U.S., Japan agree on new missile-defense site against North Korea

TOKYO -- The Obama administration said Monday it had reached an agreement with Japan to build a new radar site on Japanese territory to defend against possible ballistic missile attacks from North Korea.

Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta, at a news conference in Tokyo, said Japan had agreed to host a second so-called X-band radar installation on its territory, and that a team of U.S. technical experts had arrived recently in Japan to identify a location.

U.S. officials have said previously that the installation would be located in southern Japan. One such radar station is operating on the main Japanese island of Honshu, but a second site further south would give the U.S. earlier and more complete coverage of missile launches from North Korea, officials said.

The new site would also permit the U.S. to reposition radar-carrying naval ships that currently patrol south of the Korean peninsula as part of the layered U.S. warning system for missile launches.

Panetta denied that the new installation was aimed at increasing radar surveillance of China, which has a dozens of nuclear-armed intercontinental ballistic missiles. Beijing has concerns that the expanding U.S. ballistic missile defense system in the Pacific could degrade the deterrent value of its arsenal.

Panetta said the U.S. had sought to reassure Beijing that the radar is aimed at detecting launches from North Korea, which has periodically fired medium-range missiles in recent years, several of which have broken up early in their flight.

North Korea has "over the years engaged in provocative behavior with respects to their missiles," Panetta said. "We have made these concerns very clear, that North Korea and the use of these ballistic missiles is a threat to the United States."
 
Another U.S. defense official said: "This radar would be focused on addressing the growing North Korean missile threat to the U.S. homeland, as well as to our deployed forces and allies in the region."

The U.S. system, which includes ship-based missiles and radar, land-based radar sites in Asia and an interceptor site in Alaska, might be able to shoot down a small number of North Korean missiles but is not large enough to block all or even most of China's missiles, U.S. officials say.

The announcement of the new radar site came at a joint news conference after talks between Panetta and Japan's defense minister, Satoshi Morimoto.

Panetta's visit comes at a time of growing tensions between Japan and China over their contested claims to an East China Sea island chain, called the Senkakus by the Japanese and the Diaoyus by the Chinese.

Panetta urged Japan and China to resolve the dispute peacefully, and he stressed that the U.S. does not take sides in territorial disagreements.

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Photo: Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta and his Japanese counterpart, Satoshi Morimoto, hold a joint new conference in Tokyo. Credit: Kazuhiro Nogi / AFP/Getty Images

Anti-Japan protests spread in China over disputed islands

BEIJING -- Anti-Japan protests spread to dozens more Chinese cities Sunday, as thousands of demonstrators agitated by the Japanese government’s plan to buy several uninhabited islands near Taiwan marched in front of diplomatic compounds, attacked Japanese businesses and burned Japanese flags.

In the southern city of Guangzhou, demonstrators stormed into the first two floors of a complex that houses the Japanese consulate, breaking windows in a hotel and smashing a vehicle. In nearby Shenzhen, police fired tear gas and used a water cannon to disperse a large crowd of marchers. Japanese factories, grocery shops, restaurants and car dealerships were reported damaged in a number of cities, including Qingdao.

In Beijing, more than 1,000 marchers waving flags and carrying banners gathered for a second straight day in front of the Japanese Embassy, hurling water bottles at the building and chanting slogans such as “Knock down the little Japanese,” “Long live the People’s Republic of China” and “China will prevail.” 

A number of the marchers, most of whom were young men, carried pictures of Mao Zedong. Others wore shirts urging the boycott of Japanese products. Hundreds of Chinese police and security officers, some in black SWAT uniforms and others in camouflage gear and holding riot shields, lined the protest route and kept marchers circulating back and forth past the embassy building as a helicopter flew overhead. Scores of neighborhood watch volunteers, with red armbands pinned to their shirtsleeves, also patrolled the area.

On a nearby commercial street, Japanese restaurants were shuttered, with some hiding their signs behind tarps. Others hung Chinese flags and banners in front of their stores.

In front of the Kurazen sushi restaurant, which was closed and adorned with a large red banner reading “The Diaoyu islands are China’s,” dozens of onlookers snapped photos. A few doors down, neighborhood watch members used a ladder to cover up the placard of a Japanese BBQ restaurant called Ours.

