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Coast guard officer confesses to leaking videos |
| The Japan Times Nov. 11, 2010 |
A Japan Coast Guard officer has confessed to leaking the video footage that was posted on the video-sharing website YouTube of the collisions between Japanese patrol boats and a Chinese trawler near the Senkaku Islands, investigative sources said Wednesday.
Investigators at the Metropolitan Police Department and the Tokyo District Public Prosecutor's Office are questioning and plan to arrest the 43-year-old chief navigator of the patrol ship Uranami, attached to the Kobe Coast Guard Office, the sources said. |
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Fewer researchers venturing abroad to study |
| The Japan Times Oct. 9, 2010 |
The number of Japanese researchers who spent at least 31 consecutive days overseas studying or conducting research on professional assignments has more than halved in recent years compared with a decade earlier, according to the education ministry.
The total number was roughly 3,700 in fiscal 2008 and 2009, down from a peak of more than 7,600 in fiscal 2000, the Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Ministry said, quoting the results of a recent nationwide survey.
The survey covered researchers belonging to domestic research institutes such as universities or government-backed corporations who were dispatched to foreign universities or research institutes.
The survey results were released a day after Eiichi Negishi, a Purdue University professor who was selected as one of three cowinners of the 2010 Nobel Prize in chemistry, encouraged young researchers and students to go abroad to study. |
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China delays gas talks over collision |
| The Japan Times Sept. 12, 2010 |
China said Saturday it has decided to postpone talks with Japan aimed at signing a treaty over joint gas field development in the East China Sea in protest over Tokyo's handling of a Chinese fishing boat that hit two Japan Coast Guard patrol ships near the disputed Senkaku Islands.
The two governments had planned to hold the second round of negotiations on a gas exploration treaty in mid-September in Beijing. The first round of talks was held in late July in Tokyo.
"The Japanese side has ignored China's repeated solemn representations and firm opposition, and obstinately decided to put the Chinese captain under the so-called judiciary procedures," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu was quoted as saying by the official Xinhua news agency.
"China expresses strong discontent and grave protest," Jiang said, adding, "Japan will reap as it has sown, if it continues to act recklessly."
China has said the confrontation could damage its relations with Japan, showing the sensitivity of the territorial dispute, one of several that trouble China's ties with its Asian neighbors. As the robust Chinese economy's demand for resources grows, Beijing's commercial ships are venturing farther from shore and its more powerful navy is enforcing claims in disputed waters.
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U.S. Presence Stirs Up Debate in Hiroshima |
| The Wall Street Journal Aug. 6, 2010 |
The attendance of a U.S. ambassador at a ceremony marking the 65th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima on Friday was met with frustration from some survivors but caused little stir with U.S. veterans.
U.S. Ambassador to Japan John Roos was the first U.S. representative to attend the annual memorial, laying a wreath in the ceremony.
For the U.S., the attendance was intended as a show of respect for World War II victims and an occasion to support its nuclear nonproliferation goals.
"For the sake of future generations, we must continue to work together to realize a world without nuclear weapons," Mr. Roos said in a statement.
Survivors said they would have preferred a U.S. apology for the atomic-bomb attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. A U.S. apology would be highly unlikely.
In the U.S., reaction was muted to the Obama administration's decision to send Mr. Roos to attend the ceremony.
Joe Davis, a spokesman for the Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States, said the nonprofit group didn't have an official position on Mr. Roos's visit.
"It all depends on how you want to view it," he said. "I don't see his appearance as an apology."
He said the overwhelming majority of World War II veterans felt that dropping the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki hastened the end of the war. |
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Gloomy DPJ focuses on renewal |
| The Japan Times Jul. 12, 2010 |
The mood was grim Sunday at The New Otani Hotel, the Democratic Party of Japan's election base in Tokyo, as the reality set in that the ruling coalition had lost its majority in the Upper House.
In one of the hotel's large halls, nearly 400 seats had been prepared for domestic and international reporters, and dozens of TV cameras were lined up by the back wall. But the gathering clearly lacked the excitement that surrounded the party's historic general election win last summer, as gloomy DPJ executives took turns answering reporters' questions.
