Kitakyushu is home to just under one million residents, making it the 11th most populous city in Japan. It is roughly equidistant to Shanghai and Tokyo, and actually closer to Seoul and Pyongyang than the Japanese capital. As the largest Japanese port west of Osaka-Kobe, it positions itself as a commercial gateway to Asia. Over the last thirty years the city has also worked tirelessly to shed its image as a rust belt steel town, rebranding itself as Eco-Model City Kitakyushu, a centre for environmental technology and protection measures. This hard work threatens to be undone by decisions being taken right now.

On 26 December 26, 2012 Abe Shinzo is to resume the position of Prime Minister of Japan, following the resounding victory of the Liberal- Democratic Party (LDP) under his presidency in the elections two weeks earlier. He came to power with an explicit agenda: seeing the US alliance as central to Japan and therefore attaching priority to carrying out Japan's obligations under it, revising the constitution so as to convert the current Self Defense Forces into a Kokubogun or National Army and adopting a stance of authorizing participation of Japan's forces in “collective security” operations (i.e., fighting wars shoulder-to- shoulder with American forces), establishing a national “Takeshima Day,” (to reinforce the Japanese claim to the island that South Korea knows as Tokdo and refuses to consider yielding), and adopting a hardline stance towards China, insisting there was “no room for negotiation” on the matter of conflicting claims to the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands. “What is called for in and around the Senkaku Islands,” he wrote, “is not negotiation but physical force incapable of being misunderstood.”

They exist all over Japan, like tiny sparks of light, flickering and fragile, but somehow surviving against the odds: the peace museums, the reconciliation groups, the local history movements that work to address problems of historical responsibility neglected or denied by national politicians. As Kazuyo Yamane notes, according to a UN survey, Japan has the highest number of peace museums of any country in the world (Yamane 2009, xii). But the heritage created at the grassroots by ordinary Japanese people is constantly under threat from the hostility of nationalist politicians and sections of the media: and never more so than today (see Chan 2008; Morris- Suzuki, Low, Petrov and Tsu 2012).

The crisis that began on March 11, 2011 at the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant made the fundamental transformation of Japanese society and politics unavoidable, and it also provides the context that pushes that transformation ahead.

The government of Kyrgyzstan has embarked on an ambitious hydropower development programme on the transboundary Syr Darya River, which has provoked strong opposition from downstream Uzbekistan. The programme is driven by the alignment of actual energy concerns with interests of the national hydraulic elites and the global politics of project finance, which provides a logic for dams that may exacerbate existing geopolitical tensions across the region.

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.

From January 9 until February 23, 2012, I was in Japan on an invitational fellowship from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS). My host institution was Kanagawa University and my host researcher was Prof. Mutai Shunsuke.

The decade after the Korean War (1950-1953) was a formative era for North Korea. Many of the striking features of the country's political and social system visible today took root during the postwar era, from the mid-1950s to the late 1960s.

The era was, above all, a time of proud achievements for North Korea. Socialist politics are often referred to as substantive economic democracy based on the principle of egalitarian access to and distribution of social goods, in contrast to the formal democracy of liberal states founded on ideas of universal suffrage and personal liberty to pursue greater access to social goods. In the early postwar years, North Korea achieved great success in building a state and economic system on the model of substantive democracy, rapidly transforming a war-torn, and previously highly stratified, primarily agrarian society into an energetic, industrial society enjoying distributive justice and universal literacy.

When Siraj, the ruler of Bengal, overran the British settlement of Calcutta in 1756, he allegedly jailed 146 European prisoners overnight in a cramped prison. Of the group, 123 died of suffocation. While this episode was never independently confirmed, the story of "the black hole of Calcutta" was widely circulated and seen by the British public as an atrocity committed by savage colonial Subjects. Partha Chatterjee's The Black Hole of Empire: History of a Global Practice of Power (Princeton, 2012) follows the ever-changing representations of this historical event and founding myth of the British Empire in India, from the eighteenth century to the present. Chatterjee explores how a supposed tragedy paved the ideological foundations for the “civilizing” force of British imperial rule and territorial control in India.

The “nuclear village” is the term commonly used in Japan to refer to the institutional and individual pro-nuclear advocates who comprise the utilities, nuclear vendors, bureaucracy, Diet (Japan's parliament), financial sector, media and academia. This is a village without boundaries or residence cards, an imagined collective bound by solidarity over promoting nuclear energy. If it had a coat of arms the motto would be “Safe, Cheap and Reliable”. There is considerable overlap with the so-called ‘Iron Triangle’ of big business, the bureaucracy and Liberal Democratic Party that called the shots in Japan from the mid-1950s, and the evocative moniker ‘Japan, Inc.’, a reference to cooperative ties between the government and private sector. The nuclear village is convenient shorthand to describe a powerful interest group with a specific agenda, one that it has effectively and profitably promoted since the 1950s. (McCormack 2011)

In September of 2012, Dr. Calin Georgescu, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the implications for human rights of the environmentally sound management and disposal of hazardous substances and waste, submitted his report on the legacy of the nuclear weapon testing program of the United States in the Marshall Islands to the Human Rights Council of the UN. This long overdue report offers a harsh assessment of the history of American nuclear testing in the Pacific and the subsequent underplaying of both the health and welfare of the Marshallese, and the radiological contamination wrought by the 67 nuclear weapon tests (atmospheric and underwater) conducted there between 1946 and 1958.