“The Diaoyu islands themselves are not so important, but I do think Japan is trying to bully China,” said an 18-year-old university student surnamed Wen who came to watch the protest but not participate. “Still, I feel bad about these restaurants because it is Chinese people who work in them.”

PHOTOS: Protests in China

Tensions have been rising since Japan’s government announced a plan last week to purchase what it calls the Senkaku islands from the Japanese family that has controlled them for decades. China has protested the move at the United Nations and sent vessels to the area in an expression of force. Taiwan, which also claims the islands, has also sent ships to nearby waters.

Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda, speaking on a talk show on national broadcaster NHK on Sunday, called on China to ensure the safety of Japanese citizens and businesses in China. Japan’s consulate in Shanghai has reported that a number of Japanese citizens have been harassed in recent days, including one who had a bowl of hot noodles with soup thrown at him and another who was kicked on the street. The consulate urged citizens to not take taxis alone and to not speak loudly in Japanese while in public.

The protests are expected to continue at least through Tuesday, when China will mark the anniversary of an incident in 1931 that began Japan's 14-year occupation of the mainland.

Large-scale protests of any kind are rare in China. Although the government basks in such expressions of nationalism, it strives to ensure such gatherings do not morph into larger outpourings of discontent.

In a sign that the protests may be pushing officials toward the edge of their comfort zone, an opinion piece carried by the state-run New China news agency on Sunday counseled that “wisdom is needed in the expression of patriotism” and that “Chinese people should be rational and obey the law when expressing patriotic feelings, and they should abstain from ‘smashing and looting.’”

A number of protesters in Shenzhen and Guangzhou had issues beyond the disputed islands, such as corruption and high housing prices, on their minds. One photo circulated on Weibo, China’s Twitter-like microblog service, showed a man at a demonstration wearing a shirt reading: "I'm willing to feed the corrupted officials and become a housing slave, but I will never give up on the Diaoyu islands." 

On Weibo, many users expressed dismay at the destruction of Japanese businesses and property and harassment of Japanese citizens. Reports on Weibo that one of the organizers of the demonstrations in the city of Xi’an was a police officer prompted questions about how involved the government was in facilitating the gatherings.

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Photo: Demonstrators outside the Japanese Embassy in Beijing on Sunday. (Julie Makinen/Los Angeles Times)

On way to Tokyo, Leon Panetta urges restraint in islands dispute

TOKYO, Japan -- Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta on Saturday urged China and its neighbors not to engage in “provocative behavior” over disputed islands and maritime claims, warning that it could escalate into a regional conflict that might draw in the U.S.

“I am concerned that these countries engage in provocations of one kind or another over these various islands that it raises the possibility that a misjudgment on one side or the other could result in violence,” Panetta told reporters traveling with him to Asia aboard a U.S. Air Force jet.

Over the last year, China has stepped up its territorial claims in the South China Sea and other waters off its coast, raising tensions with the Philippines and Japan, two U. S. treaty allies that have long-running maritime disputes with Beijing, often fueled by undersea oil and gas deposits and other resources.

Panetta arrived in Tokyo on Sunday at the start of a weeklong trip to Asia that will also take him to China for the first time since he took over the Pentagon, and to New Zealand, the first stop there by a U.S. Defense secretary in three decades.

Japan’s government last week announced that it was purchasing three of five small islands in the East China Sea from private owners, prompting protests in China, which also claims them.

In late June, China announced it was establishing a military garrison in the disputed Paracel Island in the South China Sea. It also clashed with the Philippines over Scarborough Shoal, a fishing ground near the Philippine coast.

The rising tensions over territorial claims have added a further complication to an already tricky visit for Panetta, who hopes to use the trip to ease tensions with Beijing at the same time the Obama administration is implementing a new defense strategy that in many ways seems aimed at China.

At the same time, Obama administration officials have grown increasingly worried that the security strategy that emphasizes rebuilding the U.S. military presence in the Asia Pacific region may have the unintended effect of encouraging longtime allies to be bolder in confronting China, thinking they can count on U.S. military backing.

