In this edition of TPR News: The gaffes that keep on giving, the LDP and opposition split local elections on Sunday, victims of the A-bomb get their due, Fujiya tries to clean up its act, JAL slims down, bird flu is spreading, some pricey luxury goods go on sale, and much more.

Society

What worse than being a victim of the atomic bomb? Being a victim of the atomic bomb, hibakusha, and having to fight for compensation already awarded to you.

Things just got a little better for two hibakusha, though. On Tuesday, the Supreme Court ordered the Hiroshima prefectural government to pay 2.9 million yen to three survivors who had emigrated to Brazil. From 1974 to 2003, Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare Directive No. 402 made only those hibakusha living in Japan eligible to receive compensation. In 1994 and ‘95, Hosokawa Teruo, Horioka Mitsugu, and Mukai Shoji returned to Japan after living in Sao Paulo for as long as forty years, then returned to Brazil to have their payments cut off. They sued in 2002, then Directive No. 402 was repealed, and the Hiroshima government paid them back benefits for five years, as would be done with other benefits.

The Supreme Court, though, held up a prefectural court ruling by saying, “To claim that the time limit had expired goes against the principles of faith and trust, and is not acceptable,” and called Directive 402 illegal and “based on no grounds whatsoever,” thus making Messrs. Hosokawa and Horioka the first of potentially hundreds of hibakusha to collect back benefits. Mr. Mukai died in December.

Japan’s fourth outbreak of the H5N1 strain of avian influenza was confirmed Saturday in Shinotomi, Miyazaki, Japan’s largest chicken-producing region and the site of two of the previous three outbreaks. Although only one person has so far fallen ill and Japan has had no human deaths related to bird flu, national and prefectural government officials held a drill to demonstrate Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare guidelines in Kitajima, Fukushima.

What makes people happy? Well, in the fine tradition of meaningless conflation of disparate factors to imply a potentially unreasonable result, this observer will tell you that a poll conducted by Durex found that adults from 41 countries around the world self-report having sex an average of 103 times a year; in Japan, which came in at number 41, the average was 45 times a year, presumably some of those times with another person. Out of fourteen countries surveyed by MTV International on the subject of happiness, Japan also came in last with eight percent of sixteen to thrity-four-year-olds saying they were happy.

So it’s true, people love puppies.

Despite the country’s outspoken opposition to Japanese whaling, New Zealand complied with a direct request from the government of Japan, airlifted an ill sailor from his ship, and has him under guard in the hospital where he is being treated to protect him from overzealous anti-whaling activists.

New Zealand also refused to release the coordinates of the ship to Greenpeace and other anti-whaling groups who seek to intercept and harass the whalers. Nevertheless, the whaling vessel was not allowed into New Zealand’s exclusion zone, even during the rescue.

How much would you pay for one of 786 Baccarat crystal bottles containing Louis XIII Black Pearl French brandy, a blend of 1,200 unblended brandies? Well, if it’s less than one million yen, you can’t have one of the 60 to 70 to be imported by Asahi.

Should you wish to show your appreciation to TPR in style, you can order through liquor or department stores through March 7th.

We don’t want the sixty-five bags desigined or decorated by American and Japanese celebrities that will be auctioned off by Coach Japan in March, but we do think donating money to Conservation International is nice.

How does bail work in Japan? Jun Hongo of The Japan Times explains it in an interesting column. It’s not much different from how bail works in other developed countries.

Business

Japan Air Lines, which lost 47.2 billion yen in the last fiscal year, which ended March 31st, plans to encourage 1,000 employees to accept early retirement as part of its improvement plans that call for a reduction in the workforce by 3,000 over three years and a 50 billion yen reduction in personnel expenses by 2009. In an attempt to show serious intent and gain union approval, top executives will take a pay cut and President Nishimatsu Haruka and board members could take a pay cut of over 50%.

Realizing that its insistence on the blatant lie that it had thorough hygiene procedures in place was not helping it recover from a string of scandals, Fujiya Co. decided to accept assistance from Yamazaki Baking Co., which uses procedures based on strict US rules. The two firms also discussed a capital tie-up.

Who doesn’t like sukiyaki or other beef dishes in the winter? Apparently not many folks in Japan. Demand drove short loin prices up to an average of 718 yen per 100 grams, their highest level since August 2003.

Chubu Electric Power Co. President Mita Toshio sees nuclear power as the only feasible option to supply the Chubu area with the power its growing economy demands. In an interview with the Yomiuri Shimbun, he said CEPCo intended to bring the No.5 reactor at the Hamaoka Nuclear Power Plant, which suffered turbine damage, back on line and that building new nuclear power plants would be unavoidable as reliable supplies of fossil fuels became more difficult to obtain.

US Representative John Dingell has urged Congress and the White House to push Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson to accuse Japan of fixing the yen’s exchange rate and take steps to put pressure on Japan in the G7.

Politics

Local elections often act as referenda on the ruling party and its recent travails and Sunday’s Aichi gubernatorial and Kita-Kyushu mayoral elections were no exception. With controversy still swirling in the wake of Health, Labor, and Welfare Minister Yanagisawa Hakuo’s ill-considered remark calling women birth-giving machines and the opposition boycotting the current Diet session as they demand his resignation, voters went to the polls and partially calmed the ruling LDP’s fears, while possibly saving Yanagisawa’s job after a campaign in which the opposition did its best to make sure Cabinet Ministers’ gaffes stayed fresh in voters’ minds.

