Abe, Roh discuss N Korea's nuclear test; Japan, U.S. to take it to U.N.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe started talks with South Korean President Roh Moo Hyun at the presidential Blue House on Monday just hours after North Korea said it had conducted a nuclear test in defiance of international calls against such action.

Abe, on his first official overseas trip, arrived in Seoul from Beijing in the morning after meeting Chinese leaders Sunday.

"I am aware of the declaration by North Korea that it has conducted a nuclear test," Abe told reporters traveling with him in Seoul. "Japan is in contact with the United States and China for intelligence analysis...and I will discuss with the South Korean side how to respond. I have instructed the chief Cabinet secretary to gather and analyze information regarding whether a nuclear test was actually conducted," Abe said.

In Tokyo, U.S. Ambassador to Japan Thomas Schieffer told reporters after meeting with Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuhisa Shiozaki and Foreign Minister Taro Aso, "We agreed to monitor this situation and to work together to take it to the United Nations for further action."

"The United States is prepared to honor its commitment to its allies in Japan as well as Korea," he added.

While suggesting Washington has yet to confirm that North Korea conducted a nuclear test, Schieffer said, "This is a very grave situation and we all are following it with great intensity."

"Speaking on the assumption that a nuclear test is confirmed, the nuclear test will bring a serious crisis to the peace and stability not only of Northeast Asia but the world," Aso said, after earlier talking to South Korean Foreign Affairs and Trade Minister Ban Ki Moon and U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on the phone.

Asked if it is possible to issue a U.N. resolution other than the one adopted over North Korea's ballistic missiles July 5, Aso said, "There is a high possibility it will come out. Japan, for its part, wants to have one."

He suggested a Chapter 7 resolution, which would pave the way for the use of force or economic sanctions, may be in order. He was referring to Chapter 7 of the U.N. Charter.

Japan had already imposed sanctions such as blocking fund transfers to entities linked to Pyongyang's missile and weapons programs, including 12 already listed under U.S. sanctions.

Following the reported nuclear test, the Foreign Ministry said it launched an emergency task force headed by Aso at 11:30 a.m. to gather more information.

North Korea is believed to have conducted the test in the eastern part of the country, Yonhap News Agency quoted a senior Defense Ministry official as saying. A magnitude 3.58 tremor was detected in Hwadae county in the North's remote North Hamkyong Province at around 10:35 a.m.

Meanwhile, the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said: "The field of scientific research in the DPRK successfully conducted an underground nuclear test under secure conditions on Oct 9, Juche 95 (2006). It has been confirmed that there was no such dangerous radioactive emission in the course of the nuclear test as it was carried out under a scientific consideration and careful calculation.

"The nuclear test is a historic event that brought happiness to the our military and people," KCNA added. "The nuclear test will contribute to maintaining peace and stability in the Korean peninsula and surrounding region."

In South Korea, Roh convened an emergency meeting of top officials responsible for national security to discuss the situation. Presidential spokesman Yoon Tae Young said, "North Korea's possession of nuclear weapons cannot be tolerated."

South Korea will take "stern responses" to the nuclear test in accordance with its principles," Yoon said.

Yonhap News Agency quoted a Unification Ministry official as saying the government has initially decided to suspend a scheduled shipment of 4,000 tons of concrete to the North, which was to be part of a one-time package of humanitarian aid worth some $250 million.

South Korea wants the U.N. Security Council to immediately take up the North's nuclear test and discuss how to respond, the spokesman said.

Princess Aiko takes part in kindergarten athletic meet - undoukai

Princess Aiko, the 4-year-old daughter of Crown Prince Naruhito and Crown Princess Masako, took part in an athletic meet at Gakushuin Kindergarten for the first time Sunday.
Princess Aiko took part in the "Otama Korogashi," rolling a one-meter-high white plastic ball toward the goal line. Princess Masako, wearing a headband, also took part in another ball-rolling game, while Crown Prince Naruhito recorded the athletic meet with his camcorder.

