As world leaders are convening at the the World Economic Forum in Davos, critical attention is being drawn to the Japan’s largest financial institutions’ continued investments in coal, one of the main contributors to the climate crisis.
A roundup of the most significant news stories from Japan reported in the first half of December 2019.
In advance of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s decision on July 17 to take the 2020 Olympics national stadium construction plans back to a “zero base,” matters had been creeping along quietly and largely outside of public notice. It is therefore of considerable value to look back at the development of this slow-burning scandal so as to understand how the situation arrived at the point where it stands now.
Bangkok in 2014 is looking more and more like Madrid in 1936 every day. That was the year that the bloody Spanish Civil War began, which lasted until 1939 and killed hundreds of thousands. Could such a bloody event engulf the Land of Smiles?
Shinzo Abe loved his grandfather, and so the chance to follow in his footsteps must be exhilarating indeed. In 1959 Tokyo was awarded the 1964 Summer Olympics. The prime minister of Japan in 1959 was Nobusuke Kishi, the current prime minister’s grandfather. Shinzo Abe, of course, had nothing to do with initiating Tokyo’s bid for the 2020 Olympics.
