approval for the United States' change of policy.

Japan also took into consideration the possibility it might ultimately switch to a multiple-warhead missile in the future, the sources said.

A senior Defense Ministry official agreed that Japan might make the switch in the future, "depending on the security situation."

The SM-3 Block IIA can intercept an ICBM as its defense range of about 1,000 kilometers is about double that of the SM-3 Block IA, the type already deployed on Japanese Aegis destroyers.

The U.S. government is calling the new multiwarhead missile system SM-3 Block IIB, and may make use of technologies the two countries have developed so far.

(May. 3, 2008)

US airman in Japan arrested, accused of groping woman

By MARI YAMAGUCHI
Associated Press Writer
Fri May 2, 3:16 PM ET

TOKYO - A U.S. serviceman was accused of sexually assaulting a Japanese woman on Friday, the latest in a series of criminal accusations sparking anger against the American military presence in Japan.

James Littlejohn, a 22-year-old Airman 1st Class at the Misawa Air Base in northern Japan, was arrested on charges of groping a 19-year-old woman Friday while she was walking home, said a spokesman from Hachinohe police near Misawa. He spoke on condition of anonymity, citing policy.

Littlejohn allegedly hugged the woman from behind, then forcibly touched her breasts and buttocks, the police spokesman said.

He then fled in his car, but was taken into custody after police stopped the vehicle based on a description from the woman.

The case is a fresh embarrassment to the American military in Japan, where about 50,000 U.S. troops are stationed. It follows higher-profile arrests earlier this year.

A U.S. Marine charged with raping a 14-year-old girl in southern Okinawa in February is to be court-martialed. That accusation prompted the U.S. military to severely restrict troop movements and conduct a review of its anti-sexual assault education programs and guidelines.

The rape and other criminal accusations against U.S. troops have inflamed long-simmering anger at the American military presence, which is blamed for crime, pollution and other problems.

Deputy Cmdr. Joel Malone of the Misawa Air Base visited the cities of Hachinohe and Misawa to smooth relations with officials there following Littlejohn's arrest.

"We take every incident such as this very seriously and we will cooperate with the investigation," he told Hachinohe Mayor Makoto Kobayashi in a partially televised visit. Kobayashi demanded the Air Force step up troop discipline.

Navy watching for sailors prone to violent behavior

By Allison Batdorff and Hana Kusumoto, Stars and Stripes
Pacific edition, Saturday, May 3, 2008

YOKOSUKA NAVAL BASE, Japan — A new program will identify sailors who are prone to violent behavior that could harm U.S.-Japanese relations, Navy officials said this week.

Sailors with violence problems will not stay in Japan, Commander U.S. Naval Forces Japan Rear Adm. James D. Kelly told Yokosuka city officials Wednesday.

But removal will be used as a last resort, as CNFJ has started a new program to identify sailors struggling with violence and help them, said CNFJ spokeswoman Hanako Tomizuka.

Called “CARE” (Combined Anti-Violence Reflection Education), the program aims to prevent violence with vigilance, education and training of sailors and civilians in Japan.

Kelly told Yokosuka Mayor Ryoichi Kabaya on Wednesday that CARE is already in effect CNFJ-wide, Tomizuka said.

“We are deeply committed to this effort,” Kelly told reporters after the meeting. “No program assures a 100 percent solution, but we are going to do our best.”

CARE comes on the heels of the March 19 slaying of a 61-year-old taxi driver. Yokosuka Seaman Olatunbosun Ugbogu was indicted last week on a charge of robbery-murder. While Ugbogu, 22, publicly admitted to the stabbing, he denied the motive of robbery, saying instead that he has mental health issues and that those close to him were aware of his problems.

According to the tenets of CARE, Navy leaders will be given an “indicator” that will help identify their subordinates’ potential for violence, Tomizuka said.

Kelly did not give specifics about the indicator as it is an “internal document,” but he told reporters Wednesday it was similar to a checklist, Tomizuka said.

Sailors identified as having violent tendencies will first receive counseling and help; if that fails, they will face stricter measures, and if those don’t work, there is the potential for the sailor to be separated out of the Navy or sent back to the U.S., Tomizuka said.

Use of the Navy’s existing violence-prevention resources and extending them to civilians and family members will be emphasized, Yokosuka base commanding officer Capt. Daniel Weed said Wednesday.

Weed already has spoken with students at both Nile C. Kinnick High School and Yokosuka Middle School in the hopes that “little changes will create big effects,” he told a town hall meeting audience Wednesday.

“Could we have done something to stop that sailor? Could we have prevented it? Well, no one wakes up from having a perfect life and does something heinous like that,” Weed said. “It’s a series of progressive steps.”

A city of Yokosuka press release Wednesday said city officials “will watch closely” CARE’s implementation and follow up.

Next month, Yokosuka personnel also will participate in the Department of Defense’s Health-Related Behavior survey on the prevalence of alcohol and tobacco use, mental health and employment stress within the active-duty population. The triennial study targets servicemembers from 60 worldwide military bases.

Stars and Stripes reporter Teri Weaver contributed to this report.

U.S. serviceman held on suspicion of forcibly touching Japanese woman

May 2 06:43 AM US/Eastern

(AP) - AOMORI, Japan, May 2 (Kyodo) — Japanese police arrested a 22-year-old U.S. serviceman Friday on suspicion of forcibly touching a Japanese woman in Hachinohe, Aomori Prefecture, which is near the U.S. Air Force's Misawa Air Base, the police said.

The serviceman, who is based at Misawa, allegedly grabbed the 19-year- old woman from behind on a street in Hachinohe, about 600 kilometers north of Tokyo, at around 3:45 a.m. Friday.

The suspect, identified as James Littlejohn, an airman first class, allegedly had consumed alcohol. He is suspected of forcibly touching the woman's rear, the police said.

Littlejohn has admitted to having been around the site, the police said.

The woman was heading home after visiting a friend. After receiving a report from the woman, the police located the suspect in a car on a national highway linking Hachinohe with Misawa and took him into custody.

A spokesman for the air base declined to comment, saying the U.S. side has yet to obtain details of the incident.

Shinji Kuroda, 72, a senior member of a community association around Misawa base, said, "Japanese residents strongly want U.S. military personnel to tighten discipline if the U.S. forces aim at achieving coexistence and co-prosperity with us."

Japan's Penal Code sets a punishment of imprisonment of more than six months and up to 10 years for forcibly committing an indecent act on another person.

Japan peace groups to unveil WWII monument in Guam

May 2 02:38 AM US/Eastern

TOKYO, May 2 (AP) - (Kyodo) — Japanese peace groups are set to unveil a cenotaph in Guam on May 18 to honor the more than 20,000 Japanese and U.S. soldiers as well as islanders who lost their lives in the Battle of Guam in 1944.

Peace Ring of Guam, a Guam-based nonprofit organization, and its Japanese arm have erected the monument by the sea in Agat Village, one of two locations on the western coast where U.S. forces landed and fought with Japanese troops.

Kensuke Haga, vice president of the Guam group, said he hopes many Japanese tourists will visit the Agat WWII Peace Memorial Monument and learn about wartime incidents on the resort island including massacres by Japanese soldiers of members of the local Chamorro ethnic group.

"We want to share the pain Japan inflicted on the Chamorro people during the war to create true friendship between Japan and Guam," Haga, 59, said.

Guam, a popular tropical resort for Japanese tourists, is known as the site where some 8,000 Marines based in the southern Japan prefecture of Okinawa will be relocated in line with a 2006 Japan-U.S. agreement on the realignment of the U.S. military.

"But the number of people who know about Guam's war history is very limited" and it was this reality that prompted the peace group to build the cenotaph, Haga said.

The Chinese "kanji" character for the Japanese word "wa" (harmony) is engraved in the center of the marble cenotaph, which is 2.4 meters wide and 1.7 meters high and cost 3.6 million yen.

The character is based on calligraphy by former Imperial Japanese Army soldier Shoichi Yokoi who was found in a jungle in Guam in 1972 believing that Japan and the United States were still at war.

The village of Agat has provided a site for a planned tourist center where the cenotaph stands.

Agat Mayor Carol Tayama told Kyodo News that she welcomes the project as she has worked hard to "encourage harmony between the Japanese and Chamorros." She also said, "I am very proud we can have the monument to signify the feeling we have."

The old imperial Japanese military invaded Guam, a U.S. possession since 1898, in December 1941 and the U.S. military reoccupied the 550- square-kilometer island after landings July 21, 1944 on the western coast at Agat and Asan. It is believed that nearly 20,000 Japanese soldiers and more than 1,000 U.S. soldiers as well as some 700 islanders were killed in the battle, according to Haga and the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare.

