TOKYO: New Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba’s snap election gamble could backfire this Sunday, with his ruling party at risk of losing its majority for the first time in 15 years.
Ishiba took office and called an election less than a month ago after a tough contest within the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), which has governed for all but four of the last 69 years.
“This is an attempt to create a new Japan that will drastically change the nature of Japanese society,” he said. “To boldly carry out this major change, we need the confidence of the people.”
But polls suggest the LDP could fall short of the 233 lower house seats needed for a majority for the first time since 2009. They currently hold 256 seats.
This would be bad enough, but some polls suggest that even with its junior coalition partner, the Komeito party, Ishiba will be unable to form a government without forming other alliances.
Not helping matters is the popularity of Yoshihiko Noda, the new head of the opposition Constitutional Democratic Party and a former prime minister, who at 67 is the same age as Ishiba.
Noda’s stance “is sort of similar to the LDP’s. He is basically a conservative,” Masato Kamikubo, a political scientist at Ritsumeikan University, said.
“The CDP or Noda can be an alternative to the LDP. Many voters think so,” Kamikubo said.
Japan faces major challenges. With its population projected to drop by almost a third in the next 50 years, many sectors already struggle to fill vacancies.
The world’s fourth-biggest economy has long been flatlining, with a weak yen pushing up import prices in recent years, especially of fossil fuels which still dominate power generation.
Polls show that voters’ biggest worry is inflation, which along with a party slush fund scandal torpedoed Ishiba’s predecessor Fumio Kishida after three years in the job.
Japan already has one of the highest debt-to-GDP ratios in the world, yet the government faces a ballooning bill to care for the growing ranks of the elderly.
Another big area of spending is the military, with Kishida having pledged to double defense spending and boost US military ties as a counter to China.
Ishiba has vowed to revitalize rural areas, where more than 40 percent of municipalities risk disappearing according to a survey in April.
“If the village is left as it is now, the only thing that awaits us is extinction,” said 74-year-old Ichiro Sawayama, an official in Ichinono near Osaka, one such locality.
The community of fewer than 60 people has only one child, and staffed mannequins dot the streets to give the appearance of a bustling hamlet.
Ishiba has promised to consign deflation to history — stagnant or falling prices have stalked Japan for decades — and to boost incomes with a stimulus package.
He says he wants to hike the average national minimum wage by more than 40 percent within this decade, although this could hurt many small firms.
But after an initial honeymoon, Ishiba’s poll ratings have dipped, with a recent Kyodo News survey giving his cabinet a disapproval rating of 40 percent.
Not helping his cause with women is the nomination of just two female members to his cabinet in a country ranked 118th in the 2024 World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap report.
A separate poll by the Asahi newspaper found public approval for the cabinet at 33 percent and disapproval at 39 percent, worse than Kishida ahead of his first election in 2021.
But whether the opposition can capitalize and cobble together a majority instead is moot, said Yu Uchimura, a political scientist at the University of Tokyo.
“If the opposition is able to unite as a large group like the Democratic Party did in 2009, then they can win,” Uchimura said.
“But that is the problem with the opposition; they always fight among themselves and disband very quickly.”
New Japan PM Shigeru Ishiba fears for majority in snap election
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New Japan PM Shigeru Ishiba fears for majority in snap election
- Shigeru Ishiba took office and called an election less than a month ago after a tough contest within the Liberal Democratic Party
- Polls suggest the LDP could fall short of the 233 lower house seats needed for a majority for the first time since 2009
Ukraine’s parliament cancels session after Russia fired a new missile
- Three Ukrainian lawmakers confirmed that the parliamentary session previously scheduled was canceled
- President Volodymyr Zelensky’s office continued to work in compliance with standard security measures
Russian troops also struck Sumy with Shahed drones overnight killing two people and injuring 12 more, the regional administration said Friday morning. The attack targeted a residential district of the city.
Ukraine’s Suspilne media, quoting Sumy regional head Volodymyr Artiukh, said the Russians used Shaheds stuffed with shrapnel elements for the first time in the region. “These weapons are used to destroy people, not to destroy objects,” said Artiukh, according to Suspilne.
Separately, Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavsky arrived on a visit to Kyiv. He posted a photo from Kyiv’s railway station on his X account Friday morning.
“I am interested in how the Ukrainians are coping with the bombings, how Czech projects are working on the ground and how to better target international aid in the coming months. I will discuss all of this here,” Lipavsky wrote.
Three Ukrainian lawmakers confirmed that the parliamentary session previously scheduled was canceled due to the ongoing threat of Russian missile attacks targeting government buildings in the city center.
Not only is the parliament closed, “there was also recommendation to limit the work of all commercial offices and NGOs that remain in that perimeter, and local residents were warned of the increased threat,” said lawmaker Mykyta Poturaiev, who added this is not the first time such a threat has been received.
