Giant Haystacks comments

What about some photographs showing the collapsing healthcare system rather than yet another press conference!

Wow, a mass shooting in America. How unusual.

Boycott for the way they are treating the Muslim Uighurs? How did trump treat Muslims in the U.S. GOP?

Or maybe we can take a united stand against a genuine threat?

Great news, well done Australia and Canada!

How about starting closer to home by pressing American companies like Apple, Nike and Patagonia to stop using slave labour in Xinjiang?

The US can't even defend itself: This is How You Recover From Fascism — and America’s Not Doing Any of It

Stop trivialising actual fascism by portraying a democratic elected President as a dictator just because you didn’t like him.

It’s offensive, it’s pathetic, it’s juvenile, it’s dishonest and it’s demeaning to people who actually did/do live under fascist regimes.

Good for Suga & Biden but Japan, like much of the rest of world, knows that one day in the not too distant future, Americans are going to wake up and realise that while they’ve been protesting against perceived social injustice, in clothes made by actual slaves in Xinjiang, China has strategically checkmated them.

And things will get very ugly indeed.

And how will that happen.

The same way it’s happened throughout history: violently and with huge upheaval.

Just because it hasn’t happened yet don’t think it won’t. Look at the language on this comments board alone - astonishing amounts of scorn and derision shown towards the other group.

The two sides literally despise each other. It’s not going to end well.

It’s just a matter of time before the physical break up of the USA.

Americans don’t want to see it but the fact is that both Trump & Biden and Republicans & Democrats, are as bad as each other and the division, hatred and pure contempt shown by both opposing groups isn’t going away.

Good luck to Biden but with the best will in the world, he's not going to halt the inexorable and rapid decline of the USA.

Ban social media.

It’s that simple.

"The English football league supports BLM'

The EFL would support Adolf Hitler if it meant making more money.

And yet she happily takes sponsorship money from a company that profits from slave labour.

America in a nutshell right there.

If racism and human rights are such an important issue for Nike then why don’t they campaign in China where both are rampant.

Right now Nike are literally lobbying the US government to stop legislation that will ban products made by slave labour in Xinjiang.

Nobody is denying that racism is an issue in Japan - as it is in all countries - but to be lectured by a company that actively profits from slave labour and openly avoids criticising one of the the worst human rights offenders in the world for fear of losing money is about the vilest, most hypocritical and jaw-droppingly cynical things imaginable.

With Japan far ahead in terms of recycling more specific things it can go ahead with it as it goes greener in ways other countries cannot

Japan isn’t far ahead in recycling. In fact it’s one of the worst performers in the OECD. The vast majority of waste here is either exported or incinerated at ultra-high temperatures - which contributes to global warming.

@Septim Dynasty -

Just look what the Japanese citizens got executed by ISIS! If they were Americans, then the USA will dispatch a massive military force to rescue their citizens

Like they rescued James Foley, Daniel Pearl, Steven Sotloff, Peter Kassig and Kayla Mueller?

@blue in greenToday - the Presidency was filled by the lawfully elected winner in 2016 and the other side did everything in their power to undermine and delegitimise it. How can you therefore expect the Republicans to bow out gracefully now that that precedent has been set?

When two respected global institutions are concluding that polarisation in the USA is approaching levels seen between Palestine & Israel and Bosnia & Kosovo I think "dramatic" language on a Japanese website is the least of your problems.

Niinami is just saying out loud what other countries are thinking.

The USA is dying on its feet. A recent Cambridge University study (https://rb.gy/re7thi) found that polarisation and tribalism in the USA is now approaching levels of ethnic parochialism seen in Bosnia and Kosovo. Another pre-election study by Proceedings Of The National Academy Of Sciences (https://rb.gy/4abfiy) concluded that Democrats and Republicans showed levels of distrust similar to that which exists between Palestinians and Israelis.

Hard as it is for some to accept but this all pre-dates Trump by a long time. The pandoras box of identity politics that the Democrats have so wholeheartedly embraced is just the latest - and most dangerous - illness to attack the diseased American nation. Added to this, their 4-year campaign to delegitimise Trump's presidency (rather than try to understand what led people to vote for him in the first place) will have destroyed even further the dwindling faith in the US democratic system and ensured that the gulf of political division continues to grow apace.

Other countries would be well advised to try and shield themselves against the toxic spillover as this epic identity crisis pushes the USA ever closer to Balkanisation. The rest of us can but look on as the nation that brought you social media, Big Macs and the atomic bomb literally eats itself alive.

No, China has been a growing power for decades and there wasn't much anyone could do to stop it, but previous presidents always asserted a US leadership role in international institution. Trump though basically packed it in and threw China the keys.

