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The White House on Tuesday canceled President Joe Biden’s planned trips to Papua New Guinea (PNG) and Australia, which were to have taken place next week on his way home from the Group of Seven (G7) summit in Hiroshima, Japan. The cancellation, ostensibly necessary so that Biden could return to Washington to participate in debt ceiling negotiations, rattled observers who warned Biden was squandering valuable credibility in the Indo-Pacific region.

President Biden will leave as planned to Japan on Wednesday, despite questions swirling around whether he might postpone a weeklong international trip given the crunch time lawmakers and the White House are facing to come up with a deal to avoid a debt default. “We are still planning to leave, as scheduled, on Wednesday,” national security spokesman John Kirby told reporters on Monday. “He still expects to be able to make that trip so we’re all planning on departing on Wednesday, as scheduled.”

Japan has just made an historic shift: In December, Tokyo announced a doubling of its defence budget by 2027, the first time this has happened since World War II. The Japanese are wary of China and North Korea. VideoLink

Battle of the Coral Sea, (May 4–8, 1942) World War II naval and air engagement in which a U.S. fleet turned back a Japanese invasion force that had been heading for strategic Port Moresby in New Guinea. By the end of April 1942 the Japanese were ready to seize control of the Coral Sea (between Australia and New Caledonia) by establishing air bases at Port Moresby in southeastern New Guinea and at Tulagi in the southern Solomons. But Allied intelligence learned of the Japanese plan to seize Port Moresby and alerted all available sea and air power. When the Japanese...

The wreckage of a U.S. submarine from World War II was found off the coast of Hokkaido in northern Japan — after disappearing almost 80 years ago. The USS Albacore, credited with sinking at least 10 enemy vessels during the war, was found by the University of Tokyo's Tamaki Ura and positively identified by the Naval History and Heritage Command, the Navy said on Thursday. Albacore was long assumed to be lost forever. According to Japanese records, the submarine, with a crew of 85 men on board, likely struck a mine just off the shore of Hokkaido on Nov. 7,...

North Korea announced about the launch of a reconnaissance satellite, while Japan stated its readiness to destroy a missile carrier, since there is no certainty that it will not be a ballistic missileTokyo has decided to be straightforward with Pyongyang and has officially announced that the country is ready to shoot down any missile that will be launched from North Korea and pose a threat to Japan's security. For this purpose, the Kongō and Atago-class Aegis destroyers have been deployed, which are armed with the Standard Missile 3 SAM. Also, and Patriot PAC 3 systems have been deployed in Okinawa.This...

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is expected to announce his bid for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination in a matter of days, deflected a reporter’s question Monday when asked about a series of polls showing him lagging former President Donald Trump. “Governor, polls show you falling behind Trump. Any thoughts on that?” an English-speaking reporter asked DeSantis during a press conference in Tokyo. “I’m not a candidate, so we’ll see if and when that changes,” the 44-year-old said. Footage of the exchange aired by CNN appeared to be edited to show the governor struggling for a response to the question....

Kim Jong Un, the leader of North Korea, announced earlier this week that the country would soon launch its first military spy satellite. Since the beginning of last year, North Korea has conducted around 100 missile tests, claiming to be in response to joint military exercises between the United States and South Korea, which it refers to as an invasion practise. A few of the missiles crossed Japan’s airspace or touched down off the northern Japanese shore. For the first time, North Korea tested an intercontinental ballistic missile with solid fuel last week. Yasukazu Hamada, Japan’s defence minister, gave orders...

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) will travel to four countries overseas as part of an international trade mission as he prepares to make a decision on whether to enter the 2024 Republican presidential primary. DeSantis will travel to Israel, Japan, South Korea, and the United Kingdom. The Florida governor will meet with business and government leaders such as Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, South Korean Prime Minister Han Duck-soo, and British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly, a press release detailed. “This trade mission will give us the opportunity to strengthen economic relationships and continue to demonstrate Florida’s position as an economic...

Childhood is in crisis. History is not repeating itself. This has never happened before. In Japan and worldwide – but in Japan especially – the strongest terminology applies. Children in Japan are an endangered species. Fewer and fewer children are being born. The 799,278 births recorded in 2022 represent a 5.1-percent decline from 2021. It’s the seventh consecutive record low – down from a 1973 peak of 2.09 million. Elderly Japanese 65 or over constituted as of 2020 28.6 percent of the population – the highest in the world; children 15 or under: 11.8 percent – the world’s lowest. In...

