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PM throws down corruption challenge

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Yukio Hatoyama, Japan's new prime minister, took the first steps last week towards ending a pervasive but perniciously corrupt practice that has dragged down the economy for years.

Achieving success may lead him into a desperate battle with Japan's powerful bureaucrats, who regard the practice as part of their perks.

However, if he is successful, he may end notorious bid-rigging deals, make Japan's economy more efficient and open it up to the rest of the world.

The practice that the government wants to abolish is quaintly called amakudari, which literally translates as 'descent from heaven' and is a reference to the Shinto gods coming down to visit mere mortals.

The bureaucrats clearly see themselves as latter-day gods, who in the modern-style amakudari leave their ministerial posts to take well-paid jobs in leading corporations. In their new jobs they can earn several times as much as when they were the gods of the bureaucracy.

The new Hatoyama government decided to prohibit ministries from urging officials to take early retirement by offering them jobs outside the ministry.

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