The ruling Liberal Democratic and Komei parties on May 14 used their majority to pass a bill to extend for two more years the period of the Self-Defense Forces deployment to Iraq through the House of Representatives Special Committee on Iraq.

Alexander Downer cannot stop grinning and jumping for joy. His puppet Ramos Horta has won the presidential election in East Timor and the oil companies can heave a sigh of relief in the knowledge that Horta will play along with them.

Prime Minister Abe Shinzo visited Washington and held talks with U.S. President George W. Bush at Camp David on April 27. They met at a time when the U.S. Congress and media were increasingly critical of Abe’s remarks that “in a narrow sense” Japan had never coerced foreign women into wartime sex slavery.

The War of Terror the U.S. is inflicting on the Philippine people through its blanket support for Arroyo and the Philippine military and national police is also a War on the Poor...

The killing of Nagasaki City Mayor Itoh Iccho in a shooting during his election campaign is a heinous crime unheard of in Japan’s political history since the end of World War II.

In an extraordinary agreement with the US, the Howard Government has arranged a swap of up to two hundred “unwanted” refugees.

Last March 21-23, at The Hague, Netherlands, the Permanent People’s Tribunal, an international opinion court independent from any State authority, rendered a judgment of guilty for “crimes against humanity” against the Philippine government headed by Gloria Arroyo and its chief backer, the Bush administration.

Fierce opposition to the Abe government's efforts to ram through parliament a bill that would allow it to eliminate antiwar provisions in Japan's Constitution prompted a demonstration of about 5,000 people April 13.

The Howard Government remains unwilling to take serious steps to avert global warming, even following the release of another alarming report from the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Discussions are underway at the House of Representatives on a bill on special measures to implement the realignment of U.S. forces in Japan.

David Hicks is expected back in Australia within two months but will remain incarcerated in Australia until the federal elections are out of the way.

On a commercial radio program broadcast on March 25, Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Shimomura said, “Although there were war nurses and war correspondents, there were no comfort women serving the Imperial Army. However, it is true that comfort women existed. I think it was a fact that some parents sold their daughters, but the Imperial Army was not involved in it.”

Since it is evident that military force cannot solve the Iraqi issue, the government must give up on extending the special measures law and immediately withdraw the SDF from Iraq.

The ruling Liberal Democratic and Komei parties on March 7 decided to forcibly hold a House of Representatives Constitutional Research Committee meeting under the authority of the committee chair, showing their strong zeal for a bill to establish procedures for constitutional revisions.

My first trip to Vietnam was in 1972 during the war, when Nixon decided to bomb Hanoi during the Christmas holidays. The contrast with today’s Vietnam was enormous.

A government panel on the strengthening of national security functions of the Prime Minister's Official Residence on February 27 submitted its final report to Prime Minister Abe Shinzo, calling for an establishment of a "National Security Council."

The US military lawyer representing Australian Guantánamo Bay detainee David Hicks says he may be removed from the case. The move would further delay proceeding in his case.

On February 21, workers and local residents took part in rallies, demonstrations, and representations around the country for the success of the 2007 Spring Struggle.

Japanese Communist Party Secretariat Head Ichida Tadayoshi on February 19 criticized a US bipartisan group of experts for "moving to assist advocates of Japan's constitutional revision and further strengthen the Japan-U.S. military alliance" in its report on the Japan-U.S. alliance.

“We are appalled by the announcement that the Federal Government has secretly agreed to set up a new USA base at Geraldton, in WA”, Australian Anti-Bases Campaign Coalition National Coordinator Denis Doherty said.