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

The Top Headline

—Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan leads opposition call for Nobuhisa Sagawa to be indicted on the charge of committing perjury in his Moritomo Gakuen related Diet testimony.

Politics

—Shimonoseki School Board refuses to support lecture by former top Ministry of Education bureaucrat and anti-Abe whistleblower Kihei Maekawa. The Board of Education insists their decision has nothing to do with politics in Abe’s home prefecture of Yamaguchi.

—Finance Ministry admits in the Diet that an official asked Moritomo Gakuen to lie about the amount of garbage removal from the elementary school construction site. If so, why is Yasunori Kagoike still being jailed? Isn’t the basis of the charge that he conned the ministry?

—NHK poll has Abe Cabinet support dropping six points to 38%, with disapproval shooting up to 45%. This is more-or-less in line with the results of other news organizations’ polls.

—Defense Minister Itsunori Onodera apologizes once again and announces that South Sudan daily logs previously said to be discarded have been found. Onodera admits that the Defense Ministry has not been handling information disclosure requests properly, and promises to fix it.

—The merger of the Democratic Party and the Party of Hope likely to occur in early May. The big question is whether of not enough lawmakers will join it so that it would become larger than the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan.

—Democratic Party House of Councillors lawmaker Hideya Sugio announces that he will not join the new merged party with the Party of Hope, but he will instead apply to join the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan.

International

—North Korea tells the Trump administration that it is willing to discuss de-nuclearization in forthcoming talks.

Society

—Jailbreak! Convicted thief escapes from a prison in Imabari city (home of the new Kake Gakuen veterinary school) and successfully flees from Shikoku to Honshu via a stolen car.

—6.1 magnitude earthquake rattled Shimane Prefecture overnight. One teenager was shaken off his bed and broke his leg. Ouch!

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