NHK: Japan to offer $810 mln to support refugees fleeing Syria, Iraq

Japan’s pacifist Constitution, which has lasted for over 70 years, will now just exist in name only. The cost could be a third lost decade.

“Already we have gone through several rounds of summit meetings and we are steadfastly moving to further develop a mutually beneficial relationship based on common strategic interests”, Abe said at Bloomberg headquarters in New York on September 29.

“I will make the personnel decisions on October 7”.

There is also deep-rooted criticism that the council, in addition to the geographic disparity of its permanent members, does not reflect the present global situation.

Abe argues that the new security bills would build a stronger Japan for its peace and security. In energy, the British daily awarded a “B” for planned full liberalization of the nation’s electricity market by 2016, while Abenomics was granted a “B minus” in its special economic reform zones.

The Bank of Japan’s bond-buying policy has supported low yields by offsetting the impact of slower growth in household savings.

While the BOJ pioneered quantitative easing – the strategy of expanding the supply of money that was adopted in force years later in the U.S. and Europe – its effort in the early 2000s was deemed too small by observers including Bernanke. This is boosting consumer-focused businesses, and has been fuelled by the falling Yen value. For Tokyo, Beijing isn’t only aggressively staking claim to a group of largely uninhabited islets (Senkaku/Diaoyu) that Japan considers its sacred territory, but it is also undermining freedom of navigation in one of the world’s most important Sea Lines of Communications (SLOCs).

South Korea, China and Japan are key trade partners, but tensions still persist between South Korea and Japan and between China and Japan over territorial and other history-related issues. There is also the worry of Japan’s economy not being able to handle an increase in their military budget.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Japan’s GDP is roughly the same size now as in 1994. Even so, Japanese policy makers “dug themselves in such a deep hole” that it will be tough to alter the trajectory, he said.

But in other areas there’s been more progress.

If the Turnbull Government decides to accept the Japanese submarine bid, apart from fulfilling a domestic political objective of securing Australian manufacturing jobs, it will be a major reinforcement of Australia’s deepening security links with Japan.

“I’m confident that Russian Federation and Japan have high potential in economic cooperation”, he said.

It may well be that Abe’s goals are no more than waiting around for the official government projections to come through, meaning that we’d hit 600 trillion yen in 2020, mostly courtesy of inflation rather than growth. That is not a pleasant thought for those who remember Japan’s 35-year-long colonial rule.

However, the splintered opposition faces a formidable task of regaining the electorate’s confidence if they are to have any chance of eventually winning government and repealing the bills.