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GAZA CITY: A Palestinian Health Ministry official says an Israeli air strike on a smuggling tunnel between the Gaza Strip and Egypt has killed three Palestinians and wounded seven.
Health Ministry official Dr. Moaiya Hassanain said the men were all smugglers caught in the tunnel during the Israeli strike early Tuesday morning.
An Israeli military statement said the air force struck in retaliation for a cross-border mortar attack Monday into southern Israel.
The military said Palestinians in Gaza have fired about 220 rockets and mortar shells at Israel since it ended a three-week war against the militants on Jan. 18.
Israeli media said an Israeli soldier was lightly wounded in Monday’s attack.

SEOUL: North Korean leader Kim Jong Il has sent word that he wants to hold a summit with South Korean President Lee Myung-bak in the latest sign of easing tensions between the divided nations, news reports said Monday.
Kim’s envoy proposed the summit during a rare meeting Sunday, and Lee told the envoy that he would be open to a summit if it is discuss North Korea’s nuclear program, the South’s mass-circulation Chosun Ilbo daily reported, citing an unidentified government official.
Another leading newspaper, the JoongAng Ilbo, carried a similar report.
However, the South’s presidential Blue House denied the reports, saying that Lee and the North’s envoy had general discussions on improving relations between the two sides, but that nothing related to a summit was mentioned.

North Korea has significantly softened its stance toward the South in recent weeks, freeing a South Korean worker held there for more than four months, agreeing to lift restrictions on border crossings and pledging to resume suspended joint projects and the reunion of families separated during the Korean War.
The North’s envoy, senior ruling Workers’ Party official Kim Ki Nam, visited Seoul from Friday until Sunday, leading a four-member delegation to pay Pyongyang’s official respect for late South Korean President Kim Dae-jung. The team also included Pyongyang’s spy chief, Kim Yang Gon.
They were the first North Korean officials to visit the South since the conservative Lee took office early last year with a pledge to get tough with the communist neighbor and put a stop to unconditional aid. Lee’s hard-line stance angered the North, prompting it to suspend reconciliation talks and major joint projects.
Lee told the North’s delegation that he is ready to help the impoverished neighbor rebuild its economy and asked his intentions be relayed to Kim Jong Il, the Chosun Ilbo said. Lee also told the delegation that the South does not want the North to collapse, the paper said.
Despite easing tensions, North Korea is still holding four South Korean fishermen seized late last month after their boat strayed into North Korean waters off the peninsula’s east coast.
The North told the South on Monday that the crew were still under investigation, Seoul’s Unification Ministry spokesman Chun Hae-sung said. The spokesman also said Pyongyang has not yet responded to Seoul’s offer to hold Red Cross talks this week to organize reunions of separated families.
The two Koreas are technically in a state of war because the 1950-53 Korean War ended in a truce, not a peace treaty.
The sides had their first-ever summit in 2000 between then President Kim Dae-jung and the North’s Kim Jong Il. The North’s leader held a second summit with the South in 2007 with late South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun.

WASHINGTON: US President Barack Obama has issued a special Ramadan message to the Muslim World, expressing hope for a more peaceful and secure world.
In a video message to Muslims, Obama said the US was committed to keeping its pledge to build a safer world, end the Iraq war and isolate violent extremists in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
“All of these efforts are part of America’s commitment to engage Muslims and Muslim-majority nations on the basis of mutual interest and mutual respect,” Obama said in the message posted on the White House website.
“And at this time of renewal, I want to reiterate my commitment to a new beginning between America and Muslims around the world.”
“We are also committed to keeping our responsibility to build a world that is more peaceful and secure,” he said.
Obama also mentioned the common Muslim-Christian principals and rituals, saying that people of the both faiths are in search of “advancing justice, progress, tolerance and the dignity of all human beings.”
He said that the US would help recognize the rights of Israelis and Palestinians for them to live in peace and security.
Since taking his oath of office in January, Obama has tried to reconcile US relations with the Muslim World, which were soured after the US-led invasion of Iraq in 20003.
The US President visited Turkey and Egypt, telling both Muslim audiences that “America is not – and never will be – at war with Islam.”
Ramadan, the ninth month on the Islamic calendar, is a time for Muslims to fast from dawn to sunset and focus on their faith, self-accountability and self-restraint.
Muslims believe it was in this month that the first verse of the Qur’an was revealed to the Prophet of Islam, Hazrat Mohammad (PBUH).

