Japan plans to deploy imported unmanned spy planes in the fiscal year from April 2007, its defense chief was quoted as saying yesterday, amid growing concern over China and North Korea.
The planes could gather intelligence on missiles as soon as they are launched and monitor hostile vessels and planes, Kyodo News Agency quoted Defense Agency Director-General Fukushiro Nukaga as saying on a visit to London.
Japan, which has been officially pacifist since World War II, is developing its own spy plane amid criticism that its policymakers are too dependent on US intelligence on foreign military activity.
Japan needs at least a decade to produce its own spy planes but wants to put an unspecified number of them into use in the 2007 fiscal year, news reports quoted Nukaga as saying.
"[The spy planes] will be imported so it [sic] can be introduced as soon as possible," Nukaga said, as quoted by the Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper's Web site.
Japan will almost certainly buy the planes from the US, although Nukaga said Tokyo will also send a research mission to Germany and Italy.
North Korea shocked the world in 1998 by firing a missile over Japan into the Pacific Ocean. Japan and the US have since worked on developing a missile shield.
Tension has also been growing with China over historical memories and a disputed gasfield, where Beijing dispatched warships in September. Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Aso said last month that China was becoming a military threat.
Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's government hopes to amend the US-imposed 1947 Constitution to allow Japan to maintain a military rather than "Self-Defense Forces," while retaining the nation's official pacifism.
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
LANDSLIDES POSSIBLE: The agency advised the public to avoid visiting mountainous regions due to more expected aftershocks and rainfall from a series of weather fronts A series of earthquakes over the past few days were likely aftershocks of the April 3 earthquake in Hualien County, with further aftershocks to be expected for up to a year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Based on the nation’s experience after the quake on Sept. 21, 1999, more aftershocks are possible over the next six months to a year, the agency said. A total of 103 earthquakes of magnitude 4 on the local magnitude scale or higher hit Hualien County from 5:08pm on Monday to 10:27am yesterday, with 27 of them exceeding magnitude 5. They included two, of magnitude
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique