The yen settles into a trading range...

Prime Minister Tarō Asō and a group of national security hawks in the LDP may be pushing hard for the inclusion of preemptive capabilities in this year's National Defense Program Guidelines (NDPG), but it appears that while there is little opposition from within the LDP, the Aso government may yet have some difficulty getting its way on preemption...

In remarkably little time, the LDP has swung from doomed to ebullient and now once again is showing its age and fragility. And all it took was a nominal change in leadership in the DPJ...

Already under consideration before North Korea's nuclear test last week, the LDP's push to include plans for an indigenous capability to strike North Korea to preempt an attack on Japan has picked up speed over the past week. On May 26th, Prime Minister Taro Aso reminded reporters that since 1955 preemptive self-defense has been considered legal.

The Nikkei, like many other benchmark indices, is hardly the volatile, motion sickness inducing headline producer that it was of months past. But no matter how hard I’ve tried, I just haven’t been able to turn myself into a green shoots market cheerleader.

Considering the appointment of John Roos and other Obama donors to ambassadorial posts, David Rothkopf makes a strong argument against the relevance of ambassadorships in the first place...

Seiji Maehara, the former DPJ president who has been viewed as a possible defector from the DPJ, said in a TV appearance Thursday evening that "even if the DPJ loses the election, it will absolutely not break apart."

It appears that there is still some green shoots left in the news from Japan even though the underlying picture is one of deteriorating fundamentals.

Is the economy ready to recover? It appears to depend on who you talk to and where you look...

I don’t normally rely on National Geographic magazine for investment advice, but in the June issue the screaming long term bull case for the soft commodities is there in all its glory...