President Volodymyr Zelensky’s office continued to work in compliance with standard security measures, a spokesperson said.
Russia on Thursday fired a new intermediate-range ballistic missile in response to Kyiv’s use of US and British longer-range missiles capable of striking deeper into Russian territory, Russian President Vladimir Putin said in an address on Thursday.
It struck a missile factory in Dnipro in central Ukraine. Putin warned that US air defense systems would be powerless to stop the new missile, which he said flies at 10 times the speed of sound and which he called Oreshnik – Russian for hazelnut tree.
The Pentagon confirmed that Russia’s missile was a new, experimental type of intermediate-range missile based on its RS-26 Rubezh intercontinental ballistic missile.
Pope Francis to visit French island of Corsica on Dec. 15, local church says
- Short visit to the island’s capital city Ajaccio will mark his 47th foreign trip since becoming pope in 2013
- Corsica’s population of some 356,000 is estimated by the Vatican as 81.% Catholic
VATICAN CITY: Pope Francis will visit Corsica on Dec. 15, the local diocese said on its website on Thursday, in the first recorded trip of a pope to the French island in the Mediterranean.
The short visit to the island’s capital city Ajaccio, where Francis is expected to speak at a conference on popular religiosity across the Mediterranean region, will mark his 47th foreign trip since becoming pope in 2013.
Corsica, noted for its steep, mountainous terrain and as the birthplace of Napoleon, is the fourth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. It is one of France’s poorest regions, with government statistics estimating that about 20 percent of the population lives below the poverty line.
The Vatican did not immediately confirm the local church’s announcement, but the trip is known to have been in preparation for weeks. Francis has made two prior visits to France, traveling to Strasbourg in 2014 to address the European Parliament and the Council of Europe, and to Marseilles in 2023 to attend a meeting of bishops.
But the pope, who turns 88 on Dec. 17, has never made a full state visit to France, a historic stronghold for Catholicism that is now widely secular and home to Europe’s largest Muslim and Jewish communities.
French President Emmanuel Macron invited Francis to come to Paris for the Dec. 8 reopening of Notre Dame Cathedral, but the pope will be leading a ceremony at the Vatican that day to install new Catholic cardinals.
Cardinal Francois-Xavier Bustillo, originally from Spain, has led the Catholic Church in Corsica since 2021. Francis made him a cardinal, the highest rank in the Church below pope, in 2023.
Corsica’s population of some 356,000 is estimated by the Vatican as 81.5 percent Catholic.
Francis has traveled widely around the Mediterranean over his 11-year papacy, visiting Malta, the Greek island of Lesbos and the Italian island of Lampedusa.
Record 281 aid workers killed in 2024, says UN, with 1 month left
- 280 humanitarians were killed across 33 countries during all of 2023
Geneva: A staggering 281 aid workers have been killed around the world so far this year, making 2024 the deadliest year for humanitarians, the UN aid chief said Friday.
“Humanitarian workers are being killed at an unprecedented rate, their courage and humanity being met with bullets and bombs,” said Tom Fletcher, the United Nations’ new under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator.
With more than a month left to go of 2024, the “grim milestone was reached,” he said, after 280 humanitarians were killed across 33 countries during all of 2023.
“This violence is unconscionable and devastating to aid operations,” Fletcher said.
Israel’s devastating war in Gaza was driving up the numbers, his office said, with 333 aid workers killed there — most from the UN agency supporting Palestinian refugees, UNRWA — since Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023 attacks, which sparked the war.
“States and parties to conflict must protect humanitarians, uphold international law, prosecute those responsible, and call time on this era of impunity,” Fletcher said.
Aid workers were subject to kidnappings, injuries, harassment and arbitrary detention in a range of countries, his office said, including Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sudan, and Ukraine.
The majority of deaths involve local staff working with non-governmental organizations, UN agencies and the Red Cross Red Crescent movement, Fletcher’s office said.
“Violence against humanitarian personnel is part of a broader trend of harm to civilians in conflict zones,” it warned.
“Last year, more than 33,000 civilian deaths were recorded in 14 armed conflicts — a staggering 72 percent increase from 2022.”
The UN Security Council adopted a resolution last May in response to the surging violence and threats against aid workers.
The text called for recommendations from the UN chief — set to be presented at a council meeting next week — on measures to prevent and respond to such incidents and to increase protection for humanitarian staff and accountability for abuses.
Russia says ‘derailed’ Kyiv’s war plans after uproar over test strike
- Vladimir Putin says the conflict in Ukraine had taken on a ‘global’ nature
- NATO and Ukraine will hold talks next week in Brussels over the strike
KYIV: Russia said on Friday it had scuppered Kyiv’s military objectives for 2025 just after President Vladimir Putin issued a warning to the West by test-firing a new intermediate-range missile at Ukraine.
