“Warm Banks” to Combat Rising Energy Prices
Public buildings across the United Kingdom will become refuges for those unable to afford the projected 80% rise in heating bills this winter.
Category Archives: Economy
Vaccine Equity Activists Denounce Pfizer
Health equity campaigners have called for a fairer system of developing and distributing Covid medications after pharmaceutical company Pfizer announced record second-quarter revenue, more than half of which is attributable to sales of coronavirus vaccines and treatments that remain out of reach for much of the global south.
Reversal of Fortune for Oppressed Labor Union
An Osaka-based labor union is beginning to turn the tables on police repression after years of unlawful harassment.
Pension System Failing to Lift Elderly Out of Poverty
Far too many elderly Japanese have continued to slip into poverty, threatening their very lives.
Rey Ventura Returns to Kotobukicho
Rey Ventura, author of the groundbreaking 1992 memoir “Underground in Japan,” returns to his old crime scene in Kotobukicho, Yokohama.
Homeless in Kannai
The Yokohama Spring Homeless Patrol offers hope to those in the most desperate need for help within their community.
Brutalizing Japan’s Foreign Worker Underclass
A broken rib, a chipped tooth—a worker kicked and beaten frequently over a period of two years. This is not a horror story of a survivor of a Chinese labor camp in Xinjiang, but rather that of a Vietnamese “technical intern” in Okayama, Japan.
Pandemic Exacerbates Japan’s Runaway Worker Crisis
The Covid pandemic has led many foreign workers to desert their places of employment in Japan, and some of them have become runaway workers and even illegal overstayers.
Anti-Chinese Techno-Racism in Japan
In what may prove to be an escalating problem in Japan, young Chinese looking for employment in small startups and technology-related firms appear to be facing a wall of suspicion and sometimes outright racism.
Urban Renaissance (UR): Japan’s Public Housing Success Story
Public housing is problematic in many cities where the private housing market cannot serve low-income communities properly, but Japan has done much better than many others with its Urban Renaissance Agency.
