CHRONOLOGY

JULY — AUGUST 2009

JULY

1 Prime Minister Asô Tarô meets with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon in Tokyo.

The government approves request guidelines for the fiscal 2010 (April 2010 to March 2011) budget.

3 Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko depart for a 15-day official tour of Canada and the United States.

5 Kawakatsu Heita, a candidate backed by the opposition Democratic Party of Japan, wins a narrow victory in the Shizuoka Prefecture gubernatorial election.

8–10 Prime Minister Asô attends the Group of Eight summit in L’Aquila, Italy. Prior to the summit he meets with Pope Benedict XVI. He also meets with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on the summit’s sidelines, but the two fail to achieve progress on resolving the Russian-held Northern Territories issue.

8 The National Diet enacts legislation tightening government control of foreign resident registration and revising immigration controls. The new law, which shifts responsibility for foreign residency procedures from municipalities to the national government, had drawn criticism from foreign residents’ groups and rights activists.

11 An unnamed former official at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs claims the government concealed the existence of an English-language version of a secret bilateral accord signed in 1960 granting tacit approval for US military ships and aircraft carrying nuclear weapons to stop in Japan; this follows June claims of the existence of a Japanese-language version.

12 The DPJ emerges from Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly elections as the party with the largest number of seats, ending the 40-year control of the chamber by a Liberal Democratic Party– led coalition. At 54.49%, voter turnout was over 10 points higher than in the previous election held in 2005.

Kirin Holdings Co. and Suntory Holdings enter talks on merging their operations. The resulting company would be one of the world’s largest alcoholic beverage makers.

A revision to the Organ Transplant Law passes in the Diet, removing the restriction preventing children under 15 from becoming organ donors after death.

The Cabinet Office releases its monthly economic report for July, noting improvements in exports, industrial production, and consumption, against downturns in corporate profits, business investment, and employment.

16 Prime Minister Asô holds talks with Mongolian Prime Minister Sanjaa Bayar in Tokyo.

The Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare issues life expectancy statistics for 2008, showing the average lifespan to be 86.05 years for women and 79.29 for men, the highest figures on record. Japanese women had the longest average lifespan in the world for the twenty-fourth year in a row.

21 Prime Minister Asô dissolves the House of Representatives and calls a general election to be held on August 30.

22–23 Minister for Foreign Affairs Nakasone Hirofumi attends ministerial meetings organized by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in Phuket, Thailand, and meets separately with counterparts including US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi.

24 A new antipiracy law takes effect, allowing Maritime Self-Defense Force ships operating in waters off Somalia to provide escort to commercial vessels of all countries.

The DPJ announces its electoral manifesto, which includes calls for child allowances for families with children, income support for agricultural households, and decentralization of power and revenues. If it wins power, the party pledges to "build a close and equal Japan-US alliance."

30 Sumitomo Trust and Banking Co. agrees to purchase Citigroup’s asset management group for ¥112.4 billion.

31 The LDP issues its electoral manifesto, including pledges to boost economic growth and per capita income, to reform the tax system and hike the consumption tax after the economy has recovered, and to raise the food self-sufficiency ratio to 50%. The current top ruling party also pledges to strengthen the Japan-US alliance.

The Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications releases statistics for June showing an unemployment rate of 5.4%, up 0.2 points from the previous month, and a record 1.8% year-on-year decline in the consumer price index.

The Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare reports the seasonally adjusted ratio of job openings to job seekers for June to be a record low of 0.43.

AUGUST

6 On the sixty-fourth anniversary of the US atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Mayor Akiba Tadatoshi voices support for US President Barack Obama’s call for a nuclear-free world and encourages people around the world to join in Hiroshima’s efforts to abolish nuclear weapons. Nagasaki Mayor Taue Tomihisa issues a similar call on August 9, the day an A-bomb was dropped on his city in 1945.