Panetta emphasized that his call for restraint in the region applies not just to China but to other countries in the region. He emphasized that Washington is not taking sides in the territorial disputes, an implicit warning to allies not to assume Washington will rush to their defense if they provoke a crisis.

But he also urged China to join a regional effort sponsored by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations to mediate some of the claims, a step Beijing has rejected.

“The United States does not take a position with regards to territorial disputes, but we do urge not just China but the other countries that are involved to engage in a process in which they can peacefully resolve these issues,” he said.

Tensions between Washington and Beijing are already high over China’s increasing military modernization effort and the U.S. Asia strategy, announced by President Obama last fall. It calls for shifting ships and troops to Southeast Asia and for rebuilding Washington ties with longtime allies, such as Thailand and the Philippines, and for forging new defense ties with Vietnam and India.

In Beijing, Panetta is scheduled to meet with Gen. Liang Guanglie, China’s defense minister and other top officials. He said he would urge them to deepen military cooperation with the Pentagon.

“We recognize the challenges that we have in the relationship,” he said. “But I think it is in both our nation’s interests to work towards a healthy, stable, reliable and continuous military to military relationship.”

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Photo: U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, right, walks with Lt. Gen. Salvatore A. Angelella, commander of U.S. Forces Japan, upon arriving at Yokota Air Base on the outskirts of Tokyo. Credit: Larry Downing / Associated Press

In wake of Fukushima disaster, Japan to end nuclear power by 2030s

The Japanese government announced a dramatic turn in its energy policy Friday, vowing to make the densely populated island nation nuclear-free by the 2030s.

Last year's tsunami-triggered disaster at the Fukushima nuclear power complex forced evacuation of more than 160,000 and contaminated huge swaths of territory north of Tokyo. Prior to the accident, nuclear plants provided nearly a third of Japan's power generation, and the government had planned to increase that proportion to more than half.

In unveiling the new policy, Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda acknowledged that the vast majority of Japanese support the zero option on nuclear power. The new blueprint calls for investing almost $500 billion over the next two decades to expand renewable sources like wind and solar power, the NHK broadcast network reported.

The energy plan sets forward a three-pronged approach to phasing out nuclear power generation after the March 11, 2011, earthquake and tsunami that inundated the Fukushima plant and set off the worst nuclear accident since the Chernobyl meltdown in 1986 in Ukraine.

A 40-year limit has been set on operation of existing plants, construction of new nuclear-generation facilities is prohibited and any further restarts of Japan's 48 idled nuclear plants will be contingent on their meeting strengthened safety standards to be adopted by a newly created independent regulatory agency.

Japan's anti-nuclear movement swelled after the Fukushima disaster. Opposition to nuclear power became more vocal this summer when the government authorized the restart of two plants in Ohi, serving the populous areas around Kyoto and Osaka. A nationwide shutdown after the Fukushima accident put all 50 remaining nuclear plants offline pending safety improvements and inspections.

Public opinion polls have indicated that more than 70% of Japanese support ending nuclear energy production in Japan, and public hearings in recent months were dominated by voices against resuming nuclear production. Large crowds of anti-nuclear demonstrators have also appeared outside the prime minister's home and offices on a weekly basis.

Business leaders opposed a change in policy. The Federation of Electric Power Companies deemed the phase-out decision "very regrettable," warning that it will raise energy prices for business and consumers and, at least in the near future, increase greenhouse gas emissions as the country relies more on fossil fuels until renewables can be expanded.

Greenpeace Japan urged the government to give the new energy policy the force of law, to avoid it becoming mere "lip service" to appease the public ahead of elections expected later this year.

Japan is already the world's largest importer of liquefied natural gas and is expected to increase reliance on that source as it phases out nuclear energy.

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Photo: Anti-nuclear demonstrators have gathered every Friday for months outside the residence of Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda, depicted on the placard held by this protester that blames the government leader for last year's devastating accident at the Fukushima nuclear complex. Credit: Kimimasa Mayama/European Pressphoto Agency

 

In China, anti-Japan protests over disputed islands get some zing

BEIJING -- Burn your Honda, and steal as much Japanese pornography online as possible.

