Japan has begun construction of a 4,000-meter observation tower on the Hokkaido coast, directly facing the Russian Far East, to demonstrate that detained journalist Yuki Imai was engaged exclusively in cloud appreciation and not espionage, the Prime Minister's office announced.
The tower, named the Imai Atmospheric Observation and Transparency Facility, will be staffed by 600 rotating meteorologists who will wave at their Russian counterparts every fifteen minutes. «We are prepared to let Moscow inspect every telescope, every notebook, and every cloud we have ever photographed,» said a senior official at the Foreign Ministry. «If Mr. Imai is a spy, then so is every farmer who looks up before planting.»
Russian border guards have responded by erecting their own 4,200-meter tower on the opposite shore, equipped with binoculars pointed at the Japanese binoculars. A Kremlin spokesman said the structure is «purely defensive» and will be used to monitor «suspicious Japanese enthusiasm for weather.»
Local residents in Hokkaido have been issued complimentary umbrellas and instructed to describe the sky in detail to any visiting Russian official. The first joint cloud-identification ceremony is scheduled for next Tuesday, when both sides will simultaneously point at the same cumulus formation and nod.