EFL
Japan is giving $1.5bn (£895m) to help pay for the rebuilding of Iraq. The "near-term aid", as the Japanese government described it, will help with power, education, water and jobs. The Japanese media has speculated that the grants are just the first installment of what could be as much as $5bn over four years.
I am surprised at the size of the pledge and the fact taht it is a grant.
The commitment comes shortly before the arrival of US President George W Bush in Japan to discuss sending Japanese non-combat troops to Iraq.
Are non-combat troops allowed to fight back?
"(Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi) assured me he would work hard to develop a good package," Mr Bush told Fuji TV in an interview. "It sounds like he has done so, and I’m grateful and thankful." But the question of sending soldiers overseas, even in non-combat roles, is a sensitive one in Japan. The country relaxed its post-war ban on members of its Self-Defence Forces serving outside Japanese territory only in the early 1990s — and then only for United Nations-backed peacekeeping operations. With an election due on 9 November, and many Japanese still opposed to deploying troops overseas, Koizumi is having to tread warily on the issue. In this he shares the concerns of South Korea, from whom the US has requested 5,000 combat troops but has receieved only 700 non-combatants. Whether or not the troops are forthcoming, the Japanese contribution is the biggest package of financial aid to be offered by any country to date — even it it is still dwarfed by the $11bn Japan contributed to the cost of the 1991 Gulf War. The money will come from government reserves, and will not require a fresh issue of bonds to finance, according to Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda. "Stability in the region is directly linked to the interests of our country, which relies on the Middle East for almost 90% of its oil imports," Mr Fukuda said.
| And in an unrelated stunner... |
Vietnam, only three years ago a recipient of humanitarian aid, has shipped 1,467 tonnes of rice worth $500,000 to Iraq, due to be offloaded at the southern Iraq port of Umm Qasr on Wednesday or Thursday. |