Since Japan’s government announced plans Monday to buy and “nationalize” several unpopulated islands near Okinawa that are also claimed by China, officials in Beijing have been issuing stiff, dry statements denouncing the move. The government dispatched coast guard surveillance vessels to the area in a somber assertion of force. State-run TV has even started offering weather forecasts for the small outcroppings, inhabited by goats and birds.

But Chinese citizens have been showing a lot more, ahem, flair in their grassroots efforts to voice their passion -- and cynicism -- over the issue.

Online, blogs and forums have been abuzz over various protests. In Shanghai, an angry man was said to have driven his own Honda Civic to a local dealership and set the vehicle afire; photos of the burning auto, in front of a banner reading, “Don’t forget our national shame,” were circulated on Weibo, China’s Twitter-like service.

In Shenzhen, there were reports of several Japanese-made cars being smashed (though some skeptical netizens wondered whether rival vendors of other auto brands, rather than fervent nationalists, were behind the vandalism).

Tour groups from Hainan and Jiangsu provinces said they were canceling plans to visit Japan in early October, when China celebrates its National Day holiday. A couple in Kunming told the state-run Xinhua news agency that they had canceled a wedding photo shoot because the studio couldn’t meet their demand to take their pictures with cameras not made by Japanese companies.

For those unwilling to set a match to their means of transportation, cancel their vacation plans or alter their nuptials, web users were encouraging fellow Chinese to “show their patriotism” by illegally downloading adult Japanese videos, saying doing so would deprive Japanese smut-sellers of revenue.

A report about a protest at Shangqiu Normal University in Henan province showed demonstrators holding up a red banner on Tuesday with the slogan “Diaoyu islands belong to China only; Aoi Sora belongs to the whole world!” Sora – whose name means “Blue Sky” -- is a Japanese adult video star.

Japan’s government, which has been leasing the islands southwest of Okinawa for years from the Japanese titleholders, said Monday it would buy them. The uninhabited outcroppings are believed to be located near rich natural gas deposits. Taiwan also claims sovereignty over the islands, which Japan calls Senkaku. (Taiwan's coast guard said two of its ships sailed Thursday to waters near the islands to "demonstrate an ability to protect local fishermen.")

A number of Chinese celebrities have taken up the banner of the islands. Actress Li Bingbing said she had skipped the Tokyo premiere of “Resident Evil: Retribution” last week in an expression of solidarity.

“I do not like to break an appointment, but after what had happened to the Diaoyu Islands, I did not feel like going. It is something I cannot stand and I thank the film company for their understanding,” Li was quoted by the Chinese media as saying.

One particularly strident and widely circulated rant against Japan’s moves on the islands, ascribed to high-profile Chinese news commentator Bai Yansong, urged citizens to stop buying Japanese brands, since “every time we buy 100 yuan worth of Japanese products, we are sending five of them to the Japanese government, they can make 10 more bullets, and distort eight pages of text books. If you bought Japanese cars, the Japanese tanks patrolling in the street in China in the future would be made by you.”

The comments were later disavowed by Bai on his microblog, saying “these messages are sent by someone else using my name. It has nothing to do with me.”

All the hype about the distant, depopulated islets was irrating some who regard the froth as a distraction engineered by politicians to divert public attention from more fundamental issues.

The Chinese artist and dissident Ai Weiwei posted a pithy remark on his Twitter account. “Tiananmen Square is not even yours," he said to followers on Wednesday.  "What you need the Diaoyu islands for?” 

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Photo: Sports cars bearing anti-Japanese messages drive past the Japanese Embassy in Beijing as protests continue over the Diaoyu Islands. Credit: Mark Ralston / AFP/GettyImages

China sends patrol ships to islands at center of Japan dispute

BEIJING -- China said Tuesday it has sent surveillance ships to waters near three islands at the center of a dispute with Japan, one day after Tokyo announced plans to purchase the uninhabited territories.

The official New China News Agency said the two patrol boats were sent to "assert the country's sovereignty" over the islands, known as Diaoyu in China and Senkaku in Japan.