KABUL: Sporadic attacks hit Afghan towns as polls opened on Thursday for an anxiously awaited presidential election that Taliban fighters have vowed to disrupt, but the United Nations said the turnout was encouraging.
“The vast majority of polling stations have been able to open and have received voting materials,” said Aleem Siddique, spokesman for the UN mission in Kabul.
“There have been a number of attacks, particularly in the south and east of the country. But we are seeing queues forming at polling stations in the north, also in the capital, as well as, encouragingly, in the east.”
Shops and businesses were closed and around-the-clock squads of extra police checked the few cars on the streets in Kabul.
President Hamid Karzai was one of the first to vote in an election which could prove the toughest test yet of his own mandate and his nation’s fragile democracy.
He cast his ballot under tight security in a polling station at a high school near his presidential palace in Kabul, telling reporters he hoped for an outright majority in a single round.
“One round will be in the interest of the nation,” he said.
Karzai faces an unexpectedly strong challenge from his former foreign minister, Abdullah Abdullah. Polls show Karzai winning by a strong margin, but possibly falling short of an outright majority and a second round run-off likely in October. Official preliminary results are not expected for at least two weeks.
The election is also a test for US President Barack Obama, who has ordered a massive troop build-up this year as part of a strategy to reverse Taliban gains.
In a series of statements on Wednesday, the Taliban said they had infiltrated 20 suicide bombers into Kabul and would close all the country’s roads, taking no responsibility for the deaths of anyone who defied them to go to the polls.
In northern Baghlan province, Taliban guerrillas attacked a police post, killing a district police chief, and clashes were ongoing, a provincial security official said, requesting to remain anonymous.
Provincial officials confirmed that scattered rockets had hit the cities of Kandahar, Kunduz and Ghazni, and there were reports of rocket strikes in other towns.
A bomb went off in the provincial police headquarters in northern Takhar province causing damage but no casualties, provincial police chief Ziauddin Mahmoudi said.
Siddique of the UN mission said there had also been a roadside bomb attack in Helmand province and some polling stations had been attacked in Khost.