LDP members in the House of Councillors had joined the call for the ill-spoken minister’s resignation in the fear that his gaffe would hurt the party and the government, both suffering from low popularity ratings, and cost the Councillors their jobs in the July Upper House elections.

The Upper House members seemed satisfied, though, by the the reelection of LDP candidate Kanda Masaaki to a third term as Governor of Aichi, despite LDP member Shibata Takahiro’s loss to Kitahashi Kenji, who was backed by a coalition of opposition parties, in Kita-Kyushu’s mayoral election.

Yanagisawa is not yet in the clear, though, as the DPJ and other opposition parties said they have no intention of reducing the pressure on Prime Minister Abe, Yanagisawa, or the rest of the administration. DPJ Secretary-General Hatoyama Yukio said the DPJ would continue to seek Yanagisawa’s resignation, but would consider returning to the Diet in time to debate the 2007 budget proposal, which could begin today.

Perhaps a longer-term impact of public disaffection with the LDP are Asahi Shimbun exit polls from Sunday’s elections showing that the ruling party is losing support among increasingly important independent voters. In Aichi’s gubernatorial election, opposition candidate Ishida Yoshihiro lost the race, but won 55% of unaffiliated votes and victorious Kitahashi won 60% of unaffiliated votes in Kita-Kyushu.

The poll also showed that an overwhelming majority, 84%, of voters like open, competitive democracy. Sunday was the first time in thirty-two years that candidates from the ruling party and the opposition faced off in a gubernatorial election in Aichi. Previously, parties had joined to support candidates, thus offering voters less of a choice on the ballot.

“If North Korea does not take a sincere attitude toward the abduction issue, Japan will basically not support measures (to aid the North),” said Abe Shinzo, explaining that he wanted the abduction issue to become a higher priority and wanted to put some teeth into Japan’s stance, marking the first time Japan has linked its support or lack thereof to the issue.

Under the 1994 Agreed Framework, Japan, along with the US and South Korea, was to pay 20% of the bill for the construction of a light-water reactor and help supply fuel oil to North in exchange for the Kim Family Regime’s ending of its nuclear program.

The Last Word

It is not often, in any sort of conflict or standoff, that one can say one side or the other is clearly in the wrong. Kim Jong Il is not a common character. By agreeing to suspend his nuclear program in exchange for a light-water reactor, fuel oil, and other forms of aid, Kim was taking a step forward. By launching a Taepodong missile over Japan in 1998, he backed up. By admitting that North Korea had abducted some Japanese nationals, even though Tokyo knew it, then allowing some to leave his hermit fiefdom, he was nodding in the direction of rational behavior. By stonewalling further inquiries into the issue, providing no evidence to back up his claims that the others happened to die of illnesses and natural causes at relatively young ages, then launching seven missiles, including the Taepodong 2, which was aimed to fly over Japan, then testing a nuclear bomb, Kim was doing everything he could to act in bad faith and to engender the ill will of the rest of the world, particularly Japan.

Japan is absolutely in the right to suspend aid to North Korea, apply sanctions against the country, and demand that the game be played by its rules. Japan is right to use its power to put pressure on a tyrannical regime.

However, Japan, as justified as it may be in its frustration and anger, must set priorities and take action in reality, whether or not the Kim Regime is even aware of reality’s existence.

The one thing on which all five of the non-DPRK participants in the Six-Party Talks should be able to agree is the primacy of the nuclear issue. For all of the participants, especially the three democratic and open countries - the United States, the Republic of Korea, and Japan - no lesser issue will matter much at all should the Kim Regime decide to use the threat of nuclear attack as bargaining chip, which they will, sell or otherwise proliferate their nuclear technology, which is likely, or actually use a nuclear weapon. The trouble with nuclear weapons is that they instantly become the indisputable priority in any situation into which they are introduced.

The Abe Government, though, doesn’t have its head in the game. This is politically understandable. After all, the abduction issue is a human drama - people with names, faces, speaking and crying family members were snatched from the beaches and held prisoner by a fearsome, violent madman who enslaved and brainwashed them. There are still some abductees there. It’s a rescue.

Furthermore, the North Korean abduction issue is what brought Abe to prominence. He was popular - a bright, young rising star of a Chief Cabinet Secretary - when he was hammering North Korea over the abductions. He was a man of ideas, maybe even better than Koizumi. Chicks dug ‘im.

Just over four months in office, the early part of his first ordinary Diet session as Prime Minister, and already there’s something of the aura of the lame duck around him. His popularity is low, the opposition is getting bolder (albeit not much), he has credibility pretty much only in foreign policy. Why wouldn’t he push that?

Why wouldn’t he push the abduction issue? It’s easy - not much nuance of stance is necessary. “We’re right; they’re wrong.” Done.

It’s neither surprising nor difficult to understand why Abe would want to make the abduction issue a priority. As mentioned a moment ago, though, he shouldn’t. In order to pressure on North Korea to bring an end to its nuclear program, head off future threats, get urgent help to the Kim Regime’s victims, and maybe even set the DPRK down the path to a soft fall, the efforts of North Korea’s opponents must be solid.

Yes, there is a working groups in Beijing to asuage the wounds that are obstacles to normalization between Japan and North Korea. Discussions on abductions should take place, but Japan needs to make it abundantly clear that every carrot and every stick is dangling from denuclearization. Anything less makes everything else mere trimmings on the plate of danger.

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