Kan wants footage of Senkakus collisions shown to upper house+

TOKYO, Nov. 19 Kyodo -
Prime Minister Naoto Kan said Friday he would like the footage of collisions
between Chinese and Japanese vessels near disputed islands to be presented to
an upper house panel, after the footage was leaked online.
''With the formal procedures taken (by the upper house), we would like a
decision to be made as soon as possible and basically want to see (the footage)
submitted,'' Kan told the House of Councillors Budget Committee.
The premier made the remark after the upper house budget panel decided Friday
to seek the submission of the roughly 44-minute video to parliament.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshito Sengoku said at a news conference that the
investigative authorities should decide whether to submit the footage to the
upper house, and that the prime minister's office will ''give advice'' to the
authorities should they ask.
The Japanese government has withheld the video from the public apparently out
of concern not to provoke China.
The collisions, which led to the Japanese authorities' arrest of the Chinese
boat captain, sparked a diplomatic row between Japan and China. Since Japanese
prosecutors freed the skipper in late September, the two nations have been
trying to patch up their ties.
The government showed a shorter version of the footage to around 30 Diet
members on Nov. 1 after the Naha District Public Prosecutors Office, which
investigated the collisions, submitted it to parliament. But earlier this
month, the footage was leaked by a Coast Guard member.
The footage, posted online in six clips on Nov. 4 from an Internet cafe in
Kobe, was recorded by members of the Ishigaki Coast Guard Office in Okinawa
Prefecture during the Sept. 7 collisions near Senkaku Islands, which are
administered by Japan but claimed by China.
One of the clips showed the Chinese trawler ramming a Coast Guard patrol boat.
==Kyodo