Word: ohira
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...Ohira loses face and muscle
Beefy, forceful Premier Masayoshi Ohira is affectionately, and sometimes not so affectionately, known as "the Bull.' After last week's parliamentary elections he appeared to be about as invincible and fire-breathing as Ferdinand. Gloated one opposition leader: "This election was his idea completely, and he fell flat on his face...
Eager for new spending appropriations, officials of Japan's self-defense forces stressed the potential "Soviet threat" to Japan's main northern island of Hokkaido. But Premier Masayoshi Ohira, who was busy with the final stage of Japan's election campaign, tried to play down the controversy. Among other things, he feared that a strident debate over the islands would further poison Soviet-Japanese relations, already damaged by Tokyo's friendship treaty with China last year. Accordingly, his Foreign Minister, Sunao Sonoda, dovishly cautioned against "overreaction," sounding very much like U.S. officials on the Cuban issue...
...still burn more petroleum than ever. In the U.S., where domestic oil output has been declining (down about 700,000 bbl. a day since 1972), a freeze on imports would cause more hardship. Japan, which is totally dependent on imported oil, took the same view; Prime Minister Masayoshi Ohira reportedly dismissed the European plan as "very clever." Canada, where domestic oil production is also leveling off, joined the U.S. and Japan in urging that the summiteers set specific, country-by-country import quotas, adjusted to reflect each nation's differing circumstances...
...principal opponent was not Giscard but German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt, who conducted what the American President wearily described to aides as a filibuster in favor of the European plan; the difficult personal relations between the two had rarely been more strained. Among the newcomers to economic summitry, Japan's Ohira, the chairman of the meeting, seemed to his colleagues to be unable to control the discussions. British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher again came across as a very tough leader, and Canadian Prime Minister Joe Clark seemed to other summiteers to be cool and precise...