Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Jake Adelstein’s Tokyo Vice
Jake Adelstein’s Tokyo Vice
October 15th, 2009 by James
Tokyo Vice: An American Reporter on the Police Beat in Japan, a tell-all book by former Yomuiri Shimbun crime reporter Jake Adelstein, is finally out in stores. Reuters has an article up about him:
A 12-year stint covering crime for Japan’s biggest daily newspaper, the Yomiuri Shimbun, brought Adelstein into contact with the seamy side of Tokyo that most Westerners never see, from loan sharking to murders to trafficking in sex workers.
His mission to pull off a scoop about the yakuza turned personal after the disappearance of a prostitute friend who had been trying to help him find out about what he suspected was a human trafficking ring.
Adelstein, who wrote in Japanese, left the newspaper in 2005. In his English-language memoir, “Tokyo Vice,” which will be published in the United States this week, he tells the story of how he got to grips with the unique Japanese way of journalism, becoming such a serious irritant to the yakuza that he faced death threats and was placed under police protection in 2008.
Not being an expert on organized crime in Japan, I cannot speak for the accuracy of what he is writing, but I am always suspicious of authors who hype up their tell-all books by advertising the fact that gangsters are supposedly trying to kill them for knowing too much. That being said, however, I downloaded the Kindle edition of his book yesterday, and what I’ve read so far is pretty interesting and not too outlandish or paranoid. Unlike other authors of English language books about the dark side of Japan, Adelstein at least has a resume that gives him some authority to speak about organized crime.
For more information on Adelstein and his book, check out the following links
•WNYC radio interview about Tokyo Vice
•Japansubculture interview with Jake Adelstein.
•Random House Q&A with the author.
•“Yakuza Wars,” a JapanFocus article by David McNeill & Jake Adelstein
Incheon Bridge to Open Friday
Incheon Bridge to Open Friday The Incheon Bridge is to be officially opened on Friday, four years and four months after construction began. The bridge connects the Songdo International Business District in the Incheon Free Economic Zone and Yeongjongdo, where Incheon International Airport is located.
To celebrate the opening of the bridge, Incheon city and the Chosun Ilbo co-host a walking tour on Saturday. Vehicles are allowed from Monday.
The bridge at 21.38 km is the country's longest and the world's seventh longest. Among cable-stayed bridges, it is the world's fifth longest bridge.
Narita airport undiminished
Oct 14, 2009
Narita airport undiminished
TOKYO - JAPAN'S transport minister said Wednesday his plan to upgrade Tokyo's portside Haneda airport into a 24-hour international hub will in no way diminish the role of the outlying Narita airport.
Seiji Maehara, the minister of land, infrastrucure, transport and tourism, also said the plan was aimed at replacing South Korea's Incheon airport as a hub for international flights using Japan's local airports.
Under a government policy, Haneda handles domestic flights, except for those to and from the East Asian cities of Shanghai, Seoul and Hong Kong, at present while Narita serves international and connecting domestic trips.
The prefecture of Chiba, which includes the city of Narita, has been angered by the Haneda plan after it was made public on Monday and Tuesday by Maehara.
The minister said he had told Chiba governor Kensaku Morita in a meeting Wednesday that both Haneda and Narita should be 'incorporated in handling domestic and international flights.'
'Even if Haneda and Narita are combined, it cannot meet demand in future,' Maehara told reporters. 'If we don't divide flights between Haneda and Narita, we won't be able to cope.' A fourth runway is due to be completed at Haneda in October next year. -- AFP
Olympic Newsdesk: Japanese Joint Bid for 2020 Against IOC Rules
Olympic Newsdesk: Japanese Joint Bid for 2020 Against IOC Rules
10/13/2009
The joint bid proposal by Hiroshima and Nagasaki for the 2020 Olympic is impossible under IOC rules.
Gilbert Felli, the IOC's director for Olympic Games, told the Kyodo News Agency on Tuesday that only one city can make a bid for the games.
"The Olympic Charter clearly states only one city can host the Olympics. It does not allow two cities to co-host the games. At the moment, the answer is no," he said.
Felli did leave open the possibility that one city could host the games and the other could host the first stage of a sport such as football.
There is proposal to review bid policies but Felli said it is unlikely any change would happen before the official bid process for the 2020 Games starts in 2011. The IOC will select a host city for 2020 in 2013.
Hiroshima mayor Tadatoshi Akiba and Nagasaki mayor Tomihisa Taue announced the bid on Sunday, eight days after Tokyo's failed bid for the 2016 games. The mayors said they hope to use the Olympics to promote a nuclear free world and peace.
The mayors established a joint committee to study the game's feasibility.
The joint-bid proposal might have other obstacles besides the IOC's current rules. Distance is another factor with about 300 km separating Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The Mainichi talks with new U.S. Ambassador to Japan John Roos
The Mainichi talks with new U.S. Ambassador to Japan John Roos
U.S. Ambassador to Japan John Roos poses during an interview with the Mainichi in Tokyo. (Mainichi)The Mainichi speaks with new U.S. Ambassador to Japan John Roos about the Japan-U.S. alliance, cooperation on issues such as Japanese involvement in Afghanistan and global warming, and his visit to Hiroshima.
Mainichi: Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama has said his government wishes to reassess key U.S.-Japanese agreements, including the realignment of U.S. forces in Okinawa and the Status of Forces Agreement. How far will the U.S. be willing to go in making changes to these agreements?
Roos: One thing that was critical from the president's point of view (when he came into office) was reaffirming in every way possible the commitment to the alliance and the bilateral relationship with Japan. After taking a look at the different policies that were in place, President Obama and Secretary Clinton recommitted to the realignment roadmap with Japan, something that the president and the secretary and the United States government feel is critically important to deterrence and sustainability of the alliance.
With respect to the process that the Japanese government is going through, (it's) going through its analysis of the agreements that are in place. ... It's our belief, hope and expectation that the (Hatoyama) government, just as the Obama government reconfirmed the realignment roadmap, (will reach) a similar conclusion.
Mainichi: Is there a time limit?
Roos: I think that the (Japanese) government is new. It's going through a diligent process ... analyzing past history and the agreements. These agreements took over a dozen years to negotiate. So, in fairness ... while (the government) continues to move diligently, I don't think it's appropriate to talk about any time limit.
M: With regard to the Japan-U.S. alliance, more than 20 years ago, former U.S. Ambassador Mike Mansfield said that the U.S.-Japan relationship is the most important bilateral relationship in the world. With the changes in the security environment since, how do you think the relationship should evolve?
R: (Ambassador Mansfield's words) are equally true today. ... The (Japan-U.S.) relationship has evolved into an equal partnership that will and has been addressing global issues. So, the United States looks forward to working with Japan both in a bilateral context and a multilateral context on a whole range of issues. ... (In particular), two issues are critically important to both president of the United States and the prime minister of Japan: the elimination of nuclear weapons and non-proliferation, as well as global climate change and renewable energy.
M: Prime Minister Hatoyama stated in his New York Times essay that he would like to see an East Asian Community established. What do you think about that?
R: The relationships between Japan and its neighbors ... (are) not a zero-sum game. The United States encourages enhanced good relations between Japan and its neighbors. It's important to say that the United States, being a Pacific-Asian nation, play a critical role with respect to the formation of a regional architecture.
M: On his recent visit to Afghanistan, Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada pledged Japanese support for the Afghan government in areas such as job retraining programs for former Taliban insurgents. Would that be an alternative to the MSDF (Maritime Self-Defense Force) refueling mission in the Indian Ocean?
R: First of all, it's important to say that the United States and the other nations ... involved in the coalition are deeply appreciative of the significant role that Japan has played in Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan ... including the refueling. ... Hopefully, (Japan's future) contributions will continue to build on the contributions Japan has made thus far.
M: In light of President Obama's Prague anti-nuclear speech, and his recent Nobel award, it seems likely there will be increasing calls on the president to visit Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Would you advise the president to pay such a visit?
R: I had the opportunity to visit Hiroshima a week ago. ... It was a deeply moving experience. ... I look forward to having the opportunity to share my experience with the president. I think the decision (to visit) is a deeply personal decision that the president is going to have to make himself.
M: A U.S. ambassador to Japan has never attended the August memorial services in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Do you think you will attend next year?
R: Given the fact that I have just visited Hiroshima and was deeply moved by the experience, I will give it serious thought.
M: As a former Silicon Valley lawyer, will you be a catalyst in promoting U.S.-Japanese cooperation in such fields as new technology and new energy?
R: (In my 25 years in Silicon Valley), one thing that I learned is that the United States and Japan are two of the most innovative countries in the world, if not the two. An area I feel strongly about is the whole area of climate change and renewable energy. It's also an area of primary importance to Prime Minister Hatoyama and President Obama. So I hope to use my expertise and my background in that area to promote collaboration.
M: How do you feel, starting in your new job as ambassador, and working with a new Japanese government?
R: It is a fascinating time to be here in Japan. I have had the opportunity not only to get to know the new government leaders -- most of whom have already had deep ties to the United States. ... To contribute in even a small way to the strengthening of not only the strategic alliance but the bilateral relationship as a whole is truly a once in a lifetime opportunity, and I'm excited to have the honor of being here. (Interviewed by Naoya Sugio, Foreign News Department)
(Mainichi Japan) October 14, 2009
Roos to brief Obama on Hiroshima
Thursday, Oct. 15, 2009
Roos to brief Obama on Hiroshima
Kyodo News
U.S. Ambassador to Japan John Roos said Tuesday he intends to speak with President Barack Obama about a possible visit to Hiroshima and to convey his impressions from his own visit to the city, which was devastated by an atomic bomb dropped by the United States in World War II.
