LDP eyeing easier limit on donations by foreign-affiliated firms
February 14, 2006The ruling Liberal Democratic Party has kicked off studies to iron out issues related to easing a ban on donations to political parties by companies with a high percentage of foreign ownership, LDP lawmakers said Tuesday. An intra-LDP organ in charge of party reform is sorting out issues to ease the ban, which is aimed at preventing foreign interests from influencing political parties and politicians in Japan.
S. Korean Foreign Minister Ban to run for top U.N. post
February 14, 2006South Korea said Tuesday it will field Foreign Affairs and Trade Minister Ban Ki Moon as a candidate to succeed U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, whose second five-year term ends at the end of December this year. ''Minister Ban, with nearly 40 years service as a career diplomat and administrator, is capable of making a great contribution to strengthening the United Nations and carrying out U.N. reforms,'' Vice Foreign Affairs and Trade Minister Yu Myung Hwan read out in a statement at a news conference.
Koizumi Cabinet's approval rate dips to 53.5% in daily's poll
February 14, 2006The approval rate for Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's Cabinet was 53.5 percent in a monthly poll conducted Saturday and Sunday by the Yomiuri Shimbun, down 2.6 percentage points from a month earlier, the newspaper reported Tuesday. The support rate has now dropped for three months in a row, and the disapproval rate in the latest poll rose 0.4 point to 36.2 percent, the daily said.
Nepal's ex-premier Deuba released from jail
February 14, 2006The Nepalese government has released former Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba from prison, following the scrapping of an anticorruption panel that jailed him for financial irregularities, local television reported Tuesday. Deuba was released late Monday from a police office in Kathmandu where he had been kept, the report said.