[TODAY'S TOP STORIES] from [The Japan Times]
[NATIONAL NEWS]
Monday, Nov. 30, 2009
Retired diplomat to testify on secret pact
Ex-bureaucrat, 91, set to tell court of Okinawa reversion deal
Kyodo News
A former senior Foreign Ministry official will testify Tuesday before the Tokyo District Court about state documents that plaintiffs argue indicate the existence of a secret Japan-U.S. pact about cost burdens for the 1972 reversion of Okinawa to Japan.
{To take the stand: Bunroku Yoshino, 91, a retired senior Foreign Ministry official, is interviewed recently.}
Although successive administrations of the now-ousted Liberal Democratic Party consistently denied the secret pact existed, 91-year-old Bunroku Yoshino, the ministry's former American Bureau chief who was one of Japan's negotiators for the reversion, has claimed otherwise.
The documents include one that is supposed to indicate that Japan secretly shouldered $4 million in costs on behalf of the United States to restore Okinawa farmland used by the U.S. military.
Presiding Judge Norihiko Sugihara summoned Yoshino to appear in court in October. The summons had to be approved by the Foreign Ministry based on a provision in the code of civil procedure pertaining to questions to a witness involving secrets handled as part of diplomatic work.
Yoshino's testimony is expected to give impetus to moves to disclose other secret pacts, particularly one in which Japan allegedly turned a blind eye to stopovers by nuclear-armed U.S. vessels and aircraft — an agreement that goes against the nation's three nonnuclear principles of not possessing, developing or permitting the entry of nuclear weapons.
Those pacts are now under investigation by a Foreign Ministry team after the Democratic Party of Japan came to power in the August general election by ousting the long-ruling LDP.
One of the plaintiffs, former Mainichi Shimbun reporter Takichi Nishiyama, 78, is seeking to clear his name. He was convicted in the 1970s of arranging for a female Foreign Ministry bureaucrat to hand over classified documents about the negotiation process behind the reversion of Okinawa.
In an earlier trial involving Nishiyama, Yoshino testified for the prosecution, denying the existence of the secret documents. He made similar denials in the Diet.
But in court Tuesday, Yoshino will testify on behalf of the plaintiffs, standing by Nishiyama nearly four decades after testifying against his claims.
Yoshino apparently changed his position after the United States between 2000 and 2002 declassified official documents that included secret pacts with Japan regarding the Okinawa reversion.
In April 2005, Nishiyama filed a damages suit with the Tokyo District Court, claiming his career as a reporter was ruined by the conviction. The suit was rejected by the Supreme Court in September 2008 without referring to whether the pact existed.
Yoshino meanwhile began featuring in media reports in 2006 — while Nishiyama was still pursuing damages. Yoshino admitted the secret pact existed and said the initials "B.Y." on related documents were his.
The latest litigation was brought by 25 plaintiffs, including Nishiyama, in March. They are demanding that the government disclose documents pertaining to the alleged secret pacts based on the people's right to know.
"The significance of the latest trial is that it demonstrates we will continue to pursue this issue," Nishiyama said recently.
"Mr. Yoshino will appear as a sworn witness in court. It's different from appearing in the media. (In court) he could face a perjury charge," Nishiyama said, adding the retired bureaucrat's testimony carries "very important meaning as it will be tantamount to an assertion that the government has lied about the secret pact."
Yoshino said he now wants to reveal the truth because the United States has disclosed the official documents for the secret pacts, and there have been several publications on the issue released in Japan.
"There is no doubt that I signed those official documents and they are authentic documents. All the records are there, so I believe nothing should be hidden any longer," he added.
Yoshino said had he admitted the existence of the secret pact before Okinawa was finally returned to Japanese sovereignty from the United States on May 15, 1972, the reversion "would have undoubtedly been broken off."
[NATIONAL NEWS]
Monday, Nov. 30, 2009
Starfish threaten Shirahama coral reefs
OSAKA (Kyodo) The coral reefs of Shirahama, Wakayama Prefecture, are being devoured by an explosive increase in poisonous starfish, and only five volunteer divers armed with tongs are combating them to save the rich marine environment.
The crown-of-thorns starfish ("oni-hitode") originally lived in subtropical seas. But after the 1990s, they started appearing off Kyushu and Shikoku as well as Wakayama, apparently because of global warming and eutrophication caused by the development of coastal areas of Japan.
