Tokyo’s annual defense white paper has raised concerns over growing ties between China and Russia
Japan sees an increasing amount of global and regional security risks tied to the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine, as well as the tension around Taiwan, according to the country’s new defense white paper. Tokyo is also concerned about the relationship developing between Moscow and Beijing, the document says.
Maiden cargo: LNG tanker arrives in Chiba Prefecture, Japan, in 2009 with first shipment from Sakhalin 2 project in RussiaThe simmering tensions between Moscow and Japan during the past 4-month period of the war in Ukraine surged when the Secretary of the Russian Security Council Nikolay Patrushev sounded the warning at a meeting on national security in Khabarovsk in the Russian Far East on Tuesday that Japan is ramping up its revanchist plans for the Kuril Islands.
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.
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 ModiBy 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.
3 August 2020 — John Pilger
In a major essay to mark the 75th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, John Pilger describes reporting from five ‘ground zeros’ for nuclear weapons – from Hiroshima to Bikini, Nevada to Polynesia and Australia. He warns that unless we take action now, China is next.
18 June 2019 — Global Research
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.
3 August 2020 — Consortium News
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.
21 March 2019 — Global Research
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.
8 March 2019 — Greenpeace International
Tokyo, Japan – The Japanese government is deliberately misleading United Nations human rights bodies and experts over the ongoing nuclear crisis in areas of Fukushima, according to a new investigation released by Greenpeace Japan today.[1]
28 January 2018 — Global Research
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.
10 August 2017 — TRNN
TRNN examines the myth that using nuclear weapons on civilian populations was necessary to force Japan to surrender
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.
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
31 May 2014 — Dissident Voice
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.
25 April 2014 — WashingtonsBlog
We reported in May 2011 that authorities knew – within days or weeks – that all 3 active Fukushima nuclear reactors had melted down, but covered up that fact for months.
111 March 2014 — RT
Contaminated water at the battered Fukushima plant has taken precedence over everything else. As the larger cleanup effort continues and storage space for the water is rapidly running out, scientists suggest dumping it into the Pacific Ocean. Continue reading
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
27 February 2014 — ecowatch.com
A 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.
6 February 2014 — China Matters
1 February 2014 — WashingtonsBlog
We’ve previously noted that General Electric should be held partially responsible for the Fukushima reactor because General Electric knew that its reactors were unsafe: Continue reading
The New Dark Age 