Russian State TV Shows Footage of Putin Working in Good Health
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/russian-state-tv-shows-footage-of-putin-working-in-good-health/517392.html
Russian state television aired what it said was footage of President Vladimir Putin working at his residence outside Moscow on Friday, a first appearance since he dropped out of sight days ago, triggering rumours he was ill or sidelined by internal conflict.
In the footage, Putin was shown in his office at his Novo-Ogaryovo residence, where he conducts many of his meetings, sitting across a table from Supreme Court head Vyacheslav Lebedev and talking about plans to reform the judicial system.
Dressed in grey suit and a blue patterned tie, he looked in no way different from usual. In the brief footage, he was shown nodding and smiling as Lebedev spoke and could be heard saying a few words about the court system.
A visit by Putin to the Kazakh capital, which was to have taken plan this week, was cancelled with no official explanation, while a meeting in Moscow with a delegation from the Georgian separatist region of South Ossetia was also called off.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Thursday that Putin, who is 62, was in good health and was working as usual.
However, the cancellation of engagements sparked feverish speculation on Russian social media – though most mainstream organizations, which are deferential to the Kremlin, steered clear of the issue.
The rumors fed into an atmosphere among Moscow's political classes that was already more than usually febrile because of the conflict in Ukraine, and the Feb. 27 killing of opposition figure Boris Nemtsov.
There was no hard evidence that Putin was ill, or that there was any crisis inside the Kremlin. Markets were unruffled by the rumors. The ruble strengthened slightly on Monday, after the Central Bank cut rates by one percentage point, slightly less than some analysts had expected.
Putin will meet Kyrgyzstan President Almazbek Atambayev in St. Petersburg on March 16, the Kremlin said Friday amid speculation over the president's whereabouts and health after he was not seen in public for several days.
Rumors of Putin's Illness Run Rife in Russian Media
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/article.php?id=517349
Japan ex-PM: no tanks or starving citizens seen in Crimea
http://tass.ru/en/russia/782105
Yukio Hatoyama said Crimeans voted in favor of reunification with Russia "without any military influence" and following "their own aspirations and sentiments"
SIMFEROPOL, 11 March. /TASS/. Japan's former prime minister, visiting the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea, said on Wednesday he saw no tanks or starving citizens on the streets, contrary to how affairs have been portrayed in Western media.
"It's only my second day in Crimea, but I have managed to see for myself that Crimea residents live quite a happy and peaceful life," former premier Yukio Hatoyama told journalists, noting it is obvious Crimeans voted in favor of reunification with Russia "without any military influence" and following "their own aspirations and sentiments".
"Certainly, I have seen no tanks on the streets," Hatoyama said, noting Western media’s "one-sided" reporting.
Hatoyama, heading the Russia-Japan Friendship Society, arrived on a three-day visit to the territory on Tuesday despite criticism from the Japanese foreign ministry and the government.
The former premier said he wanted personally to make sure residents of Crimea had sought to reunify with Russia.
On Tuesday, Hatoyama visited cultural and historic sites on Crimea’s southern coast. Later on Wednesday he planned to meet the republic’s leadership and on Thursday to visit Sevastopol, a Russian federal city and home to Russia's Black Sea fleet
Yukio Hatoyama
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yukio_Hatoyama
Yukio Hatoyama (鳩山 由紀夫 Hatoyama Yukio?, born 11 February 1947) is a former Japanese politician who served as Prime Minister of Japan from 16 September 2009 to 2 June 2010. He was the first Prime Minister from the modern Democratic Party of Japan. First elected to the House of Representatives in 1986, Hatoyama became President of the DPJ, the main opposition party, in May 2009. He then led the party to victory in the August 2009 general election, defeating the long-governing Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). He represented the Hokkaido 9th district in the House of RepresentativesHatoyama comes from a prominent Japanese political family which has been likened to the Kennedy family of the United States.
