Ishiba admits false account of destroyer crew interrogation

Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba admitted Wednesday that his ministry gave a false explanation regarding its interrogation of the chief navigator of the Aegis destroyer Atago shortly after it collided with a fishing boat on Feb 19, describing the fiasco as "inappropriate." Ishiba told a subcommittee meeting of the House of Representatives Budget Committee that his ministry had not gained approval from the Japan Coast Guard, which is investigating the collision, when it questioned the chief navigator, correcting a statement from Maritime Staff Office chief Adm. Eiji Yoshikawa on Tuesday that the ministry had gained prior approval.
"It was not appropriate," Ishiba told the parliamentary meeting. He added, however, that the ministry did so "in order to secure information about the accident as soon as possible and to explain it externally."
Vice Defense Minister Kohei Masuda also admitted that the ministry has yet to confirm there was a phone call from the MSO to the coast guard notifying it of the MSO's plan to question the Atago navigator, telling a press conference Wednesday night, "The MSO chief should have made a confirmation more carefully."

Masuda also said the ministry did not record what the chief navigator said during its interrogation.
Meanwhile, the 3rd Regional Coast Guard Headquarters in Yokohama said late Wednesday it was told by the Defense Ministry on the afternoon of Feb 19 that the chief navigator had already got off the destroyer when it requested that the Atago's crew not get on or off the vessel.
Ishiba's remarks fueled criticism from opposition party lawmakers, with main opposition Democratic Party of Japan Secretary General Yukio Hatoyama saying the ministry deserves to be criticized for engaging in a "coverup." He also said, "It is inevitable that such action will make the public suspicious."

From the ruling side, Kazuo Kitagawa, secretary general of the New Komeito party, the junior partner of the Liberal Democratic Party in the ruling coalition, also criticized the ministry for questioning the Atago navigator without consulting the coast guard, telling a press conference, "I must say there was a problem."
In an apparent effort to play down such criticism, Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda told reporters that it is normal for "the minister in charge to examine by himself what has happened and it is within the scope of the minister's responsibilities."
"Considering the situation, there may have been things that cannot be helped," Fukuda said. But he also added that "it would have been better" if the ministry had contacted the Japan Coast Guard.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka Machimura also said that the ministry should have conducted the questioning after consulting the coast guard, but denied that a coverup had occurred.

The 7,750-ton Atago collided with the 7.3-ton Seitoku Maru, from a fisheries cooperative in Katsuura, Chiba Prefecture, on Feb 19, leaving the fishing vessel's two crew members — Haruo Kichisei, 58, and his 23-year-old son Tetsuhiro — missing.

U.S. Marine held on counterfeiting charge in Okinawa

Another U.S. Marine is suspected of committing a crime in Okinawa Prefecture as Japan is stepping up calls for the United States to toughen discipline on its military personnel stationed there, Japanese investigative sources said Tuesday.
U.S. military authorities have detained the Marine in his 20s who is suspected of counterfeiting dozens of $20 notes and passing some of them in Okinawa, the sources said.
Under the Japan-U.S. Status-of-Forces agreement, Japanese authorities will take over custody of the Marine after Japanese prosecutors file an indictment against him. Local police plan to soon send papers on him to prosecutors.
The suspect allegedly used a personal computer and a printer to copy the dollar notes and passed some of the counterfeit ones in Uruma, southern Okinawa Island.
Meanwhile, the municipal assembly in Nago in the central part of the main Okinawa island, where the Marine Corps' Camp Schwab is located, will adopt two resolutions protesting the alleged rape of a Japanese junior high school girl by a 38-year-old Marine staff sergeant and the alleged trespassing into a private residence by another Marine.
In the alleged rape case, Japanese police arrested the Marine based at Camp Courtney on Feb 11 on suspicion of raping the girl in Chatan, southern Okinawa Island. The suspect has denied the allegation.
On Monday, another Marine, aged 21, was arrested on suspicion of trespassing after he was found passed out on a sofa at a private residence in Nago, central Okinawa Island.
Local police also arrested another Marine, 22, on Sunday for drunken driving in the city of Okinawa.
The Nago municipal assembly is expected to unanimously adopt the protest documents that will call on the Japanese and U.S. governments as well as U.S. forces to strengthen discipline of U.S. military personnel, and to consolidate and reduce the presence of the U.S. forces in Okinawa, assembly members said.
On Tuesday, five municipal assemblies in Okinawa Prefecture adopted resolutions of protest against U.S. forces.
Of the 41 municipalities in Okinawa, 28 assemblies will have passed such resolutions of protests, including Nago, which is scheduled to hold a vote Wednesday.
Meanwhile in Tokyo, State Minister Shinya Izumi, who overseas Japanese police forces as chairman of the National Public Safety Commission, urged the United States to assume responsibilities for its troops in Japan.
"I can't understand why a series of such incidents has taken place. I feel it's unpardonable," Izumi said.
At a separate news conference, Fumio Kishida, state minister for Okinawa and Northern Territories affairs, expressed displeasure with the United States, saying he does not think U.S. forces have taken full measures to toughen discipline and prevent a recurrence of misconduct by troops.




