As one analyst put it: "(Voters) liked the preview of the Takaichi government. Now they want to see the full movie." My latest Big in Asia for @nikkeiasia.bsky.social Japan PM Takaichi chases mentor Abe's dream asia.nikkei.com/spotlight/bi...

Some of the strategic decision-making out of Westminster continues to astound. At a time when the world needs the BBC World Service more than it has done in decades - this? The kind of short-sighted, peace dividend-era thing to do, at a time when our geopolitical holiday is decidedly over.

Exactly. This is not a lot of money. And once destroyed you don’t get to rebuild it.

Now Trump is demolishing VOA, the BBC is one of the last barriers against the flood of lies that comes from all directions. A huge UK national asset. The Guardian view on the BBC World Service: this is London calling | Editorial | The Guardian www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

A survey on how the BBC should be managed going forward. Takes about 30min, depending on how much you write. Britain’s Story: The Next Chapter - BBC Royal Charter Review, Green Paper and public consultation - GOV.UK www.gov.uk/government/c...

Trump is selling out our kids’ future so his fossil fuel billionaire friends can get even richer. The science is clear. Climate change is an existential threat to the planet. We must transform our energy system away from fossil fuels and into sustainable energies.

"American culture, with its English-Scotts-Irish origin, is great and worth fighting for." Has he not heard any American popular music?

All those conferences I have participated in with top officials with very concerned faces going on and on about soft power and countering Chinese influence, Russian disinformation, it is all terrible, etc… Guys. Fund. The. BBC.

You can dispute whether Takaichi won because of her conservatism and discuss how much her governing agenda will be guided by it but the idea that it's not appropriate to call her a conservative when her closest allies are talking about her victory like this is just wrong. youtu.be/ZoMimwcEqyU?...

"calling Takaichi conservative or new conservative or right wing should not be the end of discussion or analysis but the beginning" Will the public at some point realise that they're getting more than they signed up for? Doesn't seem to have happened yet with MAGA supporters in the US...

Since the start of the war in Ukraine, major European defense companies have gained an estimated €200–250bn in market value. That is slightly more than the total support provided by the EU to Ukraine so far. 🤔🇪🇺

ffs don't let Trump hear this! Randy Newman - Political Science www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5mA...

Read about Shoji Nishida and then try to say Takaichi isn't "ultra-conservative". She's had right-wing views going back years.

Wow! Palestine Action win judicial review - Guardian report. This is a *big* legal win. www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...

This came up with the TPP too.

Fusion was going to be the solution to our energy needs, back in the 50s. It's taken a while, but might it be real this time? Fusion startup Helion hits blistering temps as it races toward 2028 deadline | TechCrunch techcrunch.com/2026/02/13/f...

Excellent analysis of why the CRA lost. Use a web translator if - like me - your Japanese reading isn't 100% - it's worth the effort. "Aggressive Group of Old Men Bullying Takaichi": Sociologists See the Root Cause of Young Liberal People's Turning Away from the CDP president.jp/articles/-/1...

"for the president, this issue is as much a political one as it is scientific" Analysis: Trump takes victory lap after biggest climate rollback yet www.bbc.com/news/article...

Trump is a disaster for the whole world.

You can't "revoke" reality.

US Marine officer opposes closure of key US air base in Okinawa "Washington and Tokyo should keep both Futenma and the replacement facility [#Henoko base] in Schwab." They want to INCREASE the burden on #Okinawa, not reduce it. mainichi.jp/english/arti...

LDP official policy might be moderated by reality, but the racism on the right, inside & outside the LDP, is real. (btw When will the US catch up on date formatting? I was wondering why an article written on the 2nd of December knew about the election result... and December 2026 to boot!)

A lie from the start, like "trickle down". I don't think anyone really expected poor countries to "catch up". Why poor countries stopped catching up - David Oks davidoks.blog/p/why-poor-c...

This is a tactic long used by the CPP to silence & punish Tibetans and Uyghurs, such as when the sister @rushanabbas.bsky.social was jailed by China in 2017. Deeply worrying that punishing family members because of their relatives actions abroad out has come to #HongKong.

28 percent of Brits now think that Britain will be better if Nigel Farage gets another go. The guy who tanked the UK economy by working tirelessly to get the UK out of the EU, is the guy to fix it all again. Madness!