Peace Ring of Guam Japan, based in Tokyo, plans to send a delegate to the ceremony. The group comprises former Japanese soldiers and people who lost their relatives in the fighting in Guam as well as their supporters.

Heitaro Matsumoto, a 67-year-old corporate executive who heads the Tokyo group, said, "We should not let the history of the Battle of Guam fade with time."

Unlicensed Japanese staff take X-rays at Yokota base: labor sources

May 2 02:21 AM US/Eastern

TOKYO, May 2 (AP) - (Kyodo) — Some Japanese employees at the U.S. Air Force's Yokota air base in the western suburbs of Tokyo have been taking X-rays for U.S. military personnel and civilian employees there without a license from Japan's health minister, labor sources said Friday.

Under Japanese law, only physicians, dentists and licensed radiological technologists are allowed to engage in such activities.

At Yokota base, which is the headquarters of U.S. Forces Japan, about 20 Japanese employees have undergone professional training in X- raying. But some of them have been taking X-rays without obtaining due license from the Japanese minister of health, labor and welfare, the sources said.

Domestic laws are applied to Japanese employees at U.S. military bases in Japan who are nominally hired by the Japanese government for service to the U.S. forces.

The Japan Garrison Forces Labor Union, which is formed by Japanese employees at U.S. military bases in Japan, said it has asked the Japanese Defense Ministry to stop the practice.

The union, known as Zenchuro, said Yokota base's dental unit introduced digital-type radiological equipment in October 2007. At that time, base authorities instructed all the Japanese employees at the dental unit to undergo training and to take X-rays when necessary.

After receiving the training, some of the 20 employees began to take X-rays at the base in March this year, the union said.

Japan's radiological technologist law restricts the use of radiography because of risks of exposure to radioactivity.

The law sets the punishment as imprisonment of up to one year or a fine of up to 500,000 yen for those who take X-rays without a license.

Japan's Defense Ministry said it will ask the U.S. forces about the matter, while the U.S. forces public relations office declined to comment, saying the matter is under investigation.

Japan arrests U.S. serviceman for sexual assault

Fri May 2, 12:37 AM ET

TOKYO (Reuters) - Police in northern Japan arrested a U.S. serviceman on Friday for sexually assaulting a young woman, in the latest in a string of such cases involving American military that have sparked anger among Japanese.

The 22-year-old man, stationed at Misawa Air Base in Aomori prefecture, at the northern tip of Japan's main island, is alleged to have groped the woman on the street early Friday morning, a police spokesman said.

Kyodo news agency said the victim was 19 and was walking home from a friend's house alone when attacked.

Police declined to give further details and U.S. Forces were not immediately available for comment on an incident that will cause fresh embarrassment.

A U.S. Marine faces a court martial on charges of kidnapping and raping a 14-year-old girl on Japan's southern island of Okinawa in February, in a case that sparked demonstrations on the island.

Four other U.S. Marines from a base in southwest Japan also face court martial over the rape of a Japanese woman last year and a U.S. sailor was arrested by Japanese police last month on suspicion of murdering a taxi driver.

The commander of U.S. troops in Japan, Lt. Gen. Edward Rice, said at his first news conference in April he would demand high standards of behavior from the 50,000 or so U.S. military personnel based in Japan.

The communities that host U.S. bases often complain of associated noise, crime and pollution, though some local people rely on them to make a living.

(Reporting by Isabel Reynolds)

New cruise ships boost tourism to record high

Date Posted: 2008-05-02

Tourists visiting Okinawa increased by 3.3% in 2007, and Prefecture officials say new cruise line routes were a primary reason.

An increased number of charter air flights were also credited with bringing 5,892,300 tourists to Okinawa last year, a number just shy of the 5.9 million the tourism division had predicted. Also counted as a boon to travelers was the start to Hong Kong Airlines flights to the island.

Okinawa has set the target of 6.2 million tourists for this year, a number called ‘achievable’. International tourism accounted for 95% of the increase. Only a 1.7% rise in domestic tourists was recorded. One specialty Okinawa is touting is the islands’ idyllic location for weddings. Resorts have created special wedding packages for couples, and many have their own wedding halls and chapels. Most are located along the ocean, presenting the beaches as island paradise for newly weds.

The continued increase in oil prices is worrisome to tourism officials who fear the troubled airlines will raise their airfares and discourage people from traveling. Okinawa officials say thus far, things are looking good for 2008, noting international tourism was up 91.2% in March, while even domestic visitors improved by 1.1%.

Kadena launches planes early despite appeals

Date Posted: 2008-05-02

Residents of three communities surrounding Kadena Air Base had asked the Air Force not to permit combat aircraft to take off during nighttime hours, and are angry because the military did it anyway.

The 5:11 a.m. launch of an F-15 fighter jet and two lumbering refueler aircraft Sunday rattled windows, irritating citizens. A vigilant resident in Kadena Town measured the aircraft noise at 96 decibels. “Most residents had been sleeping very well, but the big noise of planes is disturbing people’s sleep and disturbing our peaceful life,” says Masaharu Noguni, the Chatan Town mayor. Chatan Town and Okinawa City also abut the sprawling U.S. base.

“We only ask that they wait 50 minutes more,” said the mayor. “Six o’clock is the agreed upon time. Why can’t the American military listen to our request and be considerate of other people’s lives,” he asks. Noguni says he doesn’t think it is “so difficult to wait until the agreed time.”

“My ears are hurting,” said one area mother. “I can’t sleep anymore. The early wake ups have made our life circle a mess, and we might get sick from the noise.” A 30-year Kadena Town resident says “I love Kadena Town very much, and if we didn’t have noise problems from the planes, Kadena Town would be very beautiful. The noise,” he adds, “has always been a problem.”

Police seek custody of GI’s on 2006 robbery charges

Date Posted: 2008-05-02

A taxi robbery in Okinawa City nearly two years ago has finally drawn a request to the military for assistance.

Okinawa City Police are asking the US military to investigate the July 2006 taxi robbery in the city’s Chuo District, where two foreigners attempted to strangle the taxi driver before stealing ¥20,000~30,000. The robbers also took $300 from the cabbie. Okinawa City Police say the case was well documented at the time of the crime, telling military officials the two suspects actually had confessed.

Now, police want to refer the matter to prosecutors. They say the evidence is still in place, including files with the public prosecutor’s office, but they need military help since the suspects are American service personnel.

Taxi robbery ringleader awaits Japanese trial

Date Posted: 2008-05-02

A 22-year-old Air Force security policeman who conspired with four teenagers to attack and rob a taxi driver in Okinawa City is now in Japanese custody, awaiting the Naha District Court to set a trial date.

Airman First Class Darius Antowann Brunson is charged by Japanese authorities with both assault and robbery in an incident when a 55-year-old taxi driver was robbed and beaten in an Okinawa City entertainment area. The driver was robbed of ¥6,000 and other goods totaling nearly ¥4,000 more. Brunson, police say, didn’t actually strike the driver, but instead, was the group leader who drove the car taking the teens away from the scene.

Brunson, assigned to the 18th Security Forces Squadron at Kadena Air Base, is charged with leading the four teenage dependents of military service members, ages 15~19, into the robbery attempt. Police say Brunson had plotted the robbery with them at his home on Kadena.

U.S. report hints at delay in relocation of Marines in Okinawa to Guam

May 1 10:45 PM US/Eastern

(AP) - WASHINGTON, May 1 (Kyodo) — A U.S. government agency said Thursday the planned relocation of Marines to Guam from Japan's Okinawa Prefecture by 2014 set by Washington and Tokyo could be delayed, citing the new host's infrastructure and both governments' fiscal burdens.

The U.S. Government Accountability Office said in a report submitted to the Senate that some U.S. Defense Department and Guam officials "believe that this is an optimistic schedule."

The relocation plan is part of an agreement struck between the United States and Japan in May 2006 to realign the U.S. military presence in Japan by 2014.

Any delay in relocating Marines to Guam could affect another key element of the agreement -- relocating the U.S. Marine Corps Futemma Air Station's heliport functions from downtown Ginowan to Nago, both in Okinawa.

While noting uncertainties over the final size of the military population and the kind of military facilities to be built, the GAO report touched on the possibility that an environmental impact assessment could be delayed.

It also referred to "the complexities of moving thousands of Marines and their dependents to Guam, and the need to obtain sufficient funding from the governments of the United States and Japan to support the move."

Furthermore, the report raised concerns about the capacity of Guam's infrastructure such as highways, the electrical system, the water and wastewater treatment systems, and the solid waste facilities.

Also published in:

""GAO report hints at delay in Guam relocation"
The Associated Press
Posted : Friday May 2, 2008 7:47:27 EDT

New U.S. base accord takes effect

Friday, May 2, 2008
Kyodo News

A bilateral agreement took effect Thursday obliging Japan to pay some ¥140 billion a year to support U.S. military bases through fiscal 2010, the Foreign Ministry said.

