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The landslide victory of the governing Liberal Democratic Party-Komeito alliance in Japan's upper parliamentary house on Sunday means that Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has both the mandate and means to amend the constitution. The prospective changes would allow Japan to use military force in more circumstances and bolster its offensive combat capabilities. On Monday, Kishida suggested he would move to make these changes without delay. They would have to be approved by a public referendum, even if the country's parliament did give its assent. But it is clear that Japan is moving toward a more robust deterrence doctrine in the...

Japanese voters went to the polls Sunday in the shadow of the assassination of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who was gunned down while making a campaign speech. Abe's governing party appeared to be cruising to a major victory. As people voted, police in western Japan sent the alleged assassin to a local prosecutors' office for further investigation. A day earlier a top regional police official acknowledged possible security lapses that allowed the attacker to get so close and fire a bullet at the still-influential former Japanese leader. In a country still recovering from the shock, sadness and fear of...

The man accused of gunning down Shinzo Abe believed the former Japanese prime minister was linked to a religious group he blamed for breaking up his family and causing his mother’s bankruptcy, police said. Tetsuya Yamagami, 41, told police his original intention was to attack the leader of the group — which authorities declined to name, The Guardian reported. “My mother got wrapped up in a religious group and I resented it,” the Kyodo news agency and other media quoted him as telling police. Japan’s longest serving prime minister was killed Friday during a campaign stop near a train station...

As teenager Kenta Takahashi gathered with a crowd of mourners to pay tribute to Shinzo Abe at the site where he was shot on Friday, he recalled the precious few minutes when he got to meet his idol in person. The 13-year-old had the rare chance to meet Mr Abe two weeks ago while the former prime minister was on the hustings, supporting candidates from his political party ahead of upcoming parliamentary elections. The pair briefly talked, with the former prime minister offering some kind words of advice before fist-bumping with the teen in a moment that Kenta will cherish...

A gunman at an election rally in Nara ended the life of the longest-serving and one of the most popular prime ministers in Japanese history. On July 8, just before 6 PM, it was reported that former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe had died, according to multiple sources and local media. Former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe Is Shot During a RallyThis is how the day unfolded.Very detailed account follows at the link>

TOKYO -- LGBTQ rights activists and supporters protested in front of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP)'s headquarters on July 4 after an intra-party panel meeting circulated a booklet claiming that "homosexuality is a mental disease or addiction."

Aso ‘thanks’ North Korea for helping LDP win election THE ASAHI SHIMBUN October 27, 2017 at 17:15 JST Deputy Prime Minister Taro Aso said the ruling party’s victory in the Lower House election was “thanks to North Korea,” a comment that drew outrage from opposition parties. During an Oct. 26 gathering in Tokyo for Liberal Democratic Party members, Aso, who is also finance minister, talked about how the ruling coalition retained a two-thirds majority in the Oct. 22 Lower House election. “Obviously, (the victory) was partly thanks to North Korea and the various people who have various opinions,” Aso said....

In Japan's Upper House election, NHK projects Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's governing coalition will reach and could surpass the benchmark he set before the election, a majority of the contested seats or 61. NHK's decision desk also says the governing coalition, and 2 smaller parties in favor of changing the Constitution may reach a key number. The main ruling Liberal Democratic Party and its partner Komeito are projected to walk away with between 67 and 76 seats. That, combined with their uncontested seats, would mean they keep their majority in the chamber as a whole. NHK decision desk is also...

The Kremlin’s air war over Syria demonstrated that Russia’s once dilapidated military has recovered from its low-point in 1990s in the aftermath of the Soviet collapse. But while the Russian Air Force showed off new precision-guided weapons and new high-performance aircraft like the Sukhoi Su-30SM Flanker-H, Su-34 Fullback and the Su-35S Flanker-E, it was evident that Moscow still lacked certain capabilities. One such gap was the lack of a targeting pod like Northrop Grumman’s LITENING G4 or the Lockheed Martin Sniper. However, Russia seems to be rapidly closing that gap with the development of its own indigenous targeting pod under...

The French defence procurement agency DGA has awarded Thales with the contract to develop the New Generation Laser Designation Pod (PDL NG). This latest milestone is a follow on from the risk reduction phase led throughout 2013 and series production is expected to begin in 2018. Thales will develop the PDL NG that will provide the French air forces with new day/night imaging and engagement capabilities in complex theatres of operations. The PDL NG will be designed to integrate with both the Rafale and Mirage 2000D fighter aircraft. The risk-reduction phase, the first step in the development of any programme,...

