Webfoot Hero
West Coaster
- Joined
- Mar 28, 2012
- Messages
- 13,031
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Abe has now been pronounced dead. Sad times for Japan.
If you look at photos of the gun, it looks like two pipes attached to a wood board by some electrical tape or other banding material with a very simple trigger mechanism. It's crude but still caused a lot of damage and heartache.It’s crazy. Japan has the strictest gun laws in the world so this guy made his own gun. I wonder if this means Japan and other countries will now think twice about having their leaders mingle with the public.
If Pelosi were to visit Taiwan, Hu, a nationalist firebrand with a wide Twitter following, wrote, "Our fighter jets should deploy all obstructive tactics. If those are still ineffective, I think it is okay too to shoot down Pelosi's plane."
Hopefully this doesn’t go too far. Going to be hard to manage any level of conflict with China (even a sanctions battle) while also trying to deal with Russia. Also don’t want to push them even closer together.
And China is bankrolling Russia's excursions.Thirty years ago, I traveled in a bipartisan congressional delegation to China, where, in Tiananmen Square, we unfurled a black-and-white banner that read, “To those who died for democracy in China.” Uniformed police pursued us as we left the square. Since then, Beijing’s abysmal human rights record and disregard for the rule of law continue, as President Xi Jinping tightens his grip on power.
The CCP’s brutal crackdown against Hong Kong’s political freedoms and human rights — even arresting Catholic Cardinal Joseph Zen — cast the promises of “one-country, two-systems” into the dustbin. In Tibet, the CCP has long led a campaign to erase the Tibetan people’s language, culture, religion and identity. In Xinjiang, Beijing is perpetrating genocide against Muslim Uyghurs and other minorities. And throughout the mainland, the CCP continues to target and arrest activists, religious-freedom leaders and others who dare to defy the regime
We cannot stand by as the CCP proceeds to threaten Taiwan — and democracy itself.
Indeed, we take this trip at a time when the world faces a choice between autocracy and democracy. As Russia wages its premeditated, illegal war against Ukraine, killing thousands of innocents — even children — it is essential that America and our allies make clear that we never give in to autocrats.
South Korea has broken its own record for the world’s lowest fertility rate, according to official figures released Wednesday, as the country struggles to reverse its years-long trend of declining births.
The country’s fertility rate, which indicates the average number of children a woman will have in her lifetime, sunk to 0.81 in 2021 – 0.03% lower than the previous year, according to government-run Statistics Korea.
To put that into perspective, the 2021 fertility rate was 1.6 in the United States and 1.3 in Japan, which also saw its lowest rate on record last year. In some African countries, where fertility rates are the highest in the world, the figure is 5 or 6.
To maintain a stable population, countries need a fertility rate of 2.1 – anything above that indicates population growth.