A Japanese court sentenced a former senior defense official to 2 1/2 years in prison Wednesday for accepting bribes in exchange for his recommendation in government arms contracts, a court official said.

Former Vice-Defense Minister Takemasa Moriya was also ordered to pay 12.5 million yen ($125,400) in penalties — the value of the gifts and entertainment he pocketed, the Tokyo District Court official said on condition of anonymity, citing department policy.

In his ruling, Judge Minoru Uemura said Moriya received golf trips, cash and other gifts when he was vice-defense minister 2003-2007, knowing that favorable treatment in contracts was expected in return.

According to a summary of the ruling published in Japanese newspapers, Moriya took golf trips worth about 8.86 million yen ($88,900) on 120 occasions from two defense trading companies led by Motonobu Miyazaki, a former executive of Yamada Yoko Corp. Moriya also accepted 3.64 million yen ($36,500) in cash gifts from Miyazaki and his two aides, paid into the bank accounts of his wife and his daughter.

Moriya, in return, recommended Miyazaki's companies in ministry procurement deals, including the 2004-2005 purchase of General Electric Co. C-X engines for next generation Japanese cargo aircraft.

A judge for the US District Court for the Southern District of Indiana ruled Friday that the US Army will be able to complete its shipment of chemical waste from a location in western Indiana to Port Arthur, Texas, where the material will be incinerated. The Sierra Club and other citizen groups had filed the lawsuit in an attempt to block the Army from hauling the neutralized remains of the Cold-War era chemical weapon called VX. The groups had argued that the Army characterized the material, also called hydrolysate, as having less of an amount of VX and other toxic byproducts than it actually did. Chief Judge Larry McKinney held that the waste being shipped was not a munition or chemical agent, and rejected the argument that the Army had not fully considered the risk of shipping the material across the country. Most of the 1,513,994 gallons of the waste had already been shipped and the last portion had left the Newport Chemical Depot in Indiana on September 4. A spokesman for the Chemical Weapons Working Group said the groups would not appeal the ruling since the shipment was essentially complete.

The destruction of the VX nerve agent began in May 2005, in accordance with the requirements of the Chemical Weapons Convention. Over 180 nations have signed on to the Convention since it entered into force in 1997. Under the Convention, banned weapons, including nerve and mustard gases, had to be destroyed by June 2007, though countries could apply for a five-year extension.

Benigno Fitial, governor of the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, filed a lawsuit Friday in the US District Court for the District of Columbia to prevent the US government from taking over the CNMI's immigration system. Fitial asserts that the provisions of the Consolidated Natural Resources Act of 2008 allowing federal immigration laws to be applied to the CNMI would force all foreign workers to leave and thereby devastate the local economy, which is largely dependent on workers from abroad. Fitial also argued that the takeover is against the provisions of the 1975 covenant between the US and the CNMI guaranteeing self governance, and that the takeover is unconstitutional since the CNMI did not have sufficient representation in Congress when the bill was approved this past May. The law may take effect as early as June 2009.

There has been much debate from inside and outside the CNMI on whether the legislation will cause the problems forecast by Fitial, and also whether the lawsuit is a necessary one. Juan Tudela Lizama, campaigning to become the CNMI's delegate to the US House of Representatives, commented that while he does not believe the legislation was enacted in accordance with the covenant, he does not support the current lawsuit. He added, "the problem surrounding the federalization law is the absence of existing dialogue between the CNMI people and the leaders in the United States government," and asserted that open communication would allow for greater understanding of the impact from the legislation. The Filipino Contract Workers Association Inc., the United Workers Movement NMI, and the United Filipino Organization have all said they object to the lawsuit and will support a protest. The groups called the lawsuit a waste of much-needed resources.