The powerful lower house of the Japanese parliament yesterday approved a set of bills intended to overhaul the public pension system, which is overshadowed by a pension non-payment scandal involving top politicians.
The pension reform bills, which were sent to the upper house for further debate, would progressively raise pension premiums to deal with a growing number of retirees while the number of the working age people falls.
Under the package, the government would also thoroughly review the entire pension scheme, including taxes, premiums and benefits.
"The legislation passed the lower house," a Diet official said.
Under the bills, salaried workers' pension contributions would be gradually raised to 18.30 percent of their income by 2017 from the current 13.58 percent.
For others, such as business owners and the self-employed including politicians, the monthly premium would be gradually raised from 13,300 yen (US$117) to 16,900 yen by 2017.
Officials at the upper house declined to comment on when the package would complete its passage through parliament, but news media said the upper house would approve the bills by mid-June.
The approval by the lower house followed an accord struck between the ruling two-party coalition and the opposition Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), which agreed to create a three-party committee to discuss pension reforms.
Parliamentary debate over the pension reform has been dogged by a damaging political scandal, with several cabinet ministers and top opposition lawmakers forced to admit that they failed to make compulsory pension payments for periods ranging from several months to two decades.
A beauty queen who pulled out of the Miss South Africa competition when her nationality was questioned has said she wants to relocate to Nigeria, after coming second in the Miss Universe pageant while representing the West African country. Chidimma Adetshina, whose father is Nigerian, was crowned Miss Universe Africa and Oceania and was runner-up to Denmark’s Victoria Kjar Theilvig in Mexico on Saturday night. The 23-year-old law student withdrew from the Miss South Africa competition in August, saying that she needed to protect herself and her family after the government alleged that her mother had stolen the identity of a South
BELT-TIGHTENING: Chinese investments in Cambodia are projected to drop to US$35 million in 2026 from more than US$420 million in 2021 At a ceremony in August, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet knelt to receive blessings from saffron-robed monks as fireworks and balloons heralded the breaking of ground for a canal he hoped would transform his country’s economic fortunes. Addressing hundreds of people waving the Cambodian flag, Hun Manet said China would contribute 49 percent to the funding of the Funan Techo Canal that would link the Mekong River to the Gulf of Thailand and reduce Cambodia’s shipping reliance on Vietnam. Cambodia’s government estimates the strategic, if contentious, infrastructure project would cost US$1.7 billion, nearly 4 percent of the nation’s annual GDP. However, months later,
HOPEFUL FOR PEACE: Zelenskiy said that the war would ‘end sooner’ with Trump and that Ukraine must do all it can to ensure the fighting ends next year Russia’s state-owned gas company Gazprom early yesterday suspended gas deliveries via Ukraine, Vienna-based utility OMV said, in a development that signals a fast-approaching end of Moscow’s last gas flows to Europe. Russia’s oldest gas-export route to Europe, a pipeline dating back to Soviet days via Ukraine, is set to shut at the end of this year. Ukraine has said it would not extend the transit agreement with Russian state-owned Gazprom to deprive Russia of profits that Kyiv says help to finance the war against it. Moscow’s suspension of gas for Austria, the main receiver of gas via Ukraine, means Russia now only
‘HARD-HEADED’: Some people did not evacuate to protect their property or because they were skeptical of the warnings, a disaster agency official said Typhoon Man-yi yesterday slammed into the Philippines’ most populous island, with the national weather service warning of flooding, landslides and huge waves as the storm sweeps across the archipelago nation. Man-yi was still packing maximum sustained winds of 185kph after making its first landfall late on Saturday on lightly populated Catanduanes island. More than 1.2 million people fled their homes ahead of Man-yi as the weather forecaster warned of a “life-threatening” effect from the powerful storm, which follows an unusual streak of violent weather. Man-yi uprooted trees, brought down power lines and smashed flimsy houses to pieces after hitting Catanduanes in the typhoon-prone
RSS