[TODAY'S TOP STORIES] from [The Japan Times]
[NATIONAL NEWS]
Tuesday, Dec. 29, 2009
High court hits Aug. 30 vote disparity
Poll 'unconstitutional' but stands
OSAKA (Kyodo) The Aug. 30 general election that brought the Democratic Party of Japan to power was "unconstitutional" because the disparity in the value of a vote reached as high as 2.30, the Osaka High Court declared Monday.
While rejecting a demand by an Osaka voter that the election returns in the Osaka No. 9 district be nullified, presiding Judge Kitaru Narita said, "The House of Representatives election, in which the disparity in vote value exceeded 2, is against the spirit of the Constitution."
It is the first judgment of unconstitutionality since the combination of single-seat districts and proportional representation voting was introduced for Lower House elections in 1996.
In the August race, a vote in the Kochi No. 3 district, which has the fewest eligible voters in the nation, was worth 2.30 times as much as a vote in the Chiba No. 4 district, which has the most registered voters, according to government data.
The vote value disparity between the Kochi No. 3 district and the Osaka No. 9 district was 2.05.
"It is not acceptable constitutionally for the legislative body to leave the current situation, in which the disparity exceeds 2, as it is," Narita said.
But the judge added that the election itself is valid because "it would go against the public interest if its outcome is nullified."
It was the first ruling out of eight similar suits filed by voters. During the Osaka High Court litigation, the plaintiff argued that the election failed to provide equal voting rights to the electorate.
[LIFE IN JAPAN]
Tuesday, Dec. 29, 2009
HOTLINE TO NAGATACHO
Reconciliatory value of a visit to Nanjing
By BRIAN A. VICTORIA
Yellow Springs, Ohio
Dear Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama,
You have repeatedly emphasized the need for the creation of an East Asian community. You wrote in the New York Times in August: "The East Asian region, which is showing increasing vitality, must be recognized as Japan's basic sphere of being. So we must continue to build frameworks for stable economic cooperation and security across the region."
While I could not agree more with your sentiments, all of us who are acquainted with Japan's modern history are well aware of this country's troubled past with its Asian neighbors, most especially China and Korea. You, of course, are well aware of this legacy, for you wrote: "Due to historical and cultural conflicts as well as conflicting national security interests, we must recognize that there are numerous difficult political issues." However, you then added: "The more these problems are discussed bilaterally, the greater the risk that emotions become inflamed and nationalism intensified."
Although intractable problems like territorial disputes may best be settled in a multinational framework, I suggest that some events in a nation's history are so traumatic that they need to be addressed directly by the parties involved.
In Japan's case, for example, the atomic bombings of two predominantly civilian-populated cities remain, 60 years later, seared in the nation's memory. Those events were behind the widespread hope that U.S. President Barack Obama would visit Hiroshima and Nagasaki during his recent visit to Japan.
In China's case there is one incident that, more than any other, symbolizes its unhappy relationship with Japan in the 20th century: That which the world knows as the December 1937 Rape of Nanjing.
Needless to say, the exact nature and scale of what occurred at Nanjing remains a matter of acrimonious debate, especially in Japan. Yet, when one reads the words of Commanding Gen.Iwane Matsui, spoken shortly before his execution as a war criminal, there can be no doubt that something horrific occurred. "I am deeply ashamed of the Nanjing Incident," Iwane said. "I told (my staff) that the enhancement of Imperial prestige we had accomplished had been debased in a single stroke by the riotous conduct of the troops."
No doubt some in Japan would claim there is no need to further address the past, pointing to the numerous statements of war apology made by Japan's various postwar leaders, most especially that of former Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama on Aug. 15, 1995. Yet, only two years later, on Aug. 28, 1997, Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto acknowledged: "We must continue our persistent efforts so that China and the other nations of Asia have no reason to doubt us."
It is in this spirit that I ask you to consider making a personal trip to Nanjing to pay your respects, on behalf of the Japanese people, to those many Chinese who were so brutally and needlessly killed. The power of your physical presence will make a far more powerful statement than mere words can ever convey. Should there be any doubt, one only has to recall the impact made by then German Chancellor Willy Brandt when, during a 1970 visit to Poland, he silently knelt in front of the memorial to the Warsaw Ghetto uprising of 1943.
Finally, should you wonder why I, an American, make this proposal, the reason is that as a convert to the Soto Zen school of Buddhism, my spiritual life has been deeply enriched by a tradition that was born and nurtured in both China and Japan. Hence, acknowledging the debt of gratitude I owe both peoples, I cannot but wish for their mutual happiness and welfare. Questions of economic benefit notwithstanding, this cannot be accomplished in the absence of a heartfelt reconciliation between these two great peoples.
Commenting on the ruling, Takemitsu Kadono, the Osaka Prefecture election board chief, said: "It is a very tough decision. We will decide what to do through discussions with the central government."
Ruling on the general election of September 2005, in which the disparity reached as high as 2.17, the grand bench of the Supreme Court determined it was constitutional. But of the 15 justices, six offered a dissenting opinion.
