Peering into the void that is Japanese foreign policy

Uesugi Takashi, a Japanese freelance journalist, has an article at Diamond Online (Shukan Daiyamondo's web site) reporting live from the press room at TICAD IV in Yokohama.As usual, the title says it all: "It's incompetent to do only aid / Japanese foreign policy's fruitless effort at the Africa development summit."Uesugi paints a portrait of the …

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The Matsuoka saga is far from over

As fallout from Matsuoka's suicide continues to spread — with an executive at J-GREEN, the MAFF agency under investigation for dispensing contracts to companies supporting Matsuoka, following Matsuoka to the grave — the probability of the Matsuoka/seiji to kane issue looming large over the Upper House elections seems to rise by the day.What was once …

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