Japan insisted yesterday it would not bow to the demands of Islamic militants in Iraq who threatened to behead a young Japanese unless Tokyo withdraws its troops from the country within 48 hours.
"The Self-Defense Forces will not withdraw," Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, a staunch US ally, said as he went ahead with a tour of typhoon damage in western Japan. "We must not bow to terrorism."
The al-Qaeda-linked group of Iraq's most wanted man Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi released a video overnight on the Internet of a shaggy-haired Japanese-speaking man in a white T-shirt, at the feet of three armed and masked men.
"We are giving the Japanese government 48 hours in which to withdraw its troops from Iraq, otherwise this infidel will join the others [executed]," a militant said in the video.
Among the others, the militant mentioned the American Nicholas Berg and Briton Kenneth Bigley, who were both decapitated.
The Japanese man said on the video: "Koizumi, they demand the Japanese government withdraw the Japanese Self-Defense Forces from Iraq or they will chop off my head.
"I'm sorry, but I want to come back to Japan," he said unemotionally in Japanese.
Japan identified the hostage as Shosei Koda, a 24-year-old from southern Fukuoka province who "has been wandering around many countries," said Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroyuki Hosoda, the government spokesman.
Koda had been in New Zealand on a working holiday until July but had not been in contact since, his father said, according to the foreign ministry.
The incident marked the second hostage crisis faced by Koizumi, a close supporter of US President George W. Bush, since his historic decision to deploy troops to Iraq despite widespread domestic opposition.
In April militants kidnapped three Japanese aid workers and two journalists in Iraq but they were released unharmed after days of mediation.
Ambushes by Iraqi insurgents killed two Japanese diplomats last year and two Japanese journalists in May.
Koizumi told parliament late yesterday that Japan's involvement in Iraq to help with humanitarian and reconstruction work was "understood by the general public in Iraq.
"Regardless of this, captors are trying to remove the Self-Defense Forces from the country by taking Mr Koda hostage," Koizumi said.
The military deployment to Iraq is Japan's first since World War II to a country where fighting is going on.
Katsuya Okada, leader of the main opposition Democratic Party of Japan, who has criticized the dispatch as a violation of the pacifist constitution, said there is "no reason to listen to the kidnappers' demands."
However, some 120 peace activists protested outside parliament demanding Japan withdraw its troops.
Documentary filmmaker Hiroshi Shinomiya told public broadcasterNHK he met Koda at a hotel in the Jordanian capital Amman on Oct. 19. Koda told him he would take a public bus the next day to Iraq "simply because he wanted to see it."
"I told him he should not go, but he replied saying, 'No, I'll be just fine,'" Shinomiya said.
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
Taiwan was ranked the fourth-safest country in the world with a score of 82.9, trailing only Andorra, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar in Numbeo’s Safety Index by Country report. Taiwan’s score improved by 0.1 points compared with last year’s mid-year report, which had Taiwan fourth with a score of 82.8. However, both scores were lower than in last year’s first review, when Taiwan scored 83.3, and are a long way from when Taiwan was named the second-safest country in the world in 2021, scoring 84.8. Taiwan ranked higher than Singapore in ninth with a score of 77.4 and Japan in 10th with
China's military today said it began joint army, navy and rocket force exercises around Taiwan to "serve as a stern warning and powerful deterrent against Taiwanese independence," calling President William Lai (賴清德) a "parasite." The exercises come after Lai called Beijing a "foreign hostile force" last month. More than 10 Chinese military ships approached close to Taiwan's 24 nautical mile (44.4km) contiguous zone this morning and Taiwan sent its own warships to respond, two senior Taiwanese officials said. Taiwan has not yet detected any live fire by the Chinese military so far, one of the officials said. The drills took place after US Secretary
RSS