On Monday's high court ruling, Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirofumi Hirano said an unconstitutional state of affairs is not desirable and it is necessary to eliminate it as soon as possible, although he did not elaborate.
Tokuji Izumi, a former Supreme Court justice, said, "Voters in overpopulated areas like Osaka exercise only one-half the voting right compared with those in sparsely populated districts, and it is obvious such a situation is against the Constitution.
"The Diet needs to revise the zoning of the single-seat electoral districts by the next general election," he said.
[NATIONAL NEWS]
Tuesday, Dec. 29, 2009
Tokyo homeless shelter opens
Holiday substitute for '08 Hibiya Park tent city
By MARIKO KATO
Staff writer
A holiday-season shelter set up by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government opened Monday in Shibuya Ward to take in hundreds of laid-off workers.
Funded by the central government, the shelter is a substitute for the tent village set up last year by antipoverty groups in Hibiya Park.
The shelter at the National Olympics Memorial Youth Center will be open through Jan. 4. The complex is the renovated athletes' village for the 1964 Summer Games.
"It is a more difficult situation than last year and the problem has become long-term," Naoto Kan, deputy prime minister and state strategy minister, said while viewing the complex in the afternoon.
Labor and welfare minister Akira Nagatsuma and Mizuho Fukushima, another Cabinet member and leader of the Social Democratic Party, also visited the shelter.
At this time last year, daily reports from the Hibiya Park tent village dominated the holiday news, and about 500 workers received free food, shelter and consultations from nongovernmental organizations and other volunteers.
This year, the government decided to take the initiative and will provide similar support, opening up 500 rooms at the shelter.
"We have already received 350 applications and it looks like it may reach 500," a staff member said.
The complex is open to homeless people who have signed up at government-run Hello Work job centers to look for employment, or registered beforehand by telephone. By early afternoon, more than 100 people had settled in.
The shelter reflects the government's concern that employment conditions have not improved since last year.
The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate rose for the first time in four months to 5.2 percent in November. In the same month, the ratio of job offers to job seekers was a seasonally adjusted 0.45, roughly half the figure at the same time last year.
"There was a man in his 60s who was too ill to work, and had been living in a capsule hotel until yesterday, and three young people who had been living in a park," Nagatsuma said after he spoke to some of the job seekers inside the complex.
Makoto Yuasa, an antipoverty activist and leader of last year's tent village, also visited the shelter as an adviser to the Cabinet and applauded the government's actions.
[NATIONAL NEWS]
Tuesday, Dec. 29, 2009
High court hits Aug. 30 vote disparity
Poll 'unconstitutional' but stands
OSAKA (Kyodo) The Aug. 30 general election that brought the Democratic Party of Japan to power was "unconstitutional" because the disparity in the value of a vote reached as high as 2.30, the Osaka High Court declared Monday.
While rejecting a demand by an Osaka voter that the election returns in the Osaka No. 9 district be nullified, presiding Judge Kitaru Narita said, "The House of Representatives election, in which the disparity in vote value exceeded 2, is against the spirit of the Constitution."
It is the first judgment of unconstitutionality since the combination of single-seat districts and proportional representation voting was introduced for Lower House elections in 1996.
In the August race, a vote in the Kochi No. 3 district, which has the fewest eligible voters in the nation, was worth 2.30 times as much as a vote in the Chiba No. 4 district, which has the most registered voters, according to government data.
The vote value disparity between the Kochi No. 3 district and the Osaka No. 9 district was 2.05.
"It is not acceptable constitutionally for the legislative body to leave the current situation, in which the disparity exceeds 2, as it is," Narita said.
But the judge added that the election itself is valid because "it would go against the public interest if its outcome is nullified."
It was the first ruling out of eight similar suits filed by voters. During the Osaka High Court litigation, the plaintiff argued that the election failed to provide equal voting rights to the electorate.
[LIFE IN JAPAN]
Tuesday, Dec. 29, 2009
HOTLINE TO NAGATACHO
Reconciliatory value of a visit to Nanjing
By BRIAN A. VICTORIA
Yellow Springs, Ohio
Dear Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama,
You have repeatedly emphasized the need for the creation of an East Asian community. You wrote in the New York Times in August: "The East Asian region, which is showing increasing vitality, must be recognized as Japan's basic sphere of being. So we must continue to build frameworks for stable economic cooperation and security across the region."
While I could not agree more with your sentiments, all of us who are acquainted with Japan's modern history are well aware of this country's troubled past with its Asian neighbors, most especially China and Korea. You, of course, are well aware of this legacy, for you wrote: "Due to historical and cultural conflicts as well as conflicting national security interests, we must recognize that there are numerous difficult political issues." However, you then added: "The more these problems are discussed bilaterally, the greater the risk that emotions become inflamed and nationalism intensified."
Although intractable problems like territorial disputes may best be settled in a multinational framework, I suggest that some events in a nation's history are so traumatic that they need to be addressed directly by the parties involved.
