 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
| . |  |
. |
Japan to allow military use of space: lawmakers
Tokyo (AFP) May 9, 2008 Japanese lawmakers voted Friday to allow the military use of space, breaking a decades-old taboo in the officially pacifist country which has an increasingly ambitious space programme. The move came during a rare fence-mending visit to Japan by President Hu Jintao of China, which alarmed Japan last year by conducting a test to shoot down a satellite. A lower house committee voted to reverse a 1969 parliamentary resolution that limited Japan's use of space to non-military applications. The bill is certain to pass in parliament as both Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda's Liberal Democratic Party and the main opposition Democratic Party, which controls the upper house, support it. Lawmakers said that Japan still opposed putting weapons into space but that the 1969 restrictions had stifled innovation, hurting Japanese companies. Advocates also said that Japan wanted to remove any legal obstacles to building more advanced spy satellites. "The bottom line of this bill is to stand on the principle of the peaceful use of space but for the government to use space technology to improve people's livelihoods," said a secretary to a ruling-party lawmaker who requested anonymity. The opposition Japanese Communist Party was against the bill, fearing it would lead to a stronger military. Japan's US-imposed post-World War II constitution says the country will never again wage war. Japanese troops have not fired a shot in anger since 1945, although the country has one of the world's largest defence budgets. Japan has stepped up military research after North Korea stunned the world in 1998 by firing a missile over the Japanese mainland into the Pacific. A think-tank linked to the Japanese defence ministry has also warned that China's space programme could pose a military threat. China last year became the third country to shoot down an object in space after the United States and the former Soviet Union, when it downed an old weather satellite with an anti-satellite missile, raising Japanese fears. Japan has been stepping up its space programme and is now conducting the most extensive probe of the moon since the US Apollo missions of the 1960s and 1970s. Community Email This Article Comment On This Article Share This Article With Planet Earth
Related Links Military Space News at SpaceWar.com
Raytheon Team To Integrate The US Army's Live, Virtual And Constructive Training Support
Reston VA (SPX) May 07, 2008The Warrior Training Alliance, led by Raytheon Technical Services, has begun integrating the U.S. Army's live, virtual and constructive training under the Warfighter FOCUS (Field Operations Customer Support) program. RTSC, a subsidiary of Raytheon, won the 10-year, indefinite delivery-indefinite quantity contract last summer. |
|
|
| The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2007 - SpaceDaily.AFP and UPI Wire Stories are copyright Agence France-Presse and United Press International. ESA Portal Reports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additional copyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. Advertising does not imply endorsement,agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by SpaceDaily on any Web page published or hosted by SpaceDaily. Privacy Statement |
del.icio.us
Digg
Reddit
YahooMyWeb
Google
Facebook