LDP lawmaker wants tougher sanctions against N Korea

Japan should impose tougher sanctions against North Korea, including maritime inspection, if Pyongyang conducts a nuclear test as earlier announced, a senior ruling Liberal Democratic Party member said Sunday.

"From now on, we need to step up the level of pressure such as conducting inspections at sea or stopping exports and imports," Shoichi Nakagawa, chairman of the LDP's Policy Research Council, said on a television program. Nakagawa also noted the possibility that Japan will solely impose sanctions on North Korea before the international society does so. He said he will call for the Diet to pass a resolution on North Korean issues.

Shinzo Abe and Hu make 'new start' in Sino-Japan relations

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe met top Chinese leaders Sunday in talks that Chinese President Hu Jintao described as a "new start" and "turning point" for chilled bilateral relations as the Japanese leader arrived in Beijing on his first overseas trip as premier that will also take him to South Korea.

Abe told Hu at the outset of their 80-minute summit that he chose China as his first overseas summit to show he attaches "extreme importance to good Japan-China relations" and thanked China for welcoming him.

Ahead of the talks with Hu, the first bilateral summit in 18 months, Abe also met with Premier Wen Jiabao at the Great Hall of the People for about 90 minutes.

"An agreement was reached recently to promote friendly relations by overcoming political difficulties through mutual efforts," Wen said at the outset in explaining a reason for hosting the summit.

"Developing friendly ties conforms to the interests of the people of both countries," Wen said.

Wen, with a full smile, greeted Abe in a welcoming ceremony upon his arrival with 19 canon shots, the protocol for welcoming a visiting prime minister and last performed for a Japanese premier in 1999 during an official visit by Keizo Obuchi.

Details of the summits have not been released, but Abe was expected to propose to Chinese leaders that Japan and China build a "strategic relationship of mutual interest," a senior Japanese official said earlier. It will be the first time for the two countries to seek a "strategic" partnership.

Abe, who will visit Seoul on Monday to meet with South Korean President Roh Moo Hyun, said before leaving Tokyo he is eyeing frank discussions with his counterparts on North Korea's nuclear test plan and to "send a message that North Korea will be isolated in the international community unless it gives up (its plan of) conducting nuclear tests."

The summits came amid rising international tensions after North Korea announced last Tuesday it will conduct a nuclear test "in the future" and on Friday the U.N. Security Council warned action will be taken if Pyongyang conducts such a test.

Visiting the two nearby countries in less than two weeks after assuming office Sept 26 shows Abe's eagerness to court the countries and mend relations with them which deteriorated under his predecessor Junichiro Koizumi.

Abe hopes that under the new relationship, Japan and China can join hands in resolving international issues of common interest and to achieve benefits for both sides, the Japanese official said in briefing reporters aboard the government plane on its way to the Chinese capital.

In addition to dealing with North Korea, other common interests and benefits include resolving bilateral disputes over national resources in the East China Sea, cooperating in United Nations reforms, joint efforts in the fields of energy and the environment, and strengthening the business environment for mutual investments.

The 52-year-old premier will also urge the development of strong ties both politically and economically, and wishes to build personal trust with the Chinese leaders.

On Sunday morning, Abe touched on the issue of history perception, a factor that has stalled relations with the neighboring countries, saying, "We will act after humbly considering the past. On that basis, I would like to hold talks with leaders of both countries about the future."

Regarding prime ministerial visits to the war-linked Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo, Abe said, "I would like to explain that many prime ministers in the past have paid homage there to mourn those people who lost their lives for the country and to pray for peace."

While Beijing has said the two sides have agreed to "overcome the political obstacle" in the bilateral relationship, Abe has denied he made any compromises and insisted he will not say whether he will go to Yasukuni as premier.

In addition to the talks with Hu and Wen, Abe is also scheduled to hold a half-hour meeting with Wu Bangguo, chairman of the National People's Congress Standing Committee.

The three Chinese leaders have arranged to meet with Abe despite their engagements on the opening day of a key domestic political event — a meeting of the Chinese Communist Party's Central Committee — in an apparent sign of Beijing wanting to improve relations with Japan under a new administration.

