-This article presented information on a recent 2012 strike involving a successful viral mass protest against increased taxes on capital-gains.

-This article provided information on the economic position of current Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Abenomics.

-This article gave up-to-date information on the economic position of Japan and the yen.

-I used this article to gain further information on the economic position of France and the euro.

-I used this article to gain information on the levels of poverty in Japan (16%) and France (6.2%) according to the CIA.

I used this article to get a better understanding of the fall of the eurozone. This article made an argument to state that the majority of the debt throughout the eurozone is the result of private companies taking out loans that they couldn't pay off. This article also made it clear that Germany is in a position to manipulate this situation because they are the only state within the Eurozone not facing such overwhelming private and government debt.

French economists have never been as renowned as French philosophers, but currently French economists are on the rise. Two schools are competing for the title of savior of the French economy. The Toulouse School of Economics is number 7th in the world and the Paris School of Economics is 11th in the world. Both schools recruit internationally and have their own private-fundraising campaigns. The Toulouse School of Economics is focused on undergraduate studies specializing in industrial economics, market regulation, and economic theory; on the other hand, the Paris School of Economics, is for the upper-level French elite, only accepts graduates, and specializes in economic theory, public economics and statistics. Competition between these two schools of economic thought has produced new economic philosophies to solve the growing debt problem in France. Where the general systems of French are too "rigid", the Toulouse School and the Paris School seek to find ways to create innovations for a new France.

Both Japan and France rank in the top 50 for Global Peace Rankings-- Japan 8th and France 48th. The biggest difference in their rankings comes from France's possession of heavy and nuclear weapons. The Japanese have limited possession of heavy and nuclear weapons as a result of the pacifist constitution they were forced to adopt following WWII which limited their ability to arm for war. Furthermore, France is involved in more conflicts and exports more weapons than Japan, which is also heavily related to the restrictions placed on Japan following WWII. However, Japan has a worse record when it comes to relations with neighbors which may be related to actions from WWII and rising tensions between Japan, China, and South Korea. Yet, perhaps unrelated to WWII and relating more to culture of society, France has a higher level of violent demonstrations and internal organized conflict than Japan. Japan has a homogenous population that has a main focus of work and a culture that accepts the social and economic hierarchy, but France has a more heterogeneous population with many disenfranchised groups that were once colonized that continue to face discrimination.

France took big hits in WWI and WWII from human and economic standpoints, so following WWII they became big proponents of European integration to build from the ground up. The Franco-German alliance has been a key to the integration of European nations since the 90's, but more recently they have been at odds over the austerity policies regarding France's recent economic recession. The French push for integration is quite ironic given France has more than 26 regions with several territories from its colonial past still belonging to France. Even with a rather diverse population, the majority of the French government is quite centralized with very little devolution of power. The voting turnout has not been very high because average French citizens feel like the power is in the hands of only the French elite. The French social and governmental hierarchy dampens the democratic institutions of France. Furthermore, the French don't only have a strong centralized government, they also have a powerful military and the second largest economy in the eurozone. Though the French struck down the proposed constitution of the European Union in 2005, current socialist President Hollande remains faithful to the European Union and German Chancellor Angel Merkel.

Much of Japan's reputation abroad is still heavily impacted by its actions pre- and post-WWII. China and South Korea are still at odds with Japan because they believe Japanese school books overlook the heinous crimes committed by the Japanese military during WWII. Yet, many other countries grew dependent on Japan following WWII. Following WWII and Japan's adoption of a more democratic constitution, it quickly gained some respect as a global aid donor and its booming car and technology industries made it a source of capital and credit for countries all over. Japan was able to make such a quick leap to the top following WWII thanks to the market bubble it could find in the U.S.; Japan maintained this productivity through its traditional social and employment hierarchies that have lead many people to work the same job their entire life. However, Japan's economic growth began to go in the opposite direction in 1990's with growing debt that multiple governments have failed to curtail. Currently, the population of Japan is rapidly aging, but the few young who are around are pushing for more Westernization and the Japanese government is even attempting to find a solution for its debt; not to mention, the Japanese government has made movements to amend the constitution to gain more military power in recent years.

