In this edition of TPR News, Japan’s contribution to the ‘war on terror’ is under fire, a former Defense Agency chief is in trouble over a new scandal, Prime Minister Fukuda’s approval ratings, Nova files for bankruptcy protection, the 40th Tokyo Motor Show opens, problems with pregnant women finding hospitals, why you won’t find ‘cool biz’ in a Kojien dictionary anytime soon, and much, much more…

Politics

“Doing pretty much whatever the US wants is not good enough if you don’t do it post haste,” is the message being put forth lately by the US, apparently not too happy with Japan for. . . uhm. . . apparently for doing what the US wants but not in the way the US wants.

On Wednesday, at the National Press Club, US Ambassador Thomas Schieffer busted out the Bush administration’s favorite card, the “if you don’t do what we say, you’re supporting the terrorists” card by saying that cessation of the Maritime Self-Defense Force’s refueling mission in the Indian Ocean “would be sending a very bad message to the international community and to terrorists, because I think it would be saying that Japan is opting out of the war on terror for whatever reason.”

It used to be, “If you’re not for us, you’re against us,” now it seems to be, “If you’re not for us in the right way or enthusiastically enough, you’re letting the terrorists win.”

US Defense Secretary Robert Gates, fresh from expressing his dissatisfaction with NATO members for not being able to come up with the troops they pledged for Afghanistan, is set to visit Japan in early November. If he keeps up with other Bush administration officials, more bullying is to be expected.

Back to Ambassador Schieffer, who took the unusual step of privately cabling the President to warn that the pending nuclear deal with North Korea could harm relations with Japan, which is still worried about the abduction issue, and to complain that the US Embassy in Tokyo had been all but cut out of the Six Party Talks process. In short, the Government of Japan will not accept a deal with North Korea until a satisfactory settlement to the abduction issue is reached. Furthermore, Japan is steadfastly against removing North Korea from America’s list of state sponsors of terrorism while the abduction issue remains unresolved and fears that the US is moving toward such a step.

(Thanks to Observing Japan author Tobias Harris.)

With all of this in the air, Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda is set to travel to Washington in early November, when both North Korea, including the abduction issue, and the future of the MSDF mission and Japan’s involvement in supporting the ISAF mission in Afghanistan are sure to come up.

In the Diet, as the November 1st expiration date for the current anti-terrorism special measures law approaches and Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba gets set to sign an order for the return of the two MSDF vessels in the Indian Ocean, the opposition camp is having a field day with the scandal surrounding events in 2003 in an attempt to stymie the LDP’s passage of a new bill extending the mission.

The controversy revolves around two main points: First, that the then-Defense Agency covered up false data underreporting the amount of fuel transferred from MSDF vessels to American vessels, which may have passed that fuel on to ships, particularly the USS Kitty Hawk, that may have been using it when they participated in Operation Iraqi Freedom, and not just in Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan. Second, that then-Vice Chief of the Defense Agency Takemasa Moriya had close ties to a senior executive of Yamada Corp., a company involved in business with the Defense Agency.

While the ruling coalition has agreed to swear Moriya as a witness before the Diet, the opposition DPJ wants officers involved in the cover-up and senior officers at that time to also give sworn testimony. On Tuesday, DPJ Secretary General Yukio Hatoyama told reporters, “The Defense Ministry is a hotbed of corruption and information cover-ups. A precondition for deliberating the bill will be clearing up all suspicions.”

This past week, prosecutors began looking into whether or not Moriya had used his influence to win contracts with the Defense Agency for Yamada Corp.

In its Thursday morning edition, the Nikkei reported that Prime Minister Fukuda’s attempts to reduce the power of the kantei may be backfiring by exposing him to the influence of Japan’s real rulers, the bureaucrats.

The trouble is that no matter how scandal-ridden the Prime Minister’s office had become under Koizumi and, especially, Abe, the bureaucracy is no stranger to shady dealings and abuse of power. In just a month since becoming Prime Minister, Fukuda has seen the power of the already powerful Ministry of Finance leap. The MOF, among other things, has established a consultation body between the government and the ruling parties over social security and tax system reform. According to the Nikkei:

The ostensive purpose of this body is to bolster ties between the government and ruling coalition, but it is clear that its hidden agenda is to take the Council on Economic and Fiscal Policy out of the picture. The CEFP was the driver behind a series of reform initiatives undertaken by Koizumi.

The body is modeled after the Conference on Fiscal Structure Reform under the government of Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto. Following this panel’s recommendation, the government raised the consumption tax to 5%, resulting in the LDP’s historic defeat in the upper house election in 1998. Hashimoto subsequently stepped down.

On top of this, the Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare is embroiled in a scandal over its cover up of data related to the infection of roughly 10,000 people with Hepatitis C after receiving tainted blood products.

And this at a time when the new Prime Minister is already facing opposition in the Diet that few LDP leaders have seen.

So the Fukuda premiership is not going the way many, including Fukuda himself, thought it would. What does the public think?

Well, the most recent Nikkei poll puts the PM’s approval rating at 55%, a drop of four points since the last survey.

Business and the Economy

English language school operator Nova has filed for bankruptcy protection under the Corporate Rehabilitation Act. According to reports, Nova declared 43.9 billion yen in liabilities to the end of July, and some sources have placed Nova’s current liabilities in the range of 60 billion yen. Four firms have been named as possible ’sponsors’ for Nova as it goes through rehabilitation, including Yahoo Japan, internet retailer Rakuten, department store operator Marui, and Aeon, Japan’s largest retailer. If a suitable business partner cannot be found, Nova be be forced to enter bankruptcy liquidation.