Implementation of the accord came a month after the previous pact expired March 31 due to a delay in the Diet.

The Special Measures Agreement came into effect after the U.S. and Japan concluded an exchange of notes earlier in the day.

The opposition-dominated House of Councilors rejected extending the accord in late April as the opposition camp complained that some of the money assigned to maintain the bases had been used to hire employees for entertainment facilities such as bars and bowling alleys.

But the accord, which had cleared the House of Representatives in early April, nevertheless cleared the Diet and went into effect as decisions on treaties by the more powerful Lower House take precedence under the Constitution.

Gas stations pump prices to new highs

Friday, May 2, 2008
Kyodo News

Filling stations started raising gasoline prices to all-time highs Thursday after the Diet passed a tax code bill to reinstate a highly unpopular surcharge in the middle of the Golden Week holidays.

One gas station in Setagaya Ward, Tokyo, raised the price of a liter of regular to ¥157 from ¥124.

Photo: Taxing situation: Prices are up again Thursday at a gas station in Nishi Ward, Osaka, just one day after a bill was rammed through the Lower House reinstating road-related surcharges.

"We cannot remain profitable unless we hike prices," said Dai Sato, the 36-year-old manager of the station along Kanpachi road. "We may see some drivers refrain from buying gas at our shop for the time being."

A man who came to the station to fill up his tank said he was fed up.

"I cannot tolerate these higher prices. I cannot forgive the politics" that has been confusing consumers.

A gas station in Tokyo's Ginza area jacked up the price of regular by ¥30 overnight to ¥160, confirming analysts' predictions that retail gasoline prices are likely to soar to an all-time high of around ¥160.

This means the cost of filling up a 75-liter gas tank will come to an eye-popping ¥12,000.

In remote areas, however, some gas stations are already breaking the anticipated average. In Sado Island, Niigata Prefecture, for example, a gas station hiked the price of regular to ¥171 from ¥143 a liter.

The reinstatement of the ¥25.1 gasoline tax surcharge was enabled by the Diet's forced passage Wednesday of the tax code bill, which was boycotted by the opposition and required an override by the ruling-camp controlled Lower House.

The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry said Wednesday that it will carry out an emergency survey aimed at preventing price-gouging by retailers.

The restoration of the surcharge is expected to prompt oil companies to raise wholesale gasoline prices by around ¥30 as they pass the cost of higher crude oil prices onto shipments.

The timing of the price hikes will differ by gas station. Some still have fuel inventories that were delivered after the additional levy expired in April.

In addition, some gas station operators said they will be unable to raise prices during the Golden Week holidays because of intense competition from rivals.

But others started raising prices immediately to cover losses caused by the price cuts in April, which stuck them with gasoline shipped under the higher rate, before the end of March.

EDITORIAL :: Constructive solution needed

Friday, May 2, 2008

The ruling bloc has re-enacted a tax code bill to restore gasoline and other road-related tax surcharges by voting it in a second time with a two-thirds majority in the Lower House — a procedure provided by the Constitution. This is the first time in 56 years that such a revote was taken. The timing, just before Golden Week begins, is sure to offend many people.

The government, the Liberal Democratic Party and Komeito say that a failure to hold a revote would have led to a tax revenue loss of ¥2.6 trillion — ¥1.7 trillion for state coffers and ¥900 billion for local governments — mainly for road-related projects. The ruling bloc plans to hold another similar revote on May 13 to re-enact a bill to use revenue from the road-related taxes for road construction projects for 10 years from fiscal 2008.

While determined to go ahead with the second revote, Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda has proposed to free up the tax revenue for general purposes from fiscal 2009. After the ruling bloc's defeat on Sunday in the Lower House by-election in Yamaguchi Prefecture, he now says that the Cabinet will officially endorse his proposal.

But seeking the second revote while proposing to free up the tax revenue is contradictory. The ruling bloc will not be able to gain people's understanding if it pushes forward the second revote without at least strictly reviewing road construction plans for the coming 10 years.

The opposition Democratic Party of Japan is likely to pass a censure motion against Mr. Fukuda in the Upper House if the ruling bloc holds the second revote. The passing of the motion will intensify a political confrontation.

The DPJ must take the utmost care to ensure that Mr. Fukuda's proposal to free up the tax revenue will not be emasculated in confusion. The party, which has called for abolition of the surcharges from fiscal 2008, also should fully explain where funds can be found to make up for a tax revenue loss.

The opposition bloc should focus on seeking solutions to pressing issues such as road-related taxes, the pension scheme and the new health insurance scheme for elderly people through Diet deliberations, rather than relying on a belligerent tactic.

Pump prices soar after gas bills pushed through

05/02/2008
THE ASAHI SHIMBUN

Gasoline prices rose sharply Thursday at service stations nationwide, a day after the ruling coalition railroaded bills through the Lower House to restore higher gas and other road-specific taxes.

Many stations were almost empty. Up until the early hours of Thursday, long lines formed at pumps as drivers sought last-minute savings.

Photo: After gas prices rebounded Thursday, this gas station in Tokyo's Setagaya Ward has no customers.

The bills reinstated a gas tax surcharge of 25 yen per liter that expired March 31 as they stalled in the opposition-controlled Upper House. The higher rate took effect Thursday, and many gas retailers raised prices by a larger margin--30 yen or more per liter--to pass on higher oil prices and recoup losses in April from the competition.

At some stations in the Tokyo area, regular gasoline sold for about 160 yen per liter. The national average on April 28 was 130.6 yen.

"Since we opened at 8 a.m., we have served only five customers," said a pump attendant after 10 a.m. at a station in Saitama. "That's about one-tenth of our usual number."

A few gas pumps in areas where tough competition continues are keeping their prices low--but only as long as their inventories, delivered prior to the surcharge, hold out.

The Liberal Democratic Party and New Komeito steamrolled the bills through in a second vote in the Lower House, relying on their two-thirds majority.

To enable the vote, the coalition resorted to Article 59 of the Constitution, which allows the Lower House to vote again on a bill that has not been put to a vote by the Upper House within 60 days after the lower chamber first approved it.

It was the first time in 56 years the 60-day rule had been used.

The vote was 337 to 12, with a sea of empty seats. The opposition parties boycotted the vote, with the exception of Japanese Communist Party lawmakers, who voted against the bills.

Local governments, forced to suspend road projects due to revenue shortfalls, welcomed the passage. But the move will hit family finances hard, coming together with higher food prices and adding to consumer frustration.

"Higher gas prices weigh heavy on our family budget. We have given up side-dishes and eat only rice balls for lunch," said a 55-year-old woman who works for a delivery business.

Kogen Okada, an economist at Nomura Securities Financial & Economic Research Center, was concerned about the bills' economic impact.

"The return of higher gas prices, coming amid rising commodity prices, could further cool consumer confidence," he said.

After the bills passed, Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda asked for public understanding in a news conference.

"I decided it was necessary to end the irresponsible state of affairs leading to revenue shortfalls," he said. "It was really a tough decision to ask the people to bear the burden again when they have a hard time making ends meet."

Opposition Minshuto (Democratic Party of Japan) called for a Lower House resolution on grounds the passage was in effect a tax increase of 2.6 trillion yen.

The Diet focus now shifts to a May 12 vote on a bill to extend road-specific use of the gas tax and other revenues.(IHT/Asahi: May 2,2008)

Briefly: 'Yasukuni' to be shown in Tokyo

05/02/2008

After a series of false starts, the controversial documentary "Yasukuni" will have its first public screening starting Saturday at Cine Amuse in Tokyo's Shibuya Ward.

Other movie houses canceled initial plans to screen the documentary after protests from right-wing groups.

Police and the documentary's distributors are preparing for "unexpected problems."

Some have criticized the film, directed by China's Li Ying, as being biased, while a number of people shown in footage, as well as shrine officials, complained they were not asked for permission about filming.

The theater plans to show the 123-minute documentary with English subtitles four times daily through May 9.

The documentary focuses on war-related Yasukuni Shrine, which honors Class-A war criminals from World War II along with the nation's war dead.(IHT/Asahi: May 2,2008)

POLITICAL PULSE / DPJ finds itself at crossroads

Tetsuya Harada

The main opposition Democratic Party of Japan celebrated the 10th anniversary of its founding Sunday.

The party has grown into the largest force in the House of Councillors and it continues to gather momentum, as was evidenced in its easy victory Sunday--the very day of its anniversary--over the ruling Liberal Democratic Party in the Yamaguchi Constituency No. 2 by-election for the House of Representatives.

Despite such a politically advantageous situation, the party's popularity rate remains sluggish and it still lacks a clear path to becoming the ruling party--the party's ultimate goal.

