Nipponica

Tatsuhiko Hoshino, an international relations officer at the nonprofit Japan Association of Overseas Studies (JAOS), said the depreciation of the yen had a significant impact on Japanese students looking to study abroad.

“There has been a notable shift away from traditionally expensive destinations,” Hoshino said, noting that students who still had their hearts set on Europe were looking to more affordable countries such as Germany, Hungary or Malta.

“This trend is unlikely to change, and I believe we will see even more Japanese students opting to study in Asia or EU countries going forward,” Hoshino said.

If I was a Japanese student looking at prices of an American undergrad education, I would do the same thing. It is simply unsustainable in this economy to expect students to go into lifetime debt for an educational gamble.

Japan is set to join Estonia's housing construction project by supplying façade materials for an 18-unit apartment building in the city of Brusyliv, Ukraine, under JICA's new initiative to engage Japan's private sector in Ukraine's reconstruction. The building's façade materials will be procured from NICHIHA Corporation, one of Japan's leading producers of fiber cement material.

The joint JICA-ESTDEV project in Brusyliv will deliver a modern, eco-friendly modular timber-frame apartment building, designed with energy efficiency, Passive House principles and solar readiness at its core.

This is what international leadership looks like. Not funding violence. Not prioritizing politics. It is caring for people.