Abe has repeatedly said he would like to build "forward-looking" relations with Beijing and Seoul. He was also expected to propose joint history research with China.

Abe, Japan's first premier to be born after World War II, is the first postwar Japanese prime minister to choose China as the destination of his first official overseas trip and the first since 2001 to hold a full summit in China.

Relations have soured chiefly due to Koizumi's repeated visits to Yasukuni in defiance of protests from China and South Korea, which see the shrine as a symbol of Japan's past militarism because it enshrines World War II Class-A war criminals along with the war dead.

The two countries have since 2001 had occasional top-level meetings in third countries but only on the sidelines of other events. The last bilateral summit was held in April last year in Jakarta.

Abe's wife Akie, who is traveling with the prime minister and making her overseas debut as Japan's new first lady, is also in the spotlight. She visited a junior high school and a welfare facility for the handicapped in Beijing on Sunday.

Expectations are high both in and outside Japan that Akie, a fan of South Korean heartthrob Bae Yong Joon, can play a role in softening her husband's hawkish image in the two neighboring countries. Japan has not had a first lady for five and a half years as Abe's predecessor Koizumi is a divorced single.

Postal worker confesses to stabbing Osaka taxi driver; police find body

OSAKA — A postal worker, who is in police custody in a robbery case, has confessed to stabbing an Osaka taxi driver last month and police said Sunday they found a dead body based on the man's confessions. Police identified the suspect as Takeshi Hiratani, 35, who works at the Suita Senri Post Office in Osaka Prefecture. Hiratani told police that he stabbed Kaname Maekubo, a 59-year-old taxi driver in Takatsuki.
Police said they are trying to identify the body which was found in a vacant lot in Takatsuki after the suspect confessed to stabbing the taxi driver. Maekubo went missing Sept 17 after witnesses saw him quarreling with another man in front of a company condominium in Takatsuki, according to investigators.

Abe says World War II leaders tried by allies cannot be considered war criminals

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said in the Diet on Friday that Japanese World War II leaders tried and convicted by the U.S. and its allies cannot be considered war criminals.

Referring to the 14 Japanese convicted as Class-A war criminals by the tribunal's justices from 11 nations and who are now enshrined at Tokyo's Yasukuni Shrine, Abe said they had stood trial for crimes against peace and humanity "but it was a concept established at that time, and based on the principle that crimes and penalties must be defined by law it is ridiculous to call them criminals. That also was the case for my relative."

Abe, 52, is the grandson of Nobusuke Kishi, who served in the wartime cabinet and helped supervise the industrialization of Manchukuo, the puppet state Japan set up in northeastern China.

Kishi was jailed by U.S. forces as a top war criminal after the war, although he was not tried by the Tokyo tribunal. He later served as prime minister from 1957 to 1960.

Abe said that war criminals should have been freed when Japan signed the 1951 San Francisco Peace Treaty, which ended the U.S. occupation of Japan.

"Japan was not in a position to lodge objections over its relations with other countries when signing the treaty," he noted. "These people were not tried under Japanese laws, and I, as prime minister, must not decide whether they are war criminals or not."

All 47 prefectural labor offices found to have engaged in dubious accounting

TOKYO — All 47 prefectural labor bureaus under the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare are found to have engaged in some form of irregular accounting practices such as logging expenses for staff travel never made, investigations by the government's Board of Audit showed Saturday.

The bureaus misappropriated a total of more than 7 billion yen in the six years through fiscal 2004, they showed. Of the total amount of misappropriated funds, about 300 million yen was determined to be the result of falsifying accounts by way of appropriating overtime work benefits when no such work was done or pretending to hire part-time workers, the board said.

Yasukuni Shrine to review war museum's claims about U.S.