At a press conference Sunday night, held following the party's victory in Yamaguchi, DPJ Secretary General Yukio Hatoyama stressed his determination to work hard to ensure the party comes to power, and said the victory in Yamaguchi Prefecture was the starting point of the road to power.

"Prime Minister [Yasuo] Fukuda's administration should reflect on its policies regarding road-related taxes and other issues and turn over a new leaf," Hatoyama said. "We urge him to dissolve the lower house and hold a general election as early as possible to put the government's public mandate to the test."

DPJ President Ichiro Ozawa echoed the call for a change of government. "To improve people's lives, a change of government is needed to carry out a major spring cleaning of Japanese politics," Ozawa said. "So, let's join hands to accomplish this great task of changing the party in power."

Nevertheless, the mood of exaltation--similar to the mood in the party when it scored a resounding victory in the upper house election in July--is not felt by everyone in the party.

Behind the upbeat comments of the party's leadership, the party has been hampered by its inability to take concerted action on key policies due to its diverse composition. Some DPJ members revolted against party leadership decisions to oppose both a bill to resume the Maritime Self-Defense Force's refueling mission in the Indian Ocean and a bill on road-related taxes to reinstate the provisional gasoline tax rate.

In addition, voices of discontent within the DPJ about Ozawa have been growing louder. Some complain that it is hard to understand Ozawa's leadership methods, citing his unrelenting confrontational stance toward the LDP, a position he has adopted despite previously seeking to form a grand coalition with the party. Others have claimed that the party's policies are being determined without input from the rank-and-file members and that the party's tradition of free and open exchange of opinions is being undermined.

As such, various conflicts are smoldering within the party and threaten to ignite.

===

Lack of unity over past decade

The current DPJ was formed on April 27, 1998, through a merger of the former DPJ with a group from the New Frontier Party, which disbanded at the end of 1997. Over the past decade, the DPJ has appealed to voters as a party that listens to public opinion when it forms policies, using catchphrases such as "citizens are the main players."

However, the party has frequently lacked unity when it comes to forging a consensus on such basics as security, education and foreign policy. As a result, the party has failed to unify opinion at decisive political turning points, leaving it unable to take power.

Shortly after the party merged in 2003 with the now-defunct Liberal Party, led by Ozawa, the party won nearly 200 seats in a lower house election, and party executives prepared to take the reins of power in the next general election.

In the 2005 lower house election, however, the DPJ suffered a crushing defeat to the LDP as the administration led by then Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi swept to victory under the banner of postal privatization to promote structural reform. The DPJ was unable to agree on postal reform plans that appealed to voters.

With the opposition bloc now holding a majority in the upper house, the next lower house election is said to be a golden opportunity for it to seize power. And there is no doubt the party has gained momentum as a result of its victory of the lower house by-election in Yamaguchi Prefecture last month.

However, many political pundits in Nagatacho, the country's political hub, remain skeptical about the DPJ's prospects.

According to their opinions, although there is a lingering criticism of the LDP and Fukuda, whose political aims are poorly defined, the DPJ, which seems to be concentrating on backing the administration into a corner, has failed to earn a good reputation.

Many voters welcomed the fall in gas prices that followed the expiration of the provisional gas tax rate and have criticized the government for its poor handling of the pension system and the new medical insurance system for the elderly aged 75 or older. Nevertheless, the DPJ's policies and tactics in the Diet have not necessarily won it any plaudits.

A Yomiuri Shimbun opinion poll in mid-April showed the Fukuda administration's approval rating had dwindled to 30 percent, the lowest level since Fukuda took office in September.

By party, however, while 30 percent of the respondents said they support the LDP, only 17 percent said they support the DPJ.

Asked whether they supported Ozawa's decision to oppose Fukuda's proposal to allocate revenues from road-related taxes to general spending from fiscal 2009, more than 60 percent of the respondents said they did not.

The ruling parties, in a revote by the lower house on Wednesday, passed into law tax code bills that included one to revive the provisional gasoline tax rate, using the greater-than-two-thirds majority the ruling bloc holds in the house to force the legislation through.

The government and the ruling parties also plan a revote on another bill to enable the government to allocate gasoline tax revenues to road construction and maintenance projects for the next 10 years on May 12 or later, when 60 days will have passed since the upper house received the bill passed by the lower house.

The Constitution stipulates that if the upper house fails to reach a decision within 60 days of receiving a bill passed by the lower house, the lower house can proceed as if the upper house has rejected the bill and put it to a second vote for final approval.

The DPJ reportedly is considering submitting a censure motion against Fukuda to the upper house--where it likely will be approved--after the bill is passed into law, in order to drive the ruling parties into dissolving the lower house for a general election. However, it remains uncertain whether the public will support such a tactic.

The party plans to entirely refuse to enter into deliberations at the Diet after the censure motion is approved in the upper house. But if the DPJ continues to refuse Diet deliberations for an extended period, it leaves itself open to public criticism. In that event, some members within the party likely would come out against the strategy.

Will the DPJ be able to unify itself to take advantage of the golden opportunity to take power it is presented with? On its 10th anniversary, the party stands at a crossroads.

Harada is a deputy political news editor of The Yomiuri Shimbun.

(May. 2, 2008)

Fukuda’s successor faces tough job

By David Pilling
Published: May 1 2008 17:20

Rather than who comes after Yasuo Fukuda, a better question is: what comes next?

If things stay as they are, the prime minister’s successor will head a party with little possibility of getting anything done. Just as now, the upper house will be controlled by the opposition Democratic party of Japan (DPJ), a situation likely to prevail until 2013, by when all the house members must stand for re-election.

Worse, the new leader of the Liberal Democratic party (LDP) will have to call a lower house election in which the party is bound to lose its two-thirds super-majority, with which it can override upper house vetoes, a strategy Mr Fukuda used twice. Without that majority, his successor will be even more hamstrung.

One possibility is the next prime minister will be Ichiro Ozawa, leader of the DPJ. But to turn the LDP’s lower house advantage into a DPJ majority would take an unimaginable swing.

Mr Ozawa, a Machiavellian wheeler-dealer, also appears more comfortable in his role as nuisance-in-chief. “Ozawa is still leader of the opposition, not yet leader of a potential governing party,” says Jiro Yamaguchi, a political commentator and DPJ sympathiser.

The impasse has led some to predict a wholesale political realignment. Then again, people have been saying that since the puncturing of the asset price bubble in 1990 damaged the LDP’s legitimacy. The prediction continues to fall foul of the ruling party’s genius for hanging on by hook or by crook.

Takao Toshikawa, a political commentator, has in particular been watching the recent behind-the-scenes machinations by Junichiro Koizumi, the prime minister from 2001 to 2006. Mr Koizumi, who built a career on threatening to smash his party, the LDP, is known to have held meetings with cross-party groups, including young like-minded politicians. That has led some to speculate that the next general election could trigger a realignment in which free-market advocates rally round one leader.

Mr Yamaguchi says that any such leader would have to come from the left, much as Mr Koizumi did when he emerged as an unlikely victor in the 2001 party elections. However, Mr Koizumi, conscious that he went out on a high note, has ruled out a comeback.

Among the possible mavericks who could fulfil a similar role, most often named is Yuriko Koike, a popular female politician who has served as both environment and, briefly, defence minister. Ms Koike is ambitious but, as a political gadfly who has spent time in several parties, she does not have a bedrock of support within the LDP, where she has made her political home.

Even if she did run for LDP president, she would almost certainly come up against Taro Aso, the former foreign minister beaten into second place by Mr Fukuda last September. Mr Aso, a manga-reading patriot on the right of centre, has the appearance of being an outsider. But like Shinzo Abe, the former prime minister with whom he was closely allied, he is a blue-blooded aristocrat from a long political line.

There are several other possible contenders lurking within the LDP but, unless something happens to break the parliamentary logjam, the top job may not be all it is cracked up to be, as Mr Fukuda and Mr Abe before him have found. Tenure at the top of the greasy pole could well be uncomfortable and brief.

Fukuda’s popularity suffers further blow

By David Pilling in Tokyo
Published: May 1 2008 17:01

Rumour has it that Yasuo Fukuda, Japan’s embattled prime minister, has told close colleagues he would like to stay in power longer than Shinzo Abe, his predecessor, if only by a single day. That would mean hanging on for 366 days, taking him to the end of September, comfortably past the Group of Eight summit he is due to chair in July.

“That’s what he wants,” says Takao Toshikawa, a political analyst and editor of Inside Line. “But he may not get it.”

In the past few days, Mr Fukuda’s already wobbly administration has become wobblier still.

Last weekend, his Liberal Democratic party lost an important by-election in a normally safe seat in Yamaguchi, western Japan. Voters, annoyed that six years of economic growth have failed to improve their living standards and bored with politics-as-usual, elected the opposition Democratic party of Japan candidate by a hefty margin.

