Japanese PM’s support grows

Public support for Japan’s reformist Prime Minister has risen to 87% and many people think he is changing the country’s rigid political ways, a newspaper poll said today.

The poll by the national Mainichi newspaper said support for Junichiro Koizumi had increased from the 85% measured soon after he took office in April.

The show of support comes days after Koizumi made a widely popular decision not to appeal against a court decision ordering compensation to leprosy patients for suffering under a harsh former law.