Liberal Democratic Party

TOKYO -- After months of rumors and speculation, another scandal involving the governing Liberal Democratic Party broke yesterday with police raids on the offices of a large trucking company that is reported to have funneled hundreds of millions of dollars to top politicians and organized crime.A series of scandals have tainted politicians both in and out of government since disclosures of improper payoffs to members of Parliament toppled Prime Minister Noboru Takeshita in 1989. But the amounts reportedly involved in the current scandal are far larger than those in the past.

TOKYO -- Japan's governing Liberal Democratic Party suffered a crushing defeat in elections yesterday for the upper house of parliament, but Prime Minister Shinzo Abe vowed that he would not step down. The main opposition Democratic Party seized control of the upper house by a landslide, capturing seats not only in cities but in rural districts that have long been strongholds of the Liberal Democratic Party. The rout was widespread, with household names in the governing party falling one after another before opposition newcomers.

TOKYO -- Japan's governing Liberal Democratic Party suffered a crushing defeat in elections yesterday for the upper house of parliament, but Prime Minister Shinzo Abe vowed that he would not step down. The main opposition Democratic Party seized control of the upper house by a landslide, capturing seats not only in cities but in rural districts that have long been strongholds of the Liberal Democratic Party. The rout was widespread, with household names in the governing party falling one after another before opposition newcomers.

TOKYO - The association of relatives of Japanese abductees to North Korea and ruling and opposition parties are calling on the government to impose economic sanctions on Pyongyang following an official announcement Wednesday that said the remains given to Japan by Pyongyang were not those of Megumi Yokota. The government for its part is waiting to see how North Korea will explain the discrepancy between the results of DNA testing in Japan and Pyongyang's claims that the remains were those of Yokota, who was abducted by North Korean agents in 1977 at age 13. Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi told reporters Wednesday night that talks with Pyongyang would continue despite the latest development.

TOKYO -- The secretary-general of Japanese Prime Minister Toshiki Kaifu's governing party resigned yesterday after his candidate for governor of Tokyo took a whipping from an 80-year-old incumbent.Resisting two days of intense pressure to stay on from Mr. Kaifu and the chief power brokers of his own faction within the Liberal Democratic Party, Ichiro Ozawa insisted on taking responsibility for a backfired attempt to dump Gov. Shunichi Suzuki.To cheers of "Banzai!" -- 10,000 years, a traditional Asian wish of long life -- Governor Suzuki savored his lopsided fourth-term win yesterday morning at a victory ceremony at the recently dedicated, twin-towered City Hall.

TOKYO -- Despite a resounding victory for his party in national elections, Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto is having difficulty forming a new governing coalition, raising the likelihood that Japan's next government will be fragile and indecisive.Political experts say it now looks likely that Hashimoto's Liberal Democratic Party will not be able to put together a coalition that ++ will give it a comfortable majority in the lower house of Parliament.Instead, the Liberal Democrats might run a minority government, controlling the Cabinet but being forced to cooperate with other parties on a case-by-case basis to enact legislation.

VOTERS in Japan's normally quiet election for the upper house of parliament sent a piercing message to the country's largely hidden leadership. They agree with foreign bankers and governments and with the conference of Japanese and U.S. business leaders now gathered in Tokyo.They want Japan to stimulate consumerism through tax cuts, even at the cost of deficit budgets. They want a more open economy with real competition. They want reform of banking and business, even if some banks and corporations fail to survive.

TOKYO -- When Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi began his thoroughly unexpected rise in the polls a few months back, the growing support for him had scant relation to his government's policies.It stemmed instead, analysts said, from the inexplicably reassuring feeling he had sent to a nation stuck deep in economic doldrums, coming across as its warm and fuzzy, even slightly absent-minded uncle.Polls have consistently shown that Obuchi's most winning features are his seeming lack of arrogance, his personal modesty and his self-deprecating humor.

The United States is unlikely to get help from Japan in pressing North Korea to abandon the quest for nuclear weaponry. Washington cannot realistically expect agreement soon on measures to end Japan's huge trade surplus with the U.S.Either of these would require a Japanese government strong enough to fend off domestic pressures and civil service inertia against doing any such thing. The government formed with the former foreign minister, Tsutomu Hata, as prime minister is the weakest imaginable, subject to journalistic and political ridicule from birth.

In a move last night that shook Japan's governing party Tokyo prosecutors arrested Shin Kanemaru, until recently the country's most powerful politician. They charged that he had evaded millions of dollars in taxes on donations to secret political accounts that he controlled in the late 1980s.The arrest of Mr. Kanemaru, 78, seems bound to raise anew a series of scandals that the governing Liberal Democratic Party thought it had buried. But it is still unclear how severely it will hurt the party in general elections for the lower house of Parliament, expected later this year.

