Calls grow for Japan PM to quit

A protestor holds a placard to protest against nuclear power plants in front of the TEPCO headquarters in Tokyo yesterday.Photo: AFP

Japan's fragile post-disaster political truce unravelled on Thursday as the head of the main opposition party called on unpopular Prime Minister Naoto Kan to quit over his handling of the country's natural calamities and a nuclear crisis.
At the stricken Fukushima Daiichi plant in the northeast of the country, engineers were struggling to find a new way to cool one of the six crippled reactors and Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said it was now "highly likely" there was a hole in the suppression unit of the reactor.
The Japanese government has ordered the operator of the nuclear plant damaged by last month's quake and tsunami to pay compensation to affected families.
About 48,000 families who lived within 30km of the Fukushima Daiichi plant will be eligible.
The compensation is described as provisional, with payouts - expected to be $12,000 per family - beginning on 28 April.
Kan, whose public support stands at about 30 percent, had sought a grand coalition to help the country recover from its worst ever natural disaster and enact bills to pay for the country's biggest reconstruction project since World War Two.
Kan's Democratic Party controls parliament's lower house but needs opposition help to pass bills because it lacks a majority in the upper chamber, which can block legislation.
But the head of the main opposition Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) -- who last week ruled out joining hands -- on Thursday pressured Kan to go.
"The time has come for (the prime minister) to decide whether he stays or goes," Kyodo news agency quoted Sadakazu Tanigaki as telling a news conference.
Tanigaki's comment reflects the view of many in his conservative party that Kan must step down as a precondition for any coalition as well as a hope that criticism of Kan within his own Democratic Party will gather steam after party powerbroker Ichiro Ozawa blasted the premier over his crisis management.
Upper House speaker Takeo Nishioka, a well-known Kan critic from the Democrats, also urged Kan to resign, Kyodo said.
Kan, however, who took office as Japan's fifth leader since 2006 last June, is not likely to step down readily, while opposition parties could come under fire if they try to take disaster budgets hostage in a political battle, analysts said.
Five weeks ago a massive earthquake and tsunami left nearly 28,000 dead or missing, devastated a broad swathe of northeast Japan and damaged the Fukushima nuclear plant. There has been no sign of a resolution of the atomic crisis.