Unless drastic eradication efforts are mounted, the coral reefs of Shirahama, a popular tourist spot on the Kii Peninsula, could be decimated within one or two years, experts warn.
"If we keep removing (the starfish) in limited areas on a regular basis, there should be some effect," said Katsuyuki Nakaya, 53, who runs a shop catering to divers and chairs an environmentalist group based in the city of Wakayama.
The five volunteer divers, including Nakaya, must wear protective gear when prying the starfish off the coral because of the creatures' poisonous thorns.
Kushimoto, another Kii port east of Shirahama, was hit by a massive onslaught from the pest from 2004 through 2007.
The municipal government of Kushimoto, also a popular diving and tourist spot, gave subsidies to divers who helped remove around 60,000 of the starfish over the four-year period. This apparently resulted in only 3,000 crown-of-thorns starfish sightings in 2008.
Nakaya and the other four divers are shouldering the entire cost of their starfish-removal activities, including boat fuel. They have asked the Wakayama Prefectural Government and other bodies to help.
"Coral reefs have been destroyed by humans. Humans should take responsibility and protect (the environment)," Nakaya said.
Tatsuo Motokawa, a professor at Tokyo Institute of Technology, said corals live in shallows with temperatures 18 or higher near over 80 countries.
The area accounts for only 0.1 percent of the world's seas, but about one-third of all ocean fish live among them, the reason coral is dubbed the "oasis of the sea."
However, only one-third of coral reefs are believed to be healthy.
[NATIONAL NEWS]
Monday, Nov. 30, 2009
Cabinet told to budget for market-coping measures
Kyodo News
Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama ordered Cabinet ministers on Sunday to insert measures for coping with the yen's rapid appreciation and the stock market's decline in a new supplementary budget for fiscal 2009.
Hatoyama issued the order at a meeting with Finance Minister Hirohisa Fujii and other key figures after coming to agreement that fresh, swift measures will be necessary to shield the Japanese economy from volatility arising from the currency and stock market situations.
Some at the meeting were concerned the yen's recent rise against the dollar will deal a blow to exporters and the economy as a whole. They agreed to come up with countermeasures in the second fiscal 2009 supplementary budget, which is currently being formulated.
The new supplementary budget is expected to be worth around ¥2.7 trillion, but its size is likely to increase if it the new market measures are included.
[NATIONAL NEWS]
Monday, Nov. 30, 2009
Retired diplomat to testify on secret pact
Ex-bureaucrat, 91, set to tell court of Okinawa reversion deal
Kyodo News
A former senior Foreign Ministry official will testify Tuesday before the Tokyo District Court about state documents that plaintiffs argue indicate the existence of a secret Japan-U.S. pact about cost burdens for the 1972 reversion of Okinawa to Japan.
{To take the stand: Bunroku Yoshino, 91, a retired senior Foreign Ministry official, is interviewed recently.}
Although successive administrations of the now-ousted Liberal Democratic Party consistently denied the secret pact existed, 91-year-old Bunroku Yoshino, the ministry's former American Bureau chief who was one of Japan's negotiators for the reversion, has claimed otherwise.
The documents include one that is supposed to indicate that Japan secretly shouldered $4 million in costs on behalf of the United States to restore Okinawa farmland used by the U.S. military.
Presiding Judge Norihiko Sugihara summoned Yoshino to appear in court in October. The summons had to be approved by the Foreign Ministry based on a provision in the code of civil procedure pertaining to questions to a witness involving secrets handled as part of diplomatic work.
Yoshino's testimony is expected to give impetus to moves to disclose other secret pacts, particularly one in which Japan allegedly turned a blind eye to stopovers by nuclear-armed U.S. vessels and aircraft — an agreement that goes against the nation's three nonnuclear principles of not possessing, developing or permitting the entry of nuclear weapons.
Those pacts are now under investigation by a Foreign Ministry team after the Democratic Party of Japan came to power in the August general election by ousting the long-ruling LDP.
One of the plaintiffs, former Mainichi Shimbun reporter Takichi Nishiyama, 78, is seeking to clear his name. He was convicted in the 1970s of arranging for a female Foreign Ministry bureaucrat to hand over classified documents about the negotiation process behind the reversion of Okinawa.
In an earlier trial involving Nishiyama, Yoshino testified for the prosecution, denying the existence of the secret documents. He made similar denials in the Diet.
But in court Tuesday, Yoshino will testify on behalf of the plaintiffs, standing by Nishiyama nearly four decades after testifying against his claims.
