Nearly 80 percent of Japanese voters are unhappy with both the country’s ruling and main opposition political parties, a newspaper survey published yesterday said amid speculation elections will be held next month.
The poll by Japan’s top-selling Yomiuri Shimbun found 78 percent of respondents were not happy with the ruling Liberal Democratic Party. Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso heads the party, which has governed Japan for all but a 10-month stretch since it was founded in 1955.
The survey also found that 79 percent of respondents to the questionnaire were not happy with the country’s biggest opposition party, the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), either.
PHOTO: AP
Since Aso took office last month media attention has been focused on when the prime minister will dissolve the lower house of parliament and hold general elections. Newspapers have predicted snap polls could take place late next month.
ASO OK
The Yomiuri survey said 57 percent of respondents favored Aso for prime minister. Only 26 percent said they wanted Ichiro Ozawa, the DPJ leader, for the top job.
The poll was conducted by face-to-face interviews nationwide this month with 3,000 eligible voters. Of those, 1,787 people, or 59.6 percent, responded, the Yomiuri said.
The paper provided no margin of error, but a survey of that size would generally have a margin of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
AFGHANISTAN
Meanwhile, Aso said yesterday that Japan must keep backing the US-led “war on terror” and reiterated his support for his country’s controversial naval mission off Afghanistan.
“We will continue to proactively engage in international peace activities, such as the war on terror,” Aso told Japanese soldiers during a ceremonial review of the air force.
“Many nations, despite having seen casualties, are preparing to increase their engagement with Afghanistan,” he said.
“It is not a choice for us to withdraw from our ongoing activities,” Aso said.
Japan has provided naval fuel and other logistical support in the Indian Ocean to US-led forces operating in Afghanistan.
The current naval mission is set to expire in January, and Aso is pushing to extend it.
Japan’s opposition, which controls the upper house of parliament, forced a temporary halt to the operation last year, arguing the officially pacifist country should not take part in “American wars.”
Japan was forced to renounce the right to wage war in its pacifist Constitution after its defeat in World War II.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of