Word: abely
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...landslide win on Jan. 21. But Higashikokubaru's win may have less to do with entertainment than with public dissatisfaction over Japanese politics, increasingly seen as corrupt and ineffective. His predecessor, also an independent, resigned amid corruption allegations, and scandals have forced two of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's top ministers to resign...
...July's upper house elections. The opposition Democratic Party of Japan is in even worse shape: with sparse grassroots support, it wasn't even able to field a candidate in the Miyazaki election. This disgruntlement "is very serious for the parties," says Takao Toshikawa, a Tokyo-based political analyst. Abe, who needs a strong LDP showing in July to stay in office, refused to see Higashikokubaru's win as a loss for his party, instead hailing it as "the voice" of the people demanding reform. With his own approval ratings falling below 40%, Abe could be the next object...
...Letters comes at a time when yesterday's war is pressing for attention in today's headlines. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, the country's first leader born after World War II, has announced his intention to revise Japan's pacifist postwar constitution, and he recently elevated its Defense Agency to full cabinet-ministry status. Abe's grandfather Nobusuke Kishi had been a top official in Japan's wartime government (as well as a prominent postwar Prime Minister), and Abe himself has, in the past, fudged the issue of his country's responsibility for the Pacific war. Just how open that...
...rise to power of Abe - widely described as a nationalist before his election last September - had liberal critics fearing a return of the dark days of prewar military rule. That's hardly been the case: Abe has so far proved admirably pragmatic in international affairs, and even the threat of a nuclear North Korea has done little to stir Japan from its accustomed postwar pacifism. To the Japanese soldiers in Letters, war is hell, the same as it is everywhere else. Still, Japan is clearly taking steps to become a normal country with a normal military, and the unfinished legacy...
...survivors - few as there were - nor to wonder at the political mistakes that wrought horror from Manchuria to New Guinea. That's not the film Eastwood wanted to make, and that he chose not to takes nothing away from his accomplishment. But if he had, I doubt that Abe would have walked out of a screening calling it a "very good film" - and that $40 million gross might have come out a bit lighter...