[The Nuclear Proliferation Treaty seeks to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons by preventing non-nuclear powers from developing nuclear weapons and requiring that nuclear powers dismantle their stockpiles. Mohammed ElBaradei, Director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), has described as “unworkable” the way of thinking that it is “morally reprehensible for some counties to pursue weapons of mass destruction yet morally acceptable for others to rely on them for security and indeed to continue to refine their capacities and postulate plans for their use.” In the latest U.S. flouting of NPT obligations, the National Nuclear Security Administration has now announced plans for a new generation of nuclear warheads. Japan Focus]

[Michael Klare, who has written compellingly on oil as a driving factor in US policy in the Middle East and globally, here turns his gaze toward yet larger dynamics driving US military strategy. He concludes that in a world in which there is only one potential military threat to US primacy, the single logical explanation for the continued growth of the US military budget, its drive to expand its nuclear arsenal and to extend its nuclear hegemony to outer space, can be summed up in one word: China.

TOKYO - Energy-hungry Japan is revving up its drive to secure uranium abroad as global demand for nuclear power rises amid stubbornly high oil and gas prices and growing environmental concerns. Major Japanese trading and energy firms are looking at multibillion yen investments in uranium mine projects, with electronics conglomerate Toshiba in February purchasing Westinghouse, the US power plant arm of British Nuclear Fuels, for about US$5.4 billion. Meanwhile, the government, which attaches great importance to nuclear power as a key to ensuring national energy security, is also considering assistance to help domestic firms in the intensifying global competition for fuel at nuclear power plants. Among those measures are financial aid and more investment-insurance coverage by government-affiliated organizations. Japan is already the world's third-largest nuclear power nation in terms of the number of civilian nuclear plants in operation. Uranium prices are climbing as energy-hungry China and India are stepping up construction of nuclear power plants to fuel their high-flying economies, while some industrialized countries, including the US and Britain, are moving to build new nuclear power plants after many years of suspension following nuclear accidents at Three Mile Island in the US in 1979 and Chernobyl in Ukraine in 1986. Nuclear power generation has begun to come under the spotlight again due to growing environmental concerns as well as the high prices for oil and gas. Nuclear power plants generate much less carbon dioxide, the primary greenhouse gas widely blamed for global warming, than coal-fired facilities. Renewable energy sources such as wind and solar power generation are not available in sufficient amounts - and at affordable prices.

[The chief of the Asahi shimbun's editorial board here draws attention to the cycle of reconciliation/repudiation, apology/assertion in Japan's attitudes towards Asia. He dubs this the “Law of Next Year,” meaning that the one is inevitably followed by the other.

[Richard Armitage, Deputy Secretary of State under the Bush administration until 2005, recently pronounced the US-Japan relationship to be in excellent condition - on a par with the US relationship with Britain. He should know, since he has been a central figure in shaping it. Yet the process of Global Reorganization of US forces has been completed with Europe and South Korea, but not Japan. True, an “Interim Agreement” was reached at the end of October 2005, but the end of March 2006, the deadline set for the final document, has now passed and, instead of agreement, wrangling continues.

Nazery Khalid - Research Fellow, Center for Economic Studies and Ocean Industries. Maritime Institute of Malaysia - reports that 7 of the world's 20 busiest terminals are in China. The port to watch is Shanghai, which is poised to overtake its main rivals (Hong Kong and Singapore). In 2005, Shanghai handled 443 million tons of cargo in total and 18.09 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) of containers, an increase of 24.2 percent compared with the previous year (Hong Kong handled 23.2 million TEUs and Singapore 22.43 TEUs). The Shanghai region is expected to handle 35 million TEUs of container traffic by 2010. This is because the port of Ningbo will continue its own frenetic expansion of capacity as well as install the world's longest bridge (the US$ 1.4 billion Hangzhou Bay Bridge) to cut the travel time to Shanghai to two hours. In addition, Shanghai is adding a deepwater facility in nearby Yangshan and working out deals with other North China ports to provide international service for them.

For all who have opposed Pakistan's nuclear program over the years - including myself - the US-India nuclear agreement may be the worst thing that has happened in a long time.

LOS ANGELES (Kyodo) After the 60th anniversary of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki passed last August, filmmaker Steven Okazaki began worrying that the attacks and their cautionary lessons are being forgotten.

When Hokamura Kenichiro's kidneys failed, he waited over four years for a transplant before going online to check out rumors of organs for sale.

As a native of Japan, where less than 10 kidney transplants are performed a year, the 62-year- old businessman was desperate. “There are 100 people waiting in this prefecture alone and there were just three operations performed here last year. I would have died before getting a donor.”