In Japan's case, for example, the atomic bombings of two predominantly civilian-populated cities remain, 60 years later, seared in the nation's memory. Those events were behind the widespread hope that U.S. President Barack Obama would visit Hiroshima and Nagasaki during his recent visit to Japan.
In China's case there is one incident that, more than any other, symbolizes its unhappy relationship with Japan in the 20th century: That which the world knows as the December 1937 Rape of Nanjing.
Needless to say, the exact nature and scale of what occurred at Nanjing remains a matter of acrimonious debate, especially in Japan. Yet, when one reads the words of Commanding Gen.Iwane Matsui, spoken shortly before his execution as a war criminal, there can be no doubt that something horrific occurred. "I am deeply ashamed of the Nanjing Incident," Iwane said. "I told (my staff) that the enhancement of Imperial prestige we had accomplished had been debased in a single stroke by the riotous conduct of the troops."
No doubt some in Japan would claim there is no need to further address the past, pointing to the numerous statements of war apology made by Japan's various postwar leaders, most especially that of former Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama on Aug. 15, 1995. Yet, only two years later, on Aug. 28, 1997, Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto acknowledged: "We must continue our persistent efforts so that China and the other nations of Asia have no reason to doubt us."
It is in this spirit that I ask you to consider making a personal trip to Nanjing to pay your respects, on behalf of the Japanese people, to those many Chinese who were so brutally and needlessly killed. The power of your physical presence will make a far more powerful statement than mere words can ever convey. Should there be any doubt, one only has to recall the impact made by then German Chancellor Willy Brandt when, during a 1970 visit to Poland, he silently knelt in front of the memorial to the Warsaw Ghetto uprising of 1943.
Finally, should you wonder why I, an American, make this proposal, the reason is that as a convert to the Soto Zen school of Buddhism, my spiritual life has been deeply enriched by a tradition that was born and nurtured in both China and Japan. Hence, acknowledging the debt of gratitude I owe both peoples, I cannot but wish for their mutual happiness and welfare. Questions of economic benefit notwithstanding, this cannot be accomplished in the absence of a heartfelt reconciliation between these two great peoples.
Commenting on the ruling, Takemitsu Kadono, the Osaka Prefecture election board chief, said: "It is a very tough decision. We will decide what to do through discussions with the central government."
Ruling on the general election of September 2005, in which the disparity reached as high as 2.17, the grand bench of the Supreme Court determined it was constitutional. But of the 15 justices, six offered a dissenting opinion.
On Monday's high court ruling, Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirofumi Hirano said an unconstitutional state of affairs is not desirable and it is necessary to eliminate it as soon as possible, although he did not elaborate.
Tokuji Izumi, a former Supreme Court justice, said, "Voters in overpopulated areas like Osaka exercise only one-half the voting right compared with those in sparsely populated districts, and it is obvious such a situation is against the Constitution.
"The Diet needs to revise the zoning of the single-seat electoral districts by the next general election," he said.
[NATIONAL NEWS]
Tuesday, Dec. 29, 2009
Tokyo homeless shelter opens
Holiday substitute for '08 Hibiya Park tent city
By MARIKO KATO
Staff writer
A holiday-season shelter set up by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government opened Monday in Shibuya Ward to take in hundreds of laid-off workers.
Funded by the central government, the shelter is a substitute for the tent village set up last year by antipoverty groups in Hibiya Park.
The shelter at the National Olympics Memorial Youth Center will be open through Jan. 4. The complex is the renovated athletes' village for the 1964 Summer Games.
"It is a more difficult situation than last year and the problem has become long-term," Naoto Kan, deputy prime minister and state strategy minister, said while viewing the complex in the afternoon.
Labor and welfare minister Akira Nagatsuma and Mizuho Fukushima, another Cabinet member and leader of the Social Democratic Party, also visited the shelter.
At this time last year, daily reports from the Hibiya Park tent village dominated the holiday news, and about 500 workers received free food, shelter and consultations from nongovernmental organizations and other volunteers.
This year, the government decided to take the initiative and will provide similar support, opening up 500 rooms at the shelter.
"We have already received 350 applications and it looks like it may reach 500," a staff member said.
The complex is open to homeless people who have signed up at government-run Hello Work job centers to look for employment, or registered beforehand by telephone. By early afternoon, more than 100 people had settled in.
The shelter reflects the government's concern that employment conditions have not improved since last year.
The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate rose for the first time in four months to 5.2 percent in November. In the same month, the ratio of job offers to job seekers was a seasonally adjusted 0.45, roughly half the figure at the same time last year.
"There was a man in his 60s who was too ill to work, and had been living in a capsule hotel until yesterday, and three young people who had been living in a park," Nagatsuma said after he spoke to some of the job seekers inside the complex.
Makoto Yuasa, an antipoverty activist and leader of last year's tent village, also visited the shelter as an adviser to the Cabinet and applauded the government's actions.
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