(April 11st, 2016) The G7 Summit will take up far more than such dark topics as terrorism, cybercrime, desperate refugees and Russian and Chinese expansionism.
More happily, its agenda is also aimed at boosting such crucial projects for the improvement of living standards as expanding global infrastructure initiatives (e.g., in transportation, energy, public-health, etc.), establishing stronger incentives for sustainable development, improving energy security and reinforcing efforts to counter-act climate change.
The leaders, with their economic/financial advisers, will address these things while discussing what they can do collectively to prevent the world economic slowdown from becoming a serious recession.
Japan, the summit host, has led by example: It has long been at the forefront globally in (quietly) helping to finance a wide range of infrastructure investments, in both the developed and developing worlds.
(April 11st, 2016 ) The terrorists in Brussels had been trailing a senior Belgian nuclear official. The strong implication is that ISIS would be pleased to stage an attack with nuclear material – perhaps not a nuclear explosion itself, but rather they would use radioactive material with conventional explosives to spread terror and chaos via a “dirty bomb.’’.
Nuclear power plant in Tihange, Belgium.
Far too little is being done at many facilities around the world to secure nuclear material.
As this New York Times piece notes, a key nuclear-security treaty fails even to order the arming of guards who monitor bomb-grade nuclear material!
G7 Summit leaders presumably will discuss this potentially catastrophic terrorism when they meet in Japan on May 26-27. The Boston Global Forum hopes that the Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism, a network of 86 states and five international organizations, encourages its members to share intelligence and best security practices regarding the storage of nuclear material.
(April 11th, 2016) The Boston Global Forum (BGF) hosted a conference in Tokyo on March 28 as part of its BGF-G7 Summit Initiative. The Initiative, a collaboration with the Japanese government, has prepared policy prescriptions to be considered by national leaders at the summit, to be held in Japan on May 26-27.
Nguyen Anh Tuan, CEO of the BGF, and Nobue Mita, the BGF’s Japan representative, welcomed a group of very high-level Japanese dignitaries/experts and described the missions of the Initiative. The leading mission is strengthening cybersecurity through establishing international norms of cyberbehavior – a challenge to which the BGF has drawn international experts to address. Other topics include reinforcing Japanese friendship with America and other G7 members and improving global citizenship education.
The BGF officials expressed the hope that the BGF-G7 Summit Initiative would lead to a long and fruitful relationship between the Boston Global Forum (and the academic community — especially Harvard, with which it is closely associated) and a wide range of leading G7 citizens.
Most of the conference consisted of a wide-ranging discussion among the dignitaries/experts, moderated by a former Japanese Ambassador to the United States, the witty and charming Ichiro Fujisaki.
The panelists were, besides Ambassador Fujisaki:
• Prof. Koichi Hamada, special adviser of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and father of “Abenomics’’.
• Prof. Eisuke Sakakibara (whose nickname is “Mr. Yen’’).
• Prof. Fumiaki Kubo, of the University of Tokyo.
• Prof. Fumio Ota, of the Defense Academy of Japan.
• Ambassador Shunji Yanai.
The topics include the challenges posed to international security by Chinese military threats in the South China and East China Seas, North Korea’s nuclear saber-rattling and how to boost the collective security of Pacific and East Asian nations to deter them. The panelists enumerated some other topics that the G7 Summit leaders would take up — terrorism, refugees, the Mideast, cybersecurity, trade and the global economy among them.
Interestingly, the panelists spent a lot of time talking about the bad mood in American politics in general and Donald Trump in particular and what this election year might mean for American foreign policy. The panelists did not seemed pleased with the prospect of a President Trump.
The panel discussion ended with members answering questions from young Japanese experts.
(April 4th, 2016) The end of Apple’s fight over the FBI’s demand that the company give the agency access to what’s inside the iPhone of one of the San Bernardino terrorists may be just the start of a larger fight over data privacy as companies strengthen security and law-enforcement agencies keep fighting for access in criminal cases.
The end of Apple’s fight over the FBI’s demand that the company give the agency access to what’s inside the iPhone of one of the San Bernardino terrorists may be just the start of a larger fight over data privacy as companies strengthen security and law-enforcement agencies keep fighting for access in criminal cases. Meanwhile, the FBI, now that it has cracked the terrorist’s iPhone, is trying to find out if the same (mysterious to the rest of the world) methods will work on other kinds of iPhones.
(April 4th,2016) On March 28th, Nguyen Anh Tuan, The Boston Global Forum’s CEO and Editor-in-Chief, met with Japanese dignitaries at a conference in Tokyo that was part of the formal announcement in Japan of the BGF-G7 Summit Initiative, in which the BGF is making a group of recommendations for summit leaders to discuss, mostly focused on cybersecurity. The conference was organized and coordinated by Nobue Mita, The BGF Japan Representative.
Among the distinguished speakers were :
Prof. Koichi Hamada, a special adviser to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and “The Father of Abenomics’’;
Prof. Eisuke Sakakibara, known as ‘Mr. Yen’ for the influence of his pronouncements on Japan’s currency, he is the former professor from Keio University, and now he is a professor from Aoyama University;
Ambassadors Ichiro Fujisaki and Shunji Yanai;
Prof. Fumiaki Kubo, A. Barton Hepburn Professor of American Government and History, Graduate Schools for Law and Politics, University of Tokyo;
Prof. Fumio Ota, Former Professor, Defense Academy of Japan (2005-2013);
Mr. Akihiko Komase, Asgent, Inc. Consulting Department manager and Security Center Fellow;
Former UNESCO Director General Yoichiro Matsuura and Inada Tomomi, a member of the Japanese House of Representatives (the lower house of parliament) and Chairwoman of the Policy Council of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, also contributed valuable ideas at the meeting.
