Word: aso
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...months after Doraemon, the aqua-hued robot feline, was named the nation's first cartoon envoy. The designation of these two cat representatives symbolizes just how much Japan's overseas reputation is tied to pop culture. That's a connection that surely pleases Japan's new Prime Minister Taro Aso. The 68-year-old premier, who is a self-confessed manga addict, has called for Japan to pursue what he calls "comic-book diplomacy." (Last year, when he was serving as Japan's Foreign Minister, Aso counted among his accomplishments inaugurating an International Manga Award that honors foreign artists.) Aso...
...Although he has barely had time to articulate his leadership priorities, Aso appears committed to burnishing Japan's global influence. Over the past decade, the nation's foreign-aid budget has nosedived. In the early 1990s, flush with cash from its long boom, Japan was the world's largest donor. Now, it's fifth. Aso might reverse the trend. In August, Japan's Foreign Ministry requested a 13.6% increase in next year's foreign-aid budget. In October, Aso made headlines when he signed off on a record $4.5 billion loan to India. That commitment followed on the heels...
...been busy times ever since. After Obama's election, Notchi accosted an unsuspecting Prime Minister Taro Aso for another episode of "Devil's Contract" at a shopping arcade in Tokyo to show him the photo he had taken with the President-Elect in St. Louis. In fact, today nearly all of Notchi's comedic bookings come from this new gig, and he hopes the work will keep coming. "I will be Obama for the next four years," he says, "If lucky, even eight...
...official. On Nov. 17, Japan's government declared that the second largest economy in the world had slipped into recession for the first time since 2001. The Cabinet office of Prime Minister Taro Aso said that gross domestic product had contracted at an annual rate of 0.4% in the three months up to September, its second consecutive quarter of negative growth...
...hurting Japan?s exporters. This week, Honda cut its annual revenue forecast for the 2009 fiscal year to $5.2 billion, a 19% decline compared with FY2008 results. Sony announced that its profit dropped 72% in the first half of the year. Help may be on the way. But Aso must convince a divided Japanese parliament to pass his stimulus package amid growing skepticism that it will be too little, too late...