Japan's military yesterday shadowed an unidentified submarine that entered its territorial waters the day before, but officials said they had not yet figured out what country the intruder was from.
Tokyo put its navy on alert on Wednesday after spotting the submarine off Okinawa, and sent a reconnaissance plane and destroyer to follow its movements.
The sub, which spent two hours in Japanese waters before leaving, was heading north yesterday, Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroyuki Hosoda told a news conference.
He refused to confirm media reports that defense officials believe the vessel is from China, saying: ``We don't have enough conclusive evidence to make a determination.''
He said it would take some time to identify the submarine because it hasn't surfaced and didn't appear to be heading toward a specific country. Hosoda said Tokyo hasn't confronted any countries about the incident.
Judging from its cruising sound, however, the Defense Agency believed the vessel to be a Chinese navy Han-type nuclear submarine, Japan's mass-circulation Yomiuri Shimbun and Jiji Press news agency said.
The Japanese navy has been trailing the submarine with two destroyers and a surveillance airplane, a defense agency spokesman said.
Officials have refused to confirm media reports that Tokyo was investigating a possible link between the sub sighting and China's recent exploration of natural gas fields in Japan's southern waters.
Yomiuri said defense officials suspect Beijing may have sent the vessel to head off criticism from Tokyo about China's recent surveys for gas fields near Okinawa.
Territorial disputes have occasionally flared up between Japan, China and South Korea, including one that has deepened in recent months with Beijing over natural gas deposits in the East China Sea.
Tokyo has accused China of conducting surveys for gas fields near Okinawa that extend into Japanese territorial waters. China says its activities are close to its coast and don't concern Japan and has rejected offering more details.
Meanwhile, China yesterday said it knew nothing about a submarine that entered Japanese waters near a disputed gas field and sparked a high seas chase.
"We don't know. We are not aware of this situation," the foreign ministry said in China's first response to the incident.
While the Xinhua news agency ran a brief report from Tokyo about the unidentified sub on Wednesday, it has filed nothing since and the story failed to appear in any major state-run media yesterday.
DOUBLE-MURDER CASE: The officer told the dispatcher he would check the locations of the callers, but instead headed to a pizzeria, remaining there for about an hour A New Jersey officer has been charged with misconduct after prosecutors said he did not quickly respond to and properly investigate reports of a shooting that turned out to be a double murder, instead allegedly stopping at an ATM and pizzeria. Franklin Township Police Sergeant Kevin Bollaro was the on-duty officer on the evening of Aug. 1, when police received 911 calls reporting gunshots and screaming in Pittstown, about 96km from Manhattan in central New Jersey, Hunterdon County Prosecutor Renee Robeson’s office said. However, rather than responding immediately, prosecutors said GPS data and surveillance video showed Bollaro drove about 3km
Tens of thousands of people on Saturday took to the streets of Spain’s eastern city of Valencia to mark the first anniversary of floods that killed 229 people and to denounce the handling of the disaster. Demonstrators, many carrying photos of the victims, called on regional government head Carlos Mazon to resign over what they said was the slow response to one of Europe’s deadliest natural disasters in decades. “People are still really angry,” said Rosa Cerros, a 42-year-old government worker who took part with her husband and two young daughters. “Why weren’t people evacuated? Its incomprehensible,” she said. Mazon’s
‘MOTHER’ OF THAILAND: In her glamorous heyday in the 1960s, former Thai queen Sirikit mingled with US presidents and superstars such as Elvis Presley The year-long funeral ceremony of former Thai queen Sirikit started yesterday, with grieving royalists set to salute the procession bringing her body to lie in state at Bangkok’s Grand Palace. Members of the royal family are venerated in Thailand, treated by many as semi-divine figures, and lavished with glowing media coverage and gold-adorned portraits hanging in public spaces and private homes nationwide. Sirikit, the mother of Thai King Vajiralongkorn and widow of the nation’s longest-reigning monarch, died late on Friday at the age of 93. Black-and-white tributes to the royal matriarch are being beamed onto towering digital advertizing billboards, on
With much pomp and circumstance, Cairo is today to inaugurate the long-awaited Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM), widely presented as the crowning jewel on authorities’ efforts to overhaul the country’s vital tourism industry. With a panoramic view of the Giza pyramids plateau, the museum houses thousands of artifacts spanning more than 5,000 years of Egyptian antiquity at a whopping cost of more than US$1 billion. More than two decades in the making, the ultra-modern museum anticipates 5 million visitors annually, with never-before-seen relics on display. In the run-up to the grand opening, Egyptian media and official statements have hailed the “historic moment,” describing the
RSS