Japan’s main opposition party yesterday called for the new defense minister to resign for referring to himself as an amateur shortly before he formally took office as part of the new government line-up.
Yasuo Ichikawa told Japanese media just before he was appointed on Friday: “I am an amateur concerning security,” in comments that the opposition Liberal-Democratic Party (LDP) said proved he was not qualified for the job.
“For that comment alone he deserves to be discharged from his ministerial post,” said LDP policy chief Shigeru Ishiba, himself a former defense minister.
Photo: AFP
He said that the wisdom and judgement of Japan’s new prime minister, Yoshihiko Noda, in appointing Ichikawa was also “put into question.”
Noda, Japan’s sixth leader in five years, appointed his cabinet on Friday, featuring untested talent in key posts including the positions of finance minister and foreign minister.
Ichikawa, 69, who served in the farm ministry for 25 years before entering politics, said his comment had been misinterpreted.
“I meant to say that most of the people are amateurs and it is important to pursue security policies from the people’s viewpoint,” he said late on Friday.
However, the controversy had refused to go away yesterday with LDP policy expert Ichita Yamamoto joining the calls for the defense minister to resign as soon as possible.
“We feel very anxious leaving Japan’s national defense to a person with such an attitude,” Yamamoto said.
The ruling Democratic Party of Japan, often labeled center-left, has been at odds with the US over a huge US military presence in Okinawa since it ended the LDP’s long domination of Japanese politics in 2009.
Noda’s two predecessors have failed to resolve the issue with the key ally because of Okinawa islanders’ resistance to the planned transfer of a US marine corps air station from a growing urban area to a scenic stretch of shore.
KINGPIN: Marset allegedly laundered the proceeds of his drug enterprise by purchasing and sponsoring professional soccer teams and even put himself in the starting lineups Notorious Latin American narco trafficker Sebastian Marset, who eluded police for years, was handed over to US authorities after his arrest on Friday in Bolivia. Marset, a Uruguayan national who was on the US most-wanted list, was passed to agents of the US Drug Enforcement Administration at Santa Cruz airport in Bolivia, then put on a US airplane, Bolivian state television showed. “The arrest and deportation were carried out pursuant to a court order issued by the US justice system,” Bolivian Minister of Government Marco Antonio Oviedo told reporters. The alleged kingpin was arrested in an upscale neighborhood of Santa
ACTIONABLE ADVICE: The majority of chatbots tested provided guidance on weapons, tactics and target selections, with Perplexity and Meta AI deemed to be the least safe From school shootings to synagogue bombings, leading artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots helped researchers plot violent attacks, according to a study published on Wednesday that highlighted the technology’s potential for real-world harm. Researchers from the nonprofit watchdog Center for Countering Digital Hate and CNN posed as 13-year-old boys in the US and Ireland to test 10 chatbots, including ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Perplexity, Deepseek and Meta AI. Eight of the chatbots assisted the make-believe attackers in more than half the responses, providing advice on “locations to target” and “weapons to use” in an attack, the study said. The chatbots had become a “powerful accelerant for
SCANDAL: Other images discovered earlier show Andrew bent over a female and lying across the laps of a number of women, while Mandelson is pictured in his underpants A photograph of former British prince Andrew and veteran politician Peter Mandelson sitting in bathrobes alongside late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein was unearthed on Friday in previously published documents. The image is believed to be the first known photograph of the two men with Epstein. They are currently engulfed in scandal in the UK over their ties to their mutual friend. The undated photograph, first reported by ITV News, shows King Charles III’s disgraced brother and former British ambassador to the US sitting barefoot outside on a wooden deck. They appear to have mugs with a US flag on them
Since the war in the Middle East began nearly two weeks ago, the telephone at Ron Hubbard’s bomb shelter company in Texas has not stopped ringing. Foreign and US clients are rushing to buy his bunkers, seeking refuge in case of air raids, nuclear fallout or apocalypse. With the US and Israel pounding Iran, and Tehran retaliating with strikes across the region, Hubbard has seen demand for his product soar, mostly from Gulf nation customers in Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates. “You can imagine how many people are thinking: ‘I wish I had a bomb shelter,’” Hubbard, 63, said in
RSS