[Chua and Yeo in this tour d'horizon of nuclear proliferation reveal the large number of players edging toward nuclear weapons capacity. They also hint at another central theme in US policy toward India: creating one more powerful link in the chain of China encirclement. The net effect is to doom hopes for a viable NPT regime, with the US leading the way in its demise. MS]

Some people complain that poetry has never been the same since poets were absolved of their obligations to rhyme and rhythm. The same people also think that since the 1968 scrapping of the Hollywood Production Code that regulated sexual content, movies have lost a lot of their sexual sizzle.

TAKARAZUKA, Hyogo Prefecture–It was a strange time to fall in love. The Americans were about to land on Okinawa Prefecture for what would later be one of the bloodiest battles of World War II.

This article appeared in IHT/Asahi Shinbun on April 12,2006. Posted at Japan Focus on April 18, 2006.

[In an unprecedented move, Japan has agreed to pay $6.1 billion to relocate 8,000 US Marines from Okinawa to Guam. As the Asahi and Yomiuri reports show, many important questions remain unanswered. They include: why is Japan paying to establish US bases thousands of miles away? Does this mean that Japan's, and above all Okinawa's faithful service in providing a launch pad for US forces in Korea, Vietnam, in Iraq and elsewhere were inadequate? Or is this more in the nature of the kind of payoff required to encourage an unwelcome visitor to leave one's neighborhood? Why did Japan finally accept the inflated US estimates of the costs of such a move and double the share it agreed to pay? And what will be the costs for Japan of the other side of the agreement, the construction of a heliport at Heneko and troop transfers at Iwakuni and elsewhere, moves bitterly fought by local citizens? The Yomiuri speaks of costs in the range of two trillion yen, dwarfing the costs of the Guam move.

[It is well known that Japan's neighbors, especially China and South Korea, are unhappy at what they see as Japan's failure to accept responsibility, apologize and compensate victims for its wartime crimes and colonial abuses. What is less well known, however, is the Japanese state's reluctance to address the same questions of justice and human rights in the case of its own citizens who were victims of crimes committed by the prewar or wartime state. No Japanese court has ever adequately addressed the criminality of any action by the prewar or wartime state, including its armed forces. Courts have been, and continue to be, deeply reluctant to consider any possible claim of state criminality.

[Hiroshi Ono assesses the repeated claims that Japan's long-term, or “lifetime,” employment system is dead. Examining recent surveys of the different ways in which lifetime employment has been defined and measured, he shows, not surprisingly, that whether you see lifetime employment as shrinking or not depends on how you measure it.

Ono points out that some people define lifetime employees as those who work at large firms with more than 500 employees and for the government. By this measure, the share of the workforce covered declined from 23.4 percent in 1985 to 19.2 percent in 2003.

[As the US seeks to isolate Iran and pave the way for UN sanctions that would legitimate an attack on Iran, China and Russia have taken important steps to expand their regional organization. The Shanghai Cooperation Organization constitutes the major regional challenge to American power in the Asia Pacific region. The invitation to Iran comes at a time when that nation faces extreme international isolation, and raises the stakes in the US diplomatic and military efforts to pressure Iran to terminating its nuclear program.]

The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), which maintained it had no plans for expansion, is now changing course. Mongolia, Iran, India and Pakistan, which previously had observer status, will become full members. SCO's decision to welcome Iran into its fold constitutes a political statement. Conceivably, SCO would now proceed to adopt a common position on the Iran nuclear issue at its summit meeting June 15.

[The single most morally and politically difficult issue related to World War II for Japanese is the wartime attitudes of the general population. When the Pacific War began in December 1941, most Japanese approved and expected to prevail, although some well- informed people immediately suspected that the government had initiated a fight that it could not win. By the last year of the war, however, soldiers in the field could no longer expect reinforcements or even basic supplies. Scores of thousands of soldiers nevertheless unquestioningly followed orders to sacrifice their lives even after they knew it was for a doomed cause. The most famous such individuals were the kamikaze pilots, but many less glamorous foot-soldiers also chose death, often in an obviously ineffectual military action, over surrender. On Saipan, many local Japanese and native civilians also took their own lives when they realized that the Allies would soon win control of the island. Arakaki Saburo, a technical school student from Okinawa who was studying on Saipan and is the subject of this memoir, shared this attitude.

Energy-poor Japan is revving up its diplomatic drive to strengthen relations with the oil and gas rich countries of Central Asia in response to stubbornly high oil prices. This comes at a time when the US, Russia and China are all flexing their political muscles in Central Asia, competing in an attempt to secure the region's precious energy resources.