Hatoyama, who was born in Bunkyō, Tokyo, is a fourth generation politician. His paternal great-grandfather, Kazuo Hatoyama, was speaker of the House of Representatives of the Diet of Japan from 1896 to 1897 during the Meiji era. Kazuo later served as the president of Waseda University. His paternal great-grandmother, Haruko Hatoyama, was a co-founder of what is known today as Kyoritsu Women's University. His paternal grandfather, Ichirō Hatoyama, was a major politician; he served as Prime Minister and was a founder and the first President of the Liberal Democratic Party in 1956. As Prime Minister, he restored diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union, which cleared the way for Japan's membership in the United Nations. Hatoyama is the son of Iichirō Hatoyama, who was Foreign Minister for a time. His mother, Yasuko Hatoyama, is a daughter of Shojiro Ishibashi, the founder of Bridgestone Corporation and heir to his significant inheritance. Yasuko Hatoyama is known as the "Godmother" within the Japanese political world for her financial contributions to both of her sons' political ambitions. In particular, Yasuko donated billions of yen when Kunio and Yukio co-created their previous Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) in 1996 to help establish her sons' fledgling political party. His younger brother, Kunio Hatoyama, served as Minister of Internal Affairs and Communications under Prime Minister Taro Aso until 12 June 2009. His younger sister-in-law Emily Hatoyama (鳩山エミリ?) who is Kunio's wife, an Australian Japanese, was a TV personality in Japan.Hatoyama graduated with a Bachelor of Engineering from the University of Tokyo in 1969 and received a PhD in Industrial Engineering from Stanford University in 1976. He met his wife, Miyuki Hatoyama, while studying at Stanford (Miyuki was working at a Japanese restaurant). The couple married in 1975 after Miyuki divorced her ex-husband. The couple's son, Kiichirō (紀一郎?), graduated from the urban engineering department of the University of Tokyo, is a visiting engineering researcher at Moscow State University. Hatoyama worked as assistant professor (1976–1981) at Tokyo Institute of Technology and later transferred to Senshu University as associate professor (1981–1984).
Former Prime Minister Hatoyama Praises ‘Happy’ Life in Crimea
http://blogs.wsj.com/japanrealtime/2015/03/12/former-prime-minister-hatoyama-praises-happy-life-in-crimea/
Former Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama drew a fresh rebuke from his government Thursday after he visited Crimea and said life in the peninsula appeared happy.
“I’ve seen with my own eyes how everyone is living happily and peacefully,” Mr. Hatoyama said Wednesday during a news conference in Simferopol, the central city of Crimea.
Mr. Hatoyama arrived in Crimea via Moscow on Tuesday for a three-day trip despite requests from Tokyo to cancel the visit. He said he wanted to see the situation in Crimea, which Russia annexed in March 2014 from Ukraine.
The annexation followed a referendum arranged by pro-Moscow forces in which a majority in Crimea supported moving the region’s allegiance to Moscow. The U.S. and European nations said the referendum violated Ukraine’s constitution and international law.
The 68-year-old Mr. Hatoyama, who served as prime minister for a tumultuous nine months in 2009-2010, said the Crimea referendum was conducted democratically and in line with Ukraine’s constitution.
Crimea “wasn’t annexed unilaterally under pressure from Russia. In fact, people reached a conclusion based on their own strong will,” Mr. Hatoyama said.
Japan has joined the West in condemning the annexation and introducing sanctions. Tokyo has said it could not tolerate an attempt to change the status quo through force, a position the government’s top spokesman reiterated Thursday.
“It’s unthinkable that such action and comments came from a person who was once prime minister,” said Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga during a morning news conference. Mr Suga criticized Mr. Hatoyama’s behavior as “extremely imprudent.”
“I don’t know what grounds he is basing his comments on. I don’t even feel like commenting,” Mr. Suga said.
The ex-prime minister, once dubbed “The Alien” by Japanese media, led the opposition Democratic Party of Japan to a landslide election victory in 2009. He stepped down nine months later after failing to deliver on a promise to relocate a U.S. military base off the southern island prefecture of Okinawa. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party returned to power in 2012.
Since his resignation, Mr. Hatoyama has made headlines with a 2012 trip to Iran and an appearance this year in a musical as an elderly woman.