International16 FRIDAY, DECEMBER 20, 2013

Tokyo governor resigns in money scandal

TOKYO: Tokyo’s governor, one of the avoiding a negative impact on prepa- that had nothing to do with his cam- it bore no date for repayment and main faces of the mega-city’s success- rations for the Games. “At this impor- paign for the city’s top job. showed no terms and conditions. On ful bid to host the 2020 Olympics, tant juncture when needs to... Under Japanese election law, cam- another occasion, he produced a bag resigned yesterday after admitting he jump-start towards 2020, we can’t paign treasurers must report all in which he claimed to have carried was naive for accepting an unde- afford to paralyse the metropolitan income such as donations related to the large bundle of cash. Opponents clared $500,000 from a hospital government with my problems,” he electioneering. Those who violate the delighted in trying to prove that the tycoon. Naoki Inose, who was elected said. “I decided that my stepping law can face prison terms of up to sum would not fit inside the holdall. head of one of the world’s biggest down is the only way to break the three years or fines of up to 500,000 conurbations a year ago, had faced impasse.” yen. Inose, who inherited the mantle ‘I was an amateur politician’ weeks of intense pressure over suspi- The resignation came the day after of Tokyo governor from firebrand Yesterday the 67-year-old Inose cions that the money amounted to a the publication of his latest book, nationalist , has cut admitted he had been naive about the bribe in an attempt to influence poli- whose title translates as “How to Win an increasingly lonely figure over the cut and thrust of politics. “I didn’t cy. “I have decided to resign from the Through”. The book was ranked sixth past few weeks as the furore around know how strict professional politi- post of Tokyo governor,” Inose told a on Amazon Japan’s bestseller list at him swelled. He has been grilled by a cians need to be,” he said. “I was an hurriedly arranged press conference. 7:30 pm (1030 GMT) yesterday. Inose hostile assembly on several occa- amateur politician even though I knew “I intended to fulfil my duty of acknowledged in November he had sions, with the media picking apart well about policies. I myself thought it explaining to the city assembly, peo- received 50 million yen ($500,000) his appearance and stuttering per- was extraordinary that I became Tokyo ple of Tokyo and people of the from the political family behind the formance, focusing on beads of sweat governor,” he added. Pressure grew nation, but regrettably I could not huge Tokushukai medical group that dripped down his neck. At hear- when Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, clear doubts over me.” Inose was a before last year’s gubernatorial elec- ings and in press conferences he has whose Liberal Democratic Party sup- key figure in Tokyo’s successful bid tion. The money, handed to him in waved around a piece of paper he ported Inose’s run for the job, was for the 2020 Olympics and he said his cash, was kept in a safety deposit box insists amounted to a loan agree- reported to be keen on drawing a line resignation was partially aimed at and Inose said it was a personal loan ment, although observers noted that under the scandal. —AFP