While noting that any decision to visit is ultimately "up to the president," Roos said in an interview that Obama, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize after calling for a nuclear-free world in a speech in Prague in April, is deeply committed to disarmament and ending nuclear proliferation, leaving open the possibility of a presidential visit to the symbolic city.
Roos said repeatedly that his visit to Hiroshima on Sunday was "deeply moving" and added that his parents and son went with him.
"I felt that in order to provide him (Obama) my feelings with respect to Hiroshima, it was important that I see the peace memorial, peace park and the museum and witness it myself. It's a powerful statement. I get emotional talking about it. It was a moving experience for my entire family," he said.
Hiroshima appeals court order for 'Ponyo' scenery preservation
Hiroshima appeals court order for 'Ponyo' scenery preservation
HIROSHIMA, Oct. 15 KYODO
Hiroshima Gov. Yuzan Fujita on Thursday appealed a court order to preserve Seto Inland Sea scenery -- blocking a public works project -- that inspired the creation of the animated film ''Gake no ue no Ponyo (Ponyo on the Cliff).''
Man gets life in prison for Tokyo's Hachioji Station stabbing spree
Man gets life in prison for Tokyo's Hachioji Station stabbing spree
Oct 14 09:40 PM US/Eastern
TACHIKAWA, Japan, Oct. 15 (AP) - (Kyodo)—The Tokyo District Court's Tachikawa branch sentenced a man Thursday to life in prison for a stabbing spree in July last year at the Keio Line's Hachioji Station building in western Tokyo, killing a woman and seriously injuring another.
Shoichi Kanno, a 34-year-old company employee, has pleaded guilty to the murder and attempted murder charges.
A psychological evaluation has found that he has an intellectual disability but that his ability to tell right from wrong has been maintained to a certain extent.
Prosecutors have demanded he receive a life sentence, saying Kanno was mentally competent.
Kanno is charged with fatally stabbing Mana Saiki, 22, a part-time bookstore worker, with a kitchen knife and seriously injuring a 21- year-old female customer of a bookshop in the building on July 22, 2008.
The prosecutors have said that Kanno aimed to disturb his parents by mimicking a previous rampage in the Akihabara electronics district in Tokyo.
In the June 8 Akihabara rampage, a man drove a truck into a crowd and stabbed people indiscriminately, killing seven and injuring 10 others.
Japan official tells U.S. it will halt refueling mission in Jan.
REFILING: LEAD: Japan official tells U.S. it will halt refueling mission in Jan.+
Oct 14 09:12 PM US/Eastern
Japanese Parliamentary Defense Secretary Akihisa Nagashima said Wednesday he has notified the White House and Defense Department that Tokyo will halt, in January, its refueling mission in the Indian Ocean in support of U.S.-led antiterrorism operations in and around Afghanistan.
Nagashima told reporters this after meeting with U.S. National Security Adviser Gen. James Jones and Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Michele Flournoy in Washington.
The Japanese defense official quoted the White House and Pentagon officials as replying the United States views it as a matter to be decided by Japan in principle.
Japanese Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada and Defense Minister Toshimi Kitazawa had made it plain that Tokyo will end the refueling mission after the law for the mission expires in January.
The refueling mission, in place since 2001, was briefly halted in November 2007 after a temporary law authorizing it expired. The operations resumed after a new law was enacted in January 2008 and were extended to January 2010 after an amendment last December.
Also Wednesday, the Pentagon said Defense Secretary Robert Gates will urge Japan during his planned visit to Tokyo next Tuesday to implement a bilateral accord to relocate the U.S. Marine Corps' Futemma Air Station within Japan's Okinawa Prefecture.
At a news briefing, Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said the defense chief will meet with Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, Foreign Minister Okada and Defense Minister Kitazawa, respectively.
The talks will be "an opportunity to reiterate our strong commitment to this alliance, and also to the agreements that have been reached between our two governments -- not political parties, but between our two governments," Morrell said.
Hatoyama, who took office in mid-September, has said his government will seek to move the heliport functions of the Futemma air station outside Okinawa, or even outside Japan.
That goes against a Japan-U.S. accord in 2006 to transfer the air station to an area off the coast of Henoko in the city of Nago near the U.S. Marine Corps' Camp Schwab by 2014.
The Japanese government led by Hatoyama's Democratic Party of Japan, which was the largest opposition party when the agreement was concluded, has been studying how the accord was reached, including the choice of the relocation site.
Billy Graham's son visits North Korea
Billy Graham's son visits North Korea
updated 12:31 p.m. EDT, Wed October 14, 2009
(CNN) -- The Rev. Franklin Graham has arrived in North Korea bearing a gift for North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, the country's official news agency reported Wednesday.
The Rev. Franklin Graham reportedly will oversee the delivery of $190,000 in equipment for a dental school.
Graham handed the present, which was not identified, to a high-ranking official Wednesday to give to Kim, the Korean Central News Agency reported.
Graham, the son of the Rev. Billy Graham and the president of Samaritan's Purse, arrived Tuesday in North Korea's capital, Pyongyang, KCNA said.
On its Web site, Samaritan's Purse said Franklin Graham was to meet with high-level government officials and to inspect medical facilities that the organization has installed.
"I believe it is important to make visits like this to help improve relations and to have a better understanding with each other," Graham said, according to the Samaritan's Purse Web site.
The group said Graham will visit a hospital and also will oversee the delivery of $190,000 in equipment to outfit a dental school that can train up to 70 dentists per year.
KCNA reported that Graham said he hoped he could act as a bridge for better relations between the United States and North Korea.
The visit marks Graham's third trip to North Korea. His father visited the country in 1992 and 1994 and met with President Kim Il Sung, Samaritan's Purse said.
His mother, the late Ruth Bell Graham, attended a mission school in Pyongyang in 1934, the organization said.
Later this week, Graham is scheduled to travel to China, where he'll dedicate a clinic that Samaritan's Purse built, visit a city destroyed by last year's earthquake and speak at churches, the organization said.
Roberts Gates to visit Japan, S. Korea, Slovakia
Roberts Gates to visit Japan, S. Korea, Slovakia
www.chinaview.cn 2009-10-15 03:30:58
WASHINGTON, Oct. 14 (Xinhua) -- U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates will visit Japan, South Korea and Slovakia next week, the Pentagon said on Wednesday.
In Tokyo, Secretary Gates will meet with senior Japanese officials on the "transformation of the alliance" between the United States and Japan, said Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell.
According to the spokesman, Gates will "reinforce America's commitment" to South Korea in his trip to Seoul, and then he will attend meetings of NATO defense ministers in Bratislava on Oct. 22and 23.
Korean Peninsula's nuclear crisis is expected to top agenda of Gates' visits to Japan and South Korea, while the war in Afghanistan is to be discussed at the NATO defense meetings.
Editor: Mu Xuequan
Korea is tapping into huge oil reserves in Iraq
Korea is tapping into huge oil reserves in Iraq
October 15, 2009
Korea is tapping into the world’s third largest oil reserves of Iraq. State-run Korea Gas Corp. is teaming up with Italy’s Eni Group, U.S. Occidental Petroleum Corp. and Iraq’s Southern Oil Co. for the 20-year production management rights of an oil field in Zubair, located 20 kilometers (12.4 miles) west of Basra, the Ministry of Knowledge Economy said yesterday.
The Korea Gas Corp.’s stake in the consortium is 20 percent. Eni has the largest stake at 35 percent followed by Occidental at 25 percent. However, the share within the consortium could change in the final stage of the contract, the Korean government said. Those final arrangements are to be reached within the next two weeks.
Korea, heavily dependent on the import of crude oil, has been trying to increase its security by developing Iraqi oil. Iraq lags only behind Iran and Saudi Arabia in proven reserves.
However, due to close ties with the independence-minded Kurdish region, the central Iraqi government has denied Korea’s participation in the bidding on oil field projects.
In the first half of this year, Iraq excluded the Korea National Oil Corp. and SK Energy from bids on developments as it stemmed from a contract signed between the Korean companies and the Kurdish regional government. The Iraqi government called the agreement illegal. The new deal not only is the first for Korea but has opened the window for possible further ventures.
Although the Iraqi government estimates the Zubair oil field holds a reserve of 3.7 billion barrels based on a study from the 1980s, the consortium estimates the field to hold more than 6.6 billion barrels. Currently 195,000 barrels of crude are produced from the field daily. The Korean gas agency and Eni are planning to raise the daily production to a maximum of 1.12 million barrels within seven years through investment in production facilities.
From the daily production, Korea’s share would be 20,000 barrels of crude until 2030. That gives Korea a total of 145 million barrels of crude for the next 20 years. This is roughly the same as two months’ worth of consumption in Korea. The contract also has an option to extend development rights for an additional five years.
“Although Korea’s volume of crude oil is relatively small compared to the total reserve, it is significant that a Korean company is fully participating in a large-scale oil field in Iraq,” said a ministry official.
The Korean gas company will also participate in the bidding on 10 other oil fields in Iraq, including fields in Majnoon, Qurna and Halfaya scheduled for early December.
By Lee Ho-jeong [ojlee82@joongang.co.kr]
Copyright by Joins.com, Inc.
S.Korea c.bank: to watch asset prices, fund flows
Thomson Reuters
S.Korea c.bank: to watch asset prices, fund flows
10.14.09, 10:18 PM EDT
SEOUL, Oct 15 (Reuters) - South Korea's central bank said on Thursday it would work to prevent the current expansionary policy from undermining economic and financial stability while monitoring asset prices and fund flows.
It also said mortgage loan growth, the biggest concern for the central bank since the middle of this year, paused in September due to government lending controls adopted in recent weeks and increased market interest rates.
The remarks, contained in the Bank of Korea's report to parliament, were in line with its policy statement issued last Friday after it held interest rates steady at a record-low 2.0 percent for an eighth consecutive month.
