Nearly one year ago, a magnitude 9.0 quake struck off Japan’s central Pacific coast, triggering a devastating tsunami and aftershocks that left more than 15,700 dead, according to a government report in December on Japan’s recovery from the catastrophe. About 4,500 were listed as missing.

Really, if there’s any developed nation that was glad to see 2011 end, it was Japan. The radiation crisis caused by the March earthquake and tsunami was but the biggest news in a year that included deepening deflation, credit downgrades, the resignation of a fifth prime minister in as many years and an Olympus Corp. scandal that spooked investors the world over.

In addition to opposition from lawmakers, sliding public support is making it difficult for Mr. Noda to push ahead with the plan, seen as politically precarious but badly needed. The increased revenue is sought to address Japan’s debt load, the largest among the world’s rich nations, at more than twice economic output.

“I am taking action, I will be leaving the Democratic Party of Japan,” Yasunori Saito wrote on his Twitter account, referring to the ruling party. “No tax hike until we get out of deflation,” he added.

One DPJ lawmaker had said over the weekend that he would leave the party, while another resigned from a senior party post.

Japanese media reports said others may follow suit and leave the party.

The lawmakers have been emboldened by recent opinion polls showing voters are increasingly opposed to the sales-tax increase and disgruntled with Mr. Noda’s failure to stick to pledges to cut wasteful spending.

A survey by the Nikkei business daily published Monday showed that 53% of respondents disapproved of the plan to double the sales tax by mid-decade, while 38% supported it. The poll by the financial daily also showed that 36% of respondents support the Noda cabinet, while 53% give it the thumbs down.

Mr. Noda’s DPJ, which came to power in the summer of 2009, has so far failed to meet many of its promises to slash unnecessary spending, such as cutting the number of lawmakers and the wages of government officials.

Last week Mr. Noda’s cabinet approved funding for the resumption of a dam project that had come to symbolize unwanted public works and that the DPJ had initially put on hold.

“The dam construction is the worst among the broken promises,” lawmaker Mr. Saito wrote.

In the face of mounting opposition, officials hinted that Mr. Noda may not be able to meet a year-end deadline to finalize the road map intended to spell out when and how the 5% tax will be raised, before being increased to 10% by around 2015.

Mr. Noda on Tuesday instructed the DPJ to come up with its draft by the end of the year, while he said the government also should “aim to” compile the final road map by year end.

Asked whether the expression meant the government could postpone the decision into January, Mr. Noda’s top aide, Chief Cabinet Secretary Osamu Fujimura, said it could be interpreted many ways, adding that he didn’t expect it to be well into January.

“The opening price was 7 yen higher than the offer price; I was relieved to be honest,” President Seung-woo Choi told reporters in Tokyo. “The Japanese market is stable. That’s one of the reasons we chose Japan” for the listing, he said.

Meiji, the Tokyo company that makes the formula, announced the recall of 400,000 cans of it as a precaution but said the levels of cesium detected were well below the government’s safety limits. Tests found a combined 30.8 becquerels per kilogram of cesium 134 and cesium 137, the company said, compared with the government limit of 200.

The company began work in January on construction of the 1,385-megawatt No.1 unit at the plant, which was due to start operations in March 2017. The work has been halted following the radiation crisis, however.

A spokesman for the utility, known as Tepco, denied it has set a date for the announcement, however.

The firm is preparing a business plan that must win government approval by early November so that a bailout body, funded by public money and contributions from nuclear operators, will provide unlimited funds to help compensate those affected by the ongoing radiation crisis in Fukushima.

The Nikkei index at the Tokyo Stock Exchange gained 30.63 points to close at 8,772.54. The Topix index of all first-section issues was up 0.25 points or 0.03 per cent at 751.49.

US stocks staged a late rally Tuesday after a British newspaper reported that France and Germany were ready to sharply boost the eurozone’s rescue fund in a bid to address the public debt crisis.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average surged 180.05 points (1.58 per cent) to finish at 11,577.05.

Citing unnamed European Union diplomats, The Guardian reported that the leaders of France and Germany, the eurozone’s biggest economies, have agreed to boost the rescue fund to two trillion euros ($2.7 trillion).

Other reports said however that officials were still debating the scope of how to enhance the European Financial Stability Facility, which currently has a 440 billion euro lending capacity.

The European single unit rose to $1.3810 and 105.91 yen in Tokyo trade late Wednesday from $1.3752 and 105.66 yen in New York late Tuesday. The dollar was trading at 76.76 yen, down slightly from 76.81 yen.

Moody’s became the latest agency to downgrade Spain’s debt rating on Tuesday, warning that no “credible” resolution to the country’s economic crisis had yet emerged.

Sentiment in the stock market was shored up by relatively steady US corporate earnings results.

But “broadly lowered risk tolerance” is failing to significantly boost trading volume, said Kazuhiro Takahashi, general manager of investment strategy and research at Daiwa Securities.

“In a thinly traded market, despite some improvement in external factors it’s hard to feel too enthusiastic (about positive market moves),” he said.

Some technology shares rose after bellwether chip supplier Intel in New York reported record sales for the September quarter as it shrugged off worries about a softening PC market and benefited from strong notebook sales.

Softbank and KDDI, Japan’s two carriers for Apple’s iPhone 4S, fell after the California company’s record-high September quarter profit still fell short of forecasts.

Softbank fell 4.08 per cent to 2,374 yen and KDDI sank 3.04 per cent to 541,000 yen.

Olympus shares, which lost 43 per cent in the three days to Tuesday after the company ousted its first non-Japanese chief executive, lost another 1.97 per cent Wednesday to 1,389 yen.

City officials announced private tests done by an agency hired by a resident had found a concentration of 195 becquerels per kilogram of strontium in sediment on top of the apartment building. Both the Yokohama government and the Japanese government are conducting their own tests to verify the findings.