"I believe there are many contributing factors" to the DPJ's poor performance, said DPJ Deputy Secretary General Goshi Hosono, adding that Prime Minister Naoto Kan's proposal to open debate on a potential consumption tax hike may have proved the most damaging.
While the recent resignations of Yukio Hatoyama as prime minister and Ichiro Ozawa as DPJ secretary general over money scandals boosted support for Kan's quickly formed government, voter approval started slipping once Kan started talking about the sales tax. |
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Honda-driven Japan motors past Cameroon in World Cup opener |
| The Japan Times Jun. 15, 2010 |
BLOEMFONTEIN, South Africa - Keisuke Honda struck a first-half winner as Group E underdog Japan stunned Cameroon 1-0 in its opening game of the World Cup finals on Monday.
The CSKA Moscow star treated himself to a late birthday present when he poked home Daisuke Matsui's cross at the far post six minutes before halftime to provide Japan with its first ever World Cup victory on foreign turf.
Japan joined the Netherlands on three points after an own goal from Simon Poulsen and a late tap-in from Dirk Kuyt earned the Dutch a 2-0 win over Denmark earlier in the day in Johannesburg.
Japan meets the Netherlands in Durban on Saturday, while Denmark and Cameroon are in action in Pretoria. |
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Thai Forces Move on Protesters as Tension Grows |
| The NewYok Times May 15, 2010 |
Thai troops on Friday fired tear gas and bullets at protesters, who responded with stones, slingshots and homemade rockets, turning parts of downtown Bangkok into a battlefield as the military tried to tighten its cordon around a broad area where the protesters have camped for weeks.
Sixteen people were killed and 141 wounded, according to the government-run Erawan medical center, in some of the worst violence in two months of unrest. The standoff has paralyzed the Thai government and further fractured a society struggling to cope with the growing demands of its poor.
The fighting followed an assassination attempt on Thursday on a renegade general who had declared himself a protector of the protesters before he was critically wounded by a sniper’s bullet. |
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Russia: Can Still Opt Out of U.S. Arms Treaty |
| The Wall Street Journal Apr.6, 2010 |
Russia said Tuesday it reserves the right to withdraw from its new arms-control treaty with the U.S. if it decides the planned U.S. missile-defense shiel threatens its security.
Russia will issue a statement outlining the terms for such a withdrawal after President Barack Obama and Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev sign the nuclear-arms reduction treaty Thursday in Prague, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said. The new accord replaces the 1991 START treaty, which expired in December.
But he said "Russia will have the right to opt out of the treaty if qualitative and quantitative parameters of the U.S. strategic missile defense begin to significantly effect the efficiency of Russian strategic nuclear forces."
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Elegant Kim glides to gold; shaky Mao settles for silver |
| The Japan Times Feb.27,2010 |
VANCOUVER, British Columbia (AP) South Korea's Kim Yu Na won the women's figure skating gold medal at the Vancouver Olympics on Thursday night, delivering an elegant program in royal fashion.
Known at home as "Queen Yu Na," Kim soared to a world-record 228.56 points and shattered her previous mark by more than 18 points. It will go down as one of the greatest performances in figure skating history, and is South Korea's first medal at the Winter Olympics in a sport other than speedskating.Kim has made a habit of spectacular performances, but even she was dazzled by this one. She said "Oh my god!" when she saw the monstrous score of 150.06 - a mark her top competitors can only dream of - and coach Brian Orser pumped both arms, shaking his clasped fists over each shoulder. |
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Toyota's Top Executive Under Rising Pressure |
| The New York Times Feb. 5, 2010 |
When Akio Toyoda took control last summer of the company started by his grandfather, his challenge was to lead Toyota out of its worst financial crisis in half a century.
That, it turned out, was the easy part. Since last fall, Mr. Toyoda and his top United States executives have been struggling to find the words to calm consumers about the safety of Toyota's cars, and it is proving to be a far more difficult task than fixing the company's finances.
After the first big recall of Toyota vehicles last fall, Mr. Toyoda said publicly that the company was a step away from "capitulation to irrelevance or death." The company, he added, was "grasping for salvation." |
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