Preventing an economic recession, maintaining economic growth and ensuring social security will be the government’s top priorities in 2009, said Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung.

Sonic booms from low-altitude flight training exercises conducted by US military aircraft are disturbing residents across Japan and causing growing concerns about possible plane crashes.

The Japan Council against A & H Bombs (Japan Gensuikyo) held its national meeting of prefectural secretaries on November 29 and 30 in Tokyo to discuss ways to promote the anti-nuclear signature campaign toward the 2010 NPT Review Conference.

The Japanese government on November 28 decided to pull out the Air Self-Defense Force from Iraq, ending its operation in support of US forces. After receiving an order from Defense Minister Hamada Yasukazu, the ASDF unit will return to Japan.

Pressured by fishermen, Okinawa Governor Nakaima Hirokazu for the first time joined the prefectural association of fishermen's cooperatives in making representations to the Foreign Ministry, the Defense Ministry, and the US Ambassador to Japan.

Research carried out by Oxfam has revealed that Vietnam is among the world’s most vulnerable countries to the effects of climate change despite being one of the nations least responsible for greenhouse gas emissions.

The new international signature campaign launched in August at the World Conference against A & H Bombs, "Toward the 2010 NPT Review Conference – Appeal for a Nuclear-Free World," is gaining support.

Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung emphasized the dire need to boost exports and narrow the trade deficit to halt a slowdown of the national economy, which is being increasingly affected by the global financial crisis and the world-wide economic recession trend.

This year, media mogul and former Australian citizen Rupert Murdoch has begun a series called The Golden Age of Freedom which, while they expose some the corporate agenda for the near future, have so far sounded more like a last hurrah for the champions of capitalist globalization.

Sending GSDF helicopters to war zones in Afghanistan means directly supporting the war, which is in violation of the Japanese Constitution. Such an act will give a helping hand to causing civilian casualties.

Japan's Defense Ministry budget request for the next fiscal year starting on April 1, 2009 includes an expenditure for the relocation of 8,000 US Marines to the US territory of Guam in the South Pacific from Okinawa.

Barack Obama unquestionably won the presidential elections in the United States. However, beyond his successful, well-organized and coherent electoral campaign, his overwhelming victory still leaves space for different interpretations.

Amid the deepening global financial crisis that has triggered an economic downturn, the socially disadvantaged are suffering most. At the world's leading automaker, Toyota Motor Corporation is firing a large number of fixed-term employees.

A declassified US document clearly states that in a closed-door meeting Japan agreed to renounce its primary right of jurisdiction in crimes committed by US military personnel unless they are "of material importance to Japan."

It is impossible to keep count of the billions of dollars of taxpayers’ money being handed out by governments and central banks to salvage the largest financial institutions and shore up a crisis-ridden capitalist system.

The federal government pressed on with its startling splurge of taxpayers’ money last week with a range of one-off payments to boost spending and revive a stalling economy.

The G7 finance ministers and central bank governors adopted a "plan of action" to deal with the worldwide financial crisis that started in the United States. It calls for each country to "raise capital from public as well as private sources" to help major financial institutions improve their equity-capital ratio.

Vietnam is willing to cooperate with other countries to push ahead negotiations within the framework of the UN Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Bali itinerary in the time to come.

The troubled island of Mindanao is at risk of a full-scale humanitarian crisis unless immediate contingency efforts are made, warn humanitarian agencies.

Kishore Mahbubani’s new book, The New Asian Hemisphere: The Irresistible Shift of Global Power to the East, is a sobering text that should be read with three points in mind.