Word: matsuoka
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...large number of LDP candidates rode the coattails of popular Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi into office. But no one could have predicted the litany of disasters that have beset Abe over the past two months, including the suicide of one minister under a cloud of corruption (Agriculture Minister Toshikatsu Matsuoka), the resignation of another (Defense Minister Fumio Kyuma) for a foolish remark on the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings, and worst of all, the pension crisis. "The LDP has begun to melt down," gloats Tsuyoshi Yamaguchi, a high-ranking DPJ member. A recent survey by the Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper pegged...
...Prime Minister's office, bureaucrats have recovered some of the influence they'd lost under Koizumi's reform-minded administration. Abe's own ministers have fallen into scandal after scandal. By July 8 even one of Abe's substitute ministers-Agriculture Minister Norihiko Akagi, named to replace the late Matsuoka-was mired in a fresh campaign-funding scandal. "He's just not any good at picking his team," says Jun Iio, a professor at the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies (GRIPS). "When he faces a crisis, his easygoing style isn't effective...
...Minister's swooning administration. A weekend poll reported that Abe's popularity had dropped below 30% for the first time, with a disapproval rating of nearly 50%. Kyuma is the third cabinet-level minister to exit during Abe's nine-month tenure; barely a month ago Agriculture Minister Toshikatsu Matsuoka committed suicide under the shadow of corruption allegations. Meanwhile Japanese are enraged over recent revelations that millions of public pension accounts could no longer be matched to their owners because of decade-old bureaucratic errors, meaning some could end up short-changed come retirement...
...Japan, where taking one's own life has long been an honorable way to express shame, efforts are under way to lower the country's enormously high suicide rate. But after National Farm Minister Toshikatsu Matsuoka hanged himself in his apartment--he was about to face questions over a series of government scandals--Cabinet official Takanori Suzuki, citing "a kind of crisis," announced plans for an intensified battle against suicide, adding, "We will have to move quickly." Matsuoka...
Only a nation as acutely conscious of the opinions of others as Japan was in the 1930s could have felt so betrayed by foreign criticism. After a mild censure in the League of Nations of Japan's annexation of Manchuria, the Japanese Foreign Minister, Matsuoka Yosuke, walked out of the assembly and likened Japan's fate to that of Christ on the cross - an odd comparison coming from an ultranationalist Japanese who advocated an alliance with Hitler. It was, of course, around that time that the Western image of Japan began to darken; no longer comical copycats waltzing in evening...