Asahi :: Wednesday, April 22, 2009

• 2 MSDF officers indicted in collision (4/22)
  YOKOHAMA--Two Maritime Self-Defense Force officers were indicted Tuesday over a 2008 collision between a destroyer and a fishing boat that claimed the lives of two fishermen.
  Prosecutors indicted Lt. Cmdr. Tomohisa Nagaiwa, 35, and Lt. Cmdr. Keitaro Ushirogata, 36, without arresting them for professional negligence resulting in death and professional negligence resulting in dangerous navigation. continued ...


• Cabinet approval rate rises to 26% (4/22)
  The support rate for the Taro Aso Cabinet continued to climb, reaching 26 percent, as the main opposition party struggled to shake off a scandal embroiling its leader, an Asahi Shimbun poll showed. continued ...


• EDITORIAL: U.S.-Cuba relations (4/22)
  The three-day summit of the Organization of American States (OAS) in the Caribbean nation of Trinidad and Tobago ended last Sunday. The conference has given us hope for the beginning of the end of the East-West confrontation carried over from the Cold War. continued ...


• POINT OF VIEW/ Keiichiro Kobayashi: Fiscal policy again? A rebuttal to Mr. Krugman (4/22)
  Leaders of the Group of 20 major countries agreed on a target of global fiscal spending to the amount of $5 trillion (500 trillion yen) at their meeting in London in early April.
  Although I agree fiscal stimulus is a much-needed temporary painkiller, I don't believe it is enough to put the global economy on a path to recovery. We cannot rescue the world economy and quell market anxiety until the United States and Europe clean up the balance sheets of their financial institutions by aggressively disposing of bad assets. Certainly, we can prop up struggling economies with fiscal stimulus in the meantime, but that alone will not be enough. continued ...


• EDITORIAL: Minshuto on defensive (4/22)
  Looking back on the one and a half months since the arrest of a top aide to Ichiro Ozawa, leader of the opposition Minshuto (Democratic Party of Japan), two things become clear. The fortunes of the nation's two main political parties--Minshuto and the ruling Liberal Democratic Party--and the overall political situation have changed dramatically. continued ...