Recruit Scandal

Prime Minister Noboru Takeshita, seeking to erase the shadow of a stock scandal that tainted his government, reshuffled the Cabinet today with an aggressive new justice minister at the forefront. The 20-member Cabinet does not include any politicians linked to the so-called Recruit scandal, which led to the resignation of the finance minister and 16 other influential politicians and business leaders.

Prime Minister Noboru Takeshita's appointee as justice minister, purportedly selected this week because he was untainted by a burgeoning stock scandal, acknowledged Wednesday night that he has received substantial political contributions from the company at the center of the scandal. Takashi Hasegawa told reporters Tuesday, when he was appointed to the sensitive Cabinet job, that he was "totally free" of any connection to the Recruit Co. stock scandal.

Japanese politics were plunged into confusion Monday as the ruling Liberal Democratic Party began a desperate search for a suitable successor to Prime Minister Sosuke Uno, who announced that he will resign to take responsibility for his party's devastating losses in Sunday's election for the upper house of Parliament.

Toshiki Kaifu, a former education minister and an official of the smallest faction in the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, emerged Wednesday as the likely successor to Prime Minister Sosuke Uno. With assurances of support from most of the party's five factions, Kaifu, 58, announced that he will be a candidate in Tuesday's election for party president. The winner will be elected prime minister by the lower house of Parliament, where the Liberal Democrats have a 39-seat majority.

Japan's Economic Planning Minister, Ken Harada, resigned today over a share trading scandal he was once charged to investigate. Harada joined two other ministers driven out of office last month by the Recruit Co. scandal but said he had done nothing illegal. Harada, who took over as economic planning minister less than a month ago, had previously been chairman of a government committee charged with investigating the share trading scandal.

The world's greatest economic powerhouse is staffed by some of the world's weakest men. From that simple but stark assumption, Japan's movie-directing sensation of the 1980s has fashioned "Ageman," the film he hopes will carry his momentum into the 1990s. "Japan has not yet invented fatherhood as a part of its culture," filmmaker Juzo Itami said. "So where most societies have three main figures--father, mother and child--Japan has only two, and men grow up to be children."

Yusuke Yoshinaga, a diminutive man whose fierce eyes peer from behind a pair of thick-lensed glasses, represents renewed faith in government for many Japanese these days, as a turbid corruption scandal strains the credibility of their elected leaders. Yoshinaga is the man who did the unthinkable in 1976 and arrested former Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka, then one of the most powerful politicians in Japan, on bribery charges. And he could strike again. In his more than three decades serving in the public prosecutor's office, Yoshinaga, 56, has acquired a reputation as an aggressive and meticulous investigator, loyal to the law and oblivious to outside political pressure.

Less than a month after taking office in hopes of restoring public confidence in Japan's ruling party, Prime Minister Sosuke Uno is beset by allegations of misbehavior that threaten his political survival. On Wednesday, Uno strongly denied widespread reports in the Japanese press that he is considering resigning. But Uno, a former foreign minister whose political position already was weak when he took the helm of the government on June 2, is clearly facing a struggle to stay in office amid a series of setbacks including new accusations that he had sexual affairs with women whom he treated callously.

Major brokerage Daiwa Securities is under investigation by Japan's Finance Ministry for allegedly violating securities law, in what appears to be another Japanese stock scandal. When stock recommendations went sour, Daiwa allegedly offered its favored corporate clients special stock deals that guaranteed illegal profits to make up for losses. The Finance Ministry has opened a probe of Daiwa's alleged loss-free transactions, which violate Japan's Securities and Exchange Law.

Whatever happened to political corruption in Japan? Last year, public outrage over shady fund raising in the stock market toppled the government of former Prime Minister Noboru Takeshita, led to the indictment of a dozen officials and businessmen and contributed to the ruling Liberal Democratic Party's defeat in the election for the upper house of Parliament.