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COMMENTARY
Nov 10, 2000

Mori's nine lives are almost used up

The coalition government of Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori is clearly in a delicate situation. Should he make another serious mistake, Mori will be forced to resign. I had some hopes for Mori as prime minister, since the late Foreign Minister Shintaro Abe, a friend of mine, had praised his political acumen....
JAPAN
Nov 5, 2000

New Komeito convention trumpets independent agenda

New Komeito, a junior ruling-coalition member, pledged at the party's annual convention in Tokyo on Saturday to more aggressively pursue reforms rather than sacrificing its agenda to maintain the coalition.
COMMENTARY
Nov 4, 2000

Mori fumbles, Japan drifts

The government of Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori faces another political crisis after a furor over a controversial electoral-reform bill died down with the Diet passage of the legislation. The law introduces a new voting system in the proportional-representation section of Upper House polls.
JAPAN
Nov 3, 2000

Cabinet contributes to 'comfort women' fund

Cabinet ministers will contribute 100,000 yen each to a semipublic fund set up to pay compensation to wartime "comfort women" from other parts of Asia, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda said Thursday.
EDITORIALS
Oct 28, 2000

Shortsighted electoral reform

The heavy-handed tactics the ruling parties employed to railroad a controversial Upper House electoral reform bill have left an ugly blot on the nation's parliamentary history. No substantial debate was conducted in the Diet. In the Upper House, the opposition parties boycotted discussion because of...
COMMENTARY
Oct 27, 2000

The coalition loads the dice

A few months ago, leaders of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party were concerned that the party could suffer a shocking setback in the Upper House election next year if Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori remained in power then. There were also widespread fears that the ruling coalition of the LDP, New Komeito...
COMMENTARY
Oct 20, 2000

Still no respite from turmoil

The world is reeling from severe turmoil. The Middle East situation remains volatile after an emergency summit in Egypt ended with a shaky pact to halt violence between Israelis and Palestinians, skyrocketing crude-oil prices are threatening a new oil crisis and the U.S. economy is showing signs of trouble...
JAPAN
Oct 19, 2000

Upper House chief Saito quits after mediation fails

House of Councilors President Juro Saito resigned Wednesday after he failed to mediate an agreement between the ruling and opposition camps over a plan to revise the way some of the chamber's members are elected.
JAPAN
Oct 18, 2000

Compromise bid fails to quiet Diet

The ruling and opposition camps remained at odds on Tuesday after both sides effectively rejected mediation efforts by the Upper House president to resolve the drawn-out row over revision of the electoral system.
JAPAN
Oct 14, 2000

Ruling bloc railroads contentious voting bill

The ruling triumvirate railroaded a contentious bill to revise the electoral system Friday by voting on it at an Upper House committee amid an opposition boycott.
JAPAN
Oct 13, 2000

Ruling bloc set to railroad electoral reform bill today

The ruling coalition parties are poised to ignore objections from the opposition bloc and vote in the Diet as early as today on a contentious bill to revise the electoral system, coalition sources said Thursday.
JAPAN
Oct 7, 2000

Clash in Diet disrupts electoral reform debate

The ruling coalition on Friday began deliberations in the Diet on a contentious bill to revise the Upper House electoral system after a violent confrontation with the boycotting opposition, whose members tried to block the door to a committee meeting room.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 3, 2000

JCP reforms in name only

The Japanese Communist Party, at the Sept. 19 general meeting of the Central Committee, proposed scrapping the preamble to the party charter that sets out basic principles for its activities and organization. The preamble contains words symbolic of the Communist Party, such as "socialist revolution,"...
JAPAN
Sep 27, 2000

Mori backs change in voting system

Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori on Tuesday threw his support behind a proposal to change the electoral system for proportional representation seats in the House of Councilors before the next election.
COMMENTARY
Sep 23, 2000

