In late October 2007 an odd story appeared in the press. A Japanese-owned chemical tanker called the Golden Nori was hijacked off the coast of Somalia. There were no Japanese nationals on board, but the East Asian nation had become entangled, quite unusually, in an East African affair. Unforeseen at that time was that this curious incident would eventually become one of the top foreign policy issues in Tokyo: Somali piracy has emerged as a potential turning point for Article Nine of the Japanese Constitution, and is significant for other reasons as well. The following essay reviews the record of Japanese encounters with Somali pirates and explores the motives and political pressures driving the Maritime Self-Defense Forces (MSDF) toward a proactive role in suppressing East African piracy.

The summer of 2009 in Ulaanbaatar was unusually bustling for an otherwise sleepy city at a time when almost half of its one million strong population were out in summer camps drinking koumiss (Mo. airag) in the vast countryside. The whole nation was determined to enjoy the precious tranquillity after a peaceful presidential election, avoiding a repeat of last year's violence in the wake of parliamentary elections. Amongst the few momentous events was the high-profile state-visit on August 25–26 by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev. His main agenda was to promote cooperation in Mongolia's strategic mining sector, a sector for which all the major powers in the world jostled to befriend Mongolia in anticipation of the long awaited passage of mineral extraction laws by Mongolia's parliament. During this visit, Russia and Mongolia signed a Declaration on Developing a Strategic Partnership between Mongolia and the Russian Federation, raising the relationship from good neighbors to strategic partners. Medvedev also participated in a ceremony marking the 70th anniversary of the Battle of Khalkhyn Gol. It was not a happenstance, but a specific request initiated by the Russian side. At the end of his visit, the Russian president and the newly elected Mongolian president Tsakhiagiin Elbegdorj shot arrows during a naadam festival, demonstrating what Medvedev called the “military brotherhood” between the two nations.

In the early 1990s, the Japanese military adopted a cute mascot by the name of Prince Pickles. He's a little guy with a big head and big eyes who lives in a tranquil country bordering on some pretty dangerous territory. In three action-packed comic books aimed at young people, Prince Pickles overcomes his naïve belief that a land at peace needs no army. He enlists in his own country's forces to defend against the predations of the neighboring Evil Empire. He endures intensive training. He helps with disaster relief. He goes on peacekeeping missions. And of course, after these mini-heroic efforts, Prince Pickles gets the girl, his comrade-in-arms Miss Parsley.

On August 3, 2009, Japan began a new trial system in which ordinary citizens sit with professional judges in order to adjudicate guilt and determine sentence in serious criminal cases. This change injects a meaningful dose of lay participation into Japanese criminal trials for the first time in 66 years. Japan had a jury system of sorts from 1928 to 1943, but it was suspended during the Pacific War for various reasons: because defendants who chose a jury trial had to give up rights to appeal; because the jury only answered a set of interrogatories framed by a judge who could reject its findings of fact; because jury trials were expensive and difficult to administer; and because (some analysts claim) a Japanese cultural preference for hierarchy caused defendants to prefer judgment by professionals rather than peers. Notably, the old jury system generated much higher acquittal rates than those that prevailed before or since—15 percent for the nation as a whole, and more than 60 percent in some cities—leading some prosecutors and judges to welcome the demise of an institution that made it more difficult for the state to convict.

For several years, informed observers independent of the national security bureaucracy have called for terminating current specific American policies and tactics in Afghanistan– many reminiscent of the US in Vietnam.

Informed observers decry the use of air strikes to decapitate the Taliban and al Qaeda, an approach that has repeatedly resulted in the death of civilians. Many counsel against the insertion of more and more US and other foreign troops, as pursued first by the Bush administration and then, even more vigorously, in the early days of the Obama administration, in an effort to secure the safety and allegiance of the population. And they regret the on-going interference in the fragile Afghan and Pakistan political processes, in order to secure outcomes desired in Washington. A New York Times headline, “In Pakistan, US Courts Leader of Opposition,” was barely noticed in the U.S. mainstream media.

This chapter by Ito Peng and Joseph Wong on East Asian Asian welfare regimes is very welcome, particularly as a guide for what to watch in our increasingly fluid era of financial, energy and other shocks to the developed and developing economies. The authors review the literature on East Asian welfare states and show how much of it has been concerned with highlighting essential differences between the region and a generalized model of what we see in North America, Europe, and Scandinavia. (We might add that generalizing among those latter cases also seems unwise). One of the critically distinctive features of the East Asian welfare state typology was and remains the rather restricted fiscal role of the state. As the authors point out, in 2005 Japan led East Asia with 18.6% of GDP devoted to social spending. But the average in the OECD and EU countries was, respectively, 20.5 and 27%. Taiwan and Hong Kong are even further removed from the OECD pattern. During the mid-2000s they were only spending about 10% of GDP on social outlays. And then there is Korea, China, and Singapore weighing in with less than 7% of GDP spent on social outlays. The issues are particularly fascinating in light of the literature on the developmental state, pioneered by the late Chalmers Johnson, which highlights each of these countries as examples of state intervention in charting economic development.

