Kwansei Gakuin University
Kwansei Gakuin University, colloquially known as Kangaku, is a non-denominational Christian private and coeducational university in Japan. The university offers Bachelor’s, Master’s, Doctoral degrees to around 25,000 students in 40 different disciplines across 11 undergraduate and 14 graduate programs; the university has a central campus in the city of Nishinomiya, has satellite campuses in Nishinomiya, Sanda and Tokyo. Kwansei Gakuin University has been selected for inclusion in the Japanese government's Top Global University Project as a Type B university; the university is referred to as one of the four leading private universities in the greater Kansai region. The name Kwansei Gakuin originated from the desire of Walter Russell Lambuth, the university's founder, to serve citizens of Kansai, the western part of Japan, while the word gakuin means "college." The unusual romanization of Kansai as Kwansei is due to the way it would have been pronounced by progressive students in the late 19th century.
The "official" pronunciation of kwan can be heard in performances of the school song, but the modern pronunciation of kan is the standard in other contexts. Though the university is referred to as Kangaku, it would be correct to say Kwangaku. In the context of "Mastery for Service," a "master" is an accomplished person in terms of their humanity and daily life. Kwansei Gakuin's avowed goal is to help students "master their God-given gifts in order to serve their neighbors and the world." Kwansei Gakuin's symbol, the crescent moon, represents the purpose of education: students' growth to fullness in knowledge and wisdom. Kwansei Gakuin University has agreements with several United Nations organizations; the university and United Nations Volunteers reached an agreement establishing the university as the first institution of higher education in Asia to form a volunteer-sending partnership with the United Nations Information Technology Service in 2003. KGU and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees representation in Japan concluded an agreement to establish a special university scholarship system for refugees in Japan in May 2006.
Under this agreement, Kwansei Gakuin started the UNHCR-KGU Higher Education Program for Refugees in Japan in April 2007, two refugees were enrolled. School of Theology School of Humanities School of Sociology School of Law and Politics School of Economics School of Business Administration School of Science and Technology School of Policy Studies School of Human Welfare Studies School of Education School of International Studies Graduate School of Theology Graduate School of Humanities Graduate School of Sociology Graduate School of Law and Politics Graduate School of Economics Graduate School of Business Administration Graduate School of Science and Technology Graduate School of Policy Studies Graduate School of Language and Culture Graduate School of Human Welfare Studies Graduate School of Education Law School Institute of Business and Accounting Kwansei Gakuin University has over 140 partner institutions overseas, accepts more than 700 international students each year. Since 1929, the university's flagship Uegahara campus has been located in Hyōgo.
The Uegahara campus was designed in a "Spanish Mission" style by William Merrell Vories, an American missionary, architect and entrepreneur. In 2017, the campus won an achievement award for its design from the Architectural Institute of Japan; this campus is home to most of the administrative offices of Kwansei Gakuin. This campus is home to the School of Seiwa Junior College, it is 10 minutes away from the Nishinomiya Uegahara Campus on foot. Located in Sanda, Hyōgo, this campus houses the School of Policy Studies and the School of Science and Technology, it has the same architectural style as its Nishinomiya-Uegahara predecessor, is about an hour to 70 minutes from Nishinomiya by shuttle bus. The Osaka Umeda Campus is located a short walk from the main public transport cluster of Osaka City, it holds graduate school classes for working people, offers support for lifelong learning and student job placement. The Tokyo Marunouchi Campus is on the 10th floor of the Sapia Tower, next to Tokyo Station.
