Once again the issue of Japanese contributions to international security efforts is the subject of tortured debate...

Despite the fact that Japanese Finance Minister Kaoru Yosano said last Friday that February's fall in the so called "core-core" consumer price index doesn't mean Japan is back in deflation, few are ready to accept his judgement...

Ozawa Ichiro indicated, in a tearful press conference Tuesday evening, that he will stay on as DPJ president despite the indictment of his chief public secretary — but Ozawa's statement may have only been the end of the beginning of the final act of Ozawa's long career...

When I first came to Japan, long before the advent of mobile phones, I was impressed by the number of people I saw reading on the trains -- a literate society, I thought...

Okubo Takanori, Ozawa Ichiro's chief secretary, has as expected been indicted by the Tokyo district public prosecutor's office for violating the political funds control law...

Ozawa is due to announce whether he will remain as DPJ president today.

The financial market spotlight fell on my old company Livedoor when I split the company’s stocks by 100. That’s basically when public criticism of me really began to build.

At that time, Waseda University’s Tatsuo Uemura and Michio Matsui, President of Matsui Securities, were the most open critics of mine. In some cases, I don’t think I argued against much of the criticism. I used to think that it was a really adult approach to just let the ones who didn’t know what they were talking about talk.

The Fed's plans to print money sees the yen rally.

Forbes and AP have run nearly simultaneous articles reviving the "Japan rising" meme that I thought had died with Abe Shinzo's government.

Jun Okumura notes that while the political world waits to find out whether Ichiro Ozada will survive the scandal in his political organization, the DPJ has revived an approach pursued in the earlier half of this decade...

In the Asahi survey of political attitudes discussed in this post, respondents were asked to pick which portions of the budget that would like to see enhanced and which portions they would like to see cut...