recensioni

Poor atmosphere for Olympics

The Olympic Games are the arena for the world's athletes to give all that is in them for sport and their nations. The 29th Olympiad that is coming up next August in Beijing makes it extremely challenging if not impossible for them to do so.
The reason is the astonishing air pollution that remains the dominating ambience of China's capital, after years striving to reduce it, including more than $16 billion spent in preparation for the 2008 Games. Many observers credit this effort with notable results, but Beijing air is four or five times more contaminated than the level prescribed by the World Health Organization, and 40 times worse than Los Angeles, America's most polluted city.
Jacques Rogge, president of the International Olympic Committee, is confident that by the opening ceremonies, Beijing's air quality will be suitable for the competition.
However, he hedges his bet, saying some endurance events might have to be rescheduled. Athletes in the marathon and triathlon as well as cyclists, take in about 10 times more air with every breath, making them particularly susceptible to Beijing's fouled air.
Face masks, which are sure to forestall peak performances, are nevertheless being tried out.
Many participating nations don't share Rogge's optimism. Contrary to custom, they are training their contingents not in the host country, but in Japan or South Korea, or in Chinese cities distant from Beijing.
One may well ask why such a venue was selected in the first place when the choice was made in 2001. The answer is that it was as a gesture to a nation growing in stature and influence, with the pious hope that it would encourage China to improve its dismal human rights record. Indeed, the Chinese promised to do so and also committed themselves to cleaning up Beijing's air.
China has failed on both counts, although it did make enormous efforts to relocate polluting industrial plants, planted 300 million trees, rerouted an ever increasing volume of automobile traffic and expanded subway lines and constructed a light railway system.
As for human rights, Communist Chinese authorities are still locking up dissidents at home. Internationally, their continued reluctance to use their large trade ties with Sudan to mitigate the atrocities in Darfur last week resulted in Steven Spielberg, the American filmmaker, withdrawing from his advisory role for the Games.
The Chinese point to some minor steps they have taken with Sudan and stress that politics should not afflict the games. Indeed, the Olympic Charter commands "no kind of demonstration of political, religious or racial propaganda" by participants is permitted.
But Tibet is still an issue with legs and among the anticipated 550,000 visitors from abroad there are sure to be some determined to demonstrate. Some 20,000 foreign journalists will be present to report on how the authorities cope with any demonstrations.
Other problems bedevil the Beijing Games, but these are generally easier to deal with, though at some expense.
China does not have a good reputation when it comes to the quality of its food supply despite the global popularity enjoyed by its cuisine. Reports have revealed candy laced with carcinogens, fish contaminated by insecticides, unreliable grains and -- with particular relevance to athletes -- meat and fowl pumped up with steroids.

Olympic athletes are responsible for what they ingest, and if steroids show up in tests, they would suffer consequences.
The U.S., for one, has set up a secure food supply chain, and will ship adequate supplies of beef, chicken and pork as well as grains to feed its athletes and officials. Seafood and fruit are coming in from other countries.
The date set for the opening of the Olympics is the eighth day of the eighth month of the year 2008. In the Chinese view, all those eights will bring good luck. The Games certainly will require an unusually heavy dose of it.

