For the past few years Pope Francis has repeatedly said World War
III has already started, according to reports of Reuters, BBC and HuffingtonPost. He described the spate of conflicts around the globe including terrors as
a "piecemeal" of Third World War.
Critics say the Pope has extensive sources of information from one
billion followers, and one should pay attention to his comments to assess world
events.
The Japanese press seem to ignore this news. They are recently
quite timid and appear to avoid doing their jobs. According to the 2015 World Press Freedom Index, Japan ranked the 61st out of 181 countries, the lowest place since 2002. By way of an example, a famous newscaster stepped
down from a long-standing popular news analysis program called Close Up Gendai
of public broadcaster NHK reportedly in response to government pressure against
her asking persistent questions to chief cabinet secretary Yoshihide Suga.
Communications minister Sanae Takaichi also stirred a controversy
by saying that the government can order broadcasters to suspend operations if
they continue to air TV programming that is deemed politically biased as
stipulated in the broadcast law. I wondered what would happen to NHK, or any other
TV stations. The fundamental question is whether completely unbiased reporting
is ever possible.
History tells us that the combination of wars and shrinking free
speech is a recipe for despair and destruction.