The central bank said Asia's fourth-largest economy was pulling out of the slump faster than initially thought but faced uncertainty due to a possible delay in advanced economies' recovery.
Regarding foreign exchange policy, it affirmed the country's official stance that authorities would let the market decide the won's value but would take action when the exchange rate moved excessively.
(Reporting by Yoo Choonsik; Editing by Jonathan Hopfner)
At Time of Change for Rev. Moon Church, a Return to Tradition
October 15, 2009
At Time of Change for Rev. Moon Church, a Return to Tradition
By CHOE SANG-HUN
SEOUL, South Korea — Thousands of couples from more than 100 countries traveled here to tie the knot Wednesday in what was seen as the last mass wedding officiated by the Rev. Sun Myung Moon, the controversial and enigmatic founder of the Unification Church.
The mass wedding — often involving the exchange of vows between partners selected by Mr. Moon himself — is perhaps the best-known and most controversial feature of Mr. Moon’s church. But for members of his flock, the weddings symbolize his teachings of “trans-religion, trans-national and trans-racial" love.
The confetti-filled 90-minute spectacle, broadcast live on the Internet in three languages, was the largest Mr. Moon had organized since 1999, when 21,000 couples filled Seoul’s Olympic Stadium. It came as the church has been struggling to revamp its image and increase its stagnant membership under Mr. Moon’s three sons, who have begun taking over day-to-day responsibilities for his religious and business empire.
The three sons, all U.S.-educated, are more media savvy than their reclusive father and have given a series of interviews in recent months. The church has also revamped its Web sites, which are filled with video clips of Mr. Moon and his sons.
Mr. Moon, who is 89, and his wife, Han Hak-ja, are known among his followers as the “true parents of all humankind.” Seated at an altar festooned with flowers and shaped like an ancient Korean royal throne, they smiled and nodded when 10,000 couples gathered at a lawn of the church’s Sun Moon University south of Seoul bowed to them on Wednesday.
Row after row of brides in white gowns or traditional wedding costumes of their countries stood holding hands with grooms mostly clad in black suits.
Half of them were married for the first time, with the rest renewing their wedding vows.
When Mr. Moon led three rounds of “Hurray” at the end of the ceremony, firecrackers exploded and confetti rained down from above.
Similar mass weddings, smaller but hooked up to the South Korean event via Web links, took place around the world — in Norway, Sweden, Japan, Venezuela, Honduras and the United States.
“The blessing you are receiving today is the most precious thing, one cannot exchange anything in the world,” the Rev. Moon Hyung-jin, the 30-year-old son of Mr. Moon, said as he opened the ceremony.
Mr. Moon began the group weddings in the 1960s, marrying a few dozen couples at a time. But they grabbed world attention when they grew in size.
Some 2,500 church couples exchanged or affirmed their vows in November 1997 in a ceremony at RFK Stadium in Washington. A crowd of nearly 40,000 turned out for that event.
The global mass weddings on Wednesday were to celebrate Mr. Moon’s upcoming 90th birthday in January, church officials say. In recent years, the ceremonies became smaller as Mr. Moon came under pressure amid accusations at home and abroad that he was brainwashing his followers into donating their life savings to his church and marrying partners selected by him.
Previously, most couples met their spouses for the first time at the wedding. He also arranged for South Korean church members, including some of his own grandchildren, to marry followers from Japan, the former colonial ruler of Korea, saying that the two nations could build love through marriages.
In recent media interviews, Moon Hyung-jin, who married a bride chosen by his father when he was 17, said that the church had modified the practice and that couples now met and dated well before their weddings.
He was designated last year to take over religious leadership of the church. Another son, Moon Kook-jin, 39, was put in charge of the church’s business ventures in South Korea, which include construction, newspapers, hospitals, schools, tourism, ski resorts, beverages and a professional soccer team. A third son, Moon Hyun-jin, 40, oversees international operations.
The church owns the Washington Times newspaper and the New Yorker Hotel in Manhattan, as well as the New York-based gun manufacturer Kahr Arms. The senior Mr. Moon served 13 months in a U.S. prison on tax evasion charges in the 1980s.
Moon Hyung-jin studied theology at Harvard University, where he went about campus with a shaved head and dressed in a Buddhist robe. Today, with slicked-back hair, he leads a congregation in Seoul, where he plays rock-like gospel music and has vowed to undertake reforms like increasing transparency in fund-raising. But he said he “could never replace my father,” who church officials say will remain forever as the “Messiah.”
The elder Mr. Moon, born in what is now North Korea, said that when he was 15, Jesus appeared to him while he was praying on a mountaintop and asked him to complete his unfinished work. According to his official biography, he was persecuted by the Communists and fled to South Korea during the 1950-3 Korean War. He founded his church, officially named the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification, in 1954.
In 1991, he traveled to North Korea to meet Kim Il-sung, the North Korean founder and president. His church now runs an auto company and a hotel in Pyongyang.
Mr. Moon claims his church has a presence in 193 countries. But it was never recognized by orthodox Christian churches in South Korea, which dominate religious life here, along with Buddhist sects.
Indeed, the mass wedding on Wednesday drew little attention here. South Korean media only carried brief dispatches on the event, but many of them focused on the fact that a daughter of the late military strongman Park Chung-hee renewed her wedding vows during the event, although she said she was not a church member.
Park Geun-ryeong, 55, a Roman Catholic, told the mass-circulation Dong-A daily: “I join in a trans-religious spirit. I like the Unification Church way of interpreting the Bible, incorporating the Koran and Buddhist scripts.”
Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company
What's Gotten Into N. Korea?
What's Gotten Into N. Korea?
A Recent Spate of Friendly Gestures May Signal New Priorities
By Blaine Harden
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, October 15, 2009
SEOUL, Oct. 14 -- There have been hiccups, such as the five missiles it fired into the sea on Monday, but North Korea seems unusually focused this fall on smoothing feathers that it ruffled earlier in the year.
The government of Kim Jong Il has made an unexpected effort this week to be conciliatory with South Korea, a U.S. donor and families split between the two Koreas.
A North Korean delegation expressed "regrets" Wednesday that a discharge of water from a northern dam created a downstream flood that last month killed six South Koreans.
The statement of "deep condolences" to the families of the dead, which the South Korean government regarded as an apology, came during a meeting near the border to discuss improved management of river flows between the two countries.
South Korea welcomed the statement, saying that it sends a "fairly positive signal" that North Korea wants to improve relations, a government spokesman said.
Meanwhile, in Pyongyang, North Korea's foreign minister met with the son of evangelist Billy Graham in what the state's official news agency described as an "amicable atmosphere."
The Rev. Franklin Graham, head of a private relief agency, said he traveled to Pyongyang this week in an attempt to build "a bridge for better relations" between the United States and North Korea. In the spring, the North kicked U.S. relief organizations out of the country and stopped accepting shipments of U.S. government food aid.
Also in the spring, North Korea launched a long-range ballistic missile, detonated a nuclear device and declared that it would never again participate in six-nation nuclear disarmament talks. Its behavior triggered tough U.N. sanctions that several South Korean experts said are squeezing the North's ability to profit from the sale of missiles and other weapons.
The North's cycle of provocation seemed to end in August, when it released two imprisoned American journalists and reopened its border with the South. Pyongyang's propaganda machine has stopped making regular threats of "all-out war" against its neighbors.
Instead, Kim suggested last week that his country would be willing to resume international arms talks, if it could first hold discussions with the United States.
In another signal of changed priorities, North Korea's largest newspaper called Wednesday for better ties with South Korea.
Those ties have been severely strained since the 2007 election of South Korean President Lee Myung-bak, who stopped aid and economic development programs for the North, until it agrees to get rid of its nuclear weapons.
In a commentary, the newspaper said, "It is the unwavering will of our republic to proactively realize reconciliation, unity, cooperation and exchanges according to the joint declarations" between North and South Korea.
Nearly two years ago, Pyongyang cut off reunions for families separated by the Korean War. But in September it allowed them to resume. Officials from the two countries plan to meet Friday to schedule more reunions.
Call Stalin a murderer? Russian judge says an opposition weekly can.
Call Stalin a murderer? Russian judge says an opposition weekly can.
Stalin's grandson tried to sue Novaya Gazeta over its characterization of the Russian leader. A judge ruled against him Tuesday, giving human rights advocates a boost.
By Fred Weir | Correspondent 10.14.09
A small courtroom victory has Russian liberals breathing a tiny and momentary sigh of relief.
A Moscow judge on Tuesday ruled against Yevgeny Dzhugashvili, the grandson of Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin, who had attempted to sue the opposition weekly Novaya Gazeta for $320,000 in damages over an article that accused Mr. Stalin of being a “murderer” who ordered the execution of his political foes.
Though the trial received little coverage in Russia’s state-dominated media, it has been breathlessly watched by liberals and human rights advocates, who fear that Russian history is being reshaped in order to whitewash Soviet-era crimes and curb criticism of latter-day Kremlin authoritarianism.
The judge at Moscow’s Basmanny District Court refused to consider any testimony or evidence concerning Stalin’s historical role, and made the narrow ruling that historian Anatoly Yablokov had the right to characterize Stalin as a “bloodthirsty cannibal” amid a discussion of recently declassified documents that show the dictator personally signed death orders for thousands of political opponents during the 1930s.
Both sides say they’re disappointed that the court refused to consider any wider historical evidence.
“We had hoped to turn this trial into a larger examination of Stalin, but the judge just ruled on my article,” says Mr. Yablokov. “Still, that’s a necessary outcome. I’m prepared to fight this to the bitter end.”
Mr. Dzhugashvili’s lawyer, Leonid Zhura, insists that the trial was fixed by Russian authorities who fear a public discussion about the “greatness” the country achieved under Stalin, and says he has already filed an appeal.
