Wellington comments

It's hilarious at the amount of venom and spite from some here to this incredible economic news, almost as if they wish to see the economy tank.. Obviously language teachers and other unskilled workers won't be seeing wage increases, they don't deserve it due to no value being contributed to the economy.

Value adders to the economy however are seeing large wage increases and are well deserved. It's time to stop coddling the low value workers

Amusing how Russia gets so worked up about a bordering nation taking steps to protect themselves. Shows Russia can never be trusted. Good on Japan for taking steps to protect itself from its pathetic neighbours

Not surprised Air Canada is causing issues and can't even follow simple directions.. They are a truly abysmal airline. Never, ever travelling with them again

He wishes his wife was Japanese, as most would

Well done to Japan! Once again achieving what no other Asian nation was able to!

The biggest loser in all of this is North Korea. Their game is up now that they know they won't get a single inch of leeway with Trump. Game over for them

A very rational and reasonable request and will be achieved very soon. With the terrible, terrible neighbors that Japan has, this is a no-brainer

Yeah yeah, should we also lynch him while we're at it?

Glad to hear cooler heads prevailed here and the matter is now resolved. Thankfully those that are triggered by this have no influence on how the system is run here and never will

Although Duterte is a fool, he is showing admirable practicality and realpolitik here. Well done to him for not falling for this political dead horse, constantly being beaten by the South Koreans. What an absolute non-issue

I guess we will be seeing a lot more secret recordings being made public from now on.. No speech can be considered private anymore

Well done on this rule! Long overdue and needed to combat terrible short term stayers

Yet they still come don't they? And our taxes are used to support them while they're here as well. Enough is enough

Opposition: "You should resign for your underling's private comments which hurt my feelings!"

Defense Minister: "Haha Nope"

End of story

Great to hear that Fin will be back on the menu in restaurants in Japan soon! Will definitely sample this delicacy

Denied, once again.

No evidence, once again.

No connection, once again.

Haha the opposition aren't even competent in opposition, let alone the fantasy of ever holding power. They have set themselves back another decade after this farce and well deserved too

Day after day after day we hear about this absolute garbage from the opposition or whoever. Even after a year there has been no smoking gun to prove upper involvement from Abe yet the farce on calling me to resign continues.

These claims are permanently discredited in my view and the overly emotional types who would convict on no evidence are doing themselves no favours here and thankfully don't have positions of influence in society.

This is beginning to resemble the #MeToo witch hunt in America where these overly emotional and idealistic types throw pesky annoyances like due process, facts, and evidence out the window, likely for personal attention and virtue signalling points

Another day, another desperate attempt by the opposition at clutching at straws. One good thing that has come from this "scandal" is that we now know the opposition is wholly unfit to govern any time in the near future. They are one-dimensional and running around clueless

I think this supposed "issue" is over now. Until of course the bitter ones of society can find something else to get upset over. I'm guessing next will be anti-whaling or animal rights or voting rights for foreigners or some other silliness

Well if North Korea is allowed to keep their medium range ballistic missiles which puts Japan in range, then there should be no opposition to Japan developing a massive nuclear ballistic missile arsenal that can wipe out all of North Korea in 10 minutes

I guess we can all be glad they can't vote

Haha, well played

I agree. But what Aly is talking about is the fact to show girls who are still minors, or even children sometimes, in bikini and in sexy poses. Not against the law, just like beauty pageant for children or idol groups for that matter, but I understand his indignation.

I saw an idol's group concert before, and seeing grown up men screaming at the top of their lung the name of a 13 year old dancing on a stage was more disturbing than any explicitly sexual images I have ever seen.

No, it is not illegal so therefore it is an invalid argument of someone who just wants to push their so called "morals" onto the rest of society, most likely due to personal bitterness and vindictiveness. No one is forcing anyone to look at anything so if you are unable to keep yourself from looking at magazines in combinis, there are more serious problems to be worried about.

Also, no one is forcing you to go to an idol concert either

Funny how they can arrest her for that but no problem when you have teens and preteens in skimpy bikini pictures being sold in conbinis.

There's a big difference between "pornographic self-images" to girls in bikinis. If you equate the two as equivalent, do you feel uncomfortable when you go to the beach and think that you are looking at porn? Do you prefer women covering up, like in veils?

But you can't really back that up with anything, can you.

Did you even bother reading the Reuters article? It lays out a very thorough argument there to which I have seen no counter argument so far besides emotional diatribes against "the LDP" or nameless "cronies" for numerous unknown and unsubstantiated claims and theories based on no evidence, further discrediting your position. In fact, so flimsy is the argument on your side, I don't even consider it valid and I think can be dismissed out of hand.

So even if he was actually involved or just criminally negligent in overseeing what senior bureaucrats in his ministry were doing, just forget about the whole thing, eh?

If? Jesus, are we going into hypotheticals now are we?

I agree Aso has been fiscally prudent and has been quite successful in his role as Finance chief. It's a non-starter to have him resign over something as trivial as this. Asking for Abe to resign is a joke not worthy of the opposition

Yeah, cause the unilateral abduction issue is just as important as averting nuclear war, right?

Yeah, cause only a single issue can be handled by governments at any one time right? If nothing is as important as one issue, all other issues should be ignored right?

Good on Abe for bringing this up, South Korea would have 100% failed to mention this with North Korea, and they would have done this deliberately too. Now that it has been officially put to South Korea by Japan, they will have to bring it up or cause a diplomatic incident with Japan. Well played

His support is down to 44%? Yeah there's no chance he's resigning. His economic and foreign policies have been very successful so I suspect his support will be back to around 50% within the month. Emotionally lashing out at Abe on every tiny misstep does nothing for the opposition and their supporters either, showing a lack of rational thinking when they should be saving up and striking at the best times rather than knee jerking

Yeah right, the opposition can whinge all it wants, but there is almost no chance Abe will have to resign from this. Move on

Until North Korea is 100% denuclearized, I have no confidence whatsoever in these talks. North Korea has tried this same tactic for the past 30 years, so there is little chance that all of a sudden they are now willing to completely give up their nukes unless they receive something quite substantial in return, such as unification with Korea under the DPRK

The opposition focuses on these cronyism issues a lot, but they don't really have anything in the way of economic policies that are attractive. This is why they won't get into power for a while. It doesn't help that they also seem like softies in foreign policy at a time when we most definitely need hawks