By SETH ROBSON | STARS AND STRIPES Published: January 21, 2021 TOKYO – America’s most important allies and partners in the Indo-Pacific region, along with its greatest strategic rival, took to social media to congratulate President Joe Biden on his inauguration Wednesday. Biden, 78, took the oath of office outside the U.S. Capitol at noon that day, taking over for a Trump administration that played hardball with Japan and South Korea in an effort to get them to pay more for their own defense; started a trade war with an increasingly aggressive China; and held summit meetings with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in an unsuccessful attempt to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula.
By SETH ROBSON | STARS AND STRIPES Published: December 15, 2020
Stars and Stripes is making stories on the coronavirus pandemic available free of charge. See other free reports here. Sign up for our daily coronavirus newsletter here. Please support our journalism with a subscription. YOKOTA AIR BASE, Japan Partner militaries monitoring United Nations sanctions on North Korea had to trim the number of missions this year by about two-thirds, thanks to the coronavirus pandemic, according to U.N. command staff in Japan. Total missions by states that send troops to support the command’s mission, which include ships and aircraft operating out of U.S. military bases in Japan, declined to about 20 in 2020, the head of U.N. Command Rear, Royal Australian Air Force Col. Adam Williams said in a Nov. 24 interview.