In this edition of TPR News: A few old favorites are back in the limelight this time - corruption at the Farm Ministry, bullying-related suicide, Japan’s approach to human rights legislation, and the country’s declining population are joined by a facelift for Nagatacho, drugs in sumo, and the latest news in business and the economy.

Politics

The moment we’ve all been waiting for has arrived. The extraordinary Diet session is set to begin on September 12th and will last a mere seventy days, leaving no time for the overrides of the opposition or the fifty-nining of bills that were the hallmark of the recent ordinary Diet session and last year’s extraordinary session. As Shisaku author MTC points out, this will leave a number of contentious issues unresolved.

The Indian Ocean refueling mission, reallocation of road tax revenues into the general fund, and a consumption tax increase, among others, are likely to fall by the wayside as there will be scant time to debate any of the above bills, have them approved by the House of Representatives, shot down by the House of Councillors, and aged for sixty days before being fifty-nined through by the ruling camp’s two-thirds majority in the House of Representatives on the second vote.

While the November 20th close of the session could pave the way for a general election, which would please the LDP’s coalition partner New Komeito, many LDP members have expressed concerns that conditions are not favorable for their side.

Returning to their home districts over the summer, some LDP members were surprised to see the strong presence of the opposition DPJ in their own backyards. While the DPJ is far from being the darling of the voting public in polls, and has not been besting the LDP in any significant way, the public’s discontent with the Fukuda Cabinet and the state of affairs in general is certainly no boon to the ruling party, a situation LDP Election Strategy Council Chairman Makoto Koga called “the most critical situation since the establishment of the party.”

Of course, the LDP could always take the risk of further irritating New Komeito, who’d like to see early elections, by extending the Diet session, which is what brought the close of last year’s extraordinary session to within a couple days of the opening of this year’s ordinary Diet session. Should that happen, there would likely be serious rifts in the ruling coalition.

In echoes of the troubles that dogged the latter half of former Prime Minister Abe’s tenure in office, irregularities on political fund reports are once again causing trouble for the Cabinet and, once again, the spotlight is on the Agriculture Minister. Like two of his three most recent predecessors in the portfolio, Seiichi Ota was called to the carpet over the unexplained use of ￥5.5 million listed merely as “office expenses” on his political fund reports for 2005 and 2006. While the money was supposedly for rent on an office located in the house of an aide, Ota admitted that he had paid the aide no rent.

The phone number for the office, which cost ￥23.46 million to run, was that of Ota’s Diet office, adding to suspicions, voiced by DPJ Secretary General Yukio Hatoyama, that the expenditures were fictitious. Former Farm Minister Matsuoka’s ￥5,000 bottles of water are surely not far from any observer’s mind.

Ota said he’d consider releasing receipts. (Editorial aside: Japan needs a more accessible and enforceable freedom of information law.)

When asked if he’d resign, he said he couldn’t understand the question.

In his short tenure, this is the second time Ota has come under fire. In an August 10th television appearance, while discussing poisoned gyoza, he said, “Japan is safe (regarding food), but we will take thorough (safety measures) because consumers and the general public are whining.”

On the other side of the aisle, the DPJ has opted to forego a party presidential election in favor of maintaining a facade of party unity. Party Public Relations Committee Chairman Yoshihiko Noda has opted not to run against the incumbent Ichiro Ozawa despite his disagreements with the often prickly party leader.

In addition to meaning that Ozawa will retain his job unopposed, Noda’s retraction means that the DPJ fractious membership will not publicly debate the positions it has adopted or the antagonistic stance the party has taken vis a vis the LDP, a move some observers think could hinder the party’s efforts to engender better understanding of its goals and positions among the public - something the party needs to do if it hopes to wrest power from the ruling camp in the next general election and have its President, unifier or not, become Prime Minister.

Whichever side of the aisle he’s from, the next Prime Minister will likely be the first to preside over a Diet doing business out of new digs in Nagatacho. The three seven-storey office blocks that have housed Diet members’ offices since the 1960s are due to be replaced by three new twelve-storey towers in 2010 as part of a four-year, ￥170 billion construction project that will accompanied by a new Capitol Tokyu Hotel, a 29-storey high rise with spa and residential facilities, which will replace the current twelve-storey structure, long the scene of backroom political dealings and the entertainment of movers and shakers.

While lawmakers say the changes are necessary to accomodating all of the lobbyists and advisors they need on hand to make policy, the projects are not an easy sell to a public already irked by the perks politicians grant themselves, including deeply discounted rents in Tokyo’s tony Akasaka district, ample entertainment allowances, massage chairs, and other niceties - all paid for, of course, by the taxpayers who are funding the staggeringly indebted government with higher and higher rates as public benefits continue to shrink.

Business and the Economy

Toyota has announced plans to raise the price of its hybrid Prius model by 3% to 2.38 million yen, while prices for Toyota’s commercial vehicles will increase by about 2%. By raising domestic prices, Toyota will be bringing prices more in line with what the firm charges in overseas markets.

The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport announced that land prices at many of Japan’s prime urban spots have been falling over the past year. Sales of new condominiums has been sluggish as increased construction costs have pushed retail prices over the limit that many buyers are willing to pay. The Nikkei recently announced that Japan’s condo market has entered an “ice age,” as numbers out this week show that the number of new condos put up for sale in Tokyo has hit a 12 year low. Including existing condos, sales in the April-July quarter fell 84%.

