Kyodo News

Inquiries began into what caused the disappearance of a tour boat off Japan's northern coast as search efforts intensified on Monday to find the vessel and its missing passengers, with the confirmed death toll rising to 11.The "Kazu I" left harbor on Saturday for a sightseeing trip when it ran into trouble off the Shiretoko peninsula on the island of Hokkaido. The boat was carrying 24 passengers, including 2 children, and two crew members. Only a few orange flotation devices bearing…

Japan’s Coast Guard said on Sunday that two Chinese vessels entered what Japan considers its territorial waters near disputed islands in the East China Sea.It marked the 21st time this year that Chinese boats have entered Japanese waters and the first since late August, a Japanese Coast Guard representative said.Japan’s government has complained of “relentless” intrusions in waters around the group of islets claimed by both nations. The contested territory contains islands known as the Senkaku in Japan and the Diaoyu in China.Two Chinese Coast Guard ships entered the waters at about 10:45 a.m.

Nearly 50 crew members on an Italian cruise ship docked for repairs in Japan's Nagasaki have tested positive for the new coronavirus, raising concern about the strain on the city's hospitals if conditions worsen for those infected. Results on Thursday showed 14 more aboard, all either cooks or those serving food, were infected with the virus, an official in Nagasaki prefecture said. One patient who had been taken to hospital previously was now in serious condition and on a ventilator, he told a live-streamed news conference.

The troubled South Korean shipbuilder Hanjin Heavy Industries & Construction Co said that it has reached an agreement with Philippine banks on debt-rescheduling for its Philippine affiliate HHIC-Phil, Southeast Asia’s largest shipyard by area size.Philippine creditors agreed to acquire shares of Hanjin Heavy, HHIC-Phil Inc., which operates the yard in Subic Bay, in return for solving surely obligations. This means the scheme includes a debt-for-equity swap with Philippine lenders, it added.Hanjin said the deal would be submitted to a Philippine court by the end of this month. HHIC-Phil, a debt-stricken shipyard in Subic, has applied for a rehabilitation program.Nikkei quoted HHIC saying that Rizal Commercial Banking Corporation…

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe agreed with his Vietnamese counterpart that an arbitration court's decision this week on the South China Sea must be observed, Japan's Kyodo news agency said on Friday.   The court in The Hague ruled China has no historic title over the waters of the South China Sea and that it has breached the Philippines' sovereign rights with its actions, infuriating Beijing, which dismissed the case as a farce.   Abe and Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc were in Mongolia for a summit of Asian and European leaders, known as ASEM.   (Reporting by Kiyoshi Takenaka)

A Chinese naval intelligence ship was spotted off Japan's Boso Peninsula in Chiba Prefecture, Jiji Press reported quoting the Defense Ministry. The vessel did not enter the country's territorial waters, Japan's Defence Ministry said, but added it is rare for a Chinese naval vessel to sail back and forth in that area near Tokyo. Maritime Self-Defense Force P-3C patrol aircraft spotted a Dongdiao-class intelligence-gathering ship sailing northeast in waters outside the contiguous zone surrounding Japanese waters southeast of the peninsula around 3:30 p.m. Wednesday. The ministry has confirmed a Chinese military ship sailed back and forth in waters near the Boso Peninsula for the first time, officials said.

Japan's Maritime Self Defense Force (JMSDF) took delivery of its biggest warship Izumo, since World War II, a vessel that observers say is a "de-facto aircraft carrier". The 19,500-ton destroyer Izumo, measuring 248 meters long and 38 meters wide, allows five helicopters to take off and land simultaneously. It can also load MV-22 Osprey transport aircraft to be purchased by the Ground Self-Defense Force, Japan's Kyodo News reported. The Izumo was indigenously constructed at a shipyard in Yokohama, near Tokyo, at a cost of around $1.5 billion. It is named after the former Izumo province in western Honshu. In Japanese mythology, the entrance to yomi (hell) is located in Izumo.

The Japanese government has expressed its concerns to China via diplomatic channels over the seizure of a Mitsui O.S.K. Line Ltd ship by a Chinese court in connection with a case over wartime claims, Kyodo news agency reported on Monday. A Chinese maritime court in Shanghai seized the ship on Saturday, saying the company had failed to pay compensation stemming from a wartime contractual obligation. Japan's top government spokesman said the ship seizure, apparently the first time the assets of a Japanese company have been seized in a lawsuit concerning compensation for World War Two, was "extremely regrettable". Reporting by Kaori Kaneko

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has sent a ritual offering to the Yasukuni Shrine, seen by critics as a symbol of Japan's past militarism, media reported on Monday, a move likely to further strain ties with China and South Korea. The offering from Abe, who visited the shrine in December, was sent just before U.S. President Barack Obama's three-day visit to Japan, which begins on Wednesday. Japanese media said Abe would not visit the shrine in person. Fourteen Japanese leaders convicted as war criminals by an Allied tribunal after World War Two are honoured there, along with Japan's war dead. Tensions with China were likely to increase further after a Chinese maritime court on Saturday seized a ship owned by Japanese shipping firm Mitsui O.S.K.

A Japanese town has decided to scrap a marooned fishing boat which has become a symbol of the devastating 2011 tsunami reports the BBC. Residents of Kesennuma in Miyagi prefecture voted to scrap the Kyotoku Maru No 18 which was swept inland by a giant wave triggered by the earthquake although there had been plans to preserve the vessel as a monument. after the disaster, according to the BBC report, people started visiting the marooned 60-metre (200-foot) boat to pray, take photographs and leave flowers.

