Around the World briefs
By Associated Press
Japan’s birth rate falls to a record low as the number of marriages also drops
TOKYO | Japan’s birth rate fell to a new low for the eighth straight year in 2023, according to Health Ministry data released on Wednesday. A government official described the situation as critical and urged authorities to do everything they can to reverse the trend.
The data underscores Japan’s long-standing issues of a rapidly aging and shrinking population, which has serious implications for the country’s economy and national security — especially against the backdrop of China’s increasingly assertive presence in the region.
According to the latest statistics, Japan’s fertility rate — the average number of babies a woman is expected to have in her lifetime — stood at 1.2 last year. The 727,277 babies born in Japan in 2023 were down 5.6% from the previous year, the ministry said — the lowest since Japan started compiling the statistics in 1899.
Separately, the data shows that the number of marriages fell by 6% to 474,717 last year, something authorities say is a key reason for the declining birth rate. In the predominantly traditional Japanese society, out-of-wedlock births are rare as people prize family values.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi told reporters that it’s “a critical situation.” The next six years, until the 2030s, will be “the last chance for us to possibly reverse the trend,” he said.
Hayashi noted economic instability, difficulties in balancing work and childrearing and other complex factors as main reasons why young people have a hard time deciding to get married or raise children.
The data was released as Japan’s parliament on Wednesday approved a revision to laws designed to beef up financial support for childrearing parents or those expecting babies, as well as to widen access to childcare services and expand parental leave benefits. The government earmarked 5.3 trillion yen ($34 billion) as part of the 2024 budget for this, and is expected to spend 3.6 trillion yen ($23 billion) in tax money annually over the next three years.
Experts say the measures are largely meant for married couples who plan to have or who already have children, and are not addressing a growing number of young people reluctant to get married.
Takahide Kiuchi, an executive economist at Nomura Research Institute, said the measures fall short of addressing the problem.
“Simple economic measures such as increase of subsidies are not going to resolve the serious problem of declining births,” Kiuchi wrote in an analysis report, adding that a conservative mindset espousing traditional gender roles at home and at the workplace also needs to change.
Surveys show that younger Japanese are increasingly reluctant to marry or have children, discouraged by bleak job prospects, the high cost of living — which rises at a faster pace than salaries — and a gender-biased corporate culture that adds an extra burden only on women and working mothers.
Japan’s population of more than 125 million people is projected to fall by about 30%, to 87 million by 2070, with four out of every 10 people 65 years of age or older.
D-Day anniversary haunted by dwindling number of veterans and shadowed by Europe’s new war
OMAHA BEACH, France | As young soldiers, they waded through breaking waves and gunfire to battle the Nazis. Now bent with age, the dwindling number of World War II veterans joined a new generation of leaders on Thursday to honor the dead, the living and the fight for democracy on the shores where they landed 80 years ago on D-Day.
The war in Ukraine shadowed the ceremonies in Normandy, a grim modern-day example of lives and cities that are again suffering through war in Europe. Ukraine’s president was greeted with a standing ovation and cheers. Russia, a crucial World War II ally whose full-scale invasion of its smaller neighbor in 2022 set Europe on a new path of war, was not invited.
The commemorations for the more than 4,400 Allied dead on D-Day and many tens of thousands more, including French civilians, killed in the ensuing Battle of Normandy were tinged with fear that World War II lessons are fading.
“There are things worth fighting for,” said Walter Stitt, who fought in tanks and turns 100 in July, as he visited Omaha Beach this week. “Although I wish there was another way to do it than to try to kill each other.”
“We’ll learn one of these days, but I won’t be around for that,” he said.
U.S. President Joe Biden directly linked Ukraine’s fight for its young democracy to the battle to defeat Nazi Germany.
“To surrender to bullies, to bow down to dictators is simply unthinkable,” Biden said. “If we were to do that, it means we’d be forgetting what happened here on these hallowed beaches.”
As now-centenarian veterans revisited old memories and fallen comrades buried in Normandy graves, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s presence at the international D-Day commemoration fused World War II’s awful past with the fraught present. The dead and wounded on both sides in Ukraine are estimated in the hundreds of thousands.
Despite Russia’s absence, French President Emmanuel Macron paid homage to those who fought on the eastern front “and the resolute commitment of the Red Army and all the people who were part of the then-Soviet Union.”
But it was the landing on June 6, 1944, and the battles in Normandy that followed that ultimately drove the Nazis from France.
“You came here because the free world needed each and every one of you, and you answered the call,” Macron said. “You came here to make France a free nation. You’re back here today at home, if I may say.”
