Prime Minister Naoto Kan mobilised Japan's Self-Defence Forces and the central bank pledged to ensure financial stability yesterday after a magnitude-8.9 earthquake struck off the coast of Sendai, a city of one million people, causing damage across the east coast of Japan.
Prime Minister Naoto Kan mobilised Japan's Self-Defence Forces and the central bank pledged to ensure financial stability yesterday after a magnitude-8.9 earthquake struck off the coast of Sendai, a city of one million people, causing damage across the east coast of Japan.
"I call on citizens to act calmly," Mr Kan told reporters in Tokyo after convening his emergency disaster response team.
"The Self-Defence Forces are already mobilised in various places. The government is making its utmost effort to minimise the damage," he said, saying later in a news conference that the impact was widespread.
The Ministry of Finance said it was too soon to gauge the economic impact of the earthquake, the world's biggest in more than six years.
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Japan's central bank set up an emergency taskforce and said it would do everything it could to provide ample liquidity.
Japan's stocks slid 1.7 per cent in Tokyo as the earthquake struck less than half an hour before the market closed.
"Major damage occurred in the Tohoku area," Mr Kan said in a nationally televised address, referring to the northern region of Honshu, Japan's biggest island. "We will work with all our might to ensure people's safety and minimise the damage. I ask everyone to pay attention to TV and radio reports and act calmly.
"Some nuclear power plants automatically shut down, but so far we haven't confirmed any leakage of radioactive material."
The quake struck just hours after Mr Kan was under pressure to resign when he admitted he had received donations from a man believed to be a foreign national, the same violation that cost the foreign minister his job.
The Asahi Shimbun newspaper reported that Mr Kan's fund-management body had accepted donations from a South Korean resident of Japan, in breach of a political funding law that bans contributions from foreign individuals or entities.
"I thought he was a Japanese national as he had a Japanese name," Mr Kan told a parliamentary committee about the reported $12,500 in donations.
"I wasn't aware at all that he is a foreign national, as the report says."
The centre-left Premier pledged to "return all the money if it is confirmed that he is a foreign national".
Mr Kan's right-hand man and top spokesman, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano, said Mr Kan was not considering stepping down.
Finance Minister Yoshihiko Noda said: "As it wasn't intentional, I don't see any legal problems there."
The donation came to light just days after Seiji Maehara resigned as foreign minister for taking money from another South Korean resident of Japan.
Mr Maehara, a high-profile minister who had widely been tipped as a successor to Mr Kan, apologised for taking the donation and announced his resignation last Sunday despite Mr Kan's efforts to persuade him to stay.
Mr Maehara illegally accepted about $US3000 ($3000) from a 72-year-old woman of Korean background, a family friend who was not a Japanese citizen.
Japan, which occupied the Korean peninsula until the end of World War II, is home to nearly one million ethnic Koreans.
Many are children of former forced labourers and do not hold Japanese nationality despite having lived their entire lives in the country.
Source: The australian
www.theaustralian.com.au
Prime Minister Naoto Kan mobilised Japan's Self-Defence Forces and the central bank pledged to ensure financial stability yesterday after a magnitude-8.9 earthquake struck off the coast of Sendai, a city of one million people, causing damage across the east coast of Japan.
"I call on citizens to act calmly," Mr Kan told reporters in Tokyo after convening his emergency disaster response team.
"The Self-Defence Forces are already mobilised in various places. The government is making its utmost effort to minimise the damage," he said, saying later in a news conference that the impact was widespread.
The Ministry of Finance said it was too soon to gauge the economic impact of the earthquake, the world's biggest in more than six years.
Start of sidebar. Skip to end of sidebar.
End of sidebar. Return to start of sidebar.
Japan's central bank set up an emergency taskforce and said it would do everything it could to provide ample liquidity.
Japan's stocks slid 1.7 per cent in Tokyo as the earthquake struck less than half an hour before the market closed.
"Major damage occurred in the Tohoku area," Mr Kan said in a nationally televised address, referring to the northern region of Honshu, Japan's biggest island. "We will work with all our might to ensure people's safety and minimise the damage. I ask everyone to pay attention to TV and radio reports and act calmly.
"Some nuclear power plants automatically shut down, but so far we haven't confirmed any leakage of radioactive material."
The quake struck just hours after Mr Kan was under pressure to resign when he admitted he had received donations from a man believed to be a foreign national, the same violation that cost the foreign minister his job.
The Asahi Shimbun newspaper reported that Mr Kan's fund-management body had accepted donations from a South Korean resident of Japan, in breach of a political funding law that bans contributions from foreign individuals or entities.
"I thought he was a Japanese national as he had a Japanese name," Mr Kan told a parliamentary committee about the reported $12,500 in donations.
"I wasn't aware at all that he is a foreign national, as the report says."
The centre-left Premier pledged to "return all the money if it is confirmed that he is a foreign national".
Mr Kan's right-hand man and top spokesman, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano, said Mr Kan was not considering stepping down.
Finance Minister Yoshihiko Noda said: "As it wasn't intentional, I don't see any legal problems there."
The donation came to light just days after Seiji Maehara resigned as foreign minister for taking money from another South Korean resident of Japan.
Mr Maehara, a high-profile minister who had widely been tipped as a successor to Mr Kan, apologised for taking the donation and announced his resignation last Sunday despite Mr Kan's efforts to persuade him to stay.
Mr Maehara illegally accepted about $US3000 ($3000) from a 72-year-old woman of Korean background, a family friend who was not a Japanese citizen.
Japan, which occupied the Korean peninsula until the end of World War II, is home to nearly one million ethnic Koreans.
Many are children of former forced labourers and do not hold Japanese nationality despite having lived their entire lives in the country.
Source: The australian
www.theaustralian.com.au
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