The paramilitary ships are operated by the China Marine Surveillance, the country's coast guard. State media said the maritime agency had "drafted an action plan for safeguarding the sovereignty and would take actions pending the development of the situation."

There was no immediate response from Tokyo, which said Monday it had made a deal with Japanese landowners to buy the islands southwest of Okinawa. The plan had been championed by Shintaro Ishihara, the governor of Tokyo and a strident nationalist.

The dispatching of Chinese ships is certain to heighten tensions between the two governments. Beijing has issued a barrage of stern warnings to Tokyo in recent days over the island dispute.

Chinese state media reported Monday that President Hu Jintao told Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda before the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in Vladivostok, Russia, that any attempt by Japan to buy the territories would be considered illegal and invalid.

China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a statement Monday saying the islands have been "sacred territory" to China since ancient times, adding: "Long gone are the days when the Chinese nation was subject to bullying and humiliation from others. The Chinese government will not sit idly by watching its territorial sovereignty being infringed upon."

Dozens of protesters reportedly gathered outside the Japanese Embassy in Beijing on Tuesday.

The islands, which are also claimed by Taiwan, are believed to be located near rich natural gas deposits.

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Photo: China, Japan and Taiwan each claim sovereignty over the chain of three small islands, which Japan calls Senkaku and which China calls Daioyu. Credit: Getty Images

Japan says it will soon buy disputed islands claimed by China

This post has been updated. See the note below.

BEIJING -- Japan’s government said Monday it would buy three uninhabited islands southwest of Okinawa from the Japanese landowners, ratcheting up a territorial dispute with China. 

Chief Cabinet Secretary Osamu Fujimura told reporters in Tokyo following a ministerial meeting that Japan’s government had made a deal with the Japanese landowners on Friday and that the sale would be completed “as quickly as possible.”

Fujimura did not specify a price for the islands, but various media reports have put the sales price around $26 million. Taiwan also claims sovereignty over the islands, which Japan calls Senkaku and which China calls Diaoyu.

There was no immediate response from Chinese officials, but Chinese President Hu Jintao met briefly with Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda before the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in Vladivostok, Russia. Hu told Noda that “any action by Japan to 'buy' the Diaoyu Islands is illegal and invalid and China is firmly against it," the official China Daily reported on Monday.

[Updated Sept. 10, 7:03 a.m.: Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao, speaking later Monday at a ceremony at the China Foreign Affairs University in Beijing, said the islands "are an inalienable part of China's territory, and the Chinese government and its people will absolutely make no concession on issues concerning its sovereignty and territorial integrity,"  the official New China News Agency reported.]

Domestic politics on both sides seem to be inflaming the dispute over the islands. The purchase plan has been pursued by conservative Tokyo Gov. Shintaro Ishihara, a strident nationalist, putting the more liberal Noda into a difficult position. Although the initial plan called for the islands to be sold to Tokyo’s metropolitan government, the plan now is to have the property be owned by Japan's Coast Guard.

The islands are owned by the Kurihara family. Hiroyuki Kurihara, a company executive in his 60s from Saitama prefecture northwest of Tokyo, said in July that his family bought the islands between 1972 and 1988.

Noda was not present at Monday’s meeting on the sale, Japan’s Kyodo News reported. Instead, the meeting was attended by Foreign Minister Koichiro Gemba, Finance Minister Jun Azumi and Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism Minister Yuichiro Hata.

The territorial dispute is coming at a sensitive time for Hu as the Chinese government prepares for its once-in-a-decade leadership transition, with Hu expected to turn over the presidency to Vice President Xi Jinping sometime in October.

Any escalation of the dispute could inflame nationalistic sentiment in China, something Beijing strains to control. Last month, thousands joined anti-Japan protests across China, smashing Japanese cars and restaurants. 

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Photo: Taiwan also claims sovereignty over the islands, which calls Senkaku and which China calls Daioyu. Credit: Getty Images

Clinton draws criticism from Chinese ahead of talks

BEIJING — Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton flew into a storm of criticism in Beijing on Tuesday in the midst of a six-nation tour perceived by China as aimed at curbing its influence in Asia.