AFGHANISTAN, KABUL: Thousands of polling centres across Afghanistan have opened for voting, and millions of Afghans are expected to choose a new president to lead a nation plagued by armed insurgency, drugs and corruption eight years after the US invasion.
In the capital, Kabul, helicopters circled overhead as police manned extra checkpoints. In one northern Kabul neighborhood, a car with loudspeakers encouraged people to vote.
President Hamid Karzai is among 36 official candidates on the ballot to win a five-year term. His top challenger is his former foreign minister, Abdullah Abdullah.
Violence has risen sharply in Afghanistan the last three years, and the US now has more than 60,000 forces in the country.
Threats of Taliban violence and rumours of fraud cast a shadow over Afghanistan’s election, in which millions of voters will choose a new president Thursday to lead a nation plagued by armed insurgency, drugs, corruption and a feeble government.
International officials predict an imperfect outcome for a vote that they hope Afghans will accept as credible — a key component of President Barack Obama’s war strategy.
On the eve of the balloting, the US military announced the deaths of six more Americans — putting August on track to become the deadliest month for American forces since the war began in 2001. Rising death tolls underscore the urgency of establishing a strong, effective government to stem the growing Taliban insurgency.
President Hamid Karzai, who has held power since the Taliban was ousted eight years ago, is favoured to finish first among 36 official candidates, although a late surge by former Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah could force a runoff if no one wins more than 50 percent.
Preliminary results are expected to be announced Saturday Kabul time.
Karzai, a favorite of the Bush administration, won in 2004 with 55.4 percent of the vote, riding into office on a wave of public optimism after decades of war and ruinous Taliban rule. As the US shifted resources to the war in Iraq, Afghanistan fell into steep decline, marked by record opium poppy harvests, deepening government corruption and skyrocketing violence.
Faced with growing public discontent, Karzai has sought to ensure his re-election by striking alliances with regional power brokers, naming as a running-mate a Tajik strongman whom he once fired as defence minister and welcoming home notorious Uzbek warlord Abdul Rashid Dostum, allegedly responsible in the deaths of up to 2,000 Taliban prisoners early in the Afghan war.
Those figures are believed capable of delivering millions of votes among their followers, but their presence in the Karzai inner circle has raised fears in Western capitals that the president will be unable to fulfill promises to fight corruption in a second term.
Voter turnout — especially in the insurgency-plagued Pashtun south — is likely to be crucial not only to Karzai’s chances but also to public acceptance of the results. Karzai is widely expected to run strong among his fellow Pashtuns, the country’s largest ethnic group which also forms the overwhelming majority of the Taliban.
Abdullah, son of a Pashtun father and a Tajik mother, is expected to win much of his votes in the Tajik north, where security is better and turnout likely to be bigger. Abdullah, an ophthalmologist who has railed against government corruption, was a member of the U.S.-backed alliance that overthrew the Taliban in 2001 and would be expected to maintain close ties with the West.
One fear is that Abdullah’s followers may charge fraud and take to the streets if Karzai claims a first-round victory without a strong southern turnout.
The country has been rife with rumors of ballot stuffing, bogus registrations and trafficking in registration cards on behalf of the incumbent, allegations his campaign has denied.
Mindful of the dangers, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton urged Afghans this week to hold “credible, secure and inclusive elections” and called on candidates and their supporters “to behave responsibly before and after the elections” — a clear warning against street demonstrations by disappointed politicians.
“It’s very difficult in Afghanistan to see perfect elections,” Richard Holbrooke, Obama’s Afghanistan-Pakistan envoy, said during a news conference in Pakistan. “Nowhere in the world (is there) a perfect election. Don’t expect perfect elections in Afghanistan.”
In the south, turnout may be affected by the Taliban campaign of intimidation — whispered threats, posted warnings and a run of headline-grabbing attacks in Kabul — aimed at frightening Afghans from going to the polls.
“The Taliban control our area and they have already warned us that they will cut off our fingers or kill us if we vote,” said Abdul Majid, 25, a shop owner in Ghazni city. “I don’t want to vote.”
In Afghanistan’s two most important and dangerous southern provinces — where thousands of U.S. troops deployed this summer — more than 130 polling stations will not open, officials said. These included 107 out of 242 polling stations in Helmand province, the focus of the most recent fighting, and 17 out of 271 in Kandahar, where the Taliban Islamist movement was born.
Underscoring the threat, four election workers were killed Tuesday delivering materials to a polling station in northeastern Badakhshan, a province generally considered safe. Two elections workers died in a separate incident the same day when their vehicle hit a roadside bomb in Kandahar province, officials said Wednesday.
And on the eve of the voting, three gunmen described by police as Taliban militants took over a bank in Kabul. Police stormed the building and killed the three.
Fearing that violence may dampen turnout, the Foreign Ministry asked news organizations to avoid “broadcasting any incidence of violence” during voting hours “to ensure the wide participation of the Afghan people.” Afghan journalists said they would not comply, but the government said offending foreign journalists could be expelled.
Still, some southern Pashtuns said they would defy the Taliban.
“I’m only afraid of God, not the Taliban,” said Haji Mohammad Rasool, 40, in Kandahar City. “Last night during dinner, I told my son and daughters to go and vote. This is our country. We should not live in fear.”
In Helmand, about 70 people registered to vote in Dahaneh, a village overrun by U.S. Marines this month after years of Taliban control.
“I know it’s dangerous and I’m afraid, but I’m still going to vote,” said Ahmed Shah, a 37-year-old farmer. Shah said he planned to vote for Karzai “so that we finally get a hospital and a school and maybe a road.”
Adding to problems in the south, election officials could not recruit enough women to help female voters, raising questions about turnout among women. Election observers also fear that men in conservative Pashtun areas would try to cast multiple votes on behalf of women in their families — including some who may not exist.
Anthony Cordesman, a former Pentagon analyst from the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the election “is not functional democracy by Western standards” but the important thing would be for Afghans to “feel the election was legitimate by their standards.”
If not, he wrote in a commentary, Afghans will “see the government as distant, corrupt, and ineffective,” and empower the Taliban.

