This is the story of the arrest and detention of anti-base activist leader Yamashiro Hiroji, his role in the struggle to prevent the construction of a new US Marine base at Henoko, and the implications for Japanese democracy of his protracted detention without trial for Gavan McCormack, “Yamashiro Hiroji and the Okinawan Anti-Base Struggle”. It concludes with the “Emergency Statement by 41 Criminal Law Scholars Demanding the Release of Yamashiro Hiroji”

With rising US-China tensions in the course of the US presidential campaign, Marc Grossman considers the possibilities for a collaborative relationship and the costs of the alternatives as both nations offer a vision for a new silk road.

The city of Ōfunato is located in northeastern Japan, in the southeastern portion of Iwate Prefecture. It lies on the Sanriku coast and is a fine example of a ria coastline with several prongs of mountainous ridges that extend outward into the sea. The coast is home to Iwate's largest port, and houses several well-developed industries, including industries related to fishing, marine products processing, and cement production.

The impact of the 3.11 triple disaster of earthquake, tsunami and nuclear power meltdown is told here in visual images and the poetry by Arai Takako.

This paper will reconsider previous work on the demographic transition under way in West Papua (the Indonesian provinces of Papua and Papua Barat) in the light of documents received from the Indonesian Statistics Office (Badan Pusat Statistic BPS) that give an ethnic breakdown across the 29 regencies that comprise Papua province and the eleven regencies in Papua Barat. They show that, while the proportion of Papuan people as a percentage of the entire population continues to decline, this process varies widely between different regencies. While some have a strong majority of non-Papuan people other regencies are still overwhelmingly Papuan. This dichotomy is closely linked with topography – the mountainous interior outside of urban areas having a Papuan majority and the accessible lowlands a non-Papuan majority. The consequences of this dichotomy – a large chunk of West Papua about the size of Great Britain is peopled almost exclusively by Melanesian people, even as some of the coastal regions become non-Papuan majority– is profound. West Papuans of the interior have not only survived Indonesian occupation but have kept their lands and cultures largely intact, which continues to underpin calls for an independent West Papua and conflict with the Indonesian government and its security forces. While coastal regions continue to receive large numbers of non-Papuan migrants resulting in the increasing minoritisation of the Papuan people and their concomitant militarization, marginalization and dispossession. This process is also occurring in the highlands from expansion of the oil/gas sector and mining sector; the proliferation of new regencies (with new bureaucracies) and the continuing development of new roads, all of which alienate traditional land and draw in migrants. Meanwhile the conflict over the political status of West Papua will continue, and indeed grow, as external actors, such as the Pacific countries of Vanuatu and the Solomon Islands, shine a spotlight on the conflict and advocate for the right to self-determination for the West Papuan people.

This essay is dedicated to Professor Peter King, who died in Sydney in August 2016. Peter and I cofounded the West Papua Project at the Center for Peace and Conflict Studies at Sydney University in 2000 and was my teacher, mentor and friend for 24 years.

Medical journalist Aihara Hiroko assesses the threat of childhood thyroid cancer for the victims of the 3.11 triple disaster as a result of radiation and the melting of nuclear fuel rods in Fukushima.