“Many Chinese people dislike Hillary Clinton,” the often-acerbic Communist Party-controlled Global Times newspaper stated in an editorial. “She has brought new and extremely profound mutual distrust between the mainstream societies of the two countries."

Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei was more polite, saying at a briefing in advance of Clinton’s arrival late Tuesday, “We hope the U.S. side will keep its commitment and make efforts that help, rather than harm, regional peace and stability.”

High on the agenda in Beijing are the myriad of disputes between China and neighbors — Japan, Vietnam, the Philippines, Brunei and Malaysia — over uninhabited islets and fishing waters.

Clinton has proposed a code of conduct to be used as a mechanism to resolve such disputes through the Assn. of South East Asian Nations. Such a code would “literally calm the waters,” Clinton said in Jakarta, Indonesia, ahead of her flight to China.

Gambia, Iraq executions buck worldwide abolitionist trend

Human rights advocates the world over have been shocked and outraged by Gambia's first executions in 27 years and an escalation in hangings in Iraq that has already sent 91 to their deaths this year.

The rash of executions in the two countries -- nine in Gambia last week and 21 in Iraq on Monday alone -- are particularly disturbing for the targeting of prisoners convicted on what appear to be politically instigated charges in secretive and unfair trials, international law experts said.

Yet as lamentable as the recent death row purges may be to those who monitor and censure human rights abuses, they are in stark contrast to a global trend toward abolition of the death penalty and de facto moratoriums on executions in an ever-larger number of countries.

About two-thirds of the 196 countries tracked by Amnesty International  have renounced the death penalty in law or in practice, the London-based rights champions calculate. That has grown from only 16 countries that had outlawed executions before Amnesty launched its global campaign to eradicate the death penalty in 1977.

"Even in countries like China, while we don’t know how many they have executed, we do know that they have reduced the number of crimes that can be punished by death and they have reduced the number of people executed in recent years dramatically," Christof Heyns, assigned by the United Nations to monitor extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, said in a telephone interview from his home in Pretoria, South Africa.

On behalf of the world body's Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Heyns delivered a message to Gambian President Yahya Jammeh this week to "strongly condemn" the autocrat's proclaimed intent to execute all 48 death row inmates in the tiny West African country by mid-September. Nine were executed last week, Jammeh's government confirmed Monday, and the remaining 39 condemned prisoners have been moved from their cells to the execution site.

Heyns' letter demanded that Gambia refrain from any further executions, calling last week's deaths "a major step backwards for the country, and for the protection of the right to life in the world as a whole.” The U.N. agency rebuke joined others from Amnesty, Human Rights Watch, European nations and an expression of "great concern" from the United States, which itself ranks high on annual rights agencies' lists of countries with the most executions.

Gambia had last executed a prisoner in 1985, and had adhered to the practice increasingly prevalent in sub-Saharan Africa of reducing the list of crimes for which the death penalty can be applied as well as the number of capital sentences, noted Sandra L. Babcock, a law professor at Northwestern University and founder of its Center for International Human Rights.

Babcock attributes the Gambia executions to "the whim of an unpredictable and, by all accounts, unbalanced dictator," and she sees little threat of Jammeh's crackdown inspiring emulation.

"It's an exception to the general rule that once a nation heads down that path of refusing to carry out executions, that it leads to abolition as a matter of law over time," said Babcock, whose center maintains a database on the Death Penalty Worldwide.

Iraq's mounting zeal for executions is the more disturbing, Babcock said, as many of the 1,000-plus condemned Iraqis were convicted of treason or terrorism, often "thinly disguised justification for prosecuting political opponents."

Iraq has long featured in the dubious ranks of the Top Five countries carrying out the most executions each year. In 2011, China led Amnesty's list with executions estimated at more than 1,000, but it also eliminated the death penalty for 13 crimes that previously could draw the ultimate punishment. Iran acknowledged executing at least 360 people, followed by Saudi Arabia with 82 reported executions, Iraq with 68 and the United States 43.

Despite the rise in executions in some of the most active "retentionist" nations, as the rights groups refer to those that haven't signed on to the international covenant that defines the death penalty as a human rights violation, there are positive trends even in areas where the death penalty long enjoyed broad public support, the law experts said.

