To deepen ties among Palaceside Building tenants, building staff and among tenants themselves, the Palaceside Building New Year gathering was held January 22 in first-basement Mainichi Hall; 87 people from 35 tenant and building organizations took part.
This is the seventh New Year event where tenants and building staff meet as one. After the Great East Japan Earthquake, a mood of helping one another when it counts rose, and the gathering has been held since 2013.
It has two parts: a lecture and a reception. In part one Special Editorial Board Member Takao Yamada of The Mainichi Newspapers spoke on "Politics in 2019 and Japan's Course" =photo
right. Yamada was long a political reporter and since 2007 has written the Monday morning page-2 column "Fuchi-so." He scooped former PM Junichiro Koizumi's "decision" to turn against nuclear power and sparked a new debate — a sharp, issue-raising column that won the 2014 Japan National Press Club Award for journalists who raise the standing of journalism.
In the talk he said "constitutional revision (which Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is intent on) will be hard for now, and this year's biggest theme is Japan-Russia," noting that unlike Okinawa, where a million lived under U.S. administration, public interest in the Northern Territories, where Japanese do not live, is thin; if a "two-island return" were agreed and the opposition said "that differs from the four-island policy, dissolve the House," a Lower House dissolution could follow. He also explained that four gubernatorial races in the unified local elections will split the conservatives, and with Lower House by-elections (Okinawa 3rd, Osaka 12th, April 21) tough races continue for the ruling camp.
Touching on the Emperor's abdication and the new Emperor's accession, he cited the Recruit scandal and the Takeshita cabinet's resignation in the first year of Heisei and the 1927 financial panic, saying "years when the era name changes have seen many problems" and "we must prepare for big change."
Participants nodded and listened closely to the "Yamada style" that cuts through issues with politicians' backstage stories.
At the reception, after greeting and a toast by Mainichi Building Co. President Toshiro Hara, they exchanged cards and introductions with Yamada among them.