TOKYO — Yasukuni Shrine plans to change or delete claims in its war museum that the United States forced Japan to fight World War II, following U.S. government complaints, sources close to the shrine said Friday.
The descriptions at the Yushukan museum claims the U.S. government under the administration of President Franklin D Roosevelt forced Japan to open fire by imposing economic embargos, and that the United States recovered from depression as a result. U.S. government officials and Japanese historians have requested that the shrine reconsider the claims and representatives of the shrine's membership also questioned their accuracy, the sources said.

Abe acknowledges responsibility of grandfather Kishi, other wartime leaders

TOKYO — Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Thursday acknowledged the war responsibility of his grandfather, the late former Prime Minister Nobusuke Kishi, and Japan's other wartime leaders ahead of his fence-mending talks with the leaders of China and South Korea.

Abe, known for his conservative views on history, also committed himself to accept two official statements in the 1990s in which Tokyo apologized for Japanese colonial rule and aggression and the use of Asian women as sex slaves for Japanese soldiers before and during World War II.

Abe, who took office on Sept 26 as Japan's youngest postwar premier, clarified his official stand on the country's past militarism during a House of Representatives Budget Committee session Thursday.

"As a result of starting war, many Japanese lost their lives and families, and we left many scars on the people of Asia," the 52-year-old Abe said.

"Particularly, those people in the position of leader at the time, including my grandfather, had great responsibility. Since politicians have to take responsibility for any outcomes, that decision certainly must have been wrong," he said.

Abe made the comment in response to a question by opposition Democratic Party of Japan heavyweight Naoto Kan about his view on Kishi's signing of the rescript for starting the war in the Pacific in 1941 as a member of the Cabinet of Prime Minister Hideki Tojo.

Kishi, Abe's maternal grandfather who was then the commerce and industry minister, was detained as a Class-A war criminal suspect after the end of World War II but was released soon after Tojo and six others were hung in 1948. He served as Japan's prime minister from 1957 to 1960.

As for a landmark 1995 statement, in which then Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama apologized and expressed remorse for Japan's colonial rule and atrocities before and during World War II, Abe said, "It is valid for my cabinet."

When asked his personal view, Abe said it is "natural" for him to accept the statement as prime minister, including its descriptions of the country's colonial rule and aggression as "has been presented...in a statement adopted by the cabinet."

On a 1993 statement by then Chief Cabinet Secretary Yohei Kono, in which the government officially acknowledged that the Imperial Japanese Army forcibly held Asian women in sexual servitude for its soldiers, Abe said, "Including myself, the current government has taken it over."

When asked his view in Monday's lower house plenary session, Abe refrained from admitting the responsibility of the wartime leaders charged as Class-A war criminals at the 1946-1948 International Military Tribunal for the Far East, also known as the Tokyo Tribunal.

Abe in 1995 abstained from approving a parliamentary resolution carrying a similar message to the Murayama statement. In 1997, he formed a group with fellow lawmakers with revisionist views on history, including the issue of sex slaves, and criticized Kono's statement.

But since taking office, Abe has vowed to strive to mend the strained ties with China and South Korea angered at former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's visits to Yasukuni Shrine, which some regard as symbolic of Japan's militarist past.

He is slated to hold summit talks with Chinese President Hu Jintao on Sunday and with South Korean President Roh Moo Hyun on Monday.

Three found dead with nails stuck in their heads in Nagano home

NAGANO — Three members of a family were found dead early Friday morning with 20-cm-long nails hammered into their heads, police said. The bodies were discovered around two hours after a car was found abandoned on a bridge in Karuizawa. A note on the steering wheel said: "I am sorry for not turning myself in."

Police traced the car to Hideshi Kojima, 48, a company employee living in Miyota, Nagano Prefecture. When they visited his house, they discovered the bodies, believed to be Kojima, his 78-year-old mother-in-law, and his 18-year-old daughter. Kojima's 45-year-old wife is missing, police said, adding they found another note in the wife's handwriting.

Police said an autopsy is planned to determine the cause of death, since they suspect the trio may already have been dead when the nails were hammered in.

