Japan intercepts missile in milestone test

A Japanese navy destroyer shot down a ballistic missile on Monday in a test about 100 miles over the Pacific Monday, a first for a U.S. ally, U.S. and Japanese forces said.
The $55 million test was a "major milestone" in growing U.S.-Japanese cooperation, said Rear Adm. Katsutoshi Kawano of the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force and Lt. General Henry Obering, head of the Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency.
U.S.-Japanese missile-defense ties have grown greatly since North Korea fired a three-stage Taepo Dong 1 missile over Japan on August 31, 1998.
The interceptor was fired by JS Kongo, the first of four Japanese destroyers due to be outfitted to counter missiles that could carry chemical, biological or nuclear warheads.
By intercepting a missile similar in speed and size to those in North Korea's arsenal, "Japan has proven its capability to defend and protect their country from North Korean missiles," said Riki Ellison, a prominent missile-defense advocate who monitored the test.
The test involved a shipboard detection and tracking tool called Aegis built by Lockheed Martin Corp and the Standard Missile-3 interceptor, produced by Raytheon Co..
The medium-range target missile was launched from a U.S. range on Kauai, Hawaii. About three minutes later, the SM-3 intercepted it about 100 miles above the Pacific, a joint U.S.-Japanese announcement said.
The Kongo, armed with its SM-3 interceptors, will return to Japan to provide an "operational" antimissile capability to complement ground-based Patriot Advanced Capability-3 missiles already installed in Japan, Taylor said.

SHIELD AGAINST IRAN

The Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency is building a multibillion-dollar, layered shield it says is designed to defeat warheads that could be fired by Iran and North Korea. Japan is the leading U.S. partner in the effort, involved in joint research and development, including for a more advanced interceptor.
In addition, the U.S. and Japanese navies have worked out common tactics, techniques and procedures for their Aegis-equipped ships to shoot down enemy missiles, the U.S. Navy's Pacific Fleet said last week.
Such cooperation has angered Beijing, which fears it could help the United States defend Taiwan if China used force to try to bring the self-governing island under mainland rule.
The Kongo "is emblematic of a complex weave of U.S. and Japanese anti-missile capabilities," said Paul Giarra, a former Pentagon senior country director for Japan who inaugurated a U.S.-Japan missile-defense working group in the early 1990s.
"Any system that can check China's growing ballistic missile clout is problematic for Beijing," he added.
The Lake Erie, a Pearl Harbor-based U.S. guided-missile cruiser, tracked the missile target and fed data on it to a command center while simulating a shootdown of its own, MDA's Taylor said in an email response to questions from Reuters.

from Reuters.com

Nakasone admits possibility of U.S. 'nuclear transit'

Former Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone admitted in a recent interview that U.S. warships carrying nuclear weapons may have sailed through Japanese territorial waters during the 1980s when he was in office. This is the first time a former prime minister of Japan — which is especially sensitive about nuclear arms as the only country ever attacked with them — has mentioned the possibility of U.S. "nuclear transit" during the Cold War era.

"Nuclear warships might have come through Japanese waters" during the Cold War era, Nakasone said. "It is impossible for us to confirm that U.S. submarines are submerged in waters along the coast of Japan," he added, saying such nuclear transit had to take place without his clear knowledge. "I thought we could not do anything." It has been swept under the rug whether U.S. Navy ships and Air Forces bombers carrying nuclear arms had actually passed through Japanese territorial waters and air space.

Japan welcomes additional sanctions on Iran

Foreign Minister Taro Aso on Sunday welcomed the U.N. Security Council's approval of additional sanctions on Iran for its refusal to freeze its uranium enrichment program. "We appreciate the step as demonstrating the international community's firm stance on the Iranian nuclear issue," Aso said in a statement.

"Our nation thinks a resolute response to the Iranian nuclear issue is necessary in view of the maintenance of the nuclear nonproliferation system, its relationship to the North Korean nuclear issue and stability in the Middle East, which has a large influence on energy supply," he said, adding Japan will urge Iran to return to the negotiating table.

Abe urges N Korea to return to negotiations

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe urged North Korea on Tuesday to engage seriously in ongoing six-nation nuclear talks and to fulfill its promise to denuclearize, warning that Pyongyang would otherwise continue to face severe problems.

Asked to comment on North Korea's refusal Tuesday to attend the second-day session of the six-way talks in Beijing, Abe told reporters, "For as long as North Korea adopts this kind of attitude, it will not be able to change the circumstances it is currently facing."

North Korea urges Japan to stop talking about abduction issue

North Korea is urging Japan to stop talking about North Korea's past abductions of Japanese nationals and sincerely implement a six-party talks deal promising to supply North Korea with aid in return for denuclearization steps, the Korean Central News Agency reported Tuesday.

"The DPRK strongly demands Japan stop talking about the 'abduction issue' but redeem the crimes committed by it in the past which are more horrendous than the issue," KCNA said, referring to Japan's wartime acts, such as forcing Korean women into sexual slavery for the Japanese military. KCNA said the abduction issue is already resolved.

Japan-North Korea normalization talks begin

Japanese and North Korean diplomats began two-day talks on Wednesday with both sides calling for a solution to thorny bilateral issues that have prevented them from normalizing diplomatic relations.

Koichi Haraguchi, Japan's representative at the talks, and his North Korean counterpart Song Il Ho met at the Japanese Embassy in Hanoi in the morning for talks that are first expected to focus on a bitter row over past abductions of Japanese nationals by North Korean agents. "We plan to work...under the policy of aiming for the normalization of diplomatic ties based on a comprehensive solution to the abduction, nuclear and missile issues as well as the settling of the unfortunate past," Haraguchi said at the outset of the talks, which was open to the press.

