Cabinet Secretariat (内閣官房) © 2026

The election of Sanae Takaichi as Prime Minister of Japan in October 2025 marked a decisive rightward shift in Japanese politics away from the moderate centrism of Yoshihide Suga, Fumio Kishida, and Shigeru Ishiba towards the assertive and controversial politics of former Prime Minister, and Takaichi's mentor, Shinzo Abe. Whilst Takaichi's conservative alignment with President Trump, assertive foreign policy, and hawkish tendencies initially appear threatening to EU-Japan relations, her premiership actually presents the EU with unprecedented opportunities for deeper partnership via the enhancement of bilateral trade, the aligning of diplomatic policy, and the development of further military cooperation initiatives.

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The USA is going through a blue wave, as we clearly saw in the elections that occurred early November, but what exactly can this signal towards the GOP representatives that are facing reelection, and should Trump’s administration worry? It seems as if Democrats are beginning to work together as a group on shared values, something which many voters doubted as the party has been plagued with mass levels of internal division. The internal division has posed a serious challenge for the Democratic Party as it is yet to prove that they truly understand the reality of life for the average American.  

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If a tree falls in a forest, and nobody is around to hear it, does it make a sound?

The question is not really about acoustics. It is about existence. About whether an event becomes part of the shared world if there are no witnesses to receive it and carry it into language. Sound without a listener is vibration. Suffering without a witness drifts toward disappearance. What is unwitnessed does not enter memory; it is denied the dignity of acknowledgement. A world without witnesses is a world in which atrocities can unfold without consequence. In Sudan, the tree has fallen again and again.

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