That assessment for next year came after a Russian drone attack at night on the eastern Ukrainian city of Sumy killed two civilians and wounded a dozen more in an attack with new cluster munitions, local authorities said.
Putin announced the missile launch in a defiant address late on Thursday, saying the conflict in Ukraine had taken on a “global” nature, while hinting at strikes on Western countries.
In a meeting with military commanders, Russian defense minister Andrei Belousov said Moscow’s advance had “accelerated” in Ukraine and “ground down” Kyiv’s best units.
“We have, in fact, derailed the entire 2025 campaign,” Belousov said of the Ukrainian army in a video published by the Russian defense ministry.
The attack, which apparently targeted an aerospace manufacturing plant in the central Ukrainian city of Dnipro, sparked immediate condemnation from Kyiv’s allies.
China, which has thrown its political clout behind the Kremlin, reiterated calls for “calm” and “restraint” by all parties after Russia confirmed the new missile strike.
“All parties should remain calm and exercise restraint, work to de-escalate the situation through dialogue and consultation, and create conditions for an early ceasefire,” foreign ministry spokesman Lin Jian told a regular briefing.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz meanwhile, on Friday described Russia’s deployment of the medium-range missile as a “terrible escalation.”
NATO and Ukraine will hold talks next week in Brussels over the strike, according to diplomats.
Ambassadors from countries in the NATO-Ukraine Council will hold talks on Tuesday. The meeting was called by Kyiv following the Dnipro strike, officials said.
The Russian attack came after Ukraine recently fired US- and UK-supplied missiles at Russian territory for the first time, escalating already sky-high tensions over the conflict, which is nearly in its third year.
Washington said it had granted Kyiv permission to fire long-range weapons at Russian territory as a response to the Kremlin’s deployment of thousands of North Korean troops on Ukraine’s border.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has called for a strong response from world leaders to Russia’s use of the new missile, which he said proved Moscow “does not want peace.”
In Kyiv, Oleksandra, a 30-year-old resident working in the media, said the Russian strike was a sign of desperation within the Kremlin.
“You could have launched a missile that is less expensive and have the same result. As long as this missile does not carry a nuclear payload, there is nothing to fear about,” she said.
Russian troops have been making steady advances in eastern Ukraine for months, capturing a string of small towns and villages from overstretched Ukrainian soldiers lacking manpower and artillery.
In the city of Sumy, authorities said a Russian drone had struck a residential neighborhood. Emergency services distributed images showing rescue workers retrieving the bodies of the dead from the rubble.
Sumy lies across the border from Russia’s Kursk region, where Ukrainian troops captured swathes of territory after launching a major ground offensive in August.
The head of the Sumy region, Volodymyr Artyukh, said Russia had deployed a drone with modified munitions that were equipped with shrapnel, describing the weapons as being “used to kill people, not to destroy buildings.”
Indian commandos kill 10 Maoist rebels
- More than 10,000 people have died in the decades-long insurgency waged by the Naxalite movement
- Gunbattle took place in a remote forested area of Chhattisgarh state, the heartland of the insurgency
RAIPUR, India: Indian security forces gunned down at least 10 Maoist rebels on Friday during a firefight, police said, as New Delhi steps up efforts to crush the long-running armed conflict.
More than 10,000 people have died in the decades-long insurgency waged by the Naxalite movement, who say they are fighting for the rights of marginalized Indigenous people of India’s remote and resource-rich central regions.
The gunbattle took place in a remote forested area of Chhattisgarh state, the heartland of the insurgency.
“Dead bodies of 10 Maoists have been recovered so far,” Vivekanand Sinha, chief of the state police’s anti-Maoist operations, said.
Sinha said the police recovered several automatic weapons from the rebels.
India’s home minister Amit Shah this year issued an ultimatum to the insurgents to surrender or face an “all-out assault.”
A crackdown by security forces has killed over 200 rebels this year, an overwhelming majority in Chhattisgarh, according to government data.
India has deployed tens of thousands of security personnel to battle the Maoists across the insurgent-dominated “Red Corridor,” which stretches across central, southern and eastern states but has shrunk dramatically in size.
India has pumped millions of dollars into infrastructure development in remote areas and claims to have confined the insurgency to 45 districts in 2023, down from 96 in 2010.
The conflict has seen a number of deadly attacks on government forces over the years. Twenty-two police and paramilitaries were killed in a gunbattle with the far-left guerrillas in 2021.
Sixteen commandos were also killed in the western state of Maharashtra in a bomb attack that was blamed on the Maoists in the lead-up to national elections in 2019.