In addition to serving as an information hub and offering lectures, the campus provides job placement support for alumni in the Tokyo metropolitan area. Kwansei Gakuin has one of the most diverse varsity athletic programs in Japan, with 34 varsity teams that compete in regional collegiate leagues. Although the school, unlike other private universities in the country, does not offer specific scholarships for student-athletes, it is still competitive with the top echelon of Japanese collegiate teams in the sports of American football, basketball and soccer; the Fighters are one of the most decorated American football programs in Japan at the university level, with a record 28 national championships. Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman Official English site
Yoshitada Konoike
Yoshitada Konoike was a Japanese politician of the Liberal Democratic Party and member of the House of Councillors in the Diet Minister of State for Disaster Mnagement. A native of Amagasaki, Hyōgo and graduate of Waseda University, he was elected to the House of Representatives for the first time in 1986 after an unsuccessful run in 1983. After losing his seat in 1993, he was elected to the House of Councillors for the first time in 1995 and is serving his fourth 6-year term. In July 2003 Konoike caused controversy when he commented on an ongoing murder case, saying that the parents of the accused "should be paraded through the city and decapitated", he apologized for the comments but one week he commented on a different case, in which four child sex slaves escaped from the house of a dead captor, saying "we don't know if the girls are victims or assailants", added, "if you're arguing the girls were bought as slaves, you assume they have no responsibility". Konoike's comments were seen as problematic as he was serving as deputy head of a government department set up to address the issue of youth crime and unemployment at the time, which led Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi to make a public statement that any further such comments would not be tolerated.
In 2007, when asked to comment on an unrelated murder case, he said, that "they should be paraded through the ci... no, I'm not allowed to say that, am I?"Konoike was removed from his post as deputy chief cabinet secretary on May 13, 2009 and was admitted to a mental hospital after the weekly magazine Shukan Shincho revealed that he had used his government shinkansen free pass to travel to Atami to spend several days with a mistress. He was expelled from the Hyogo branch of the party, but was subsequently readmitted to the party on 30 August 2010. Konoike was elected to the House of Councillors for his fourth consecutive term in the July 2013 election and unsuccessfully contested the ballot to replace Hirofumi Nakasone as the LDP's leader in the house, he lost the ballot to Kensei Mizote 82-31. He died on 25 December 2018 at the age of 78. 政治家情報 〜鴻池 祥肇〜. ザ･選挙. JANJAN. Archived from the original on October 25, 2007. Retrieved 2007-11-10. Official website in Japanese
Ministry of Finance (Japan)
The Ministry of Finance is one of the cabinet-level ministries of the Japanese government. The ministry was named the Ōkura-shō until 2001; the Ministry is headed by the Minister of Finance, a member of the Cabinet and is chosen from members of the Diet by the Prime Minister. The Ministry's originated in the 6th century, when the Ōkura was established as a state treasury in ancient Japan; when a modern system of government was introduced after the Meiji Restoration, the Ministry of Finance was established as a government body in charge of public finance and monetary affairs. It is said that new ministry employees are subtly reminded that the Ōkura-shō predates by some 1269 years when the new Constitution was imposed on the nation by the U. S. occupation forces in 1947. The Ministry has long been regarded as the most powerful ministry in the Japanese government. After various financial scandals revealed in the 1990s, the Ministry lost its power over banking supervision to a newly established Financial Services Agency.
It lost most of its control over monetary policy to the Bank of Japan when the Diet passed a new Bank of Japan Law in 1998. In addition, it lost its ancient Japanese name when it was renamed the Zaimu-shō in January 2001, although its English name remained the same. Despite this renaming, the Japanese people still use the older term Ōkura-daijin, meaning a person controlling a budget. In financial markets, the Ministry is famous for its active foreign exchange policy, its top civil servant on the international side, Vice Minister of Finance for International Affairs, is quoted in the financial press. Former Vice Minister Eisuke Sakakibara was known as "Mr Yen", whereas his successors Haruhiko Kuroda and Zenbei Mizoguchi were referred to as "Mr. Asian Currency" and "Mr. Dollar", respectively; the current Minister of Finance is Tarō Asō. The Ministry is organized in six bureaus that provide the overall functions of the ministry: Minister's Secretariat Budget Bureau Tax Bureau Customs and Tariff Bureau Financial Bureau International Bureau Six Independent Administrative Institutions are under the Ministry's control: Japan Mint National Printing Bureau National Research Institute of Brewing Nippon Automated Cargo Clearance System Commemorative Organization for the Japan World Exposition'70 Japan Housing Finance Agency Minister of Finance Monetary and fiscal policy of Japan Ministry of International Trade and Industry National Tax Agency Hartcher.
