It has been seven years since the US military launched air strikes in revenge for the 9/11 terror attacks. The Taliban have not been suppressed and Afghanistan remains in a state of war. Although overshadowed by the war against Iraq, this too is a war of aggression. A Japanese photo journalist examines the US-Afghan War.

Foreign ministers are busy people - especially energetic, creative diplomats like Russia's Sergei Lavrov and Iran's Manouchehr Mottaki, representing capitals that by tradition place great store on international diplomacy.

Therefore, the very fact that Lavrov and Mottaki have met no less than four times in as many months suggests a great deal about the high importance attached by the two capitals to their mutual understanding at the bilateral and regional level.

Ikiteiru heitai (Living soldiers or Soldiers alive) by Ishikawa Tatsuzo (1905-1985) is arguably the best piece of war literature to emerge from the Sino-Japanese War of 1937 to 1945. In Japan, the novella has been published and republished throughout the postwar era, most recently as a Chuko Bunko in 1999, and is now available for the first time in English [1]. Providing a strong indictment not only of the conduct of the Japanese military in China but also of war itself, Ikiteiru heitai is a powerful, deeply disturbing work

On August 9, 1945, President Truman, who had just returned to Washington from the Potsdam Conference, addressed the American people in a radio report:

In May 1972, following twenty-seven years of direct American military rule, the Ryukyu Islands reverted to being a Japanese prefecture under the name “Okinawa.” The year 2012 therefore marks its fortieth anniversary. These islands have a complex history and every year is punctuated by anniversaries, many with painful associations. Okinawa today looks back upon a history as an independent kingdom, enjoying close affiliation with Ming and then Qing dynasty China (1372–1874); a semi-independent kingdom affiliated with both China and Japan but effectively ruled from Satsuma in southern Japan (1609–1874); a modern Japanese prefecture (1872–1945); a US military colony, first as conquered territory and from 1952 subject to the determination of the San Francisco treaty (1945-1972); and then, from 1972 to today, once again as a Japanese prefecture but still occupied by US forces. Before the recent and contemporary disputes that are at the center of the US-Japan relationship can be understood, something of this checkered history as a region alternately in and out of “Japan” has to be recounted.

Since when have retrogressive “masturbatory views of history,” represented by the “liberal view of history,” come to dominate bookstore shelves? They became noticeable to the eye around the time of the Gulf War. In fact, Fujioka Nobukatsu, the leading proponent of the “liberal-view-of-history” [jiyûshugi shikan], begins both of his books—Reforming Modern History Education (1996) and A Modern History of Shame (1996)—with prologues describing the impact of the Gulf War. He observes that “many Japanese, relying on the idealism of article nine in the constitution, were able to steep themselves completely in sentimental pacifism.” Furthermore, “the Gulf War was a shocking event that demonstrated that the ideal of ‘pacifism’ contained within article nine, and upon which ‘peace education’ was based, failed in the face of the reality of international politics.” In short, according to Fujioka's reminiscences, the Gulf War was a sensational event that exposed the defects of Japan's “postwar democracy.”

One of Japan's longest-running legal feuds may be about to erupt again, driven by worsening Korea-Japan relations.

Bony, 80-year-old body floating around inside a nylon shirt and cigarette permanently clamped between what appear to be her two remaining front teeth; Kan Kyon Nam is an unlikely illegal squatter.

How will the history of the US-led military aggression against Iraq be told? In many ways this question for tomorrow was answered yesterday: it's done. The history that glorifies military aggression, racism and state violence has been written. It is being taught, absorbed and institutionalized in various ways as historical fact. Not only is this history taught, but it is experienced.

Since 1990 both Japan and Korea have experienced “commemoration booms,” in which the number of private and public memorial museums and monuments has tripled. These institutions provide narratives of each nation's recent past and articulate the ideals of “nation” and “citizenship.” They recompose tales of a nation in order to make them relevant for public and private life. Like writing history, the museum collects and assembles fragments of the past and carefully re-contextualizes them into a narrative of the present. Precisely because of its role in institutionalizing social norms and values, the museum plays a crucial role in the production of national identity. It shapes the manner in which the nation creates its history, imagines its boundaries, and constitutes its citizenship.

Criticism of China in Japan's public space has intensified since the Senkaku collision incident of September 2010. Despite the resulting strain in bilateral relations, however, the Kan Naoto government seems to be laying down plans for détente as described here and here.

As Japan's government gets set to expand a nuclear evacuation area, the mayor of a city inside the radioactive zone speaks about his fears.

David McNeill in Minami-Soma City

Like most Japanese men, Sakurai Katsunobu read apocalyptic comic book stories about the future when he was a boy. He never expected to live through one of those stories himself.

A relentless Taliban insurgency, reluctant allies, political doubts, competing priorities - the pressure to change United States policy in a key region may prove irresistible.

