China's continuing shift to green sources of electric power generation is confirmed in the latest data published by the National Energy Administration (NEA) and the China Electricity Council (CEC). New capacity additions in the first half of 2017 have seen the proportion of capacity added sourced from water, wind and sun (WWS) reaching 70%, with thermal capacity added being reduced to 28% and nuclear to just 2%. Overall, the China electric power system has swung from one that was dependent on WWS sources for just 20% in 2007 to 35% in 2017 (1H) – an astonishing 15% swing in just a decade. Meanwhile actual electric energy generated in 1H 2017 remains heavily dependent on thermal sources to the extent of 75%, with WWS accounting for 21% and nuclear for 4%. The system is greening at the margin (in terms of new additions) but it still remains a large fossil-fuelled system.

In contemporary Japan Ainu women create spaces of cultural vitalization wherein they transit between Ainu identity determined by their natal relationships and actively negotiating with Ainu identity through their art. Engaging in self-craft through cloth arts has empowered Ainu women to imagine new expressions of self and to redefine their identities as Ainu or mixed ancestry, and thus reflects women's lived realities and struggles. Women's clothwork, as well as musical performance and other arts, has also been pivotal to the Ainu Indigenous rights movement and to cultural revitalization efforts. By carefully positioning heritage cloth, ritual regalia, and ancestral patterns as mouthpieces of Ainu indigeneity, Ainu women have leveraged traditional knowledge to claim Indigenous rights in UN forums and the Japanese Diet.

As such, Ainu women move between “being Ainu,” a racist label attached to Ainu bodies by settler society, to actively “becoming Ainu” and determining what this means on their own terms. The author synthesizes ethnographic field research, museum, and archival research, and participation in cultural-revival and rights-based organizing to show how women craft Ainu and Indigenous identities through clothwork and how they also fashion lived connections to ancestral values and lifestyles.

Apocalyptic panic and glib memes frame much of American discourse about the current North Korean nuclear crisis. Yet the North Korean crisis poses a challenge to the mandate of South Korea's new liberal president, Moon Jaein, to usher in an era of truly democratic politics, and indeed, to the fate of his administration. On the critical issue of US plans to install a terminal high area altitude defense (THAAD) system, an issue that has roiled the waters among South Korea, the United States and China, Moon has chosen to leave intact former conservative president Park Geun-hye administration's undemocratic legacy.

The history of the “comfort women” (ianfu) concerns women and girls from Korea, China, the Philippines, and other parts of the Japanese empire who were forced into sexual slavery in Japanese military-run or sponsored stations during the Asia-Pacific War. Knowledge of this episode in human history is above all the result of the courage and persistence of the victims who have testified and chronicled their experiences, but also of the work of researchers, journalists, and concerned citizens inside and outside Japan, who investigated the facts and published their findings despite efforts by history denialists to intimidate them. For example, their experience is well documented in memoirs by former “comfort women,” such as South Korean Kim Hak-sun, the first woman to come forward in 1991, and Filipina comfort woman Maria Rosa Henson, who wrote a memoir describing her experience. Activists and NGOs, such as the Korean Council for the Women Drafted for Sexual Slavery by Japan, recorded testimonies by former “comfort women.” In 2000, survivors from more than a dozen countries gathered and gave testimonies at the International Women's War Crimes Tribunal held in Tokyo. Works by scholars and journalists were also significant. For example, historians such as Yoshimi Yoshiaki discovered Japanese military archival documents describing the “comfort woman” system, and journalists such as Uemura Takashi covered the story of Kim Hak-sun for the Asahi Shimbun. Yoshimi, Uemura and others were subjected to vicious attacks by Japanese neonationalists.