Hatoyama

TOKYO, March 16 (Xinhua) -- Japan's Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama on Tuesday denied that his government was considering relocating the U.S. Futenma air base from Okinawa to Tokunoshima island in Kagoshima Prefecture.

In a bid to capture the attention of a cell phone obsessed nation and in order to appeal to younger voters, Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama has stolen from the political play book of successful American politicians including Barak Obama. Hatoyama's office recently launched his blog and a Twitter account to connect the Prime Minister with the public.

this is why i love japan.

Heizo Takenaka, the former economy minister credited with guiding Japan's longest postwar expansion, has attacked the coalition government for lacking policy direction as it haggles over the next stimulus package.

This article explores the shakeup in diplomatic relations with the political changes on both side of the Pacific, but more notably in Japan with Hatoyama's election; Obama was content to keep the relationship the same. The focus is the often contentious issue of the US military in Okinawa where they take up 18% of the land area.

The article focuses on the standing invitation by Japan to Obama to visit Hiroshima but discusses other potential stumbling blocks as well. It is interesting that no sitting leader of a nuclear-armed nation has ever visited Hiroshima and that no Japanese leader has ever visited Pearl Harbor.

This article is the first of a 4-part series through Friday this week, which will look at what Hatoyama had to say yesterday. On Wednesday I will look at the concept of yuai (’fraternity’) and Hatoyama’s hopes for Japanese society. On Thursday I will cover the economics portion of the speech, and will finish up with foreign policy and Hatoyama’s closing remarks on Friday.

Recently (well, more than a month ago), there was a debate on a popular television program AsaNama on the existence of global warming. I’d like to write a little bit on what I felt watching this debate. Couple of the scientists (Emori and Maruyama) also participated in the infamous JSER (Japan Society of Energy and Resources) debate which featured four skeptics...

Two polls, taken by Nikkei with TV Tokyo, as well as by Mainichi, showed the Hatoyama government still enjoys high support almost 50 days after their election victory.

"Our motto is to shift the money from 'concrete' to the people," Yoshito Sengoku, the Cabinet's chief on administrative reform, said of the DPJ pledge to eliminate unnecessary construction projects and return the budgetary outlays for such excesses to the public.

Japan's new Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev agreed on Wednesday to work together to resolve a decades-old territorial dispute, officials said.

On Thursday (US time), Prime Minister Hatoyama addressed the General Debate of the 64th Session of the United Nations General Assembly. Hatoyama mentions 5 areas in which his government will attempt to work on the international stage.

The new Japanese prime minister wants to love China like a brother, the Earth like a mother - finally Our Man has figured out what Hatoyama's new national anthem should be...

Prime Minister Hatoyama met on Monday with Chinese President Hu Jintao, where he apparently discussed the idea of an East Asian community, based on the European Union. Certainly the sentiment is nice, but it all sounds a little too ‘pie in the sky’ for me.

Tomorrow Hatoyama Yukio will become the fourth consecutive ‘hereditary’ Prime Minister after Aso Taro, Fukuda Yasuo and Shinzo Abe. Admitedly, in three of the four cases, it was the grandfather, and not the father, that held the Prime Ministership. But its still an interesting record, in a day and age where such dynasties would be thought to have been done away with.