Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda promised yesterday to shake up the defense ministry after the country's newest and largest destroyer rammed a fishing boat, leaving a father and son missing at sea.
The Kyodo news agency separately reported that the head of the Maritime Self-Defense Force would be sacked over the embarrassing collision, which is threatening to become another headache for a prime minister whose approval ratings have dropped sharply.
The Atago, which is equipped with the state-of-the-art AEGIS radar weapons system, crashed into a small tuna fishing boat off the Pacific coast on Tuesday.
A 58-year-old fisherman and his son, 23, remain unaccounted for.
"I think the organizational structure [of the ministry] is problematic," Fukuda told a Cabinet meeting. "We need to review the organization from its root."
He urged all ministers "to make double sure about crisis management. The competence of a given government and Cabinet will be questioned over how we manage crises."
Nevertheless, he rejected calls by the opposition, which is pushing for snap elections, for Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba to resign.
"I hope Minister Ishiba uses all his strength to continue reforming" the ministry, Fukuda said.
Ishiba traveled to the fishermen's home village on Thursday and bowed in apology to the head of the local fishermen's union, who charged that the naval crew's negligence caused the accident.
Ishiba said after Fukuda's remarks that he was setting up an in-house team of experts to reform the ministry.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un sent Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) greetings with what appeared to be restrained rhetoric that comes as Pyongyang moves closer to Russia and depends less on its long-time Asian ally. Kim wished “the Chinese people greater success in building a modern socialist country,” in a reply message to Xi for his congratulations on North Korea’s birthday, the state-run Korean Central News Agency reported yesterday. The 190-word dispatch had little of the florid language that had been a staple of their correspondence, which has declined significantly this year, an analysis by Seoul-based specialist service NK Pro showed. It said
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