This week, Mr Fukuda’s government risked making itself even more unpopular by reimposing a petrol tax bang in the middle of an important holiday – the rough equivalent of a British prime minister doubling the price of wine and turkey on December 24.

Mr Fukuda held a press conference to explain that the tax – suspended in April after the DPJ’s intervention – was needed to plug a Y2,600bn ($25bn) hole in public finances and to maintain roads. But even he conceded that: “When each and every member of the public is trying hard to make ends meet  . . . it is a difficult to ask for an additional burden.”

The twin blow is unlikely to do much for Mr Fukuda’s already waning popularity, now at a shaky 25 per cent according to some polls, near the level that spelt the end of Mr Abe. Experts say that a drop below 20 per cent could yield rumbling from within his own party for him to step down.

“The political life of Mr Fukuda has almost expired,” says Jiro Yamaguchi, a professor of political science at Hokkaido university. “It is very likely that July’s G8 summit will be his farewell event.”

If Mr Fukuda’s tenure indeed proves so short-lived, it will match the year-long implosion that was Mr Abe’s premiership. Two quick-fire prime ministers in a row could bring back an era of revolving-door leaders that lasted throughout the 1990s, until Junichiro Koizumi held on to power for nearly six years from 2001.

Mr Koizumi’s premiership had held out the promise of a new era of political stability, in which elected leaders could act decisively, confident in their popular mandate. Those days, at least temporarily, appear to be over. But why?

One answer is political. Mr Fukuda inherited what, for Japan, was the extraordinary situation of a split parliament in which his LDP holds the powerful lower house but not the upper chamber. The split parliament mirrors the wild oscillations of an electorate that in 2005 handed Mr Koizumi’s LDP its biggest postwar majority but in 2007 savaged the same LDP, now led by Mr Abe.

Under the wily, sometimes unfathomable, leadership of Ichiro Ozawa, the opposition DPJ has used the control of the upper house it won last July to create legislative havoc, blocking bill after bill. Its interventions ended (temporarily) a naval mission to the Indian Ocean, forced a three-week vacancy at the head of the central bank, and halted (temporarily again) the Y25 tax on a litre of petrol.

Mr Ozawa’s supporters argue these tactics have forced real debate, shining light, for example, on shadowy subjects such as state road building and the proper relationship between monetary and fiscal policy. To his detractors – including some within his own party – he has merely been an obstructionist. Either way, some of the blame for legislative gridlock has rubbed off on the unhappy Mr Fukuda.

The other reason for the waning dynamism of the Koizumi era is economic. Even after six years of steady, if unspectacular, growth, many Japanese, particularly outside the big cities, are feeling as down­trodden as ever.

Wages have barely budged even though prices, led by food and petrol, have begun to rise. Wealth disparities have increased, undermining the LDP’s claim to be a party of equity. The central government has squeezed local government finances and cut once generous public works spending. Health and pension payments have gone up while benefits have been cut.

Gerry Curtis, a Japan expert at Columbia university, says the wild popularity enjoyed by Mr Koizumi owed more to his style than to policies whose effects are now being felt.

Mr Koizumi persuaded people that the pain they were feeling was doing the country good. Without him to sell the policies, ordinary people see them as merely an assault on their living standards.

Ruling finding ASDF dispatch to Iraq unconstitutional finalized

May 1 11:09 AM US/Eastern

NAGOYA, May 2 (AP) - (Kyodo) — A Nagoya High Court ruling that found Japan's dispatch of the Air Self-Defense Force to Iraq unconstitutional was finalized at midnight Thursday as plaintiffs did not appeal.

The finalization of the April 17 ruling means the government will continue to dispatch the ASDF despite the judicial judgment that the ASDF's airlift mission to Baghdad violates the war-renouncing Article 9 of the Constitution.

While ruling that the ASDF dispatch to Iraq was unconstitutional, the court dismissed an appeal by some 1,100 citizens against a lower court decision that the dispatch infringed on their right to live peacefully, making the state the winner of the lawsuit.

The state could not appeal as it won the suit. The plaintiffs did not appeal because they believe they have effectively won the suit given the court's finding that the dispatch was unconstitutional.

The high court said in the ruling that the ASDF's mission to airlift armed troops from multinational forces to Baghdad, a war zone, is an act integral to the use of force by other countries.

It was the first time a court has found the dispatch unconstitutional.

The ASDF has continued airlifting activities to and from Iraq even after the Ground Self-Defense Force ended its mission in July 2006.

Marine spouse gets suspended sentence for mailed pot

By Chiyomi Sumida, Stars and Stripes
Pacific edition, Monday, [sic May 2, 2008

NAHA, Okinawa — A Marine spouse was sentenced by a Japanese court Wednesday to one year in a Japanese prison, suspended for three years, for having marijuana mailed to her from the United States.

Jessica M. Montgomery, 23, nodded slightly but showed no other emotion as the judge read the verdict. She had pleaded guilty at an April hearing to having her mother mail 5.98 grams of marijuana from Ohio to her Camp Courtney post box last May.

The marijuana was detected by Japanese customs officials in a package received at the military postal distribution center on Camp Kinser.

During the sentencing, Judge Hiroyuki Yoshii said he suspended the sentence because Montgomery showed remorse and promised the court to never again touch an illegal substance.

At the previous hearing, the Japanese prosecutor argued for a recommended one-year prison term at hard labor. Montgomery’s lawyer asked the court to suspend the sentence.

Montgomery, who has not been in Japanese police custody, still faces punitive action from the Marine Base Inspector’s Office that could include being banned from military bases on Okinawa or being sent back to the United States.

U.S. opinion leaders' confidence in Japan reaches record high

May 1 10:41 AM US/Eastern

TOKYO, May 1 (AP) - (Kyodo) — A record high 92 percent of influential individuals in the United States consider Japan to be a "dependable" country, a survey by the Foreign Ministry showed Thursday.

For the "2008 U.S. Image of Japan Study" commissioned by the ministry, the Gallup Organization conducted a survey in February and March of 1,500 members of the general public aged 18 and over, and 250 government, academic, business, media, religious and labor leaders.

Among the general public, 67 percent said Japan is "dependable," down from 74 percent in the previous survey last year, while a record low 18 percent said they regard Japan as "not dependable," down 3 percentage points.

The U.S. survey, conducted almost every year since 1960, showed that a "good image of Japan is maintained" among the general public and influential people in the United States, the ministry said in its analysis of the results of the survey.

The two groups differed regarding Japan's defense capabilities, with 74 percent of opinion leaders supporting the idea of enhancing it, surpassing the 70 percent mark for the first time in 11 years, while only 46 percent of the general public supported the idea, slipping below 50 percent for the first time in seven years.

Meanwhile, the ministry also conducted a survey on Japan's image among major ASEAN countries of 300 citizens or permanent residents aged 18 and above in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

Among them, 30 percent said they consider China to be an important current partner for ASEAN and 33 percent said China will become important in the future. With regard to Japan, 28 percent said Japan is an important current partner, while only 23 percent said Japan will become an important future partner, according to the survey.

U.S. unchanged in mulling Japan stance on delisting N. Korea: Fukuda

May 1 07:45 AM US/Eastern

TOKYO, May 1 (AP) - (Kyodo) — Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda said Thursday the United States has not changed its position of taking into consideration Japan's stance on North Korea's abduction of its nationals, as the U.S. continues to deliberate on whether to remove Pyongyang from its list of states sponsoring terrorism.

Fukuda's comments came after the U.S. State Department on Wednesday kept North Korea on the list but reaffirmed its willingness to delist the country depending on the progress made in the six-party talks on dismantling Pyongyang's nuclear arsenal.

"We (Japan) remain unchanged in our basic thinking that the abduction, nuclear and missile issues must all be resolved, and I believe the U.S.-North Korea talks are being conducted with that in mind as well," the Japanese leader told reporters at his office.

"The United States knows well the situation involving the abduction issue, and it will deal with the matter based on this (premise). The situation has not changed," Fukuda said.

The State Department's annual Country Reports on Terrorism, which surveys terrorist activities around the globe and includes the list of states sponsoring terrorism, makes a brief reference to North Korea, similar to last year, reflecting the United States' softening stance on North Korea over the past year or so.

While the report addresses Japanese nationals abducted by North Korean agents, it mentions Washington's renewed willingness to remove Pyongyang from the list once North Korea follows through on its promise to declare and disable all its nuclear programs.

North Korea admitted in 2002 that it had abducted or lured into its territory 13 Japanese citizens in the 1970s and 1980s, saying that eight of them have died. The other five have since been repatriated to Japan.

The Japanese government recognizes four other nationals as victims of abduction by North Korea.