“Speaking of wartime Ueno Zoo, what comes to your mind? ‘The elephants were killed! ‘Yes, that's right.” So begins Sayōnara Kaba-kun (Farewell, Hippo; Saotome, 1989), a picture book for grade school children.

There are numerous Japanese depictions and stories of the wartime slaughter of animals at Ueno Zoo: from the enormously popular and influential picture book Kawaisōna Zō (The Pitiful Elephants) (Tsuchiya & Takebe, 2009)-originally published by Tsuchiya Yukio as a short story for children in 1951, then as a picture book in 1970 with 163 editions to date-to the recent TV drama Zō no Hanako (The Elephant Hanako; Kōno & Terada, 2007). The story has also travelled outside Japan, with two English and one French translations of Kawaisōna Zō. Most of these depictions portray the slaughter of the animals as motivated by the wish to protect humans from more or less immediate danger and accept the starvation of the elephants as unavoidable. Scholarly studies have been published so far only in Japanese and tend to be critical only in some points (e.g., Hasegawa, 2000; originally published in 1981), if at all.

On 21 February 2009, the international mother language day, UNESCO launched the online version of its ‘Atlas of the world's languages in danger’. This electronic version that will also be published as the third edition of the UNESCO Atlas in May 2009, now includes the Luchuan [Ryukyuan] languages of Japan (UNESCO 2009). ‘Luchuan’ is the Uchinaaguchi (Okinawan language) term for the Japanese ‘Ryukyu’. Likewise ‘Okinawa’ is ‘Uchinaa’ in Uchinaaguchi. Well taken, UNESCO recognizes six languages of the Luchu Islands [Ryukyu Islands] of which two are severely endangered, Yaeyama and Yonaguni, and four are classified as definitely endangered, Amami, Kunigami, Uchinaa [Okinawa] and Miyako (see UNESCO 2003 for assessing language vitality and endangerment).

Save for a short break in the 1990s, Japan's distinctive system of one-party rule has been in place now for almost 55 years. But as the economy lurches through its deepest-ever postwar crisis, confidence in Liberal-Democratic Party rule is at low ebb.

Might change be at last in the offing?

The ruling party still enjoys the majority it gained when the charismatic Koizumi Junichiro went to the country four years ago calling for privatization of postal services as the centre-piece of a neo-liberal reform package, but circumstances have greatly changed since then. The people were not consulted when Koizumi was succeeded by two Prime Ministers (Abe and Fukuda) who both threw in the towel after short terms, nor when the present incumbent, Aso Taro, took office in September 2008. Aso's support levels, never high, sank as his administration suffered from scandals and incompetence, falling to just over ten per cent as Aso tried to distance himself from Koizumi's agenda and as his closest colleague, Finance Minister Nakagawa, turned up drunk to a G7 meeting in February. Since then, it has recovered slightly, especially as the opposition Democratic Party experienced serious troubles, alluded to in the following paper. Elections must be held by September at the latest.

Here seasoned political commentator, Karel van Wolferen, author of the best-selling The Enigma of Japanese Power (1990), offers his reflections on the prospects for change, written in the immediate wake of the replacement of Ozawa Ichiro as head of the opposition Democratic Party of Japan by Hatoyama Ichiro. GMcC

We have some good news, and we have some bad news.

First the good news. A little common sense is breaking out both within and about Japan. Within Japan, an election seems almost certain for the month of May. Comfy in his captain's chair, Prime Minister Aso is at present testing his 19% level of public support and – with helpful advice from Mr. “structural reform” Takenaka Heizo – is hoping to ride out the storm and his legal tenure. Japanese constitutional law requires that an election be called by September, and both Aso and Takenaka apparently believe that by then there will be some kind of recovery of the economy both globally and within Japan. They also seem to be betting that Aso's YEN 2 trillion cash payout to residents (about YEN 12,000 per taxpayer) will boost support, even though upwards of 70 percent of poll respondents apparently see it as wasteful (which it is).

In September, after its warmest August on record, Australia's East coast was shrouded in thick red dust. Visibility was reduced to metres, forcing cancelation of flights and driving people indoors as some five million tonnes of soil blew in from the country's vast interior where the drought is in its ninth year. Early in the same month, Koreans were told that in future snow was likely to disappear in their country save for a few mountain peaks, and that their climate would become sub-tropical. Elsewhere, the Arctic sea-ice crumbles, opening navigation and exploration routes into the polar regions, glaciers retreat, half the world's tropical and temperate forests, wetlands, and coral have gone or are threatened; storms, floods, and other natural disasters ripple around the world. Scientists warn of approaching global catastrophe.

