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Digital Trends: Panasonic developing an eco-harmonious Japan ‘Smart Town’ for 2014

The plan is to turn a piece of Fujisawa city into a “sustainable smart town” of 1000 houses all built to be energy-conscious and eco-harmonious. Each of the nine companies has their own responsibility from creating the town concept and [...]

It was probably a natural thing to do, but the cynic inside of me wonders about the politics behind the Prime Minister’s meeting this morning with former party leaders Ozawa Ichiro, Hatoyama Yukio, and Maehara Seiji. The meeting was ostensibly held at the PM’s request, to pick the brains of the party’s former leaders, and [...]

With the resignation of Hatoyama Yukio last week, Kan Naoto became the fifth man to hold the post of Japanese Prime Minister since September 2006. Since this time, Abe Shinzo (1 year), Fukuda Yasuo (1 year), Aso Taro (1 year), and Hatoyama Yukio (8.5 months) have all failed to govern beyond their first anniversary… Indeed, [...]

Shortly after the election of Hatoyama Yukio as Prime Minister in August of last year, I reported here on the rise of obscure comedian Hatoyama Kuruo, who had a striking resemblance to the Prime Minister. After 17 years in the wilderness, he gained some popularity after being encouraged by Beat Takeshi to put on [...]

This is the final part of my discussion of Prime Minister Hatoyama’s speech to the Diet last week. In the final part of his speech, Hatoyama discussed Japan’s role in the international community, touching on each of the major issues facing Japan including those that he discussed at the United Nations recently. The main topics [...]

While the first two parts of Prime Minister Hatoyama’s speech (see Part 1 & Part 2) were mostly uplifting and aspirational, I found much of the more meaty areas of economics and foreign policy in his speech to be full of plattitudes and naive rhetoric. This article will focus on economics, and while Hatoyama named [...]

In Monday’s speech to the Diet, Prime Minister Hatoyama again addressed the issue of yuai, or ‘fraternity’, which he returns to again and again. He spoke of a lady that he met in Aomori, who’s son had been unable to find work and ultimately lost his life. Hatoyama described how the woman held on to [...]

Yesterday Prime Minister Hatoyama gave a lengthy (very lengthy….) speech to open the 173rd Session of the Japanese Diet. His remarks were light on details, but outlined the man’s thinking on some of the most important issues facing Japan. This article is the first of [...]

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 [...]