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Fri, Sep 25, 2009
AFP
HANOI - Two Vietnamese officials were jailed on Friday in connection with a corruption scandal that led to the suspension of Japanese aid to the country, a court official said.
Huynh Ngoc Sy received a three-year sentence and his deputy Le Qua was jailed for two years, said the court official in southern Ho Chi Minh City.
At the trial, which lasted just over one day, they were accused of abusing their positions in the exercise of their public duties. Sy was responsible for Ho Chi Minh City's largest infrastructure development project, a highway linking the city's east and west.
He and Qua were accused of renting state offices to Japan's Pacific Consultants International (PCI) for 80,000 dollars, between 2001 and 2002, but not including the money in official accounts.
The two officials deducted 350 million dong (19,915 dollars) for "receptions" and divided the rest among dozens of employees and managers, the court said.
It said Sy pocketed 52 million dong and Qua took 54 million dong. In March, a Tokyo court issued a suspended jail sentence to Masayoshi Taga, former president of Tokyo-based PCI, after convicting him of bribing Sy.
PCI gave Sy a total of 820,000 dollars in kickbacks to secure contracts, the Japanese court ruled. In January the court imposed a fine of 70 million yen (772,000 dollars) on the company and sentenced three other former executives to suspended prison terms.
Japan, Vietnam's biggest bilateral donor, resumed new aid loans to Vietnam in March after suspending them during the PCI scandal. Vietnam has pledged to use the loans effectively.
Fri, Nov 28, 2008
AFP
TOKYO, JAPAN - Japan Prime Minister Taro Aso, facing dwindling public support after just two months in office, on Friday brushed aside calls from the resurgent opposition for snap elections.
The conservative premier said he "cannot create a vacuum in the nation's politics" by calling an election during the financial crisis, as he clashed with Democratic Party leader Ichiro Ozawa in parliament.
The opposition leader also urged Aso to immediately submit a second supplementary budget to fund a fresh stimulus package to help Asia's biggest economy weather the global financial crisis.
Ozawa said Aso was being "illogical" and "committing an act of betrayal to the public" by waiting until January before submitting the bill.
But Aso said the government had done enough for now with a 1.81-trillion-yen (19-billion-dollar) emergency spending plan enacted in October.
"The government can handle the economic situation this year," he said.
Aso announced last month a second economic stimulus package worth 26.9 trillion yen, including fresh spending of five trillion yen.
But the measures have apparently failed to boost his popularity as the economy worsens. One recent survey showed his cabinet's approval rating at below 30 percent.
"This is the third debate with the third prime minister since I took this post over two years ago," said Ozawa, mocking Aso's ruling Liberal Democratic Party for changing its leader every year since 2005.
"I may soon see the fourth," Ozawa said, drawing a bitter smile from Aso.
The 68-year-old premier has come under fire for frequent evening visits to hotel bars when Japanese companies are cutting jobs because of a recession. A series of verbal blunders has also tested his popularity.
Aso was forced to apologise this week after criticising the elderly for not staying fit and being a burden on taxpayers.
In recent weeks he has also appeared to insult doctors, parents, and even members of his own ruling party.
The opposition, which controls one house of parliament, has pushed Aso to submit a supplementary budget to pay for another spending boost, promising to cooperate on the smooth passage of the legislation.
Aso said, however, he wanted to focus his immediate efforts on a bill to allow injections of public funds into troubled banks, which Ozawa criticises as a mere excuse for him to stay longer in the premier's post.
Tue, Nov 04, 2008
AFP
TOKYO, JAPAN - JAPAN'S sacked air force commander compared his country to North Korea for a row over his assertion that Tokyo was not a World War II aggressor, forcing the governmenton Tuesday to promise an inquiry.
As the government sought to reassure other Asian countries, Mr Toshio Tamogami returned to the charge insisting he was right and had thought it was time for such views to be accepted.
'If you are not allowed to say even a word that counters the government's statements, you cannot possibly call the country democratic,' the ex-general told a press conference.
'It's just like North Korea.'
Mr Tamogami was fired from his post for an essay in which he wrote that Japan was falsely accused of being the aggressor and calling for the nation to shed elements of its post-WWII pacifism.
He retired on Monday two years early rather than serve in a lesser position.
Mr Tamogami said many Asian countries 'take a positive view' of Japan's past military actions, seeing Tokyo as a bulwark against Western imperialism.
The scandal comes at a bad time for Prime Minister Taro Aso, who criticised
Mr Tamogami's remarks but has himself previously caused controversy by defending aspects of Japanese colonialism.
The Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper on Tuesday released a survey showing that, for the first time since Mr Aso took office in Sept, more people disapproved of his government's performance than approved of it.
His government's approval rating stood at 40.5 per cent.
Mr Aso on Tuesday ordered Defence Minister Yasukazu Hamada to probe the row, especially the role of the air force general's supervisors.
Mr Hamada admitted he knew nothing about the essay until it was published.
Foreign Minister Hirofumi Nakasone also told reporters that he had assured China and South Korea about Japan's position on the 1939-1945 war.
Mr Tamogami's thesis contradicted an official 1995 statement, issued by then prime minister Tomiichi Murayama and endorsed by his successors, apologising for Japan's past aggression and colonial rule in Asia.
China, the two Koreas and other Asian nations, which have painful memories of Japan's militaristic past, denounced Mr Tamogami's remarks.
Taking advantage of the fuss, Japan's opposition, which controls one house of parliament and is ahead in some polls, has decided to summon Mr Tamogami to a parliamentary hearing, Jiji Press said.
That is likely to prolong deliberations on extending a controversial naval mission supporting US-led forces in Afghanistan - a top priority for Mr Aso.
In his essay, Mr Tamogami said then US president Franklin Roosevelt set up 'a trap' that forced Japan to attack Pearl Harbor in Dec 1941 - the event that led to the United States joining WWII - and that Washington tried to pin all war responsibility on Tokyo.
'I don't believe I am wrong,' Mr Tamogami told journalists, refusing to back down. 'I didn't expect (the essay) would result in such a big thing.'
'I had thought it's about time for Japan to accept' such views, he added.
'But I might have judged wrong.'
An Asahi Shimbun survey taken last year showed 85 per cent of Japanese felt there was 'a need to reflect' on Japan's aggression in the 20th century.
Former defence minister Shigeru Ishiba criticised Mr Tamogami's essay, saying that it 'could send a wrong message overseas that the Japanese government is divided over its position.'
Mr Ishiba, who is currently Japan's farm minister, said Mr Tamogami's views were 'inappropriate.'
The commander of US forces in Japan told a news conference the case would not affect the two countries' alliance. The US stations more than 40,000 troops in Japan under a post-war treaty.
'The government of Japan was very quick to underscore that these were not the official views of the government of Japan or the Self-Defence Forces,' US Lieutenant General Edward Rice said, referring to Japan's military. -- AFP
Fri, Sep 25, 2009
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