It was hard to tell whether Australia’s Federal Police authorities, along with their Victorian colleagues, were gloating at their latest effort. Thrilled at the unearthing of a stash of methamphetamine, a form of it colloquially known as ice, trumpeted as …
The Vietnamese perspective is rarely found in English language books about the Vietnam War, especially regarding the CIA’s “liaison” relationship with South Vietnamese police and security officials. Which is why I considered myself very fortunate when I was introduced to…
Introduction
This essay was the last major published work by Hayashi Kyoko, who died on February 19, 2017, at the age of 86. Born in Nagasaki on August 28, 1930, Hayashi spent most of her childhood in Shanghai, until …
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is often now cited by the remaining band of optimists in Washington as a safe pair of hands, limiting the influence of the foreign policy manias permeating the White House. Unfortunately for both the United …
Suzuki Yūichi (56) was born to a farming family in Namie, Fukushima in 1960. Namie was one of the areas most devastated by the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, as well as the Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami of March 11, 2011. …
While the Trump presidency is mired in chaos, another national leader, also accused of being a fascist, is solidifying his rule of the Philippines.
Rodrigo Duterte was elected president of the Southeast Asian island nation in May 2016 and remains …
India has strained relations with virtually all of its neighbors. India functions as the modern Asian imperialist. All of India’s neighbors will have dossiers of issues related to incursions, interventions, interferences and covert operations to relate about India. Raising …
Elderly women held up signs reading “Illegal THAAD, back to the U.S!” as they marched, leaning on walking frames for support.
Soseong-ri, their small village in South Korea, has become the center of a fight that could lay the groundwork …
US and European interests continue to portray the government and nation of North Korea as a perpetual security threat to both Asia and the world. Allegations regarding the nation’s nuclear weapon and ballistic missile programs are continuously used as justification …
The curious, sweaty mammals of North Queensland in Australia are bracing themselves for yet another cyclone with an anodyne name. Cyclone Debbie might have impressed you as a person who turns up at the door asking for donations for the …
A report of Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), especially prepared for the US Congress and the Trump administration, finds what should be called a magnanimous failure of the US in achieving any of its major objectives in Afghanistan …
“The Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) says an internal review into World Vision funding in Gaza has uncovered nothing to suggest any diversion of government aid funding to Hamas.” ABC
The blow to Israel’s credibility is colossal …
Prominent American propagandist Howard French recently published a lengthy editorial in the Guardian titled, “Is it too late to save Hong Kong from Beijing’s authoritarian grasp?,” in which he attempts to buttress an otherwise categorically false narrative surrounding …
Singaporean Defence Minister Ng Eng Hen reiterated the importance of the city-state’s policy of Total Defence. In his statement coinciding with the 75th anniversary of the British surrender of the island to Japanese forces in 1942, he spoke specifically about …
With extreme recklessness, the Trump administration is charting a course toward war in the Asia-Pacific. From the response in the US media and political establishment, however, one would have no idea how dangerous the situation is, nor how incalculable the …
Panmunjom, the ‘peace village’ on the incredibly tense demilitarized zone (aka DMZ) between North and South Korea, is one of the weirdest places I’ve ever visited. Tough North Korean soldiers lurk about, watched by equally tough South Korean troops in …
Almost six years after a tsunami caused a meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, the facility’s operator, Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco) faces overwhelming problems to clean up the site. Tepco now reports radiation in reactor 2 that would …
The Indonesian government must address the human rights violations in Long Isun, Indonesia – a global gathering has declared.
Delegates from Africa, Asia and Latin America heard first-hand testimonies of the growing harm facing forest communities around the world. From …
The Trump administration has further exacerbated the extremely tense standoff on the Korean Peninsula by dispatching attack drones to South Korea and sending special forces units to participate in massive war games already underway. The military build-up takes place as …
On March 1, the WSJ reported that the options contemplated by the White House in response to recent North Korean acts, include “the possibility of both military force and regime change to counter the country’s nuclear-weapons threat.” The review came …
The United States and South Korea are conducting their largest-ever military exercises on the Korean peninsula [1], one week after the White House announced that it was considering military action against North Korea to bring about regime change. [2] The …
A US led war against North Korea would affect the entire Asia Pacific region. It is crucial that ASEAN countries take a firm stance against Washington’s first strike missile threats against the DPRK.
