Ex-premier's daughter Obuchi named minister on declining birthrate

Thursday 25th September, 05:21 AM JST

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cracaphat at 07:31 PM JST - 25th September

A 34 year old who's just become a mother has nothing to offer in govt than except to breastfeed her one year old. But it could have been worse,if Koike had gotten the job.She's childless.
ThonTaddeo at 09:45 PM JST - 25th September

I definitely prefer affordable day care facilities over anything involving the subsidization of single mothers. A fundamental truism in government is that when you subsidize something, you get more of it. And single-parent households are something that society should take great pains to avoid. A child needs and deserves two parents!
boiledegg at 12:30 AM JST - 26th September

Japanese people are smart, and don't have kids that they can't afford. All you people calling for subsidies, pay for your own damn kids, it's not your right to take my money because you can't afford to raise children the way you'd like.
realist at 01:43 AM JST - 26th September

"I want to talk with them and hear their voices" Quote of the century! Duh.
realist at 01:44 AM JST - 26th September

chibaman - what a funny post! True, too!!!
Good_Jorb at 02:42 AM JST - 26th September

I definitely prefer affordable day care facilities over anything involving the subsidization of single mothers. A fundamental truism in government is that when you subsidize something, you get more of it.

I can just hear all the future single mothers now. You know, I was planning on making you wear protection tonight but because now that there is subsidized daycare, I think instead I would rather be impregnated or I was going to have an abortion but now that...
ThonTaddeo at 04:50 AM JST - 26th September

Good Jorb, I was thinking more of mothers who choose to divorce and take their children with them -- remember, joint custody is not the rule here -- confident that they'll have a taxpayer-supplied safety net when raising them.

When parents divorce, the non-custodial parent hardly gets any contact with theit child. (Former PM Koizumi's son, for example, went with his father and hardly saw his mother.) If government starts handing taxpayer money to single parents, we're only going to see more of these atrocities.
Good_Jorb at 05:13 AM JST - 26th September

Nothing healthier for a child, then being raised in a broken home. Kids and mothers(sometimes fathers) should live together with their spouse well they're being abused. The state should not in any way make it easy for them to leave. Now that is an atrocity.
unscrejects at 03:17 PM JST - 26th September

Met the lady in '05 at a certain country's embassy party.Wow! She's destained to be the first female PM of Japan - I'm willing to bet on it. And does she have a score to settle. You should of heard what she had to say about the fact that her father suffered a stroke while serving as prime minister but upon his demise some days later was called "ex-prime minister Obuchi" and thus denied a state funeral. She went on to tell that country's representatives that she had accepted their party invitation in defiance of the official state position on that country as an expression of her family's apprecciation for the country's response to her father's death - the country, through protocol, recognised the funeral as a full state funeral. She's definitly savvy. British educated too.
ultradodgy at 10:51 AM JST - 28th September

The Japan Palin?
onewrldoneppl at 12:35 PM JST - 28th September

"I want to talk with them and hear their voices" Quote of the century! Duh.

in all honesty, probably jus'a bad translation of a (perhaps) insightful; well-intentioned and eloquent statement. before people make comments like this, it's be better to brush up their nihongo & (re)watch the original broadcast. YOUTUBE, anyone? personally, i can see the reasoning behind her appointment. would one prefer the ol'gaffer who referred to j-birds as baby-makin'machines? or perhaps any of the childless careerbirds who have no insights at all into the lives/concerns of working/single mothers?
borscht at 01:03 PM JST - 30th September

The Japan Palin?

No, Obuchi is one smart, well-educated, internationally-minded woman.
Sarge at 01:08 PM JST - 30th September

"declining birthrate"

The Japanese need to take a look at what the Chinese and the Indians are doing.

borscht - No need to diss Sarah Palin here.
Molenir at 01:19 PM JST - 1st October

The Japan Palin?

No, Obuchi is one smart, well-educated, internationally-minded woman.

Yeah, Palin has all that plus a large number of kids, and she also loves hunting and fishing. Yeah, definitely not the Japan Palin.
electric2004 at 03:19 PM JST - 2nd October

Today I got a mail from the Network of European researchers in Japan. Under

http://ec.europa.eu/research/headlines/news/article_08_09_01_en.html

it explains

**Soy foods may reduce sperm count **Scientists are urging caution to all men who love their soy food. A research study recently published in Europe's leading reproductive medicine journal, Human Reproduction, has revealed that men who eat an average of half a serving of soy food a day have lower concentrations of sperm than their counterparts who do not eat soy foods.

Who would have thought about that? Living healthy but less chance to make babies.