Police officer steals a shoe for stress relief

OSAKA — An Osaka police officer was arrested Wednesday for stealing a shoe from an elementary school. The 24-year-old police officer, identified as Norifusa Nakanishi, was arrested for trespassing into an elementary school in Shijounawate, and stealing a shoe belonging to a 10-year-old boy around 1:10 p.m. on Sept 30.

"I was stressed out, and smelling a shoe is my way to release stress," Nakanishi was quoted by police as saying.

Top court turns down appeal against keeping news source secret

The Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected an appeal filed by a U.S. health food maker against a lower court decision allowing a reporter to keep a news source secret over a 1997 report that the firm's Japan unit underreported income to save tax payments.

The appeal was filed after the Tokyo High Court in March accepted refusal of the reporter for Japan Broadcasting Corp (NHK) to reveal the news source, saying news-gathering activities serve as a foundation for the freedom of the press that satisfies the public's right to know. NHK, along with other Japanese media, reported in October 1997 that Japanese and U.S. tax authorities found that the U.S. firm's Japanese subsidiary had underreported about 7.7 billion yen in taxable income.

Driver who killed 4 children in Saitama caused accident in May due to same reason

A 38-year-old man arrested for ramming his car into a group of children, killing four of them, in Kawaguchi, Saitama, last week, caused an accident in May due to careless driving for the same reason, police said Wednesday.

The driver, identified as Hideyuki Izawa, has told police that he lost control of his car while he was switching the cassette tapes in a boom box placed on the passenger seat. In the May accident, Izawa rear-ended a mini-vehicle stopped at a red light in Sugito-machi, Saitama. There were no injuriese. Izawa said that he was distracted while changing tapes at the time of that accident, as well.

Japan warns N Korea of stern int'l response if it conducts nuclear test

Japan again urged North Korea on Wednesday to abolish its nuclear programs and warned Pyongyang of a stern international response should the North go ahead with a nuclear test it declared Tuesday.

"A nuclear test will be unacceptable and Japan strongly demands that North Korea observe the U.N. Security Council resolution" reached in July, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said in a parliamentary session. Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Hakubun Shimomura described North Korea's actions as "deplorable." He added that if a nuclear test is carried out, it would be an "unacceptable" and "serious threat" to the peace and safety of Japan and the rest of the world.

'Peeping' economist indicted for groping student on train

TOKYO — Prosecutors on Wednesday indicted economist Kazuhide Uekusa, once a well-known TV commentator, for allegedly molesting a female high school student on a train in Tokyo in September.Uekusa, 45, was convicted in March last year of public indecency by trying to look up a 17-year-old girl's skirt at a Tokyo railway station in 2004, using a mirror, and did not appeal. He was a professor at Waseda University at that time.

In the latest case, Uekusa allegedly put his hand up the student's skirt and touched her body at around 10:10 p.m. on Sept 13 on an express commuter train between Shinagawa and Keikyu Kamata stations on the Keihin Kyuko Line.

On the train, the girl, a second-year high school student from Kanagawa Prefecture, said, "Stop it," and she and other passengers seized Uekusa and handed him over to policemen.

After he was arrested, he was discharged from the Nagoya University of Commerce & Business where he was serving as visiting professor at its graduate school.

In the 2004 case, he pleaded not guilty during the trial, but the court convicted him and fined him 500,000 yen. His mirror was confiscated as part of the punishment.

Aso indicates support for Ban as next U.N. chief

TOKYO — Japan on Tuesday welcomed South Korean Foreign Affairs and Trade Minister Ban Ki Moon's good showing in a straw poll at the U.N. Security Council on Monday which virtually assures Ban of succeeding Kofi Annan as secretary general of the United Nations."We have been saying that we want someone from Asia, so the fact that it is South Korean Foreign Affairs and Trade Minister Ban is good," Foreign Minister Taro Aso said in a news conference, hinting that Japan will support Ban in his bid to be the next U.N. chief.