Politicians face a busy fall

The 72-day extraordinary Diet session opened Thursday. It will last until Dec. 1, which is unusually long for an extra session. The political schedule will be very tight in December: The government will compile a fiscal 2001 budget and lay the groundwork for the reorganization of the central bureaucracy...
JAPAN
Sep 18, 2000

Mori to promote budget, IT when extra Diet session opens

Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori will promote the extra budget, the development of information technology and the continuation of talks with North Korea and Russia in his policy speech Thursday when an extraordinary session of the Diet begins, government sources said Sunday.
COMMENTARY
Sep 1, 2000

Faction plots to replace Mori

The focal question in Japanese politics is how the 2001 Upper House election will turn out. Turn-of-the-century politics will hinge on whether the ruling coalition of the Liberal Democratic Party, New Komeito and the New Conservative Party will retain its majority in the Upper House, or whether the opposition...
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 10, 2000

It's summertime, and the news is slim

LONDON -- Those of us whose job is to feed the world a steady diet of "news" (99 percent of which is actually recycled "olds") are always grateful when a loon like Rabbi Ovadia Yosef opens his mouth and lets fly. Especially in August.
JAPAN
Aug 4, 2000

Maximum disparity in vote value increases to 2.49-to-1 in Kanagawa

The disparity in the value of one vote among the 300 single-seat districts in the House of Representatives has increased to 2.49-to-1 from last year's 2.45-to-1, according to calculations based on a demographic survey released Thursday by the Home Affairs Ministry.
JAPAN
Aug 1, 2000

Mori apologizes for naming shady Kuze as FRC chief

Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori on Monday officially apologized for having appointed scandal-tainted Kimitaka Kuze as chief of the Financial Reconstruction Commission, telling the Diet he was not fully aware of Kuze's shady background.
JAPAN
Jul 16, 2000

Swing vote confounded polls

The June 25 Lower House election saw a rise in the number of voters who made up their mind about which candidate and party to back just before the day of the vote, according to surveys conducted by Kyodo News before and after the poll.
COMMENTARY
Jul 7, 2000

Election results are disappointing

Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori launched his new Cabinet Tuesday on the strength of an absolute majority won by the coalition of the Liberal Democratic Party, New Komeito and the Conservative Party in the June 25 Lower House election.
JAPAN
Jun 27, 2000

Youthful victors rejuvenate Diet

Newcomers to the Diet account for 22 percent of the 480 winners in Sunday's Lower House election and have lowered the average age in the chamber from 55 to 54.
JAPAN
Jun 26, 2000

Ex-FRC chief Ochi likely to lose seat

Kyodo News Michio Ochi, a former chairman of the Financial Reconstruction Commission, is likely to suffer a crushing defeat in Sunday's House of Representatives election, early returns show.
JAPAN
Jun 26, 2000

Rain-aided coalition cruises toward victory

Amid lower-than-expected voter turnout, the Liberal Democratic Party-led ruling triumvirate appeared to have secured at least a simple majority in the Lower House in the general election held Sunday, exit polls show.
JAPAN
Jun 25, 2000

Political volume up before vote

Closing the official 12-day campaign period, political party leaders on Saturday made their final appeals before today's general election for the Lower House.
JAPAN
Jun 17, 2000

Ogi's New Conservatives aim to lay Japan's 'moral ground'

The recently launched New Conservative Party, the smallest force in the tripartite ruling coalition, hopes to maintain its current strength in the June 25 election in order to lay the "moral ground" for the country in the next century.
JAPAN
Jun 17, 2000

Defector Hatoyama ready for fire

Liberal Democratic Party candidate Kunio Hatoyama, the younger brother of Democratic Party of Japan leader Yukio Hatoyama, said Friday he is prepared for criticism over his decision to leave the DPJ.
COMMENTARY
Jun 16, 2000

Voter turnout key to election

Official campaigning is under way for the June 25 general election. This will be the first Japanese general election to be held in three years and eight months, following the last poll in October 1996. The new Lower House, whose term will run to 2004, will be the center of national politics as Japan...

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