Suga bows out of party vote, paves way for new Japan leader

Japan's Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga bows after a press conference on the Covid-19 coronavirus in Tokyo. (File/AFP)
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Updated 03 September 2021
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Suga bows out of party vote, paves way for new Japan leader

  • Suga said heading the pandemic response and campaigning to lead his governing Liberal Democratic Party at the same time divided his energies
  • He has faced criticism and nosediving public support over a coronavirus response seen as too slow and limited

TOKYO: Amid growing criticism of his handling of the pandemic, Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga said Friday he won’t run for the leadership of the governing party later this month, paving the way for a new Japanese leader after just a year in office.
Suga told reporters that heading Japan’s pandemic response and campaigning to lead his governing Liberal Democratic Party at the same time divided his energies. “I have decided not to run for the party leadership elections, as I would like to focus on coronavirus measures,” Suga told reporters who rushed to his office after the news broke.
Suga has faced criticism and nosediving public support over a coronavirus response seen as too slow and limited and for holding the Olympics despite the public’s health concerns. His hope of having the Olympic festivities help turn around his plunging popularity was also dashed.
He said he had put all his energy into important issues including the virus response since he took office.
“But doing both takes enormous energy and I have decided that I should just choose one or the other,” he said. “As I have repeatedly said, protecting people’s lives and health is my responsibility as prime minister, and that’s what I will dedicate myself to.”
The Liberal Democrats and their coalition partner have a majority in parliament, meaning whoever wins the Sept. 29 party vote is virtually guaranteed to become the new prime minister.
The official start of the party campaign is Sept. 17. Candidacy requires factional support largely controlled by party heavyweights, and their choices may not match those favored in public opinion surveys.
Two Cabinet ministers in former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s government have come out as potential candidates: dovish former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida, currently seen as a top contender, and former Interior Minister Sanae Takaichi, who shares Abe’s rightwing ideology.
Current Vaccinations Minister Taro Kono also expressed interest on Friday, saying he will make a final decision after consulting fellow lawmakers. Former Defense Miniter Shigeru Ishiba, a favorite in media surveys, and Seiko Noda, former gender equality minister, also reportedly have expressed intentions to run.
Kishida has criticized Suga’s handling of the pandemic and recently proposed a series of virus measures, including more funding, a pledge to secure more hospital beds and creation of a health crisis management agency to centralize pandemic measures.
Kono, the son of the longest-serving lower house speaker and grandson of a former deputy prime minister, is a political blue blood and has served as foreign and defense ministers. He regularly communicates on social media and is popular among younger voters.
Suga’s decision is largely seen as a political move so the party can have a fresh leader before national elections later this year. The lower house term ends in late October and elections must be held by late November.
Suga took office in mid-September a year ago after Abe resigned due to health problems, to fill in the rest of Abe’s three-year term.
The son of a strawberry farmer from Japan’s northern prefecture of Akita, Suga enjoyed support ratings as high as 70 percent early in his tenure because he was seen as a leader from the common people rather than blue-blood political families like Abe.
Suga introduced a series of pragmatic measures including digital transformation of the economy and administrative reforms, but his support ratings slid quickly over his coronavirus measures as Japan’s outbreak grew.
His downfall started late last year when he bumbled a travel promotion campaign as the pandemic was worsening. He was forced into declaring a state of emergency in January and has since repeatedly expanded and extended the emergency measures, most recently until Sept. 12. In the latest media surveys, his support ratings have declined to around 26 percent.
“Being forced to live under restrictions, people have become increasingly frustrated and their dissatisfaction is nearing its peak, and that’s the biggest reason causing Suga’s administration to end,” the Mainichi newspaper commented.
The emergency has largely focused on requests for eateries to close early and not serve alcohol, while requests for people to stay home and social distance have largely been ignored.
Suga has been criticized for presenting an overly optimistic outlook on the pandemic and for not sending convincing messages to the people to instill a sense of crisis. His vaccine-dependent policies also exposed people to risk while the vaccination campaign faced delays.
Although the pace of new cases in Tokyo has somewhat slowed, experts say a resurgence can occur any time and the health care system is under severe pressure with hospitals filled with serious cases and tens of thousands of sick people recovering at home.


University students lead a strike in Serbia as populist president plans a rally to counter protests

Updated 56 min 57 sec ago
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University students lead a strike in Serbia as populist president plans a rally to counter protests

  • Daily traffic blockades took place on Friday in various cities and towns in the Balkan nation
  • “Let’s take freedom in our hands,” students told the citizens in their strike call

