Unemployed loner Tetsuya Yamagami hoped to use his homemade shotgun on Shinzo Abe not mainly to kill Japan’s longest-serving prime minister, but to take his revenge on the Unification Church, which he blamed for destroying his life and that of his family. Improbably, the assassination has become a wild political success.
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has outlined what appears to be a sincere effort to realign Japan’s position on nuclear weapons–from one that supports the maintenance of the US “nuclear umbrella” to one that aims for gradual global nuclear weapons disarmament.
As a treaty review conference kicked off in New York City, antiwar groups called out nuclear-armed countries—particularly the United States—for not complying with the decades-old agreement.
Since the Myanmar coup last February, Japan has been under pressure to cut its links with the military regime. However, far more lies under the surface of this long-running bilateral relationship than many people perceive, making policy decisions quite complex.
Far too many elderly Japanese have continued to slip into poverty, threatening their very lives.
Former Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara, who died February 1, was an evil man. Any honest obituary would admit as such.
Calls by business groups and the academic world have increased pressure on Japan to reconsider its overly strict border policies and to reopen the country to essential travelers, but for many of the foreign students who have been desperately trying to enter in Japan for the past two years, the damage has already been done.
US Forces Japan has the duty to recognize that what they do affects Visible Minorities in Japan, whether it be inspiring bigots to slam shop doors in their faces, or giving more ammunition to reactionaries who seek to seal off Japan’s borders.
In what may prove to be an escalating problem in Japan, young Chinese looking for employment in small startups and technology-related firms appear to be facing a wall of suspicion and sometimes outright racism.
Since 2008, I have always devoted my end-year columns to counting down the Top Ten human rights issues as they pertain to Non-Japanese residents of Japan. This year I’m moving this feature to the Shingetsu News Agency.