BAGHDAD: A series of explosions killed at least 75 people and wounded more than 300 in central Baghdad on Wednesday, the deadliest day in the Iraqi capital since U.S. troops withdrew from urban centres in June.
At least six bombs and mortar rounds struck near government ministries and other sensitive targets in quick succession, the latest in a series of attacks in the capital and Iraq’s north that raised doubts about the ability of Iraqi security forces to cope without U.S. help.
One blast shattered windows in Iraq’s parliament building in the heavily guarded Green Zone government and diplomatic complex, television footage showed. It occurred near the Foreign Ministry, just outside the Green Zone.
“The windows of the Foreign Ministry shattered, slaughtering the people inside. I could see ministry workers, journalists and security guards among the dead,” said a distraught ministry employee who gave her name as Asia.
The Baghdad government said this month most of the city’s blast walls would be removed within 40 days, a sign of confidence in its security forces ahead of national elections due in January.
Wednesday’s violence undermined confidence in the government’s ability to ensure security, on which Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has staked his reputation.
The blast site near the Foreign Ministry was a twisted heap of smoldering cars as firefighters fought to put out the flames. Police said it involved a truck bomb.
Such coordinated large-scale explosions near heavily guarded state buildings are relatively rare.
Mostly Muslim venues such as mosques have been targeted by bombings in the past two months in the capital and northern Iraq, where insurgents such as al Qaeda have exploited disputes between the region’s Kurds and Arabs.
Baghdad’s security spokesman Major General Qassim al-Moussawi said Iraqi forces had foiled another car bomb attack and had arrested two members of al Qaeda.
A truck bomb in Baghdad’s Waziriya district near the Finance Ministry killed three people and wounded seven, and caused widespread destruction, police said. Part of a raised highway near the building collapsed, a witness said.
Another explosion was close enough to offices of a British news agency in central Baghdad’s Karrada district to burst open windows and doors. Columns of smoke could be seen rising from several sites.
The Baghdad provincial government building came under mortar attack, police said. In south Baghdad’s Bayaa district, a blast killed two people and wounded five.
Mortars landed in the Salhiya district of central Baghdad, home to army bases and the offices of a national television station.
At least one mortar landed near the United Nations compound in the Green Zone, startling U.N. workers marking the sixth anniversary of the destruction of their previous Baghdad headquarters by a truck bomb which killed envoy Sergio Vieira de Mello and other staff, U.N. guards said.

Kim, who was being treated for pneumonia, was reported to have died after suffering heart failure. The former leader had spent his life pursuing democracy and reunification with the North.
He survived several attempts on his life and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2000 for his “Sunshine” policy efforts to improve ties with Pyongyang.
Kim was declared dead just after 1340 local time (0440 GMT), a spokesman at the Severance hospital in Seoul said.
“His heart began failing at 1.35 pm and stopped minutes later despite our efforts to revive it,” said the spokesman.
‘Many ordeals’
Mr Kim was branded a dangerous radical during South Korea’s decades of military rule.
He survived several assassination attempts, was sentenced to death, and tortured in jail. He was exiled twice and put under house arrest countless times.
He made history when he was elected to the presidency in December 1997 on his fourth attempt – the first peaceful transfer of power from a ruling to an opposition party since the country was founded in 1948.
He remained president until he stepped down in 2003.
In 2007 South Korea’s spy agency, the National Intelligence Service (NIS), admitted abducting Kim in 1973, with tacit backing from then leader Park Chung-hee.
The report said there was some evidence to suggest the kidnap was initially planned as an assassination attempt.
In a 2006 interview, he said he had no regrets about the turbulent nature of his career.
“I underwent many ordeals in my life but I never strayed from principles and never compromised with injustice, even at the risk of my life,” AFP news agency reported him as saying.
He described the biggest achievement of his presidency as the landmark summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-il in 2000. It paved the way for reconciliation and earned him a Nobel prize later that year.