According to the Asahi, on Friday, a Hello Work center in the Kabukicho area of Shinjuku in Tokyo set up a dedicated window to provide consultations to Nova employees, including the firm’s foreign teachers. Nine staff members and three interpreters are on hand to provide information to employees.

On the back of selling 7.33 million units of its Wii gaming consoles, Nintendo has become Japan’s second largest company by market capitalization, replacing the Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group and now trailing only Toyota. Nintendo has also sold about 13.4 million of its DS consoles. By appealing to a larger market than traditional video games, Nintendo has been successful at marketing the DS to adults and retirees as well as young people. In September, Microsoft’s X Box outsold the Wii for the first time since both products have been launched. Nintendo has also announced that it will begin sales of the Wii console in China and South Korea from next year.

Members of the public will have their chance to name the new Tokyo Tower structure. The Shin-Tokyo Tower Co., a subsidiary of Tobu Railway, is managing the construction of the new tower, and will allow members of the public to submit suggestions for the new tower’s name at their website or by postcard until November 25. A depiction of the tower, which was designed by world-renown architect Tadao Ando, may be seen on the Shin Tokyo Tower Company’s tower naming website.

The 40th annual Tokyo Motor Show has opened in Makuhari Messi, in Chiba Prefecture. Although much of the focus this year is on cleaner and greener automobiles, this observer is most excited to see the revamped Nissan GT-R, the successor of Nissan’s Skyline series, which fell out of production seven years ago. The Tokyo Motor Show runs until Sunday, November 11.

Wal-Mart announced that it will spend a pretty penny in order to turn Japan’s Seiyu Corporation into a wholly-owned subsidiary. In August, Japan Economy News reported that struggling supermarket chain Seiyu was set to post its sixth consecutive year of losses in 2007. Wal-Mart, which has spent over $1 billion to acquire a controlling share of the firm, announced in September that it would spend 4.5 billion yen in an effort to let 450 workers go this year. Wal-Mart intends to offer 140 yen per share of Seiyu, in a transaction that may cost up to 40 billion yen. As of the end of June, Seiyu still held 328.6 billion yen in interest-bearing liabilities on its balance sheet.

According to the Yomiuri, Japan’s rice prices are at risk of falling this winter due to oversupply and lack of demand. According to the public utility Kome Kakaku Center (Rice Planning Center), the average price for all brands of rice at the organization’s October 10 auction was 7.9% lower than last year.

If the prospect of paying less for your rice has you worried, there might be no need to fret. According to today’s Nikkei, the Ministry of Agriculture is considering buying about 230,000 tons of rice to add to its rice stockpiles, which are supposed to be made available in the event of an emergency. Until now, it has been government policy to not make purchases of rice that would affect the product’s retail price.

On the economic side, core consumer prices fell for the ninth month in a row in September, dropping 0.1% from the same month last year. Growth in Japan’s exports has slowed down, and sales at the nation’s supermarkets fell for the 21st consecutive month in September, down 1% over the past year.

For more on economic reports and the state of Japan’s economy, please visit our sister site, Japan Economy News.

Society

The Toei Oedo subway line in Tokyo experienced some electricity problems this week. The result of two blackouts that hit in quick succession was that more than a thousand people got stuck in a packed train with no lights 200 meters shy of Shin-ekoda station.

For those who have ridden the Oedo line, you will recall that it is the smallest of the train lines in Tokyo in terms of carriage space. The Oedo line was heralded as a modern, energy-saving train when the full loop around Tokyo was completed in December 2000. However, the fact that the line had to be built under everything else in Tokyo, including three tunnels under the Sumida river, means that any cost-saving afforded by the smaller size of the trains and tunnels has been negligible. While the size of the trains had nothing to do with the power-outage, it can be safely assumed that an uncomfortable experience was had by all. No serious injuries were reported, although several people became sick during the blackout.

More revelations of pregnant women being rejected by hospitals have been pouring in. It was reported that more than 1,000 women had to wait more than half an hour for admission to a hospital in 2006. Many hospitals claim that they are short-staffed and cannot accept additional patients. 667 women were refused admission by three or more hospitals during that time, and 45 women were rejected by 10 or more.

The survey of nationwide rejections was brought about by a case in August in which a woman suffered a miscarriage while waiting to be admitted to a hospital.

The Hiroshima civilian protection council has determined that 270,000 casualties would result from a modern-day repeat of the August 6, 1945 atomic bombing of the city. It was concluded that about 70,000 citizens would perish in such an attack, a number that is significantly lower than some 62 years ago when twice that number died. It was hypothesized that the widespread use of concrete in buildings would be enough to reduce the number of overall fatalities, but that the number of resulting injuries would then be higher.

Due to the fact that authorities would be able to do little to protect the public in the event of a nuclear bombing, the committee concluded that the only way to protect the city and its population was for nuclear weapons to be completely abolished.

Iwanami Shoten, the publishers of the ubiquitous Kojien Japanese dictionary, has decided to add some 10,000 lexical items to the newest edition which will be published in January 2008.

As many as 100,000 new words had originally been considered for the new dictionary, but 90% of them were cut after the brilliant linguists at the publishing house decided that they would not remain popular for long.

Words that didn’t make the cut? One notable exception was the buzz phrase, “cool biz”, which, by the way, is wholeheartedly endorsed by the government and most clothes retailers south of Hokkaido. Words that were deemed satisfactory include “NEET” (which stands for not in employment, education or training) and “gyakugire” (which means becoming offensive or aggressive without reflecting on one’s actions).

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