Domestic Politics Archive

Speaking at the opening of a new parliamentary session in mid-January, Japanese Prime Minister Suga Yoshihide vowed that this summer’s Olympic and Paralympic Games in Tokyo would be “proof of humanity’s victory against the coronavirus.” Nearly six months later, Suga’s promise has yet to materialize. Authorities this week extended states of emergency in Tokyo and Osaka, Japan’s two largest cities, in light of COVID-19 caseloads that, while down significantly from their May highs, remain elevated. The country’s health care system is under severe strain, and the government’s vaccine rollout is proceeding at a painfully slow pace. While Japan controlled the […]

Less than one week before a pivotal election in Peru, authorities released a revised count of the pandemic death toll in the South American country. It’s no secret that COVID-19 has devastated Peru, but the figures, nonetheless, were breathtaking. The government put the true number of deaths at 180,764, three times higher than earlier estimates. Other countries will likely recalculate their earlier numbers, as well. But for now, Peru holds the painful distinction of having the world’s highest pandemic death toll by population. Confirmation of just how catastrophic the pandemic has been for Peru helps explain the similarly disastrous political […]

Editor’s Note: This is the web version of our subscriber-only weekly newsletter, China Note, which includes a look at the week’s top stories and best reads from and about China. Subscribe to receive it by email every Wednesday. If you’re already a subscriber, adjust your newsletter settings to receive it directly to your email inbox. Once dismissed by mainstream media as a conspiracy theory, the so-called lab leak hypothesis of the coronavirus’s origins is now making a comeback. The suggestion that SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, might have escaped from a Chinese laboratory in Wuhan—whether intentionally or accidentally—has gained […]

Philippine Foreign Minister Teodoro Locsin Jr. was peeved at Beijing. It was early May, and hundreds of Chinese vessels had been regularly intruding into the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone in the South China Sea, where the Chinese government has made expansive maritime territorial claims. After lodging numerous complaints through formal diplomatic channels to no avail, Locsin took to Twitter and unleashed an expletive-filled tirade. “China, my friend, how politely can I put it?” he wrote. “Let me see… O…GET THE [F**K] OUT.” (Locsin didn’t bother with the asterisks.) It was not only Philippine officials and diplomats who were angry at […]

Editor’s Note: Guest columnist Kate Jones is filling in for Emily Taylor, who will be back next week. Around the world these days, social media’s impact on societies is creating understandable tensions. The way in which social media shapes the public conversation has an unpleasant underbelly, exposing and arguably fostering hate and division, while fueling an explosion of objectionable images ranging from child abuse to revenge porn. The risk is that these tensions will become an excuse for restricting freedom of expression, transforming social media from being platforms that enable limitless voices to reach limitless audiences into platforms that allow […]

Editor’s Note: This article contains descriptions of wartime violence and rape. PRISTINA—It’s a cold morning in Rance, a mountainous village east of Kosovo’s capital, Pristina, and Isak Asllani is preparing to pay tribute at a memorial for his fallen family and friends. It is a painful ritual he carries out every Feb. 17 to mark the anniversary of Kosovo’s declaration of independence in 2008, and the end of decades of conflict in the former Yugoslavia. Asllani was 40 years old in May 1998, when he decided to join the Kosovo Liberation Army, the ethnic Albanian, separatist guerilla group that fought […]