BELGRADE: A student-led strike closed down numerous businesses and drew tens of thousands into the streets throughout Serbia on Friday as populist President Aleksandar Vucic planned a big rally to counter persistent anti-government protests that have challenged his tight grip on power.
Daily traffic blockades took place on Friday in various cities and towns in the Balkan nation, held to commemorate the victims of a deadly canopy collapse which killed 15 people in November. Huge crowds later flooded the streets for noisy protest marches through the capital Belgrade and elsewhere in the country.
“Let’s take freedom in our hands,” students told the citizens in their strike call.
Many in Serbia believe the huge concrete canopy at a train station in the northern city of Novi Sad fell down because of sloppy reconstruction work that resulted from corruption.
Weeks-long protests demanding accountability over the crash have been the biggest since Vucic came to power more than a decade ago. He has faced accusations of curbing democratic freedoms despite formally seeking European Union membership for Serbia.
It was not immediately possible to determine how many people and companies joined the students’ call for a one-day general strike on Friday. They included restaurants, bars, theaters, bakeries, various shops and bookstores.
Vucic will gather his supporters in the central town of Jagodina later on Friday. He has announced plans to form a nationwide political movement in the style of Russia’s President Vladimir Putin that would help ensure the dominance of his right-wing Serbian Progressive Party.
The president and his mainstream media have accused the students of working under orders from foreign intelligence services to overthrow the authorities while pro-government thugs have repeatedly attacked protesting citizens.
No incidents were reported during the 15-minute traffic blockades on Friday that started at 11.52, the exact time of the canopy collapse in Novi Sad.
During a blockade last week in Belgrade, a car rammed into protesting students, seriously injuring a young woman.
Serbian universities have been blockaded for two months, along with many schools. A lawyers’ association also has gone on strike but it remained unclear how many people stayed away from work in the state-run institutions on Friday.
As well as Belgrade and Novi Sad, protest marches were also held Friday in the southern city of Nis and smaller cities, and even in Jagodina ahead of Vucic’s arrival.
“Things can’t stay the same anymore,” actor Goran Susljik told N1 regional television. “Students have offered us a possibility for a change.”
Serbia’s prosecutors have filed charges against 13 people for the canopy collapse, including a government minister and several state officials. But the former construction minister Goran Vesic has been released from detention, fueling doubts over the probe’s independence.
The main railway station in Novi Sad was renovated twice in recent years as part of a wider infrastructure deal with Chinese state companies.


Ukraine to evacuate more children from frontline villages

Updated 24 January 2025
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Ukraine to evacuate more children from frontline villages

  • “I have decided to start a mandatory evacuation of families with children” from around two dozen frontline villages and settlements, Donetsk region governor Vadym Filashkin said
  • Around 110 children lived in the area affected

KYIV: Ukraine on Friday announced the mandatory evacuation of dozens of families with children from frontline villages in the eastern Donetsk region.
Russia’s troops have been grinding across the region in recent months, capturing a string of settlements, most of them completely destroyed in the fighting since Russia invaded in February 2022.
“I have decided to start a mandatory evacuation of families with children” from around two dozen frontline villages and settlements, Donetsk region governor Vadym Filashkin said on Telegram.
Around 110 children lived in the area affected, he added.
“Children should live in peace and tranquility, not hide from shelling,” he said, urging parents to heed the order to leave.
The area is in the west of the Donetsk region, close to the internal border with Ukraine’s Dnipropretovsk region.
Russia in 2022 claimed to have annexed the Donetsk region, but has not asserted a formal claim to Dnipropretovsk.
The order to leave comes a day after officials in the northeastern Kharkiv region announced the evacuation of 267 children from several settlements there under threat of Russian attack.


Trump to visit disaster zones in North Carolina, California on first trip of second term

Updated 24 January 2025
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Trump to visit disaster zones in North Carolina, California on first trip of second term

  • The president is also heading to hurricane-battered western North Carolina

WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump is heading into the fifth day of his second term in office, striving to remake the traditional boundaries of Washington by asserting unprecedented executive power.
The president is also heading to hurricane-battered western North Carolina and wildfire-ravaged Los Angeles, using the first trip of his second administration to tour areas where politics has clouded the response to deadly disasters.


Kyiv says received bodies of 757 killed Ukrainian troops

Updated 24 January 2025
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Kyiv says received bodies of 757 killed Ukrainian troops

  • The exchange of prisoners and return of their remains is one of the few areas of cooperation between Moscow and Kyiv

KYIV: Kyiv said Friday it had received the bodies of hundreds of Ukrainian troops killed in battle with Russian forces, in one of the largest repatriations since Russia invaded.
The exchange of prisoners and return of their remains is one of the few areas of cooperation between Moscow and Kyiv since the Kremlin mobilized its army in Ukraine in February 2022.
The repatriation announced by the Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War, a Ukrainian state agency, is the largest in months and underscores the high cost and intensity of fighting ahead of the war’s three-year anniversary.
“The bodies of 757 fallen defenders were returned to Ukraine,” the Coordination Headquarters said in a post on social media.
It specified that 451 of the bodies were returned from the “Donetsk direction,” probably a reference to the battle for the mining and transport hub of Pokrovsk.
The city that once had around 60,000 residents has been devastated by months of Russian bombardments and is the Kremlin’s top military priority at the moment.
The statement also said 34 dead were returned from morgues inside Russia, where Kyiv last August mounted a shock offensive into Russia’s western Kursk region.
Friday’s repatriation is at least the fifth involving 500 or more Ukrainian bodies since October.
Military death tolls are state secrets both in Russia and Ukraine but Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky revealed last December that 43,000 Ukrainian troops had been killed and 370,000 had been wounded since 2022.
The total number is likely to be significantly higher.
Russia does not announce the return of its bodies or give up-to-date information on the numbers of its troops killed fighting in Ukraine.


EU says it is ready to ease sanctions on Syria

Updated 24 January 2025
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EU says it is ready to ease sanctions on Syria

  • The top EU diplomat said the EU would start by easing sanctions that are necessary to rebuild the country

ANKARA: The European Union’s foreign policy chief said the 27-member bloc is ready to ease sanctions on Syria, but added the move would be a gradual one contingent on the transitional Syrian government’s actions.
Speaking during a joint news conference in Ankara with Turkiye’s foreign minister on Friday, Kaja Kallas also said the EU was considering introducing a “fallback mechanism” that would allow it to reimpose sanctions if the situation in Syria worsens.
“If we see the steps of the Syrian leadership going to the right direction, then we are also willing to ease next level of sanctions,” she said. “We also want to have a fallback mechanism. If we see that the developments are going to the wrong direction, we are also putting the sanctions back.”
The top EU diplomat said the EU would start by easing sanctions that are necessary to rebuild the country that has been battered by more than a decade of civil war.
The plan to ease sanctions on Syria would be discussed at a EU foreign ministers meeting on Monday, Kallas said.