source: timesunion.com

Aegis destroyer collides with fishing boat off Chiba; two missing

Japanese destroyer collides with fishing boat off — A Maritime Self-Defense Force destroyer with an advanced radar system collided with a small fishing boat early Tuesday morning in the Pacific off the coast of Chiba Prefecture, causing the boat to capsize and leaving its two crewmembers missing, the MSDF and the Japan Coast Guard said.
Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba said authorities are making all-out efforts to rescue the fishermen and that the MSDF has yet to determine the cause of the collision. It was the first serious accident involving an MSDF vessel and civilian ship since a submarine and a fishing boat collided in Tokyo Bay in 1988, killing 30.
The hull of the 15-meter-long tuna fishing boat Seitoku Maru split into its bow and stern parts following the collision with the 165 m-long Atago, which is equipped with the high-tech Aegis defense system, the MSDF said. The MSDF and the coast guard have dispatched boats and aircraft to conduct a search at the site, they said.
The coast guard said it tried unsuccessfully to find the missing men in searches of the two parts of the hull, which were still afloat.
Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda told the Defense Ministry and the coast guard to make all-out search-and-rescue efforts when he was notified of the 4:07 a.m. incident about two hours after it occurred.
Ishiba said his ministry has yet to determine what caused it, including how the high-tech radar was functioning at the time.
The Maritime Staff Office's Operations and Plans Department chief Katsutoshi Kawano apologized to people concerned as well as the public for the accident.
The collision took place in what Kawano described as relatively "calm" sea around 40 kilometers south-southwest of Nojimazaki Cape at the southernmost tip of the Boso Peninsula. The cape is about 85 kilometers south of Tokyo.
The fishing boat belongs to a fishery cooperative in Katsuura, Chiba Prefecture, and was carrying Haruo Kichisei, 58, and his 23-year-old son Tetsuhiro, from Katsuura city, the coast guard said.
It left port in Katsuura at 1:30 a.m. Tuesday together with several other fishing boats, according to the cooperative.
According to the coast guard, it was cloudy in the area when the accident occurred and the sea was relatively calm with good visibility of around 2 kilometers. Wind velocity was 25.2 kilometers per hour.
The MSDF said five vessels and four helicopters have been dispatched to the site to conduct a search. It has set up an accident investigation commission, while the government established an information liaison office within the crisis management center at the prime minister's office.
With regard to the handling of the accident, Fukuda questioned the crisis management system of the ministry and the Self-Defense Forces, saying the first accident report to Ishiba, which was at 5:38 a.m., was "late."
Ishiba said, "It even took 40 minutes for the information to reach me from the ministry's Internal Bureau...The lag should be shortened. The first report should have reached the minister much earlier."
In July 1988, the MSDF submarine Nadashio, now decommissioned, collided with a fishing boat off Yokosuka in Kanagawa Prefecture, killing 30 people including anglers.
Fukuda, Ishiba, Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka Machimura and transport minister Tetsuzo Fuyushiba, who oversees the coast guard, met prior to the Cabinet meeting to be briefed on the accident and the latest search activities.
The Atago, which went into commission in March 2007, was heading for the port of Yokosuka after completing tests of its equipment related to Standard Missile-2 interceptors in Hawaii, according to the MSDF.
The 7,700-ton ship, under the command of Capt Ken Funato, 52, was supposed to arrive at Yokosuka port at 9 a.m. Tuesday, Kawano said.
The Atago destroyer is the latest version of destroyer equipped with the Aegis advanced defense system. It is based at the MSDF Maizuru base in Kyoto Prefecture on the Sea of Japan coast. It typically carries around 300 crew members.
An Aegis ship is designed to play a central role in Japan's missile defense shield. It is capable of dealing with more than 10 incoming missiles, aircraft and other enemy targets simultaneously.

JAL plane attempts takeoff without permission in Hokkaido

A Japan Airlines jet carrying 446 passengers and crew members started heading down a runway without permission while another JAL aircraft was still running after landing at New Chitose Airport on Saturday morning but stopped on an order by an air traffic controller, airport and airline officials said.
According to Japan Airlines, the pilot in command of JAL flight 502, a Boeing 747 passenger jet bound for Tokyo's Haneda airport, misheard an instruction by an air traffic controller in English, or the controller may have used terminology that was misunderstood. The controller told the aircraft that it was expected to be cleared for takeoff soon but the pilot apparently misunderstood it as an order for an immediate takeoff, the airline said.

Kanagawa targets teachers who refuse to stand to sing national anthem

The Kanagawa prefectural education board decided Monday to continue collecting the names of teachers who refuse to stand when attendants at school ceremonies sing the "Kimigayo" national anthem, despite a recommendation by a prefectural panel on protection of personal information not to do so, board officials said.
"It's undesirable there are such school staff members who don't stand to sing the anthem, as enrollment and graduation ceremonies are important events," said Takaichi Hikichi, head of the education board.
The education board has since March 2006 ordered the principals of prefecture-run high schools to report the names of teachers who refuse to stand and sing the anthem at school ceremonies.
The panel determined in January that the practice is inappropriate, saying it is not legitimate or necessary to touch on such information that falls under the category of personal beliefs and creeds.
A 58-year-old male teacher who is seeking nullification of the order said, "The education board doesn't understand the weight of the panel recommendation. We may resort to legal measures next."
Kanagawa Gov Shigefumi Matsuzawa, meanwhile, said of the education board's decision, "It's an international norm to respect the national anthem and flag. I expect teachers who refuse to stand and sing the anthem to consider their responsibility as a teacher," he said.