TEHRAN: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Sunday he plans to appoint at least three women ministers to his new cabinet to be formally unveiled next week, a first in the Islamic republic.
Ahmadinejad, a hardliner whose re-election in June set off the worst crisis in the 30-year history of the Islamic republic, said he would submit his new line-up to the 290-member parliament on Wednesday.
He said in a live television interview he would propose Fatemeh Ajorlou for the welfare and social security ministry and Marzieh Vahid Dastjerdi for the health ministry.
“At least one other woman will be presented,” he added.
Ahmadinejad also announced his choice for the powerful intelligence portfolio after sacking the previous holder in a row over another controversial appointment, and said he would keep on the industry and economic ministers.
He said the main criteria for choosing his new team were “morality and commitment, efficiency as well as convergence and spirit of cooperation,” adding that there would also be younger people in the cabinet.
The 52-year-old was sworn in on August 5 for a second four-year term after his election triggered massive street protests by opposition demonstrators who charge his victory was a fraud.
In his inauguration speech, Ahmadinejad said he would continue to resist “oppressive powers,” pledging to campaign for social justice and root out corruption.
But in the election aftermath, Ahmadinejad also found himself at loggerheads with powerful elements even within his own conservative support base over his tardiness in dismissing his nominee as first vice president despite the orders of supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
The appointment of Ajorlou is likely to stir controversy over her involvement in the case of Abbas Palizdar, an Ahmadinejad supporter who was jailed for accusing several senior clerics, including the influential former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, and their children of corruption.
Ajorlou and some other MPs were interrogated last year by prosecutors over their alleged help to Palizdar, who was reportedly on a parliamentary team which conducted a probe into the judiciary.
According to press reports, Ajorlou and another lawmaker were sentenced to two years in jail for disclosing classified documents although there is no official confirmation about the case.
The other woman nominee, Vahid Dastjerdi, is an academic and former MP.
In the previous administration Ahmadinejad had only two women in his cabinet but not in a ministerial capacity Fatemeh Vaez Javadi, a vice president heading the Environmental Organisation, and Zohreh Tabibzadeh Nouri, vice president for women and family affairs. Ahmadinejad also said he will name Heydar Moslehi, a former representive of Khamenei in the volunteer Basij militia and a strong supporter of the president, as intelligence minister.
He will also retain Ali Akbar Mehrabian at the industry ministry and Shamseddin Hosseini as economy minister.

NEW DELHI: China has turned down India’s request to declare Masood Azhar, chief of Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed group, a terrorist and be sanctioned by the UN Security Council’s 1267 committee.
Chinese officials told their Indian counterparts that theirs was a “technical” hold. No amount of Indian explanation that the decision was “political” succeeded in persuading the Chinese. India held its last round of talks on the subject of Azhar with the Chinese during last weekend’s boundary talks between national security adviser MK Narayanan and China’s state councilor, Dai Bingguo.
It was in mid-July that India asked China, by then the only country to put a “hold” on Azhar’s ban, about its decision to block the declaration. According to top level officials, China had reportedly said they had not seen all the information. Consequently, India sent along a lot of information that it thought would help in persuading China.
In fact, after the Xinjiang unrest in early July, India believed, China would have a greater understanding of Islamic terrorism.
But China’s decision, said officials, continues to be led by its relations with Pakistan, which has housed Masood Azhar. In December, it was only after Pakistan gave the go-ahead that China lifted its hold on Laskar-e-Taiba chief Mohammed Hafiz Saeed. Saeed was put on the “consolidated” list of the UNSC’s 1267 committee after which Pakistan put him under house arrest.
On Masood Azhar, UK had initially joined China in placing a “hold” on the three names that India had sent to the 1267 sanctions committee — the others being Azam Cheema and Abdul Rahman “Makki”. UK lifted its hold after India protested diplomatically.
Pakistan last week declared that it had banned 25 terror organizations operating on its soil, among them Jaish-e-Mohammed (which was renamed Jamaat-ul-Furqan after being banned by Pervez Musharraf in 2002) and Khuddam-ul-Islam, another India-centric group started by Azhar.

AFGHANISTAN, KANDAHAR: Afghan army special forces backed by US-led international troops killed up to 38 Taliban militants in separate operations, they said on Saturday.
In a surprise attack on Friday night units from the two forces working together dropped from helicopters into Charchino district, in central Uruzgan province, for a battle that lasted several hours, the Afghan army said.
“Twenty-nine enemies were killed. The bodies are still lying in the battle field,” southern Afghanistan military corp commander general Shair Mohammad Zazai told AFP.
He said the troops confiscated 96 sacks of aluminium nitrate explosive and a large amount of opium.
Separately, Taliban militants ambushed an Afghan army patrol on Friday in Barmal, a district of Paktika, the defence ministry said in a statement.
“A large number of enemies were killed but they left behind two of their dead. Four Afghan soldiers were also wounded,” the statement said.
In neighbouring Khost province, seven militants were killed in a joint operation by Afghan army and NATO forces and 17 militants were wounded, the ministry said.
Afghanistan has experienced a series of fresh attacks across the country in the days before the presidential vote on August 20, only the country’s second.
A suicide blast in Kabul early Saturday killed seven civilians and wounded more than 90 others.