Alarm rises for Afghan Thai protesters women prisoners after troops leave HEART: After Farida’s husband sold their three-year-old daughter to take aim at US support his drug habit of several years, she took a knife and stabbed him to death in their house in the western Afghan province of Herat. The young mother of three then dragged his body into the street and called the police. Farida is now serving a 20-year sentence in Herat’s Thai PM calls for snap polls; protesters reject prison for women.”I do not agree with the sentence,” she said, her gaze steady from beneath a green headscarf. “They didn’t consider BANGKOK: Anti-government protesters US embassy. The United States has annoyed will not accept Square Face”, a nickname the bad situation I was in.” Farida, 31, expected the police to kill her marched in Bangkok yesterday in a bid to the protesters by calling for the democratic given to former Prime Minister Thaksin rather than send her to prison where the first four years of her term force Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra process to be respected, effectively endors- Shinawatra, Yingluck’s brother and the fig- have been relatively comfortable. Foreign aid donors have ensured from office but their numbers appeared far ing the holding of an election. Nititorn ure at the centre of Thailand’s eight-year, regular meals, heating and healthcare. smaller than earlier in the month, when she Lamlua, a protest leader, said US on-off political crisis. Thaksin, a former But those arrangements are now at risk and fears that women like called a snap election to try to defuse the cri- Ambassador Kristie Kenney ought to be telecommunications tycoon, is adored by Farida may be abandoned are growing as the prison’s main benefac- sis. Protest leader Suthep Thaugsuban is transferred. “If she needs to leave the the rural poor because of cheap healthcare tor, the Italian Provincial Reconstruction Team, winds down opera- demanding political and electoral reforms embassy, she’ll have to go by helicopter and other policies brought in while he was tions alongside most foreign troops. The government has shown little before any vote is held and wants these to because she has badmouthed the protest- in power, but he was toppled by the military interest in protecting hard-won rights for women and most of its lim- in 2006 and now lives in self-exile. ited funds will be devoted to fighting a growing Taleban insurgency. Yingluck won a landslide victory in 2011 “If the government doesn’t feed them they don’t eat,” said Heather and her Puea Thai Party is well placed to win Barr, a researcher for Human Rights Watch. “The government has an the next election because of Thaksin’s important role after the provincial reconstruction team leaves and it’s enduring support in the populous north and hard to imagine they will have the will, or the ability, to continue northeast. Ranged against them are a royal- maintaining the conditions in prisons as outside funding declines.” ist establishment that feels threatened by With 169 inmates, the Heart jail is Afghanistan’s second-largest prison Thaksin’s rise and a middle class that resents for women after a jail in the capital, Kabul, that holds around 230. The what it sees as its taxes being spent on prison also offers training in English and computer classes, skills that wasteful populist policies that amount to inmates jailed for fleeing abusive or forced marriages might never vote-buying. otherwise have acquired. Thaksin fled in 2008 before being sen- tenced to jail for abuse of power in a trial he Age-old attitudes says was politically motivated. Suthep’s The best hope for women in Afghanistan was for foreign aid movement gained impetus in early November after Yingluck’s government tried donors to tie cash to progress, said Suraya Pakzad, who runs women’s to push through a political amnesty bill that shelters in several provinces. “The budget allocated for women’s would have allowed Thaksin to return home activities is nothing,” said Pakzad. “The year 2014 - everybody is talk- a free man. ing about that. It creates fear among women in the community.” She attributed the fear to the fact that many Afghans’ age-old attitudes Rally on Sunday towards women have not changed. The judicial process invariably BANGKOK: Anti-government protesters flash victory signs as they march After failing to get the politically influen- punishes women, whatever their defence. Farida, for example, said through the streets of Bangkok during an ongoing rally yesterday. —AFP tial military on his side, Suthep is trying to she killed her husband in reaction to years of beatings and watching re-energise his supporters with marches this him drain the family’s funds to feed his drug habit. Many fellow be overseen by a “people’s council” that his ers,” he said. week and a rally on Sunday. A court has inmates said they had fled abuse and been accused of “zina”, or sex movement will help nominate rather than On Dec 9, when Yingluck called the elec- issued an arrest warrant for Suthep on a between unmarried people, by angry husbands or family. Upon by Yingluck, who is caretaker prime minister tion, about 160,000 protesters had massed charge of insurrection but police have done arrest, they faced intrusive virginity tests and imprisonment for until the election, set for Feb 2. around her office complex, and before that nothing to apprehend him, despite his attempted adultery even if the test results were negative, Pakzad said. Thailand’s National Security Council said some had occupied ministries and other appearance at a military seminar and other Rape victims are also routinely jailed for “zina” and left to give only 6,500 people gathered at the busy state buildings, but police say no more than events. On Wednesday the Department of birth in prison. Ten babies were born at Herat’s jail this year and more Asoke intersection in central Bangkok at 2,000 people are now camped out at the Special Investigation, Thailand’s equivalent than 70 are growing up behind bars. Concern about a future without around mid-day, although office workers main protest sites in Bangkok’s historic quar- of the U.S. FBI, said it would ask banks to foreign support is all the more acute now that the United States has and others lined the route of the march to ter. Demonstrators yesterday held banners freeze the accounts of 18 rally leaders, threatened to pull out all its troops over a crucial security deal Afghan voice support. A separate group of about saying “We are anti-corruption” and “No including Suthep, to investigate what it President Hamid Karzai has refused to sign. —Reuters 1,000 student-led protesters marched to the elections before reform”. One sign read: “We called suspicious transactions. —Reuters