JAPAN-SOUTH KOREA: 100 Years Later, Mistrust far From Gone

Economies ties between Japan and South Korea are becoming stronger by the day, and the neighbouring countries have also been collaborating more frequently on the cultural front.

JAPAN: Rising Wages Won’t Scare Investors Away from China

Common business wisdom would have it that rising wages are bad news for foreign investors, but analysts here say that workers’ clamour for higher pay in Japanese factories in China will not send them packing from that country anytime soon.

JAPAN: Critics Want Law on Foreign Trainees Scrapped, not Revised

The Japanese government may have revised the country’s laws in response to complaints that its system of hiring foreign trainees at lower wages is exploitative, but calls remain for the latter to be scrapped altogether.

POLITICS: Ruling Party’s Woes Mean A More Inward-Looking Japan

Worries about its political survival will hound Japan’s ruling party after its setback in the recent Upper House polls, leaving it little room to pursue policies that the country’s neighbours had been looking forward to when the Democratic Party of Japan came to power in 2009.

Despite Gains, South Korean Women Still Struggle for Equality

Forty-six year-old language professor Kwon Hye Yang views her life as a typical example of the growing confidence of modern women in her home country, South Korea.

JAPAN: Left-Behind Parents Want End to Single Child Custody System

Masako Suzuki, 50, has been fighting tooth and nail for the last six years just to gain equal custody of her son, who lives with her estranged husband.

JAPAN: Women’s Increased Buying Power a Boost to Economy

Asako Nakano, 52, a company employee, invested in a condominium two summers ago, settling the deal with a down payment of around 155,000 U.S. dollars from her savings.

JAPAN: Challenges Temper Optimism as New Premier Vows Reform

Expectations are high for Japan’s new prime minister, Naoto Kan, who has taken over the reins of a country saddled with massive public debt and a domestic furore over the failure of the former head of the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) and newly resigned premier Yukio Hatoyama to deliver on his campaign pledge to move the controversial U.S. military base out of the southern island of Okinawa.

POLITICS: Japan-U.S. Pact Crucial to Balance of Power in East Asia

A clumsy and failed attempt by Japan’s nine-month-old coalition government to change the Japan-U.S. Security Treaty, a post World War II landmark in bilateral relations after the Japanese defeat and often referred to as the lynchpin in Asian regional defence, has shaken domestic politics and fueled East Asian anxiety.

JAPAN: Women Changing the Face of Politics, Slowly but Almost Surely

Junko Hamada, 59, is now in her 12th year as an elected member of the city council of Isehara, a sprawling bed town west of Tokyo with an estimated population of 150,000.

JAPAN: Gloom Grips Land of the Rising Sun

Mitsuko and Koji Iwatsuki, both in their senior years, spend their days taking walks, playing golf occasionally and going on foreign trips once a year.

BIODIVERSITY: Prized Bluefin Tuna Adrift in a Sea of Conflicting Interests

Mounting international criticism against Japan’s Atlantic bluefin tuna imports linked closely to the extinction of the species has turned the spotlight, once again, on the lack of a viable means of protecting most of the world’s fast- depleting natural resources.

JAPAN: Promised U.S. Base Relocation: Made to Be Broken?

Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama’s disastrous visit this week to Okinawa island, host to the largest U.S. military bases in Japan, has highlighted a rocky road ahead for the country’s much awaited change pledged by the postwar democratic and socialist government that came to power in August 2009.

LABOUR-SRI LANKA: Working Children Get Second Chance

Sujit is 22-years-old and studying hard to graduate in 2010 as a professional electrician. The handsome young man, speaking at a workshop on eliminating child labour, talked proudly of how his life changed dramatically when he was given the opportunity to enter an electrical course and re-start his life again.

DEATH PENALTY-JAPAN: Lone Voices in a Land of Hardening Views

For years after his brother was killed in January 1982, Masaharu Harada, 57, says he grappled not only with the trauma of personal loss but also with deep anger and hatred for the perpetrator.

CULTURE-JAPAN: Flushing Away Toilet Taboos

The evolution of the toilet in Japan, from the humble squat latrines of a few decades ago to today’s hi-tech, cockpit-like contraptions, parallels the dramatic rise of this country from post-war ruination to global technological leadership.

POLITICS-JAPAN: Abe&#39s Exit a Distinct Possibility

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s declaration at a press conference in Sydney on Sunday that he would resign if parliament does not extend refuelling support for the United States-led coalition in Afghanistan showed the country’s first postwar leader failing in his conservative policies.

HEALTH-SRI LANKA: Lessons From Int&#39l AIDS Meet

For Padma, a sociology graduate from a Sri Lankan university, the three-day International Congress on AIDS in Asia and the Pacific (ICAAP) that ended Thursday was nothing short of an enlightening experience in her life.

CULTURE-JAPAN: Theatre as Trauma Therapy for Children

Theatre can help children cope with violence they face during conflict situations, says a group of professional directors and peace activists.

HEALTH-ASIA: Hope Sets Tone for AIDS Congress

The 8th International Congress on AIDS in Asia and the Pacific (ICAAP) opened here with a strong message of hope, anchored on the fact that the world's most populous region still has relatively low prevalence rates of HIV despite problems of poverty, discrimination and stigma.

JAPAN: Surrendering Influence in Asia

Japan, 62 years after the traumatic surrender that ended World War ll on Aug. 15, 1945, has the satisfaction of rising to be a powerful influence in Asia. But it is also facing new and painful choices, say analysts here.