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PaperclipPerfector  10mo ago (text post)   1765 thread views

Transnational Thursday for January 4, 2024

Transnational Thursday is a thread for people to discuss international news, foreign policy or international relations history. Feel free as well to drop in with coverage of countries you’re interested in, talk about ongoing dynamics like the wars in Israel or Ukraine, or even just whatever you’re reading.

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Japan

Nothing political but the New Year hasn't been particularly kind.

Day 1 we had the earthquake at 7.5 off the coast of Ishikawa, a city on the Northeast coastline. This event already has its own Wiki page. First reports were only about 6 dead, but that of course has risen to 123 as of today, the sad story this morning was how a man's wife and daughter were recovered from rubble, only to die basically immediately. Survivors are still being dug out of buildings. (We felt it in Osaka quite a bit, but as far as I know there was no real damage here.)

Day 2 two planes collided in Haneda, the airport closest to Narita in Tokyo. Everyone (edit: in the commercial airliner) was evacuated and survived, though the videos are harrowing. The commercial craft collided with a Coast Guard craft that, from what I understand, was on its way to assist the previously mentioned earthquake.

This has, for the time being, taken a bit of heat off PM Kishida and the slush fund scandal, and probably will for the time being.

So far no conspiracy theories that Kishida purposefully caused the earthquake.

Edit; I changed the link of the video from what turned out to be an NBC clip to something more local.

Day 2 two planes collided in Haneda, the airport closest to Narita in Tokyo. Everyone was evacuated and survived, though the videos are harrowing. The commercial craft collided with a Coast Guard craft that, from what I understand, was on its way to assist the previously mentioned earthquake.

Everyone on the commercial craft survived. Five of the six crew on the Coast Guard craft died.

Thanks for the correction.

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