It's the duty of Tokyo Gov. Naoki Inose to give a convincing account of how he came to borrow ¥50 million interest-free "for personal use" from the scandal-tainted Tokushukai hospital group last year.

Voters' defeat of incumbent mayors in Fukushima Prefecture should flag the Abe administration that they not happy with the slow pace of reconstruction from the nuclear disaster in March 2011.

The award of the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought to the 16-year-old Pakistani girl Malala Yousafzai is welcome, as it will promote schooling for the huge number of children worldwide who are deprived of education opportunities.

Flip-flops in government explanations of the contentious bill for protecting state secrets — now under deliberation in the Upper House — suggest that the government itself does not have a clear idea of how it plans to prevent the arbitrary designation of information as ...

The Upper House has enacted a law that establishes a Japanese version of the U.S. National Security Council. But there's no guarantee the NSC will contribute to the government's making rational security and diplomatic decisions.

It will take much more than an end to the rice paddy area reduction policy coupled with subsidies to turn Japanese agriculture into a growth sector as envisioned by the Abe administration.

The labor ministry is planning to tighten and enforce the country's guidelines for harassment in the workplace. Included is a reconsideration of office conversations between people of the same gender.

The government's plan to make sure full-time regular employees take their paid holidays has apparently failed. A survey shows that workers claimed even fewer holidays in 2012 than they did in 2011.

The six-month accord that Iran struck with six Western countries on Nov. 23 gives it a chance to dispel international concerns about its nuclear program while improving the lives of its citizens.

The upshot for Japan from the just-ended Warsaw conference on climate changes is that it must come up with a new longer-term emissions reduction plan within 16 months.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has won an important foreign policy victory with the decision by Ukraine to suspend talks on an association agreement with the European Union.

Drastic measures will be inevitable to resolve the deep crisis at JR Hokkaido, including the resignation of current executives and the introduction of completely new management.