Trade and industry minister Mrs Yuko Obuchi announces her decision to resign over a political funds scandal at the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry on Monday morning. Obuchi officially announced the decision at a press conference at the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry after meeting with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who accepted her resignation. Obuchi said she wanted to avoid delaying the economic and energy policies she was in charge of. “By resigning, I want to focus all my efforts on thoroughly investigating the questions raised so that I will be able to explain (what actually happened),” she said. “I apologize, as a member of the Abe Cabinet, for failing to make any contribution to reviving the economy, or bringing about a society in which women shine, and many other issues.” However, Obuchi said she would not resign as a lawmaker and said she had a responsibility to investigate the allegations leveled against her. Abe decided to appoint internal affairs minister Sanae Takaichi as acting METI chief until he can name Obuchi’s official successor, sources close to the prime minister said. Abe on Monday also accepted the resignation of Justice Minister Midori Matsushima after she offered to quit over alleged violations of the election campaign law amid growing calls in the government and the ruling Liberal Democratic Party that both ministers should resign at the same time. The resignations will deal a severe blow to Abe, who appointed five women as new Cabinet ministers when he reshuffled his Cabinet on Sept. 3 in his bid to underline his aim of promoting the status of women in Japan. Abe hopes to put the political scandals involving the two ministers behind him as soon as possible to minimize the negative impact on the administration’s power, but the opposition parties are expected to hold him responsible for their appointments. Until recently, Obuchi was the only female minister considered to be scandal-free. Her alleged misdeeds surfaced at a time when people have become more suspicious than ever about the effectiveness of “Abenomics,” Abe’s economic plan based on aggressive monetary easing, the usual fiscal spending and vows of structural reforms needed to expand growth. “Abenomics” boosted stock prices in Tokyo and weakened the value of the yen against the dollar, which was predicted to theoretically boost Japan’s exports. But the rising costs of imports, in particular fossil fuels, have damaged people’s living standards because their buying power is falling in relation to their presumably rising wages. Meanwhile, exports failed to grow as earlier predicted because many manufacturing companies have already moved their production plants overseas to avoid currency exchange risks. Accordingly, people’s confidence in Abe’s economic polices has started to decline recently. According to the latest NHK poll, conducted between Oct. 11 and 13, the approval rating for his Cabinet has fallen 6 points to 52 percent. “It’s true people’s perceptions have started changing recently” to focus more on the negative effects of Abenomics, a senior government official said Friday. In December, Abe will face the difficult decision on whether to complete the doubling of the consumption tax rate to 10 percent next October.Choosing a successor to Obuchi will be another tough challenge for Abe. Her chosen successor will need to be appointed soon, and it will be the new appointee’s call to decide whether to reactivate some of the 48 commercial nuclear reactors across the country that have been offline since the 2011 Fukushima nuclear crisis. Obuchi, a daughter of late Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi, has been a rising star among female lawmakers, and has sometimes been touted as the most likely candidate to be appointed Japan’s first female prime minister. Abe apparently tried to use her popularity to soften public resistance to his policy of restarting the nation’s nuclear plants. As far as public image is concerned, it will be very difficult for him to find a better industry minister than Yuko Yūko Obuchi - Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in 2014 named five women to his new cabinet on Wednesday, leading by example in a country economists say must make better use of its highly-educated but underemployed women. The five make up nearly a quarter of the 18-strong cabinet and come close to matching his declared aim for the percentage of women in senior positions. A society in which women shine is one of the big pillars of this government, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told a news conference ahead of the announcement. Abe has repeatedly spoken of the need to get more women into the workforce to plug a growing gap in the labour market. He has said he wants 30 per cent of senior business and political positions occupied by women by 2020, to mitigate problems caused by an ever-shrinking number of workers who need to provide for a growing number of retirees. We have to revise ideas of seeing everything from mens viewpoint, Abe said in a speech earlier this year. The most underused resource we have is the power of women, Abe said. Japan must be a place where women are given the chance to shine. Government figures show only 11 per cent of managerial jobs are occupied by women, compared with 43 per cent in the United States and 39 per cent in France. One of those who won a ministerial portfolio was Yuko Obuchi, 40, the daughter of former premier Keizo Obuchi, who becomes economy, trade and industry minister. She has made the grade once before, at the age of 34, and holds the record for being the youngest female cabinet minister Japan has had. But the question is, How the Opposition in japan suddenly has so much money to investigation private detectives, medias, propaganda. How opposition has so much money to propaganda Putin good actions and hunt Japan politician? Souces : theguardian/world/2014/oct/20/japans-trade-minister-yuko-obuchi-quits thediplomat/2014/10/yuko-obuchi-resignation-and-japans-nuclear-strategy/
Posted on: Tue, 21 Oct 2014 14:15:01 +0000
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