Kyodo news carried out a telephone poll of 1,025 registered voters over the weekend, and found that support for the Hatoyama Cabinet had fallen 10.2% since a similar poll a few weeks after the election. In spite of the fall, support is still relatively high, at 61.8%.

On a party basis, 43.2% of [...]

A Kyodo news report yesterday proclaimed that 1 in 7 Japanese people were living in poverty, according to a Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare release. This was the first time that the ministry has released such figures, which were calculated in accordance with the calculation methods used [...]

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. The Nikkei/TV Tokyo poll showed an approval rating of 73%, while Mainichi also had a rating of 72%.

In contrast, both [...]

Prime Minister Hatoyama has traveled half way around the world and back a couple of times already in his first 50 days as Prime Minister. He has spent a great deal of time talking about ‘yuai’ (loosely translated as ‘fraternity), and about his plans for East Asian cooperation, nuclear disarmament, and some of the world’s [...]

If I had a dollar for every time an English student has misused the word ‘expect’… Just the other day I heard it again – ‘I expect the new government very much’. ‘Expect them to do what?’ was my inner gut reaction. But I knew what they meant, and corrected them. They expect a lot [...]

The Hatoyama Cabinet has been announced, with Hatoyama Yukio to be installed as Prime Minister by around 3PM today. The following is a list of the new Cabinet, with almost 100 links to their Japanese and English home pages and profiles, as well as links to their Ministries.

Hatoyama Cabinet
Prime Minister

(首相官邸) http://www.kantei.go.jp/
ENG:

The other day I mentioned in passing that Japan’s aging society is going to be an increasingly important issue for the Japanese health system. Today I’d like to look at this a little more positively. Today the government released details of 40,399 people aged over 100 in Japan this month, which is more than 4,000 more than [...]