Category: Japan

Japan-US ‘island chain’ will roil China, Russia

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25 December 2021 — Indian Punchline

Warship formations of China and Russia sailed through the Tsugaru Strait in northern Japan on October 18, 2021 (File photo)

A Kyodo News agency report on Friday cited Japanese government sources to the effect that Tokyo and Washington have drawn up a draft joint operation plan that would enable the setup of an attack base along the Nansei island chain in Japan’s southwest in the event of a Taiwan contingency.

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Quad is turning & turning in widening gyre

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25 September 2021 — Indian Punchline

US President Joe Biden at Quad Summit, White House, Sept. 24, 2021. Seated clockwise Australian PM Scott Morrison, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Japanese PM Yoshihide Suga & Indian PM Narendra Modi

By coincidence, perhaps, on the same day that President Biden hosted the first Quad summit, he also cleared the way for a senior executive of Huawei Technologies to return to Beijing — “removing one major irritant between the two superpowers,” as the New York Times put it.

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World War II: US Military Destroyed 66 Japanese Cities Before Planning to Wipe Out the Same Number of Soviet Cities

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18 June 2019 — Global Research

By Shane Quinn

Remember:

Hiroshima, August 6, 1945

Nagasaki, August 9, 1945

Timely historical analysis: This article was first published in June 2019

The extent of devastation inflicted upon Japan by the American military during World War II is not broadly known, even today. In reprisal for the attack over Pearl Harbor, which killed almost 2,500 Americans, US aircraft first began unloading bombs on Japan during the afternoon of 18 April 1942 – attacking the capital Tokyo, and also five other major cities, Yokohama, Osaka, Nagoya, Kobe and Yokosuka.

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ATOMIC BOMBINGS AT 75: Truman’s ‘Human Sacrifice’ to Subdue Moscow

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3 August 2020 — Consortium News

In this introduction to the memoir of a Nagasaki bombing victim, historian Peter Kuznick shows why the bombs were dropped and how some victims’ anger propelled the Japanese anti-nuclear movement.

By Peter Kuznick

Sumiteru Taniguchi was one of the “lucky” ones. He lived a long and productive life. He married and fathered two healthy children who gave him four grandchildren and two great grandchildren. He had a long career in Japan’s postal and telegraph services. As a leader in Japan’s anti-nuclear movement, he addressed thousands of audiences and hundreds of thousands of people. He traveled to at least 23 countries. The organizations in which he played a prominent role were nominated several times for the Nobel Peace Prize.

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Fukushima: “An Ongoing Global Radiological Catastrophe”. “A Huge Coverup”. Dr. Helen Caldicot

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21 March 2019 — Global Research

Transcript of 8th anniversary interview with Dr. Helen Caldicott

By Dr. Helen Caldicott and Michael Welch

The eight year anniversary of the triple meltdowns at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear facility passed mostly without comment in mainstream media circles. In spite of ongoing radiological contamination that will continue to spread and threaten human health for lifetimes to come, other stories dominate the international news cycle. The climate change conundrum, serious though it may be, seemingly crowds out all other clear and present environmental hazards.

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Blackouts and Flashpoints in 2018: Who Rules America, Globalization and Geopolitics By Prof. James Petras

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28 January 2018 — Global Research

A radical making and remaking of political and economic integration, East and West.

The prophets and forecasters for the coming year have already set out their global vision ranging from rising economies to catastrophic global wars.

I want to argue from a different perspective, focusing on the increasing subdivision of markets, the deepening autonomy of political action from economic development, the greater threat of military interventions and increasing political accommodation.  I believe that we will experience a radical making and remaking of political and economic integration, East and West, within and without nations states.  ‘States Rights’ will re-emerge as an antidote to globalization.  Big countries will compete in regional wars with limited commitments but with global goals.

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Dark Side of Mr. Moon – Pushing for War on Korean Peninsula

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5 August 2017 — Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space

Activists in South Korea were excited and fairly optimistic that the election of liberal President Moon Jae-in might help deescalate tensions on the peninsula.  They hoped that he would block further deployments of the provocative THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense) missile defense system and even demand that the US pull back the two THAAD launch units that were rushed into Seongju (186 miles south of Seoul) during the middle of the night just prior to his recent election.

