Claiming a mandate for change, Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi pledged in parliament yesterday to battle vested interests in his campaign to implement reform after his Cabinet approved his plan to privatize the sprawling postal service.
The government planned to submit the postal bills to a special session of parliament later in the day. A vote is expected sometime in the middle of next month, and the ruling coalition's strong majority following their landslide election win this month means the legislation should pass easily.
"I will solemnly accept the voice of the Japanese people and will be committed to realize postal privatization," Koizumi told lawmakers, claiming wide public support for reform after the coalition's victory on Sept. 11.
"Without fearing pain, without being daunted by vested interests, without being bound by precedents, and with the cooperation from the Japanese people, I will assume my responsibilities as prime minister," he said.
In his address, Koizumi reaffirmed the policies he has pushed for since taking office in 2001: structural reform, economic recovery while restraining public spending, and stronger relations with the US, typified by his dispatch of noncombat forces in support of US-led troops in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Koizumi's program was attacked during the campaign by the top opposition group, the Democratic Party of Japan, which opposed postal privatization and vowed to withdraw troops from Iraq. But that message failed to resonate with voters.
The focus this fall will be on the plan to split up Japan Post's delivery, insurance and savings deposit services and sell them off by 2017. The program was endorsed at a Cabinet meeting yesterday morning.
Koizumi said yesterday that postal privatization would be the first in a series of reforms that he planned to use his enhanced clout to push for.
"I have been pressing for wide-ranging structural reforms in areas such as finance, taxation, regulation and expenditure, in order to revive and move forward our country since I took office," Koizumi said, pointing out the disposal of mountains of bad debts by Japan's banks under his watch.
Koizumi's ruling coalition, led by his Liberal Democratic Party, made major strides in Sept. 11 elections for the lower house of parliament. Koizumi called the snap elections after the upper house rejected the postal reform proposal in August. The election results -- which gave the coalition a powerful two-thirds majority in the lower house -- were widely seen as a mandate for the postal plan, which would create the world's largest private bank.
"The Japanese voters showed strong support and expectations for us to continue with reform," said Heizo Takenaka, economic minister and architect of the reform proposal. "First of all, we want to have the bills passed in this session."
Japan Post runs nearly 25,000 post offices and employs some 400,000 full- and part-time workers in its delivery, insurance and savings deposit services. It controls some 330 trillion yen (US$3 trillion) in deposits.
When a hiker fell from a 55m waterfall in wild New Zealand bush, rescuers were forced to evacuate the badly hurt woman without her dog, which could not be found. After strangers raised thousands of dollars for a search, border collie Molly was flown to safety by a helicopter pilot who was determined to reunite the pet and the owner. A week earlier, an emergency rescue helicopter found the woman with bruises and lacerations after a fall at a rocky spot at the waterfall on the South Island’s West Coast. She was airlifted on March 24, but they were forced to
HIGH HOPES: The power source is expected to have a future, as it is not dependent on the weather or light, and could be useful for places with large desalination facilities A Japanese water plant is harnessing the natural process of osmosis to generate renewable energy that could one day become a common power source. The possibility of generating power from osmosis — when water molecules pass from a less salty solution to a more salty one — has long been known. However, actually generating energy from that has proved more complicated, in part due the difficulty of designing the membrane through which the molecules pass. Engineers in Fukuoka, Japan, and their private partners think they might have cracked it, and have opened what is only the world’s second osmotic power plant. It generates
Hundreds of Filipinos and tourists flocked to a sun-bleached field north of Manila yesterday, on Good Friday, to witness one of the country’s most blood-soaked displays of religious fervor, undeterred by rising fuel prices. Scores of bare-chested flagellants with covered faces walked barefoot through the dusty streets of Pampanga Province’s San Fernando as they flogged their backs with bamboo whips in the scorching heat. Agence France-Presse (AFP) journalists said they saw devotees deliberately puncturing their skin with glass shards attached to a small wooden paddle to ensure their bleeding during the ritual, a way to atone for sins and seek miracles from
Chinese dissident artist Gao Zhen (高兟), famous for making provocative satirical sculptures of former Chinese leader Mao Zedong (毛澤東), was tried on Monday over accusations of “defaming national heroes and martyrs,” his wife and a rights group said. Gao, 69, who was detained in 2024 during a visit from the US, faces a maximum three-year prison sentence, said his wife, Zhao Yaliang (趙雅良), and Shane Yi, a researcher at the Chinese Human Rights Defenders group which operates outside the nation. The closed-door, one-day trial took place at Sanhe City People’s Court in Hebei Province neighboring the capital, Beijing, and ended without a
RSS