SEOUL: North Korea threatened Sunday to retaliate against the U.S. and South Korea over sanctions imposed on the communist regime, a day after South Korea’s president renewed his offer of conditional aid for the impoverished country.
The U.S. is moving to enforce U.N. as well as its own sanctions against North Korea to punish its second nuclear test in May and a spate of missile tests.
The U.N. sanctions strengthened an arms embargo and authorized ship searches on the high seas to try and rein in Pyongyang’s nuclear program. The council also ordered an asset freeze and travel ban on companies and individuals allegedly involved.
If the U.S. and South Korea “tighten ’sanctions’ and push ‘confrontation’ to an extreme phase, the (North) will react to them with merciless retaliation … and an all-out war of justice,” said a North Korean military statement reported Sunday by the country’s official Korean Central News Agency.
“Should the U.S. imperialists and the Lee Myung-bak group threaten the (North) with nukes, it will retaliate against them with nukes,” it said, referring to South Korea’s president by name.
The North’s latest warning came in response to an annual computer-simulated war game Seoul and Washington will kick off Monday.
North Korea routinely condemns joint military exercises between the U.S. and South Korea, calling them preparations for an invasion.
The U.S. and South Korea say the maneuvers are purely defensive.

WASHINGTON: Defence Secretary Robert Gates on Thursday left open the possibility of sending more US troops to Afghanistan but warned of stretched military resources and the risk of a possible backlash.
Gates said he and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, had told the commander of US forces in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, that “we want him to ask for what he thinks he needs.”
“And I think you have to allow your commanders that freedom,” he told a news conference.
But with about 132,000 troops currently in Iraq, Gates said there were constraints as to how many extra troops could be sent to Afghanistan at least until after Iraq’s elections in January.
“I would say also that the availability of forces is still a challenge, as well,” he said.
Gates also repeated his concerns about too big of a US military “footprint,” saying for the moment Afghans see the coalition as “their partner.”
“I just worry that we don’t know what the size of the military presence might be that would begin to change that.”
“And I think we need to move with considerable care in that respect and in close consultation with both our allies, but especially with the Afghans and the Afghan government,” Gates said.
The defence secretary’s comments come amid intense speculation that the commander in Afghanistan is preparing to make a case for more troops in the fight against the Taliban and allied insurgents.
President Barack Obama already ordered an additional 21,000 troops to Afghanistan and the number of US forces is set to reach 68,000 before the end of the year.
Asked why US forces were not sent in earlier to southern Afghanistan, where thousands of Marines have deployed over the summer, Gates said “The forces weren’t available to send in until fairly recently. We got them in there as fast as we could.”
McChrystal, who is drafting an assessment of the Afghan war effort that is due to be submitted by early September, is under pressure to seize the initiative from the insurgents amid anxiety in Congress about an open-ended US mission.
Gates said he could not predict how long US troops would have to stay in Afghanistan, saying there were too many uncertainties.
But he said the insurgents could be defeated “in a few years” while economic and civilian aid efforts represented a “decades-long enterprise.”
General James Cartwright, the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said at the same press conference that the military was also looking closely at how to combat improvised explosives, which were the main cause of casualties among NATO-led troops.

TOKYO: A strong offshore earthquake jolted central Japan, including Tokyo, on Thursday, just two days after a powerful tremor left one person dead and 120 injured.
The 6.7 magnitude quake struck at 07:49 am (2249 GMT) in the Pacific Ocean, some 325 kilometres (202 miles) southeast of the capital, according to the US Geological Survey.
The Japanese meteorological agency did not issue a tsunami warning, and no immediate damage was reported.
An earthquake of magnitude 6.4 struck central Japan on Tuesday, damaging nearly 5,200 buildings and a section of the arterial road linking Tokyo with the western city of Osaka.
Construction workers for Central Nippon Expressway Co., which operates the Tomei Expressway, scrambled to repair the section damaged in a landslide before the weekend, a major summer holiday break in Japan.
But the company said it will take at least until Saturday before the highway will fully reopen.
Around 20 percent of the world’s most powerful earthquakes strike Japan, which is located at the intersection of several tectonic plates.
Japanese rescuers and troops also continued searching for 10 people still missing after Typhoon Etau brought torrential rains to western Japan earlier this week, which left at least 19 people dead in landslides and floods.

