Japanese Finance Minister Shoichi Nakagawa announced yesterday that he would step down because of health problems after facing allegations he was drunk at a recent summit meeting, dealing a major blow to Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso’s already shaky government.
Aso yesterday picked economics minister Kaoru Yosano to replace Nakagawa, who appeared to be drunk at a G7 meeting.
Aso said he had accepted Nakagawa’s immediate resignation and had asked Yosano to take on the additional role.
“I would like to ask Minister Yosano to take the posts,” Aso said.
Nakagawa, who has denied being drunk, said he would stay on until parliament approves a supplementary budget, probably in April.
“I apologize for causing such a big fuss,” Nakagawa said. “I plan to submit a formal resignation as soon [as] the budget and related legislation are passed by the lower house.”
Nakagawa has been under fire over allegations he appeared to be drunk at a news conference following the G7 finance ministers meeting in Rome over the weekend. TV footage showed him slurring his speech and looking drowsy and confused.
Nakagawa has denied he was drunk, saying he had taken cold medicine, which, along with the jet lag, made him groggy.
His abrupt resignation announcement was seen as an attempt at damage control. Opposition lawmakers were already planning to submit a censure motion against him and demand he quit.
Aso had told reporters he had no plans to sack the minister, and urged Nakagawa to rest well and stay on. But pressure for Nakagawa’s resignation was growing within the Cabinet.
“The TV footage was shocking,” Japanese Consumer Minister Seiko Noda said. “A Cabinet minister must be fit and he needs more self-control.”
The scandal was the latest in a series of embarrassments that have plagued Aso, who has been in office only since late September.
Aso’s support ratings fell into the single digits in a recent poll and calls are growing for him to step down and call snap elections.
Opposition leaders said Nakagawa’s announcement did not affect their plans to submit the censure motion and also slammed Aso for choosing Nakagawa.
“I don’t understand why he has to wait until the budget approval,” said Higashi Koshiishi, a leader of the main opposition Democratic Party of Japan. “And we will by all means question Prime Minister Aso’s responsibility over [Nakagawa’s] appointment.”
Plunging popularity and the Nakagawa scandal have increased speculation Aso’s days might be numbered.
Elections must be held by the end of September, but can be called at any time. Several polls suggest that the opposition has a good shot at winning if elections are held soon. The Liberal Democrats have controlled the government for virtually all of the past 54 years.
TIT-FOR-TAT: The arrest of Filipinos that Manila said were in China as part of a scholarship program follows the Philippines’ detention of at least a dozen Chinese The Philippines yesterday expressed alarm over the arrest of three Filipinos in China on suspicion of espionage, saying they were ordinary citizens and the arrests could be retaliation for Manila’s crackdown against alleged Chinese spies. Chinese authorities arrested the Filipinos and accused them of working for the Philippine National Security Council to gather classified information on its military, the state-run China Daily reported earlier this week, citing state security officials. It said the three had confessed to the crime. The National Security Council disputed Beijing’s accusations, saying the three were former recipients of a government scholarship program created under an agreement between the
Sitting around a wrestling ring, churchgoers roared as local hero Billy O’Keeffe body-slammed a fighter named Disciple. Beneath stained-glass windows, they whooped and cheered as burly, tattooed wresters tumbled into the aisle during a six-man tag-team battle. This is Wrestling Church, which brings blood, sweat and tears — mostly sweat — to St Peter’s Anglican church in the northern England town of Shipley. It is the creation of Gareth Thompson, a charismatic 37-year-old who said he was saved by pro wrestling and Jesus — and wants others to have the same experience. The outsized characters and scripted morality battles of pro wrestling fit
ACCESS DISPUTE: The blast struck a house, and set cars and tractors alight, with the fires wrecking several other structures and cutting electricity An explosion killed at least five people, including a pregnant woman and a one-year-old, during a standoff between rival groups of gold miners early on Thursday in northwestern Bolivia, police said, a rare instance of a territorial dispute between the nation’s mining cooperatives turning fatal. The blast thundered through the Yani mining camp as two rival mining groups disputed access to the gold mine near the mountain town of Sorata, about 150km northwest of the country’s administrative capital of La Paz, said Colonel Gunther Agudo, a local police officer. Several gold deposits straddle the remote area. Agudo had initially reported six people killed,
SUSPICION: Junta leader Min Aung Hlaing returned to protests after attending a summit at which he promised to hold ‘free and fair’ elections, which critics derided as a sham The death toll from a major earthquake in Myanmar has risen to more than 3,300, state media said yesterday, as the UN aid chief made a renewed call for the world to help the disaster-struck nation. The quake on Friday last week flattened buildings and destroyed infrastructure across the country, resulting in 3,354 deaths and 4,508 people injured, with 220 others missing, new figures published by state media showed. More than one week after the disaster, many people in the country are still without shelter, either forced to sleep outdoors because their homes were destroyed or wary of further collapses. A UN estimate
RSS