“It was an awful trial, a travesty, and we were not allowed to speak,” Mr. Zhura says. “We don’t understand how a person [Stalin] can be declared a criminal without any evidence?”
Russia’s beleaguered liberals have been appalled by what they see as an effort by today’s Kremlin leaders to downplay Stalin-era crimes while using the reflected glory of Soviet past achievements to burnish their own images.
“A very large section of Russian society views Stalin with respect, because he’s a symbol of glorious history, particularly the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany in World War II,” says Nikolai Petrov, an expert with the Carnegie Center in Moscow.
“Some mid-level officials make use of this, because it’s a unifying theme in a very disunited country. In any case, no Russian leader today is in a position to denounce Stalin for his crimes. That would be very unpopular,” he says.
The editors of Novaya Gazeta, one of Russia’s few remaining critical news outlets, have argued that Russia needs an equivalent of the “Nuremburg trials,” where Germany’s former Nazi leaders were judged, before Russia’s legal climate and political culture can be changed.
“We don’t believe Russia can move forward, even economically, until we have cleared Stalinism out of our system,” says Oleg Klebnikov, deputy editor of Novaya Gazeta. “This was a fair judgment, but we want to see Stalinism condemned.”
But amid economic crisis and growing Kremlin authoritarianism under Vladimir Putin and his successor, Dmitri Medvedev, that seems a distant prospect, say experts.
“There was a window of opportunity to deal with the baggage of the past in the early 1990s,” after the USSR collapsed, says Mr. Petrov. “But now it’s practically impossible.”
Russia not against being paid for gas in roubles
Russia not against being paid for gas in roubles
Wed Oct 14, 2009 11:14am EDT
BEIJING, Oct 14 (Reuters) - Russia is not against the idea of selling its gas for roubles, and would be happy to pay in yuan for Chinese goods, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday.
Putin, speaking to reporters during a visit to Beijing, added that China has proposed discussion on launching international electronic foreign currency payments in a supranational currency.
Currently the dollar is the main currency in international trade. Big oil producing nations denied a British newspaper report earlier this month that Gulf Arab states were in secret talks with Russia, China, Japan and France to replace the dollar with a basket of currencies in trading oil. [ID:nSYD421795] (Reporting by Daria Korsunskaya; Writing by Toni Vorobyova, Editing by John Bowker)
© Thomson Reuters 2009. All rights reserved.
Clinton Calls for Joint Missile-Defense System on Russia Trip
Clinton Calls for Joint Missile-Defense System on Russia Trip
Clinton Calls for Joint Missile-Defense System on Russia Trip
By Janine Zacharia
Oct. 14 (Bloomberg) -- Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, wrapping up a three-day trip to Russia, said the U.S. and Russia should work toward creating a joint missile-defense system to combat common threats.
In remarks to students at Moscow State University, Clinton rebuked those in the U.S. and in Russia who remain locked in a Cold War mentality that precludes the trust necessary for such cooperation.
“We have people in our government and you have people in your government who are still living in the past,” she said. “They don’t believe that the United States and Russia can cooperate to this extent. They do not trust each other. And we have to prove them wrong. That is our goal.”
If the U.S. and Russia were one day to announce a joint plan on missile defense, this would be a “very positive outcome,” she said in a gilded auditorium on a stage flanked by carved images of Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin.
Missile defense is among the issues that have divided the U.S. and Russia in recent years. President Barack Obama’s decision to scrap a Bush administration plan to station radars and missile interceptors in the Czech Republic and Poland was welcomed in Russia.
During Clinton’s meetings in Moscow, Russian officials showed interest in cooperation on missile defense, U.S. officials said.
‘Unpopular Positions’
Clinton’s trip was aimed at outlining opportunities for collaboration with Russia on a wide range of issues, including Iran’s nuclear program and the war in Afghanistan. She made gentle jabs at Russia’s record on free speech.
“People must be free to take unpopular positions,” she said. “Attacks on journalists and human rights defenders here in Russia” are “a threat to progress.”
On Oct. 7, Clinton issued a statement marking the third anniversary of the killing of journalist and Kremlin critic Anna Politkovskaya, whose murderers have never been brought to justice.
During her visit, Clinton renewed U.S. support for Georgia, which fought a war with Russia last year, acknowledging that the U.S. and Russia “won’t see eye to eye” on the issue.
Georgia’s U.S.-trained army was routed by Russia in the five-day war in August 2008 over the breakaway Georgian region of South Ossetia. Russia later recognized South Ossetia and another separatist region, Abkhazia, as independent countries in the face of criticism from the U.S. and many European countries. Russia has deployed 1,700 soldiers in both regions.
Georgia Monitors
Obama defended Georgia’s territorial integrity during a visit to Moscow in July.
Clinton said monitors should be permanently deployed in Georgia to prevent further outbreaks of violence.
“We believe that it’s important to have a constant presence of observers and peacekeepers so that there’s no basis, no room, for something that would lead to further bloodshed,” Clinton said at Moscow State University.
Students at the university, founded in 1755, asked Clinton about U.S. priorities in Russia, differences over Georgia, what Clinton thought about the global economic crisis and what book had inspired her. With a nod to her audience, she selected Fyodor Dostoevsky’s novel The Brothers Karamazov.
During her visit, Clinton repeatedly invoked the Obama administration’s effort to “reset” relations with Russia.
At a dedication of a statue of American poet Walt Whitman, sculpted by the same artist who created a statue of Russian poet Alexander Pushkin, Clinton said: “Just as Pushkin and Whitman reset poetry, we are now resetting our relationship in the 21st century.”
From Moscow, Clinton flew to Kazan, capital of the oil-rich Tatarstan region. Clinton was greeted by women dressed in traditional costumes who presented her with a mound of chak- chak, a local dessert. She later met with regional leader Mintimer Shaimiyev and visited the province’s most famous mosque, Kul Sharif.
To contact the reporter on this story: Janine Zacharia in Kazan at jzacharia@bloomberg.net
Last Updated: October 14, 2009 08:31 EDT
Clinton Calls for Joint Missile-Defense System on Russia Trip
By Janine Zacharia
Oct. 14 (Bloomberg) -- Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, wrapping up a three-day trip to Russia, said the U.S. and Russia should work toward creating a joint missile-defense system to combat common threats.
In remarks to students at Moscow State University, Clinton rebuked those in the U.S. and in Russia who remain locked in a Cold War mentality that precludes the trust necessary for such cooperation.
“We have people in our government and you have people in your government who are still living in the past,” she said. “They don’t believe that the United States and Russia can cooperate to this extent. They do not trust each other. And we have to prove them wrong. That is our goal.”
If the U.S. and Russia were one day to announce a joint plan on missile defense, this would be a “very positive outcome,” she said in a gilded auditorium on a stage flanked by carved images of Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin.
Missile defense is among the issues that have divided the U.S. and Russia in recent years. President Barack Obama’s decision to scrap a Bush administration plan to station radars and missile interceptors in the Czech Republic and Poland was welcomed in Russia.
During Clinton’s meetings in Moscow, Russian officials showed interest in cooperation on missile defense, U.S. officials said.
‘Unpopular Positions’
Clinton’s trip was aimed at outlining opportunities for collaboration with Russia on a wide range of issues, including Iran’s nuclear program and the war in Afghanistan. She made gentle jabs at Russia’s record on free speech.
“People must be free to take unpopular positions,” she said. “Attacks on journalists and human rights defenders here in Russia” are “a threat to progress.”
On Oct. 7, Clinton issued a statement marking the third anniversary of the killing of journalist and Kremlin critic Anna Politkovskaya, whose murderers have never been brought to justice.
During her visit, Clinton renewed U.S. support for Georgia, which fought a war with Russia last year, acknowledging that the U.S. and Russia “won’t see eye to eye” on the issue.
Georgia’s U.S.-trained army was routed by Russia in the five-day war in August 2008 over the breakaway Georgian region of South Ossetia. Russia later recognized South Ossetia and another separatist region, Abkhazia, as independent countries in the face of criticism from the U.S. and many European countries. Russia has deployed 1,700 soldiers in both regions.
Georgia Monitors
Obama defended Georgia’s territorial integrity during a visit to Moscow in July.
Clinton said monitors should be permanently deployed in Georgia to prevent further outbreaks of violence.
“We believe that it’s important to have a constant presence of observers and peacekeepers so that there’s no basis, no room, for something that would lead to further bloodshed,” Clinton said at Moscow State University.
Students at the university, founded in 1755, asked Clinton about U.S. priorities in Russia, differences over Georgia, what Clinton thought about the global economic crisis and what book had inspired her. With a nod to her audience, she selected Fyodor Dostoevsky’s novel The Brothers Karamazov.
During her visit, Clinton repeatedly invoked the Obama administration’s effort to “reset” relations with Russia.
At a dedication of a statue of American poet Walt Whitman, sculpted by the same artist who created a statue of Russian poet Alexander Pushkin, Clinton said: “Just as Pushkin and Whitman reset poetry, we are now resetting our relationship in the 21st century.”
From Moscow, Clinton flew to Kazan, capital of the oil-rich Tatarstan region. Clinton was greeted by women dressed in traditional costumes who presented her with a mound of chak- chak, a local dessert. She later met with regional leader Mintimer Shaimiyev and visited the province’s most famous mosque, Kul Sharif.
To contact the reporter on this story: Janine Zacharia in Kazan at jzacharia@bloomberg.net
Last Updated: October 14, 2009 08:31 EDT
Letter from Moscow: Russia torn between past and future
Posted on Wed, Oct. 14, 2009
Letter from Moscow: Russia torn between past and future
By TOM LASSETER
McClatchy Newspapers
Standing before a massive mosaic of red Soviet flags and flanked by engraved quotations from Marx and Lenin, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gazed out at more than a thousand Russian university students and implored them to look to the future.
