Japanese parliament clears antiterrorism refueling law, bank aid law

TOKYO, Dec. 12 Kyodo - The Japanese parliament enacted a law Friday to continue Japan's antiterrorism refueling mission to support Afghanistan via a revote by the ruling coalition in the House of Representatives, overriding the opposition-controlled House of
Councillors' rejection of the legislation.
The governing Liberal Democratic Party and its junior coalition partner the New
Komeito party also enacted another government-proposed law to support the
banking sector through public fund injections with a second vote in the lower
house, which requires a majority of at least two-thirds.
With the passage of the two key government bills, the parliamentary battle
between the ruling and opposition camps will end for the time being, to be
carried over to the regular Diet session expected to convene Jan. 5.
The lower house voted 334 to 133 to override the upper house's rejection in the
morning of the law to enable Japan to continue refueling activities for another
year from Jan. 15 for the U.S.-led antiterrorism maritime interdiction mission
in the Indian Ocean in support of Afghanistan.
Prime Minister Taro Aso said in a comment issued after the enactment that the
extension is ''indeed significant.''
''Maritime interdiction operations are underpinning efforts in Afghanistan by
intercepting and deterring terrorist activities,'' he said.
Earlier in the day, during an upper house plenary session, the refueling bill,
which initially cleared the lower house Oct. 21, was voted down and an
amendment proposed to the financial bill by the main opposition Democratic
Party of Japan was approved.
The amendment states that scandal-tainted Shinginko Tokyo, a bank primarily
owned by the Tokyo metropolitan government and under fire for lax lending
practices to high risk borrowers, will effectively be exempt from public fund
injections.
The original government-proposed banking aid bill cleared the lower house Nov.
6. The bill revises the existing law to strengthen financial institutions.
On Friday, the lower house voted 336 to 131 to pass the government-proposed
revision.
Finance Minister Shoichi Nakagawa said later in the day he will ''coordinate
relevant Cabinet orders and regulations at once so that the revised law will
come into force by the end of next week.''
The existing law calls for a credit line of 2 trillion yen for injection of
public funds into local financial institutions that have seen their balance
sheets deteriorate.
With the revision, the government is mulling sharply increasing the credit
line, hoping these institutions will be more willing to lend to small
businesses after their balance sheets are strengthened.
Aso said in a statement that with the revised law, the government ''will boldly
respond to the severe economic situation through various policies for regional
economies and for facilitating finances to small and medium-sized businesses.''
During the remainder of the session, scheduled to end Dec. 25, the DPJ hopes to
hold deliberations on a package of stimulus measures it introduced in the upper
house.
In doing so, the DPJ seeks to highlight differences on how to tackle the
financial crisis between it and the ruling camp and government, which have
decided to forgo submitting a second supplementary budget for fiscal 2008 in
the ongoing extended session.
Meanwhile, the ruling parties aim to start deliberations on bills to set up a
consumer affairs agency. But the possibility of realizing both sides'
intentions is slim.
==Kyodo