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flags at home.
• Noda, who came to power in September and is Japan's sixth prime minister in six years, faces huge challenges in reviving a long-slumbering economy and helping his nation recover from the worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl.
• His Oval Office meeting and working lunch with Obama, to be followed by a gala dinner hosted by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, could offer Noda some brief relief from domestic woes. The two sides are determined to show that U.S.-Japan ties are as close as ever, par

ticularly after the assistance the U.S. lent following the massive March 2011 earthquake and tsunami that triggered a meltdown at a nuclear plant.
• The U.S. alliance with Japan, the world's third-largest economy, is at the core of Obama's expanded engagement in Asia -- a diplomatic thrust motivated in part by a desire to counter the growing economic and military clout of strategic rival China.
• The U.S. has about 50,000 troops in Japan, and both sides never tire of saying that their defense cooperation underpins regional peace and security.
• ___