Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida and his South Korean counterpart, Yun Byung-se, affirmed in Laos on Monday their intention to implement the landmark bilateral settlement on the “comfort women” forced into Japan’s military brothels during the war by setting up a foundation this week designed to help the surviving victims.

Japan’s consul general in New York provided a warm send-off Friday for the area’s new recruits to the Japan Exchange and Teaching Programme as the government project for globalization enters its 30th year. “The JET Programme is a major asset to both Japan and the United States,” Ambassador Reiichiro Takahashi said.

Foreign aid is a key instrument of international engagement in Japan’s foreign policy toolkit. Although Tokyo is no longer the world’s top aid donor that it once was in the 1990s, it still was the world’s number four aid donor in 2015 with close to a US$10 billion annual budget. It is not just the size of the aid budget that has changed. So has Tokyo’s thinking behind foreign aid.

The annual J-Pop Summit, hosted by Superfrog Project, will be held from July 22 to 24. This Japanese cultural festival has been held in San Francisco every summer since 2009. By introducing the latest in Japanese music, fashion, film, art, games, tech-innovations, anime, and food, as well as niche subcultures, the festival has become a landing platform for new trends from Japan. 

Two towns separated by two continents have spent a weekend celebrating their rock-solid archaeological bond. Thetford and Nagawa, Japan have common ground in their historic use of flint and obsidian. Now representatives from Norfolk and Japan have commemorated the towns’ bond with the world’s first twinning of archaeological sites.

Kawaii has been embraced by the Japanese government as one of its main cultural exports and the linchpin of its “soft power” strategy.

Yasuo Fukuda, former Japanese Prime Minister, said that the relationship between China and Japan, as well as the status of world affairs nowadays, were different from Sun's days, but "Sun's ideals, including the one that Asian countries should cooperate together, are not outdated, and should become guidelines for Asian countries to deal with their relations."