24 Dec 14. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s cabinet resigned on Wednesday, setting the stage for him to launch a new government with a defence minister whose support for Japan having a stronger pre-emptive strike capability could rile China. Abe has brushed aside suggestions that a record-low election turnout 10 days ago has devalued his victory and vowed to press ahead with his “Abenomics” economic policies and pursue his goal of a more assertive security stance. Abe will replace Defence Minister Akinori Eto, who has faced questions over his use of political funds, Japanese media said. He is expected to keep the rest of his cabinet unchanged. The new cabinet, Abe’s third since returning to power late in 2012, will be sworn in later on Wednesday. Abe was expected to tap Gen Nakatani for the defence portfolio in a nod to worries about growing threats from nuclear-armed North Korea and China. Nakatani is a former defence minister who is in favour of Japan having the ability to hit enemy bases pre-emptively in the face of imminent attack. “If you think what would happen if the United States withdrew, we must consider (acquiring) the ability to respond, because we cannot just sit idly and await death,” Nakatani told Reuters earlier this year. His appointment could draw fire from China, especially given Abe’s stated goal of a stronger security profile for Japan that includes passing a law in 2015 to reinterpret Japan’s pacifist constitution. This would allow Japan to come to the aid of an ally and pave the way for its troops to fight overseas for the first time since World War Two. The Dec. 14 election, which returned his coalition with a large majority, was billed by Abe as a mandate on his reflationary economic policies that include hyper-easy monetary policy, government spending and promises of deregulation. His Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and coalition partner Komeito maintained their two-thirds “super majority”. Support was lukewarm at best with turnout at a record low 53.3 percent, with many voters torn between their doubts over whether Abe’s policies would really help and worries that a weakened opposition could do no better. Hopes for Abenomics have been dented by data suggesting any recovery is fragile, with Japan slipping back into recession in the third quarter in the wake of an April sales tax rise. (Source: Reuters)
23 Dec 14. Iranian Parliament Chairman Ali Larijani arrived in Lebanon on Monday, the second stop on a three-country tour – Syria and Iraq are the other two destinations – amid growing concerns from the Sunni world and boasts from Tehran that have the Iranians controlling four Arab capitals. Larijani, meeting with Lebanese Defense Minister Samir Moqbel, reportedly renewed an Iranian offer to provide the country’s army with weapons “unconditionally and free of charge.” In Syria the day before, Larijani reaffirmed Iranian support for the Bashar al-Assad regime, to which it has for years provided funds, weapons, and military training. Speaking to reporters, Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Muallem, per Iran’s Mehr News Agency, “stressed that Iran has played an effective and constructive role in dealing with regional issues.” Tehran has for years been criticized by regional powers for interference in countries’ domestic affairs and for stoking regional instability – it has among other things provided funding and military training to Houthi rebels in Yemen, funded its Hezbollah proxy in Lebanon, propped up the Assad regime in Syria, and provided weapons to Palestinian terror groups operating out of the Gaza Strip. A Jerusalem Post analysis of Iranian efforts in Yemen noted that a dynamic in which the country is controlled by Tehran-backed rebels would threaten not only the Jewish state but half a dozen other countries in the Middle East and East Africa, due to Yemen’s strategic positioning on the Arabian Peninsula. (Source: theisraelproject.org)
23 Dec 14. South Korea has not ruled out the involveme