Yoshino apparently changed his position after the United States between 2000 and 2002 declassified official documents that included secret pacts with Japan regarding the Okinawa reversion.
In April 2005, Nishiyama filed a damages suit with the Tokyo District Court, claiming his career as a reporter was ruined by the conviction. The suit was rejected by the Supreme Court in September 2008 without referring to whether the pact existed.
Yoshino meanwhile began featuring in media reports in 2006 — while Nishiyama was still pursuing damages. Yoshino admitted the secret pact existed and said the initials "B.Y." on related documents were his.
The latest litigation was brought by 25 plaintiffs, including Nishiyama, in March. They are demanding that the government disclose documents pertaining to the alleged secret pacts based on the people's right to know.
"The significance of the latest trial is that it demonstrates we will continue to pursue this issue," Nishiyama said recently.
"Mr. Yoshino will appear as a sworn witness in court. It's different from appearing in the media. (In court) he could face a perjury charge," Nishiyama said, adding the retired bureaucrat's testimony carries "very important meaning as it will be tantamount to an assertion that the government has lied about the secret pact."
Yoshino said he now wants to reveal the truth because the United States has disclosed the official documents for the secret pacts, and there have been several publications on the issue released in Japan.
"There is no doubt that I signed those official documents and they are authentic documents. All the records are there, so I believe nothing should be hidden any longer," he added.
Yoshino said had he admitted the existence of the secret pact before Okinawa was finally returned to Japanese sovereignty from the United States on May 15, 1972, the reversion "would have undoubtedly been broken off."
[NATIONAL NEWS]
Monday, Nov. 30, 2009
Starfish threaten Shirahama coral reefs
OSAKA (Kyodo) The coral reefs of Shirahama, Wakayama Prefecture, are being devoured by an explosive increase in poisonous starfish, and only five volunteer divers armed with tongs are combating them to save the rich marine environment.
The crown-of-thorns starfish ("oni-hitode") originally lived in subtropical seas. But after the 1990s, they started appearing off Kyushu and Shikoku as well as Wakayama, apparently because of global warming and eutrophication caused by the development of coastal areas of Japan.
Unless drastic eradication efforts are mounted, the coral reefs of Shirahama, a popular tourist spot on the Kii Peninsula, could be decimated within one or two years, experts warn.
"If we keep removing (the starfish) in limited areas on a regular basis, there should be some effect," said Katsuyuki Nakaya, 53, who runs a shop catering to divers and chairs an environmentalist group based in the city of Wakayama.
The five volunteer divers, including Nakaya, must wear protective gear when prying the starfish off the coral because of the creatures' poisonous thorns.
Kushimoto, another Kii port east of Shirahama, was hit by a massive onslaught from the pest from 2004 through 2007.
The municipal government of Kushimoto, also a popular diving and tourist spot, gave subsidies to divers who helped remove around 60,000 of the starfish over the four-year period. This apparently resulted in only 3,000 crown-of-thorns starfish sightings in 2008.
Nakaya and the other four divers are shouldering the entire cost of their starfish-removal activities, including boat fuel. They have asked the Wakayama Prefectural Government and other bodies to help.
"Coral reefs have been destroyed by humans. Humans should take responsibility and protect (the environment)," Nakaya said.
Tatsuo Motokawa, a professor at Tokyo Institute of Technology, said corals live in shallows with temperatures 18 or higher near over 80 countries.
The area accounts for only 0.1 percent of the world's seas, but about one-third of all ocean fish live among them, the reason coral is dubbed the "oasis of the sea."
However, only one-third of coral reefs are believed to be healthy.
[NATIONAL NEWS]
Monday, Nov. 30, 2009
Cabinet told to budget for market-coping measures
Kyodo News
Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama ordered Cabinet ministers on Sunday to insert measures for coping with the yen's rapid appreciation and the stock market's decline in a new supplementary budget for fiscal 2009.
Hatoyama issued the order at a meeting with Finance Minister Hirohisa Fujii and other key figures after coming to agreement that fresh, swift measures will be necessary to shield the Japanese economy from volatility arising from the currency and stock market situations.
Some at the meeting were concerned the yen's recent rise against the dollar will deal a blow to exporters and the economy as a whole. They agreed to come up with countermeasures in the second fiscal 2009 supplementary budget, which is currently being formulated.
The new supplementary budget is expected to be worth around ¥2.7 trillion, but its size is likely to increase if it the new market measures are included.