Tokyo's policy on Pyongyang is to resolve the abduction issue, as well as the North's nuclear and missile development in a comprehensive manner, while settling the unfortunate past in order to normalize relations with the reclusive state.

The six-party nuclear talks also involve host China, South Korea and Russia.

New Japan-U.S. host nation support accord comes into effect

Apr 30 11:24 PM US/Eastern

TOKYO, May 1 (AP) - (Kyodo) — A Japan-U.S. agreement came into effect Thursday obliging Japan to pay some 140 billion yen annually to support U.S. military bases in the country for three years through fiscal 2010, the Foreign Ministry said.

The implementation of the accord came a month after the previous agreement expired March 31 due to delayed parliamentary approval.

The Special Measures Agreement came into effect after the U.S. and Japanese governments concluded an exchange of notes earlier in the day.

The opposition-dominated House of Councillors rejected extension of the accord in the Diet in late April, with the opposition camp complaining that some of the money assigned to maintain U.S. military bases had been used to hire employees at entertainment facilities, such as bars and bowling alleys.

But the accord, which had already cleared the House of Representatives in early April, nevertheless cleared the Diet and went into effect as decisions by the powerful lower house on treaties, including the agreement in question, take precedence under the Constitution.

Under the agreement, Japan will shoulder expenses for U.S. bases such as utility and labor costs. Japan will also pay for the expenses which the United States has covered since the previous accord expired at the end of March.

Survey and crimes not linked: U.S.

Thursday, May 1, 2008
Kyodo News

The U.S. Forces Japan denied Wednesday that an upcoming survey of health-related behaviors at Yokosuka Naval Base in Kanagawa Prefecture is linked to recent crimes involving U.S. military personnel.

Master Sgt. Terence Peck, media relations chief at the headquarters of U.S. Forces Japan at Yokota Air Base in western Tokyo, said the May 19-30 survey is part of the U.S. Department of Defense's annual survey on about 20,000 active-duty service members at more than 60 military installations worldwide.

The spokesman denied an earlier Kyodo News report that said the U.S. Navy will start conducting a survey on the mental state of its military and civilian personnel in May as part of the soldier management program that has been implemented by the U.S. military as a crime prevention measure.

U.S. coerced court in '59 base case

Thursday, May 1, 2008
Kyodo News

The U.S. ambassador to Japan in 1959 pressured Japanese officials to overrule a lower court decision calling the U.S. military presence unconstitutional, according to recently declassified documents.

Ambassador Douglas MacArthur II, concerned about the ruling by the Tokyo District Court, pressed Foreign Minister Aiichiro Fujiyama to appeal the case directly to the Supreme Court, bypassing the high court, and held backroom talks with Kotaro Tanaka, the chief justice of the Supreme Court, the documents showed.

Photo: Hold the line: Demonstrators opposed to an expansion of the U.S. military base in Tachikawa, Tokyo, face off against police in July 1957.

MacArthur was a nephew of Gen. Douglas MacArthur, who oversaw the Allied Occupation of Japan from 1945 to 1951.

At the center of the matter was a 1957 incident, known as the Sunakawa case, in which seven people were arrested that July after demonstrating against an expansion of the U.S. military base in Tachikawa, Tokyo.

On March 30, 1959, in finding them not guilty, the district court also noted that the U.S. military presence in Japan violated the pacifist Constitution.

In a telegraph sent to the U.S. State Department the following day, MacArthur wrote that he met with Fujiyama earlier in the day and "stressed importance of GOJ (government of Japan) taking speedy action to rectify ruling by Tokyo District Court."

He added, "I expressed view that ruling not only created complications for security treaty discussions to which Fujiyama attaches such importance but also may create confusion in minds of public" and urged the Japanese government to bring it directly to the Supreme Court.

A telegraph from MacArthur to Washington that April 24 also showed the chief justice of the Supreme Court had contacted him.

The Supreme Court on Dec. 16, 1959, dismissed the district court decision and sent the case back to a lower court. Those arrested were eventually found guilty.

The telegraph and other related documents were found by Shoji Niihara, an expert on Japan-U.S. relations, in April at the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.

Gas tax bill is rammed through Diet

Thursday, May 1, 2008
By SETSUKO KAMIYA and MASAMI ITO
Staff writers

If you forgot to fill up your gas tank last night, you're out of luck.

Gasoline prices were poised to rise Thursday after the Liberal Democratic Party-New Komeito ruling bloc rammed a tax bill through the Diet on Wednesday to reinstate "provisional" extra rates for gasoline and other car-related taxes that expired last month.

Photo: Protesting in vain: Democratic Party of Japan lawmakers protest the ruling bloc's move to reinstate provisional rates on gasoline and other car-related taxes, with some holding signs calling for a snap election, in the Diet on Wednesday.

The Democratic Party of Japan, which tried to abolish the extra rates by getting them to expire, boycotted the overriding vote in protest. Overrides have now been used twice since the coalition lost control of the Upper House to the opposition last July.

The vote ensured that gas prices will climb about ¥25 on Thursday and stay there for another 10 years. With oil companies also set to pass higher crude oil costs onto shipment prices, the retail price of regular gasoline is expected to rise to an all-time high of around ¥160 per liter.

Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda told a news conference in the evening that reinstating the extra tax rates was a difficult but necessary decision, saying he wants the public to understand it.

"I am well aware that many people are against raising gasoline prices amid the rise in the prices of other daily products," Fukuda said. "But can we just leave this situation in which (the government) lacks revenue and (ignore) the urgent voices seeking solid measures addressing social welfare (issues) like medical treatment and the low birthrate?"

Fukuda said that in just the one month since the extra rates expired, the national and local governments saw a ¥180 billion shortfall in revenue. About 5,000 road-construction projects have been put on hold nationwide, he said.

The prime minister also said that no other country in the world is lowering gasoline prices, noting that the extra rates are necessary also from the viewpoint of environmental measures.

The opposition camp has been strongly pushing to let local municipalities use the road-linked levies for general purposes according to their needs.

Fukuda declared at the end of March that he would allow that to happen next fiscal year.

However, the ruling coalition is aiming to hold another overriding vote as early as May 12 to pass a bill that would allow gasoline and other car-related taxes to be used solely for road construction projects.

The DPJ has repeatedly hinted at the possibility of submitting a censure motion against Fukuda if the ruling bloc holds another revote in mid-May. This would be aimed at forcing Fukuda into dissolving the Lower House and calling a snap election.

Deputy DPJ chief Naoto Kan said a censure motion has never been passed against a prime minister in the Upper House, and doing so now would carry historic significance. But he also said the DPJ will consider the option carefully while watching developments over the next few weeks.

Article 59 of the Constitution gives the Lower House the authority to pass a bill with a two-thirds majority in a second vote, if the Upper House does not take up the bill within 60 days.

The lower chamber approved the tax reform bill Feb. 29, but the opposition-controlled Upper House refused to deliberate it for weeks in a bid to lower gasoline prices. The extra rates, which had been in place for decades, expired March 31, dropping gasoline prices by about ¥25 per liter.

Since the Upper House did not vote before the 60-day limit, which fell on Tuesday, the ruling bloc, which holds more than two-thirds of the seats in the Lower House, held the revote Wednesday.

"More than 70 percent of the public is against the ¥2.6 trillion tax hike, but the Lower House used its two-thirds majority and passed it. It's clear evidence that the lower chamber is very far from the will of the public," the DPJ's Kan said. "I believe they should just dissolve (the chamber and hold a general election)."

However, Fukuda denied any plans at the moment to dissolve the Lower House.

"I don't think (I) need to dissolve (the lower chamber) over each individual issue," Fukuda told the evening news conference. "(I) will consider comprehensively (whether or not to call a snap election) and come to a decision. Now is not the time."

Inside the Diet, as a last-minute bid to stop the second vote, more than 100 DPJ lawmakers gathered to shout and hold up banners protesting the ruling bloc's maneuver.

Machimura slammed the DPJ-led opposition camp for not voting on the bills for two months in the upper chamber in the first place. "It shows lack of responsibility. It's negligence," he said.

Japanese Parliamentary Struggles Over Revival of ‘Gasoline Tax’

MAY 01, 2008 07:18

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Japanese House of Representatives Speaker Yohei Kono (center) managed to enter the meeting arena after elbowing aside opposition lawmakers blocking his way on Wednesday. The opposition party opposes the ruling Liberal Democratic Party’s attempt to revive the "gasoline tax” and tried to stop him from entering the Diet. Although the provisional gasoline tax rate was set to expire on March 31, gasoline prices temporarily decreased as the main opposition Democratic Party opposed to the government’s measure. As the law passed the Japanese lower house, gasoline prices are expected to rise by 30 yen (about 290 won) to 160 yen.