Japanese trade minister Toshimitsu Motegi calls for early U.S. approval for exports to his country of liquefied natural gas (LNG). The Japanese minister made his request at a meeting with Acting Energy Secretary Daniel Poneman, stating that securing a relatively cheap energy source is crucial for Japan, reports the 'Wall Street Journal' citing Kyodo news. Mr. Poneman told Mr. Motegi at a recent press conference that he fully recognized that U.S. LNG exports are an urgent issue for Tokyo and that the Energy Department will examine each project in line with U.S. law in a responsible manner. In a think tank forum in Washington earlier in the day, the minister of economy, trade and industry also emphasized the merits of allowing U.S. LNG exports to Japan and other economies.

The Kyodo news service has reported that Kawasaki Heavy Industries Ltd. of Japan will spin off its shipbuilding division on Oct. 1 into a new wholly owned subsidiary. The new subsidiary will reportedly be known as Kawasaki Shipbuilding Corp., and will specialize in the manufacture of ships and related equipment, Kawasaki Heavy said in a release. The spinoff is designed to create an efficient corporate structure that will enable the shipbuilding arm to cope with the global shipbuilding industry's oversupply and operate profitably in the long term by giving its managers greater leeway in running it, Kawasaki Heavy said. The new firm will concentrate business resources on high value-added products such as submarines…

According to a report from the Kyodo News Service, eight shipbuilders were warned by the government's competition policy watchdog over alleged bid rigging on defense contracts. The Fair Trade Commission (FTC) said it issued the warning over what it deems were acts to unfairly restrict competition for contracts from the Maritime Self-Defense Force (MSDF) concerning the force's fleet between fiscal 1996 and fiscal 1999. The eight are Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd., Ishikawajima-Harima Heavy Industries Co., Sumitomo Heavy Industries Ltd., Hakodate Dock Co., Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding Co., NKK Corp., Sasebo Heavy Industries Co. and Hitachi Zosen Corp.

JFE Holdings Inc. is considering taking over Hitachi Zosen Corp.'s shipbuilding operations, which are now conducted by Universal Shipbuilding Corp., a joint venture between the two firms, sources said Saturday. The deal would mark Osaka-based Hitachi Zosen's effective departure from shipbuilding. It will instead concentrate on its mainline environment equipment and plants business to try to bolster profitability, the sources said. The acquisition is expected to accelerate reconfiguration of the domestic shipbuilding industry. Demand for shipbuilding has increased amid the strong global economy. However, domestic shipbuilders face cutthroat competition with South Korean and Chinese rivals as well as deteriorating profitability due to rising materials costs.

Minaminippon Shipbuilding Co said it will open by April 2008 a shipyard able to build 100,000-ton tankers on land to be purchased in Oita Prefecture's waterfront industrial belt. The Oita Prefecture builder of tankers and auto carriers will also build a repair dock at the new facility and expand an existing shipyard elsewhere in Oita in view of growing shipping activity worldwide, company officials said, adding it will spend 14 billion yen on the capital investment. Source: Kyodo News.

According to a Kyodo News story, a fleet of whaling ships recently left Shimonoseki, Yamaguchi Prefecture, to conduct a scientific research program on whales in the Antarctic for the Tokyo-based Institute of Cetacean Research. During the expedition, the institute plans to catch 10 fin whales for the first time. It also plans to double the amount of catch of minke whales to about 850. In June, the International Whaling Commission adopted a nonbinding resolution urging Japan to scrap its research program at its annual meeting in Ulsan, South Korea. Source: Kyodo News.

According to a report from the Kyodo news service, the combined tonnage for ship orders received by South Korean shipbuilders was higher than that of Japanese shipbuilders in 2002. The Shipbuilders' Association of Japan reported that Japanese shipbuilders received orders worth a combined 5.9 million tons in the year, down 25.9% from 2001. South Korean shipbuilders reportedly received orders for a combined 7.59 million tons, up 18.4%, according to data from the Korea Shipbuilding Industry Association. In 2001, Japan was the top shipbuilder based on tonnage.

Kyodo News Service reported that two former executives of Sasebo Heavy Industries Co. received suspended prison sentences for their role in defrauding the government millions in grants by falsely claiming the shipbuilding firm had retrained employees. Arifumi Himeno quit as president of the company upon his arrest last summer. He was sentenced to a three-year prison term. Yukio Mizuhiro who was deputy director of the company's shipbuilding yard in Sasebo, Nagasaki Prefecture, was given a two-year term. Both terms suspended for three years.

Powerful Typhoon Pabuk, packing winds of up to 79 mph, ploughed into Japan on Tuesday, killing two people, snarling air, sea and rail traffic and forcing Universal Studios to close its theme park. The typhoon landed at around 7:00 p.m. in the western prefecture of Wakayama, becoming the first typhoon to hit Japan's main island of Honshu in two years, the Meteorological Agency said. Local officials issued evacuation recommendations for 7,000 Wakayama residents as the storm pounded the district. The agency warned that Pabuk - a Laotian word for a large, freshwater fish - could make a direct strike on central Japan, near Tokyo, early Wednesday and then pound its way north through Honshu. It was moving at about 20 kph (12.5 mph).

A nuclear fuel shipment to Japan that has stirred up protests by environmentalists is expected to reach port aboard two British cargo ships on Sept. 22, according to Japanese media sources. The ships, carrying MOX fuel, a mixture of uranium and plutonium recycled from spent nuclear fuel, will arrive at a port near the city of Iwaki, about 130 miles north of Tokyo. The armed British cargo ship Pacific Teal left the French port of Cherbourg on July 21 and subsequently linked up with the Pacific Pintail, its sister ship, for the journey to Japan. The Pacific Pintail had been loaded with MOX from Britain's Sellafield nuclear reprocessing plant.