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Japan began its satellite programme in 2003 Satellite launch Japan has launched its fourth spy satellite, which will give it the capability to monitor any location around the globe.An H-2A rocket carrying the satellite lifted off from a base in southern Japan at 0441 GMT, officials said. Tokyo began launching spy satellites in 2003, after North Korea fired a missile over Japan's main island in 1998. Japan sees itself as one of the top targets of the Communist state, which last year tested a nuclear bomb. Satoki Kurokawa, a spokesman for the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (Jaxa), said the...

The survey found a large rise in Christians in China The number of religious believers in China could be three times higher than official estimates, according to a survey reported by state media.A poll of 4,500 people by Shanghai university professors found 31.4% of people above the age of 16 considered themselves as religious. This suggests 300 million people nationwide could be religious, compared to the official figure of 100 million. China is regularly criticised for cracking down on unauthorised worship. Believers are only allowed to attend government-approved churches, mosques and temples. Correspondents say the poll's findings back up...

President Roh has seen his popularity fall sharply Twenty-three South Korean lawmakers have left the ruling Uri party to form a new political group to fight elections later in the year.The move leaves the conservative opposition Grand National Party (GNP) as the largest group in parliament. Correspondents say the breakaway MPs want to distance themselves from the increasingly unpopular President Roh Moo-hyun ahead of December elections. A recent opinion poll put the Uri party's approval rating at just 10%. In contrast, the GNP is enjoying public support of around 50%, the same poll found. Resignation offer In a statement,...

The Asahi Shimbun newspaper reported that the United States and Japan are expected to upgrade their joint operation plan for a possible contingency on the Korean Peninsula. The Japanese newspaper said the countries agreed on military cooperation in case of an armed conflict on the Korean Peninsula, a missile attack on Japan or the launching of an operation to protect Taiwan from China. The Asahi Shimbun quoted local government officials as saying that under the new agreement the US would be authorized to launch attacks on North Korea from bases and ports in Japan. In addition, the report said, Japanese...

TOKYO, June 5 (Yonhap) -- North Korea has imported about 150 tons of high-strength aluminum from an unidentified Russian exporter as part of its nuclear weapons program, Japan's Asahi Shimbun reported Sunday, citing U.S. intelligence sources. The amount of high-strength aluminum is enough to produce about 2,600 gas centrifuges used to enrich uranium, the report explained. Identifying the U.S. sources simply as former ranking Washington officials and officials involved in the six-party nuclear disarmament talks, the Japanese paper said such moves by the North have further escalated the international standoff over its nuclear ambition. Separately, Pyongyang is known to...

A contest for China’s soul is now underway in that giant country, pitting two powerful forces and two very different stances toward the outside world against each other. The outcome will have a major impact on whether China succeeds in becoming a nation capable of having truly constructive and durable relations with the outside world.On one hand, China’s economic revolution has helped position it in the world as a confident powerhouse of trade, a more responsible global powerbroker, and even as a reassuring military presence. On the other hand, China remains trapped by a past and a mindset steeped...

TOKYO : A Chinese navy submarine stalled apparently after a fire broke out aboard the vessel while it was submerged in the South China Sea, a Japanese newspaper said. The submarine was being towed Monday above the water by a Chinese vessel towards the Yulin Naval Port on China's Hainan Island, the Yomiuri Shimbun said, citing Japanese and US defense sources. Japanese and US authorities have been monitoring the vessel, a Ming-class diesel-powered hunter-killer submarine. It was not clear whether there were any casualties, said the top-selling newspaper. The accident occurred Thursday in international waters about halfway between Taiwan and...

China and Japan are discussing their bitterly disputed gas fields, amid increasingly troubled ties between East Asia's two most powerful nations. The talks in Beijing come a week after a senior Chinese official cut short a trip to Tokyo due to a row over Japan's controversial Yasukuni war shrine. Japan and China are increasingly competing over natural resources to feed their economic growth. Both sides claim ownership of the energy-rich area of the East China Sea. TROUBLED WATERS China and Japan's exclusive economic zones (EEZs) coincide Have never agreed a maritime border Also dispute ownership of Senkaku/Diaoyu islands The Japanese...

SEOUL: Some 1,000 South Korean students marching towards a US military base to protest against America’s North Korea policy clashed with riot police on Sunday. At least 10 students were injured, police and a witness said. The march towards the base in the centre of Seoul was called by a major students’ activist group demanding the US scrap a policy it says heightens tensions with North Korea. Medical staff arriving by ambulance treated students for broken noses and cuts on their faces and arms, a Reuter’s photographer said. Nearly 30 students were taken into police custody, he added. A police...

Japan will deploy several of its most advanced fighter aircraft to Okinawa in response to the increasing military threat from China, a newspaper said yesterday, while a Japanese official confirmed the plans. The deployment of two dozen F-15J Eagle fighters to Japan's southernmost prefecture -- which at its nearest point is only 180km away from Taiwan -- will be completed by the end of 2009, the Japanese-language daily Sankei Shimbun reported yesterday. The presence of F-15Js on Okinawa would significantly increase Japanese military capabilities in the Taiwan Strait. Currently, the Japan Air Self-Defense Force (JASDF), Japan's air force, maintains 24...

