A second candidate entered the race on Thursday to lead Japan’s scandal-tainted main opposition party and run against conservative Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso in elections later this year.
The Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) is set to choose a new president tomorrow who will run for prime minister and seek to end more than half a century of almost unbroken rule by Aso’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP).
The new DPJ chief will take over from Ichiro Ozawa, who caved in to months of pressure and stepped down on Monday over a political donations scandal in which a close aide has been indicted.
Ozawa’s loyal right-hand man of recent years, the 62-year-old DPJ secretary-general Yukio Hatoyama, confirmed at a news conference on Thursday that he had decided to run in the party leadership contest.
His rival for the top post is former party chief Katsuya Okada, a 55-year-old former trade ministry bureaucrat known for his policy knowledge and straight-laced lifestyle who is often dubbed “Mr Clean.”
The two will go head-to-head tomorrow in a vote by the party’s 221 lawmakers, with media reports saying that Okada is more popular with the public but Hatoyama has better support among DPJ legislators.
Hatoyama said on Thursday that he supported more local autonomy over central government power and that at a time of widening social divides, “my goal is to build a fraternal society, to realize a politics of love.”
‘CROSSING THE LINE’: China’s embassy in Seoul criticized US Forces Korea Commander General Xavier Brunson, asking if his ‘hostile’ remarks were authorized by Washington South Korea and the US are in talks over recent public remarks by the commander of US Forces Korea, Seoul’s presidential office said yesterday, after the comments drew sharp criticism from China. In a recent podcast interview, US Forces Korea Commander General Xavier Brunson described South Korea as “the dagger in the heart of Asia” from China’s east coast, prompting the Chinese embassy in Seoul to say that he had “truly crossed the line.” The interview came amid growing speculation that Washington might seek to expand the role of US Forces Korea in countering the growing regional influence of China, a key
Through the noise of rushing papers and whirring belts at a print factory in Kyoto, two creators watch their photo essay come to life in broadsheet form — part of an effort to win new audiences in the age of artificial intelligence (AI). Despite the decline of the publishing industry, self-publication and handmade “zine” magazines are growing in popularity in Japan, reflecting the nation’s enduring love of paper in the digital era. While speaking to Agence France-Presse at the plant, his hands black with ink, one of the creators, Kazuma Obara, said: “I think [paper] is a medium that engages all five
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France experienced its hottest spring on record, the French weather service said on Tuesday, after an exceptional early heat wave that also broke highs for the season in England and Wales. Meteo-France said the average nationwide temperature over March to May was 13.8°C — about 1.7°C above the norm, and surpassing records set in 2011 and 2020. “The warmest spring since records began in 1900,” it said in a bulletin. All three months were warmer than average, but the onset of an “unprecedented heatwave” late last month pushed the mercury to highs typically seen at the height of the summer. “Our country had never
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