Japan’s finance minister, tipped as a candidate to become the country’s next premier, yesterday proposed to form a government of national unity to spearhead the country’s recovery from natural disasters.
“The ruling and opposition parties must have heart-to-heart discussions with each other. That’s the bottom line,” Japanese Finance Minister Yoshihiko Noda said in a political talk show on the TV Tokyo network.
“We’d rather form a national salvation government. That’ll be a coalition. Otherwise politics won’t move forward,” he added.
Japan’s opposition camp, led by the conservative Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), controls the upper house of parliament and has blocked the smooth passage of bills pushed by the ruling center-left Democratic Party of Japan.
Noda told reporters later that he envisaged a coalition with the LDP and the centrist opposition New Komeito party.
Prime Minister Naoto Kan is widely expected to leave his post by the end of this month. His approval rating has dipped to around 15 percent amid criticism of his handling of the March 11 earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disasters.
Kan promised weeks ago that he would step aside once three laws are passed — an extra budget for disaster reconstruction, a bill to help pay for it with new bonds and a law to promote renewable energy.
The supplementary budget bill was enacted last month, and the two major parties have agreed this week to also pass the other two bills by Aug. 26, paving the way for Kan to leave the scene.
Asked when he will formally announce his candidacy for the premiership, Noda replied: “I will make it known when the prime minister decides his course of action.”
Noda, 54, is a fiscal hawk who has steered the world’s No. 3 economy through turmoil for over a year and stepped into currency markets to bring down the strong yen, which hurt exporters.
Noda signaled his candidacy with an essay titled My government plan in the Bungei Shunju conservative monthly on Wednesday, pledging fiscally prudent policies to whittle down Japan’s public debt mountain.
However, his critics see him as a puppet of powerful finance bureaucrats as he sides with them in advocating significant tax increases.
Sumio Mabuchi, who was transport minister when Japan was embroiled in a bitter territorial island row with China last year, is also seen by many as a possible candidate.
Public opinion polls have favored the high-profile former foreign minister Seiji Maehara, but he has not yet announced his intention to run.
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
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
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of