Japan and China to hold talks over food-poisoning outbreak

A group of Chinese experts held a meeting with their Japanese counterparts Sunday over a food-poisoning outbreak allegedly triggered by Chinese-made frozen meat dumplings. The five-member team from China is led by Li Chunfeng, vice director of the Import and Export Food Safety Bureau in the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine, the national quality control bureau.
At the outset of the meeting, Shigeru Hotta, senior official in the Cabinet Office, said, "We need to bring the issue under control immediately as it has become a big public concern in Japan. I hope the two countries will jointly work to clarify the cause." The first meeting concluded "as an opportunity for information sharing between the two sides," Masaki Ichikawa, another official in the Cabinet Office, told reporters. "We'll continue the meeting tomorrow and later."

3 death row inmates hanged in Tokyo, Osaka, Fukuoka

Japan executed three death row inmates Friday, less than two months after hanging three others in December, showing its determination to continue executions despite international calls for a moratorium on the death penalty.
Justice Minister Kunio Hatoyama held a news conference Friday morning to announce the names of the three inmates and where they were executed. "Each of the three inmates was convicted of killing their victims out of selfish motives and in a cruel manner. After making careful studies, I ordered the inmates to be hanged," Hatoyama said.
The nonpartisan Japan Parliamentary League against the Death Penalty protested against the executions. Group member Nobuto Hosaka, a House of Representatives member of the Social Democratic Party, told a news conference, "Barely two months have passed since the previous executions. Is it the start of a mass execution period? We lodge a stern protest."
Six death row inmates have been hanged since Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda assumed office in September and all of the executions have been ordered by Hatoyama. More than 100 inmates are currently on death row in Japan.
The three executed Friday were Takashi Mochida, 65, who was hanged at the Tokyo Detention House, Masahiko Matsubara, 63, who was hanged at the Osaka Detention House, and Keishi Nago, 37, who was hanged at the Fukuoka Detention House.
According to court rulings, Mochida stabbed a 44-year-old woman to death in Tokyo in April 1997, two months after he was released from prison. He killed the woman out of revenge because she had filed a report with the police accusing him of rape. Mochida served a seven-year prison term for the rape.
Matsubara was convicted of strangling a 61-year-old woman in Tokushima Prefecture in April 1988 and a 44-year-old woman in Aichi Prefecture in June the same year.
Nago was convicted of killing his 40-year-old sister-in-law and her daughter, 17, and wounding her son on Tokunoshima Island, Kagoshima Prefecture, in August 2002.
Mochida spent three years and three months in prison after he was sentenced to death. Matsubara served 10 years and nine months in prison and Nago three years and five months.
On Thursday, the parliamentary league against the death penalty urged Hatoyama not to order the execution of death row inmates after the organization obtained information about imminent executions.
On Friday, Hosaka, the head of the league's secretariat, referred to the resolution calling for a moratorium on executions adopted by the U.N. General Assembly on Dec 18. "The Japanese government for its part is not supposed to take the resolution lightly but these executions are its reply. It is going against the world trend and information disclosure is insufficient."
Rights group Amnesty International Japan also issued a strong protest, saying that apart from the names of the executed, no other information has been disclosed and the executions were undertaken secretly as in the past.
Following a lapse of three years and four months, the Justice Ministry resumed executions of death row inmates in March 1993 under orders from then Justice Minister Masaharu Gotoda.
With the latest executions, the total number of inmates hanged since the resumption has reached 63.
There were no executions when Seiken Sugiura was justice minister between October 2005 and September 2006.
Hatoyama, the current justice minister, once proposed omitting the present requirement for the justice minister to sign an order for the execution of a death row inmate.
Hatoyama's predecessor, Jinen Nagase, who occupied the post between September 2006 and August 2007, ordered the executions of 10 inmates.
On Dec 7, Hatoyama announced the names of executed inmates and where they were executed for the first time.
At the time, Hatoyama said he announced the executions "in order to gain public understanding on the implementation of justice."
Previously, the Justice Ministry announced only the number of inmates executed without disclosing their names.

Gynecologist arrested for secretly taking photos of female patient at Chiba clinic

Police on Thursday arrested a maternity clinic doctor in Funabashi for secretly taking photos of a female patient during a medical examination last April. The doctor, Hiroshi Shimizu, 50, had already been arrested once before, for taking photos up a woman's skirt at a train station with a mobile phone camera last August. After that incident, he was sentenced to one year in prison, suspended for three years.
Police said that Shimizu was arrested for allegedly taking photos of a female patient, 27, with a digital camera during a gynecologic examination on a table with a curtain between them. Police said that when they raided Shimizu's home, they found about 15,000 photos, including nine photos of patients taken at the clinic.
Shimuzu was quoted by police as saying: "I took the photos for medical research."

