NEWSWORTHY
Is the Cruz Report the end of peacekeeping for Japan?
A report's call for more proactive and pre-emptive actions by peacekeepers collides with legal limitations on the SDF's use of force.
Defense Minister Itsunori Onodera said he reached an agreement Sunday with his U.S. and South Korean counterparts to work in tandem to urge North Korea to take concrete steps toward denuclearization, less than 10 days before a planned summit between U.S. President Donald Trump ...
Japan, U.S. and Australia agree on maritime security cooperation at Singapore summit
Japan, the United States and Australia on Saturday agreed that the international community needs to work together to deal with any attempt to change the status quo in the South China Sea unilaterally. The agreement, which apparently had in mind Beijing's operations in the South ...
Damage found in main rotor head bolt linked to fatal GSDF chopper crash in Saga
Damage has been found in a bolt in the main rotor head of the Ground Self-Defense Force helicopter that crashed in Saga Prefecture in February, government sources said Monday. The sources think the rotor head of the AH-64D Apache from the GSDF's Metabaru Camp broke ...
LDP ditches push for aircraft carrier, calls for multipurpose 'mother ship'
The Liberal Democratic Party wants Japan to build a ship that can deploy a wing of deadly stealth fighter jets but won’t be called an aircraft carrier.
Maritime Self-Defense Force submarine fires torpedo decoy by mistake
A submarine operated by Japan's Maritime Self-Defense Force mistakenly launched a torpedo decoy off the Kii Peninsula in western Japan early Thursday. According to the Maritime Staff Office, no damage has been confirmed so far. The MSDF is searching for the decoy, while investigating the cause. The ...
No systematic cover-up of Iraq troop activity logs: Defense Ministry
The Defense Ministry said Wednesday its probe found no organizational cover-up of troop activity logs related to a controversial deployment to war-torn Iraq starting in 2004.
Japan facing toughest security environment since World War II: Onodera
Amid the nuclear and missile threat posed by North Korea, Defense Minister Itsunori Onodera said Monday that Japan is facing its toughest security environment since World War II, and pledged to resolutely protect its territory. "It's important to work together with other nations to maintain ...
Japan's courts are being asked to define the role of the SDF
As discussed in Media Mix last week, news organizations are on the lookout for signs of whether the country’s Self-Defense Forces are becoming politically active. There have been indications the SDF wants to be the conventional military that the ruling Liberal Democratic Party has ...
Dispatch of SDF members to U.N. Mission in South Sudan extended until May 2019
The government said Friday it has extended the dispatch of four Self-Defense Forces members to the headquarters of the United Nations peacekeeping mission in South Sudan through May 31 next year. Japan ended its five-year deployment of Ground Self-Defense Force civil engineering units to the ...
South Korean ship seen with North Korean tanker on high seas, sources say
MSDF vessel could not confirm that goods were being transferred in violation of U.N. sanctions, government sources said Sunday.
Lawmaker Hiroyuki Konishi's encounter with an irate SDF officer stirs debate on military
On April 16, opposition lawmaker Hiroyuki Konishi was walking by the Upper House members’ office building in Tokyo when he encountered a man jogging. The man recognized Konishi and started talking to him. His manner soon turned belligerent. An officer in the Self-Defense Forces, ...
