Wall Street Journal (August 26)
“Energy common sense is in short supply these days, so all the more reason to cheer Japan for rethinking its flight from nuclear power.” Germany is currently debating whether to keep “its three remaining reactors online. Maybe Japan’s decision will prove compelling. “This should be an easy call as natural gas shortages loom this winter. Advanced economies need reliable base load power, and at least Tokyo understands this.”
Tags: Advanced economies, Base load power, Common sense, Debating, Germany, Japan, Natural gas, Nuclear power, Reliable, Rethinking, Short supply, Shortages, Tokyo, Winter
Wall Street Journal (August 5)
“China’s firing of missiles near Japan has left little doubt that Tokyo would be pulled into any potential war over Taiwan—and would be part of the U.S.-led alliance likely to defend the island.”
Bloomberg (July 20)
There seems to be a split “forming between a growing number of bearish yen watchers in Tokyo and their more positive foreign counterparts.” With the yen at a 24-year nadir, “strategists are debating whether one of the year’s hottest macro trades—sell the yen—is overdone.” In Japan, many think “there’s still plenty of time to pile on shorts,” but overseas “analysts from Sydney to Geneva… say time is nearly up on the trade as the yen slips further toward the key psychological level of 140 per dollar.”
Tags: 140 per dollar, Analysts, Bearish, Foreign, Japan, Macro trades, Nadir, Overdone, Overseas, Shorts, Split, Strategists, Tokyo, Yen
Financial Times (June 29)
Hong Kong elite are visiting Japan on posh tours to invest in Tokyo. Property brokers say the tours demonstrate “the appeal of the weak yen” and “the way in which the Tokyo market seemed immune from the recessionary worries swirling around other capitals.”
Tags: Appeal, Brokers, Elite, Hong Kong, Immune, Invest, Japan, Market, Posh, Property, Recessionary, Tokyo, Tours, Weak yen, Worries
Reuters (August 1)
“As competitors battled for the podium on the third day of Olympic athletics on Sunday, it was Tokyo’s oppressive heat that perhaps dished out the most pain. Punishing conditions greeted athletes and officials as a trackside thermometer touched 40 degrees Celsius (104°F) and the humidity hovered around 60%, with sun beating down on an Olympic Stadium devoid of spectators due to COVID-19.”
Tags: 40 degrees Celsius, Athletes, Battled, Competitors, Conditions, COVID-19, Heat, Humidity, Officials, Olympics, Oppressive, Pain, Podium, Punishing, Spectators, Sun, Tokyo, Trackside
Washington Post (July 24)
“The cauldron is lit in Tokyo’s covid Olympics. Let’s hope it’s not a fuse.” Frankly, the IOC only has in place a “haphazard collection of rules.” The IOC president “is lying to 11,000 international athletes with differing immune status and levels of exposure who are gathered unsafely amid a pandemic.” There is no bubble. “The only bubble at the Tokyo Games is the spit bubble coming out of Thomas Bach’s mouth.”
Tags: Athletes, Bach, Bubble, Cauldron, Covid Olympics, Exposure, Fuse, Haphazard, Immune status, IOC, Lying, Pandemic, Tokyo, Tokyo Games, Unsafely
Washington Post (July 9)
“Tokyo’s newly rebuilt, 68,000-capacity National Stadium… will be empty throughout the Games, symbolizing the vast sums of money invested in these Olympics with little reward for the people of Japan or the country’s economy.” The spectator ban “highlights the government’s failure to get its vaccination program underway early enough to allow the Games to take place safely with fans.”
Tags: Economy, Empty, Failure, Government, Japan, Money, National Stadium, Olympics, Reward, Spectator ban, Tokyo, Vaccination program
Washington Post (June 25)
The “Tokyo Olympics just got an important no-confidence vote—from Japan’s emperor.”
Washington Post (June 11)
“There will be joy and drama, glory and grief, among Olympic competitors. But this summer’s pandemic-era Games in Tokyo are destined to go down as the most joyless of modern times with athletes sequestered and cheering banned…. Instead of basking in anticipation of the Opening Ceremonies on July 23, the buildup to the Games sees Japan mired in blame, recriminations and laments that it didn’t have to be this way.”
Tags: Athletes, Banned, Blame, Cheering, Competitors, Drama, Glory, Grief, Japan, Joyless, Mired, Olympic, Opening Ceremonies, Pandemic, Recriminations, Sequestered, Tokyo
New York Times (November 20)
“Nine months after the I.O.C. and organizers in Tokyo agreed to postpone the 2020 Summer Games for one year, the level of uncertainty surrounding the event has barely waned, even as hopes for a successful Olympics have never been higher.”
Tags: 2020 Summer Games, I.O.C., Olympics, Postpone, Successful, Tokyo, Uncertainty