Japan deploys Patriots near Tokyo to guard against N. Korean strike  One of the Patriot (PAC-3) missile air defense artillery brigades would be deployed at Fuchu Air Base in Tokyo. The new Patriot missiles can intercept and destroy ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and enemy aircraft. Japan is preparing to deploy Patriot-3 missiles at its military base in the Tokyo metropolitan area to intercept any ballistic missiles from neighboring North Korea. The unit must be located near Tokyo because their maximum intercept range and altitude is 30 kilometers, giving them only seconds to intercept ballistic missiles headed toward one of...

Seoul angry after Japan says Washington distrusts South Korea Wed May 25, 4:44 AM ET South Korea has lodged a protest with Japan after a Japanese official said Tokyo was cautious about sharing North Korea-related intelligence with its neighbour because Washington did not trust Seoul. Japanese Vice Foreign Minister Shotaro Yachi made the remarks to visiting South Korean lawmakers in Tokyo earlier this month, according to media reports here. Yachi was also quoted as telling the group that Seoul had been neglecting its alliance with Washington although unity between South Korea, the United States and Japan was the key to...

SEOUL, May 25 (Yonhap) -- A coalition of U.S. human rights groups is pushing a law bill that calls for hefty punitive tariffs on Chinese imports unless Beijing stops repatriating North Koreans fleeing their oppressive communist regime, a U.S. scholar said Wednesday. "China should not have a cost-free policy of supporting Kim Jong-il," Michael Horowitz, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, told the Yonhap News Agency by telephone from Washington. "If they continue to do so, they will have to pay an increasingly heavy price in terms of relations with the U.S." Horowitz accused China of backing North...

China's Mrs Fixit reignites row with Japan By Richard Spencer in Beijing (Filed: 25/05/2005) Diplomatic hostilities between China and Japan exploded into life again yesterday after a Chinese politburo member known as Mrs Fixit snubbed her hosts by ending a visit to Tokyo a day early. No reason was given for Wu Yi's failure to meet Junichiro Koizumi, the Japanese prime minister, thereby missing talks supposed to improve relations between the economic giants. But it became clear that the snub was deliberate when the Chinese media reopened a campaign of vilification against Mr Koizumi. The countries have been at loggerheads...

SEOUL, South Korea - North Korea said Sunday it was confused by U.S. policy toward the reclusive communist state, but it did not rule out returning to six-nation negotiations over its nuclear weapons program. In the statement, a Foreign Ministry spokesman confirmed a May 13 meeting between State Department representatives and North Korean officials at the United Nations and said conflicting remarks by U.S. officials only "confuse" the U.S. position at a time when the communist state is "cautiously considering" the American position. The statement Sunday, monitored by South Korea's Yonhap news agency, comes amid a flurry of efforts to...

Plans for North collapse discussed May 24, 2005 -- Contingency plans for a military response to a collapse of the North Korean regime ¡ª an issue that caused a diplomatic flap between Seoul and Washington earlier this year ¡ª were quietly discussed by U.S. and South Korean officials this month at a three-day meeting of the United Nations Command in Seoul, the JoongAng Ilbo has learned. No firm policy decisions were reached at the closed-door sessions, which took place May 10 to 12 at Yongsan Garrison, according to a participant in the meeting, who characterized it as essentially a brainstorming...

Japan, U.S. Forces To Craft Joint Crisis Response PlanJapan Times, May 20, 2005http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?nn20050519b4.htmJAPAN -- Japan and the United States basically agreed Wednesday to establish a joint response plan that includes measures to deal with military emergencies in Japan, on the Korean Peninsula and in the Taiwan Strait, government sources said.The agreement will be confirmed at a bilateral defense chiefs' meeting planned in early June in Singapore and made formal in top security talks between the two countries' defense and foreign ministers in July or later, the sources said.The joint response plan, which would specify which airports and harbors the...

China indignant at Japan's move on disputed islands www.chinaview.cn 2005-05-19 19:12:12 BEIJING, May 19 (Xinhuanet) -- China Thursday expressed anger with several Japanese citizens' registration of permanent addresses on the Diaoyu Islands, saying that China "will never accept" any of Japan's unilateral moves on the islands. The Japanese government announced Tuesday that 18 Japanese citizens have registered permanent addresses on the islands, a group of islets in the East China Sea. Asked to comment on the issue, Kong said China's stance on the Diaoyu Islands was "clear and consistent." "I reiterate that the Diaoyu and surrounding islands have been parts...

BEIJING (Kyodo) Russia will prioritize China over Japan as the recipient of oil supplies from an oil pipeline project linking eastern Siberia with the Russian Far East, departing Russian Ambassador to China Igor Rogachev said Thursday. "I think that . . . first of all, oil will go to China," Rogachev told reporters. "And then, maybe (on the) second round, it will go east" to other countries, including Japan, he said. Both Japan and China have tried to persuade Russia to favor it in the planning of the pipeline's route. In what appeared to be a victory for Japan, Russia...

Japan hopes to remove a big source of friction with China by speeding up the disposal of tens of thousands of chemical weapons abandoned by Japanese forces at the end of the second world war. Tokyo will build a dozen disposal plants in China and begin processing leftover weapons in three years, said the Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper. The decision to quickly complete the work, started in 1997, comes after a sharp deterioration in relations amid Chinese claims that Japan has refused to acknowledge the brutal nature of its occupation. The approval by Japanese education authorities of a history textbook that...