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Mr Howard said the deal would bring the two countries closer Australian Prime Minister John Howard has dismissed suggestions that a security declaration with Japan could strain ties with China. Mr Howard is set to sign the ground-breaking deal during a four-day visit to Japan which begins on Sunday. The agreement is thought to include co-operation on terrorism, peacekeeping and disaster relief. Australia has been looking to exert more influence in Asia, in terms of business as well as regional security. Full details of the pact have not been revealed but it is expected to include plans for greater...

In Pictures: Robot menagerie An ethical code to prevent humans abusing robots, and vice versa, is being drawn up by South Korea. The Robot Ethics Charter will cover standards for users and manufacturers and will be released later in 2007. It is being put together by a five member team of experts that includes futurists and a science fiction writer. The South Korean government has identified robotics as a key economic driver and is pumping millions of dollars into research. "The government plans to set ethical guidelines concerning the roles and functions of robots as robots are expected to...

There are hundreds of dialects among China's 1.3bn people Only about half of China's population can speak the national language, Mandarin, according to the state news agency Xinhua.More men speak Mandarin than women, and more urbanites speak the language than those in rural areas, Xinhua said. For many years now, the government has tried to increase the use of Mandarin, to promote social cohesion. But China has hundreds of dialects, some of which - such as Cantonese and Hokkien - have strong regional support. In a survey of 500,000 people around the country, the Ministry of Education found that...

Summary: Controversies over the war in Iraq and U.S. unilateralism have overshadowed a more pragmatic and multilateral component of the Bush administration's grand strategy: its attempt to reconfigure U.S. foreign policy and international institutions in order to account for shifts in the global distribution of power and the emergence of states such as China and India. This unheralded move is well intentioned and well advised, and Washington should redouble its efforts.

After more than 60 years of silence, World War II's most enduring and horrible secret is being nudged into the light of day. One by one the participants, white-haired and mildmannered, line up to tell their dreadful stories before they die. Akira Makino is a frail widower living near Osaka in Japan. His only unusual habit is to regularly visit an obscure little town in the southern Philippines, where he gives clothes to poor children and has set up war memorials. Mr Makino was stationed there during the war. What he never told anybody, including his wife, was that during...

The foreign ministers of India, Russia and China were meeting Wednesday in the Indian capital in a bid to strengthen relations and to explore cooperation on issues such as counterterrorism and energy security, Indian officials said. The meeting between India's External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and their Chinese counterpart Li Zhaoxing is part of efforts by the three countries to forge a trilateral forum to work more closely on regional security issues, the officials said. "This will be the second stand-alone meeting of its kind," said Navtej Sarna, external affairs ministry spokesman. The foreign ministers...

Western-style fashions are big business in China A visit to any chemist in China gives an insight into Chinese attitudes to beauty. The brightly-lit aisles are full of the big-named brands which dominate the world's beauty market, but the products here are different from those in the West. The shelves are loaded with creams and lotions which whiten the skin. "Making skin look paler is very deeply rooted in Chinese tradition," said Jan Hodok, marketing manager for the skincare company Nivea in China. "Traditionally, the first objective of a woman is to have pale white skin because whitening can...

The article, from one of the world's leading newspapers, touches on what a blessing saying "hasta la vista" to socialism really can be - not to mention future prospects! Ask the people who live in the hottest city of Europe - and they don't speak "cockney" or french with a Paris accent. The fall of Communism in Russia and China in combination with the orientation towards pro-capitalism of Scandinavia has already lead to a explosion of trade between the world's 14th biggest economy, Russia, the world's 4th biggest economy, China and the 8th biggest one, the Scandinavian countries (Source: IMF...

Japan and the United States are considering joint plans to coordinate the response of their armed forces if China invades Taiwan or North Korea strikes Japan, news reports have said. US and Japanese defense and foreign affairs officials would next month start studying various scenarios of military confrontation in Taiwan, reflecting US unease over China's growing military power, the Kyodo News agency reported. The plan would consider a possible Taiwanese declaration of independence and the use by China of military force against the island, according to the report, which cited unnamed US and Japanese government sources. Possible cooperation could include...

TOKYO -- Japan's navy on Saturday denied a report that Japan and the United States held a drill simulating a Chinese invasion of disputed islands during recent joint naval exercises. The U.S. and Japan sent a flotilla of warships - including the aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk and its battle group - off Japan's southern coast for a week of war games in mid-November called Annualex 18G, their largest joint naval exercise of the year. One of the drills addressed a hypothetical Chinese military invasion of a group of uninhabited islands called Diaoyu in Chinese and Senkaku in Japanese that...

China and ASEAN reaffirmed the establishment of the East Asia community as a long-term goal, according to a joint statement issued Monday in Naning. The joint statement, entitled "Towards An Enhanced China-ASEAN Strategic Partnership", was inked by leaders of China and ASEAN countries following a China-ASEAN summit commemorating the 15th anniversary of the establishment of China-ASEAN dialogue. China and ASEAN nations pledge to consult closely on sub- regional, regional and international issues and to cement cooperation in these fields, the statement says. China supports ASEAN's role as the driving force in regional processes, such as the ASEAN Regional Forum,...