The Ministry: The Inside Story of Japan's Ministry of Finance. New York: Harper Collins. ISBN 0-00-255854-8. Department of Finance. Financial and Economical Annual of Japan. Tokyo: Government Printing Office – via Hathi Trust. 1901- Official website
Hyogo Prefectural Assembly
The Hyogo Prefectural Assembly is the prefectural parliament of Hyogo Prefecture. The assembly's 87 members are elected every four years in 40 districts by single non-transferable vote. Nine of the electoral districts correspond with the wards of Kobe city and the remaining 31 districts are made up of the cities and districts of the prefecture; the electoral district that represents the city of Himeji is the largest, electing 8 representatives to the assembly. The assembly is responsible for acting as a balance against the Governor of Hyogo Prefecture, responsible for the administration of the prefecture; this role includes enacting and amending prefectural ordinances, approving the budget and checking the administration. The Hyogo prefectural election, 2015 took place on 12 April 2015, as part of the 2015 unified local elections, it was the first election following a reduction in the number of members from 89 to 87. Elections were held in 23 districts and representatives for the remaining 17 districts were elected unopposed.
The Liberal Democratic Party maintained their position as the largest group in the assembly with a total of 40 seats, but were unable to secure the 44 seats required for an outright majority. The Democratic Party of Japan was reduced from 16 seats to 11; the Japan Innovation Party, contesting the unified local elections for the first time, won nine seats. Voter turnout was a reduction of 0.88 % compared to the 2011 election. Following the election, the LDP's Noriyuki Ishikawa and Ryosuke Ueda were elected speaker and vice-speaker of the assembly; as of February 2016, the assembly was composed as follows: Most electoral districts correspond to the current cities of the prefecture, but several districts correspond to former districts which are no longer administrative units but are still used in the addresses of regional areas. Kobe, the largest city in the prefecture, is divided such that each of the city's nine wards is a separate electoral district. In 2014 the assembly voted to reduce the size of the assembly from 89 to 87, which resulted in a merger of the Sayō and Akō-Akō districts, as well as Takasago district's representation being reduced from two members to one.
Hyogo Prefectural Assembly
Democratic Party of Japan
The Democratic Party of Japan was a centrist political party in Japan from 1998 to 2016. The party's origins lie in the previous Democratic Party of Japan, founded in September 1996 by politicians of the centre-right and centre-left with roots in the Liberal Democratic Party and Japan Socialist Party. In April 1998 the previous DPJ merged with splinters of the New Frontier Party to create a new party which retained the DPJ name. In 2003 the party was joined by the Liberal Party of Ichirō Ozawa. Following the 2009 election, the DPJ became the ruling party in the House of Representatives, defeating the long-dominant Liberal Democratic Party and gaining the largest number of seats in both the House of Representatives and the House of Councillors; the DPJ was ousted from government by the LDP in the 2012 general election. It retained 57 seats in the lower house, still had 88 seats in the upper house. During its time in office, the DPJ was beset by internal conflicts and struggled to implement many of its proposed policies, an outcome described by political scientists Phillip Lipscy and Ethan Scheiner as the "paradox of political change without policy change".
Legislative productivity under the DPJ was low, falling to levels unprecedented in recent Japanese history according to some measures. However, the DPJ implemented a number of progressive measures during its time in office such as the provision of free public schooling through high school, increases in child-rearing subsidies, expanded unemployment insurance coverage, extended duration of a housing allowance, stricter regulations safeguarding part-time and temporary workers. On 27 March 2016 the DPJ merged with the Japan Innovation Party and Vision of Reform to form the Democratic Party, it is not to be confused with the now-defunct Japan Democratic Party that merged with the Liberal Party in 1955 to form the Liberal Democratic Party. It is different from another Democratic Party, established in 1947 and dissolved in 1950; the Democratic Party of Japan was formed on 27 April 1998. It was a merger of four independent parties that were opposed to the ruling Liberal Democratic Party —the previous Democratic Party of Japan, the Good Governance Party, the New Fraternity Party, the Democratic Reform Party.