Australian anti-whaling activists call for boycott of Japanese firms

Australian conservation groups have joined a global grassroots campaign to boycott Japanese products Friday in the latest bid to pressure Japan to stop whaling. Anti-whaling activists from Australia's east coast, the Byron Whale Action Group and Surfers for Cetaceans, hand-delivered a letter to the Japanese consulate in Brisbane, informing Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda of the boycott and demanding an end to whaling in the name of research.
The Brisbane offices of Sony Australia Ltd, Mitsubishi Motors Australia Ltd and Japan Airlines Corp also received similar messages from the groups.
Byron Whale Action Group spokesman Dean Jefferys said the Australian boycott is part of a global grassroots campaign that has been coordinated over Internet websites such as MySpace and YouTube.
Other conservation groups taking part include the U.S.-based Save the Whales and Britain's Cetacea Defence.
"What we have found is that the larger environmental groups like Greenpeace are not willing to call for a boycott because they are afraid of getting sued. But there has been a real movement of smaller conservation groups, getting together through the Internet and organizing this kind of action," Jeffreys said.
While stopping short of a boycott, Greenpeace has recently targeted Canon Inc over its high-profile advertising and sponsorship programs dedicated to wildlife and endangered species, by challenging the world's top digital camera maker to match word to deed by taking a stand against whaling.
Specifically, it has appealed by letter to Canon's CEO Fujio Mitarai to endorse a statement of opposition to Japanese whaling in Antarctic seas and the use of lethal research methods.
On Jan 22, however, the company declined, saying that while it recognizes "the importance of protecting endangered wildlife...scientific opinion about research whaling varies," according to Greenpeace, which is now asking Canon customers to urge the company to change its mind.
"Canon sells cameras by using the pictures of endangered species, including whales," Greenpeace Japan Whales Project Leader Junichi Sato said. "Greenpeace is amazed that Canon wouldn't condemn the killing of threatened species for fake research."
The Japanese whaling fleet is currently in the Antarctic, where it plans to kill 935 minke and 50 fin whales as part of its whaling program, as the taking of whales for scientific research is permitted under International Whaling Commission rules.
Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith, will visit Tokyo next Thursday, where he will meet with his counterpart Masahiko Komura and attempt to smooth over bilateral relations following the whaling row.
Smith told Sky News on Friday whaling will not harm the bilateral relationship.
"Foreign Minister Komura and I, Australia and Japan have to date agreed to disagree about the issue, but that won't get in the fundamentals of the relationship," he said.

Fukuda to meet Bono, Microsoft chief over African development

Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda will hold talks Saturday with Irish rock singer Bono of the band U2, Microsoft Corp. Chairman Bill Gates, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade to discuss spurring African development.
During the talks on the sidelines of an international forum here in Switzerland, Fukuda plans to seek their cooperation for the success of a meeting in May in Yokohama of the Tokyo International Conference on African Development, a Japan-led African development initiative, Japanese Foreign Ministry officials said.
Bono, a well-known anti-poverty campaigner, and several other celebrities are expected to attend the Yokohama gathering, the fourth of its kind. Wade attended TICAD's third meeting in Tokyo in 2003.
Bono, Blair, Gates and Wade — all of whom have been actively involved in African development — are seen as telling Fukuda their expectations of the Group of Eight summit in July in Hokkaido, Japan, where African development is one of the four main agenda items, the officials said.
Fukuda will hold talks with the four on the sidelines of the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum, or the Davos forum, of world political and business leaders.
Japan plans to draw the heads of state and ministers from 53 African countries and representatives from western donor countries and multilateral institutions to the upcoming TICAD meeting.
As well as Bono, Japan has invited Gates and Wangari Maathai, the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize laureate from Kenya, to the meeting and is sounding out U.S. actress Angelina Jolie, a goodwill ambassador for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, according to government sources.

2,240 police, 460 patrol cars, copter mobilized for car chase in Osaka

Police on Thursday arrested a wanted man after a two-hour car chase that involved 2,240 officers, 460 police cars and one helicopter. Hirofumi Fukuda, 27, who had been wanted for assaulting police officers on Jan 21, was arrested after a chase through central Osaka. Around 11 a.m., police received an emergency call saying that a car was driving recklessly, ignoring traffic lights. When a patrol car approached the vehicle in question, it took off.
Police were mobilized throughout the area and a helicopter called in. The chase ended when Fukuda's car crashed into a bridge column. He sustained light injuries but no one else was injured in the chase.