The French president awarded the Legion of Honor to 14 U.S. veterans and a British female veteran. Among the Americans was Edward Berthold, a pilot who carried out his three missions over France in May 1944, before taking part in an operation in Saint-Lo, in Normandy, on D-Day. He flew 35 combat missions in all during World War II.
Berthold later read aloud a letter he’d written home the next day, showing that even as a young man he was aware of D-Day’s importance.
“Wednesday night, June 7th, 1944. Dear Mom, just a few lines to tell you we are all ok. We flew mission number 10 on D-Day,” he wrote. “It certainly was a terrific show, what we could see. This is what everyone has been waiting for.”
Macron also bestowed the Legion of Honor on 103-year-old Christian Lamb, the daughter of a Royal Navy admiral who was studying in Normandy in 1939 when her father called her back to London. There, Lamb created detailed maps that guided the crews of landing craft on D-Day.
The French president bent down to Lamb in a wheelchair, pin the medal and kiss her on both cheeks, describing her as one of the “heroes in the shadows.”
Conscious of the inevitability of age and time for World War II veterans, throngs of aficionados in period uniforms and vehicles, along with tourists soaking up the spectacle, flooded Normandy for the 80th anniversary. At the international ceremony later, the veterans received a standing ovation as they were paraded before the stands in a stately line of wheelchairs to avoid the long walk across the beachfront promenade.
“We just have to remember the sacrifices of everybody who gave us our freedom,” said Becky Kraubetz, a Briton now living in Florida whose grandfather served with the British Army during World War II and was captured in Malta. She was among a crowd of thousands of people that stretched for several kilometers (miles) along Utah Beach, the westernmost of the D-Day beaches.
In a quiet spot away from the pomp, France’s Christophe Receveur offered his own tribute, unfurling an American flag he had bought on a trip to Pennsylvania to honor those who died on D-Day.
“To forget them is to let them die all over again,” the 57-year-old said as he and his daughter, Julie, carefully refolded the flag into a tight triangle. Those now dying in Ukraine fighting the invading Russian army were also on his mind.
“All these troops came to liberate a country that they didn’t know for an ideology — democracy, freedom — that is under severe strain now,” he said.
For Warren Goss, a 99-year-old American veteran of D-Day who landed in the first waves on Utah Beach, the sacrifice was affirmed by a visit years later to the same place where his comrades fell.
“I looked at the beach and it was beautiful, all the people, the kids were playing and I see the boys and girls were walking, holding hands, with their life back,” he told the Danish king and prime minister, who hung on his words.
The fair-like atmosphere on the five code-named beaches — Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno and Sword — was fueled by World War II-era jeeps and trucks tearing down hedge-rowed lanes so deadly for Allied troops who fought dug-in German defenders, and of reenactors playing at war on sands where D-Day soldiers fell.
But the real VIPs of the commemorations across the Normandy coast were the veterans who took part in the largest-ever land, sea and air armada that punctured Hitler’s defenses in Western Europe and helped precipitate his downfall 11 months later.
“They really were the golden generation, those 17-, 18-year-old guys doing something so brave,” said James Baker, a 56-year-old from the Netherlands, reflecting on Utah Beach.
Farther up the coast on Gold Beach, a military bagpiper played at precisely the time that British troops landed there 80 years ago.
The United Kingdom’s King Charles III and Prime Minister Rishi Sunak were among those at a ceremony to honor the troops who landed there and on Sword Beach, while Prince William and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau joined others at ceremony for the Canadian troops at Juno Beach.
In his address, the king told the crowd that the world was fortunate that a generation “did not flinch” when they were called upon.
“Our obligation to remember what they stood for and what they achieved for us all can never diminish,” he said.
Speaking in French, Charles also paid tribute to the “unimaginable number” of French civilians killed in the battle for Normandy, and the bravery and sacrifice of the French Resistance.
Those who traveled to Normandy include women who were among the millions who built bombers, tanks and other weaponry and played other vital World War II roles that were long overshadowed by the combat exploits of men.
Feted everywhere they go in wheelchairs and walking with canes, veterans are using their voices to repeat their message they hope will live eternal: Never forget.
“We weren’t doing it for honors and awards. We were doing it to save our country,” said 98-year-old Anna Mae Krier, who worked as a riveter building B-17 and B-29 bombers. “We ended up helping save the world.”
UN agencies say over 1 million in Gaza could experience highest level of starvation by mid-July
CAIRO | United Nations agencies warned Wednesday that over 1 million Palestinians in Gaza could experience the highest level of starvation by the middle of next month if hostilities continue.
The World Food Program and the Food and Agriculture Organization said in a joint report that hunger is worsening because of heavy restrictions on humanitarian access and the collapse of the local food system in the nearly eight-month Israel-Hamas war.
