I’ve been meaning to do a post about Financial and Postal Affairs Minister Kamei Shizuka ever since the election, but I just couldn’t bring myself to do it until now. Kamei, and the leader of the DPJ’s other coalition partner, Fukushima Mizuho, pose something of a problem for the Hatoyama administration. He needed to find [...]

Although the government has made several attempts over the last decade or so to change conditions for temporary (or ‘dispatched’) workers, a Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry study has found that about 41% of non-regular workers are doing work on a par with that of regular employees, although only 16% [...]

Australia’s booming resource sector continues to power ahead, with news that several massive LNG fields will be developed, including a gas field known as Gorgon which will begin construction within weeks. Australia exports much of its resources to Asia, with Japan accounting for 20% of the country’s A$200 billion or [...]

Honda are developing a new ‘personal mobility device’, which looks like a unicycle, yet maintains stability internally and moves by leaning your weight in the direction you wish to go – similar to the Segway.

Honda says that the device is still in development, and there are not yet any firm plans for when it will [...]

Toyota is going on the offense at the end of the year in the US, with a massive launch to their ‘Toyotathon’ marketing and sales campaign which has been a fixture for about three decades. After being the biggest selling maker under the Obama government’s ‘Cash for Clunkers’ policy, Toyota believe themselves well placed to capitalize [...]

In its annual list of the 100 Best Global Brands, Business Week has placed two Japanese brands in the top 20, with Toyota the highest ranked at 8 (down 2 places from last year). The second placed Japanese company is Honda, up two spots to 18th. While Japan has two [...]