The difficult global inheritance of the United States administration of Barack Obama is exemplified in the possible loss of the Manas air base in Kyrgyzstan. This would be a painful event in any circumstance, not least as it may involve the Bishkek government making a deal with Russia that would further signal a changing geopolitical balance in the region. But the troubles the US and its allies are facing in Afghanistan means that this is a particularly bad time to be threatened with a loss of facilities and influence in another part of central Asia.

Kaneko Masaru is one of Japan's best-known students of the country's crisis-ridden political economy and public finances. He is also a very prolific public intellectual. Over the past five years, he has authored or co-authored over 20 books, co-edited six, and written dozens of articles in the monthlies and the press. Kaneko writes in a country still dominated by the absurd notion that American institutions present a “global standard” to be matched lest Japan's decline become permanent. His controversial ideas on fiscal and financial reform are thus often sought out – often surreptitiously – by LDP and opposition party politicians and intra-party study groups. He is also a frequent speaker at academic and NGO forums and a high-profile commentator on policy-oriented television and radio programmes. In short, his eminently readable and cogent critiques of contemporary economic policies have earned him a broad professional and popular following. Indeed, his books are frequently displayed in their own sections in Tokyo bookstores.

This might be one for the Guiness Book. On April 19, 2014, a ceremony was held at the fishing village of Henoko, in Nago City, Okinawa, marking the tenth anniversary of the continuous sit-in by residents and supporters opposing the construction of a new U.S. Marine Corps Airbase there. Actually it's seventeen years since the U.S. and Japanese governments announced that the USMC Airbase at Futenma, in crowded Ginowan City, would be closed, or rather packed up and moved to this new base at Henoko, as soon as it is built. Seventeen years and, far from being built, construction has not begun and isn't likely to in the foreseeable future.

Clashing views about Thailand's future are being played out on the streets of Bangkok, taking the form of forceful demonstrations, contentious commemorations and populist grandstanding by red shirted and yellow shirted rivals. Behind the searing rhetoric and policy clashes are battles of personality, in which patron-client links coalesce, regroup and solidify, rewarding loyalty with a top-down sharing of power and spoils.

Stephen Roach, chief economist for Morgan Stanley, might also be introduced as their chief iconoclast and contrarian. In these latter roles he regularly challenges the optimistic consensus on the basis of facts and analyses that tend to be ignored as the herd embraces a new trend. For example, while numerous analysts confidently hold that asset-based (rather than income-based) consumption can continue to power the US economy, Roach has been raising doubts about this for years. As America's housing bubble slides and leaves a swathe of consumers stuck with exorbitant mortgage payments, their “propensity to consume” is falling and Roach is looking prescient (again). The American housing bubble is only beginning to slide, but this may be one reason that growth in consumption has recently slipped to 1.5% after recording a robust 4% for the past decade.

After nine years of stalling and prevarication over the replacement of Futenma Air Station in Okinawa, and nearly eighteen months of protests against its proposed replacement, a solution of sorts is finally stirring in the dusty halls of power in Kasumigaseki.

On September 24, the Yomiuri newspaper reported that the Japanese government is backing the relocation of Futenma's Marine chopper base to the Marines Camp Schwab in Nago. Tokyo had initially supported the construction of a joint civil-military airport off the coast of Henoko village to replace Futenma.

Japanese popular culture has engaged with experiences and memories of WWII since the 1950s, starting with manga (comic books) and moving on to some of the most widely known and memorable animated war films that have been produced since the 1960s, such as Barefoot Gen (1983) and Grave of the Fireflies (1988). A number of animation artists have expressed loss and hope in their works on this subject. As Napier argues, Japanese animation has explored history and memory beyond simple entertainment and has presented important issues still relevant to the audience today. This essay analyzes two futuristic science fictions, one TV and one film series, made over two decades apart: Space Battleship Yamato (produced in the 1970s) and Silent Service (in the 1990s). Both explicitly refer to WWII: in Space Battleship Yamato, after having been sunk to the bottom of the ocean off Okinawa towards the very end of the war, the battleship Yamato is revived by the Japanese government in order to save humanity from an alien attack, whereas a constant battle between Japan and international communities over the ownership of a nuclear submarine occurs in Silent Service. After a brief introduction of the narratives of the two animation series, the author examines their reception at the time of their production, and discusses the ways in which they rework the memory of loss and vision of hope in response to contemporary national and international politics.

As the US-India-Japan-Australia-Singapore joint military exercise styled Operation Malabar was conducted in early September, reverberations were felt not only in China, but also in India. The US-India nuclear agreement, driving a nail deep into the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, has produced sharp debate within Indian politics, including in the ruling coalition, as described by Praful Bidwai. Japan Focus.

New Delhi - As India's coalition government tries to complete the controversial nuclear cooperation deal with the United States, it finds itself caught between domestic opposition to the agreement from its Left-wing allies and pressure from Washington to seal the deal.