Clinton, however, spoke not in a fancy rented conference space full of mostly pro-Western graduate business students, as President Barack Obama did in July, but at Moscow State University, in a house that Josef Stalin built as a monument to Russia's Communist glory.
Moscow State's main hall is in a towering castle-meets-skyscraper landmark of Soviet gothic architecture. It reportedly was constructed by gulag labor as part of Stalin's ruthless quest to remake his capital into a 20th century socialist metropolis.
Eighteen years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, 21st century Russia is still trying to find itself, stomping and stammering its way between hubris and disaster, dictatorship and democracy, and more than anything, between its past and its future.
Clinton's remarks and the students' questions and reactions Wednesday revealed more about the nation's unsettled identity and its ambivalent relations with the West than do the latest Kremlin invective or U.S. analysts opining about the post-Soviet landscape.
People in both the American and Russian governments remain stuck in the suspicion and threats of the Cold War, Clinton said, but it's time to "be smarter than our past."
"They do not believe the United States and Russia can cooperate to this extent," Clinton said. "They do not trust each other, and we have to prove them wrong."
Freshman Pavel Yankovsky was among the first to take the microphone: Nervously, he inquired about the financial crisis and why it started in the U.S. Like all the students who spoke, his English was good and his question seemed well rehearsed.
Clinton walked the audience through an abbreviated history of bad mortgages, derivatives and the false notion that free markets are infallible.
"It all seemed like a great idea at the time," she said, launching into an explanation of how the need for more checks and balances in the economy reminds one of the balance of power in the American government.
Afterward, Yankovsky, a thoughtful 17-year-old in a dark suit, with a bushy haircut threatening to go wild, didn't talk about the details of Clinton's response so much as the feeling he got listening to her. "It was brilliant," he said.
"I think that is the main thing our countries should work on, moving from the past, Cold War era," he said. What about the Soviet propaganda on the stage behind him? Yankovsky flicked his hand in that direction without looking and said: "I think that the past we should leave as the past."
Much of Russia, however, is torn between past and present.
On one hand, there's a push for an open economy, and President Dmitry Medvedev talks of fighting corruption and, perhaps, ensuring greater protection of civil liberties.
On the other, Russia remains an authoritarian state where there's little rule of law, human rights workers are assassinated, and the bloody Soviet history has undergone renewed revisions. One telling example: A committee set up earlier this year to "counter attempts to falsify history" - often meaning efforts to document the terror unleashed by Stalin - will include intelligence representatives from Russia's domestic and foreign spy services.
The country "is still in the process of searching for its own identity," said Yuri Rogulyov, a professor at Moscow State University who teaches, among other things, American history. "Russia is changing, and it's a very contradictory process."
On Wednesday, the autumn sun glinted off the hammers and sickles that still adorn the university building's facade, and, of course, the Soviet star shining on top.
Inside, Yvgenia Kuzminova, a sophomore in global studies, asked whether the U.S. is focused more on economic or military affairs in its relationship with Russia.
Clinton said that while important, those sorts of topics had for years too narrowly defined the U.S.-Russian conversation.
Asked what she thought of Clinton's remarks, Kuzminova later said that while they were interesting, they were "full of general issues" and lacking any surprises. And the idea of revamping ties between her country and Clinton's?
"There are deep-seated and bad memories of the Cold War, and it's not an easy thing to move beyond," Kuzminova said. "There will be psychological barriers."
Before Clinton walked into the hall, she'd helped unveil a statue of Walt Whitman on the university campus. At its base is a plaque quoting a letter from Whitman about Russians and Americans seeming to be different, but also being alike in many ways. Most students ignored it, instead clustering in groups between classes.
Alex Lazutkin, an economics instructor, stopped to peer at the new addition and chat.
Americans think they won the Cold War, he said, while Russians remember not defeat, but throwing off the yoke of Communism.
Lazutkin cricked his neck a bit and looked at the statue again.
"It might be that most people don't understand the connection between Walt Whitman and Moscow State University," he said, in a slightly puzzled tone. "I'm afraid that the message might have been lost."
© 2009 Kansas City Star and wire service sources. All Rights Reserved. http://www.kansascity.com
Underground rice paddies in Otemachi
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/ek20091015wh.html
Thursday, Oct. 15, 2009
SO, WHAT THE HECK IS THAT?
Underground rice paddies in Otemachi
By ALICE GORDENKER
Dear Alice,
Please settle a bet. I met this guy in a bar who swore up and down that there are secret subterranean rice paddies all over Tokyo, part of a hush-hush government program to feed the national body in the event of nuclear war. In fact, he insisted a paddy was planted deep underground wherever it was we were drinking that night. Otemachi, I think. Can you check out what the heck he was talking about? I've got ¥5,000 riding on this.
Jake D., Tokyo
Dear Jake,
Please allow me to share a bit of wisdom I learned long ago, the hard way: Never believe everything you hear, especially from men in bars. So to be honest, I was just a wee bit tempted to give your letter a pass. But having done this column for almost five years, I've come to trust my readers' instincts for a good story. At worst, I'd waste a few hours. At best, we'd win a Pulitzer.
Like a lot of outlandish stories, there was a whole load of chaff in your friend's tale. But there was also a grain of truth. There is, or rather was, rice growing deep beneath Tokyo's financial district. But it wasn't a secret government project and it would never have fed the national body.
Until April, there was a small plot of rice sequestered away in a former bank vault in the second-floor basement of the Otemachi Nomura Building, a decidedly upscale downtown office building. Calling the planting a paddy would be a stretch, since the whole space, including walkways, was only about 50 sq. meters. And the plants were being cultivated in commercial growing medium rather than proper mud.
Yield wasn't anything to write home about either. In its very best 12-month period, even with three plantings compared to the usual single harvest, the subterranean space produced just 60 kg of rice, which is not quite enough to fill the rice bowl of one average Japanese consumer for a year. The cost, meanwhile, including rent and artificial lighting, was astronomical compared to conventional outdoor paddies. So, what the heck was the point?
Jobs! And not just any jobs, but jobs in agriculture, according to Pasona Group, the organization behind the plot. Pasona, a staffing services company, set up the tiny indoor farm in 2005 to bring agriculture closer to city people and draw attention to their new employment programs in the agricultural sector. Called Pasona O2 (pronounced "oh-tsoo"), the underground installation featured hydroponic plantings of fruits, vegetables and flowers, too.
But the rice got the most attention, according to Pasona spokesman Satoshi Fujimaki, because it was such a surprising idea. "There had been indoor rice plantings before for research purposes, but this was the first time rice had been grown without natural lighting in a setting that was open to the public."
The farm-in-an-office building was so successful in attracting visitors, and the press, that the company is now constructing a larger version in a building somewhere near Tokyo Station. I pressed for a location, but that, it seems, is a secret.
"There are some real challenges facing Japanese agriculture," Fujimaki told me in a recent interview. "A growing percentage of farmland lies fallow because there is no one to work it. Sixty percent of Japanese farmers are over the age of 65, and rural areas are desperate to attract young people willing to farm.
"Meanwhile," he continued, "there are a growing number of skilled urban workers who see business opportunities in agriculture." A perfect fit, I conjectured. "Not so," he countered: "There are significant barriers to entering agriculture. It's really difficult to acquire farmland in Japan, and few people who would like to start farming have the savings to tide them over until they have a harvest to sell."
But Pasona has made a business out of bridging that kind of disconnect between labor supply and demand. "Our company got its start in 1976 by linking mothers who wanted to re-enter the workforce, on a part-time basis, with companies who needed workers but were hesitant to hire full-time, salaried employees during the economic uncertainties of the oil crisis," Fujimaki explained. "This was a new kind of employment at the time. Now we are doing the same sort of thing with agriculture, creating an infrastructure that will make it easier for skilled workers to switch into jobs in agriculture."
Programs now in place include internships, educational seminars and even a model farm on Awajishima in Hyogo Prefecture, where six new farmers draw a salary as they learn the business.
Getting back to what your bar-fly friend was saying, I found out that the Japanese government does, in fact, have a plan to protect the food supply from international uncertainties. But it's hardly a secret — I found it on YouTube, of all places. The Ministry of Agriculture Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF) is so concerned about Japan's dependence on imported food that it commissioned a four-minute animated video titled "Ensuring the Future of Food" and put it up, with English subtitles, on YouTube. With more than 110,000 hits when I watched it just now, it's been a surprising success, at least by the standards of the ministry's "maffchannel," which otherwise consists mostly of press conference footage.
The video states that Japan's shokuryo jikyuritsu (rate of self-sufficiency in food production) has fallen to 40 percent, the lowest of any major developed country. To reverse that decline, it suggests, serious problems in Japanese agriculture must be addressed, including the aging of the farming population.
So growing rice in subterranean vaults could, in fact, help boost Japan's self-sufficiency in food production and feed the national body. Who won the bet? It's a tough call.
Watch this space for an announcement on the reopening of Pasona's O2 Room, probably early next year. Puzzled by something you've seen? Send a description, or better yet a photo, to whattheheckjt@yahoo.co.jp or A&E Dept., The Japan Times, 5-4, Shibaura 4-chome, Minato-ku, Tokyo 108-8071.
Thursday, Oct. 15, 2009
SO, WHAT THE HECK IS THAT?
Underground rice paddies in Otemachi
By ALICE GORDENKER
Dear Alice,
Please settle a bet. I met this guy in a bar who swore up and down that there are secret subterranean rice paddies all over Tokyo, part of a hush-hush government program to feed the national body in the event of nuclear war. In fact, he insisted a paddy was planted deep underground wherever it was we were drinking that night. Otemachi, I think. Can you check out what the heck he was talking about? I've got ¥5,000 riding on this.
