Risks and Rewards

NEED TO KNOW

Risks and Rewards

JAPAN

Polls show that the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) in Japan will likely lose its majority in the lower house of parliament after the country’s election on Oct. 27. Such a loss would potentially end both Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba’s term in office just a month after he took the job, and the grip on power that the LDP has held in the country since 2012.

The LDP might need to depend on coalition partner Komeito – an offshoot of Japan’s biggest Buddhist lay organization – to provide the extra seats necessary to keep Ishiba in office, meaning the prime minister will need to grant concessions to the party or become the leader of the opposition, Reuters reported.

In particular, Komeito could compel the government to take a more dovish approach to military affairs. In recent years, Japan has built up its military to counter China’s rising power but has retained its strategic dependence on the US at a time when many Americans have expressed an interest in reducing their entanglements abroad, Asia Times explained.

Ironically, Ishiba might have brought this situation upon himself, analysts say. The LDP’s support has been shaky due to political scandals involving unreported campaign financing and kickbacks to party officials, as well as his predecessors’ failure to address public discontent over higher living costs and stagnant incomes, the BBC explained.

As a result, Ishiba dissolved parliament and called a snap election a week after he became prime minister – and a year before he was required to do so under the law – in a bid to catch his opponents off guard, Hosei University economist Craig Mark wrote in the Conversation.

“I have positioned this election as an election for the rebirth of Japan,” said Ishiba at a campaign event in the northern prefecture of Fukushima, according to the Financial Times. “I will trust the people, tell the truth without lies or deception, and talk about the Japan that should be.”

Luckily for him, the opposition is fragmented between five political parties. The biggest, the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, has been hammering Ishiba and the LDP on the slush-fund scandals, portraying the LDP’s response to the scandals as inadequate, and arguing that it is time for a change in Japan, Kyoto News reported. The LDP has run the country for most of the postwar era.

Still, researchers at Chatham House believe Ishiba’s gamble might pay off.

Ishiba rose to power in the LDP as a reformer who pledged to clean things up and find solutions to the problems that preoccupy voters. Accordingly, he’s focused on local issues and local economic development, particularly in rural areas that feel excluded from the prosperity evident in Tokyo and other big cities.

If the resulting reduction in LDP seats is as small as possible, “Ishiba will not only gain a strong position within the LDP as the leader who won the election, but also as the prime minister who has the public’s support,” Chatham House wrote, adding that such an outcome would stabilize Japanese politics and its foreign and security policies. “Whether Ishiba can be a successful prime minister or not depends on this general election.”

THE WORLD, BRIEFLY

The Grievance Fest

RUSSIA

 

Russian President Vladimir Putin urged leaders of the intergovernmental BRICS group to deepen financial cooperation and develop alternatives to the US-led financial system following the conclusion of the three-day summit in Russia on Thursday, the Associated Press reported.

Earlier this week, leaders and representatives of 36 countries met in Russia’s southwestern city of Kazan for the BRICS summit, a bloc that began in 2009 and originally included Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, but has now expanded to include Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia. Turkey, Azerbaijan and Malaysia have formally applied to become members.

The meeting showcased Putin’s determination to position the group as a leading force in the emerging multipolar world order, analysts said, despite Western efforts to isolate Russia over its 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

The summit also allowed Putin to show how Western pressure on Russia has not dented its power or diminished its clout on the world stage, the Guardian wrote.

During the talks, Putin proposed new payment structures, including the BRICS Bridge, a financial messaging system designed to bypass sanctions and reduce reliance on the US dollar.

The proposed BRICS Bridge would use blockchain and digital currencies to facilitate secure transactions within the bloc, providing an alternative to the Western-led SWIFT network.

Putin emphasized the need for the bloc’s members to adopt financial systems that avoid Western control, accusing Western powers of “using the dollar as a weapon” and arguing that sanctions have undermined global trust in the currency, the Financial Times wrote.

Putin pointed out that BRICS countries now represent half of the world’s population, positioning it as a “global majority” capable of challenging Western hegemony.

The summit marked the first meeting of BRICS since its expansion last year and signaled the bloc’s growing geopolitical influence.

However, while Russia, China, and Iran support these efforts to create financial alternatives, other BRICS members remain cautious due to their economic ties to the West, noted Bloomberg.

Despite the bloc’s expansion, practical steps toward implementing new financial systems remain limited: The grouping previously introduced the idea of a common currency last year, but members have yet to fully commit to the plan.

While the BRICS leaders issued a joint declaration about their commitment to enhancing financial cooperation, they did not provide a specific timeline for reforms.

Observers noted that the summit underscores Moscow’s increased efforts to push for alternative financial networks to shield itself from sanctions. The country now conducts 80 percent of its cross-border trade using non-Western currencies,

However, fears of new US sanctions have made banks in countries, such as China and Turkey, hesitant to engage fully with Moscow.

Meanwhile, the summit also saw diplomatic progress between India and China, with both countries announcing a “military disengagement” agreement along their disputed border, CNN added.

The agreement comes four years after a deadly clash between Chinese and Indian troops at the border that left 20 Indian and four Chinese soldiers dead.

Both nations said the deal allows for a return to pre-2020 patrolling arrangements and marks a step toward easing tensions between the nuclear-armed neighbors.

Still, they added that many other issues, such as troop demobilization and infrastructure removal, remain unresolved. Others also noted that buffer zones created after the 2020 conflict could still lead to tensions, as both sides are keen on maintaining strategic control over key areas.

