Japanese prosecutors arrested a former top defense official who is at the heart of a scandal that is exacerbating a parliamentary deadlock and threatens to ensnare the finance minister.
Former vice defense minister Takemasa Moriya, 63, was arrested along with his wife Sachiko and a former defense contractor who entertained the couple with golfing trips, prosecutors said.
Moriya, whose clout won him the nickname "emperor of the defense ministry" before he retired in August, has publicly admitted accepting dinners, gifts and hundreds of golf trips paid by Yamada Corp.
However, he has denied offering any favors in return.
The couple knew they were "entertained as rewards for the favors they had extended in Yamada Corp's supply of equipment and other items to the Self-Defense Forces," the Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office said.
It said in a statement it believed 12 rounds of golf, which cost ?3.89 million (US$35,000) constituted bribery.
The scandal has stalled government efforts to enact a bill to restart a naval mission in support of US-led operations in Afghanistan, debate on which began in parliament's upper house yesterday.
An upper house panel has voted to call Finance Minister Fukushiro Nukaga to testify under oath in parliament on Monday over his suspected ties to the defense contractor, who was recently arrested on suspicion of embezzlement.
Moriya told parliament earlier this month that Nukaga, a two-time former defense minister who has twice resigned in the past over scandals, had been at a dinner attended by himself and Miyazaki.
Nukaga said yesterday that he had not been present at the dinner and had done no favors for Yamada.
RESILIENCE: Deepening bilateral cooperation would extend the peace sustained over the 45 years since the Taiwan Relations Act, Greene said Taiwan-US relations are built on deep economic ties and shared values, American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) Director Raymond Greene said yesterday, adding that strengthening supply chain security in critical industries, enhancing societal resilience through cooperation and deepening partnerships are key to ensuring peace and stability for Taiwan in the years ahead. Greene made the remarks at the National Security Youth Forum, organized by National Taiwan University’s National Security and Strategy Studies Institution in Taipei. In his address in Mandarin Chinese, Greene said the Taiwan-US relationship is built on deep economic ties and shared interests, and grows stronger through the enduring friendship between
GAINING STEAM: The scheme initially failed to gather much attention, with only 188 cards issued in its first year, but gained popularity amid the COVID-19 pandemic Applications for the Employment Gold Card have increased in the past few years, with the card having been issued to a total of 13,191 people from 101 countries since its introduction in 2018, the National Development Council (NDC) said yesterday. Those who have received the card have included celebrities, such as former NBA star Dwight Howard and Australian-South Korean cheerleader Dahye Lee, the NDC said. The four-in-one Employment Gold Card combines a work permit, resident visa, Alien Resident Certificate (ARC) and re-entry permit. It was first introduced in February 2018 through the Act Governing Recruitment and Employment of Foreign Professionals (外國專業人才延攬及雇用法),
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday said that it would redesign the written portion of the driver’s license exam to make it more rigorous. “We hope that the exam can assess drivers’ understanding of traffic rules, particularly those who take the driver’s license test for the first time. In the past, drivers only needed to cram a book of test questions to pass the written exam,” Minister of Transportation and Communications Chen Shih-kai (陳世凱) told a news conference at the Taoyuan Motor Vehicle Office. “In the future, they would not be able to pass the test unless they study traffic regulations
EUROPEAN TARGETS: The planned Munich center would support TSMC’s European customers to design high-performance, energy-efficient chips, an executive said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday said that it plans to launch a new research-and-development (R&D) center in Munich, Germany, next quarter to assist customers with chip design. TSMC Europe president Paul de Bot made the announcement during a technology symposium in Amsterdam on Tuesday, the chipmaker said. The new Munich center would be the firm’s first chip designing center in Europe, it said. The chipmaker has set up a major R&D center at its base of operations in Hsinchu and plans to create a new one in the US to provide services for major US customers,
RSS