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 TOKYO (AP) - Just a few weeks ago, the campaign to make women eligible for Japan's time-honored Chrysanthemum Throne seemed assured of victory. Now that movement is frozen in its tracks, thanks to a powerful newcomer on the royal scene: a 6-week-old embryo.
The Imperial Household Agency announced Tuesday that Princess Kiko, whose husband Prince Akishino is second in line to the throne, was in the early stages of pregnancy, delivering a possible solution to the royal family's much-bemoaned lack of male heirs.
The announcement suddenly offered an attractive alternative — wait and see if it's a boy — to the government's determination to push through legislation that would avert a looming succession crisis by allowing a woman to become monarch for the first time since the 1700s.
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