As outlined by Chandra Muzaffar, Malaysia …
“Do not go to Japan. Do not under any circumstances take your children to Japan, because you don’t know what you’re eating and where the food is sourced…
And the Japanese are trying now to export their radioactive food …
The most outstanding feature of Islam is its history; if you study Islamic history, you would come to realize that Islam did not spread by force alone, it was the superior moral appeal of its peerless ethics that won the …
As the first military hardware associated with the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, commonly called THAAD, arrives in the southern region of the Korean Peninsula, the tensions around and within the region seem to be escalating. A number of ongoing …
A potential wood supplier for one of the world’s largest pulp and paper mills does not have the consent of local communities
A joint investigation report released in English on May 8, 2017 by Indonesian NGOs titled “Local Communities …
The US has begun the installation of its Terminal High Altitude Area Defence (THAAD) anti-ballistic missile system in South Korea, provoking an angry reaction from China, which warned that it could trigger a nuclear arms race in the region. The …
Massive protests in South Korea are barely covered by the Western media. More than 15 million have demonstrated against president Park who is supported by Washington (M. Ch. GR Editor)
Public opinion poll shows that support for Park’s impeachment has …
The global populist fever is catching. Put the nation first before all else, patria before sense. Make America Great Again. One Nation before any other. Australia has been a fairly non-responsive patient to that effect, keeping its symptoms to the …
Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) (All Indian Student Council) is a right wing Hindu nationalist student organisation affiliated to the Hindu nationalist Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). “It participates in joint activities with BJP’s official youth wing, Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha…
The Pacific Ocean is large. Since World War II, weapon systems operating in this theater have required special provisions regarding extensive range, long duration performance and relative self-sufficiency during operations.
From America’s Gato-class submarines and PBY Catalina flying boats used …
The volume of international transfers of major weapons has grown continuously since 2004 and increased by 8.4 per cent between 2007–11 and 2012–16, according to new data on arms transfers published today by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). …
Americans have consistently identified ISIS as the biggest threat to their nation across multiple polls. Traditional foes, such as the countries making up George W. Bush’s infamous “Axis Of Evil”, have been pushed into the background by the rise of …
Trump’s new defense chief James Mattis hit the ground running, so to speak, and top on his agenda was meeting with his counterparts in South Korea and Japan. Just two weeks after being sworn in as Secretary of Defense, he …
US Media continues its campaign against “fake news,” urging people to only listen to mainstream, pro-western capitalist news sources, despite their documented record of factual inaccuracies.
US media coverage around anything related to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea
It has been two months since the South Korean National Assembly voted overwhelmingly in favor of impeaching Park Geun-hye for her involvement in the corruption scandal with her confidante Choi Soon-sil, and South Korean citizens are growing concerned about the …
A clean-up mission using a remotely operated robot at Japan’s crippled Fukushima nuclear plant has had to be aborted, as officials feared they could completely lose control of the probe affected by unexpectedly high levels of radiation.
The robot equipped …
Here we go again. General “Mad Dog” Mattis, the US Secretary of Defense, declares Iran “is the single biggest state sponsor of terrorism in the world.” National Security Advisor General Michael Flynn puts Iran “on notice.”
President Trump says “they …
In the first of many mistakes of the Vietnam War, President Dwight Eisenhower said in 1954, “You have a row of dominoes set up, you knock over the first one, and what will happen to the last one is the …
The Government of India is attempting to push through the commercial cultivation of genetically modified (GM) food crops. In an attempt to spearhead the drive by making GM mustard the first such crop in the country, the government has apparently …
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi declared on Tuesday in Canberra that a war between the United States and China was unthinkable because of the disastrous losses that conflict would bring to both sides. However, the very fact that Wang was …
Australia’s prime minister has been politically tone deaf for the duration of his tenure, which was won by the political assassination of his predecessor, Tony Abbott. Since being in power, he has squandered a workable majority, been held in …
Less than a week after assuming office, President Donald Trump signed an executive order abandoning the 12 nation Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade agreement negotiated by former President Barack Obama, but not yet ratified by the U.S. Congress. He then quickly …
Outside Southeast Asia, few people know of Palembang, a city on Sumatra, the sixth largest island in the world. A gloomy and immense city, with almost two million inhabitants, most of them living in cramped and squalid conditions.
The tropical
…
Triumphalism followed the election of US President Donald Trump, particularly among those opposed to US foreign policy under US President Barack Obama. In particular, hope was rekindled that America would withdraw from the many, provocative conflicts it was cultivating, ranging …
The negative development impact of the International Finance Corporation’s (IFC, the World Bank’s private sector arm) investments in financial intermediaries (FIs) has once again been brought to light (see Observer Spring 2014). An October 2016 report, Disaster for us …
Radiation levels inside a damaged reactor at Japan’s Fukushima nuclear plant have hit a record high, and are the worst since the plant suffered a triple meltdown nearly six years ago. The latest readings now pose a serious challenge as …
Russia will consider taking countermeasures to protect its own security if the United States pushes ahead with its planned deployment of an advanced anti-missile system on South Korean soil, the country’s top envoy in Seoul said Friday.
Russian Ambassador to …
“This is the worst deal ever.” President Donald J. Trump, The Washington Post, Feb 2, 2017
It was a moment of delightful reflection. The indecently smug politicians of a distant island continent, wealthy, cruel in refugee policy and lazy in …
President Donald Trump‘s newly sworn-in Secretary of State, recently retired ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson, turned heads when he expressed support for an aggressive military stance against China’s actions in the disputed South China Sea during his Senate committee …
This article confirms that China is involved in the new arms race. It is threatened by the U.S in the South China sea. China’s response is the development of its naval capabilities.