MOSCOW - International observers criticized Russia's parliamentary elections as a step backward in the country's democratic transition, only moments after President Vladimir V. Putin described them yesterday as "free, honest, open and democratic." United Russia, the party defined by its fealty to Putin, swept to overwhelming victory Sunday after benefiting, observers said, from fawning coverage on state television and official support at all levels of government. Putin's party crushed the Communists and ousted all but a handful of Liberal Democrats from parliament, capturing the most votes of any party in any election since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

TOKYO -- Japan's Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi suffered a stroke yesterday, and his condition was considered serious enough that party leaders named an acting prime minister to fulfill his duties. Mikio Aoki, the chief Cabinet secretary, was tapped to step into Obuchi's office temporarily. At a late morning news conference today, Aoki confirmed that Obuchi had suffered a stroke and was in intensive care and would likely be hospitalized for some time. Leaders of Obuchi's ruling Liberal Democratic Party had kept the prime minister's condition virtually secret for most of yesterday.

TOKYO -- When Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi began his thoroughly unexpected rise in the polls a few months back, the growing support for him had scant relation to his government's policies.It stemmed instead, analysts said, from the inexplicably reassuring feeling he had sent to a nation stuck deep in economic doldrums, coming across as its warm and fuzzy, even slightly absent-minded uncle.Polls have consistently shown that Obuchi's most winning features are his seeming lack of arrogance, his personal modesty and his self-deprecating humor.

POLITICAL stability was achieved but the economic crisis ignored when Japan's Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) chose Foreign Minister Keizo Obuchi as its chief. He will be elected prime minister by the lower house of parliament tomorrow.Mr. Obuchi, who has been foreign minister for a year but has no major economic experience, won because he is the boss of the biggest faction of the party.That's how things have always been done by the LDP, which has learned nothing during the current crisis.

VOTERS in Japan's normally quiet election for the upper house of parliament sent a piercing message to the country's largely hidden leadership. They agree with foreign bankers and governments and with the conference of Japanese and U.S. business leaders now gathered in Tokyo.They want Japan to stimulate consumerism through tax cuts, even at the cost of deficit budgets. They want a more open economy with real competition. They want reform of banking and business, even if some banks and corporations fail to survive.

TOKYO -- Despite a resounding victory for his party in national elections, Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto is having difficulty forming a new governing coalition, raising the likelihood that Japan's next government will be fragile and indecisive.Political experts say it now looks likely that Hashimoto's Liberal Democratic Party will not be able to put together a coalition that ++ will give it a comfortable majority in the lower house of Parliament.Instead, the Liberal Democrats might run a minority government, controlling the Cabinet but being forced to cooperate with other parties on a case-by-case basis to enact legislation.

TOKYO -- Japan's government agreed yesterday to scrap Prime Minister Toshiki Kaifu's attempt to send soldiers to help the U.S.-led force confronting Iraq in the Persian Gulf.The decision, reported by several Japanese newspapers and broadcast stations that cited unnamed sources within the governing Liberal Democratic Party, coincided with an announcement in Baghdad that 79 of the 305 Japanese hostages now being held in Iraq would soon be released. There was no clear sign whether the two events were connected.

TOKYO -- The secretary-general of Japanese Prime Minister Toshiki Kaifu's governing party resigned yesterday after his candidate for governor of Tokyo took a whipping from an 80-year-old incumbent.Resisting two days of intense pressure to stay on from Mr. Kaifu and the chief power brokers of his own faction within the Liberal Democratic Party, Ichiro Ozawa insisted on taking responsibility for a backfired attempt to dump Gov. Shunichi Suzuki.To cheers of "Banzai!" -- 10,000 years, a traditional Asian wish of long life -- Governor Suzuki savored his lopsided fourth-term win yesterday morning at a victory ceremony.

MOSCOW -- Though the Communist Party made large gains in Russia's parliamentary elections, it apparently did so at the expense of the ultranationalist Vladimir V. Zhirinovsky rather than reformers, who quietly and despite deep divisions held their ground.The only certainty as the ballot count continued yesterday was this: When it comes to Russia's newly evolving political life, things are rarely what they seem.Two years ago, in the first State Duma election, Mr. Zhirinovsky was the winner of the protest vote.

TOKYO -- Japanese voters pushed a new conservative opposition party to the forefront and dealt Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama's Socialists and his ruling coalition a severe blow in upper house elections, election returns showed today. The blow, however, fell short of a knockout punch.In a two-hour meeting in the middle of the night, Yohei Kono, the president of the one-time ruling Liberal Democratic Party that is now the major prop of Mr. Murayama's left-right coalition, asked the 71-year-old prime minister to stay on, and Mr. Murayama agreed.