Swedish equipment to test North Korea nuclear claim South Korean officials said on Tuesday they believe North Korea's claim of a nuclear test is genuine, but they plan to borrow hi-tech equipment from Sweden to test the atmosphere for radioactive particles. "The government believes North Korea actually conducted a nuclear test," Unification Minister Lee Jong-Seok told a special parliamentary hearing. Lee, who is in charge of North Korean affairs, said the government would not yet recognize Pyongyang as a nuclear power until it was known whether the test was successful. North Korea said Monday it had successfully tested a nuclear...

Bildt: North Korea nuclear test 'extremely serious' Swedish foreign minister Carl Bildt has described North Korean claims that it has carried out an underground nuclear weapons test as "an extremely serious development." The test would have consequences both for stability in East Asia and for international efforts to stem the proliferation of nuclear weapons, Bildt said in a statement on Monday morning. "While it has been assumed for a long time that North Korea has a few nuclear charges, a test of this kind is a conscious and serious provocation directed at the entire international community," he said, adding that...

A report provided to former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi in May from the Japan Forum on International Relations, an independent think-tank, highlighted the country’s ongoing struggles concerning the implementation of a comprehensive energy strategy. “Japan’s overall energy approach lags behind the changes occurring in the world. The strategic importance of energy has a far greater importance than is appreciated in Japan,” the report noted. The report went on to say that the country’s very “existence as a state” could be jeopardized if it does not develop a more strategic approach to energy security. Japan, the world’s third largest energy consumer,...

PYONGYANG, North Korea - With a smile and strong hands, Korean-American taekwondo grandmaster Woo Jin Jung shatters pine boards in hopes of breaking another solid barrier - the 53 years of division between North and South on the Korean peninsula. No one is immune to his unusual charms. In this normally tightly regimented city, Jung even convinced the prim North Korean announcer, wearing a bright green hanbok dress, to chop a board in two for the crowd watching his demonstration. "Female or male, old people and young, black or white, it doesn't matter - we're just all wishing for unification,"...

What's in a name? Quite a lot judging by the latest diplomatic spat between Japan and South Korea. Last week saw another twist in the disputed ownership of a group of islands lying between the two countries, which the Japanese call 'Kaneshima' and the South Koreans 'Dokdo'. The islands lie close to the middle of the Sea of Japan which separates the two countries, but the issue is complicated by the fact that both nations claim they fall in their own Exclusive Economic Zone. Though the isles are largely uninhabitable they are located in rich fishing grounds -- and the...

Asia Rising Donald Rumsfeld infamously made a distinction between Old Europe and New Europe. He has been scored ever since for his sweeping and impolitic language, but he wasn't sweeping enough: In geopolitical terms, all of Europe is old, the world's most tourist-friendly museum piece. For the future of high-stakes U.S. diplomacy and of great-power politics, look no further than Chinese President Hu Jintao's visit to the U.S. It is Asia that should occupy an outsized place in our strategic thinking, and it is Europe that should be the relative afterthought, not the other way around. The media and foreign-policy...

REGULAR meals of mammoth meat helped some early human tribes to expand more quickly than their largely vegetarian contemporaries, according to a genetic study. Human populations in east Asia about 30,000 years ago developed at dramatically different rates, following a pattern that appears to reflect the availability of mammoths and other large game. In the part of the region covering what is now northern China, Mongolia and southern Siberia, vast plains teemed with mammals such as mammoths, mastodons and woolly rhinoceroses and the number of early human beings grew between 34,000 and 20,000 years ago. Further south, where the terrain...

Condoleezza Rice, Wen Jiabao, Junichiro Koizumi’s visits, the signing of a Comprehensive Economic Cooperation agreement with Singapore, participation in the East Asia Summit and its active role in the WTO negotiations — all in 2005 — are perhaps the best indicator of the pivotal role that India has begun to play in the emerging Asian balance of power. The year gone by, and the one to come, have enormous significance for India because today it occupies a unique geopolitical position in Asia. Located where it is, on the flanks of the Asean and the East Asian region, and those of...

The first two of four Kidd-class destroyers sold to Taiwan by the United States are due to arrive at the weekend, bolstering the navy's defense capabilities against rival China, a navy spokesman said Tuesday. The two destroyers, which were first refitted for Taiwan's use at a US naval shipyard, were scheduled to arrive Saturday at the Suao naval base in the island's northeast, naval lieutenant-commander Wu Chih-chieh told AFP. A formal commissioning ceremony has been set for mid-December, he said, adding that Taiwan would take delivery of the remaining two destroyers in 2006. The four Kidd-class destroyers, originally built for...