Japan, US Sign Missile Defense Pact

Japan and the United States have signed an agreement to encourage cooperation on developing a missile defense system.

Japanese Defense Minister Yoshinori Ono signed a memorandum of understanding Friday in Tokyo with U.S. Ambassador to Japan Howard Baker.

Under the agreement, Japan and the United States will exchange information on research, deployment and operations of a missile shield.

The agreement comes one week after Japan adopted new defense policy guidelines that would allow the joint development of a missile defense system with the United States.

The five-year defense outline allows the sale of missile defense components to the United States for production of a missile shield. Japan says other arms export cases will be considered on a case-by-case basis.

Some information for this report provided by AP and Reuters.

U.S. Defense Department officials say an anti-missile defense system test failed early Wednesday when an interceptor missile shut down on its launch pad in the Pacific Ocean. A statement from the Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency says a target missile with a mock warhead was successfully fired from Kodiak, Alaska. But the interceptor scheduled to launch 16 minutes later from a site in the Marshal Islands shut down for some unknown reason and failed to fire.

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