South Korea’s Kill Chain Strategy
South Korea’s new President Yoon Suk-Yeol is reinstating his nation’s “Kill Chain” strategy, which aims to deter an attack from North Korea by brandishing a highly aggressive military doctrine.
Cheetahs Return to India
Cheetahs are returning to India for the first time in seventy years, arriving from South Africa and Namibia. Never before have these striking big cats been allowed to repopulate a region from which they had once disappeared.
Bank Shot: Abe Assassin’s Wild Success
Unemployed loner Tetsuya Yamagami hoped to use his homemade shotgun on Shinzo Abe not mainly to kill Japan’s longest-serving prime minister, but to take his revenge on the Unification Church, which he blamed for destroying his life and that of his family. Improbably, the assassination has become a wild political success.
Visible Minorities: Reforming Japan’s Dickensian Foreign Trainee Program
News Item: video footage surfaced in 2020 of a Vietnamese “trainee” being physically abused by Japanese co-workers at a construction company in Okayama Prefecture, resulting in injuries including broken ribs and a broken tooth.
Israel Outlaws Rights Groups as “Terrorists”
Israeli forces raided, ransacked, and shuttered the offices of top Palestinian civil society groups in the West Bank, a move the organizations denounced as retaliation for their efforts to end the decades-long occupation and hold Israel accountable for its ongoing war crimes.
Delhi Housing for Rohingya Refugees Quashed
Hours after India Housing Minister Hardeep Singh Puri announced that Rohingya refugees from Myanmar would be provided apartments in the Bakkarwala area of outer Delhi, the Home Ministry denied that any such policy had been decided. By the same evening, Puri reversed himself.
Kishida’s Stance on Nuclear Weapons
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has outlined what appears to be a sincere effort to realign Japan’s position on nuclear weapons–from one that supports the maintenance of the US “nuclear umbrella” to one that aims for gradual global nuclear weapons disarmament.
Pesticide Threatens Ecological Disaster in the United Kingdom
The United Kingdom’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) has assured the public that its temporary authorization of a controversial pesticide called thiamethoxam will follow strict guidelines to protect the environment from harm, but evidence is mounting that serious damage is being done.
Explained! Yasukuni Shrine
Yasukuni Shrine is a Shinto shrine located in central Tokyo. It is the most controversial Shinto religious institution in Japan. It was founded in 1869 to honor those who died fighting for the Emperor in war.
LGBT Rights Within Taiwanese Government Strategy
Although it usually hits the global headlines due to tensions with mainland China, Taiwan is also known for its relatively progressive stance on LGBT issues, which in turn is not unrelated to its government strategies.