Author: Inge Odendaal The COVID-19 pandemic had a profound impact on the global travel industry, leading to the implementation of stringent border controls and travel restrictions worldwide. Japan, like many other countries, took measures to contain the virus, resulting in significant disruptions to its tourism sector. These measures had far-reaching consequences, including a sharp decline…
Category: Featured Stories
Author: Inge Odendaal Japan is bidding farewell to its COVID-19 policies and restrictions. Since early 2020, the country has implemented various measures to control the spread of the virus, including border closures, population movement restrictions, mask mandates, and a shift to online education and teleworking.[1]Japanese residents restructured their lives to avoid closed and crowded places…
Author: Scarlett Cornelissen Japanese popular cultural goods and content have gained global prominence and influence over the past decades. Japanese animation films (anime) and video games were the first to develop an international following in the 1980s. Since then, the popularity of manga has also grown and it is now consumed on a significant scale…
Author: Maggie Coetzee The cosplay community in South Africa has existed for well over fifteen years, and may have started small, but saw a drastic climb during recent years as marked by South Africa becoming the first African country to participate in the World Cosplay Summit back in 2018, and then shortly thereafter in The…
Author: Emma Ruiters In recent years, Japanese Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) has been rising in African countries. A new development has been that Japanese FDI has been flowing to information and communications technology (ICT) & Digital Technologies. African countries are growing rapidly which is likely underpinning rising investment, but African economic development is already demonstrating…
Author: Scarlett Cornelissen Science and diplomacy tend to be regarded as vastly different spheres, but together they are a bridge to connect and help realise the Sustainable Development Goals, thus contributing to the betterment of humanity and the planet. So stated Professor Motoko Kotani, science and technology (S&T) co-advisor to Japan’s Minister of Foreign Affairs,…
Author: Scarlett Cornelissen On 3 March 2022, in association with the Embassy of Japan in South Africa, we hosted a webinar on ‘Towards closing the gender gap in economic participation: Perspectives from Japan and South Africa.’ The context for the webinar was two-fold. First, International Women’s Day was celebrated on 8 March 2022. As prelude,…
Author: Sue Segar In 2013, whilst attending a conference in Yokohama, the leading Japanese immunologist and vaccine developer, Professor Yasuhiro Yasutomi, told the South African singer and humanitarian, Yvonne Chaka Chaka, (also a speaker at the conference), that his life’s goal was to find a vaccine for HIV. The 5th Tokyo International Conference on African…