Shinzo Abe may have built his early political career on the championing of the abductee families, but in the end it appears that he is more interested in the issue for the purpose of hardening Japanese public attitudes towards the North Korean regime than in designing policies that are genuinely in the best interests of the victims and their families.
The anti-base forces just lost this year’s second-most important election in Okinawa. Their energies must now be directed to winning the main event.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has been working hard to build a positive relationship with Putin’s Russia, but does any substantial reward wait at the end of the rainbow?
Futenma Marine Corps Air Station in Ginowan, Okinawa, must close—on that much everyone agrees. But the insistence by the United States and the Japanese central government on building a replacement facility in another part of Okinawa is bitterly opposed by Okinawa’s people and prefectural government.
Key passages from North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un’s New Year Address in which he offers an olive branch to South Korea, potentially sparking direct peace talks in the near future.
The last thing the US Alliance Managers would ever consider is that perhaps they ought to actually respect democracy and to make adjustments to their policies in accordance with the democratic will.
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s upcoming visit to Japan provides senior Japanese officials a fresh opportunity to end their long silence on the Philippine government’s murderous “war on drugs.”
Doubt is once again cast on Japanese national sovereignty as the Abe administration is exposed as being utterly incapable of representing the concerns of Okinawa to the US military.
A basic description of the government instructions for residents in the event nuclear missiles are fired at Japan
US Pacific Command Admiral Harry Harris, speaking before the US House of Representatives’ Armed Services Committee, reaffirms the plan to transfer some US Marines out of Okinawa to other regions.
