Seconds Away From Midnight
During the 1960, as the Cold War heated up, the U.S. government placed nuclear weapons in Okinawa, Japan, which it did not admit until years later.
Largest Demonstrations in Half a Century Protest the Restart of Japanese Nuclear Power Plants
This article examines the protests held in Japan on June 29, 2012 in response to the government’s call for resumption of nuclear energy after Fukishima.
U.S. Veteran Exposes Pentagon’s Denials of Agent Orange Use on Okinawa
This article examines the efforts of the U.S. government to deny the storage of Agent Orange on the Okinawa military base during the Vietnam War and the U.S. veterans, and their family members, whose health has been permanently damaged by exposure to the chemicals during the 1960s and 70s.
North Korea’s 100th–To Celebrate or To Surrender?
As North Korea’s launch date for its satellite approaches, the international community has responded with threats and by distancing themselves from Pyongyang. However, a far better solution could be reached from the international community working towards closer relations with North Korea.
Kim Jong-il and the Normalization of Japan-North Korea Relations
Despite the recent change in North Korea’s leadership, it is important that talks resume between Pyongyang and Japan.
ANPO: Art X War – In Havoc’s Wake
Our plane was one hour away from landing when the pilot announced, “There’s been a major earthquake in Japan and Narita is shut down.” It was March 11th, 2011. I was en route to Japan to teach my film, ANPO: Art X War in art, film and history classes at the American School in Tokyo the following week. Or so I thought. I could never have imagined I would arrive to witness Japan’s greatest postwar disaster. Or the resonances my film would assume in its wake.
Would An Independent West Papua Be A Failing State?
“Where it cuts across the island of New Guinea, the 141st meridian east remains one of colonial cartography’s more arbitrary yet effective of boundaries.”
Exodus to North Korea Revisited
In towns and cities all over Japan farewell gatherings were being held, as “returnees” to North Korea packed their bags and boarded trains that would take them to the port of Niigata where, after various formalities including a “confirmation of free will” by the International Committee of the Red Cross, they would board Russian ships for the voyage to Cheongjin in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
Deception and Diplomacy: The US, Japan, and Okinawa
For the student of contemporary Japan, these are sad times…because of the growing sense that Japan lacks a truly responsible democratic government to address these issues, and because its people deserve better.