The previous parties ranged in ideology from conservative to social-democratic. The new party began with ninety-three members of the House of Representatives and thirty-eight members of the House of Councilors. Moreover, the party officials were elected as well at the party convention for the first time. On 24 September 2003 the party formally merged with the small, centre-right Liberal Party led by Ichirō Ozawa in a move considered in preparation for the 2003 general election held on 9 November 2003; this move gave the DPJ eight more seats in the House of Councilors. In the 2003 general election the DPJ gained a total of 178 seats; this was short of their objectives, but a significant demonstration of the new group's strength. Following a pension scandal, Naoto Kan resigned and was replaced with moderate liberal Katsuya Okada. In the 2004 House of Councilors elections, the DPJ won a seat more than the ruling Liberal Democrats, but the LDP still maintained its firm majority in total votes; this was the first time since its inception that the LDP had garnered fewer votes than another party.
The 2005 snap parliamentary elections called by Junichiro Koizumi in response to the rejection of his Postal privatization bills saw a major setback to the DPJ's plans of obtaining a majority in the Diet. The DPJ leadership Okada, had staked their reputation on winning the election and driving the LDP from power; when the final results were in, the DPJ had lost 62 seats to its rival the LDP. Okada resigned the party leadership, fulfilling his campaign promise to do so if the DPJ did not obtain a majority in the Diet, he was replaced by Seiji Maehara in September 2005. However, Maehara's term as party leader lasted half a year. Although he led the party's criticism of the Koizumi administration in regards to connections between LDP lawmakers and scandal-ridden Livedoor, the revelation that a fake email was used to try and establish this link damaged his credibility; the scandal led to the resignation of Representative Hisayasu Nagata and of Maehara as party leader on 31 March. New elections for party leader were held on 7 April.
In Upper House election 2007, the DPJ won 60 out of 121 contested seats, with 49 seats not up for re-election. Ozawa resigned as party leader in May 2009 after a fundraising scandal and Yukio Hatoyama succeeded Ozawa before the August 2009 general election, at which the party swept the LDP from power in a massive landslide, winning 308 seats, reducing the LDP from 300 to 119 seats - the worst defeat for a sitting government in modern Japanese history; this was in marked contrast to the contested 1993 general election, the only other time the LDP has lost an election. The DPJ's strong majority in the House of Representatives assured that Hatoyama would be the next prime minister. Hatoyama was nominated on September 16 and formally appointed that day by Emperor Akihito. However, the DPJ did not have a majority in the House of Councillors, not contested at the election, fell just short of the 320 seats needed to override the upper chamber's veto power. Hatoyama was thus forced to form a
2010 Japanese House of Councillors election
The 22nd Elections to the House of Councillors for the upper house of the legislature of Japan were held on July 11, 2010. In the last election in 2007, the Liberal Democratic Party lost its majority to the Democratic Party, which managed to gain the largest margin since its formation in 1996; the House of Councillors is elected by halves to six-year terms. The seats up for election in 2010 were last contested in the 2004 election. On 11 June 2008, a non-binding censure motion was passed by parliament's opposition-controlled House of Councillors against Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda. Filed by the DPJ and two other parties, it was the first censure motion against a prime minister under Japan's post-war constitution. Ahead of the G8 summit, it attacked his handling of domestic issues including an unpopular medical plan and called for a snap election or his resignation. On 12 June a motion of confidence was passed by the lower house's ruling coalition to counter the censure. Fukuda abruptly announced.
Taro Aso won the subsequent election, held on 22 September 2008. In the 2009 lower house election, the DPJ gained an historic majority, being the first non-LDP party to hold a majority in that house since the LDP's formation and is scheduled to lead the second non-LDP government in the aforementioned time period. Following the election, Aso resigned as LDP president. Sadakazu Tanigaki was elected the leader of LDP on September 28, 2009; the House of Councillors election in 2010 was viewed as leading to the extinction of the LDP. Some of the LDP's most popular councillors, such as Yoichi Masuzoe and Kaoru Yosano, left the party prior to the election. However, the DPJ's popularity had been negatively impacted by fundraising scandals surrounding its president Yukio Hatoyama and secretary general Ichiro Ozawa, both of whom resigned on June 2, 2010. Naoto Kan became prime minister after Hatoyama's resignation and proposed a controversial increase in the consumption tax to shore up Japanese public finances.
