Shinzo Abe
May 24, 2013
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on May 24 starts his three-day visit to Myanmar, which includes a meeting with Myanmar President Thein Sein on May 26 in the capital city of Naypyidaw....
May 24, 2013
Recent confrontations over territorial issues and historical interpretations in Northeast Asia threaten to destabilize the regional order.
May 23, 2013
LONDON--Amnesty International criticized Japan's inaction on the issue of "comfort women" in its annual report on the state of human rights around the world, released on May 23.
May 23, 2013
SAGAMIHARA, Kanagawa Prefecture--When Masayoshi Matsumoto joined the Japanese army in 1943 and was sent to occupied China as a medic, he thought he was taking part in a...
May 22, 2013
Long accused of tolerating “kidnapping,” Japan on May 22 approved a bill to join the Hague convention on resolving cross-border abductions of children from broken...
May 22, 2013
Japan is gearing up to reopen talks with North Korea for the first time since November, and will focus on resolving the abduction issue once and for all, as well as seeking to...
May 21, 2013
The unusual government decision to publicize the moves of foreign submarines near Japanese territorial waters is not serving as a deterrent as initially hoped for.
May 21, 2013
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe raised the bar with Pyongyang on May 20, saying all Japanese believed to have been abducted by North Korea must be repatriated to resolve the...
May 20, 2013
A victory for the Liberal Democratic Party is seen as a certainty in the July Upper House election. It will be a do-over of the 2007 election, in which the LDP lost badly. If a ...
May 19, 2013
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe sent his special Cabinet adviser on an unnanounced visit to Pyongyang last week in the hope of resolving the abduction issue once and for all.
May 19, 2013
The government’s Agency for Natural Resources and Energy engaged in highly questionable behavior by helping a private panel calling for restarts of nuclear reactors to draft...
May 18, 2013
BEIJING—Special Cabinet adviser Isao Iijima has provided few details about his unannounced visit to North Korea since his return to Tokyo on May 18, but Pyongyang called it a ...
May 17, 2013
Buoyed by strong public support for his economic policies, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe continues to put top priority on shoring up the nation’s economy to assure his party's...
May 16, 2013
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is hopeful of making headway in resolving the long-standing impasse of North Korea's abduction of Japanese nationals through the surprise visit to...
May 16, 2013
A U.S. envoy for North Korea sidestepped questions on May 16 on the nature of a surprise visit to Pyongyang by an aide to Japan's prime minister, but said all sides tackling...
May 16, 2013
The Diet passed a 92.6 trillion-yen ($926 billion) budget plan for fiscal 2013 on May 15 that will further bloat the government's debt and fuel doubts over its promises of...
May 15, 2013
Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto tried to counter the waves of criticism over his “comfort women” comments, but even members of the Abe administration were distancing themselves...
May 15, 2013
Outgoing South Korean Ambassador Shin Kak-soo severely criticized recent comments by Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto about the necessity of having "comfort women" who were forced...
May 14, 2013
Contrary opinions about Japan's historical interpretation of its wartime actions are brewing within the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, and it may not be easy to resolve...
May 14, 2013
An adviser to Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe arrived in North Korea on May 14 in a rare surprise visit to a country with which Japan has no diplomatic ties, but the purpose ...