He put in a pitch for trading with China. He talked about his recent visit to the isolated communist enclave of North Korea. And, of course, he explained his own recent successes in turning around Japan's economic difficulties.
In two days of meetings dominated by Western powers and their concerns over peace in the Middle East and poverty in Africa, Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi tried to keep Asia on the radar at this year's summit of the world's leading industrialized nations.
"We don't think only of the G8 members' interests at G8 meetings," Koizumi said at a news conference at the end of the three-day summit on Thursday. "Of course, Japan is thinking of Asian issues."
He was only partially successful at getting his fellow leaders on the same page, however.
Japanese officials commenting on the summit -- which included the international debut of Iraq's new interim president and the participation of several African leaders -- said they felt it was deeply colored by the agenda of the host.
For Japan, which strongly supports the US, that is not necessarily a criticism.
The same officials stressed they viewed the summit as productive and, by and large, a success.
But, with only one wholly Asian nation in the Group of Eight, they admitted that bringing the concerns of the world's most populous region to the front burner can be difficult.
A senior delegation official, briefing reporters on condition of anonymity, said Koizumi had done what he could to represent Asia.
Koizumi, he noted, updated the other leaders on his visit to North Korea last month and, at the behest of Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, raised the issue of rising oil prices, which have hit non-producers in Asia and elsewhere hard.
But Japan has not been keen to allow other Asian nations into the exclusive G8 club.
It long opposed the inclusion of Russia, and still expresses reservations about Moscow's increasing role in the group's economic discussions. Japan has also been less than enthusiastic to embrace a suggestion by Italy to bring China and India into the G8 fold.
At a news conference, Koizumi refused to comment on whether the two countries should be admitted.
Showcasing phallus-shaped portable shrines and pink penis candies, Japan’s annual fertility festival yesterday teemed with tourists, couples and families elated by its open display of sex. The spring Kanamara Matsuri near Tokyo features colorfully dressed worshipers carrying a trio of giant phallic-shaped objects as they parade through the street with glee. The festival, as legend has it, honors a local blacksmith in the Edo Period (1603-1868) who forged an iron dildo to break the teeth of a sharp-toothed demon inhabiting a woman’s vagina that had been castrating young men on their wedding nights. A 1m black steel phallus sits in the courtyard of
HIGH HOPES: The power source is expected to have a future, as it is not dependent on the weather or light, and could be useful for places with large desalination facilities A Japanese water plant is harnessing the natural process of osmosis to generate renewable energy that could one day become a common power source. The possibility of generating power from osmosis — when water molecules pass from a less salty solution to a more salty one — has long been known. However, actually generating energy from that has proved more complicated, in part due the difficulty of designing the membrane through which the molecules pass. Engineers in Fukuoka, Japan, and their private partners think they might have cracked it, and have opened what is only the world’s second osmotic power plant. It generates
JAN. 1 CLAUSE: As military service is voluntary, applications for permission to stay abroad for over three months for men up to age 45 must, in principle, be granted A little-noticed clause in sweeping changes to Germany’s military service policy has triggered an uproar after it emerged that the law requires men aged up to 45 to get permission from the armed forces before any significant stay abroad, even in peacetime. The legislation, which went into effect on Jan. 1 aims to bolster the military and demands all 18-year-old men fill out a questionnaire to gauge their suitability to serve in the armed forces, but stops short of conscription. If the “modernized” model fails to pull in enough recruits, parliament will be compelled to discuss the reintroduction of compulsory service, German
Hundreds of Filipinos and tourists flocked to a sun-bleached field north of Manila yesterday, on Good Friday, to witness one of the country’s most blood-soaked displays of religious fervor, undeterred by rising fuel prices. Scores of bare-chested flagellants with covered faces walked barefoot through the dusty streets of Pampanga Province’s San Fernando as they flogged their backs with bamboo whips in the scorching heat. Agence France-Presse (AFP) journalists said they saw devotees deliberately puncturing their skin with glass shards attached to a small wooden paddle to ensure their bleeding during the ritual, a way to atone for sins and seek miracles from
RSS