Japan’s finance minister yesterday denied claims he had accepted illegal political donations in yet another potential headache for embattled Prime Minister Taro Aso ahead of this year’s elections.
The Mainichi Daily, citing unnamed sources, reported that Japanese Finance Minister Kaoru Yosano had received donations from a commodity futures trading company that were illegally hidden as contributions given by the firm’s individual staff members.
Yosano told reporters: “Formally and practically, there is no problem under the political funds control law.”
“Since the donation was received appropriately, I have no plan to refund it,” said Yosano, who is also fiscal policy minister and financial service agency chief, effectively supervising the nation’s entire financial system.
The Mainichi said that commodity futures trading broker Orient Trading allegedly gave ¥55.3 million (US$580,000) between 1995 and 2005 to Yosano’s fund-raising organization through an illegal scheme.
In 1998 and 1999, Yosano was trade and industry minister and in charge of supervising the nation’s commodity futures trading.
The firm, since renamed H.S. Futures, and its affiliates allegedly ordered 250 employees to send money to Yosano’s fund-raising group, apparently seeking to obscure the source of the money, the Mainichi said.
Japan’s political funding law — designed to root out cozy and corrupt ties between politicians and businessmen — prohibits companies from offering funds to politicians under the name of a third party.
Last month Ichiro Ozawa, the former head of main opposition party the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), resigned after his secretary was arrested over his role in a similar donation scheme.
Aso must call elections by September, but is struggling in the polls, with his public support ratings below 20 percent according to several recent surveys. In the election, which most pundits expect in August or early September, the DPJ hopes to end more than half a century of almost unbroken rule by Aso’s conservative Liberal Democratic Party.
Drug lord Jose Adolfo Macias Villamar, alias “Fito,” was Ecuador’s most-wanted fugitive before his arrest on Wednesday, more than a year after he escaped prison from where he commanded the country’s leading criminal gang. The former taxi driver turned crime boss became the prime target of law enforcement early last year after escaping from a prison in the southwestern port of Guayaquil. Ecuadoran President Daniel Noboa’s government released “wanted” posters with images of his face and offered US$1 million for information leading to his capture. In a country plagued by crime, members of Fito’s gang, Los Choneros, have responded with violence, using car
Two former Chilean ministers are among four candidates competing this weekend for the presidential nomination of the left ahead of November elections dominated by rising levels of violent crime. More than 15 million voters are eligible to choose today between former minister of labor Jeannette Jara, former minister of the interior Carolina Toha and two members of parliament, Gonzalo Winter and Jaime Mulet, to represent the left against a resurgent right. The primary is open to members of the parties within Chilean President Gabriel Boric’s ruling left-wing coalition and other voters who are not affiliated with specific parties. A recent poll by the
TENSIONS HIGH: For more than half a year, students have organized protests around the country, while the Serbian presaident said they are part of a foreign plot About 140,000 protesters rallied in Belgrade, the largest turnout over the past few months, as student-led demonstrations mount pressure on the populist government to call early elections. The rally was one of the largest in more than half a year student-led actions, which began in November last year after the roof of a train station collapsed in the northern city of Novi Sad, killing 16 people — a tragedy widely blamed on entrenched corruption. On Saturday, a sea of protesters filled Belgrade’s largest square and poured into several surrounding streets. The independent protest monitor Archive of Public Gatherings estimated the
Irish-language rap group Kneecap on Saturday gave an impassioned performance for tens of thousands of fans at the Glastonbury Festival despite criticism by British politicians and a terror charge for one of the trio. Liam Og O hAnnaidh, who performs under the stage name Mo Chara, has been charged under the UK’s Terrorism Act with supporting a proscribed organization for allegedly waving a Hezbollah flag at a concert in London in November last year. The rapper, who was charged under the anglicized version of his name, Liam O’Hanna, is on unconditional bail before a further court hearing in August. “Glastonbury,
RSS