Media Relations Office

The coronavirus pandemic has become a global crisis that impacts countries around the world in different, yet often similarly devastating ways. Cornell experts can discuss how the infection is having an impact on health systems - as well as on politics - of countries in Asia, Africa and South America.

---

Earlier this week, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe declared a state of emergency in major cities across the country in an effort to limit the spread of COVID-19. Kristin Roebuck, assistant professor in the department of history at Cornell University, studies modern Japan with a focus on the history of medicine and law, race and sexuality and Japanese international relations. She points to Japan’s abysmal domestic violence record and says that those Japanese who feel least safe at home face heightened threats and dwindling protections in the era of COVID-19.

International

Arts and Sciences

---

Kristin Roebuck, professor of history at Cornell University, is a historian of modern Japan and says that procedures around Emperor Akihito’s abdication highlight the power of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party to both preserve and modernize elements of the royal tradition. 

International

Law and Policy

Arts and Sciences

---