Another prominent Democratic Party conservative offered a resignation today, and defections are ongoing among Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly members. In the near term, these are heavy blows to the party leadership of President Renho and Secretary-General Yoshihiko Noda which might bring them down in the late summer months.
While it is still not formally a political party, Governor Yuriko Koike’s “Tokyoites First” is gaining more definition and shape as it rapidly heads toward what is widely expected to be a command performance in the July 2 Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly elections.
One of the most prominent conservative lawmakers resigns from the leading opposition Democratic Party. He likely won’t be the last.
House of Representatives debate on the Conspiracy Bill begins. The controversial legislation expected to become “the main event” of this Ordinary Diet Session as the government and the opposition parties draw battle lines.
The Abe Cabinet itself is now openly endorsing and defending the Imperial Rescript on Education, in spite of the fact that both houses of the Diet denounced the document in June 1948 as a handmaiden to wartime Japanese militarism.
The posters are beginning to appear on the city walls and the various parties are accelerating their preparations. The Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly elections are now only three months away, and analysts are wondering just how dominant Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike will become when the contest has concluded.
How the Japanese media is influenced by big money interests to downplay the health threat of cigarette smoking
Principal Yasunori Kagoike of Moritomo Gakuen claims he was secretly given money by Akie Abe, wife of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe
The SNA sits down for a short, exclusive English-language interview with Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike
Japanese academics and scientists argue that the Abe government is in the process of shifting the nation’s university system and its industry from a footing of peace and consumerism toward the re-formation of a military-industrial complex, which will make the society increasingly dependent on arms exports and foreign wars.
