Obama says U.S., Japan must promote economic growth

Obama says U.S., Japan must promote economic growth President Barack Obama said on Wednesday that Japan and the United States need to continue to promote economic growth. Obama made the comments at the beginning of a meeting with Japan's new prime minister, Yoshihiko Noda, on the sidelines of the annual United Nations General Assembly meeting. "As the two largest economies in the world we have to continue to promote growth that can help put our people to work and improve standards of living," Obama said. Noda, who took over this month as Japan's sixth premier in five years and is making his diplomatic debut at the United Nations this week, also said the two nations must work on lifting economic growth.
23 Sep A man found 10 million yen ($131,000) in cash Sept. 22 in a bag thrown away in a garbage dump at the city of Kasai in Hyogo prefecture, police said. The 56-year-old employee of a Kasai Municipal Government-run waste disposal center found the bag while separating garbage for the disposal. Center officials handed the bag into the police and will be entitled to claim the cash if its rightful owner does not emerge within three months. (majirox news)
22 Sep Following the request that the name Tokyo Electric Power Co. appear on a receipt for a sex club in Sapporo's Susukino red-light district earlier this month, the establishment has decided to ban patronage from that firm, reports daily tabloid Yukan Fuji (Sept. 17). On September 14, the fuzoku shop Olive Garden announced on its blog that it would not honor patrons hailing from TEPCO - in fact, it joked that the nuclear meltdown at Fukushima had sapped some of their virility in any case. (Tokyo Reporter)
22 Sep Mika Sato has found that two dolls resembling her 6-year-old daughter, who died in the March 11 tsunami, have helped soothe her emotional scars. "It was like my daughter came back to me," said Sato, 36, recalling the day earlier this month when she received the two dolls from the nonprofit organization Tamezo Club. Omokage bina are dolls that resemble people who have passed on. They are made by craftsmen who work from photographs of the deceased person. Since early August, Tamezo Club, a welfare services NPO based in Iwatsuki Ward, Saitama, has been donating them to people who lost loved ones in the March 11 disaster. (Yomiuri)
22 Sep A 71-year-old Japanese man died in Honolulu after falling off a trolley during a tour. The man, who name was not released, was taken to a hospital after falling Monday afternoon, where he was listed in critical condition and died later that day, police said. The man was standing next to an exit on the trolley and fell onto the road when the vehicle made a left turn out of a shopping center. A police spokeswoman said the accident is under investigation but that drugs and alcohol are not considered to be factors. The trolley was not speeding and traffic was moderate at the time, she said. (Japan Times)
21 Sep To promote forthcoming anti-gang legislation, the superintendent general of Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department, Tateshi Higuchi, threw out the first pitch before the Yakult Swallows faced the Yomiuri Giants at Tokyo Dome last night, reports the Sankei Shimbun (Sept. 21). Beginning on October 1, business transactions between citizens and members of organized crime, such as the paying mikajimeryo (protection money), will be prohibited. The law will be enforced nationwide. (Tokyo Reporter)

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Reports: Japan airport worker posts Obama flight (AP)

TOKYO – An air traffic controller at Tokyo's Haneda Airport faces possible punishment after posting confidential information on his blog, including the flight plan for President Barack Obama's visit to Japan last year, news reports said Saturday.

The controller, identified only as a man in his 50s, uploaded a dozen photos he took of flight plans and radar screens onto his personal blog, according to public broadcaster NHK. A post about Air Force One included its route as well as takeoff and landing details which are normally kept secret for security reasons.

Obama traveled to Japan in November to attend the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in Yokohama.

The controller also posted the flight plan for an unmanned American reconnaissance aircraft that was dispatched to gather radiation data from the crippled Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant, Kyodo News agency said. All the images have since been deleted.

The transport ministry is investigating and considering disciplinary action, Kyodo and NHK said. Calls to the ministry were not answered Saturday.

Kyodo said Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda, who took office eight days ago, will explain the findings of the investigation to Obama when he travels to Washington later this month.

Noda has said he wants to strengthen ties between the countries and has expressed strong support for the U.S.-Japan security alliance.

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Japan Investigates Online Posting of Obama Flight Plans - New York Times

TOKYO — Japanese officials moved to control the diplomatic damage after an air traffic controller was questioned here for posting secret American flight information on his blog that included the detailed flight plans last November of Air Force One.

The Transportation Ministry said Saturday that the controller, who works at the Tokyo International Airport at Haneda, could face charges of leaking national secrets. Japanese officials appeared embarrassed by the breach, which also included flight data of an American military reconnaissance drone.

