politics

Koike, Abe say they'll cooperate on virus, Olympics

27 Comments
By MARI YAMAGUCHI

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27 Comments
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Haha, great shot! I can sense a caption competition coming on.

Koike Yuriko: "My mask is bigger than yours."

Abe Shinzo: "Nice, where do you get those from?"

16 ( +17 / -1 )

Abe Shinzo: How low will you bow?

Koike Yuriko: Only a little less than you - for now.

Abe Shinzo (notice clenched fists). Well then, I'm hardly going to bow.

Koike Yuriko: So be it.

12 ( +13 / -1 )

So they will co-operate on spending more tax payer money on a two week show of Atherletes leaping around, with no benefit uther then themselves. Great job! How about the rest of us?

14 ( +15 / -1 )

Just a year away to July 2021. No vaccines, no treatment available in anything like the quantity required, prolonged first wave or second wave infections rising, global travel in turmoil, millions unable to work around the world, even training for athletes is difficult.

It is looking more and more like a 2022 Olympics, or just cut the losses, cancel it outright, and move on to 2024 in Paris and 2028 in Los Angeles.

If they have an appetite for it, Japan could have another shot in 2032, when Fukushima might really be under control!

14 ( +15 / -1 )

Cooperate meaning they will do nothing to better the situation. Got it.

14 ( +14 / -0 )

Do my family get more usless masks?

6 ( +8 / -2 )

Does it mean that Koike and Abe didnt work together against Covid19 and for Olympia before!?

10 ( +10 / -0 )

Cooperate means stay silent and fudge the number and use crayons to color code statistics in order to keep us all in the dark some more? Is this right?

9 ( +9 / -0 )

Overalls jacket and a white skirt with heels. Work up top and party down below.

Has she just got off a disaster committee meeting on Zoom?

9 ( +9 / -0 )

The fluffer at work again

6 ( +6 / -0 )

At least, Koike has a better medical mask.

8 ( +8 / -0 )

We cannot afford the Tokyo Olympics. Japanese companies cannot sponsor the event. Their coffers are empty.

9 ( +10 / -1 )

News flash - the Olympics is done. Time to turn the next page

10 ( +11 / -1 )

Tweedledum and Tweedledee

8 ( +9 / -1 )

Abe: I like your mask.

Koike: Because I didn't getyour mask YET.

9 ( +10 / -1 )

The personification of buyer's remorse in his tiny mask

8 ( +8 / -0 )

@Glen more like Tweedledum and Tweedledumber

6 ( +7 / -1 )

as in cooperate make themselves look good by making sure as few cases are reported as possible, as few people as possible get tested, and as few people as possible enter can enter to into the hospitals?

Anyways, Japan is full team ahead on full re-opening.

https://www.nippon.com/en/news/yjj2020070600702/japan-to-further-ease-restrictions-on-events-from-fri.html

The Go To Campaign will be starting on August 1st, where you'll see more than 80% of Japan moving about and taking advantage of the government subsidy all in a single month. Everywhere will be packed, packed trains, packed buses, packed everything. I'm sure that will still end up working well, the government just need to make sure the testing never exceeds 1000 and they can keep the reported numbers in the triple digits.

4 ( +4 / -0 )

The govt has been accused of all kinds of lies and propagating misinformation but for some reason people stupidly believes that they need to keep the numbers of tests low to keep the positive results low.

They don't need to limit the tests, if they're lying they will just/also lie about the results itself.

3 ( +3 / -0 )

Hahaha you know I wasn't referring to the Japanese but yeah, I guess you could say that about them

1 ( +1 / -0 )

So they weren't cooperating before then?

4 ( +4 / -0 )

One mask way too big, one way to small; average them out, they're both completely corrupt (well, the wearers in this case). Yes, they'll cooperate all right, like they did in killing hundreds by refusing to recognize the emergency Corona brought before the Olympics were postponed, up until the very last day. They'll do the same to protect big business, banks, the 2021 Olympics, and themselves, but the last thing they'll do is protect or work for the people. THAT is how they will work together.

5 ( +5 / -0 )

Alright, an ultra conservative, 67 year old as the potential prime minister, when she will be 68. A neoliberal who advocates trickle down, supply-side, Reaganomics, which was trashed by its architect, David Stockman. Complete with the facade she is an environmentalist because she advocates against plastic bags and suggests everyone use a furoshiki - which is quaint - as if the Royal touch will heal the planet. As if that will prevent global warming, rising seas and every manner of natural disaster aka man-made, as we are well past the tipping point. The bitter reality is that elites such as Koike and Abe need to be shunted aside and dispossessed of power - the ruling elite are the obstacles to change - anything else, other than being rid of such bludgers, is empty theater.  The rhetoric and gimmicks they use to placate the public, from carbon credits to wind turbines and solar panels, are, as the scientist James Lovelock says, the equivalent of 18th-century doctors attempting to cure serious diseases with leeches and mercury. The ruling elites such as Koike, trained in business schools and managerial programs, are not equipped to confront the existential problems caused by climate catastrophe. They are trained to maintain, no matter the cost, the systems of global capitalism. They are systems managers. They lack the intellectual capacity and imagination to search for solutions outside the narrow parameters of global capitalism. The Olympics are a slight of hand, what is of import is a genuine response to the current pandemic and the economic crisis that accompanies it, not bread and circuses.

6 ( +6 / -0 )

So Tokyo is going to have another four years of the witching time.

4 ( +4 / -0 )

They will cooperate more now than ever before? Please, that’s what these politicians always say. Yeah, talk is cheap, so we’ll see what their actions will tell us. And that’ll tell us the whole story, no pun intended.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

Good evening from Belgium. Can anyone kindly tell me Ms. Yuriko Koike's and/or the Japanese government's position on mandatory vaccination please ? Many thanks !

0 ( +0 / -0 )

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