Tag: Japan

What is ironic about this story is that Arnett did not get in trouble for not taking the COVID vaccine, she got in trouble for refusing to obey orders to board an airplane three times. That is why she was jailed and had nothing to do with the COVID vaccine. Now she is back in Japan getting into more trouble with local authorities:

 A Marine veteran who refused the COVID-19 vaccine while serving in Japan and defied orders to return home was arrested this month at her former duty station.

Japanese police allege that Catherine Arnett, 25, was detained by military police after attempting to enter MCAS Iwakuni around 2:30 a.m. Dec. 1, a city police spokesman told Stars and Stripes on Tuesday. She was turned over to Iwakuni city police around 11:30 a.m. that day and released from custody “last week,” the spokesman said.

Arnett was returned to California in Marine Corps custody earlier this year and spent 113 days in brigs awaiting a court-martial before the Corps dropped all charges against her, set her free and administratively discharged her. 

As a lance corporal at MCAS Iwakuni, Arnett refused at least three times to board aircraft bound for the U.S. and faced discharge for refusing the vaccine. She was charged separately with insubordination, missing a military flight, disobeying an officer and other offenses over her refusal to leave Japan. 

Arnett, who described herself as a staunch Catholic, said the 2021 vaccine mandate from Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin was an unlawful order. Her case drew attention from a foundation critical of vaccines, Children’s Health Defense, founded by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who interviewed her on his podcast. 

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

I am not sure what they are going to talk about because China is not going to stop their provacative activities in the region no matter what the ROK and Japan tell them:

Foreign Minister Park Jin departs from Incheon International Airport in Incheon, southwest of Seoul, on Nov. 14, 2023, to attend a ministerial meeting of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in San Francisco, in this file photo provided by the foreign ministry. (Yonhap)

Top diplomats of South Korea, China and Japan were set to hold talks in the southeastern port city of Busan on Sunday, with discussions on resuming the long-stalled three-way summit of the three countries’ leaders expected to be in focus. 

The trilateral meeting among Foreign Minister Park Jin, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Japanese Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa also comes after about a four-year hiatus as the three neighboring countries seek to deepen the tripartite cooperation despite many pending bilateral issues. 

Wang and Kamikawa arrived in Busan on Saturday.

Park is joining the two ministers the day after returning from a trip to London and Paris, where he accompanied President Yoon Suk Yeol.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

Trilateral exercises between the U.S., ROK, and Japan are becoming very normalized which is a good thing:

Defense Minister Shin Won-sik (L) meets Rear Adm. Carlos Sardiello, commander of carrier strike group one, (R) during his visit to the USS Carl Vinson, a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier docked in Busan, 320 kilometers southeast of Seoul, on Nov. 22, 2023, in this photo provided by the defense ministry.

Defense Minister Shin Won-sik said Wednesday South Korea plans to hold joint maritime drills with the United States and Japan involving a U.S. aircraft carrier to bolster military readiness and show their resolve against North Korea’s provocations.

Shin visited the USS Carl Vinson, a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier currently docked in Busan, 320 kilometers southeast of Seoul, a day after North Korea claimed it successfully placed a spy satellite into orbit in its third launch following two failed attempts earlier this year. 

“North Korea’s spy satellite launch last night clearly violates U.N. Security Council resolutions that ban missile launches using ballistic missile technology and is a provocative act that hampers the national security,” Shin said.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

Increased economic integration between Japan and South Korea makes so much sense:

 South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida agreed Friday to work together to cut costs and establish international rules in the hydrogen sector.

During a discussion at Stanford University, the two leaders talked about ways their countries can cooperate in the hydrogen sector, given South Korea’s wide use of hydrogen cars and Japan’s large number of hydrogen-related patents.

Both Yoon and Kishida attended the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in San Francisco this week.

The discussion came a day after they held a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the APEC summit, their seventh bilateral summit this year, as Seoul and Tokyo push to mend and develop their relationship after years of tensions over historical disputes.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but hydrogen cars are great if you have nuclear or hydro energy to power the process to create hydrogen. If coal or gas plants are used the emissions savings is actually negligible for hydrogen cars.