This article maps out the Postwar Constitution that Japan drafted and adopted in order to remove Allied occupation. The Postwar Constitution was called a "revision" to the Imperial Constitution that was previously followed in Japan, but it came as more of an Allied Powers overhaul of the monarchical regime that lead Japan throughout the war. The main articles of the Postwar Constitution focus on removing Japanese ability to declare war or have any industry related to arming for war, and granting democratic individual freedoms to the people of Japan (i.e. democratic elections and freedom of speech, to petition, to assemble, religion, thought, etc) Though, there is an article in the Postwar Constitution which allows amendments to be made, the amendments must be pass to through both houses of the bicameral Diet with a ⅔ majority before it is passed to the people. No amendments have been ratified since 1947, but as of late the Liberal Democratic Party have continually made pushes for amendments.

This article provides information on the guidelines for Empire of Japan's surrender at the end of WWII as written by U.S. President Harry S. Truman Jr., U.K. Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Chairman of the Nationalist Government of China Chiang Kai-shek. This article's main focus was highlighting the Potsdam Declaration as the forceful conversion of the Empire of Japan into a democratic regime, rather than monarchical regime, with more civil liberties for the people including, but not limited to, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and freedom of thought. This article also explains how the Potsdam Declaration caused Japan to open itself up to the growing democratic world and forced Japan to change or face destruction, leaving Japan very little choice in terms of regime. Furthermore, this article brings attention to the amount of military force that came along with the Potsdam Declaration. It is made clear that this was more than just a declaration by the Allied Forces, it was more of a threat to the Japanese to surrender on the Allied Force's terms or be utterly destroyed. Unfortunately, it is also highlighted that within less than a month of the declaration, the U.S. dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The Japanese economy was stagnant from 2002 to 2012. In 2012 Shinzo Abe became Prime Minister, and Haruhiko Kuroda was appointed as the new governor of the Bank of Japan. Abe and Kuroda came in trying to increase inflation from -0.3 percent to 2.0 percent because Japan has seen slow deflation in the 10 years between 2002 and 2012. Questions about the ability of a central bank to increase inflation without increasing national debt, or will money just be pumped into the economy and push the debt crisis further along. Abe and Kuroda hope that the weakened yen will improve Japan's company competitiveness by lowering the cost structure for companies allowing them to produce cheaper products to be consumed in the market. Japan hopes that slowly the price of goods will increase at about 2% a year and hope to see the debt to GDP ratio decrease.

Political instability is evident in France as the cabinet fell apart over questions regarding the financial crisis of France and the overall economic downslide of the euro over the last 5 years. The Prime Minister Manuel Vall called for the dissolvement of the cabinet after President Hallonde made changes to economic regulations based on the urges of the European Union, German leaders to be specific. The big question regarding the European economy is whether government budget cuts and deficit financing is more important or finding a way to get cash flowing and creating jobs for citizens is more important. Many of the nations of the eurozone initially bought into the policies of austerity policies that Angel Merkel, the German chancellor, advocated, but now they're pulling back their restrictions and some economic growth is occurring. France and Germany, the largest economies in Europe are at odds and France's shift towards the right-wing National Front. France, as a part of the European Union, has pressure to do follow orders and maintain relationships with other European powers rather than do what's exactly right for their citizens. Political instability of France, unemployment, budget cuts, and debt-financing.

Close to 10,000 protestors lined up outside of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's office building to protest a law changed which would permit the expansion of Japan's military and deployment soldiers overseas. Japan's constitution banned any 'collective self-defense' or aiding any other country under attack. The Japanese military is currently only for defense of Japan. What's more important than the fact that the constitution will be changed, is that the constitution will potentially changed without consultation of the people. The generally accepting citizens of Japan are up in arms at this assault on their democratic freedoms. More than half of the Japanese population is opposed to the change in the constitution, but Abe claims the change is necessary due to rising tensions with China's military expansion and North Korea's missile program growth. Rise in political unrest as of late in the usually peaceful Japan.

