Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan plans to sound out the opposition on joining a grand coalition to handle reconstruction policy following last week’s quake and tsunami and amid the ongoing nuclear crisis.
Before the disaster hit, opposition parties were pressing Kan to call a snap election by refusing to help enact vital budget bills, while rivals in Kan’s own party were plotting to force their unpopular leader to quit to improve their fortunes.
Kan told a news conference on Friday that he was considering “strengthening the Cabinet,” without giving any details, but the media have said this included the idea of increasing the number of Cabinet ministers to 20 from the current 17 and creating some new posts to handle reconstruction.
The idea had been floated prior to the March 11 disaster as a means of dealing with Japan’s “national crisis,” but never really acquired any traction, perhaps owing to the sense that it was premature, one political observer said.
“But now, after the earthquake and the tsunami and the nuclear situation, I think it’s quite appropriate to talk about a national crisis,” said Koichi Nakano, a professor of political science at Sophia University in Tokyo. “I’m not surprised or particularly against the idea of a national grand coalition. I think the Kan government should try all kinds of things to do what works.”
The opposition, including the top rival, the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), which ruled Japan nearly without a break for roughly 50 years until being deposed by the Democrats in 2009, has declared a political cease-fire since the earthquake.
This is crucial, because aside from the crucial legislation that will be needed for reconstruction, enlarging the Cabinet will require a new law as well.
However, whether the truce will last is anyone’s guess.
LDP leader Sadakazu Tanigaki said yesterday the LDP had not received such a request and that the party was “not thinking of this,” Japanese media reported — a move that Nakano said might or might not be a bit of political theater.
Unilateral support from Kan’s own party might also be less than easy to come by.
Yukio Hatoyama, Kan’s predecessor as prime minister, who was forced to quit in June in an effort to improve the party’s chances in an election the next month, apparently took him to task yesterday for poor handling of the quake, particularly in soothing the anxieties of a jittery public worried about possible radiation leaks.
“You can’t say that absolutely all the information is out there,” Hatoyama was quoted by Jiji news agency as telling Kan.
“This includes damage due to rumors, which has caused quite a lot of worry to spread,” Hatoyama said.
Kan’s voter support rate had sunk to about 20 percent before the March 11 quake owing to a view that he was flip-flopping on policy, bungling diplomatic relations and generally making a mess of governing.
Nakano said that a grand coalition had significant disadvantages, including the possibility that it might end up so totally unworkable that it can’t accomplish anything, and that it wasn’t really needed at this point anyway.
“Even if the grand coalition doesn’t materialize, the opposition parties now are under stronger pressure to cooperate with the government,” he said. “This is no time for really petty point-scoring.”
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
‘DELUSIONAL’: Targeting the families of Hamas’ leaders would not push the group to change its position or to give up its demands for Palestinians, Ismail Haniyeh said Israeli aircraft on Wednesday killed three sons of Hamas’ top political leader in the Gaza Strip, striking high-stakes targets at a time when Israel is holding delicate ceasefire negotiations with the militant group. Hamas said four of the leader’s grandchildren were also killed. Ismail Haniyeh’s sons are among the highest-profile figures to be killed in the war so far. Israel said they were Hamas operatives, and Haniyeh accused Israel of acting in “the spirit of revenge and murder.” The deaths threatened to strain the internationally mediated ceasefire talks, which appeared to gain steam in recent days even as the sides remain far
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The