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New World Order Triumvirate: US, China, Japan? By Eric Walbeg

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19 May 2017 — Eric Walberg

Watching the most recent Hollywood blockbuster, The Martian, I was struck by the political subtext. The great pioneer of outer space was the Soviet Union, and in those days, Hollywood followed the spirit of detente and cooperation in space with such uplifting films as Space Odyssey 2010 and the tv series Star Trek. Now the hostile Cold War has returned, and Hollywood mirrors this in what is otherwise a rather ordinary adventure film. The startling plot device is to point to China as the new partner in space, leaving the Russians pointedly out of the equation. Just imagining a Hollywood nod to Russia–the pioneer of outer space exploration and good will–is impossible given the crisis in international relations today. Continue reading →

SNAFUkushima: Updating Meltdowns, Still FUBAR and Deteriorating By William Boardman

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31 May 2014 — Dissident Voice

Fallout from Fukushima? A re-make of Godzilla! That’s the good news  

There’s not much new to say about Fukushima. It remains an out of control disaster with as yet unmeasurable dimensions that continue to expand. Or perhaps it’s more accurate to say that everything new about Fukushima is just the same-old same-old getting worse at an uneven and unpredictable rate. Either way, it’s not good and, while it’s worse in degree, it’s not yet apparently worse in kind, so that’s one reason you don’t hear that much about it in the news these days.

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Nuclear regulators misled the media after Fukushima, emails show

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10 March 2014 — RT

On Monday this week — one day shy of the third anniversary of the Fukushima meltdown — NBC published emails obtained through a Freedom of Information Act that for the first time exposes on a major scale the efforts that NRC officials undertook in order to diminish the severity of the event in the hours and days after it began to unfold. Continue reading →

US Navy Knew that “Major Radiation Hits” from Fukushima Dangerously Contaminated the USS Reagan By Harvey Wasserman

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27 February 2014 — ecowatch.com

fukushimaevacuatuonA stunning new report indicates the U.S. Navy knew that sailors from the nuclear-powered USS Ronald Reagan took major radiation hits from the Fukushima atomic power plant after its meltdowns and explosions nearly three years ago. 

If true, the revelations cast new light on the $1 billion lawsuit filed by the sailors against Tokyo Electric Power. Many of the sailors are already suffering devastating health impacts, but are being stonewalled by Tepco and the Navy.The Reagan had joined several other U.S. ships in Operation Tomodachi (“Friendship”) to aid victims of the March 11, 2011 quake and tsunami. Photographic evidence and first-person testimony confirms that on March 12, 2011 the ship was within two miles of FukushimaDai’ichi as the reactors there began to melt and explode.

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Contamination of USS Ronald Reagan Potentially a Big Deal for Japan as well as US

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6 February 2014 — China Matters 

[Update: In 2013, Japan Focus published two superb pieces by investigative reporter Roger Witherspoon on the US military’s response to radioactive contamination during Operation Tomodachi: http://japanfocus.org/-Roger-Witherspoon/3918 & http://japanfocus.org/-Roger-Witherspoon/3919. His interviews with servicemen and women who served on the Reagan–and in many other locations and capacities during the relief operation, describe the harrowing circumstances of trying, sometimes unsuccessfully, to predict and dodge the Fukushima plume and deal with onboard contamination of people as well as equipment. Witherspoon’s account  begs the question of why the Department of Defense saw fit to discontinue the Todomachi Medical Registry, which would have established baseline data for exposed personnel and monitored them for health problems.  CH 2/5/14]

Fukushima Fish Story By William Boardman

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15 January 2014 — Reader Supported News

Reassuring the public about something dangerous is tricky

It’s true that the most intensely radioactive part of the Pacific Ocean currently is the area closest to Fukushima, Japan, where the destroyed nuclear power plant continuously adds to the radiation burden in the aquatic food chain. It’s equally true – and somewhat less scary – that Fukushima is but the most recent, best known source of radioactive pollution in a body of water that had a natural, low level of radioactivity long before any human started making it worse.

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Fukushima, a Global Conspiracy of Denial By William Boardman

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3 January 2014 — Reader Supported News

Does anyone in authority anywhere tell the truth about Fukushima?

If there is any government or non-government authority in the world that is addressing the disaster at Fukushima openly, directly, honestly, and effectively, it’s not apparent to the outside observer what entity that might be.

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