Saab Technologies Japan has named Satoshi Uji as its first-ever Japanese president. The Swedish defense giant is positioning its GlobalEye AEW&C aircraft as the successor to Japan's aging E-767 fleet, with industry sources targeting a 2035 replacement. After Japan's April 21 abolition of the 'Five Categories' export rule, can a non-US contender finally crack Japan's airborne early warning market?
On May 5, 2026, Defense Ministers Koizumi and Teodoro met in Manila to launch a working group for transferring used Abukuma-class destroyer escorts to the Philippines — the first concrete test of Japan's new lethal weapons export rules.
On May 4 in Canberra, PM Takaichi and PM Albanese signed five joint documents including the Economic Security Joint Declaration. Six critical mineral projects backed by $1.2B. How Japan's approach differs from the US IRA and EU CRMA, and what it means for global supply chains.
Tourist numbers up from 5,000 to 120,000 a year, sea ice at record lows, emperor penguins now Endangered. What ATCM48 in Hiroshima and Japan's Antarctic protection law amendment must confront.
On May 1, METI summoned executives from 24 critical infrastructure operators—covering power, gas, oil, chemicals and credit cards—and ordered emergency cybersecurity audits within one month. The trigger: Anthropic's Claude Mythos, an AI announced April 7 that found a 27-year-old flaw in OpenBSD. We compare Japan's response with the US CISA OT principles and the EU's NIS2 Directive.
Gunma Prefecture's passport-style pamphlet sold out 10,000 copies on day one. Behind the frenzy: a beloved internet meme calling Gunma 'Japan's undeveloped territory' and a regional rivalry where prefectures fight to be the least popular.
Private estimates put Japan's April 30 yen-buying intervention at around 5 trillion yen ($32B). Here's what it means for the US-Japan rate gap, carry trade unwind, US Treasury monitoring list risk, and emerging market spillover.
Japan has procured Russian crude for the first time since the Strait of Hormuz blockade — a Sakhalin-2 spot cargo bound for Taiyo Oil's Imabari refinery in Ehime Prefecture, arriving May 4. Behind the move lies the controversial 'Sakhalin exception' to G7 sanctions, extended through June 2026. We unpack the structural vulnerability that no amount of moral diplomacy can hide, and compare Japan's response to Germany, South Korea, and India.
On May 2, Japanese PM Sanae Takaichi met Vietnam's new PM Le Minh Hung in Hanoi, agreeing to cooperate on crude oil and critical mineral procurement amid Middle East instability. The same day, Takaichi delivered a foreign policy speech at Vietnam National University announcing the evolution of the Free and Open Indo-Pacific (FOIP) doctrine. Inside the new economic security pivot, how it differs from US friendshoring and EU Global Gateway, and Vietnam's untapped rare earth potential.
Teen overdose ER transports in Tokyo have tripled in 5 years. Inside Japan's OTC medicine abuse crisis, the Toyoko Kids phenomenon, and the gap in youth mental health support — compared with the US fentanyl epidemic and UK harm-reduction approach.
Haruhiko Kuroda, the former BOJ governor who launched Japan's massive monetary easing in 2013, says the current weak yen has 'gone too far' and 130 per dollar would be appropriate. The Japanese public's reaction: 'Look who's talking.' We unpack the irony, the rate-gap mechanics, and the global market implications.
