Likening her one-time political ally to a "street performer," former Japanese foreign minister Makiko Tanaka said on Tuesday that she regretted helping Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi to power three years ago.
Tanaka, a lawmaker and former member of Koizumi's ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), was once one of Japan's most popular politicians. Her tireless campaigning at Koizumi's side was a key element in his rise to power in April 2001.
But her outspokenness, and a bitter battle with foreign ministry bureaucrats and their LDP backers, led Koizumi to sack her in January 2002.
On Tuesday, the fiery Tanaka slammed Koizumi on a wide range of policies, including his decision to send troops to Iraq and have them take part in multinational forces there.
"He is like a street performer," she told reporters. "He will do various things like juggling, breathing fire and riding a unicycle, but when things go against him, he just folds up his wrapping cloth and withdraws.
"I feel ashamed that I helped ... someone so flippant."
The LDP suspended her and she resigned from parliament seven months after her sacking as foreign minister over accusations that she misappropriated funds intended to pay an aide's salary.
Tanaka regained her seat last November as an independent.
Long known for her sharp tongue and pithy sayings, Tanaka has not spared Koizumi since her return to parliament.
She has dismissed him as an old-style LDP politician incapable of carrying out the reforms he has promised, and likened him to a "spoilt brat" in a December interview for what she called his stubborn insistence on making decisions and not listening to others.
KINGPIN: Marset allegedly laundered the proceeds of his drug enterprise by purchasing and sponsoring professional soccer teams and even put himself in the starting lineups Notorious Latin American narco trafficker Sebastian Marset, who eluded police for years, was handed over to US authorities after his arrest on Friday in Bolivia. Marset, a Uruguayan national who was on the US most-wanted list, was passed to agents of the US Drug Enforcement Administration at Santa Cruz airport in Bolivia, then put on a US airplane, Bolivian state television showed. “The arrest and deportation were carried out pursuant to a court order issued by the US justice system,” Bolivian Minister of Government Marco Antonio Oviedo told reporters. The alleged kingpin was arrested in an upscale neighborhood of Santa
FAKE NEWS? ‘When the government demands the press become a state mouthpiece under the threat of punishment, something has gone very wrong,’ a civic group said The top US broadcast regulator on Saturday threatened media outlets over negative coverage of the Middle East war, after US President Donald Trump slammed critical headlines from the “Fake News Media.” The US president since his first term has derided mainstream media as “fake news” and has sued major outlets over what he sees as unfair coverage. Brendan Carr, head of the US Federal Communications Commission — which oversees the nation’s radio, television and Internet media — said broadcasters risked losing their licenses over news coverage. “The law is clear. Broadcasters must operate in the public interest, and they will
SCANDAL: Other images discovered earlier show Andrew bent over a female and lying across the laps of a number of women, while Mandelson is pictured in his underpants A photograph of former British prince Andrew and veteran politician Peter Mandelson sitting in bathrobes alongside late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein was unearthed on Friday in previously published documents. The image is believed to be the first known photograph of the two men with Epstein. They are currently engulfed in scandal in the UK over their ties to their mutual friend. The undated photograph, first reported by ITV News, shows King Charles III’s disgraced brother and former British ambassador to the US sitting barefoot outside on a wooden deck. They appear to have mugs with a US flag on them
INFLUTENTIAL THEORIST: Habermas was particularly critical of the ‘limited interest’ shown by German politicians in ‘shaping a politically effective Europe Jurgen Habermas, whose work on communication, rationality and sociology made him one of the world’s most influential philosophers and a key intellectual figure in his native Germany, has died. He was 96. Habermas’ publisher, Suhrkamp, said he died on Saturday in Starnberg, near Munich. Habermas frequently weighed in on political matters over several decades. His extensive writing crossed the boundaries of academic and philosophical disciplines, providing a vision of modern society and social interaction. His best-known works included the two-volume Theory of Communicative Action. Habermas, who was 15 at the time of Nazi Germany’s defeat, later recalled the dawn of
RSS