SNA (Tokyo) — The following stories were reported today by the Shingetsu News Agency.

The Top Headline

—Shukan Bunshun claims to have a scoop that will reveal that there were forgeries involved in covering up the Kake Gakuen scandal as well. The Shukan Bunshun scoop, if it pans out, seems to suggest that document forgery was done by order of the Cabinet Office. This suggests the possibility that it is Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga and his staff who were the real culprits in the forgery scandal.

Politics

—Two seats on the Bank of Japan board fall open on next Monday, but their replacements cannot be seated without Diet approval. This is giving opposition parties leverage regarding their demands for sworn witnesses on the Moritomo Gakuen case.

—Liberal Democratic Party’s Shigeru Ishiba declares that the priority at the moment should be put on reviving the peoples’ faith in the government after the Moritomo Gakuen scandal, rather than pushing ahead with efforts to revise the Constitution.

—Movement of prisoners suggests execution of Aum Shinrikyo inmates, including guru Shoko Asahara, is not far off. Executing Asahara sounds like another good way for Abe to shift the news cycle away from Moritomo Gakuen, don’t you think?

—It’s looking like the Abe government is finally preparing to offer up Nobuhisa Sagawa as a Moritomo Gakuen scandal sacrifice, agreeing to the opposition demand that he be brought before the Diet as a sworn witness. They are still protecting Akie Abe from the same fate.

—Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan Diet affairs head Kiyomi Tsujimoto says that First Lady Akie Abe should also be made to testify in the Diet about her Facebook activities, in particular her “like” of a comment asserting that opposition parties ask only stupid questions. Japan Communist Party Diet affairs chief Keiji Kokuta suggests that perhaps First Lady Akie Abe might come to the parliament and experience for herself, as a sworn witness, the “stupid questions” of the opposition parties.

—The list grows. Now we learn that the Finance Ministry provided the original Moritomo Gakuen documents to Osaka prosecutors, the Board of Audit, and the Land Ministry, but then quite knowingly gave the doctored version to the National Diet, as recently as this month. Both the Board of Audit and the Land Ministry had quietly raised the issue with Finance Ministry before the forgery became public. They asked why there were two sets of documents, realizing that the version given to the Diet was heavily redacted.

International

—Naha District Court rejects Okinawa prefectural government’s call for an injunction halting construction of the US Marine airbase at Henoko. So far the courts have backed the Abe government at every step of the battle.

—Kyodo News quotes an Abe government official: “If we’re to resolve the abduction issue, direct dialogue with the top, Kim Jong-Un, is essential.”

—Naha District Court finds Okinawa anti-base protest leader Hiroji Yamashiro guilty and sentences him to two years imprisonment.

—Stars and Stripes reporting on walkout by students at Yokota High School in Tokyo in solidarity with the #EnoughisEnough movement, which is concerned with gun violence in US schools, especially in the wake of the Parkland massacre.

—Fukushiro Nukaga finally bows to the inevitable and steps down as leader of his Liberal Democratic Party faction. The Nukaga Faction becomes the Takeshita Faction once again, as Wataru Takeshita takes the reins.

Economy

—Kansai Electric Power Company (KEPCO) has restarted the Oi No. 3 nuclear reactor in Fukui Prefecture. It becomes the sixth operational reactor in the nation. KEPCO plans to reactivate Oi No. 4 some weeks from now.

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