Diet restores gas tax rate / Opposition parties fail in bid to block revote in lower house

The Yomiuri Shimbun

The Diet passed into law the tax code package of bills, including revisions to the Special Taxation Measures Law to revive the controversial provisional gasoline tax rate, in a revote Wednesday by the House of Representatives that came despite strong protests from the opposition bloc.

As a result, the so-called provisional gas tax rate, which expired at the end of March, will be revived on Thursday. Coupled with soaring crude oil prices, revived gasoline tax surcharges of 25.1 yen per liter are likely to push the average price of regular gasoline over 160 yen per liter by the end of May.


Photo: Opposition party members try to stop the opening of the House of Representatives plenary session Wednesday.

"The end result is that the general public is paying the price for the political disorder," Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda said at a press conference Wednesday evening. "[The government] will closely monitor the situation to ensure there are no opportunistic price hikes."

The lower house passed the package into law using the greater-than two-thirds majority the ruling parties hold in the lower house.

After immediately proclaiming the law, the Cabinet adopted an ordinance reinstating the road-related tax rates, including those on gasoline, effective from Thursday.

In protest at the revote, the main opposition Democratic Party of Japan and the Social Democratic Party refused to attend the day's two plenary sessions.

The timing of the gas price hike is likely to vary at individual gas stations as some still might have stocks of lower-priced gasoline they purchased in April. The gas tax is imposed on the product when it is shipped from refineries.

The package consisted of revisions to two national tax laws, including the Special Taxation Measures Law, and three local tax laws.

The government and the ruling parties plan on May 13 at the earliest to vote for the second time on a bill to revise the special law for revenues for road construction and improvement, which is designed to maintain the revenues earmarked solely for road improvement for 10 years.

At the same time, the government plans to decide at a Cabinet meeting to make the revenue sources available for general purposes from fiscal 2009.

Acting DPJ President Naoto Kan said his party planned to submit a censure motion at the House of Councillors against Fukuda over the issue "at the most effective time."

Before the opening of the day's first session, DPJ members tried to block lower house Speaker Yohei Kono from entering the plenary session chamber, with many of them holding placards protesting the reinstatement of the provisional gas tax rates. The opening of the session, scheduled for 1 p.m., was delayed for about one hour.

After the lower house approved the package on Feb. 29, the opposition-controlled upper house failed to take a vote on it. To pass the package into law, the ruling bloc decided to apply provisions of Article 59 of the Constitution, which stipulate that if the upper house fails to make a decision within 60 days of receiving a bill passed by the lower house, the lower house can proceed as if the upper house has rejected the bill and put it to a second vote for final approval.

After adopting a motion officially recognizing that the upper house rejected the tax code package in the first plenary session, the lower house approved the bills for a second time at the day's second session, held after the upper house sent back the motion.

The day's events enraged DPJ Secretary General Yukio Hatoyama.

"The action [to adopt a motion to recognize that the upper house rejected the package] is a provocative deed that could give weight to arguments that the upper house is unnecessary," Hatoyama said.

The move marked the second time this year that a bill has been passed into law with a revote in the lower house, coming after January's passage of the new Antiterrorism Law. It is the first time that the 60-day rule has been invoked since 1952, when a bill on asset transfers by national hospitals was passed into law.

The Japanese Communist Party attended both sessions and voted against both the motion and the bills.

The People's New Party attended the first plenary session to vote against the motion, but refused to attend the second session.

===

Reform talks brought forward

The government intends to have the Tax Commission discuss drastic tax system reforms as early as late May, sources said Wednesday.

The measure is aimed at expediting the plan proposed by Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda to put road-related tax revenues into the general revenue account from fiscal 2009. The government hopes that concrete steps to realize the plan will be included in its basic policy on economic and fiscal reform.

Since Fukuda intends to hold discussions on revenue sources for social security systems, including a possible hike in the consumption tax rate, talks on tax reform are now being brought forward, the sources said.

At a press conference Wednesday night at the Prime Minister's Office, Fukuda underscored his intention to use road-related tax revenues for general purposes, saying, "[The revenues] will be redirected so ordinary citizens will benefit from the revenues in terms of the various policies they want to see in place."

(May. 1, 2008)

PM must fulfill promise on road tax revenues

The Yomiuri Shimbun

Gasoline prices were lowered a month ago, but have now been restored to their previous levels. What exactly was all the fuss about?

By way of responding to this question, as well as to concerns raised by the public, Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda is now obliged to fulfill his pledge to incorporate road-related tax revenues--currently used exclusively for road-related projects--into the general purpose revenue account.

A set of tax code bills, including one to reinstate provisionally high rates of gasoline and other road-related taxes, were enacted Wednesday after a plenary session of the House of Representatives--controlled by the ruling parties--passed them with a second vote by a majority of two-thirds or more of those members present.

With the bills' passage, gasoline will cost more at the pumps. But had prices remained at the low levels seen last month, a budgetary shortfall of about 2.6 trillion yen would have resulted. Eventually, taxpayers would have had to stick their hands in their pockets to come up with this cash.

The government and the ruling parties saw it as their responsibility to enact the bills via a second vote in line with constitutional provisions.

===

Contradictions raised

At a press conference, Fukuda said a consultation panel comprising members from ruling parties should be set up to compile a bill, within the year, aimed at funneling all road-related tax revenues into the general account budget.

However, Fukuda's wish to realize this plan from fiscal 2009 contradicts a revision bill that stipulates special measures for revenue sources vis-a-vis road-related projects. This bill allows gasoline tax revenues to be used for road-related projects for the next 10 years.

The prime minister needs to thoroughly explain how road-related taxes would be used as general revenue, as well as seek public understanding over the issue to facilitate the expeditious passage of the bill.

The tax bills were enacted after they were deemed as having been rejected by the House of Councillors. A constitutional provision stipulates that if the upper house fails to take final action within 60 days of receiving a bill passed by the lower house, the lower house can constitute this as a rejection of the bill by the upper house.

The upper house's failure to even vote on the bill during the stipulated period in effect denied its own powers as a legislative organ.

It is our belief that the Democratic Party of Japan, the leading party in the upper house, bears a particularly heavy responsibility. If the DPJ was serious about abolishing the provisional tax rates, it should have presented more convincing alternative sources of revenue.

If the party merely boasts it has succeeded in lowering gasoline prices, it may lead down the dark alley of political populism, in which political leaders meekly kowtow to the general public.

===

Censure motion on hold

The DPJ and other opposition parties have decided--for the time being--not to submit to the upper house a censure motion against Fukuda.

If such a motion was presented and passed, it would mean the opposition camp could not hold question-and-answer sessions with the prime minister. In such a case, the only option left to the opposition camp would be to reject Diet deliberations.

As censure motions are not legally binding, there would be virtually no consequences if the prime minister chose to ignore such a protest. The opposition parties likely deemed they would be unable to force the Fukuda Cabinet to resign en masse--thus triggering the dissolution of the lower house and a subsequent snap election--even if they persevered with a strategy of rejecting Diet deliberations.

Rather than stubbornly continuing to play hardball, we believe the DPJ should hold talks with the ruling parties to ensure that moves toward funneling road-related tax revenues into the general revenue account would not be stymied. By doing so, the DPJ would better demonstrate its ability to take the reins of the government.

(From The Yomiuri Shimbun, May 1, 2008)
(May. 1, 2008)

Japan rams through controversial fuel tax bill

by Shingo Ito
Wed Apr 30, 12:58 PM ET

TOKYO (AFP) - Japan's ruling coalition on Wednesday rammed through bills to reimpose an unpopular petrol tax, ignoring an opposition boycott, as drivers queued at the pumps for last-minute buying.

The opposition tried to physically prevent a vote in parliament in a feud over the 25-billion-dollar tax bills, in the latest showdown since an election last year left Japan with a split parliament.

Photo: Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda holds a press conference at the prime minister's official residence in Tokyo. Japan's ruling coalition on Wednesday rammed through bills to reimpose an unpopular petrol tax, ignoring an opposition boycott, as drivers queued at the pumps for last-minute buying.

Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda's coalition used its two-thirds majority in the lower house of parliament to force through the bills after the opposition-led upper house did not vote on them.

It was only the second time since the 1950s that the government had used the two-thirds majority to impose its will. The opposition had threatened to seek early elections if the government went ahead.

But Fukuda, whose approval ratings have been slumping, said he had no plans to dissolve the lower house of parliament for a snap election, which does not need to be held until September 2009.

"I don't think we have to dissolve on every issue. The decision has to be made after a comprehensive judgement. Now is not the time," Fukuda told a news conference after the vote.

The tax, which added 25 yen (24 US cents) to each litre at the pump to raise money for road projects, expired on April 1 due to the deadlock in parliament.

Outside parliament, motorists queued up at filling stations for last-minute buying of cheaper petrol on anticipation that taxes will go up on Thursday.