Shaky Ground

CANADA

Disgruntled members of Canada’s Liberal Party gave Prime Minister Justin Trudeau until Monday to decide whether he will remain as party leader or risk an internal revolt, as growing dissatisfaction over his leadership threatens to weaken the governing party ahead of the elections next year, the Guardian reported.

Twenty-four Liberal lawmakers signed a letter calling for Trudeau’s resignation following a closed-door caucus meeting Wednesday. In their letter, they expressed concern that Trudeau’s leadership style and declining popularity are damaging the party.

About 30 legislators took the mic during the three-hour session to urge Trudeau to step down, with many noting that while they don’t oppose his policies, they believe his personality has become a distraction, according to Politico.

Some party members are worried that without a change in leadership, the Liberals could place third in the election, which must be held by fall 2025.

Trudeau – who has been in power for nine years – responded by saying the Liberal Party remains “strong and united,” but did not address the calls for his resignation. He left the meeting without committing to a decision about his leadership future.

Still, the prime minister’s popularity has been steadily declining, with the Liberal Party trailing the Conservative Party by nearly 20 points in the polls. Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre has dominated public opinion polls for more than a year, capitalizing on voter frustration with housing shortages, rising crime, and inflation.

Calls for Trudeau’s resignation and questions about his leadership spiked after the Liberals lost key strongholds in Toronto and Montreal in recent by-elections.

While no clear alternative party leader has emerged, pressure continues to mount within the party with some lawmakers threatening to side with the Conservatives in upcoming legislative votes if Trudeau does not step down.

Tit For Tat

TURKEY

Turkey launched airstrikes on Syria and Iraq Thursday, targeting suspected Kurdish militants based there whom it blames for a deadly attack on the headquarters of its national aerospace company earlier this week, the Guardian reported.

The country’s National Intelligence Organization said its strikes targeted numerous “strategic locations” used by the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) or the affiliated Syrian Kurdish militia, with targets including military, intelligence, ammunition, and energy and infrastructure facilities.

Turkey suspects the PKK was behind the violent attack on the Turkish Aerospace Industries (TUSAS) headquarters on the outskirts of the capital Ankara that killed five people and injured 22 others Wednesday, reported CNN.

The attack involved a man and a woman armed with assault rifles, who arrived at the headquarters in a taxi after killing its driver. The pair ignited explosives and opened fire at the facility, killing four more people. The two assailants were killed after security teams were dispatched to the location.

Turkey’s retaliation for the “terror attack” killed 12 civilians, including two children, and wounded 25 others, in northern and eastern Syria.

“In addition to populated areas, Turkish warplanes and UAVs (drones) targeted bakeries, power stations, oil facilities and (Kurdish) Internal Security Force checkpoints,” the US-backed, Kurdish-led Syrian Defense Force said in a statement on Thursday. Similar airstrikes also occurred in northern Iraq, with 30 targets being destroyed in the aerial offensive, the Turkish defense ministry reported.

TUSAS manufactures defense industry systems, and its technology is credited with giving Turkey the upper hand in its battle against the Kurds.

The attack on TUSAS came a day after the head of a far-right nationalist party in Turkey (MHP), Devlet Bahçeli, raised the possibility of granting the PKK’s imprisoned leader, Abdullah Öcalan, parole if he renounced violence and disbanded the PKK.

This unexpected announcement came as Bahçeli’s ally, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, is seeking political support from the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM), according to Euronews. Erdoğan, who has been in power since 2003 as prime minister and later president, needs to implement constitutional changes to run for office again.

The PKK, considered a terrorist group by Turkey and its Western allies, has been fighting for Kurdish autonomy in southeastern Turkey since the 1980s, a conflict that has killed tens of thousands of people.

DISCOVERIES

Becoming One

Scientists recently discovered that an inconspicuous marine animal is capable of some Frankenstein-esque feats.

Meet the comb jelly, an invertebrate that resembles a jellyfish, but differs greatly from it – the former for example lacks stinging tentacles.

These invertebrates can grow up to five inches in length and propel themselves with eight rows of comb-like cilia – tiny hair-like structures – which create a rainbow effect as light scatters off their movement.

Now, a new study has found that individuals of the comb jelly species Mnemiopsis leidyi can fuse together to become a single organism.

Biologist Kei Jokura and his team first noticed this odd phenomenon in the lab – they observed one peculiar comb jelly that was bigger than the rest with two heads, two mouths and two anuses.

The kicker was that it was behaving as one individual instead of two, prompting the researchers to wonder whether this was an anomaly.

“So we did some Frankenstein pilot experiments,” co-author Mariana Rodriguez-Santiago told NPR.

For their tests, they took partially sliced comb jellies and placed them next to each other in the tank. They then watched as the injured individuals fused together 90 percent of the time and survived for at least three weeks.

The team reported that about 95 percent of the fused animal’s muscle contractions were fully synchronous.

This fusion was also present in their digestive tract: Researchers fed them brine shrimp packed with a fluorescent dye and noticed how the food particles moved through the gut of both jellies – eventually expelled from both anuses, but not at the same time.

“Our findings suggest that ctenophores may lack a system for allorecognition, which is the ability to distinguish between self and others,” explained Jokura in a statement. “Additionally, the data implies that two separate individuals can rapidly merge their nervous systems and share action potentials.”

The paper marks the first time scientists have documented the behavior, adding that future studies could fill gaps in understanding and potentially impact regenerative research.

For example, the comb jellies’ ability to rapidly regenerate and heal could offer insights for humans, such as speeding up organ transplant recovery and regaining control over transplanted limbs.

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