* * *
When the PLA Navy first …
When Donald Trump speaks about the barriers that US companies face, he often mentions a high corporate tax rate and the ability of other countries to produce more cheaply. Ironically, China, which most often draws Trump’s ire for doing so, …
The Southeast Asian state of Myanmar has recently become the epicentre of an expanding humanitarian crisis. But because the current government of Myanmar is headed by a regime favoured by American and European interests, little attention and even less action
…
The surprise passing of one of Russia’s most distinguished and influential diplomats, His Excellency Mr. Alexander Kadakin, has come as a tragic shock for Moscow and New Delhi. No single individual has been more important in promoting and strengthening the
…
One of the conspicuous absences from the sound and fury last weekend’s protests was the impending executive act of President Donald Trump affirming the US exit from the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement. Not that that was much in doubt: it had …
The weeks following an underwhelming Brazil-Russia-India-China-South Africa (BRICS) mid-September summit in Goa and the United States presidential election in November have unveiled ever-widening contradictions.
Thanks to blatant corruption, presidential delegitimation has reached unprecedented levels in both Brazil and South Africa;
…Saber rattling by Trump administration officials on China give pause for concern, continuing Obama’s hostile approach, risking direct confrontation if not curbed.
At his Senate confirmation hearing, Secretary of State designee Rex Tillerson recklessly said “(w)e are going to have …
The Rohingyas are a people struck by tragedy. Persecuted in their home country, Myanmar, over 65,000 of them have fled to Bangladesh between October 9, 2016, and January 5, 2017, according to a report from the United Nations Office of …
The push to commercialise the growing of genetically modified (GM) mustard in India is currently held up in court due to a lawsuit by Aruna Rodrigues. The next hearing is due in February. Rodrigues has indicated at length that, to …
On January 21st, 2017, the Bank of China has officially opened its regional branch headquarters in Serbian capital Belgrade, to provide banking services for cooperation in investments, trade, tourism and other fields, for countries in the region – …
This paper will reconsider previous work on the demographic transition under way in West Papua (the Indonesian provinces of Papua and Papua Barat) in the light of documents received from the Indonesian Statistics Office (Badan Pusat Statistic BPS) that give
…
A Financial genocide, if there was ever one. Death by demonetization, probably killing hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people, through famine, disease, even desperation and suicide – because most of India’s money was declared invalid. The official weak …
Yamashiro Hiroji and the Okinawan Anti-Base Struggle
Gavan McCormack
…“If Takae and Henoko can be stopped, Japan will
Tho I myself am despised by society, and cast aside, it is I who must prove my innocence. Yogmaya Neupane
Nepal is perhaps unique in the world of nations today with its three top public offices occupied by women: …
Now well into the second decade of the 21st century, the world is witnessing the true extent of China’s economic, political, and growing military reach. This reach and integration into the globalized world has been gradual, incremental, and quiet over …
The one China policy was first mentioned in the Shanghai Communique on February 28, 1972 during Nixon’s visit to China – stressing the importance for both countries to normalize relations.
On January 1, 1979, the Joint Communique on the Establishment …
At this point, every sane and responsible person in India should be asking: How many tens of thousands, or hundreds of thousands, or millions of people in India are going to die from hunger, starvation, malnutrition and disease as a …
In signs of rising income inequality, India’s richest one per cent now hold a huge 58 per cent of the country’s total wealth — higher than the global figure of about 50 per cent, a new study showed on Monday.…
Next week he’ll become America’s 45th president, an awesome responsibility for anyone, especially having to deal with bipartisan neocons infesting Washington. – hell-bent for endless wars of aggression.
Whatever Trump said on the stump no longer matters. Once in office, …
In his confirmation hearing, secretary of state designee Rex Tillerson provocatively told Senate Foreign Relations Committee members “(w)e are going to have to send China a clear signal that, first, the island-building stops and second, your access to those islands …
It did not take long before we knew there was no hope of change from President Obama. But at least he went into his inauguration with an unprecedented number of Americans on the Mall showing their support for the President …
General James “Mad Dog” Mattis, President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for Secretary of Defense, used his confirmation hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday to outline an aggressive war policy, designate Russia and China as enemies and call for …
The governments of the United States and United Kingdom have spent decades and millions of dollars creating the political opposition fronts that constitute support for Myanmar’s new (and first ever) State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi. This support includes backing …
The demonetisation of Rs. 500 and Rs. 1000 notes by the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi is disproportionately impacting the poor of India. Presently 4.5 million Indians die avoidably from deprivation each year and demonetisation will make this worse …
The meetings between Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen and senior Republicans in Dallas, Texas last Sunday will only heighten tensions between the United States and China ahead of Donald Trump’s inauguration as US president next week. Tsai met with Senator Ted …
In two dramatic developments, 2016 saw the end of globalisation as we have known it. The first was Brexit last May, the decision by the UK to leave the European Union after 43 years of membership. It came in the …
Introduction
For more than two decades, the global nuclear industry has attempted to frame the debate on nuclear power within the context of climate change: nuclear power is better than any of the alternatives. So the argument went. Ambitious nuclear …
A version of the following piece was originally published in June 2016. However, since then, India’s PM Narendra Modi has embarked on a ‘demonetisation’ policy, which saw around 85 percent of India’s bank notes becoming invalid overnight.
Emerging evidence indicates …