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Handout photo dated January 14, 2020 shows an MQ-9 Reaper flies over the Nevada Test and Training Range.

William Rio Rosado via Abaca Press via Reuters Connect

What We’re Watching: Drone drama, DeSantis vs. Ukraine, Japan hearts South Korea, Pakistan-Khan standoff

Drone drama over the Black Sea

In what is so far the closest thing to a direct clash between the US and Russia over Ukraine, a Russian jet on Tuesday crashed into an American drone over the Black Sea, sending the unmanned craft hurtling into the water.

Moscow disputes the claim, saying its jets didn't hit the drone. The US accused the pilots of two Russian Su-27s of being “unprofessional” and “environmentally unsafe” for harassing and “dumping fuel” on the $32 million MQ-9 Reaper drone.

But scholars point out that the US didn’t call the act “unlawful.” Russia was evidently within its rights to disrupt a drone in international territory that was almost certainly gathering intel for Moscow’s adversaries in Kyiv. Still, the incident shows the dangers of US and Russian military hardware operating in such close proximity, even if they aren’t in direct conflict.

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A mock 10 baht banknote bearing an illustration of a yellow duck instead of the Thai king or his predecessor is pictured in Bangkok on Nov. 25, 2020.

Kyodo via Reuters Connect

Hard Numbers: Thai royal canard, Biden’s deficit plan, Japan’s gender pay gap, golden Odin, Greek walkout

2: Prepare to read the next sentence twice. A man in Thailand is facing two years in jail for selling calendars of … rubber ducks. The squeaky fowl has long been a symbol of the country’s pro-democracy movement, and since these birds were dressed in royal regalia, authorities say they insulted the monarchy. The country’s defamation laws have been used to convict 200 people since 2020.

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Luisa Vieira

Will Japan grow its population before it's too late?

What if a hypothetical government, overtaxed by an aging, shrinking population, decided to ask its seniors to make the ultimate national sacrifice to voluntarily die?

That’s the premise of "Plan 75," a 2022 indie film that predicts a grim dystopian and not-too-distant future for a fictional Japan, where the elderly are offered compensation to submit to euthanasia and avoid being a burden to society when they turn 75.

Sure, it’s just a movie, but nowhere is more at risk of a demographic implosion than Japan. With a median age of 49, it’s the world's oldest country, and 28% of people are 65+. The nation of 125 million — whose annual births dropped below 800,000 for the first time in 2022, eight years earlier than forecasted — is expected to lose almost one-third of its population by 2060.

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US President Joe Biden and Japan's Prime Minister Fumio Kishida shake hands as they attend a bilateral meeting at Akasaka Palace in Tokyo.

REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

Mr. Kishida (finally) goes to Washington

Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida will meet with US President Joe Biden on Friday. Although they met on several occasions in 2022, including in Tokyo and in New York, this meeting will be Kishida’s first at the White House. Plans for a visit a year ago were derailed by the pandemic.

Kishida arrives at a moment of political weakness. After the assassination of former PM Shinzo Abe in July, Kishida has had to fend off domestic criticism of his decision to hold a state funeral for Abe, deal with public anger over the ruling Liberal Democratic Party’s ties to the Unification Church (or the “Moonies”), and tame rising inflation. But he hasn’t had much success. His approval ratings began to nosedive in July and by year-end were at rock bottom for a Japanese prime minister, in the low 30s.

Kishida will probably enjoy being away from the full-contact sport of Japanese domestic politics during his trip and instead being back in the diplomatic limelight. He served as Abe’s foreign minister for nearly five years, so he is very comfortable in that more civilized milieu.

To get a preview of Kishida’s meeting with Biden, we had a chat with David Boling, Eurasia Group’s lead Japan analyst.

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U.S. President Joe Biden with Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador in Mexico City.

Reuters

What We’re Watching: Biden in Mexico, Japan's Kishida on tour, Ukraine’s eastern flank

What’s on the agenda at the “Three Amigos Summit”?