Tokyo is apparently worried that the episode could raise new doubts in Washington about Japan’s ability to handle delicate information, following a scandal four years ago over the leak of American naval radar secrets. The Yomiuri Shimbun, Japan’s largest newspaper, reported that Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda may personally apologize to President Obama for the breach during a meeting this month in New York.

The ministry said the controller, who was identified only as a male in his 50s, posted the flight plan of Air Force One during President Obama’s visit to Asia in November. It said the blog contained two pages of detailed information about the flight, including numerical data and a map showing the plane’s route.

The flight details of Air Force One are usually kept secret to protect the president. The ministry said the blog contained no explanation of the numbers or images, which would have been largely incomprehensible to a layman.

The ministry said the controller was being questioned, after an anonymous caller tipped off the ministry last Monday. The ministry said the controller did not appear to act with ill intent, but had told the authorities that he posted the information to show his friends. It said the sensitive information had been removed from the blog.

The controller posted a total of 12 pages of sensitive information on his blog, the ministry said. He included the flight plans of an American military Global Hawk drone that was gathering radiation readings near the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, the ministry said.

For Japan, the episode is uncomfortably similar to the leak in 2007 of classified information about the American Navy’s advanced Aegis radar system, which is also installed on Japanese warships. A Japanese Navy officer was arrested for copying sensitive data about the radar onto CD-ROM disks and distributing them to classmates at a Japanese naval school.

That earlier leak raised doubts about Japan’s management of military secrets, prompting Washington to temporarily suspend shipment of parts for upgrading the radars.

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Japan Premier, Under Pressure to Quit, Drops Plan to Meet With Obama - New York Times

The top government spokesman said Friday that Japan had stopped trying to organize the trip, which was to have taken place in early September. The spokesman, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano, said that the trip was impossible given “Japan’s current political situation.”

This seemed to be a reference to growing speculation in political circles that Mr. Kan could soon step down — as early as the end of next week, according to some local press reports. That would open the way for an election within his governing Democratic Party to choose a successor.

Some politicians say that this internal party election could happen on Aug. 28 or Aug. 29, though others are calling for the party to hold a longer American-style primary in order to foster a healthy policy debate. Jockeying has begun to succeed Mr. Kan, with a half dozen Democratic lawmakers already putting up their hands.

Mr. Kan has faced growing criticism for what many here see as his ad hoc and inconsistent response to the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear accident in March. Mr. Kan, who took office just over a year ago, is also blamed for his perceived inability to point a new direction for a nation that was already gripped by economic and political stagnation before the triple disaster.

In the face of such criticism, Mr. Kan promised in June to step down once he wins passage in Parliament of a series of key bills, which political analysts say he hopes to be the legacy of his short-lived administration. These include a bill to foster use of green energy, and another to fund the costly reconstruction of the tsunami-ravaged northeast, where 20,000 people are dead or missing.

Mr. Kan has tried to make a late comeback by calling for a phasing out of nuclear energy in Japan, hoping to tap the deep misgivings toward atomic power here after the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi plant. But he has run into resistance from within his own party, where the nuclear industry holds strong political influence, and skepticism among the Japanese public, who view him as unable to fulfill his promises.

In recent days, Tokyo has been filled with talk of who might replace Mr. Kan. A front-runner is Banri Kaieda, the minister of trade and industry, whose ministry had direct authority over the nuclear power industry. In June, Mr. Kaieda also vowed to resign in a dispute with Mr. Kan over nuclear policy.

But most of the candidates have been younger, untested and relatively unknown lawmakers who seem to lack a strong base of support within the party or the public. This has raised the specter of yet another weak, short-lived prime minister, which could only prolong Japan’s stagnation.

Mr. Kan’s successor would be the sixth new prime minister in five years.

Some candidates have begun calling for a “grand alliance” with the largest opposition party, the Liberal Democrats, in hopes of ending the current stalemate in Parliament, where the opposition controls the upper house. But the formation of such a large and unwieldy coalition could also add to paralysis by yielding watered-down compromises instead of the bolder action many Japanese voters seem to want.

On Friday, Mr. Edano, the spokesman, said that Japan’s foreign minister had conveyed news of Mr. Kan’s cancellation to the U.S. ambassador, John V. Roos. Mr. Edano told reporters that Mr. Roos “showed understanding.”

Japanese news reports said Tokyo was now trying to arrange a meeting between Mr. Kan’s successor, whoever that may be, and the American president on the sidelines of a United Nations general assembly in New York in late September.

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