KABUL: U.S. Marines have mounted a helicopter assault to seize the Taliban-held town of Dahaneh in southern Afghanistan and are fighting gain control of the area ahead of next week’s presidential elections.
The assault began before dawn Wednesday, with Marines entering the town as others battled militants in the surrounding mountains. A foreign news agency reported that Marines were met with small arms, mortar and rocket propelled grenade fire. Fighting is still under way hours later, with U.S. Marine Harrier jets streaking over the town and dropping flares in a show of force. Marines have captured several suspects and seized about 66 pounds (30 kilos) of opium.

WASHINGTON: The spokesman to US Defense Ministry has declared the Pakistani nuclear weapons as secure and protected in his statement here on Tuesday, lashing out Indian media reports about Taliban attacks on Pakistan nuclear facilities, Geo news reported.
Admiral Mike Mullen, the US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Defense Secretary Robert Gates are sure Pakistani nukes are protected, the Pentagon spokesman said in a statement during press briefing.
To a question, he said it gives US immense pleasure that Pakistan army is now taking care of nuclear bases.
Responding to another question, he said US does not believe in doubtful reports of Indian media that Taliban have attacked Pakistan nuclear sites thrice in past.
“Pakistan army can safeguard nuclear weapons”, his statement added maintaining, “Taliban cannot have access to Pakistan’s nuclear armaments as possessed by secure hands.”

TOKYO: A strong earthquake has struck central Japan injuring more than 40 people, causing a nuclear power plant to shut down and delaying bullet trains.
The earthquake – the second in two days – measured 6.5 on the Richter scale. It struck shortly after 5am with an epicentre located in the Pacific Ocean around 105 miles south-west of Tokyo.
Residents in the capital were woken in the early hours as buildings swayed and ornaments tumbled off shelves, while television footage showed shop aisles littered with fallen goods.
At least 43 people suffered injuries in the earthquake, mostly caused by falling objects, with two in a serious condition, according to a prefecture government official in Shizuoka.
As many as 9,500 power failures were triggered by the earthquake, while two reactors at the Hamaoka nuclear plant in Shizuoka shut down immediately during the quake with company officials later reporting “no abnormalities”.
Bullet trains between Tokyo and Osaka were suspended until safety checks resulted in resumed services several hours after the earthquake, which was followed by at least 13 aftershocks.
The earthquake coincided with the pending arrival of Tropical Storm Etau in the same area with at least 13 people having died in recent flooding and landslides west of the capital.
It took place two days after a magnitude 6.9 earthquake occurred south of Tokyo, resulting in swaying buildings and tremors in the capital.
Japan, located in a zone where four tectonic plates meet, is home to around 20 per cent of the world’s annual earthquakes.

BEIJING: China’s military launched Tuesday its largest ever tactical military exercise, involving 50,000 heavily-armoured troops in a long-distance deployment spanning thousands of kilometres, state press said.
The live-fire manoeuvres named ‘Stride-2009’ will involve a division each from the Shenyang, Lanzhou, Jinan and Guangzhou regional military commands and will last for two months, Xinhua news agency said.
‘In the unprecedented exercise, one of the PLA’s major objectives will be to improve its capacity of long-range projection,’ the report said, citing the general staff of the People’s Liberation Army.
‘Unlike previous annual tactical exercises, the army divisions and their air units will be deployed in unfamiliar areas far from their garrison training bases by civilian rail and air transport.’
This means troops, tanks, vehicles and weapons systems from Shenyang in the northeast will be deployed to Lanzhou in the northwest, while similar exchanges will take place between Jinan in the east and Guangzhou in the south, it said.
According to the People’s Liberation Army Daily, the exercises will simulate Chinese victories in the war against Japan (1937-1945) and victories against US troops during the Korean War (1950-1953).
Following annual double-digit growth in defence spending over most of the last 20 years, China’s rapidly modernising military has kept pace with the nation’s rising political and economic clout.
The United States, Japan and their allies have repeatedly expressed concern about China’s military build-up and what they see as a lack of transparency about the intent behind the expansion.
With 2.3 million soldiers, the People’s Liberation Army is the world’s largest military.