Trump literally forced the rest of the world to reconsider using a communications system that would have handed the CCP a huge business - and possibly military - advantage for many years to come. It's absurd that you fail to acknowledge that. A key role in international institutions means nothing if you're actively feeding the CCP beast with outsourced production and unreciprocated access to your markets - both things that Trump attempted to address. Militarily, the US could have done far more to support its allies in the region. The previously referenced Scarborough Shoal incident was one of a number of occasions under Obama alone where the US military lost significant strategic ground.

Countries, including the US, can freely decide their own defence budgets. 

Actually they can't. In 2006, NATO Defence Ministers agreed to commit a minimum of two per cent of their Gross Domestic Product to spending on defence.

You make valid points about Bush and Obama, but the big difference is that they were all committed to maintaining the postwar US dominated system.

Bush, Obama, Nixon, Clinton etc didn’t avoid doing things that would break the system, they actively undermined it by starting illegal wars and turning a blind eye as China spread its influence across the world and into major global institutions like the WHO. The void you speak of was created long before Trump arrived on the scene.

The post-war order may be US dominated but it is still a multilateral system and as Trump, for all his faults, pointed out, it was and continues to be, undermined by the multitude of other countries who fail to contribute in any meaningful way and always expect America to do the heavy lifting (Germany’s pitiful NATO contributions being a prime example).

Trump did more damage to the US internationally than any modern president

Complete hysterical nonsense. Bush Junior literally set the Middle East ablaze, laid the groundwork for I.S and is directly responsible for the deaths and suffering of hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Iraqis. Obama, despite his heady rhetoric about an Asia-first foreign policy, stuck his head in the sand and hoped the China & North Korea problem would go away (spoiler: it hasn’t). Despite bombing some empty airfields in supposed retaliation, he stood back and allowed Assad to launch chemical attacks on his own people. Obama also did nothing as Russians established a presence in Syria. He failed to provide support to the Philippines during the Scarborough Shoal standoff - an episode described by one US general as “the greatest US military disaster since the helicopters took off from the embassy roof in Saigon”. Nixon began the process of outsourcing the US industrial base to China in an act of catastrophic self-sabotage unprecedented in modern human history. Clinton added to it with a NAFTA deal that was yet another punch in the guts for blue-collar workers.

The list of US blundering and meddling across the globe goes on and on but despite all his infantile bragging and crude syntax, Trump’s not even in the same league as Obama or Nixon when it comes to wrecking long-term global influence.

Apart from this story about Europe and another other very similar one about Russia, Japan Today's 'World' coverage is entirely focussed on the USA.

I get the that the US election is important but the world's a big place so is there any chance of a bit of variety for those of us who are sick of reading about the US?

How about the 'New Normal' being Japanese men giving up their seat (often in the priority area) for pregnant women?

Trust me, the Japanese Military has never slept. Best in the region, and getting bigger and better

Hate to throw a bucket of reality over your little fantasy but China would crush Japan in about a week if war broke out.

"Up, down, up, down.

People being sent back to offices, and walking around inside the offices without masks and not respecting social distancing anymore.

Expect many clusters to start appearing in offices - just wait for it."

People have been saying that for months now and things continue to remain under control.

Regardless of Trump, every non-American I know now sees the USA as a laughing stock and we wish it would stop exporting its divisive, toxic politics to the rest of the world.

Maybe the headline should be retitled "As Western sportspeople embrace activism, what should Tokyo Olympics permit?

Where does this begin and end? Is it ok for a Ugandan athlete to wear a t-shirt proclaiming support for her governments ongoing persecution of gays? Is it ok for an Ethiopian athlete to make a gesture indicating his support for Tigrayan independence? Ok for a Chinese athlete to announce support for their government policy towards Hong Kong or Taiwan during an interview with NBC after they've just won gold? Ok for a Brazilian athlete to declare their support for Bolsonaro? Ok for a U.S athlete to wear a MAGA hat on the podium while receiving their silver medal?

There's a really good reason why politics has been kept out of sports. Long may it stay that way.

"Decolonizing the Afro" - when was the afro colonised?

AlongfortherideToday  -

Very sad to lose a young life this way but is it really the Kindergartens fault or just a sad unfortunate tragedy.

It absolutely is the kindergartens fault. Anyone with experience of children should know you don’t give them grapes.

oldman_13 - "Thus, while one country gleefully boycotts products from Japan, Japan embraces products and cultures from that country"

Lol - try buying a Samsung TV in Bic Camera or Yodabashi or anywhere in Japan for that matter. Or try buying a Kia or a Hyundai. Even the Samsung Galaxy store in Harajuku has removed the 'Samsung' name from its displays!