Japan will open the way to channel aid to foreign militaries under a new charter for overseas development assistance, as the nation seeks to bolster regional security ties amid a territorial dispute with China. The Development Cooperation Charter will allow Japan to provide overseas aid for non-combat purposes, according to a copy of the document obtained by Bloomberg News. 

The issue of the so-called comfort women needs to be resolved for South Korea-Japan ties to improve, according to activists and the Korean women who were enslaved by the Japanese during World War II. 

The brutal slaying of the two Japanese hostages by the Islamic State (Daesh) is a reminder, if one were needed, that the group remains impervious to universal condemnation of its methods, but also that Japan's ability to influence the group's actions is as limited as that of any other nation.

 When Islamic State militants posted a video over the weekend showing the grisly killing of a Japanese journalist, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe reacted with outrage, promising “to make the terrorists pay the price.”Such vows of retribution may be common in the West when leaders face extremist violence, but they have been unheard of in confrontation-averse Japan — until now.. 

She carries the spirit of her son, a soft power presence in peaceful principles and humanistic values that Japan needs now. The mother of Kenji Goto, who painfully appeared before the press a week ago pleading for her son's life, was met with a throng of cameras on Sunday in Tokyo to make a statement about his death.

Japan’s latest hostage crisis has exposed shortcomings in Japan’s public diplomacy and raises questions about the advice Prime Minister Shinzo Abe received in publicly announcing $200 million in humanitarian aid to help those displaced by conflict with the Islamic State group.

Japan is stepping up a campaign to promote a “correct understanding” of its wartime past, in a move that may anger China and South Korea ahead of the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II in August.