The Tokyo Bay...(yet This Magic Moment)Japanese Prime Minister Announced His Will to Resign
(Le premier ministre japonais a annoncé le sien volonté pour démissionner)
The incumbent Japanese Prime Minister is to resign.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6990519.stm
It is so shocking as if it were one hundredth, however, of the Pearl Harbor Attack or the JFK assassination, or one tenth of the Nixon's Resignation in terms of the degree of commotion and impact.
(If Napoleon had resigned before the Battle of Waterloo, French citizens and soldiers should have felt so shocked, for instance.)
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Last night, after having watched a TV news program which was cut short to 15 minutes but reported religiously on hepatitis patients poorly treated by the Government going on a sit-down in the rain before the Health, Labour and Welfare Ministry, I watched the first half of a Women's World Cup Soccer Game broadcast live from China, which actually made the preceding news program on the same channel cut short, where Japan was matched against England to result in a tie eventually.
No media in Japan dropped a hint that the Prime Minister was in an unusual state last night.
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The reasons for Prime Minister's resignation are reportedly:
(1) Defeat in the Upper House Election held one and a half moths ago. The ruling parties lost a majority in the Upper House of the Diet for the first in the history of Japan's democracy, thus resulting in a loss of confidence in Prime Minister's influential power.
(2) Difficult procedures expected, though not impossible at all, to get authorization from the Diet on extension of supportive activities of Japan's Maritime Self-Defense Forces in the Indian Ocean to supply fuels for navy vessels of the U.S., the U.K., Pakistan, and other coalition countries against the terror in Afghanistan.
(3) Health issues
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On Monday, the Diet, Japan's legislative assembly and its supreme institution to represent its sovereign power, was convened and the Prime Minister made a policy speech.
On Wednesday, today, it was planned to conduct a customary Q&A session in the plenary meeting in the Lower House, where the Prime Minister is to answer questions a representative of each party delivers.
But, just at an hour the Q&A session was to begin, the news of the Prime Minister's determination to resign was issued, making all the media frenzy in a sense.
Indeed, though the Prime Minister has been expected to resign sooner or later, probably, within this year, this timing of his announcement was so unusual.
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However, as many people in the political and business communities, the media, and general public have expected the Prime Minister to resign sooner or later, confusion must be little despite a big initial commotion.
A new Prime Minister will be elected in several days in the Diet. The Lower House of the Diet has decisive authority in electing the Prime Minister of Japan.
As the current ruling parties have more than two thirds of the seats in the Lower House, due to an overwhelming victory at the general election held on Sept.11, 2005, there will be no power shift in this change in the head of the Government.
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My advice to you is to be objective and not to interfere in politics in Japan, since this is the Shintoism country, the only such country on the earth.
(Do you think it was a miracle that Japan's female soccer team scored the equalizer in a loss time of the second half to make it a 2-2 game? As I was already sleeping at the hour, it was not my interference anyway. Yet, you be fair.
From a different point of view, a prime minister in his early 50's is regarded as "being very young" in Japanese political traditions, though there are some who look like further in his or her 40's while being so regraded.)
"...because you will not abandon me in the world of the dead..."