#racism #Obamas

Collapse of international justice Israel used weapons in Gaza that made thousands of Palestinians evaporate | Israel-Palestine conflict | Al Jazeera www.aljazeera.com/features/202...

“This case is not about national security – it is about rewriting history and punishing those who refuse to forget the victims of the Tiananmen crackdown” Jimmy Lai sentenced: What happened to other HK pro-democracy protesters? | Protests News | Al Jazeera www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/2/...

Written before the election results came in, but still - sadly - convincing. "The fantasy of the two-party system as a democratic ideal has haunted the decisions made by Japan’s liberal opposition. It may be time to finally put it to bed." www.tokyoreview.net/2026/02/is-t...

It's not news but Trump has seriously damaged the US, and its allies. LIVE with Bill Bishop: The world order is shifting — and China is moving fast to shape it. sinocism.com/p/live-with-...

"It is ... urgent for the new party to undergo its own rectification of words—to find new purpose, new strategies, new slogans, new faces."

Usual good analysis from Tobias Harris (who, amazingly, doesn't live in Japan).

“The danger is that there are a lot of problems and, if you listen to her actual policies, there is not a lot of content and not many good solutions. In that situation, politicians like Takaichi have given up on solutions and instead provide scapegoats.” www.ft.com/content/b9fb...

"Her desire for political stability is a desire to make the opposition irrelevant, to limit its opportunities to ask questions or challenge her vision for the country." Takaichi was already like this when she was Abe's home minister. observingjapan.substack.com/p/between-pa...

Now she's arrived with hardly any concrete policy promises to keep, we need to watch out for what Takaichi actually does. Takaichi's 'Japan First' is a retreat from Abe's vision of openness - Nikkei Asia asia.nikkei.com/opinion/taka...

"That’s the thing with China: there’s ‘rules’, and there’s ‘the rules’. Half of China life is knowing which are which. Half the fun, too." China: Quieter, more fretful than I remember - by Whipling toosimple.substack.com/p/china-retu...

Elon Musk’s net worth is now just $0.14 trillion shy of $1 trillion. To put that in perspective, his personal wealth is higher than the entire annual GDP of countries like Switzerland, Saudi Arabia, Argentina, Norway, Israel, Singapore, Chile & dozens more. And they say inequality isn’t a problem.

This is who Jeff Bezos is. While he just spent $75 million bribing Trump with a Melania movie, he also fired all the Washington Post correspondents, including Lizzie Johnson who reported from Ukraine. Make a difference — boycott Bezos’ Amazon and Prime Video today.

New violation unlocked 💔. When will it stops. 🔗 euromedmonitor.org/en/article/6...

Bernie, this is great!

Why be so coy about it? Just say it out loud. Bezos is killing WaPo for the same reason Musk killed Twitter: to control the narrative.

China & Russia continue to push narrative that Japan is turning militarist. PRC Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian says “China & Russia maintain very similar positions on issues related to Japan. Japan’s accelerated remilitarisation threatens regional peace and stability.”

This is what oligarchy looks like: Elon Musk, the wealthiest man alive, spent $290 million to elect Trump. Since Election Day, Musk became $548 billion richer while his companies (SpaceX & Tesla) paid $0 in federal income taxes last year after making $13.7 billion in profits.

When we talk about authoritarianism, it’s not just Donald Trump. Musk owns X Bezos owns Twitch Zuckerberg owns Instagram and Facebook Larry Ellison controls TikTok Billionaires increasingly control what we see, hear and read.

The Burmese military have a history of atrocities going back decades. They're one of the most evil regimes in the world.

But: “For folks in Taiwan, they have to assume that they need to do what they need to do for their own national defense and not tie it to political developments out of Zhongnanhai”

Hot source: Does the Japanese press play fast and loose with off-the-record comments? bit.ly/4kc6RUA #官邸記者クラブ #オフレコ

Another performer withdraws from the Kennedy Center.

As Mark Winchester @archerknewsmit.bsky.social has noted, “foreigner problem” and “foreigner policy” are terms that have come into currency only in the past year Nakano Kōichi ran a search on Asahi Shimbun database and saw such terms had no or only single digit hits until 2024, but 3 digits in 2025

Maybe the "serious security threats" facing Chinese citizens who visit Japan would come into effect after they return to China...