Sunset for the Asian El Dorado
Macau Chief Executive Ho Iat Seng is making it increasingly clear that the territory he administers no longer sees the gambling industry as the key to its future development.
Tag Archives: Covid
Visible Minorities: Never Forget Japan’s Racist Covid Policies
This month Japan finally lifted its Covid restrictions and reopened its borders to tourists. Well, whoop-de-doo.
Punitive Demolition of Homes and Evictions in India
The latest report of the Housing and Land Rights Network on forced evictions in India has pointed to the new disturbing trend of “demolitions as a punitive measure” by various state governments.
“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.
America’s Belt and Road Initiative
The Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment (PGII) is the United States’ latest attempt to challenge China’s global investment strategy, the better-established Belt and Road Initiative, but it is unclear how serious a challenge PGII can present to Beijing.
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.
The Costs of the Shinzo Abe Legacy
It was exactly a month ago today that Shinzo Abe was assassinated in Nara by 41-year-old Tetsuya Yamagami. As the passions of that event begin to settle, this is an opportune occasion to reconsider both the benefits and the costs of an administration which lasted longer than any other in Japanese history.
Gaslighting the Status Quo in the Taiwan Strait
Western nations have recently taken up a mantra that claims they will never allow “changes to the status quo by force,” but when it comes to the dangerous crisis in the Taiwan Strait, it’s not entirely clear that all Western commentators even understand what the diplomatic “status quo” is all about.
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.
Japan’s Plastic Consumption in the Covid Pandemic
In spite of growing awareness regarding the global problem of plastic pollution, Japan has experienced difficulty reducing its plastic consumption since the arrival of the Covid pandemic in early 2020.
