Japanese Internal Affairs and Communications Minister Kunio Hatoyama, a close ally of Prime Minister Taro Aso, resigned yesterday, in a blow to Aso ahead of a looming election.
Hatoyama had insisted that Yoshifumi Nishikawa, president of Japan Post, should be replaced, though many in the ruling party have said Nishikawa should stay in his job, creating a dilemma for Aso in recent weeks.
“It is hard for the public to understand why the row has become such a big issue,” said political commentator Akira Hayasaka, adding that the internal row within the Cabinet gives a negative impression of Aso’s government.
PHOTO: AFP
“It will be a minus for his party ahead of the election,” he said.
Hatoyama had said Nishikawa should go because of Japan Post’s attempt to sell its nationwide resort complex to leasing company Orix Co, whose chairman helped craft a government plan to privatize the postal system.
The move would end the row over the personnel issue. But it would be a blow to the unpopular prime minister after opposition parties have criticized Aso for a lack of leadership in failing to solve the problem quickly.
Aso’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) faces a tough battle in a general election due by October, with the main opposition Democratic Party now leading in voter polls.
An opposition victory would end half a century of almost unbroken rule by the conservative LDP.
In a Yomiuri Shimbun poll on Monday, 39.1 percent of respondents said they would vote for the Democrats, compared with 28.7 percent who preferred the LDP.
Japan Post was broken up into four state-owned firms in 2007 as the first step in a 10-year privatization process driven by former Japanese prime minister Junichiro Koizumi.
Stakes in two of the four units, one for banking and one for insurance, are to be sold by 2017. But as the ruling party drifts away from Koizumi’s reforms, Aso’s government has suggested aspects of the plan should be reviewed.
It would not be the first time an Aso ally has had to leave the Cabinet. In February, Shoichi Nakagawa resigned as finance minister after being forced to deny he was drunk at a G7 news conference.
Support for Aso, Japan’s third prime minister in less than two years, fell below 30 percent in a poll by public broadcaster NHK this week after he flip-flopped on policy and had a public row with Hatoyama, even as the economy struggles with its deepest recession in decades.
Airlines in Australia, Hong Kong, India, Malaysia and Singapore yesterday canceled flights to and from the Indonesian island of Bali, after a nearby volcano catapulted an ash tower into the sky. Australia’s Jetstar, Qantas and Virgin Australia all grounded flights after Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki on Flores island spewed a 9km tower a day earlier. Malaysia Airlines, AirAsia, India’s IndiGo and Singapore’s Scoot also listed flights as canceled. “Volcanic ash poses a significant threat to safe operations of the aircraft in the vicinity of volcanic clouds,” AirAsia said as it announced several cancelations. Multiple eruptions from the 1,703m twin-peaked volcano in
China has built a land-based prototype nuclear reactor for a large surface warship, in the clearest sign yet Beijing is advancing toward producing the nation’s first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, according to a new analysis of satellite imagery and Chinese government documents provided to The Associated Press. There have long been rumors that China is planning to build a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, but the research by the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in California is the first to confirm it is working on a nuclear-powered propulsion system for a carrier-sized surface warship. Why is China’s pursuit of nuclear-powered carriers significant? China’s navy is already
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) launched a week-long diplomatic blitz of South America on Thursday by inaugurating a massive deep-water port in Peru, a US$1.3 billion investment by Beijing as it seeks to expand trade and influence on the continent. With China’s demand for agricultural goods and metals from Latin America growing, Xi will participate in the APEC summit in Lima then head to the Group of 20 summit in Rio de Janeiro next week, where he will also make a state visit to Brazil. Xi and Peruvian President Dina Boluarte participated on Thursday by video link in the opening
IT’S A DEAL? Including the phrase ‘overlapping claims’ in a Chinese-Indonesian joint statement over the weekend puts Jakarta’s national interests at risk, critics say Indonesia yesterday said it does not recognize China’s claims over the South China Sea, despite signing a maritime development deal with Beijing, as some analysts warned the pact risked compromising its sovereign rights. Beijing has long clashed with Southeast Asian neighbors over the South China Sea, which it claims almost in its entirety, based on a “nine-dash line” on its maps that cuts into the exclusive economic zones (EEZ) of several countries. Joint agreements with China in the strategic waterway have been sensitive for years, with some nations wary of deals they fear could be interpreted as legitimizing Beijing’s vast claims. In 2016,
RSS