A wrap of the top or most interesting stories in Japan from January 8th.
– Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has condemned the deadly attacks on the offices of Charlie Hebdo in Paris, describing them as “a terrorist attack on the freedom of speech and the freedom to report” and “unforgivable”. Mourners arrived at the French Embassy in Tokyo to observe a silence in recognition of the dead (Reuters, Japan Times). The Japanese Foreign Ministry has issued a travel advisory for its citizens in France.
– The Abe government is pushing the United Kingdom to buy its special submarine hunting jet as he seeks to boost Japan’s arms exports after the lifting of several self-imposed restrictions. This comes as Australia is yet to decide on whether to replace its current Collins class submarine fleet with Japanese built submarines, with the Japanese Defence Ministry saying recently Australia has yet to come to a decision on buying the submarines.
It’s a hot issue in Australia as labour unions oppose buying overseas submarines as it will export jobs at time when many factories are closing or moving their labour offshore in the country.
– An incoming revision to Japan’s Labor Standards Law will see companies ensure their employees take their paid leave by moving away from a request-based system to employers designating staff leave. Whilst in Japan you are allowed up to 20 days leave, one of the unspoken ‘rules’ is that you would take half that.
– A quarterly poll released on Thursday indicates 51% of Japan’s citizens feel their lives have gotten worse in the past year.
– Writing in The Japan Times, Colin Jones, a professor at Kyoto’s Doshisha Law School, has written a scathing criticism of Japan’s ‘comfort women’ ‘deniers’. It’s well worth a read to get a hint of one of Japan’s biggest political issues, with several members of Japan’s political circuit denying that South Korean and Chinese women were used as sex slaves during Imperial Japan’s conquest of Asia. It ties in with the recent release of Angelina Jolie’s second feature, Unbroken which depicts the torture of Allied POWs by Japanese soldiers.
– On the matter of comment pieces: The Japan Times has written an editorial saying the Democratic Party of Japan’s (DPJ) leadership election, which began on Wednesday, is a great opportunity for the party to return as formidable opposition in the Diet. The ruling party, the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) have been in power since 1955, except for two stints from 1993 – 1994 and from 2009 – 2012.
