The measure of success of president-elect Barack Obama's new “Afghan strategy” will be directly proportional to his ability to delink the war from its geopolitical agenda inherited from the George W. Bush administration.

It is obvious that Russia and Iran's cooperation is no less critical for the success of the war than what the US is painstakingly extracting from the Pakistani generals. Arguably, Obama will even be in a stronger negotiating position vis-a-vis the tough generals in Rawalpindi if only he has Moscow and Tehran on board his Afghan strategy.

For divided nations such as the two Koreas, which by their very rationales are involved in a highly-charged competition for legitimacy with their other ‘part-nation’, the Olympics have been a particularly potent arena for political posturing. This article examines the troubled history of the two Koreas' endeavours to out-do each other in the Olympic movement, the prospects of a joint Korean team for the Beijing Olympics being realised, and the potential Chinese role in the run-up to those Olympics, which mean so much to China.

While Japan has a significant population of foreign workers, the national government has done little to provide citizenship rights or social services for them. In a number of cases, local municipalities and NGOs have stepped in to offer basic rights and social services to immigrants residing in their communities, leading to a type of local citizenship. If localities are emerging as important sites for the struggle for immigrant rights and social integration, there remain serious limitations to such efforts in a milieu in which the national government sharply restricts the rights of immigrants.

What are the links among Japan, China and the United States that will shape the outcomes of the current economic and financial crisis that appears to have metastasized into a global crisis of the whole postwar international order? Because that order rests heavily on Asian export-led export growth strategies and the transfer of massive Chinese and Japanese trade surpluses that support the dollar's role as the universal currency, any solution for the US and the international order will require the cooperation of the two Asian economic powers. John Judis looks far beyond the US treasury bailouts to offer thoughtful perspectives on the crisis and its resolution. MS

There could hardly be a better time for publishing Kinglun Ngok's article on Chinese labor policy and legislation. Three major national labor-related laws were passed in 2007 and went into effect in 2008. These are: the Labor Contract Law, the Employment Promotion Law, and the Labor Dispute Mediation and Arbitration Law. What does this flurry of labor legislations mean? Why now? And perhaps most important: does it matter for China's workers?

This article, and the subsequent exchange with Major Nathan C. Hurst, originated in a symposium on the US global military posture that appeared at Mother Jones. As the article was being posted, we learned that on the night of October 24 another US plane, this time a small Cessna 172 had crashed in Okinawa after clipping high-voltage wires, and burst into flames. The four US airmen on board were reportedly members of a private flying club at Kadena Air Base, “the hub of US airpower in the Pacific”. Kadena is home to 18,000 US airmen and 4,000 Japanese employees. US authorities stated that the plane was government owned. Local firefighters put out the blaze and escorted the four to a nearby hospital. As in the story that follows, the crash perfectly illustrates the conflict over jurisdiction under the Status of Forces Agreement as US authorities denied Japanese official attempts to investigate the plane in order to determine the cause of the accident. The Okinawa Times showed a huge crane loading the plane's wreckage onto a US military truck. US authorities stated that there is a special criminal law appended to SOFA which denies the Japanese authorities to take possession of US military property without US military permission. The Japanese authorities are awaiting a response to their request to examine the flight recorder. The fact that the crash occurred near Nago, where opponents have been fighting US plans to build a new Marine Air Station, is certain to strengthen calls to halt plans for construction. Fuji TV's video of the crashed plane shows local firefighters putting out the blaze and interviews boys who were playing baseball in a nearby field.. For a discussion of the incident and commentary on Okinawan anti-base sentiment among US service personnel and others, see the Okinawa Japan Forum.

The question of moral judgment looms large over every discussion of World War II collaboration, at times clouding and distorting our understanding of this complex issue, as Timothy Brook poignantly remarks in his contribution to this journal's recent symposium. This moral question is certainly relevant and should not be dismissed, since collaboration came to be more or less directly associated with the civic and human rights infringements perpetrated by the occupying forces. Always complex, this question becomes murkier when linked to the rhetoric of patriotism and to postwar political agendas, as is the case with the “resistentialist” postwar narrative that has dominated the debate on collaboration until recently. This narrative has mythologized resistance and enshrined it as the only patriotic, moral, and honorable response to foreign occupation, gliding over difficult moral dilemmas raised by some strategies and practices of resistance. In the process, it has polarized the debate on collaboration by offering only two opposite and monolithically-conceived categories: moral and patriotic resistance versus unethical and treasonous collaboration. It has therefore left no conceptual tool for gaining a more nuanced understanding of behaviors that do not fit this pre-established and rigid dichotomy, such as “nationalist” or “state-building” collaborationism—referring, respectively, to attempts at protecting nation and population from the occupying forces and at state building in the face of the complete and bewildering disappearance of the preexisting order, as in the cases discussed by Brook. Finally, this resistentialist narrative has constructed a universal image of collaboration, which tends to reduce various forms of this phenomenon in different countries to a common denominator, obliterating all political, social, and cultural differences.

In Japan at War: An Oral History, Hideo Sato recalls being forced to hoist the hinomaru, the Japanese flag, in tandem with the playing of Kimigayo — “His Majesty's Reign,” the Japanese national anthem — as a schoolchild in the 1940s. If the flag reached the top of the pole too early the teachers would beat him. More than 60 years later, he's “chagrined that they still raise the flag.”

