Since insurance companies refuse to provide more than minimal coverage for nuclear-power plants, the state must absorb the bulk of the costs of a disaster such as Fukushima.
As with methyl-mercury a half century ago, Japan is once again threatened by a new persistent toxin accumulating in its food and water. But unlike the early days of the discovery of mercury poisoning, Japan’s government has quickly launched responses to this contamination, even far beyond the local site of contamination.
If the killing of Osama bin Laden were a Hollywood murder mystery, the shootout scene in Abbottabad would be followed by the unveiling of the sponsor who arranged for the al-Qaeda safe house. Is it the Pakistani intelligence officer who appears early in the movie to assure his U.S. counterparts that he is fully committed to bringing bin Laden to justice? Is it the Saudi construction magnate who owes several major favors to the bin Laden family? Or perhaps it’s the U.S. embassy official who, it might turn out, believes that Osama is more useful alive than dead — until finally, he is useful no longer.
Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus has become the fall guy for microcredit’s abuses by major banks.
Both the U.S. and Japan suffer at the hands of government officials looking forward to jobs in the private sector.
To the West, nuclear talks with North Korea have to be all or nothing.
Afraid to emit any radiation whatsoever into the atmosphere, Tepco let too much pressure build up at Fukushima.
Just days before the recent earthquake struck Japan, a controversy erupted over comments attributed to Kevin Maher, the head of the State Department’s Japan Desk. In news reports that caused widespread outrage and became front page news in Japan, Maher was quoted as describing the Okinawan people as “extortionists” and “lazy.”
In the wake of Obama’s recent tour of Latin America, media reports and commentators claimed that China has been economically outmuscling the United States in the region. The reality, however, is that Beijing’s economic presence has not come at the expense of the United States. Although Washington still maintains an overwhelming edge, its influence is decreasing. This decline will be exacerbated by Obama’s focus on boosting U.S. exports to the region rather than importing more of Latin America’s manufactured goods.
Much of North Korea’s population is starving, yet its government pours money into missile and nuclear programs. Such behavior seems to be the height of irrationality. But North Korea is only following the international community’s – especially America’s – example.