Currently, Shinzo Abe is the most popular prime minister to date and Liberal Democratic Party leads a coalition which has the majority of the Diet's lower house, but he is in talks to dissolve the lower house and have a snap election. Abe promised to end the heavy deflation that has plagued the Japanese economy since the 90's, but since he has come in, the sales tax has increased from 5%-8% and is threatening to rise to 10%, to make up for the deflation of prices. Unfortunately, right now, the way the lower house is set up, postponing this tax increase would cost Abe the support of big businesses and senior bureaucrats. The governor of the Japanese National Bank, Haruhiko Kuroda, believes that raising the tax only stands to help Japan ease its national debt which currently stands at 240% of the GDP. Kuroda fears that if the tax is postponed, Abe will lose credibility with the people, since he promised he would work to fix the Japanese debt problem. Sadly, though Abe promised to bring growth to the economy and mandate his ways to serious economic structural reforms, the majority of his ideas are still sitting soundly in square 1, even with support from the leading coalition in the Japanese Parliament. The only lucky part about this for Abe is that the opposition parties are facing scandals and are not ready for a snap election, so Abe could gain the support he needs to get his ideas moving in the right direction.

Mevlut Cavusoglu has declared that the Turkish government will now aid the Iraqi Kurdish forces, known as pesh merga, into the Syrian town of Kobani. Forces of international powers are feeling pressure to push back against the Islamic State rather than making Iraqi Kurdish forces to fight alone against ISIS. The U.S. has already begun airdropping supplies to the Kurdish forces, but Turkey has refused the Kurdish forces to move through Turkey in the past, because Kurdish forces have threatened the autonomy of Turkey in the past. Yet, desperate times call for desperate measures and many International powers are claiming that ISIL/ISIS is picking up steam in their counter-attacks.

Hong Kong's government is not Hong Kong's own, its chief executive has been appointed by the central Chinese government since China regained sovereignty over Hong Kong in 1997. However, residents of Hong Kong have enjoyed more civil liberty than the residents of mainland China, for example the freedom of speech and it's own separate judiciary system. With residents of Hong Kong fed up with current pro-Beijing chief executive, Leung Chun-ying, and mainland China's current president, Xi Jiping, who are limiting the democratic liberties of the territory. Though mainland China has sovereignty over the domain of offshore Hong Kong, the levels of democracy in mainland China and Hong Kong are very dissimilar. In China, the internet, education systems, communities, and society as a whole are controlled by the central government, allowing the residents few civil liberties. For a while, Hong Kong, has utilized its own judiciary system and maintained its own chief executive to deal with governance, allowing Hong Kong to keep some of its Western democratic roots, from Hong Kong's time as a British colony; more recently the central government has appointed pro-Beijing (mainland) chief executives who have slowly taken more and more democratic liberties from the people. The people have taken to the streets of Hong Kong in protest asking for more democratic power in the appointment of their chief executive, but the iron-fisted Xi Jiping refuses to allow for any compromises. Xi Jiping is a strongly believes previous communist regimes fell apart because they were lax; as a result, Xi Jiping refuses to let these protests flourish or compromise with protestors because he doesn't want this to spark any freedom protests in the mainland. Yet, Xi Jiping can't use the force he would like to, because the level of force necessary to take down protests with such fervor at this scale who be reminiscent to the force used in the Tiananmen Square massacre of 1989. Any significant bloodshed would j

I began my study of the ISIS conflict by reading an article about the Mosul Dam and how it was a crucial breaking point in the ISIS-Iraq conflict. The forces of ISIS previously spoke of blowing up the Mosul Dam when obtaining control, thus affecting Iraq from Mosul all the way down to Baghdad. Militant forces had been engaging in firefights with armed vehicles in villages surrounding the Mosul Dam and managed to gain control. The Kurdish military and Iraqi Forces, were not doing an adequate job fighting back from the eyes of the US, placing American representatives in the area in jeopardy. Obama ordered airstrikes and within two days of continuous air raids, the Sunni' fighters were subdued enough for the Kurdish and Iraqi forces to move in and retake the Mosul Dam. While Obama says this is not a sign that America is completely joining in so Iraqi and Syrian governments can return to a lack-luster, chaotic governing system, the heavy military presence on foreign soil does seem a bit concerning. Yet, what are the other options in defending fellow Americans? Perhaps the British don't have a large number of representatives in the area, the Prime Minister, David Cameron, made sure he informed his country that they would not be joining in the conflict to any extent. With ISIS militant forces inhabiting various other areas, danger seems to be looming in Iraq and Syria. I'm curious to see if any other foreign nations join into the conflict or let the forces stay enmeshed in conflict.