In early December 2011 the Nippon Ham Fighters of Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) “posted” Yu Darvish, making him eligible to field contract offers from Major League Baseball (MLB) teams in the United States. Darvish, a tall, handsome then 24 year old who, from 2005-2011, was the team's ace pitcher, had been the frequent subject of speculation: would he, and if so when, leave Japan for American baseball. By December 19 the Texas Rangers had won the posting process with a bid of $51.7 million dollars, paid entirely to Nippon Ham, payable upon the successful negotiation of a contract with Darvish. Several weeks later a six year, $60 million dollar agreement was signed and the next round of Darvish's athletic endeavors was set to unfold outside Japan. The month long process assumed its place alongside other moves by prominent Japanese baseball players to the United States, with baseball fans in both countries discussing and dissecting how he would fare against MLB competition.

An oblique tooth is viewed in the States as requiring straightening, but in Japan it may be thought of as emblematic of a young woman's charm. While a slim body is a prerequisite for beauty today, plump women were considered beautiful in Tang Dynasty China and Heian period Japan. Starting from around the twelfth century in China, bound feet symbolized the attractiveness of women. But Japan, which received sundry influences from China, never adopted foot-binding. Instead, shaving eyebrows and blackening teeth became markers of feminine beauty. Before modern times, neither Japanese nor Chinese paid much attention to double eyelids, but in the course of the long twentieth century they became a standard for distinguishing beautiful from plain women. Thus, criteria of beauty greatly differ by era and culture, and therein lie many riddles.

In May 1947 Japan, under the influence of its US occupiers, adopted a new constitution which stated, ‘aspiring sincerely to an international peace based on justice and order, the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes.’ Yet, just two years after this proclamation of lasting peace (and only five years after their defeat in the Asia-Pacific War) thousands of Japanese citizens were once again in a war zone, engaged in combat-related tasks in their newly liberated former colony of Korea; and this engagement was initiated and overseen by the United States, the very country which had ensured the inclusion of the peace clause in the Japanese constitution.

Sixty years have passed since the signing and enactment of the San Francisco Peace Treaty. This post-World War II settlement with Japan, prepared and signed against the background of the intensifying Cold War, sowed seeds of frontier problems that continue to challenge regional security in East Asia. Taking the “San Francisco System” as its conceptual grounding, this article examines these problems in the context of the post-World War II regional international order and its transformation. In light of their multilateral origins, particularly the unresolved territorial problems involving Japan and its neighbors, the article explores ideas for multilateral settlements that could lead East Asia toward greater regional cooperation and community building.

This article examines the problems associated with the fact that Japanese nuclear power plants have multiple reactors within one plant and are concentrated in specific regions. It analyzes the situation from international, domestic, and local perspectives, revealing features of Japanese state-local relations.

On February 6, 2012 Osaka Mayor Hashimoto Toru issued an order to all Osaka City employees compelling them to disclose personal information concerning labor union activity, their support for political candidates, and other sensitive matters. The survey includes such questions as “In the last two years, have you participated in any activities in support of a particular politician?” and “In the last two years, has a co-worker ever requested that you vote for a particular politician?” It goes on to request the identities of such coworkers or others who invited the respondent to participate in political activities. Each respondent must provide name, employee number and work description. (An English translation of the Hashimoto Survey is found at the end of the article.)

In this recent flare-up of the island dispute after Japan “purchased” three of the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands, Japan reiterates its position that “the Senkaku Islands are an inherent part of the territory of Japan, in light of historical facts and based upon international law.” This article evaluates Japan's claims as expressed in the “Basic View on the Sovereignty over the Senkaku Islands” published on the website of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Japan. These claims are: the Senkaku/Diaoyu island group was terra nullius which Japan occupied by Cabinet Decision in 1895; China did not, per China's contention, cede the islands in the Shimonoseki Treaty; Japan was not required to renounce them as war booty by the San Francisco Peace Treaty; and accordingly Japan's sovereignty over these islands is affirmed under said Treaty. Yet a careful dissection of Japan's claims shows them to have dubious legal standing. Pertinent cases of adjudicated international territorial disputes are examined next to determine whether Japan's claims have stronger support from case law. Although the International Court of Justice has shown effective control to be determinative in a number of its rulings, a close scrutiny of Japan's effective possession/control reveals it to have little resemblance to the effective possession/control in other adjudicated cases. As international law on territorial disputes, in theory and in practice, does not provide a sound basis for its claim of sovereignty over the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands, Japan will hopefully set aside its putative legal rights and, for the sake of peace and security in the region, start working with China toward a negotiated and mutually acceptable settlement.

Martin Dusinberre's new book, Hard Times in the Hometown: A History of Community Survival in Modern Japan (Hawaii, 2012), focuses on Kaminoseki, a planned nuclear site in western Japan. Dusinberre weaves the stories of individual townspeople into the wider history of modern Japan from the nineteenth century to the present day. Here, he summarizes some of the key arguments of the book with regard to nuclear power, and updates the story from the middle of 2011, when he finished the manuscript.