The campaign season was only three weeks long, which frustrated efforts to have policy debates between the two major parties and the numerous third parties in the election. The result of the election was declared on July 12, 2010; the ruling DPJ lost many of its seats and the opposition LDP gained more seats in comparison to the last election, held in 2007. Your Party performed well in this election, while the DPJ's junior coalition partner, the People's New Party, performed poorly. DPJ secretary-general Ichirō Ozawa had decided on an offensive strategy for nominating candidates in multi-member districts: The DPJ was to nominate two candidates in all MMDs with the exceptions of Niigata where an SDP-affiliated independent incumbent was in the race and Fukuoka where a PNP incumbent sought reelection; this strategy was reaffirmed after Ozawa's resignation in June 2010 though the DPJ's support rate had fallen by and winning both seats in a SNTV two-member district requires a high margin in terms of party votes and an equal distribution of votes on the two candidates.
The strategy failed: all two-member districts split seats evenly between DPJ and LDP in 2010. In some districts the party risked losing both seats due to vote splitting, a danger that did not materialize in the election result; the LDP on the other hand nominated only one candidate per MMD – exceptions being Miyagi and Tokyo –, thus concentrating all LDP votes on one candidate. The election results in MMDs gave 20 seats to the DPJ, 18 to the LDP, three to the Kōmeitō and three to Your Party; the only districts where the DPJ won two seats and an advantage in seats over the LDP were Tokyo where administrative reform minister Renhō received a record 1.7 million votes and Toshio Ogawa ranked fourth and DPJ stronghold Aichi where DPJ candidates only finished second and third behind LDP newcomer Masahito Fujikawa. Part of the LDP victory were the results in the 29 single-member districts where the DPJ received 7 million votes winning eight districts while the LDP received 8.25 million votes and 21 seats, among them seven pickups compared to the pre-election composition of the chamber: Aomori, Akita and Nagasaki from the DPJ Kagawa and Tokushima from the NRP, both from former LDP members, Tochigi, a two-member district until 2010 with seats held by DPJ and NRP.
The LDP gained seven additional seats in two-member districts, but seats it had lost by party switchovers or resignations: in Hokkaidō from the Sunrise Party, in Niigata where Naoki Tanaka had switched parties together with his wife Makiko from an SDP-affiliated independent, in Gifu from an ex-LDP independent, in Nagano a vacant seat held by the LDP, in Hiroshima and Fukuoka from the PNP and only in Shizuoka directly from the DPJ where the Democrats had held both seats up because of the resignation of Yukiko Sakamoto in 2009 and the DPJ's victory in the resulting by-election. The vote in the districts with three or five seats up went to the DPJ with a 3.5 million vote edge over the LDP, but produced only a two-seat difference in the House of Councillors: the LDP won six, the DPJ eight seats. If compared to the 2004 election when the same class of Councillors was last elected, the LDP only gained five prefectural district seats and lost three seats in the nationwide proportional representation.
Elected candidates in bold Notes: All incumbents not running for re-election in their prefectural electoral district are counted as retirements if they ran in the nationwide proportional representa
Yasuo Fukuda
Yasuo Fukuda was the 58th Prime Minister of Japan, serving from 2007 to 2008. He was the longest-serving Chief Cabinet Secretary in Japanese history, serving for three and a half years under Prime Ministers Yoshirō Mori and Junichiro Koizumi. Following the resignation of Prime Minister Shinzō Abe, Fukuda was elected as President of the Liberal Democratic Party and became Prime Minister in September 2007. Fukuda was the first son of a former Japanese Prime Minister to take up the post. On 1 September 2008, Fukuda announced his resignation. Although Japan hosted the G8 summit meeting without mishap during Fukuda's time in office, he himself earned little or no credit from ordinary Japanese, when he resigned, he became the first of the G8 leaders to leave office. Fukuda was born in Takasaki, the eldest son of politician Takeo Fukuda, he grew up in Setagaya, attending Azabu High School and graduating from Waseda University in 1959 with a degree in economics. After university, he joined Maruzen Petroleum.