It says the situation remains dire in northern Gaza, which has been surrounded and largely isolated by Israeli troops for months. Israel recently opened land crossings in the north but they are only able to facilitate truck loads in the dozens each day for hundreds of thousands of people.
Israel’s incursion into Rafah has meanwhile severely disrupted aid operations in the south. Egypt has refused to open its Rafah crossing with Gaza since Israeli forces seized the Gaza side of it nearly a month ago, instead diverting aid to Israel’s Kerem Shalom crossing nearby.
The Israeli military says it has allowed hundreds of trucks to enter through Kerem Shalom in recent weeks, but the U.N. says it is often unable to retrieve the aid because of the security situation. It says distribution within Gaza is also severely hampered by ongoing fighting, the breakdown of law and order, and other Israeli restrictions.
The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, the world authority on determining the extent of hunger crises, said in March that around 677,000 people in Gaza were experiencing Phase 5 hunger, the highest level and the equivalent of famine.
The two U.N. agencies said in their report Wednesday that that figure could climb to more than 1 million — or nearly half of Gaza’s total population of 2.3 million — by the middle of next month.
“In the absence of a cessation of hostilities and increased access, the impact on mortality and the lives of the Palestinians now, and in future generations, will increase markedly with every day, even if famine is avoided in the near term,” it said.
On Tuesday, a separate group of experts said it’s possible that famine is underway in northern Gaza but that the war, and restrictions on humanitarian access, have impeded the data collection to prove it.
“It is possible, if not likely,” the group known as the Famine Early Warning Systems Network, or FEWS NET, which is funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development, said about famine in Gaza.
Last month, the head of the World Food Program, Cindy McCain, said northern Gaza had already entered “full-blown famine,” but experts at the U.N. agency later said she was expressing a personal opinion.
An area is considered to be in famine when three things occur: Twenty percent of households have an extreme lack of food, or are essentially starving; at least 30% of the children suffer from acute malnutrition or wasting, meaning they’re too thin for their height; and two adults or four children per every 10,000 people are dying daily of hunger and its complications.
The war began when Hamas and other militants stormed across the border into Israel on Oct. 7, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking around 250 hostage. Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed over 36,000 Palestinians, according to local health officials. Most of Gaza’s population have fled their homes, often multiple times, and the offensive has caused widespread destruction.
Big Mac battle: McDonald’s loses European Union trademark fight with Irish rival Supermac’s
LONDON | McDonald’s lost a European Union trademark dispute over the Big Mac name after a top European Union court sided Wednesday with Irish fast food rival Supermac’s in a long-running legal battle.
The EU General Court said in its judgment that the U.S. fast food giant failed to prove that it was genuinely using the Big Mac label over a five-year period for chicken sandwiches, poultry products or restaurants.
The Big Mac is a hamburger made of two beef patties, cheese, lettuce, onions, pickles and Big Mac sauce. It was invented in 1968 by a Pennsylvania franchisee who thought the company needed a sandwich that appealed to adults.
The decision is about more than burger names. It opens the door for Galway-based Supermac’s expansion into other EU countries. The dispute erupted when Supermac’s applied to register its company name in the EU as it drew up expansion plans. McDonald’s objected, saying consumers would be confused because it already trademarked the Big Mac name.
Supermac’s filed a 2017 request with the EU’s Intellectual Property Office to revoke McDonald’s Big Mac trademark registration, saying the U.S. company couldn’t prove that it had used the name for certain categories that aren’t specifically related to the burger over five years. That’s the window of time in Europe that a trademark has to be used before it can be taken away.
After the regulator partially approved Supermac’s request, McDonald’s appealed to the EU court.
“McDonald’s has not proved that the contested mark has been put to genuine use” in connection with chicken sandwiches, food made from poultry products or operating restaurants and drive-throughs and preparing take-out food, the court said, according to a press summary of its decision.
Supermac’s portrayed the decision as a David and Goliath-style victory. Managing Director Pat McDonagh accused McDonald’s of “trademark bullying to stifle competition.”
“This is a significant ruling that takes a common-sense approach to the use of trademarks by large multi-nationals. It represents a significant victory for small businesses throughout the world,” McDonagh said in a statement.
The Irish company doesn’t sell a sandwich called the Big Mac but does have one called the Mighty Mac with the same ingredients.
McDonald’s was unfazed by the ruling, which can be appealed to the European Court of Justice, the bloc’s highest court, but only on points of law.
“The decision by the EU General Court does not affect our right to use the ‘BIG MAC’ trademark,” the company said in a press statement. “Our iconic Big Mac is loved by customers all across Europe, and we’re excited to continue to proudly serve local communities, as we have done for decades.”
—From AP reports