The Philippines abolished capital punishment six years ago, and all republics of the former Soviet Union except Belarus have renounced the death penalty or ceased carrying it out. Malaysia and Singapore are reconsidering whether all drug-trafficking crimes should be death-penalty eligible, and China is conducting a review of all death sentences, Babcock said. All of Europe is abolitionist, and most of Latin America -- with the glaring exception of the Caribbean states -- have ceased executions.

The only two highly developed democracies that continue to execute are the United States and Japan, the rights groups note. And abolitionists are regaining traction in Japan that was lost 17 years ago when the Aum Shinrikyo cult attacked Tokyo subway riders with sarin gas, killing 13 and poisoning 6,000.

Moving the United States into the execution-free category is going to take time because of the 50 separate state penal codes and popular support for the death penalty in some regions, Babcock said.

But she pointed out that the rising cost of keeping the death penalty on the books in states like California, with 729 on death row, is beginning to make inroads with death penalty supporters who have been unmoved by the moral arguments against the state taking lives.

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 Photo: Protesters gathered outside the Gambian Embassy in Senegal on Thursday to demand President Yahya Jammeh halt the mass execution of prisoners. Two of those executed by Gambia last week were Senegalese, including a woman. The banner reads "Gambia. Stop the reign of fear." Credit: Seyllou / AFP/Getty Images

China-Japan tensions rising over disputed islands

Nationalist tensions are rising in China over rival claims with Japan about the ownership of several uninhabitable rocky islands -- despite efforts by officials in both Beijing and Tokyo to defuse the dispute.

On Monday, the Chinese Foreign Ministry expressed regret over an attack a day earlier on the official car carrying Japan's ambassador to China, Uichiro Niwa. Neither Niwa nor another Japanese diplomat in the vehicle was injured, but protesters forced the car to a stop on a busy Beijing road and ripped the Japanese flag from the vehicle.

Also on Sunday, protests were staged in about 25 other Chinese cities, with marchers burning flags depicting the rising sun, chanting anti-Japanese slogans and vandalizing Japanese cars, restaurants and other businesses, the Kyodo news agency reported.

"The Japanese Embassy said in a press release it has filed a strong protest with the Chinese Foreign Ministry and a senior Chinese Foreign Ministry official expressed 'deep regret' over the incident," Kyodo reported from Beijing.

The official New China News Agency reported that the Beijing government had made assurances to Tokyo that Japanese citizens and interests in China would be protected. The agency also noted that Japan's national government had blocked a controversial plan by the governor of Tokyo to visit and survey the islands that the municipality has proposed buying from their private owners to cement Japan's claim. The disputed outcroppings are called Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu by the Chinese.

Long-simmering resentment of Japan's control over the islands boiled over on Aug. 15, the 67th anniversary of Japan's World War II surrender, when 14 Hong Kong activists staged a symbolic landing at one of the islets to assert China's claims of sovereignty. The activists were arrested by Japanese coast guard members and deported.

Since then, anti-Japanese demonstrations have flared across China, at times drawing thousands into defiant demands for the islands to be restored to China, which controlled them from the 14th century until 1895. Sunday's protests, organized over the Internet, attracted more than 5,000 in Shenzhen and about 3,000 in Hangzhou, as well as smaller gatherings outside the Japanese Embassy in Beijing and its consulate in Hong Kong, Kyodo said, citing a report from Japanese diplomatic missions in China.

In an editorial, the daily Yomiuri Shimbun accused Beijing of tacitly encouraging the anti-Japan protests, and urged Chinese authorities "to do everything they can to secure the safety of Japanese individuals and companies in the country."

The newspaper also implied that Beijing was playing "the anti-Japan card" as a tool in the power struggle leading up to this fall's national congress of the Communist Party, when a once-in-a-decade leadership change is due to be announced.

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Photo: An Aug. 19 demonstration in Chengdu was one of the largest in China since Japan arrested and deported Hong Kong activists for staging a landing on a disputed island to assert Chinese sovereignty claims. Credit: AFP/Getty Images