20 July 2023 10.30am: Kawasaki, Japan Shota Nagasaki, 30, a builder laying concrete I’ve been doing this work for 12 years – since I left high school – and it’s got hotter even over that time. This year is kind of crazy. I mean, there are years that are not so hot, but over time the temperatures are rising. I don’t live nearby the work site so I picked the truck from the company as usual and drove here; with the air conditioning on of course. But I don’t like…
Tag: Japan
Nato appears to shelve plans to open Japan liaison office in Tokyo
Nato appears to have shelved plans to open a liaison office in Tokyo, a proposal that had been discussed as part of the western military alliance’s plans to deepen cooperation with partners in the Asia-Pacific but which was strongly opposed by China. The idea to open an office was first discussed after Nato’s secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, visited Japan earlier this year. It reportedly involved opening a civilian office in Tokyo in 2024, as a means of facilitating Nato’s dialogues in the Asia-Pacific. It was expected progress would be made…
UN report on Japan’s Fukushima water plans fails to placate opponents
The publication this week of the UN nuclear watchdog’s positive assessment of Japanese plans to pump more than 1m tonnes of water from the wrecked Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant into the ocean has failed to placate opponents. China is fiercely opposed to the plans, despite a report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) backing the scheme, while the support of the government of South Korea has failed to quell widespread public opposition to the idea in the country. The government in Seoul said on Friday that it “respected…
China Reels From Floods and a Bruising Heat Wave
China and several other Asia Pacific countries were reeling from monsoonal floods and stultifying temperatures on Wednesday, the latest disruptions in what forecasters say could be a long summer and autumn of extreme weather around the world. The authorities in China said on Wednesday that 15 people had died and four others were missing as a result of flooding in the sprawling southwestern city of Chongqing, according to the state-run news media. In another sign of how bad the flooding was in China, news footage showed rescuers in the central…
Atomic Agency Clears Japan to Release Fukushima Water
In one of the remaining steps before Japan decides to release more than one million metric tons of treated radioactive water from the Fukushima nuclear plant into the Pacific Ocean, the International Atomic Energy Agency declared on Tuesday that the government’s plan had met the agency’s safety standards. The nuclear authority’s final report concluded that the treated water would “have a negligible radiological impact to people and the environment” once it is released. Japan’s plan has provoked controversy both at home and abroad, as government officials in China and many…
Fukushima: China calls for suspension of Japanese plan to release radioactive water into sea
China has called for the suspension of a Japanese plan to begin releasing radioactive water from the tsunami-wrecked Fukushima nuclear plant into the sea, ahead of a UN report that is expected to give its approval to the scheme. Beijing denounced the plan as “extremely irresponsible” when it was announced in 2021 and reiterated its opposition on Tuesday, as International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief, Rafael Grossi, begins a four-day visit in which he is set to deliver the results of the body’s safety review. Through its embassy in Japan,…
For better or for worse: is the decline in marriage actually good for relationships? | Devorah Baum
One of the curious things about marriage is the role it’s played in embedding commonly held views about normality. Married people are generally considered normal people. As such, they have possessed inordinate power to dictate the terms of normality in a way that single people rarely can. And yet marriage, clearly, isn’t for everyone. Plenty of people have no desire to do it. Plenty of others have done it and haven’t liked it. The stats only corroborate this. Fewer people over the years have been getting married, while the stresses…
China hits back at G7 nations, accusing them of ‘smears’ and ‘slander’
Beijing has accused the G7 nations of collaborating to “smear and attack” China, after the weekend summit issued a communique that warned Beijing over its “militarisation activities” in the Asia-Pacific region. After the summit, China summoned the Japanese ambassador to register an official protest, and warned the UK to stop “slandering” the country to avoid further damage to bilateral relations. Chinese regulators also chose the weekend to announce that US chip firm, Micron Technology, had failed a security review and would be banned from use in Chinese critical infrastructure. The…
The U.S. Needs Minerals for Electric Cars. Everyone Else Wants Them Too.
For decades, a group of the world’s biggest oil producers has held huge sway over the American economy and the popularity of U.S. presidents through its control of the global oil supply, with decisions by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries determining what U.S. consumers pay at the pump. As the world shifts to cleaner sources of energy, control over the materials needed to power that transition is still up for grabs. China currently dominates global processing of the critical minerals that are now in high demand to make…
Australia, India, Japan and US take thinly veiled swipe at China
The leaders of the Quad group – Australia, India, Japan and the United States – delivered a thinly veiled swipe at Beijing’s behaviour on Saturday at a summit in Hiroshima. The US president, Joe Biden, and his three partners in the group did not mention China by name but the communist superpower was clearly the target of language in a joint statement calling for “peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific maritime domain”. “We strongly oppose destabilising or unilateral actions that seek to change the status quo by force or coercion,”…