PROFESSIONAL LUNCHEON
Shigeru Ishiba, Chairman, Policy Research Council,
Liberal Democratic Party

The speech and Q & A will be in Japanese with English interpretation.

Shortly after Sadakazu Tanigaki became president of the Liberal Democratic Party following its disastrous setback in the Aug. 30 general election, he turned to former defense chief and agriculture minister Shigeru Ishiba to serve as chairman of the party's Policy Research Council.

"I want him to play a role in leading our party," Tanigaki said of Ishiba. Both aspire to become prime minister if/when the LDP returns to power.

A lawmaker's son from Tottori Prefecture, 53-year-old Ishiba is widely known as a policy expert and a collector of miniature weapons, which grace his office.

As funding scandals whirl around Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama and DPJ Secretary General Ichiro Ozawa, Ishiba has waded into the row over the relocation of the U.S. Marine Corps' Futenma Air Station, saying the Hatoyama government "needs to immediately present a feasible plan among every option and make the utmost efforts to seek support from Okinawa and the United States." In that way, Japan can ease the burden on Okinawan people while retaining the deterrent power of the U.S. forces in Japan.

Ishiba is also tasked with gauging party opinions to the formulation of a policy on the issue of granting local suffrage to permanent foreign residents of Japan.

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Shigeru Ishiba, Chairman, LDP Policy Research Council