The Liberal Democrat Party was poised to return to power in Japan on Sunday, with exit polls projecting a sweeping victory in the general election. Exit polls from CNN affiliate NHK show that the Liberal Democrat Party, or LDP -- led by former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe -- won the majority of votes in the country's lower house election. The projected results, which indicate the party captured at least 275 of 480 house seats, would give the party another stab at power three years after it was unceremoniously dumped for the Democrat Party of Japan, or DPJ.

Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama gave up on a bedrock campaign pledge and accepted a longstanding U.S. proposal for positioning American troops in Japan, backing down from a battle with Washington as the two nations grapple with North Korea's aggression and China's rising power in the region. The move hands the Obama administration an important foreign-policy victory, allowing Washington to avoid what, for a time, appeared to be an unwelcome need to rearrange its regional defense strategy in North Asia while fighting two wars and navigating other tense diplomatic and economic tussles around the world. Beyond the specifics of the Marine...

When Japan’s prime minister visited Washington this month, Japanese officials lobbied intensely to get him a one-on-one with Barack Obama. In the end, Yukio Hatoyama had to settle for just 10 minutes, and even that during a banquet when the US president was presumably more interested in the appetisers and wine. These things matter in Japan. One senior politician called the put-down – as it was inevitably viewed in Tokyo – “humiliating”. He even noted that the Japanese prime minister was shunted to the edge of a group photo, the diplomatic equivalent of banishment to Siberia. It would be wrong...

Change Comes to Japan by: Brittany Fortier, September 24, 2009 Change has come to Japan, according to a panel hosted by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) on September 2, 2009. On August 30, 2009, the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) was elected to an overwhelming margin, giving them 308 out of 480 seats in the Japanese House of Representatives. The DPJ and its allies, the Social Democratic Party (SDP) and the People’s New Party (PNP) have a combined total of 318 out of 480 seats, giving them a solid two-thirds majority in the House. The Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) now...

Japan's Democratic Party has won a resounding general election victory, surpassing the 241 seats required for a majority less than two-and-a-half hours after polling stations closed. The outgoing Liberal Democratic Party had just 57 of the 480 seats being contested and Taro Aso, the prime minister, said he would resign as party leader to take responsibility for the debacle. Photographers are pictured in front of posters of Democratic Party politicians "The result of the election is very severe," he said in a press conference in Tokyo. "I believe this is the judgement of the public and we have to accept...

JAPAN'S Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) picked Taro Aso as its leader a year ago in the hope he would turn around its sagging fortunes and preserve its five-decade grip on power. Instead, he led the conservative, pro-business LDP to a historic defeat in a general election yesterday. Aso said he took responsibility for the loss after media projections showed the LDP had shed two-thirds of its seats in the lower house election, adding the party should pick a successor soon. After Mr Aso became the party's fourth leader in four years last September

The jobless rate rose to an all-time high of 5.7 percent in July, government data showed Friday, dealing a further blow to Prime Minister Taro Aso's already embattled government just two days before Sunday's Lower House election. The jobless rate hit a seasonally adjusted 5.7 percent, the highest level in the postwar era and worsening from 5.4 percent in June, the Internal Affairs and Communications Ministry said. The previous record was 5.5 percent, last seen in April 2003. Japan's jobless rate has been rising every month since January's 4.1 percent. The total number of jobless in July jumped 40.2 percent...

In what would be a historic defeat for the ruling Liberal Democratic party, the poll suggested that the DPJ was likely to secure more than 300 of the 480 seats in the lower house election on August 30. The LDP’s presence could shrink to a little more than 100 seats in the house, compared with its 300 seats now, the poll suggested.

The Democratic Party of Japan will pledge a 25 percent cut in Japan's greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 from 1990 levels in its manifesto for the upcoming national campaign, party officials said Sunday. Bidding to wrest power from the Liberal Democratic Party-led ruling coalition, the DPJ has decided to set a more ambitious emissions goal than the 8 percent target set last month by Prime Minister Taro Aso. The DPJ's target, however, is the same as that pledged by the LDP's coalition partner, New Komeito. The DPJ's strategy would entail the adoption of a cap-and-trade system under which each company's...

Ruling party leader Taro Aso was elected Japan's next prime minister Wednesday. Aso, who was chosen president of the long-ruling Liberal Democratic Party on Monday, had already begun piecing together a Cabinet expected to include a fellow outspoken hawk as finance chief. The opposition-controlled upper house voted for Ichiro Ozawa, head of the Democratic Party of Japan, as prime minister. But the more powerful lower chamber voted to override that ballot in favor of Aso. The right-leaning former foreign minister will confront a country wracked by political divisions and concerns over the economy, which has stalled in recent months amid...