The Japanese government said yesterday it was aiming for a last-minute breakthrough in a standoff over the next central bank chief to prevent a leadership vacuum in the midst of a global credit crisis.
The opposition has voted down the government's proposal to promote Bank of Japan (BOJ) Deputy Toshiro Muto to the top job, saying the former finance ministry official was too cozy with the government.
Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda will announce his next move in the political standoff as early as Monday, said top government spokesman Nobutaka Machimura, amid speculation he will pick a new candidate.
Machimura told reporters the government wanted to find a replacement before outgoing Governor Toshihiko Fukui steps down on Wednesday.
"Prime Minister Fukuda will think over the weekend about picking someone so as to avoid a vacuum. We will take concrete action next week," Machimura said.
Fukuda told parliament he would make a decision soon on whether to resubmit Muto's nomination or come up with a new candidate.
"I think we must make the decision carefully and swiftly," he said. "It was very unfortunate [that Muto was rejected]. I am perplexed why there is disagreement."
Although the government has said Muto is the best candidate, several other names have been floated in the media as alternatives.
Some senior ruling party lawmakers are inclined to drop Muto's nomination to avoid the position falling vacant, the Yomiuri Shimbun reported.
Possible alternatives include Haruhiko Kuroda, a former senior finance ministry official who is now president of the Manila-based Asian Development Bank, the report said.
There was also speculation that the government might tap Masaaki Shirakawa, a professor and former BOJ executive director who has already been approved as a deputy governor, to take the top job.
The government could also resubmit Muto's candidacy, or ask current governor Fukui to stay on when his five-year term ends, reports said. The opposition has vowed to reject Muto again if he is renominated.
Asian perspectives of the US have shifted from a country once perceived as a force of “moral legitimacy” to something akin to “a landlord seeking rent,” Singaporean Minister for Defence Ng Eng Hen (黃永宏) said on the sidelines of an international security meeting. Ng said in a round-table discussion at the Munich Security Conference in Germany that assumptions undertaken in the years after the end of World War II have fundamentally changed. One example is that from the time of former US president John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address more than 60 years ago, the image of the US was of a country
BLIND COST CUTTING: A DOGE push to lay off 2,000 energy department workers resulted in hundreds of staff at a nuclear security agency being fired — then ‘unfired’ US President Donald Trump’s administration has halted the firings of hundreds of federal employees who were tasked with working on the nation’s nuclear weapons programs, in an about-face that has left workers confused and experts cautioning that the Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE’s) blind cost cutting would put communities at risk. Three US officials who spoke to The Associated Press said up to 350 employees at the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) were abruptly laid off late on Thursday, with some losing access to e-mail before they’d learned they were fired, only to try to enter their offices on Friday morning
Cook Islands officials yesterday said they had discussed seabed minerals research with China as the small Pacific island mulls deep-sea mining of its waters. The self-governing country of 17,000 people — a former colony of close partner New Zealand — has licensed three companies to explore the seabed for nodules rich in metals such as nickel and cobalt, which are used in electric vehicle (EV) batteries. Despite issuing the five-year exploration licenses in 2022, the Cook Islands government said it would not decide whether to harvest the potato-sized nodules until it has assessed environmental and other impacts. Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown
STEADFAST DART: The six-week exercise, which involves about 10,000 troops from nine nations, focuses on rapid deployment scenarios and multidomain operations NATO is testing its ability to rapidly deploy across eastern Europe — without direct US assistance — as Washington shifts its approach toward European defense and the war in Ukraine. The six-week Steadfast Dart 2025 exercises across Bulgaria, Romania and Greece are taking place as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine approaches the three-year mark. They involve about 10,000 troops from nine nations and represent the largest NATO operation planned this year. The US absence from the exercises comes as European nations scramble to build greater military self-sufficiency over their concerns about the commitment of US President Donald Trump’s administration to common defense and
RSS