Japan Is Back (No, Really!)

Have you wondered whether anything’s been happening in the world beyond Iraq? With America—and many others—fixated on the ups and downs of the security situation, the search for weapons, the machinations in the U.N. Security Council, there’s been little attention paid to anything else.

WELL, IN THE LAST MONTH something big has been happening thousands of miles away from the Middle East. Japan is back. No, really. The country is finally stirring from a decadelong slumber. And it is waking up politically as well. In the long run, this period might well be seen as the rise of a new Japan.
Many economists look at Japan and remain cautious. The economy is growing and the stock market is up, but in the last decade there have been many such false starts. More important, Japan’s reformist prime minister has not tackled the big economic problems the country faces—writing off bad loans, reforming the tax code and finding the right economic stimulus. In short, there has been no economic revolution. But in the last month Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi has launched something more important—a political revolution.

http://msnbc.com/news/976060.asp