SNA Covid Variant Handbook
The Shingetsu News Agency presents our own provisional handbook on nomenclature for the Covid variants which have been confirmed to have reached Japan.
Visible Minorities: Interrogating the Discriminatory Quarantine Scandal
The government’s new Covid self-quarantine policies are providing yet another opportunity to demonstrate that the lives, livelihoods, and investments of foreigners don’t really count in Japan.
Japan Offers Reputation Laundering to Rahm Emanuel
The list of moral and political reasons why Rahm Emanuel should not be appointed ambassador to Japan are more than a few, but at the very top of the list is that serving in Tokyo could offer him an excellent opportunity to rehabilitate his reputation, ensuring that this bad actor will return to more influential offices in the future.
Scrap the Immigration Crackdown Plan
Tozen Union joined other labor unions and rights groups in a sit-in Wednesday outside Japan’s Diet Building, as the House of Councillors deliberated a bill to get tough on refugees, migrants, and other foreigners.
Taiwan Ambassador Squeezed Over Fukushima Wastewater Comments
Taiwan’s de facto ambassador to Japan has been called a “traitor” back home after making controversial comments about the planned release of radioactive wastewater from the Fukushima plant.
Bread & Roses: Covid, Not Olympics, Requires Our National Effort
The Japanese government is demanding a national effort to host the Olympics. But it’s time to cancel the Games and put the national effort into supporting nurses and other healthcare professionals who are now working to save lives.
Taiwan’s Authoritarian Past Relegated to Statue Graveyard
An hour’s drive from central Taipei lies a wasteland for Chiang Kai-shek statues, symbols of Taiwan’s authoritarian past.
Explained! The Futenma Base Controversy in Okinawa
This video in our Explained! series is a basic review of why the US Marine airbase at Futenma in Okinawa has become such a source of enduring controversy.
Visible Minorities: Retrospective on 25 Years of Activism
Debito.org turned 25 years old last week. What, if anything, has it contributed to help make conditions for Non-Japanese residents and Visible Minorities better?
Misdirection in the Fukushima Water Debate
Despite the enormous amount that has been written about the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, the media coverage of the issue of dumping treated radioactive water into the Pacific Ocean reveals that very little has actually been learned.