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

Top Headline

—Ehime Governor Tokihiro Nakamura releases new documents which explode Abe lies. The documents record that Shinzo Abe met Kotaro Kake in February 2015 and they discussed the Imabari veterinary school project. Abe promised his support. In the Diet, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe flatly denies meeting Kotaro Kake in February 2015. No explanation. No reason why Ehime prefectural officials recorded the meeting in writing. He just says it didn’t happen. Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan leader Yukio Edano responds, correctly, that Prime Minister Shinzo Abe simply denying the new documentary evidence is not sufficient: “If he wants to make a counterargument, it must be based upon evidence.”

Politics

—Sticking to his familiar pattern, former Abe aide Tadao Yanase says he can’t remember attending any meeting with Shinzo Abe and Kotaro Kake in February 2015, nor any instructions to support the veterinary school. It seems that Yanase can’t remember much of anything.

—The Abe government now has the temerity to tell the Diet that it doesn’t long maintain records of who the prime minister meets with and therefore cannot confirm any meeting with Kotaro Kake in February 2015. If so, they ought to resign over incompetence, if not corruption.

—Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan head Yukio Edano stated at a party meeting last Thursday that he was prepared to submit a motion of “no confidence” against the Abe Cabinet and, if necessary, to fight a snap general election in order to prevent passage of the IR Implementation Bill.

—The debate on the IR Implementation Bill began Tuesday in a plenary session of the House of Representatives

—The expected is happening. The new rightwing Party of Hope is becoming like the Japan Innovation Party in siding with the Abe government more than with the opposition parties. Now there are two not-really-opposition-parties in the Diet.

—Tokyo Komae Mayor Kunihiko Takahashi reportedly to resign over the sexual harassment allegations that have been lodged against him.

—Finance Ministry releases boxes of notes regarding its land negotiations with Moritomo Gakuen which the (still un-indicted) Nobuhisa Sagawa repeatedly insisted in the Diet had been discarded. These Finance Ministry documents find a note confirming the statement allegedly made by First Lady Akie Abe in which she praised the plot of land and encouraged Moritomo Gakuen to buy it. The documents also include some sort of interaction between the Finance Ministry and Akie Abe’s personal aide, Saeko Tani. Depending on what it says, we could be getting the smoking gun on the Moritomo Gakuen scandal as well.

—Judge set to release Yasunori and Junko Kagoike on bail after keeping them in prison for almost ten months. The Osaka District Prosecutors expected to appeal, because they want to keep the Kagoikes locked up. Meanwhile, most of the real criminals not facing prosecution.

—Despite scandals, the Hosoda Faction, the largest in the Liberal Democratic Party and Shinzo Abe’s own faction, calling for Abe to be re-elected to an unprecedented third term as party president (and thus prime minister) in September.

—The ruling coalition and allies defeat the “no confidence” motion against Minister Toshimitsu Motegi.

International

—North Korea is apparently willing to revive a 2014 agreement with Japan to re-investigate the fates of Japanese abductees to the country. Pyongyang has contended that it has already handed over the information it possesses. Tokyo rejects that stance and says there is more.

—In Busan, the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions’ confrontation with police and city authorities over the placement of a wartime forced laborer statue near the Japanese consulate continues.

—The Defense Ministry declares itself innocent of any “organizational concealment” of Iraq War documents after conducting a thorough investigation of itself.

Economy

—Prime Minister Shinzo Abe refuses to meet a delegation of family members of those who died from overwork even as he pushes to enact new legislation that will legalize some cases of death by overwork with permitted 100 hours overtime work per month.

—Nuclear Regulation Authority reveals they have found corrosion and holes in ventilation ducts at twelve nuclear reactors in various parts of the nation. Guess they weren’t checking that part of the plants until recently.

—Niigata gubernatorial race campaign period begins tomorrow, pitting the ruling coalition candidate against a united opposition candidate for the first time in a while. The stakes are whether or not TEPCO will be allowed to quickly restart its nuclear reactors.

—Former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi meets opposition Niigata gubernatorial candidate Chikako Ikeda. He doesn’t pledge support but reiterates that in general he advocates the end of the use of nuclear power in Japan.

Society

—Officials approve project that will move an auto expressway underground and make Tokyo’s historic Nihombashi bridge a site worth visiting again. A major error in Tokyo’s urban development will thankfully be corrected after many years.

Note: There were no separate “Today in Japan” reports issued on May 21 and May 22.

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