At the same time, the total value of real estate purchases by publicly listed firms and investment funds fell 51% in the second quarter of 2008. During that quarter, 163 real estate transactions were made by listed firms and investment funds, versus 333 during the same quarter last year.

In July, Japan’s exports to China exceeded those to the United States for the first time since the end of the second world war. According to data released by the Ministry of Finance, the value of Japan’s exports increased by 8.1% in July. Japan’s trade surplus with the United States fell for the eleventh straight month in July, as Americans continue to postpone purchasing decisions. On the other hand, exports to China rose 16.8% in July, showing a rise for the 38th month in a row. China’s appetite for Japanese imports is expected to wane somewhat now that the Olympics have wrapped up.

Japan’s supermarket sales rose by 0.9% in July, for the first rise in four months and the second time over the past 31 months. Compared to a year ago, supermarket sales were down 1.0% per square meter, as 36 fewer shops were in operation this year. The number of employees at supermarkets fell 7.8% to 413,881.

According to the Nikkei, online broker kabu.com has plans to use a truck as a mobile office where customers can open trading accounts and receive financial advice. Kabu.com is also apparently considering installing ATMs on its trucks.

Beer brewing giant Kirin has announced plans to purchase Australian firm Dairy Farmers for about A$910 million. The purchase price is almost 13 times Dairy Farmer’s FY2008 earnings, in line with recent acquisitions in the industry. A year ago, Kirin paid A$2.8 billion for National Foods, a dairy and juice producer. Kirin is seeking ways to diversify away from sluggish beer sales as it has announced plans to seek acquisitions by assuming debt.

Society

Just as in many other countries around the world, the 2008 Summer Olympiad in Beijing dominated news cycles in Japan over the past couple of weeks. All in all, Japan fared well, finishing eighth in the overall medal standings with nine gold, six silver, and ten bronze. Most notable were the softball team’s surprising upset of the United States to win gold, a silver in men’s fencing, and the bronze Japan’s team won in the men’s 4×100m sprint relay - Japan’s first track medal in 80 years and the first for Japan’s men in longer than that.

Japan’s highly-touted All-Star baseball team failed to medal, losing the bronze medal consolation game to the US. As expected, Japan won most of its medals in judo and wrestling.

Also in the sporting world, sumo had its first-ever drug scandal. No, not HGH or steroids, but dope in the old-fashioned sense.

20-year-old Russian rikishi Wakanoho was caught with a joint. The wrestler, who was 19 and a minor when the incident occurred in June, dropped his wallet, which was later turned into the police. When the police opened the wallet to check the ID inside, they found a small amount of marijuana, rolled into a cigarette with other, unidentified “plant matter.” Wakanoho said he received the joint from a foreigner in Roppongi.

When police later searched his stable and apartment, they found a glass pipe and marijuana residue.

Wakanoho is being charged with possession of illegal drugs. If convicted, he will be banned from the sumo association.

Moving on to other intoxicants, the National Police Agency reported that the number of drunk-driving accidents in 2007 was half that of 2005 - a drop police credit, at least in part, to the stiffer penalties for DUI instituted after a drunk driver killed three children in Fukuoka in August 2006. The new laws not only come down harder on drunk drivers, but also on those found to have provided alcohol or vehicles to people caught driving drunk.

Drunk drivers caused 7,558 accidents in 2007, down 46% from the 13,875 reported in 2006. In the first six months of this year, 3,057 accidents were reported. There were 132 related fatalities - 90 fewer than in the same period last year.

In another bit of good news, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications reported that Japan’s population reached 127,066,178 as of March 31st, an increase of 12,707 over last year. This marks the first increase in three years.

Tokyo saw it’s biggest increase in residents since population dynamics started being tracked in 1968, growing by 100,460 over the past year to reach a population of 12,462,196.

While a small segment of the population, Japan’s minority groups and their rights in society have been drawing the attention of UN Special Rapporteur for Human Right Doudou Dienne, who has repeatedly called for Japan to implement a law barring racial discrimination.

On Friday, the government released a report saying it had made “every conceivable effort” to combat discrimination, citing Article 14 of the Constitution as ample protection of the rights of minorities. The report adds that apartheid is unknown in Japan (as, presumably, it is unknown in many countries that have a law specifically banning racial or xenophobic discrimination and setting out penalties for violations of the law.)

Although the government officially recognized the Ainu, Japan’s most famous minority group, as an indigienous ethnic group in June, the Ainu are still less economically well-off and go on to secondary and tertiary education less often that the population at large.

Finally, back in the Fall of 2006, suicides by students who had been bullied grabbed headlines. In a similar case, the Fukuoka High Court ruled on Monday that the government was responsible for the bullying-related suicide of a Maritime Self-Defense Force sailor who hanged himself in 1999, ordering the government to pay the late sailor’s parents ￥3.5 million in compensation.

Judge Koji Maki said the sailor’s suicide was the result of bullying and insults meant to defame and humiliate him delivered by his superiors.

The decision overturned a 2005 Nagasaki District Court decision that ruled that, while the superior officer’s remarks were inappropriate, were within the scope of training and that the sailor, a petty officer third class, committed suicide was the result of his frustration at his own slow progress.

For a deeper look at the move, take a look at Tobias Harris’s write-up.

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