For half a century, Australian journalists and academics have fought bitterly over the legacy of journalist Wilfred Burchett. Burchett broke the US embargo to report on radiation from Hiroshima in August 1945, calling it “the atomic plague, then controversially covered the Korean and Vietnam Wars from “the other side”. “Could anything justify the extermination of civilians on such a scale?” he pondered of Hiroshima.

On November 1, Paul Warfield Tibbets, Jr., the man who piloted the plane that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, died at his Columbus, Ohio home at age 92. Throughout his adult life, he was a warrior. He bravely fought the Nazis in 1942 and 1943. He fought the Japanese in 1944 and 1945. And he spent the next 62 years fighting to defend the atomic bombings.

Japan's unique system of detention, interrogation and trial was recently subjected to withering criticism by the UN. Will anything change?

Even in a culture that frowns on displays of extreme emotion, Yanagihara Hiroshi cannot suppress his rage. The state falsely accused him of rape, imprisoned him for two years then freed him with the odd words of Judge Fujita Satoshi ringing in his years. “I hope the rest of his life will be meaningful,” said Fujita following a rare retrial at Takaoka Branch of Toyama District Court. While languishing in Fukui Prison, Yanagihara lost his job and his father, who died alone. “The judge's ‘not-my-problem attitude’ made me sick,” Yanagihara said after the verdict.

By the mid-1960s, the Mekong Delta, with its verdant paddies and canal-side hamlets, was the rice bowl of South Vietnam and home to nearly 6 million Vietnamese. It was also one of the most important revolutionary strongholds during the Vietnam War. Despite its military significance, State Department officials were “deeply concerned” about introducing a large number of US troops into the densely populated area, fearing that it would be impossible to limit civilian carnage.

This report provides background information and analysis concerning the humanitarian crisis caused by Cyclone Nargis when it passed through the densely populated Irrawaddy Delta and Burma's largest city Rangoon (Yangon) on May 2-3, 2008. One of the largest natural disasters in recent history, it caused the death of as many as 130,000 people (the official figure on May 16 was 78,000) and resulted in between one and two million people losing their homes and property.

Historical issues haunt Japan. The world is facing a crisis, which may become a once in a century depression in the wake of Wall Street's financial meltdown and the subsequent recession throughout the world. Japan is no exception. At this time of crisis each country must show its resilience to alleviate immediate pain while implementing a long-term policy to strengthen the fundamentals of its economy and society. Japan is asked to come up with a powerful economic policy to overcome its crisis and contribute to global solutions. Barack Obama was elected president of the United States, and expectations are rising not only in the States but throughout the world that the U.S. will confront this challenge effectively. This is a golden opportunity for Japan because the fundamentals of Japan-US relations are solid and much of Obama's agenda coincides precisely with what the Japanese government has asserted for decades: the necessity for a sustainable global economy, emphasis on the environment, need for a long-term energy policy, serious concern about nuclear disarmament, cooperation through the United Nations and so on. Why not come up with creative ideas to attract the attention of Obama's new team and consolidate the alliance?

We are now facing a critical situation. Not just Japan, but the world as a whole is in crisis. With America at the center, globalization is racing ahead, but there are also strong countercurrents with nationalism becoming stronger in various places. In the midst of war and terror, the threat of global warming is becoming clear to all. In this world, I believe that we should advance toward regionalism. In 2003 I hoisted this flag in a book entitled The Common House of Northeast Asia — Declaration of a New Regionalism published by Heibonsha.

A story broke last week that was noted by the foreign media but not dealt with in great detail in South Korea. The Japanese government acknowledged “for the first time” that in the late stages of the Pacific War, 300 Allied prisoners-of-war were forced into labor at a coal mine affiliated with Aso Mining, which has been run for generations by the family of Japanese Prime Minister Aso Taro.

Connie Bruck's account of billionaire Sheldon Adelson using his millions to refashion the politics of Israel strikes several familiar notes. Around the world states are in standoffs against their richest citizens. In Thailand Thaksin Shinawatra has challenged the traditional monarchist establishment of the country. The Russian oligarchs dominated Russian politics for a decade in the Yeltsin era. In Mexico a similar role has been played by oligarchs such as Carlos Hank González (d. 2001), and Carlos Slim Helù, today the second richest man in the world.

What is the role of apologies in international reconciliation? Jennifer Lind finds that while denying or glorifying past violence is indeed inimical to reconciliation, apologies that prove to be domestically polarizing may be diplomatically counterproductive. Moreover, apologies were not necessary in many cases of successful reconciliation. What then is the relationship between historical memory and international reconciliation?

How is terrorism to be defined in the contemporary world? Who are the terrorists? What distinguishes state terrorism from other forms of terrorism? Noam Chomsky offers a global perspective on these issues with particular reference to the United States, Israel and the Middle East. Japan Focus

The military adventurers of the Bush administration have much in common with the corporate leaders of the defunct energy company Enron. Both groups of men thought that they were the “smartest guys in the room,” the title of Alex Gibney's prize-winning film on what went wrong at Enron. The neoconservatives in the White House and the Pentagon outsmarted themselves. They failed even to address the problem of how to finance their schemes of imperialist wars and global domination.