THE latest Hollywood blockbuster "Oppenheimer" is not likely to hit theaters in Japan. The release of “Barbie,” the second superhit of the year, is also under a cloud as Japanese people are irked by social media comments which have combined the two movies as “Barbenheimer.”It is certainly difficult for Japanese audiences to digest a movie eulogising Robert Oppenheimer, a physicist who led the project of making atomic bombs. Moreover, this would be unacceptable to Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, whose political constituency is in Hiroshima.

THE risk of conflict in the Western Pacific is growing as both China and America, along with their allies, raise the military stakes with the goal of outsmarting each other. Both Washington and Beijing are trying hard to keep their nerve while preparing for war. President Xi Jinping warned Chinese national security officials last week that they should prepare for the "worst-case" scenario and "stormy seas.”Last month, a Chinese naval vessel came within 150 yards of a US missile destroyer traversing the Taiwan Strait with a Canadian warship.

THE China-Russia border saw intense fighting in March 1969. The skirmish continued for a month resulting in hundreds of casualties and elevated levels of bitterness between the two communist giants.  This proved to be the final nail in the relationship.America that had been waiting and also encouraging division in the communist world was quick to grab the opportunity. In the late 1960s, President Richard Nixon directed his national security adviser Henry Kissinger to approach China.

THE old year has passed into history, leaving behind war, inflation, recession, and relentless attacks on working class rights and democracy by right wing goons. The ecological disaster created by capitalist modes of production and consumption is converging with all other elements created by the crisis of capitalism to give the global youth a bleak future.  The political system in America, the heart of global capitalism, is crumbling.

DESPITE inflation hovering above 8 per cent, the American voters have not really focused on the performance of the sitting president in the 2022 US mid-term elections. Breaking away from the norm of punishing the sitting president’s party, the electorate has voted tactically to defeat the possibility of the return of Donald Trump.