A meeting of North American leaders known as the "Three Amigos Summit" kicked off in Mexico City on Monday with US President Joe Biden, Canadian PM Justin Trudeau and Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, known as AMLO, set to meet face-to-face for the first time since Nov. 2021 to chart a path forward on a range of thorny issues. Biden was greeted by his Mexican counterpart a day after making his first visit to the US southern border since becoming president. Indeed, the two have plenty to talk about. While Washington usually calls the shots when it comes to the US-Mexico relationship, AMLO will be looking to earn some concessions from Biden, who is desperately seeking help in dealing with a chaotic situation at the US southern border. This comes after Biden announced in recent days that Mexico had agreed to take in tens of thousands of Nicaraguan, Haitian, and Cuban migrants denied entry into the US in exchange for more work visas for Mexican laborers. Still, the White House might ask for more: While AMLO has agreed to take in an extra 30,000 migrants per month from these countries (plus Venezuela), some 90,000 people from these four places sought to cross the US southern border in November alone. Stopping the drug smuggling trade from Mexico into the US will also be high on the agenda as fentanyl overdoses continue to devastate American communities. Much of the remaining conversation will center on the United States-Mexico-Canada trade deal: Ottawa and Washington have accused AMLO of exerting excessive state control over the energy market. Meanwhile, Canada-US ties have been strained since the Biden administration’s landmark Inflation Reduction Act, passed last summer, included a slew of tax breaks for buying US-made electric vehicles, which Ottawa says will cripple its car manufacturing industry.

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Japan's Prime Minister Fumio Kishida attends a press conference in Tokyo, Japan.

Reuters

Japan to go the way of the samurai: Why and at what cost?

After decades of pacifism, Japan recently announced that it will double its military budget over the next five years to become the world’s third-biggest defense spender behind the US and China.

How did Tokyo, whose commitment to pacifism is enshrined in the country’s post-war constitution, get here? And what are the implications – at home and abroad – of the world’s third-largest economy embarking on a major military buildup?

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FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried attends a press conference at the FTX Arena in downtown Miami.

Reuters

What We're Watching: Bankman-Fried in cuffs, China after "zero," Peru's next vote, Japan's proposed tax hike

FTX’s Sam Bankman-Fried in cuffs

Sam Bankman-Fried, the shaggy-haired founder of FTX known colloquially as SBF, was arrested Monday night at his apartment in the Bahamas. FTX, the once booming crypto exchange, imploded last month after investors grew worried about the firm’s financial standing, leading to massive withdrawals. Unable to pay customers out, SBF had been funneling investors’ funds to a crypto hedge fund, while Bankman-Fried had also used billions of dollars to fund risky wagers. SBF, who ultimately declared bankruptcy last month, has recently been compared to infamous con artists like Bernie Madoff. On Tuesday, US federal prosecutors are set to release the indictment, which includes a host of financial crimes, including wire fraud and money laundering. What’s more, SBF’s arrest came the night before he was due to testify to the US Congress about the collapse of his $32 billion empire. It's unclear whether the former crypto whiz will fight extradition efforts.

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Smoke rises after a Russian drones strike on Kyiv, Ukraine.

Reuters

What We’re Watching: Drones over Kyiv, GOP’s advantage, Kishida’s church probe

Russia starts droning on

Russia attacked targets across Ukraine on Monday with Iranian-made “suicide drones,” which fly into targets and then explode. At least four people were killed when one of them struck an apartment complex in Kyiv. The building is located across the street from the offices of Ukraine’s national energy company, which may have been the intended target. That’s consistent with Russia’s recent approach of striking critical civilian infrastructure in retaliation for Ukraine’s sabotage of the Kerch Strait bridge earlier this month. Also on Monday, a Russian drone strike crippled a major sunflower oil export terminal in the southern city of Mykolaiv, raising the prospect of a renewed turbulence in prices for cooking oil, a staple in kitchens around the world. Tehran denies supplying the drones, but experts say they are clearly Shahed-136 drones from Iran. Until now, drones have been deployed to the most devastating effect by the Ukrainians, but Russia — suffering military setbacks on the ground and unable to establish aerial dominance — could be seeking a way to strike lots of targets crudely and at a relatively low cost. Although drones are slow-moving and easier to shoot down than jets or missiles, Ukraine is still calling for better air defenses overall. See our recent interview with a Ukrainian drone operator here.

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