Abe wants int'l community to keep pressure on N Korea

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Friday the international community is likely to increase pressure on North Korea if it does not respond to demands for it to take steps toward abandoning its nuclear programs.

Abe told reporters as the six-party talks on Pyongyang's nuclear programs ended in Beijing without progress that it is important for the international community to unite in implementing the U.N. sanctions resolution to prompt North Korea to take specific actions toward denuclearization. "If North Korea wants the international sanctions to be lifted, they must respond to our demands or they will not be able to resolve their problems," Abe said.

Nagasaki to opt out of evacuation plans for nuclear attack

Nagasaki Mayor Itcho Ito said Monday his city will not establish plans for evacuation or other measures to be taken in the event of a nuclear attack, calling such plans unrealistic, and instead urged the state to try to eradicate nuclear weapons.

The mayor said the extent of damage from a nuclear attack predicted by the central government and the measures to be taken under its basic plan are vague and that trying to evacuate people in the event of such an attack is unrealistic.

Japan can legally be allowed to possess nuclear arms, gov't says

Japan can legally be allowed to possess nuclear arms as long as they are at a "necessary minimum" level for its self-defense, the government said Tuesday. The cabinet made public the view in a position paper in response to a written question by House of Representatives member Muneo Suzuki.

From a purely legal standpoint, the paper said the war-renouncing Constitution "does not necessarily ban the country from possessing any weapons, even though they are nuclear ones, if they are the necessary minimum for self-defense." But the paper also says that Japan will never possess nuclear weapons, noting that the country maintains the decades-long three-point nonnuclear policy that bans Japan from possessing and producing nuclear weapons as well as from allowing such arms to be brought into its territory.

N Korea says Japan should not take part in 6-way talks as it is just 'a state of U.S.'

North Korea said Saturday that Japan should not participate in upcoming six-way talks on the North's nuclear program, while criticizing Japanese leaders for their refusal to accept Pyongyang as a nuclear power.

"It would be much better for Japan to refrain from participating in the six-party talks and less attendants would be not bad for making the talks fruitful," North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency reported, quoting a spokesman for the North Korean Foreign Ministry. "It is the view of the DPRK that since the U.S. attends the six-party talks, there is no need for Japan to participate in them as a local delegate because it is no more than a state of the U.S. and it is enough for Tokyo just to be informed of the results of the talks by Washington."

Japan eyes new U.N. resolution if North Korea conducts another nuke test

The Japanese government is eying introducing another resolution to the U.N. Security Council that features a complete ban on imports of North Korean products if Pyongyang detonates another nuclear device or launches missiles, government sources said Saturday.

Japan would seek a resolution that would not limit the range of sanctions based on the U.N. Charter's Chapter 7 that stipulates "action with respect to threats to peace, breaches of the peace and acts of aggression," the sources said.

North Korea raps U.S., Japan in public rally marking nuke test

North Korea criticized the United States and Japan over a U.N. Security Council resolution adopted against the country's nuclear test, holding a massive rally to celebrate the Oct 9 experiment, North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency reported.

"The nuclear test was a great deed as it greatly contributed to defending peace and stability not only on the Korean Peninsula but in the rest of Northeast Asia," Choe Thae Bok, secretary of the Central Committee of the ruling Workers' Party of Korea, was quoted as saying. Kim Jong Gak, vice minister of the People's Armed Forces, meanwhile, said: "The Japanese militarists and other forces favoring the U.S. imperialists' moves should stop running amok, well aware that they will never escape a stern punishment by the revolutionary armed forces of the DPRK should they go reckless under the signboard of the U.N. Security Council 'resolution."'

China urges Japan not to develop nuclear weapons

China hopes Japan takes a responsible attitude over the issue of developing nuclear weapons following North Korea's own nuclear test, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said Tuesday.

Spokesman Liu Jianchao said, "We hope Japan is able to strictly carry out its treaty obligations and appropriately defend the three-point nuclear principle." To safeguard regional peace and stability Japan should "adopt a responsible attitude," he added.

Bush says China worried about Japan, arms race over N Korea

U.S. President George W. Bush said Monday that China is worried about an arms race in the Far East, especially involving Japan, to deal with a nuclear North Korea. Bush made the comments in an interview with Fox News in expressing confidence in Beijing's commitment to implementing the U.N. sanctions resolutions on North Korea and pressing the reclusive country to abandon its nuclear arms and programs.

"I know they're concerned about the statement that came out of Japan...that said Japan is rethinking," Bush said, apparently referring to comments Sunday by Japan's top ruling party policymaker, who called for discussion on whether Japan should go nuclear in response to the North Korean nuclear test.

Shiozaki says Japan won't possess nuclear weapons

Japan does not plan to change its three-point principle of not possessing nuclear weapons, making them or allowing them on its territory, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuhisa Shiozaki said Monday, commenting on a call by a senior ruling party lawmaker for discussions on possessing nuclear weapons.

"Our policy of maintaining the three nonnuclear principles, the principle of not possessing nuclear weapons, remains unchanged," Shiozaki said in reference to the comment Sunday by Shoichi Nakagawa, chairman of the Liberal Democratic Party's Policy Research Council. Japan "will possess no nuclear weapons in accordance with the atomic energy basic law and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty," Shiozaki said at a regular press conference.