Warning that without a “seismic shift” in how world governments approach the management of wildlife, land conservation, and public health, the planet could be entering an “era of pandemics,” a United Nations-backed report released this week emphasized that the ability to avoid more public health crises like Covid-19 is entirely within human control.
The Chinese government has begun parading imprisoned Taiwanese on television with the claim that they are Taiwanese spies. Televised confessions of guilt have been broadcast in order to reinforce this claim.
Greenpeace has sounded an alarm over the Suga government’s plan to release stored water from the ill-fated Fukushima nuclear plant into the Pacific Ocean, releasing a new report warning about the presence of carbon-14, which the group says “has the potential to damage human DNA.”
Disarmament advocates and nuclear experts responded with alarm to reporting that the Trump administration is urging countries that support a United Nations treaty to ban nuclear weapons to ditch the pact before it reaches the fifty ratifications necessary to enter into force.
The Nationalist Party (KMT) caused surprise last week by proposing two resolutions regarding diplomatic ties with the United States that passed unanimously in the Legislative Yuan, a rare show of bipartisanship in Taiwanese politics.
Chinese military activities around Taiwan have visibly escalated in past weeks. Apart from military exercises conducted in the area, a visit to Taiwan by US Undersecretary of State for Economic Growth, Energy, and the Environment Keith Krach saw consecutive days of warplanes sent into Taiwanese airspace.
A political spat between high-ranking Nationalist Party (KMT) and Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) politicians broke out last month after comments by former President Ma Ying-jeou of the KMT regarding Taiwan’s national defense.
The Tsai Ing-wen administration surprised last week with the announcement that it intended to open Taiwan up to beef and pork imports from the United States. This move is clearly aimed at removing one of the major political hurdles to a bilateral trade agreement with Washington, which had made this a precondition for a bilateral trade agreement with Taiwan for well over a decade.
A roundup of the most significant news stories from Japan reported in the last half of August 2020.
Dateline Tokyo, our series of short reports on major news developments in Japan, for August 2020
