Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi said yesterday he believes the acrimony between the US and some of its allies over Iraq is largely past, and that he's optimistic this week's summit of leading industrial nations will offer the world a display of unity.
Koizumi, who recently returned from a summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, also said Pyongyang is aware of the importance of breaking a diplomatic impasse over its suspected development of nuclear weapons and "moving forward."
Speaking to a small group of foreign media, the Japanese leader said he believes Iraq and its transition to self-government will dominate the agenda at the Group of Eight summit in Sea Island, Georgia.
"France, Germany and Russia are not calling for the immediate withdrawal of US forces," he said, as an example of the improvement this year in the mood ahead of the annual summit, which begins tomorrow. "I consider this to be a great chance for the international community to demonstrate its cooperation and for the Iraqi people to stand up on their own two feet."
He was to leave this morning to attend the summit. It is the fourth for Koizumi, who was elected in a landslide victory in April 2001.
Koizumi -- whose outspoken, maverick approach to leadership is something of a rarity in consensus-conscious Japan -- continues to be one of the most popular leaders this nation has had in decades.
But as he heads to Georgia, he is under pressure amid a national pension scandal that has rocked his Cabinet.
Like many of this country's top politicians, Koizumi has acknow-ledged he failed to make all of the proper payments into the system. He has not been accused of any legal wrongdoing, however, or charged with any crimes.
He has also recently been under increasing fire from Japan's opposition for his staunch backing of US President George W. Bush's Iraq policy.
Despite deep concerns among the Japanese public, Koizumi has sent about 500 non-combatant soldiers to southern Iraq in this country's biggest military mission since World War II.
Koizumi said he stands by his support of Bush, but added that it is important to involve the UN as closely in the reconstruction process as is feasible.
"I have made that clear in many talks with American leaders," he said.
On North Korea, Koizumi said Kim indicated an understanding at their summit on May 22 that it is crucial for his impoverished nation to abandon its nuclear weapons program if it is to receive badly needed economic aid.
Koizumi and Russian President Vladimir Putin are the only G8 leaders who have met Kim, and his decision to hold a one-on-one with the North Korean leader is a step apart from Washington's policy of dealing with the North primarily through multilateral channels.
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
Le Tuan Binh keeps his Moroccan soldier father’s tombstone at his village home north of Hanoi, a treasured reminder of a man whose community in Vietnam has been largely forgotten. Mzid Ben Ali, or “Mohammed” as Binh calls him, was one of tens of thousands of North Africans who served in the French army as it battled to maintain its colonial rule of Indochina. He fought for France against the Viet Minh independence movement in the 1950s, before leaving the military — as either a defector or a captive — and making a life for himself in Vietnam. “It’s very emotional for me,”
UNDER INVESTIGATION: Members of the local Muslim community had raised concerns with the police about the boy, who officials said might have been radicalized online A 16-year-old boy armed with a knife was shot dead by police after he stabbed a man in the Australian west coast city of Perth, officials said yesterday. The incident occurred in the parking lot of a hardware store in suburban Willetton on Saturday night. The teen attacked the man and then rushed at police officers before he was shot, Western Australian Premier Roger Cook told reporters. “There are indications he had been radicalized online,” Cook told a news conference, adding that it appeared he acted alone. A man in his 30s was found at the scene with a stab wound to his back.