Japanese-Eng2006Oct

Targeting North Korea (repinted from 2004)

People’s News From Asia: Interlocals.net
Reactions to the North Korean test from around Asia

The Boom Heard Around the World
[F]our other countries officially–Britain, France, India and Pakistan–officially joined the nuclear club, with another, being Israel, unofficially a member. There was no alarm registered in Washington at Britain’s application for membership and very little at France’s. India and Pakistan provoked a bit of a shock, but nothing truly substantial changed in their relationship with the US. The outcry from other nations not considered friends of Washington was less positive. At the same time, they couldn’t help but notice that a nuclear enemy of Washington was much less likely to be attacked than a non-nuclear one…..

In fact, it was the failure of Washington to follow through on its end of the deal brokered by Clinton’s administration–a deal that would have provided northern Korea with light-water reactors capable of making energy but not weapons–that some say led to the impasse between the two capitals. However, it should be noted that Pyongyang had frozen the reactor where yesterday’s test fuel came from after 1994 under the terms agreed to by Washington and Pyongyang. Indeed, it was only after George Bush included Pyongyang in his so-called axis of evil that the reactor was started up again and the process that led to the nuclear test restarted.

Bush and North Korea
The crisis with North Korea was entirely avoidable for anyone with even minimal diplomatic skills and an elementary understanding of human psychology. Instead, the Bush troupe persisted for 6 years with the same inflexible policy nudging Kim ever-closer to producing his first nuclear weapon.Now, half the population of the United States is in the gun-sights of a madcap tyrant whose basic grasp of reality has always been seriously in doubt.

Welcome to the Nuclear Club
For the next four weeks, the Bush administration will do its best to exploit the North Korean nuclear test to stave off a loss of the Republican majority in Congress. We should not allow those efforts to obscure how Bush’s reckless record has heightened the nuclear dangers for everyone.

North Korea: Tomorrow May Never Come

North Korean Nuke Tests Say World Must Return to Peace Agenda

The media wants you to think that the only threat to the peace of the world is North Korea, but here’re some articles that put the issue of nuclear weapons, who has them, and who uses them in perspective

Here is another listing (partially the same) that contains more references to North Korea and Japan

Here is a listing that focues on Hiroshima, partially the same

Here is a listening that focues on Japan, North, South Korea and the U.S.

Megumi Yokota: reader argues that taking the side of one’s nation can blind us to evils done by our own side

Abe’s “normal” Japan: a vision with a legacy

Abe supporter of right-wing textbook by “Tsukurukai”

Abe against gender Equality

Rising tide of conservatism threatens reproductive health and gender equality

Minoru Morita: Abe promises more of Koizumi’s Bush-style extremist politics