JCP proposes cuts in expensive tuitions

In announcing a Japanese Communist Party policy proposal for reducing the financial burdens associated with the payment of tuition fees, JCP Policy Commission Chair Koike Akira said that the proposal requires 190 billion yen a year but added that it is realizable by “abolishing the so-called sympathy budget for U.S. forces.”

Japan’s official development assistance should be directed at combating poverty

Japan cannot escape international criticism for turning its back on the commitment made by the international community at the U.N. Millennium Summit in 2000 to halve by 2015 the number of people in extreme poverty and hunger.

SDF activities in Iraq violate the Constitution: high court

The Nagoya High Court said that Iraq is in a state of armed conflict, and thus the ASDF’s airlifting mission there is an act “integral to foreign countries’ use of force,” which runs counter to the Special Measures Law on Iraq as well as Article 9, paragraph one of the Constitution that prohibits Japan from participating in wars.