Jake D., Tokyo
Dear Jake,
Please allow me to share a bit of wisdom I learned long ago, the hard way: Never believe everything you hear, especially from men in bars. So to be honest, I was just a wee bit tempted to give your letter a pass. But having done this column for almost five years, I've come to trust my readers' instincts for a good story. At worst, I'd waste a few hours. At best, we'd win a Pulitzer.
Like a lot of outlandish stories, there was a whole load of chaff in your friend's tale. But there was also a grain of truth. There is, or rather was, rice growing deep beneath Tokyo's financial district. But it wasn't a secret government project and it would never have fed the national body.
Until April, there was a small plot of rice sequestered away in a former bank vault in the second-floor basement of the Otemachi Nomura Building, a decidedly upscale downtown office building. Calling the planting a paddy would be a stretch, since the whole space, including walkways, was only about 50 sq. meters. And the plants were being cultivated in commercial growing medium rather than proper mud.
Yield wasn't anything to write home about either. In its very best 12-month period, even with three plantings compared to the usual single harvest, the subterranean space produced just 60 kg of rice, which is not quite enough to fill the rice bowl of one average Japanese consumer for a year. The cost, meanwhile, including rent and artificial lighting, was astronomical compared to conventional outdoor paddies. So, what the heck was the point?
Jobs! And not just any jobs, but jobs in agriculture, according to Pasona Group, the organization behind the plot. Pasona, a staffing services company, set up the tiny indoor farm in 2005 to bring agriculture closer to city people and draw attention to their new employment programs in the agricultural sector. Called Pasona O2 (pronounced "oh-tsoo"), the underground installation featured hydroponic plantings of fruits, vegetables and flowers, too.
But the rice got the most attention, according to Pasona spokesman Satoshi Fujimaki, because it was such a surprising idea. "There had been indoor rice plantings before for research purposes, but this was the first time rice had been grown without natural lighting in a setting that was open to the public."
The farm-in-an-office building was so successful in attracting visitors, and the press, that the company is now constructing a larger version in a building somewhere near Tokyo Station. I pressed for a location, but that, it seems, is a secret.
"There are some real challenges facing Japanese agriculture," Fujimaki told me in a recent interview. "A growing percentage of farmland lies fallow because there is no one to work it. Sixty percent of Japanese farmers are over the age of 65, and rural areas are desperate to attract young people willing to farm.
"Meanwhile," he continued, "there are a growing number of skilled urban workers who see business opportunities in agriculture." A perfect fit, I conjectured. "Not so," he countered: "There are significant barriers to entering agriculture. It's really difficult to acquire farmland in Japan, and few people who would like to start farming have the savings to tide them over until they have a harvest to sell."
But Pasona has made a business out of bridging that kind of disconnect between labor supply and demand. "Our company got its start in 1976 by linking mothers who wanted to re-enter the workforce, on a part-time basis, with companies who needed workers but were hesitant to hire full-time, salaried employees during the economic uncertainties of the oil crisis," Fujimaki explained. "This was a new kind of employment at the time. Now we are doing the same sort of thing with agriculture, creating an infrastructure that will make it easier for skilled workers to switch into jobs in agriculture."
Programs now in place include internships, educational seminars and even a model farm on Awajishima in Hyogo Prefecture, where six new farmers draw a salary as they learn the business.
Getting back to what your bar-fly friend was saying, I found out that the Japanese government does, in fact, have a plan to protect the food supply from international uncertainties. But it's hardly a secret — I found it on YouTube, of all places. The Ministry of Agriculture Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF) is so concerned about Japan's dependence on imported food that it commissioned a four-minute animated video titled "Ensuring the Future of Food" and put it up, with English subtitles, on YouTube. With more than 110,000 hits when I watched it just now, it's been a surprising success, at least by the standards of the ministry's "maffchannel," which otherwise consists mostly of press conference footage.
The video states that Japan's shokuryo jikyuritsu (rate of self-sufficiency in food production) has fallen to 40 percent, the lowest of any major developed country. To reverse that decline, it suggests, serious problems in Japanese agriculture must be addressed, including the aging of the farming population.
So growing rice in subterranean vaults could, in fact, help boost Japan's self-sufficiency in food production and feed the national body. Who won the bet? It's a tough call.
Watch this space for an announcement on the reopening of Pasona's O2 Room, probably early next year. Puzzled by something you've seen? Send a description, or better yet a photo, to whattheheckjt@yahoo.co.jp or A&E Dept., The Japan Times, 5-4, Shibaura 4-chome, Minato-ku, Tokyo 108-8071.
In Moscow, Clinton Urges Russia to Open Its Political System
October 15, 2009
In Moscow, Clinton Urges Russia to Open Its Political System
By MARK LANDLER
KAZAN, Russia — On a day that took her from an elite Moscow university to this bustling city in Russia’s Muslim hinterland, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton paid tribute on Wednesday to religious tolerance, while also challenging Russia’s leaders to open their political system and allow more dissent.
In a speech to nearly 1,000 students at Moscow State University, Mrs. Clinton spoke far more forcefully about human rights and the rule of law than she did on a trip to China earlier this year. Russia, she said, could best fulfill its potential by protecting basic freedoms.
“That’s why attacks on journalists and human rights activists are such a great concern, because it is a threat to progress,” she said. “The more open Russia will become, the more Russia will contribute.”
As if to illustrate that point, Mrs. Clinton then traveled from Moscow to Kazan, the 1,000-year-old capital of Tatarstan, a Russian republic where Muslims, Orthodox Christians and Roman Catholics live together peacefully, with none of the violent separatism that afflicts places like Chechnya.
Mrs. Clinton was met by Tatarstan’s longtime president, Mintimer S. Shaimiev, who showed her around a mosque and an Orthodox cathedral, both of which are within the walls of Kazan’s version of the Kremlin. Mr. Shaimiev is no democrat, but he played up his ecumenical credentials.
“This is a multiethnic place,” he told her as she gazed at a shimmering chandelier in the mosque. “There are plenty of mixed marriages.”
Mrs. Clinton praised Mr. Shaimiev for being “someone who is well known for fostering religious tolerance.”
The three-hour side trip to Tatarstan captured the ambitions and limitations of Mrs. Clinton’s approach to being secretary of state, nine months into her tenure. It was driven, her aides say, by her desire to get out of capital cities, to places where she could mingle with people.
But the stop in Kazan had a rushed feel to it, and Mrs. Clinton has little time these days for even brief forays. Minutes after her plane took off from Kazan, she holed up in her cabin to take part, by secure telephone link, in the White House’s latest meeting on Afghanistan.
Mrs. Clinton has managed to keep encounters with students on her schedule. Her talk in Moscow drew noisy applause, and she was asked questions about issues like the American role in the global economic crisis and the dispute between the United States and Russia over Georgia.
Asked to name the book that had made the biggest impact on her, she singled out “The Brothers Karamazov.” The parable of the Grand Inquisitor in Dostoyevsky’s novel, she said, speaks to the dangers of certitude.
“For a lot of reasons, that was an important part of my thinking,” Mrs. Clinton said. “One of the greatest threats we face is from people who believe they are absolutely, certainly right about everything.”
From there, it was a short rhetorical leap for Mrs. Clinton to encourage Russia to open its political system.
She even struck an implicit blow for diversity when she cut the ribbon on a statue of the poet Walt Whitman at the university. Local gay activists protested because one of the Russian officials on hand to honor Whitman, a gay icon, was Moscow’s mayor, Yuri M. Luzhkov, who has made hostile statements about homosexuals and banned gay pride parades in the city.
For her part, Mrs. Clinton noted that in his writing Whitman celebrated the similarities between Russians and Americans.
Yet Mrs. Clinton’s emphasis was on the new rather than the old. She told the students that they symbolized a new Russia, one that produced innovators like Sergey Brin, who was born in Moscow and helped to start the Internet search giant Google. And she praised President Dmitri A. Medvedev of Russia for charting a vision of the country’s future based on technological innovation rather than mineral wealth.
Mrs. Clinton’s visit underscores the Obama administration’s growing attachment to Mr. Medvedev, Vladimir V. Putin’s handpicked choice to succeed him as president. Last month, the White House made much of Mr. Medvedev’s support for its tough stance toward Iran.
After Mrs. Clinton’s meeting on Tuesday with the foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, in which he ruled out threatening Iran with sanctions, she went to see Mr. Medvedev at his dacha outside Moscow. American officials said that Mr. Medvedev was unstinting in his support for the administration.
But on a visit to Beijing on Wednesday, Mr. Putin told reporters that he believed that it was too early to consider tough sanctions against Iran, suggesting that threats would poison negotiations.
Back to Top Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company
In Moscow, Clinton Urges Russia to Open Its Political System
By MARK LANDLER
KAZAN, Russia — On a day that took her from an elite Moscow university to this bustling city in Russia’s Muslim hinterland, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton paid tribute on Wednesday to religious tolerance, while also challenging Russia’s leaders to open their political system and allow more dissent.
In a speech to nearly 1,000 students at Moscow State University, Mrs. Clinton spoke far more forcefully about human rights and the rule of law than she did on a trip to China earlier this year. Russia, she said, could best fulfill its potential by protecting basic freedoms.
“That’s why attacks on journalists and human rights activists are such a great concern, because it is a threat to progress,” she said. “The more open Russia will become, the more Russia will contribute.”
As if to illustrate that point, Mrs. Clinton then traveled from Moscow to Kazan, the 1,000-year-old capital of Tatarstan, a Russian republic where Muslims, Orthodox Christians and Roman Catholics live together peacefully, with none of the violent separatism that afflicts places like Chechnya.
Mrs. Clinton was met by Tatarstan’s longtime president, Mintimer S. Shaimiev, who showed her around a mosque and an Orthodox cathedral, both of which are within the walls of Kazan’s version of the Kremlin. Mr. Shaimiev is no democrat, but he played up his ecumenical credentials.
