In a landmark judgment today, the Court of Appeal has accepted the Equality and Human Rights Commission's call for a practical approach to help resolve a surge in equal pay cases threatening to bring the tribunal system to a grinding halt.

Professor Manami Hori, of Tokai University explains how they approach care for the elderly in Japan - the country with the world's highest longevity - with a form of social insurance In Japan, care and support were long considered a family responsibility. In fact, it has been generally expected that daughters-in-law would take care of parents, and wives would care for their husbands. However,...

I see Australia is the latest country to start the switch to electric cars and wean its population off dependence on oil. It follows Denmark and Israels’ lead. New Zealand has already clinched a deal with Mitsubishi for a fleet of electric cars to be introduced in 2009. And in Japan, Japan Post is replacing its

Before the Olympics I wrote in support of Softball being retained as an Olympic sport. The sport now only has one game left, the gold medal match between the United States and Japan. I've watched three softball games today, all we're entertaining and the last one, between Australia and Japan, was a marathon affair going to a 12th inning (a normal game lasts to seven but if the score is level you

The Bridge to Japan website is maintained by the Japan Library group. It is a useful directory of Internet sites and web resources relating to all aspects of Japan and Japanese studies. Topics cover all areas including Japanese culture, history, politics and contemporary news. Many of the sites indexed are Japanese language and/or based in Japan.

And then there is the impact on our own living standards. For comparisons and precedent, we need only look at Japan. Our politicians and central bankers have not learned from Japan’s crisis, which preceded our own. We are, therefore, destined to follow Japan’s disastrous record of lost decades of economic activity. As in Japan, so

This site provides free access to the full text of this leading publication from the the Australian Human Rights Commission (formerly known as The Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission). It aims to provide factual information about race, immigration and indigenous peoples in Australia. It includes statistical data on number, distribution and trends on asylum seekers and refugees entering A...

Japan’s economy certainly looks to be one of the worst case scenarios globally at the moment. Indeed, as Claus Vistesen puts it (in a very fine and thoroughly argued post - Engine Failure - that you can see here): “Final estimates from Q4 2008 suggested that Japan contracted at an annualized 12.1% which puts Japan

The European Commission is looking at removing trade barriers with Japan after signing a milestone free trade agreement with South Korea earlier this month, according to a draft EU trade strategy seen by EurActiv, scheduled to be published next week.

Finance ministers from the US, UK, Japan, Canada and Australia rejected the idea of committing more resources to the IMF to fight fires in the eurozone