Workers kick off 2012 Spring Struggle

Unions of the 2012 People’s Spring Struggle Joint Committee on January 17 kicked off this year’s spring wage offensive calling for expansion of domestic demand through a wage increase and putting a halt to a consumption tax hike.

Most of Japan’s payments for USMC relocation plan to Guam remain unspent

Most of the over 830 million dollars the Japanese government paid to the United States to transfer a part of the U.S. Marine Corps units from Okinawa to Guam remains unspent. Japan’s payments even earned 3.81 million dollars in interest.

After 17 years, Hanshin-Awaji quake victims still suffering

It has been 17 years since the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake that caused 6,434 deaths and the partial or complete destruction of 470 thousand houses. As the 17-year long struggle of quake victims suggests, restoring livelihoods and jobs must come first in any post-reconstruction process.