“This is a multiethnic place,” he told her as she gazed at a shimmering chandelier in the mosque. “There are plenty of mixed marriages.”
Mrs. Clinton praised Mr. Shaimiev for being “someone who is well known for fostering religious tolerance.”
The three-hour side trip to Tatarstan captured the ambitions and limitations of Mrs. Clinton’s approach to being secretary of state, nine months into her tenure. It was driven, her aides say, by her desire to get out of capital cities, to places where she could mingle with people.
But the stop in Kazan had a rushed feel to it, and Mrs. Clinton has little time these days for even brief forays. Minutes after her plane took off from Kazan, she holed up in her cabin to take part, by secure telephone link, in the White House’s latest meeting on Afghanistan.
Mrs. Clinton has managed to keep encounters with students on her schedule. Her talk in Moscow drew noisy applause, and she was asked questions about issues like the American role in the global economic crisis and the dispute between the United States and Russia over Georgia.
Asked to name the book that had made the biggest impact on her, she singled out “The Brothers Karamazov.” The parable of the Grand Inquisitor in Dostoyevsky’s novel, she said, speaks to the dangers of certitude.
“For a lot of reasons, that was an important part of my thinking,” Mrs. Clinton said. “One of the greatest threats we face is from people who believe they are absolutely, certainly right about everything.”
From there, it was a short rhetorical leap for Mrs. Clinton to encourage Russia to open its political system.
She even struck an implicit blow for diversity when she cut the ribbon on a statue of the poet Walt Whitman at the university. Local gay activists protested because one of the Russian officials on hand to honor Whitman, a gay icon, was Moscow’s mayor, Yuri M. Luzhkov, who has made hostile statements about homosexuals and banned gay pride parades in the city.
For her part, Mrs. Clinton noted that in his writing Whitman celebrated the similarities between Russians and Americans.
Yet Mrs. Clinton’s emphasis was on the new rather than the old. She told the students that they symbolized a new Russia, one that produced innovators like Sergey Brin, who was born in Moscow and helped to start the Internet search giant Google. And she praised President Dmitri A. Medvedev of Russia for charting a vision of the country’s future based on technological innovation rather than mineral wealth.
Mrs. Clinton’s visit underscores the Obama administration’s growing attachment to Mr. Medvedev, Vladimir V. Putin’s handpicked choice to succeed him as president. Last month, the White House made much of Mr. Medvedev’s support for its tough stance toward Iran.
After Mrs. Clinton’s meeting on Tuesday with the foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, in which he ruled out threatening Iran with sanctions, she went to see Mr. Medvedev at his dacha outside Moscow. American officials said that Mr. Medvedev was unstinting in his support for the administration.
But on a visit to Beijing on Wednesday, Mr. Putin told reporters that he believed that it was too early to consider tough sanctions against Iran, suggesting that threats would poison negotiations.
Back to Top Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company
Russian gays express disappointment in Clinton
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gSshJTa_3zDCor-OUBvX1R2YgVjQD9BB3D8G0
Russian gays express disappointment in Clinton
By BEN JUDAH (AP) – 7 hours ago
MOSCOW — Russia's leading gay activist said Wednesday that he was disappointed that Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton met with an outspoken foe of gay rights during her two-day trip to Russia and did not decry homophobia in the country.
Clinton attended a ceremony unveiling a statue of Walt Whitman at Moscow State University with Russian officials including Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov. Luzhkov has blocked all attempts to hold gay pride marches in Moscow, once saying they "can be described in no other way than as satanic."
Clinton did not mention of the issue during the ceremony. Some biographers have described Whitman as homosexual and U.S. gay activists have claimed him as symbol of their movement.
"Just as Pushkin and Whitman reset poetry we are resetting our relations for the 21st century," Clinton said. A statue of the revered Russian poet Alexander Pushkin was erected at George Washington University, in Washington, D.C., in 2000.
Luzhkov also compared Whitman to "our Alexander Pushkin" — but said he was quintessentially American.
"Whitman's poetry is imbued with the spirit of American optimism, the desire to create," Luzhkov said, according to the ITAR-Tass news agency. "Whitman did not accept the standards of poetry — he was an innovator."
It was not clear whether Luzhkov was aware of Whitman's status as a gay icon, and sponsors of the statue said they were honoring Whitman strictly for his contributions to literature.
"Whitman transcended his sexuality in his art and I would like to thank Mayor Luzhkov for welcoming him in his city and have absolutely nothing to say about those things," said James W. Symington, a former four-time congressman for Missouri and representative of the American-Russian Cultural Cooperation Foundation.
Gay activist Nikolai Alexeyev said Wednesday he was disappointed Clinton did not discuss discrimination against gays.
"Russia is supposed to be a democracy and she said nothing," he said.
Alexeyev had called on Clinton to denounce what he called entrenched and degrading homophobic attitudes in Russia at a news conference Tuesday.
A U.S. State Department spokesman said the department was unaware of any request from the Russian gay community.
Homosexuality was only decriminalized in Russia in 1993 and homophobic attitudes remain widespread.
Activists have taken the struggle to hold a gay pride parade in Moscow to the European Court of Justice, which is scheduled to rule on the issue in early 2010.
The statue of Walt Whitman was placed in the gardens of Moscow State University, where in May more than 30 gay activists were arrested for attempting to hold a pride march.
The statue of Walt Whitman will complement a statue of the Russian poet Alexander Pushkin installed in Washington in 2000.
Whitman sculptor Alexander Bourganov remarked at a press conference Tuesday that the opening had been delayed and been politically difficult. He did not elaborate.
Associated Press Writer Matthew Lee contributed to this story.
Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved
Russian gays express disappointment in Clinton
By BEN JUDAH (AP) – 7 hours ago
MOSCOW — Russia's leading gay activist said Wednesday that he was disappointed that Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton met with an outspoken foe of gay rights during her two-day trip to Russia and did not decry homophobia in the country.
Clinton attended a ceremony unveiling a statue of Walt Whitman at Moscow State University with Russian officials including Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov. Luzhkov has blocked all attempts to hold gay pride marches in Moscow, once saying they "can be described in no other way than as satanic."
Clinton did not mention of the issue during the ceremony. Some biographers have described Whitman as homosexual and U.S. gay activists have claimed him as symbol of their movement.
"Just as Pushkin and Whitman reset poetry we are resetting our relations for the 21st century," Clinton said. A statue of the revered Russian poet Alexander Pushkin was erected at George Washington University, in Washington, D.C., in 2000.
Luzhkov also compared Whitman to "our Alexander Pushkin" — but said he was quintessentially American.
"Whitman's poetry is imbued with the spirit of American optimism, the desire to create," Luzhkov said, according to the ITAR-Tass news agency. "Whitman did not accept the standards of poetry — he was an innovator."
It was not clear whether Luzhkov was aware of Whitman's status as a gay icon, and sponsors of the statue said they were honoring Whitman strictly for his contributions to literature.
"Whitman transcended his sexuality in his art and I would like to thank Mayor Luzhkov for welcoming him in his city and have absolutely nothing to say about those things," said James W. Symington, a former four-time congressman for Missouri and representative of the American-Russian Cultural Cooperation Foundation.
Gay activist Nikolai Alexeyev said Wednesday he was disappointed Clinton did not discuss discrimination against gays.
"Russia is supposed to be a democracy and she said nothing," he said.
Alexeyev had called on Clinton to denounce what he called entrenched and degrading homophobic attitudes in Russia at a news conference Tuesday.
A U.S. State Department spokesman said the department was unaware of any request from the Russian gay community.
Homosexuality was only decriminalized in Russia in 1993 and homophobic attitudes remain widespread.
Activists have taken the struggle to hold a gay pride parade in Moscow to the European Court of Justice, which is scheduled to rule on the issue in early 2010.
The statue of Walt Whitman was placed in the gardens of Moscow State University, where in May more than 30 gay activists were arrested for attempting to hold a pride march.
The statue of Walt Whitman will complement a statue of the Russian poet Alexander Pushkin installed in Washington in 2000.
Whitman sculptor Alexander Bourganov remarked at a press conference Tuesday that the opening had been delayed and been politically difficult. He did not elaborate.
Associated Press Writer Matthew Lee contributed to this story.
Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved
Clinton leaves Russia with appeal for cooperation
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hA4-Et1W_QdvSvSKKOuX9MrvwBrwD9BB2CSG4
Clinton leaves Russia with appeal for cooperation
By MATTHEW LEE (AP) – 8 hours ago
KAZAN, Russia — U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Wednesday challenged Russians to open up their political system, embrace diversity and scorn Cold War-era thinking.
In Moscow and Kazan, the capital of Russia's religiously and ethnically diverse republic of Tatarstan, Clinton underscored to audiences at elite universities the Obama administration's desire to "reset" relations with Russia.
"We have people in our government and you have people in your government who are still living in the past," she told a crowd of about 2,000 students at Moscow State University. "They do not believe the United States and Russia can cooperate to this extent."
"They do not trust each other and we have to prove them wrong," she said.
Though she seemed to cast blame equally, Clinton took particular aim at Russian suspicions toward improved ties and the influence of U.S. policies and Western values.
"The more open that Russia can become, the more Russia will contribute," she said. "The more active and dynamic the political system you have, the more ... ideas will go into the mix and out of it will come even better answers to the problems that we all face."
The comments came a day after Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov objected to the Obama administration's strategy of publicly threatening Iran with more sanctions to get it to come clean about its suspect nuclear program.
At a news conference with Clinton on Tuesday, Lavrov said that while more sanctions might eventually be needed, talking about them or other penalties now is "counterproductive." The U.S. believes Iran will respond only if confronted by a unified position.