apan asks Australia to take legal action against anti-whaling activists

Japan urged Australia in a ministerial meeting Tuesday to take legal action against two anti-whaling activists who boarded a Japanese whaling vessel in the Antarctic Ocean without permission and to take measures to prevent a recurrence, the Japanese Foreign Ministry said.
Foreign Minister Masahiko Komura made the demands in talks with Australian Trade Minister Simon Crean in Tokyo, although the two also reaffirmed that the recent clashes over the whaling issue should not affect overall friendly bilateral relations, Press Secretary Kazuo Kodama said.
The activists, from the U.S. environmental group Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, were held on the Japanese harpoon boat for two days after they delivered a letter protesting the slaughter of whales.
Only an hour after the two men were handed to an Australian customs boat on Friday, the crew of a Sea Shepherd ship hurled butyric acid bombs, or "stink bombs," onto the deck of the harpoon boat.
Komura told Crean that the actions of the group posed a danger and he urged cooperation to prevent "the recurrence of such an incident," according to the ministry statement.
He also asked Canberra to "take appropriate action" under national laws "should the Sea Shepherd boat call at an Australian port."
Crean, during talks here on bilateral ties, regional cooperation and the whaling issue, said the Australian Federal Police are investigating the case and that his government would decide on a response based on the results.
But as he did so, Australia moved to film Japanese ships in a bid to launch a legal challenge against the hunt's activities.
Australia has long opposed the hunt in the area, which includes a self-declared sanctuary, but has stopped short of physically intervening.
A customs ship tracked down the whalers and sent officers in smaller boats to gather video and photographic evidence, said a spokeswoman for Home Affairs Minister Bob Rebus.
"They are trying to get closer to see what the whaling fleet is doing," she said on condition of anonymity.
The customs ship, Oceanic Viking, had lost contact with the whalers after picking up the two activists after last week's stand-off.
Australia's Labor government vowed when elected last year to collect evidence of Japanese whaling in Antarctic waters, stepping up pressure on Tokyo to end its annual hunt.

Assassin apologizes to Nagasaki mayor for killing him

A gangster indicted for fatally shooting former Nagasaki Mayor Itcho Ito last April pleaded guilty and apologized to the late mayor Tuesday at his first court hearing at the Nagasaki District Court. Tetsuya Shiroo, 60, shot Ito, 61, from behind on the evening of April 17 near the mayor's election campaign office in the city of Nagasaki, according to the indictment. Ito died six and a half hours later in hospital.
"What the indictment says is correct," Shiroo told the court. "I apologize to Mayor Itcho Ito from the bottom of my heart." The trial is focused on why the defendant assaulted Ito, with whom Shiroo was not personally acquainted, and whether the shooting was premeditated. Prosecutors argue Shiroo began harboring designs against Ito around February last year, when the mayor expressed his intention to seek a fourth term, due to dissatisfaction with the city government.

Over 10 inquiries required for hospital admissions in 734 Osaka cases

In at least 734 cases in Osaka in 2007, a minimum of 10 inquiries were required to locate hospitals to accept emergency patients, fire departments said in a Kyodo News survey conducted earlier this month. In refusing admissions, many hospitals said they were already treating other patients, their beds were full, or the patients' conditions did not match their specialties. In one example, a fire department had to make inquiries 64 times for a patient with a mental disease.
The annual number of cases that required fire departments to make at least five inquiries totaled more than 3,800 in both 2006 and 2007, highlighting the flaws in the emergency care system in the prefecture. The Osaka prefectural government is considering increasing the number of core hospitals in communities but is facing a shortage of doctors and hospital departments.

2008 Beijing Olympic V.S. 1964 Tokyo Olympics

Japanese Media comment on Olympics Impact on Economy
Japanese Industry News predicts China’s economy will realize soft landing after 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. It is predicted that the overall direct and indirect investment will have mounted up to 4000 million dollars by then. Half of the investment came from field and building constructions.
According to the China National Information Center, Olympics have contributed a two percent raise annually from 2002 to 2007. Experts say Beijing Olympics won’t result in economic downturn, as opposed to Japan’s 1964 Olympic Games, according to the magazine.
East Asia Economy, on the other hand, predicted China’s economy will confront side effects of hot economy after 2008. According to its analyzes, Olympics will bring in too much currency trading, which will result in hot economy and essentially—inflation. The current economic growth of 12 per cent is exceeding China’s potential capacity of economic growth. Therefore, economic adjustment is necessary after year 2008. If the central government is unable to control the tendency of “over-heating”, then the economic growth rate will be even higher. And there will appear economy bubble in real estate industry.
Take Japan for example. Japan experienced severe economic depression and security crisis after holding 1964 Tokyo Olympic Games. But Japan have successfully recovered from it and achieved jack-ups after a short period of time. Japan’s success is as a result of the common use of high technology, improved ability of exporting, high needs of national commodities.
But China’s situation is fairly different. China doesn’t possess some of the key elements under the current situation, which are needed for economic recovery. Some of the concerns are the raising price of oil and rice and the high fluid of currency, which never happened in Japan.