With a shrinking population and more than 10 million abandoned properties, Japan is straining to match houses with curious buyers. When Mr Jaya Thursfield found a house he wanted to buy in Japan a few years ago, friends and family told him to forget it. The place was not worth the trouble, they said. After all, it stood in a forest of shoulder-high weeds after being abandoned about seven years earlier – one of the millions of vacant houses known as akiya, Japanese for “empty house” – throughout the country. But Mr Thursfield, 46, an Australian software developer, was not...

A pipe bomb was thrown at Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida during a speech in Western Japan, but security guards quickly reacted to protect the politician, multiple outlets report. Witnesses say they saw an object that appeared to be a thin, metal thermos that flew and landed near the prime minister, believed to be a homemade pipe bomb, ABC News has reported. The incident comes just nine months after the former Japanese prime minister was assassinated. In footage posted by the Daily Wire, the bomb bounces toward the prime minister until a bodyguard blocks it with his briefcase and kicks...

Sources say Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida is uninjured and has left a western Japan port after loud explosions were heard there before he was to deliver a speech...

* The hole may be leaking 'fault lubricant' that reduces stress on two plates * The fault could unleash a magnitude-9 earthquake in the Pacific Northwest * READ MORE: Extra layer of plate tectonics could be causing tremors in Pacific ============================================================= Scientists fear a hole in a 600-mile-long fault line in the Pacific could trigger a catastrophic earthquake that would decimate cities along the northwestern US. The hole spewing hot liquid sits 50 miles off the shoreline of Oregon, on the boundary of the dipping fault known as Cascadia Subduction Zone, which spans from Northern California into Canada. This geological...

Almost 1.5 million people of working age in Japan are living as social recluses, according to a government survey, with about a fifth of cases attributed to the pressures unleashed by the Covid-19 pandemic. Large numbers of hikikomori said they had begun retreating from mainstream society due to relationship issues and after losing or leaving their jobs, the cabinet office said. A significant proportion – 20.6% – said their predicament had been triggered by changes in lifestyle imposed during the pandemic. Hikikomori – classed as people who withdraw from society, spending all or almost all of their time isolated at...

Now it’s Glen Youngkin. Virginia Governor Youngkin said in a release on Tuesday that he will lead a Virginia delegation to Taipei City, Taiwan, Tokyo, and Seoul, South Korea, from April 24-29.Nikki Haley, Ron DeSantis, John Bolton, Asa Hutchinson, Glen Youngkin… The Republican wing of the UniParty is throwing everything possible and pulling every level within their control, including last night’s outcome in Wisconsin, in order to retain the illusion of political parties as the source/solution within a nation collapsing.None of what DC Democrats, Republicans, the RNC or DNC presents is true or real within the landscape of the conflict...

President Donald Trump announced Monday that he had located a gold-painted golf club given to him by the late Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe — one of dozens of presents from foreign leaders sought by House Democrats. “I am pleased to report that after a search, we were able to find the gold (paint!) Driver given to me by my friend & former Prime Minister of Japan, Shinzo Abe,” Trump, 76, announced on his Truth Social platform.“It was in a locker, with other clubs, at Trump International Golf Club in Palm Beach County, Florida. It has never been used,” he...

The social media views just aren't worth it.Japanese restaurants have had enough with so-called "sushi terrorism." On Wednesday, Osaka prefectural police announced the arrests of Ryu Shimazu and Toshihide Oka, two men who posted their recent antics to social media. The video shows them eating pickled ginger from a communal container with personal chopsticks at a local Yoshinoya, the Associated Press reported. The men openly confessed to their crimes, stating they wanted to make people laugh as they joined in on the hashtag "#寿司テロ," which translates to "sushi terror." As Business Insider explained, the trend involves pranksters visiting popular conveyor...

A missing Japanese army helicopter carrying 10 crew members is believed to have crashed into the sea off a southern island after objects appearing to be aircraft parts were spotted in the area, an official said Thursday. The UH-60JA Black Hawk helicopter disappeared from radar on Thursday afternoon while on a reconnaissance mission north of Miyako island, the head of the Ground Self Defense Force, Yasunori Morishita, said at a news conference. Debris believed to be aircraft parts was spotted in the area, about 1,800 kilometers (1,120 miles) southwest of Tokyo, he said.

Japan is an energy-dependent nation that relies on imports to function. Despite being a G7 member, Japan has remained largely silent on the Russia-Ukraine war and is the only member to deny Zelensky’s pleas for weapons. The prime minister was the last in the alliance to visit Ukraine amid the war. The G7 nations set a $60 per barrel price cap on Russian crude but granted Japan a pass. Japan has purchased nearly 748,000 barrels of Russian oil for $70 a piece in the first two months of the year alone. All of the MSM headlines read: “JAPAN BREAKS ALLIANCE...