Environmental protection in the Korean DMZ is purely accidental. In 1953, no one gave a thought to protecting wildlife when a temporary truce halted the fighting there. Instead, North and South Korea and their respective allies wanted only to end the human savagery that had killed 10 percent of the peninsula's civilian population and resulted in military casualties numbering, on one side, 900,000 Chinese and 520,000 North Korean troops, and, on the other, 400,000 United Nations troops. The war began on 25 June 1950 when North Korea backed by the Soviet Union and the Chinese invaded South Korea in an attempt to reunify the nation, a nation divided in the last days of World War II. The 1953 truce, still in effect today, created a narrow no-man's land roughly along the 38th parallel where no army is supposed to go. Although called the Demilitarized Zone or DMZ, this thin ribbon of territory is decidedly militarized. As the American GIs there say, “there ain't no D in the DMZ.” Unlike every other inch of dry land on the planet besides Antarctica, the Korean DMZ falls outside the control of any single military or any single nation. It is truly a no-man's land. Reckless human violence has necessitated the evacuation of all human beings, and the unintended result is a zone left free for other species. Although the consequences of the continued low-grade war have been tragic for humans, other creatures have flourished because of our relative absence.

The 2008 Olympics in Beijing were the third Summer Games to be held in Asia, and even before the Olympic flame was extinguished in the Closing Ceremonies, its legacy was being debated. The impressive ceremonies, the beautiful facilities, and the well-organized events captured the imagination of a world viewing audience. This has led some commentators to forecast that the Games will bring China greater international acceptance as a rising superpower with a human face. However, the crackdown in Tibet, the protests against the Olympic Torch Relay, and other controversies that received widespread media attention brought human rights issues to the forefront and left many doubts about China's progress.

On 6 June 2008, the Ainu were recognized as an indigenous people. A new set of policies was promised for Autumn 2009 in line with the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. This article offers a major review of this policy-making process. It contends that because of the nature of the UN Declaration, the structure of contemporary Japanese politics, and the recommendations of concerned bodies of “experts”, the result has merely been an incorporation of the Ainu within the remit of contemporary neoliberal politics. Taking its inspiration from the writings of the 1970s Ainu poet and thinker, Sasaki Masao, it argues that the time has surely come to ask just why Ainu are repeatedly construed as being somehow in need of “protection”, “aid” and “respect.” and whether or not alternative ways of thinking about Ainu history and politics are possible.

The movement of food ingredients, cooking methods and dishes across the earth's surface is ancient, and in large measure only poorly recorded. While the West has documented its contributions to global cuisine, those of the rest of the world are less well recognized. This paper takes note of Asia's role in enriching the world's foods, both nutritively and in terms of diversity and taste.

At 4 o'clock in the morning on 2 June 2007, a man out fishing near the port of Fukaura in Japan's Aomori Prefecture came upon a small boat with four people in it. The boat had left the North Korean port of Cheongjin one week earlier, and the people on board – a couple and their two adult sons – were North Korean refugees. They were the first to appear on Japan's shores by boat since 1987, when eleven refugees from North Korea had arrived in Fukui on a boat called the Zu Dan 9082. The events in the sleepy little town of Fukaura briefly became headline news in Japan, igniting media debate about a possible impending influx of displaced people from the Korean Peninsula, and about the appropriate Japanese response to the North Korean refugee problem.

On Friday 13 November, US President Obama flew in to Tokyo. The unresolved issue of “replacing” Futenma US Marine Air Station has been removed from the talks agenda, because the two sides cannot agree on how to resolve it. Festering for more than 13 years, the issue has risen gradually to a head since the Hatoyama Government too office at the beginning of September calling for a redefinition of US-Japan relations.

Much about our current world is unparalleled: holes in the ozone layer, the commercial patenting of life forms, degrading poverty on a massive scale, and, more hopefully, the rise of concepts of global citizenship and universal human rights. Less visible but equally unprecedented is the global omnipresence and unparalleled lethality of the U.S. military, and the ambition with which it is being deployed around the world. These bases bristle with an inventory of weapons whose worth is measured in the trillions and whose killing power could wipe out all life on earth several times over. Their presence is meant to signal, and at times demonstrate, that the US is able and willing to attempt to control events in other regions militarily. The start of a new administration in Washington, and the possibility that world economic depression will give rise to new tensions and challenges, provides an important occasion to review the global structures of American power.

Caught up in the vortex of the American war in Vietnam, Laos (known as the Lao People's Democratic Republic since 1975) is reputed to be the most heavily bombed country, per capita, in the world. U.S. Department of Defense records reveal that 520,000 bomb runs were made over Laos, dropping more than 2 million tons of ordnance. Major targets were the Plain of Jars area in northern Xieng Khouang province and the “Ho Chi Minh Trail” coursing through the southern panhandle with routes connecting North to South Vietnam. These were not uninhabited zones but the ancestral homeland of many ethic minorities. Compared with U.S. bombing in Vietnam and Cambodia, what were the effects on Laos? And, decades after the end of the war, how do the peoples of Laos live with the consequences of the bombing?