The government issued a warning against stockpiling petrol at home, and police were questioning a 49-year-old driver in western Japan on suspicion of illegally hoarding petrol in a plastic tank.

The opposition argued that the tax hurts ordinary people at a time of soaring oil prices.

Photo: Lawmakers protest outside the lower house chamber.

Carrying banners which read, "Abuse of power! Listen to the people's voice!", about 100 opposition lawmakers tried symbolically to block the lower house speaker from entering the session for the vote.

"It is our duty to fight as we are the voice of the people," Naoto Kan, deputy chief of the Democratic Party, told his fellow lawmakers.

Kan said Wednesday that the opposition would make a decision in mid-May after discussions on other tax legislation on whether to pass a censure motion urging fresh elections.

The opposition has pledged to create a true two-party system in Japan, where Fukuda's Liberal Democrats have been in power for all but 10 months since the party's founding in 1955.

Fukuda has warned that ending the petrol tax will cost heavily indebted Japan 2.6 trillion yen (25 billion dollars) a year.

"When each and every member of the public is trying hard to make ends meet and to manage their households, it was a truly difficult decision to ask for an additional burden," Fukuda said.

But he said that looking at the nation's finances, "I judged that we must stop this irresponsible situation where we continue to see insufficient revenue."

The row comes three days after the government lost a by-election in the first vote for a parliamentary seat since Fukuda took over in September.

Fukuda, 71, had been seen as a safe pair of hands after the unpopular Shinzo Abe abruptly quit.

But his approval ratings have recently tumbled to Abe-like levels of below 30 percent in the wake of scandals, a controversial new insurance programme for the elderly and the dispute over the tax.

Japan's 1947 constitution allows the lower house to approve a bill in a second vote by a two-thirds majority even after the upper house rejects it or fails to vote for 60 days.

The ruling coalition in January overrode a bill for the first time since 1951 as it forced through a resumption of a naval mission in the Indian Ocean backing US-led military operations in Afghanistan.

Trouble-making U.S. soldiers in Japan? Are they crazy?

What to do about those American soldiers stationed at U.S. military bases in Japan who rape or annoy or sometimes even kill the locals, much to their Japanese hosts' consternation? How about trying to figure out what's going on in their heads?

Roughly 50,000 U.S. troop are now based in Japan; the broader, American military-related population there totals some 96,000 people. Discontent about the presence of the foreign troops on Japanese soil has been exacerbated by the recent news that Olatunbosun Ugbogu, a 22-year-old Nigerian national serving in the U.S. Navy in Japan, has been charged by Japanese prosecutors in the murder of a taxi driver in March of this year. "Japanese anger over the U.S. military presence [also] has grown...following an alleged rape in February of a 14-year-old girl by a U.S. Marine on Okinawa" in the far south of Japan, where more than half of all the U.S. troops in the country are stationed. Okinawa-based U.S. Marine Sergeant Tyrone Hadnott now faces a court-martial "on charges of kidnapping and raping" the adolescent girl. (Reuters; S.F. Gate "World Views," Apr. 25, 2008)

Kyodo/Reuters

In Japan, earlier this month, U.S. military officials escorted Olatunbosun Ugbogu (center), a Nigerian serving in the U.S. Navy there; the sailor has been charged by Japanese prosecutors in the murder of a taxi driver in March

In the face of such image-harming news as this, next month the U.S. Navy "will start conducting a survey on the mental state of about 20,000 of its military and civilian personnel in Japan following a spate of crimes....It will be the first such background check by the U.S. military in Japan....The survey is part of the soldier-management program that has been implemented by the U.S. military to prevent crime and is aimed at identifying those who misbehave or have violent personality traits....[Anyone who is] perceived to have a problem will be obliged to undergo counseling and other special-education programs. Should no improvement be made, [such a] person will be transferred [back] to the U.S." (Kyodo in the Japan Times)

Over in South Korea, where some 27,000 U.S. troops are stationed, the Korea Times reports that Washington "is likely to accept a request" by U.S. Army General Burwell Baxter Bell III, the American forces' top commander there, "to extend the length of tours [of duty] by U.S. troops [in South Korea] and have their families accompany them" while they are stationed in the East Asian country. The Korea Times notes that the government of South Korea "welcomes" the idea of extended tours of duty by U.S. soldiers, "while some critics are worried that the family-accompanied program, along with a plan to pause the reduction of U.S. troops, would burden South Korean taxpayers." These topics will be on the agenda when U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates visits Seoul in June.

Lee Jung-hoon/Yonhap, via Reuters

At the beginning of March, U.S. Marines and South Korean soldiers conducted a joint military drill at the U.S. Army's Rodriguez range in Pocheon, about 43 miles northeast of Seoul

"Currently, most U.S. troops [stationed in South Korea] are required to serve one-year tours without their families," the Korea Times reports. By contrast, it adds, at U.S. military installations in Europe and Japan, "about 75 percent of U.S. troops are accompanied by their families. Bell has reportedly formally recommended that the Pentagon extend tour lengths in South Korea to fall in line with those in Europe and Japan and to reflect South Korea's vast transformation from 'a war-ravaged country to a modern, first-world country.'" Earlier this year, Bell was quoted by the U.S. military newspaper, the Stars and Stripes, as saying: "It is unacceptable in the U.S. military today to have this kind of policy in place and in any way condone it." (Cited by the Korea Times)

The U.S. government "is expected to ask South Korea to pay more for the presence of its troops and their families during forthcoming defense cost-sharing talks...." South Korea "currently pays about $751 million..., or 43 percent[,] of costs related to the [U.S. Forces Korea] presence, while the United States has called on Seoul to pay more to reach the 50-50 level." (Korea Times)

Jo Yong-Hak/Reuters

South Korea, March 6, 2008: Anti-U.S. and anti-war protesters took part in a rally denouncing a joint military exercise involving American and South Korean troops

A separate Korea Times news article published earlier this month reported that the recently disclosed results of an opinion poll of first-year army cadets at the Korea Military Academy (KMA) in Seoul (data that had not been made known during the administration of former South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun, who left office in February) showed that 34 percent of respondents had named the United States as their country's main enemy. A former superintendent of the military academy, commenting on the survey's findings (that apparently were a few years old), noted that, by contrast, 33 percent of the cadets who had responded to the poll had named North Korea as South Korea's main enemy. The former military-academy official described the survey's results as "unbelievable, stressing [that] the respondents were those who were supposed to be[come] military officers." Meanwhile, the Korea Times article noted, the communist government of North Korea has not issued any official "document or official commentaries" that "describe South Korea as the main enemy" of Kim Jong-il's regime. Instead, North Korea has "reportedly defined the U.S. [as] a 'mortal enemy' and Japan [as] a 'longstanding enemy.'"

Posted By: Edward M. Gomez (Email) | April 30 2008 at 08:14 AM

US Navy in Japan to screen service members: officials

Apr 30 10:03 AM US/Eastern

The US Navy will conduct background checks on its 20,000 sailors and civilians in Japan after a series of crimes including the murder of a taxi driver, a local city office said Wednesday.

Photo: Rear Admiral James Kelly

Rear Admiral James Kelly, commander of US naval forces in close ally Japan, explained the plan in a visit to the mayor of Yokosuka, a port city near Tokyo that hosts the largest US naval base overseas.

In the survey starting next month, the first of its kind for US forces in Japan, the military will ask all 20,000 naval service members and civilian personnel about their lifestyles and attitudes.

If the military finds those with problematic attitudes or violent tendencies, it would give them intensive training and counselling, according to a document that the US Navy gave to the city.

"The programme drawn by the US Navy in Japan this time will be proposed to the (other) US forces in Japan in the mid and long-term," the document said.

In the latest in a series of alleged crimes by US forces, a sailor was charged with stabbing to death a taxi driver in Yokosuka in March.

The sailor, Olatunbosun Ugbogu, a 22-year-old Nigerian national, had deserted the naval base after reported trouble with other sailors. His lawyer said the deserter reported "hearing voices" telling him to stab the driver.

The incident has led to anger in Japan just months before the US military is set to deploy the controversial nuclear-powered USS George Washington in Yokosuka in August.

It will be the first nuclear-powered ship based in Japan, which is the only nation to have been attacked with nuclear weapons and long refused to have any nuclear-related armaments on its soil.

More than 40,000 US troops are based in the country under a security treaty reached after World War II, when Japan became officially pacifist. The US military frequently employs foreign nationals.

In February, a US Marine was accused of raping a 14-year-old girl on the southern island of Okinawa, which is home to more than half of the US troops in Japan.

Prosecutors did not indict him after the girl declined to pursue the high-profile case. But the US military announced last week it was court-martialling Staff Sergeant Tyrone Luther Hadnott.