He was only minimally involved in politics over the next seventeen years, working his way up to section chief as a typical Japanese "salaryman". He was posted to the United States from 1962-64. While his father Takeo Fukuda was prime minister from 1976–78, Yasuo became a political secretary. From 1978 to 1989, he was a director of the Kinzai Institute for Financial Affairs, serving as a trustee from 1986 onward. Fukuda served as president of the Japanese Canoe Federation prior to his September 2007 election as Prime Minister. Fukuda won a seat, he was elected deputy director of the Liberal Democratic Party in 1997 and became Chief Cabinet Secretary to Yoshirō Mori in October 2000. He resigned his position as Chief Cabinet Secretary on 7 May 2004 amid a large political scandal related to the Japanese pension system. Fukuda was considered a contender for the leadership of the LDP in 2006, but, on 21 July, he decided that he would not seek the nomination. Instead, Shinzō Abe succeeded Junichirō Koizumi as leader of the Prime Minister of Japan.
One of his most noted policy goals is to end prime ministerial visits to Yasukuni Shrine. In June 2006, Fukuda joined 134 other lawmakers in proposing a secular alternative to the shrine, citing constitutional concerns. Following Abe's resignation in September 2007, Fukuda announced that he would run in the Liberal Democratic Party leadership election, which would determine the prime minister, given the LDP's majority in the House of Representatives. Fukuda received a great deal of support in his bid, including that of the LDP's largest faction, led by Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura, of which Fukuda is a member. Finance Minister Fukushiro Nukaga, who had intended to run for the leadership backed Fukuda. Fukuda's only competitor for the leadership, Tarō Asō, publicly acknowledged the likelihood of his own defeat a week before the election. In the election, on 23 September, he defeated Aso, receiving 330 votes against Aso's 197. Fukuda was formally elected as Japan's 91st prime minister on 25 September.
He received 338 votes 100 more than necessary for a majority, in the House of Representatives. This deadlock was resolved in favor of the lower house's choice, according to Article 67 of the Constitution. Fukuda and his cabinet were formally sworn in by Emperor Akihito on September 26. On 11 June 2008, a non-binding censure motion was passed by parliament's opposition-controlled upper house against Yasuo Fukuda. Filed by the Democratic Party of Japan and two other parties, it was the first censure motion against a prime minister under Japan's post-war constitution. Ahead of the G8 summit, it attacked his handling of domestic issues including an unpopular medical plan and called for a snap election or his resignation. On 12 June, a motion of confidence was passed by the lower house's ruling coalition to counter the censure. On 1 September 2008, Fukuda announced his resignation, citing reasons related to improving the flow of the political process; the sudden announcement began with a call for an emergency press conference issued at 6:00 pm, The purpose not disclosed until 10 minutes prior to the scheduled start of the press conference.
The resignation was compared to the sudden resignation of Abe a year earlier. Fukuda said that while Abe's resignation was due to health reasons, his own resignation was motivated by a desire to remove impediments to legislative and political process due to deadlock between his party and the opposition-controlled upper house of the Diet; the resignation led to another leadership election within the LDP. Tarō Asō was viewed as the front-runner to replace Fukuda, was elected a week later, his popularity was hit by a controversial medical plan for elderly people, falling below 30% at one stage. He said:Today, I have decided to resign. We need a new line-up to cope with a new session of parliament. My decision is based on; the Democratic Party has tried to stall every bill so it has taken a long time to implement any policies. For the sake of the Japanese people, this should not be repeated. If we are to prioritize the people's livelihoods, there cannot be a political vacuum from political bargaining, or a lapse in policies.
We need a new team to carry out policies. Taro Aso was elected to succeed Fukuda as LDP President on 22 September. Fukuda and his cabinet resigned en masse on 24 September 2008, to m
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