Sea Shepherd vows to keep disrupting Japanese whalers

A militant anti-whaling group said Friday it would immediately resume harassing Japanese whalers in Antarctic waters after detained activists freed by Tokyo are returned to their ship.
The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society said the two men had been handed over to an Australian customs ship, the Oceanic Viking, after being held for two days on a Japanese whaler which they boarded on the high seas.
"The moment we get them back on board we plan to resume what we came here to do, which is enforcing international conservation law," executive director Kim McCoy told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
"Now more than ever, it's imperative that we get right back on track immediately and go out and intervene against the illegal activities of the Japanese fleet."
The two activists — Australian Benjamin Potts, 28, and Briton Giles Lane, 35 — were detained Tuesday after boarding the harpoon ship Yushin Maru No 2 to protest Japan's whaling programme.
The Japanese whaling fleet is on its annual whale hunt in the Antarctic, with a target this year of killing about 1,000 of the giant mammals.
Japan exploits a loophole in a 1986 international moratorium on commercial whaling to kill the animals for what it calls scientific research, while admitting the meat from the hunt ends up on dinner plates.
The confrontation with Sea Shepherd had forced the Japanese fleet to suspend whaling for several days, but a spokesman for Japan's Institute of Cetacean Research said the whalers would resume the hunt as soon as possible.
"The Yushin Maru is heading back towards the rest of the research vessels and yes, when it has the opportunity, it will continue with the programme," Glenn Inwood said.
Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith, who was at the forefront of negotiations to end the standoff, said Friday Canberra still strongly opposed Japan's whaling program.
He noted that the Oceanic Viking was already in the area on a mission to gain evidence of Japanese whaling for potential use in an international court challenge to end the hunt for good.
"Our ultimate objective is to get the Japanese to stop whaling in the Southern Ocean," he told reporters.
The Australian and Japanese governments had made arrangements to transfer the two men while "agreeing to disagree" about whaling, Smith said, adding that the two countries had strong ties.
"We have a very good relationship with Japan. If there hadn't been such a strong relationship, we wouldn't have seen such a speedy agreement," Smith said.An official from Japan's Fisheries Agency said Friday that the men who "intruded" onto the whaler had been picked up by the Australian ship.
"Two Sea Shepherd activists who intruded onto the Yushin Maru No 2 and have been in custody on the ship were handed over to the Oceanic Viking chartered by the Australian government," said Hideaki Okada, a whaling official at the Fisheries Agency in Tokyo.
Sea Shepherd's McCoy said its ship the Steve Irwin expected to pick the men up from the customs boat within a few hours.
"I've since spoken with one of the hostages who's no longer being held hostage, on board the Oceanic Viking, and he confirmed that they're both completely safe," she said.
Tokyo denies the claim the men were hostages, saying they had been treated well and the whaling ship had been keen to hand them over earlier.
"They're on the Oceanic Viking and they're just going to give them a place to sleep until we can pick them up in the morning at a rendezvous point," McCoy added.

Air fears bring athletes to Japan / Beijing pollution, food worries spur 20 nations to train for Olympics here

China's less-than-sparkling reputation for air pollution and food safety have led Olympic teams from 20 countries to plan to hold their training camps in Japan rather than in China in the weeks leading up to this year's Beijing Games.

Many top-class athletes from around the world are likely to be making their final tune-ups from Hokkaido to Kyushu this summer, despite having to pay more to train here than they would in China.
"Training here might cost a little more, but Japan has a proven record as a country where final preparations can be made for a major event because it has held such events as the world athletics championships," an official from one such country said.

Britain, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands, Sweden and the United States are among nations planning to hold training camps in Japan, according to the Japanese Olympic Committee and other sources.
Various teams from eight countries have settled on locations in Japan where they wish to make their final preparations for the first Summer Olympics to be held in Asia since the Seoul Games in 1988.

Sportsmen and women in events such as athletics, swimming and canoing will come to Japan in July and August to prepare for the Beijing Games, which open on Aug. 8.

Teams from many countries have had difficulty in securing training locations once they have moved into the Olympic village. Instead, they have opted to hold training camps for previous Games in the vicinity of the host city to help athletes acclimatize and to minimize problems with time differences.
But a number of factors are putting teams off from training near Beijing.
"I want to avoid the risk of a long stay in Beijing," said the coach of the Finnish rowing team on a visit to Kagawa Prefecture in November to sound out the possibility of holding a training camp there.
The Finnish canoe team also made an approach to the prefecture the following month, leading a prefectural government official to suggest that "competitors in outdoor events have got the jitters about the air quality [in Beijing]."

