Time (June 26)
In order to discuss “gender equality and women’s empowerment,” G7 representatives gathered in Nikko, making for “an awkward photo-op, highlighting Japan’s ongoing struggles with gender.” The only male was its chair “Japan’s representative to the gender equality meeting, Masanobu Ogura…. The optics are not likely to help Japan ward off mounting criticism of its deficiencies in gender and LGBT rights from its peers in the informal economic bloc of advanced democracies.”
Tags: Advanced democracies, Awkward, Criticism, Deficiencies, G7, Gender equality, Japan, LGBT rights, Nikko, Ogura, Optics, Photo-op, Struggles, Women’s empowerment
The Economist (April 9)
“Toshiba was once synonymous with Japan’s industrial might.” Over the past decade, it “has become a byword for drama,” which has included accounting fraud and an ongoing “series of ‘slapstick’ struggles between management and shareholders.” A possible buy-out led by Bain Capital has “raised hopes among investors for some sort of resolution to the saga.” This could potentially prove a watershed moment and “be a big deal for Japan.”
Tags: Accounting fraud, Bain Capital, Buy-out, Drama, Hopes, Industrial might, Investors, Japan, Management, Shareholders, Slapstick, Struggles, Toshiba
South China Morning Post (March 1)
“Hong Kong residents are waiting up to 39 hours for an ambulance as the health care system struggles to keep up with an escalating wave of Covid-19 cases, with the delay up by as much as 50 per cent in just two days.”
Tags: 39 hours, Ambulance, COVID-19, Delay, Escalating, Health care, Hong Kong, Residents, Struggles, Waiting, Wave
Atlanta Journal Constitution (October 14)
“Millions of retirees on Social Security will get a 5.9% boost in benefits for 2022. The biggest cost-of-living adjustment in 39 years follows a burst in inflation as the economy struggles to shake off the drag of the coronavirus pandemic.”
Tags: Benefits, Burst, COLA, Coronavirus, Drag, Economy, Inflation, Pandemic, Retirees, Social security, Struggles
USA Today (June 8)
“The struggles of many long-term unemployed Americans… may be starting to ease. Last month, the number of people unemployed six months or longer fell by 431,000—the second-largest decline on record—to 3.8 million…. Even with that drop, though, the number remains historically high and has tripled amid the COVID-19 pandemic.”
Tags: COVID-19 pandemic, Decline, Drop, Ease, High, Long-term unemployed, Struggles, U.S.
New York Times (May 18)
“With much of the country under a state of emergency and deaths climbing,” Japan’s “yo-yoing economic pattern” is expected to continue “until the country has vaccinated a significant portion of its population.” Given the “plodding” pace of its vaccination program, this “dynamic could potentially push the country back into recession — defined as two consecutive quarters of contraction — later this year, as it struggles to check the spread of deadlier and more contagious coronavirus variants.”
Tags: Contagious, Contraction, Coronavirus, Deadlier, Deaths, Economy, Japan, Recession, Spread, State of emergency, Struggles, Vaccination, Yo-yoing
Wall Street Journal (August 11)
Though “artificial intelligence has the potential to reinvent the world, from how businesses operate to the types of jobs people hold to the way wars are fought,” the struggles of IBM’s Watson “suggest that revolution remains some way off.” Currently, “no published research shows Watson improving patient outcomes” while “more than a dozen IBM partners and clients have halted or shrunk Watson’s oncology-related projects” because of its “limited impact on patients.” Often, “the tools didn’t add much value. In some cases, Watson wasn’t accurate.”
Tags: Accurate, AI, Clients, IBM, Impact, Oncology, Partners, Patient outcomes, Potential, Revolution, Struggles, Watson
New York Times (January 24)
Given the struggles of ordinary Greeks amid a still flailing economy, “the only surprise in the rise of the left-wing Syriza party, which is expected to come in first in Sunday’s general election, is that it has taken so long for an anti-austerity party to come to the fore.”
Financial Times (February 8)
“At last Europe is moving forward.” Or rather might be, for “there is still much that could drive it into reverse.” Several unexpected breakthroughs are the latest cause for hope. “It is encouraging that even though Europe still struggles with questions that will determine its future, leaders have kept talking. As long as they do so there is still hope. And as this week shows, they might find agreement where they least expect it.”
