Economic sanctions and corporate boycotts have not caused the rapid collapse of the Russian economy, as some Western commentators had hoped. Sanctions are, however, pressuring economic lifelines for the Russian people and forcing Moscow to embrace Eurasian ties.
Japan is beginning construction today, January 12, of a new base intended to be used primarily by the US military on the uninhabited island of Mageshima in Kagoshima Prefecture, despite years of resistance to the controversial plan and a questionable process by which the island was acquired by the government.
Saddled with student debt and, in many cases, spending the early years of their professional lives working during the Covid pandemic, members of Generation Z–often defined as those born between 1997 and 2012–are proving to be the most pro-worker generation in the contemporary United States.
A pair of nonprofit advocacy groups are suing a Texas company in a bid to stop it from generating so-called “forever chemicals” while manufacturing plastic containers. These are the same chemicals which have been leaking out of US military bases in Japan, contaminating nearby communities.
Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen has announced the extension of the military draft to one year from the current duration of four months, citing the perceived need for increased military preparedness.
US military bases spreading cancerous substances was originally seen as an issue primarily for Okinawans to grapple with, but recent discoveries at Yokosuka and Atsugi bases are making clear that it is a nationwide problem.
Senator Elizabeth Warren and other US lawmakers are demanding that the Pentagon stop its systematic undercounting of civilian deaths after more than two decades of the so-called Global War on Terrorism.
The antiviral drug Avigan was developed by the firm Fujifilm Toyama Chemical in 2014, and it was later envisioned as Japan’s leading prospect to solve the global Covid pandemic. The drug was enthusiastically promoted by former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, but this October its development was quietly terminated.
From 1885-1888, Hirobumi Ito served as the first prime minister of Japan. Indeed, he was the principal architect of the modern Cabinet system, inspired by European models but adapted to Japanese circumstances.
Civil society groups in Peru are calling for a national strike against the unelected interim President Dina Boluarte, while international progressives, including current and former Latin American leaders, see the hand of rightwing groups and the US government behind the attempted overthrow of the popular will.
