This revised and updated version of the author's earlier “North Korea's 100th - To Celebrate or To Surrender?” was prepared for the Korean journal Changbi. Given strong interest in the issues, The Asia-Pacific Journal is publishing the updated version.

Spring always brings reminders of the abiding insecurity that stems from the continuing division and confrontation of two states and systems on the Korean peninsula. On the one side, South Korea and the United States conduct large-scale military exercises, involving land, sea and air forces, (Operations Key Resolve and Foal Eagle) designed to rehearse a reopening of war. North Korea inevitably raises its levels of alert and readiness and its tone of belligerence, and in such climate the Cheonan incident occurred in March 2010.

For the media, time is of the essence in a news story. The March 11, 2011 disaster attracted thousands of reporters and photographers from around the world. There was a brief deluge of Japanese and international media coverage on the first anniversary, this spring. Now the journalists have packed up and gone and by accident or design Japan's government seems to be mobilizing its agenda, aware that it is under less scrutiny.

The press pack has disappeared like a ghost since this April. The influx of foreign media has suddenly stopped, as I can attest since I worked as a translator and aid to many foreign journalists in the year up to the 3.11 anniversary in 2012. Using the keywords ‘Fukushima’ and ‘nuclear plant’ in Japanese to scour the Nikkei TELECOM 21 search engine shows 9,981 domestic news items in April 2012, just over half the 17,272 stories the previous month.