The manager of the British swimming team also reportedly told an Osaka municipal government official of their "anxiety" over air pollution and food in China.

Some national teams have decided to hold camps in the same locations as they did for last summer's athletics championships in Osaka.
The Finnish athletics team will be based in Marugame, Kagawa Prefecture, a city where nine countries held camps before the Osaka championships.
Ireland's athletics coach gushed about Matsue as a training location, saying, "Everything--the facilities, food and accommodation--was good."
Athletes from Germany who trained in Shibetsu, Hokkaido, for the Osaka championships were so pleased with the city that they chose to train there again.

"We could train in peace, which helped us put up a good performance," one competitor said.
The French judo team has decided on Tenri University in Tenri, Nara Prefecture, because of a connection with a coach who they had invited to come to France from the university.
Sweden plans to send 150 athletes in 19 sports to Fukuoka and nearby locations because "the stadium is in a forest, the conditions are similar to the host country and the athletes can relax there," a team spokesman said.
Officials from local authorities that will host the athletes are intent on getting their municipalities better known and hosting international exchanges.

"This is a chance to get the name of Fukuoka known across the world," a municipal official said. "I hope we can establish opportunities for residents of the city to see world-class athletes up close through open training sessions and other means."

The Osaka municipal government has gained the consent of the British swimming team to have its swimmers instruct local children.
Hokkaido will host this year's Group of Eight summit meeting at the Lake Toya hot-spring resort area in Toyakocho before the Games open this summer.
At a November party in a Tokyo hotel for ambassadors and officials of countries taking part in the summit, Hokkaido Gov. Harumi Takahashi handed out pamphlets from 17 municipalities hoping to entice Olympic teams to hold camps there.

Each of these municipalities is optimistic about the ripple effect of having teams based there.
"Even if we foot the bill for the athletes' transportation and use of facilities, there should be a big economic effect if recognition [of the city's name] increases," a spokesman for the Shibetsu municipal government said.
Even Hiroshima, which is yet to field any inquiries, has made preparations such as shelving plans for annually held competitions to secure training facilities, just in case athletes come knocking.

"We've prepared facilities and we have direct flights from Hiroshima Airport to Beijing," a city official said. "The competition for hosting training camps hasn't started yet."
As the Olympics draw closer, more and more countries seem likely to choose Japan as a base to prepare for the Games.

Greenpeace Protest chasing Japanese whalers

A Greenpeace protest ship located Japan's whaling fleet in Antarctic waters and is pursuing it to stop the hunt for the giant sea creatures, the environmental group said Saturday.
Greenpeace said the fleet of six Japanese whalers made off when they saw its ship Esperanza early Saturday.
It said the Esperanza was chasing the large factory ship Nisshin Maru, which was effectively unable to hunt whales as it tried to outrun the Greenpeace vessel.
Greenpeace said in a statement that if the Japanese tried to kill any whales, the Esperanza's crew would use non-violent means to prevent them.
It said the Esperanza had broadcast a message in Japanese and English to the whalers demanding they end the controversial cull.
"Our vessel and crew are here in the Southern Ocean to condemn your hunt, which includes endangered species, and to insist that you leave the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary, and return to port immediately," the message said.
Japan's whaling fleet plans to kill around 1,000 whales during this year's hunt.
Tokyo says the slaughter is for scientific research, exploiting a loophole in a 1986 moratorium on whaling, but makes no secret of the fact that the meat ends up on Japanese supermarket shelves.
Australia's recently elected government has spearheaded an international campaign to stop the whaling, prompting Japan to last month drop plans to kill 50 humpback whales.
An Australian customs vessel Oceanic Viking set sail from Western Australia for Antarctic waters last Tuesday on a mission to track the whaling fleet and gather evidence for a potential international court case against Tokyo.
The ship will spend 20 days gathering video and photographic evidence of Japan's slaughter of whales, fulfilling a pledge made by the governing Labor Party during the campaign for November's election.

Fukuda to meet Bono, Bill Gates, Matt Damon, to lure them to Africa conference

Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda is planning to meet U2 rock singer Bono, Microsoft founder Bill Gates and Hollywood actor Matt Damon on the sidelines of a major conference in Switzerland later this month to make a personal pitch for their attendance at an African development conference in Japan in May, a government source said Sunday.
The Japanese government has invited Wangari Maathai, the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize laureate from Kenya, to the conference and is also sounding out American actress Angelina Jolie, a goodwill ambassador for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, the source said. Bono, a well-known anti-poverty campaigner, and a few other people are understood to have expressed an interest in attending the Tokyo International Conference on African Development to be held in Yokohama, the source said.