Japan’s first trial under the newly instituted lay judge system concludes at the Tokyo District Court. Six lay judges and three professional judges condemn 72-year-old defendant Fujii Katsuyoshi to 15 years’ imprisonment for murdering a neighbor. Prosecutors had asked for a 16-year sentence, while relatives of the victim had called for at least 20.

7 Relatives of Jiang Xiaodong, a vocational trainee from China who died last year of heart failure, seek compensation for his death from a labor standards inspection office in Ibaraki Prefecture. It is the first alleged case of karôshi, or death from overwork, in which damages are being sought on behalf of a foreign trainee.

10 Typhoon Etau hits Hyôgo, Tokushima, and Okayama Prefectures. Thirteen people are killed and 10 go missing amid heavy rains, flooding, and landslides.

11 The Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications releases census data for fiscal 2008, ending March 2009. The natural attrition of Japan’s population hit a record high, with the number of deaths minus the number of births at 45,914 compared with the previous fiscal year’s 29,119. The number of Japanese in the working-age demographic also hit a record low. Overall, the population increased by 0.01% to 127,076,183 as a result of citizens returning from overseas jobs in the wake of the economic crisis.

A magnitude-6.5 earthquake strikes Shizuoka Prefecture. In addition to causing one fatality and hundreds of injuries, the quake shuts down two nuclear reactors, temporarily halts Shinkansen bullet train services, and seriously damages a key expressway linking Tokyo and Nagoya.

The DPJ announces some revisions of its July 27 manifesto, adding a pledge to shift Japan to a domestic-demand-based economy. The opposition party calls for the fostering of green industries, job creation through promotion of agriculture, and the provision of higher wages for those in the fields of medical and long-term care.

15 At a commemorative ceremony on the sixty-fourth anniversary of the end of World War II, Emperor Akihito and Prime Minister Asô express remorse for the suffering caused by Japan’s past actions and pledge to work for world peace. Asô stays away from Yasukuni Shrine, where class A war criminals are honored along with the war dead, but 44 current and former Diet members, including former Prime Ministers Koizumi Jun’ichirô and Abe Shinzô and Minister of State for Consumer Affairs Noda Seiko, visit the controversial shrine to pay their respects.

A 57-year-old resident of Okinawa Prefecture becomes Japan’s first fatality from H1N1 swine flu.

17 According to preliminary data issued by the Cabinet Office, Japan’s gross domestic product grew at an annualized rate of 3.7% in April–June, the first positive figure in five quarters.

18 A total of 1,374 people file their candidacy for seats in the August 30 House of Representatives election, with DPJ candidates outnumbering LDP candidates for the first time.

20 According to preliminary data from the National Police Agency for the first half of 2009, police throughout the country uncovered 4.4 times as many cases of stimulant narcotics smuggling as during the first half of 2008. The number of arrests in connection with stimulant-related crimes jumped 48.4% to 377, and 262.7 kilograms of stimulants were seized in smuggling operations, 6.4 times the level a year before.

23 Lake Tôya and Mount Usu in Hokkaidô, the Itoi River in Niigata Prefecture, and Nagasaki Prefecture’s Shimabara Peninsula are added to the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization’s list of "geoparks," national parks that have one or more important scientific features.

28 July data from the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications shows the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate up 0.3 points from the previous month to 5.7%, the highest figure on record. The consumer price index fell 0.3% from June and was down 2.2% from a year before.

The Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare announces the average ratio of job openings to seekers fell 0.01 points to 0.42, the lowest level since 1963.

30 In a historic upset, the DPJ captures 308 of the total 480 seats in the general election for the House of Representatives, forcing the LDP into the role of an opposition party for only the second time in its 54-year history. Prime Minister Asô announces he will resign as LDP president to take responsibility for the crushing defeat.

31 The Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications reports that voter turnout for the general election was 69.28%, the highest figure since the introduction of the system of single-member districts and regional proportional representation districts in 1996.

© 2009 Japan Echo Inc.