Russia releases fishing boat skipper

NEMURO — A Japanese skipper taken into Russian custody for intruding into and poaching in Russian-administered territorial waters off Nemuro, Hokkaido, left for home Tuesday morning for the first time in almost seven weeks, the Foreign Ministry said.
Noboru Sakashita, 59, was handed over to the Japanese side after accepting a South Kuril District Court ruling Sept 21 in Yuzhno-Kurilsk on Russian-administered Kunashiri Island that he pay a 500,000-ruble (about $12,700 or 2.2 million yen) fine.

Rightist arrested for intimidating Korean residents' group

A Japanese ultranationalist was arrested Monday on suspicion of trying to intimidate members of a North Korea-affiliated association of Korean residents in Japan by sending through the mail a package containing a severed finger and a threatening letter, the police said.

Yoshitaka Fukumoto, 27, an executive member of the right-wing group, sent the package with a postmark in Kagaoshima Prefecture to So Man Sul, chairman of Chongryun, the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan, on Sept 16, according to investigations. The Metropolitan Police Department determined the sender was Fukumoto from fingerprints on the envelope, the police said.

Chinese man sentenced to death for killing landlord, wife in Tokyo

TOKYO — The Tokyo District Court sentenced a 29-year-old Chinese man to death Monday for killing and robbing his landlord and the landlord's wife in Tokyo in 2002. Xie Yidi, a Chinese national, had told the court he accidentally stabbed the couple — Isamu Hayakawa, 64, and Yoko Hayakawa, 57 — and denied he intended to kill them.

According to the prosecution's closing argument, Xie broke into the Hayakawas' Shinagawa Ward home sometime between midnight Aug 30, 2002, and 2 a.m. the next day, stabbed them to death and robbed them of jewelry and around 47,000 yen in cash. Hayakawa, Xie's landlord, owned a noodle-making shop.

Shinzo Abe square off in Diet over Yasukuni, nationalism

TOKYO — Prime Minister Shinzo Abe squared off with opposition lawmakers Monday in the Diet's first lower house session since his policy address last Friday, with opposition Democratic Party of Japan's Yukio Hatoyama criticizing Abe's "beautiful country, Japan" concept as having a nationalistic and authoritarian undertone.

Hatoyama, the DPJ's secretary general, also touched on history issues and asked Abe to clarify his views on the responsibility of Class-A war criminals as leaders of the nation during World War II. Hatoyama demanded that Abe pledge not to visit the war-linked Yasukuni Shrine.

Abe, who took office last Tuesday and is known for his conservative view on history, said he will in principle follow the government's view of Japan's wartime history expressed in a landmark 1995 statement, in which then Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama apologized and expressed remorse for Japan's colonial rule and atrocities before and during World War II.

But Abe stressed that he believes there are various opinions in the debate as to the responsibilities of wartime leaders and that it is "inappropriate for the government to make a specific judgment regarding the responsibilities of Class-A war criminals as leaders."

Abe, who supported his predecessor Junichiro Koizumi's visits to Yasukuni and is a regular worshipper himself, reiterated that he will not make public whether or not he will go to the shrine and whether or not he had gone there as premier.

"It's a country where nationalism and authoritarianism hold sway and politics is pushed away from life," Hatoyama told the plenary session of the House of Representatives.

Hatoyama said social and economic gaps have been widening among citizens under Koizumi's administration and Abe should be held responsible collectively because he held key posts in the governing Liberal Democratic Party and also in the cabinet when Koizumi was in power.

Standing in for DPJ President Ichiro Ozawa, hospitalized for a medical checkup, Hatoyama proposed that Abe, who is the LDP president, hold weekly debates with the DPJ leader.

Hatoyama also criticized Koizumi's administration for "having completely failed" in diplomacy with North Korea, given Pyongyang's missile firings in July.

The DPJ executive challenged Abe to reconfirm his basic policy for not normalizing relations with North Korea unless all Japanese abductees return home.

On the economic front, Hatoyama questioned if Abe is intent on hiking the consumption tax after an upper house election next July.

Abe dodged the question by only saying, "Detailed deliberations will be held from autumn next year."