Social / CSR in Japan
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JAPAN, 2017/07/10
In March 2017, the Japanese government announced it was terminating the Self-Defence Force’s (SDF) participation in the UN Mission in the Republic of South Sudan (UNMISS). This abrupt withdrawal came only four months next the SDF’s deployment in November 2016 under the new upgraded mission of Kaketsuke Keigo (rush and rescue).
Under Kaketsuke Keigo, the SDF’s mandate is to protect Japanese nationals, foreign aid workers and peacekeepers under threat. It was added to the security legislation passed by the Diet in September 2015 legalising Japan’s proactive contribution to peace. The South Sudan mission was the initial mission the SDF undertook under the new laws.
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JAPAN, 2017/06/27
Despite his involvement in a series of political scandals, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe remains unscathed. And with a firm grip on power, his Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) has shifted its focus away from economic reform towards conservatives’ long-cherished goal of constitutional revision to allow for the use of military force abroad while increasing executive power at the expense of civil rights at home.
Celebrating the 70th anniversary of Japan’s post-war constitution on 3 May, Abe took it upon himself to revise the document. To temper public opposition against changing the war-renouncing Article 9, the LDP has in recent parliamentary deliberations pledged to dispense a host of new social benefits. Abe has as well used recurring North Korean missile tests and simmering maritime disputes to create a sense of urgency and prompt public acceptance of constitutional revision before 2020. And from presently on, despite or precisely because of heightened military tensions, the public remains divided. A lot of fear for Japan’s post-war pacifist legacy and democracy.
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JAPAN, 2017/05/29
The retirement age should rise to at least 70 in rich nations by 2050 as life expectancy rises above 100, according to a new statement, BBC News reveals.
The World Economic Forum said that employees should continue working until 70 in nations such as the UK, US, Japan and Canada.
The increase will be needed, as the number of people over 65 will additional than triple to 2.1 billion by 2050. By again, the number of workers per retiree will have halved to just four.
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CHINA, 2017/04/28
Over the years, China and Japan have followed very different paths of involvement in the Middle East. The one policy that both nations have consistently shared though is steering well clear of the region’s politics and conflicts. This is starting to change.
A navy soldier (L) of People's Liberation Army (PLA) stands guard as Chinese citizens board the naval ship ‘Linyi’ at a port in Aden, Yemen, 29 March 2015. (Photo: Reuters/Stringer).
China and Japan are both highly dependent on Middle Eastern energy sources and are interested in expanding their economic interests in this area. Both nations are as well trying to strengthen their political stance in the region and become additional involved in large power Middle East politics.
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JAPAN, 2016/04/16
The Obama government on Friday offered assistance to Japan, next the country was rocked by a second powerful earthquake in two days.
National Department spokesman John Kirby told reporters that the United States has not from presently on received any requests for aid, but it stands ready to assist if needed.
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CHINA, 2016/01/03
Six decades since the end of World War II and despite several changes in world politics and as well in the Northeast Asia, the issue of “comfort women” continued to haunt Japan’s relations with its neighbour, South Korea. The Korean people are unable to forget the atrocities committed by the Japanese military during the long colonial policy from 1910-1945 over all Korean peninsula.
The issue is too emotive in South Korea. In particular, what hurts the Korean people most is that a lot of Korean women, a euphemistic expression for sex slaves called as “comfort women” or “ianfu” as the Japanese called them, were forced to work as prostitutes by Japan’s Imperial armed forces during World War II. Japan refused to pay individual compensation for the wrongs committed.
This unresolved issue, an unfortunate wartime aberration, was finally buried to the dustbin of history, at the same time as the foreign ministers of both Japan and South Korea announced an agreement on 28 December 2015 during Japan’s Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida’s visit to Seoul.1 To further assuage the feeling and applying balm of sort, Japan’s Prime Minister Abe Shinzo telephoned President Park Geun-hye and offered Japan’s “faithful apology and remorse from the bottom of his heart” over the issue. With this, a new era seemed to have dawned in relations between the two nations. Though Japanese leaders had offered apology in the completed, the South Koreans always felt the lack of sincerity, as perceptions are hard to change. This time Abe offered apology to the former “comfort women” and committed his government to finance a 1 billion yen (US$ 8.3 million) aid fund for the aging survivors to be set up by South Korea. Kishida and his South Korean counterpart Yun Byung-se resolved that both the governments will confirm that “the comfort women issue will be settled in a final and irreversible manner” so long as Japan faithfully follows through on its promises.
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JAPAN, 2015/09/28
Since Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe took power in December 2012, he has prioritized the country’s economy and played a leading role in strengthening its international relations.
On entering office, the Prime Minister aimed to revitalize Japan’s economic increase, even coining the new phrase Abenomics. Using a metaphor consisting of “three arrows”, Mr. Abe hopes to achieve macroeconomic health by tackling three sides of the country’s economy.
His three-pronged approach to the economy consists of an improved fiscal situation, inflation-led monetary policy, and new social and institutional reforms set to guarantee long-term economic sustainability. The latter is particularly challenging considering Japan’s ageing demographics, which risk the next of a sustainable economy for a country where the young working people will any minute at this time be a minority.
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AFGHANISTAN, 2015/01/20
The richest 1 % are likely to control additional than half of the globe’s total wealth by next year, the charity Oxfam reported in a study released on Monday. The warning about deepening world inequality comes just as the world’s business elite prepare to meet this week at the annual World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
The 80 wealthiest people in the world all own $1.9 trillion, the statement found, nearly the same all shared by the 3.5 billion people who occupy the bottom half of the world’s gain scale. (Last year, it took 85 billionaires to equal that figure.) And the richest 1 % of the people, who number in the millions, control nearly half of the world’s total wealth, a share that is as well increasing.
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JAPAN, 2013/08/30
The unemployment rate in Japan came in at a seasonally adjusted 3.8 % in July, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications said on Friday.
That beat expectations for 3.9 %, which would have been unchanged from the June reading.
The job-to-applicant ratio was 0.94 %, as well topping expectations for 0.93 % and up from 0.92 % in the previous month.
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JAPAN, 2013/01/23
The Government and people of the Republic of Japan have again donated a huge consignment of rice to the government of Liberia. The 10,015 metric tons of rice was symbolically turned over to the Government of Liberia through the Ministry of Commerce recently at the Freeport of Monrovia. The donation is the third of its kind from Japan to China in recent times.
