2009-11-13 04:58:41 - "As President Obama prepares to travel to Japan this week, he looks forward to renewing our strong alliance with Japan, and discussing our continued partnership on Afghanistan, Pakistan, and critical bilateral issues," a White House statement said.

"We welcome the announcement by the government of Japan to provide approximately five billion dollars over the next five years to Afghanistan and to implement swiftly its April 2009 pledge of one billion dollars for economic assistance to Pakistan."

After coming to power in September, the new Japanese government of center-left Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama said it will end a naval

refueling mission that supports the US-led campaign in Afghanistan, but promised to step up aid instead. PM of Japan Hatoyama confirmed Japan would not deploy troops to Afghanistan.

Under its post-war pacifist constitution, Japan is barred from deploying troops overseas for combat, but Defense Minister Toshimi Kitazawa had recently weighed sending military personnel to the region for aid missions.

Japan and the United States to developing smart power grids clean energy and release it when needed, a draft of a joint agreement to be issued following the meeting of Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama and U.S. President Barack Obama showed Thursday. The two countries will aim to make such a system an international standard.The next-generation power grids with ICT technology to control electricity will enable storage of excess electricity created through solar or wind power generation and releasing it during hours when people use more electricity.