Although Clinton and top aides maintained that Russian President Dmitry Medvedev had assured them Russia would support sanctions if Iran did not comply, Lavrov's comment exposed a rift in tactics between the two countries that could be exploited by Iran.
She glossed over Iran in her Wednesday comments but aides said they remained surprised by Lavrov's remark, which came as the U.S. tries to rally international opinion in favor of sanctions against Iran if needed. Lavrov is closely associated with Russia's old guard.
Instead, standing in front of a monumental Soviet mosaic topped by a red hammer and sickle at Moscow State's main auditorium, Clinton made an appeal for a new U.S.-Russian partnership that would extend from the political to the personal.
"I choose partnership and I choose to put aside being a child of the Cold War," she intoned. "I choose to move beyond the rhetoric and the propaganda that came from my government and yours. I choose a different future and that's a choice every one of us can make every single day."
Clinton is the first secretary of state ever to visit Kazan, which bills itself as Russia's third capital, and Tatarstan, an oil-rich moderate Muslim-majority republic that is often hailed as a model of multicultural tolerance.
There, she visited a mosque and nearby Orthodox cathedral, before speaking to students at Kazan State University, where Lenin once studied. She urged them to carry on the republic's tradition of ethnic and religious inclusion and equality.
Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
Clinton leaves Russia with appeal for cooperation
By MATTHEW LEE (AP) – 8 hours ago
KAZAN, Russia — U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Wednesday challenged Russians to open up their political system, embrace diversity and scorn Cold War-era thinking.
In Moscow and Kazan, the capital of Russia's religiously and ethnically diverse republic of Tatarstan, Clinton underscored to audiences at elite universities the Obama administration's desire to "reset" relations with Russia.
"We have people in our government and you have people in your government who are still living in the past," she told a crowd of about 2,000 students at Moscow State University. "They do not believe the United States and Russia can cooperate to this extent."
"They do not trust each other and we have to prove them wrong," she said.
Though she seemed to cast blame equally, Clinton took particular aim at Russian suspicions toward improved ties and the influence of U.S. policies and Western values.
"The more open that Russia can become, the more Russia will contribute," she said. "The more active and dynamic the political system you have, the more ... ideas will go into the mix and out of it will come even better answers to the problems that we all face."
The comments came a day after Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov objected to the Obama administration's strategy of publicly threatening Iran with more sanctions to get it to come clean about its suspect nuclear program.
At a news conference with Clinton on Tuesday, Lavrov said that while more sanctions might eventually be needed, talking about them or other penalties now is "counterproductive." The U.S. believes Iran will respond only if confronted by a unified position.
Although Clinton and top aides maintained that Russian President Dmitry Medvedev had assured them Russia would support sanctions if Iran did not comply, Lavrov's comment exposed a rift in tactics between the two countries that could be exploited by Iran.
She glossed over Iran in her Wednesday comments but aides said they remained surprised by Lavrov's remark, which came as the U.S. tries to rally international opinion in favor of sanctions against Iran if needed. Lavrov is closely associated with Russia's old guard.
Instead, standing in front of a monumental Soviet mosaic topped by a red hammer and sickle at Moscow State's main auditorium, Clinton made an appeal for a new U.S.-Russian partnership that would extend from the political to the personal.
"I choose partnership and I choose to put aside being a child of the Cold War," she intoned. "I choose to move beyond the rhetoric and the propaganda that came from my government and yours. I choose a different future and that's a choice every one of us can make every single day."
Clinton is the first secretary of state ever to visit Kazan, which bills itself as Russia's third capital, and Tatarstan, an oil-rich moderate Muslim-majority republic that is often hailed as a model of multicultural tolerance.
There, she visited a mosque and nearby Orthodox cathedral, before speaking to students at Kazan State University, where Lenin once studied. She urged them to carry on the republic's tradition of ethnic and religious inclusion and equality.
Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
Governor of Japan's Okinawa backs US airbase accord
http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/world/10/14/09/governor-japans-okinawa-backs-us-airbase-accord
Agence France-Presse 10/14/2009 3:42 PM
TOKYO - The governor of Japan's Okinawa prefecture said a US military base could stay on the island, officials said Wednesday -- the latest twist in a row weeks before President Barack Obama visits the country.
Japan's new centre-left government, which took power last month, has said it wants the air base moved off the island or even outside Japan, which would reverse a 2006 pact that a conservative government reached with Washington.
The renewed debate over where to move the controversial US Marine Corps Futenma Air Base -- now located in a densely-populated urban area of Okinawa -- has cast a cloud over a scheduled November 12-13 Tokyo visit by Obama.
Okinawa Governor Hirokazu Nakaima on Tuesday submitted a position paper to the central government of Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama in which he said the priority now was to move the base away from its current urban setting.
"It's best to transfer the facility outside of the prefecture, but I would concede to a plan for the relocation within the prefecture in order to get rid of the danger (of its urban location) as soon as possible," Nakaima said in the statement, according to local government officials in Okinawa prefecture.
The governor urged the central government to "clarify its policy on the relocation of the air base and present specific proposals at an early date."
The Futenma base on the island, which hosts more than half of the 47,000 American troops stationed in Japan, has long angered residents because of aircraft noise and frictions between the community and US service personnel.
Hatoyama has said he wants to review a 2006 accord with Washington under which the current base would be closed, thousands of Marines moved to Guam, and others moved to a new US base to be built by 2014 in an Okinawa coastal area.
The premier -- who has said he wants a "more equal" relationship with the United States, Japan's traditional top ally, but also voiced admiration for Obama -- said he wanted to seek more local opinions on the divisive topic.
"We have to listen to the opinions not only of the governor but of all the people in Okinawa," Hatoyama told reporters on Tuesday.
"We cannot ignore the Japan-US accord, which includes some important parts," Hatoyama said, adding that he still wanted to consider various opinions.
Kurt Campbell, the US assistant secretary of state for East Asia and Pacific affairs, said during a visit to Japan last weekend that he hoped "real progress" would be made on the issue before Obama's visit.
But Defence Minister Toshimi Kitazawa said Tuesday that Tokyo does not expect to reach a breakthrough on the issue before Obama's visit.
Copyright © 2008 ABS-CBN Interactive All rights reserved.
Agence France-Presse 10/14/2009 3:42 PM
TOKYO - The governor of Japan's Okinawa prefecture said a US military base could stay on the island, officials said Wednesday -- the latest twist in a row weeks before President Barack Obama visits the country.
Japan's new centre-left government, which took power last month, has said it wants the air base moved off the island or even outside Japan, which would reverse a 2006 pact that a conservative government reached with Washington.
The renewed debate over where to move the controversial US Marine Corps Futenma Air Base -- now located in a densely-populated urban area of Okinawa -- has cast a cloud over a scheduled November 12-13 Tokyo visit by Obama.
Okinawa Governor Hirokazu Nakaima on Tuesday submitted a position paper to the central government of Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama in which he said the priority now was to move the base away from its current urban setting.
"It's best to transfer the facility outside of the prefecture, but I would concede to a plan for the relocation within the prefecture in order to get rid of the danger (of its urban location) as soon as possible," Nakaima said in the statement, according to local government officials in Okinawa prefecture.
The governor urged the central government to "clarify its policy on the relocation of the air base and present specific proposals at an early date."
The Futenma base on the island, which hosts more than half of the 47,000 American troops stationed in Japan, has long angered residents because of aircraft noise and frictions between the community and US service personnel.
Hatoyama has said he wants to review a 2006 accord with Washington under which the current base would be closed, thousands of Marines moved to Guam, and others moved to a new US base to be built by 2014 in an Okinawa coastal area.
The premier -- who has said he wants a "more equal" relationship with the United States, Japan's traditional top ally, but also voiced admiration for Obama -- said he wanted to seek more local opinions on the divisive topic.
"We have to listen to the opinions not only of the governor but of all the people in Okinawa," Hatoyama told reporters on Tuesday.
"We cannot ignore the Japan-US accord, which includes some important parts," Hatoyama said, adding that he still wanted to consider various opinions.
Kurt Campbell, the US assistant secretary of state for East Asia and Pacific affairs, said during a visit to Japan last weekend that he hoped "real progress" would be made on the issue before Obama's visit.
But Defence Minister Toshimi Kitazawa said Tuesday that Tokyo does not expect to reach a breakthrough on the issue before Obama's visit.
Copyright © 2008 ABS-CBN Interactive All rights reserved.
Day in Photos
Photo 13: Oct. 13: A photograph of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin lies on a floor outside a courtroom in Moscow before a hearing in a libel suit brought by Stalin's grandson against a Russian newspaper he accuses of questioning the dictator's honor and dignity. The grandson is contesting the report that Stalin personally signed execution orders for thousands of Soviet and foreign citizens.
Photo 14: Oct. 13: Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin attends a bilateral meeting at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. Russia and China looked to steady their close but imbalanced relationship with Putin ushering through trade deals said to be worth $3.5 billion, including a framework agreement on the supply of Russian gas from state-run Gazprom to China.
Photo 24: Oct. 12: A worker waits to unload sacks of domestically grown corn at Beiliang Port in Dalian, China. China will continue to stockpile corn, soybean and rapeseed, according to a statement by China's State Council.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/gallery/2009/10/13/GA2009101301375.html
Photo 14: Oct. 13: Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin attends a bilateral meeting at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. Russia and China looked to steady their close but imbalanced relationship with Putin ushering through trade deals said to be worth $3.5 billion, including a framework agreement on the supply of Russian gas from state-run Gazprom to China.
Photo 24: Oct. 12: A worker waits to unload sacks of domestically grown corn at Beiliang Port in Dalian, China. China will continue to stockpile corn, soybean and rapeseed, according to a statement by China's State Council.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/gallery/2009/10/13/GA2009101301375.html
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