Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara takes off his glasses after addressing the Tokyo metropolitan assembly in Tokyo February 23. The nationalistic 67-year-old Ishihara is a political gadfly who loves nothing so much as squaring off against the establishment. Now Ishihara has taken on the world of high finance by proposing to slap a new tax on big banks to help pull the city out of the red, a move that central government authorities say could damage Tokyo's credibility as a global financial centre.

TA/PB