Linda SIeg | tokyo | April 28

Reuters - Calls to replace Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda are emerging in his Liberal Democratic Party, an influential ruling party lawmaker said on Monday, after the ruling bloc suffered a bruising defeat in a by-election.

But former chief cabinet minister Kaoru Yosano, whose name has been floated as a potential successor to Fukuda, told Reuters he thought the Japanese leader should soldier on and try to revive his support rates, which have dropped below 30 percent.

In a vote widely seen as a referendum on Fukuda's struggling administration, former opposition Democratic Party lawmaker Hideo Hiraoka defeated the LDP's Shigetaro Yamamoto in Yamaguchi, central Japan in Sunday's race for a vacant lower house seat.

From tonight's Nelson Report comes some interesting comments and an element of reconsideration (or consternation):

SUMMARY: the super-classified briefing for select Members on Capitol Hill was promptly given to the TV networks, a move which didn't make Congress any happier about the seven-month delay in explaining why the US thinks Israel wiped-out a North Korean aided nuclear plant in Syria.

In fact, our experts see no reason for Israel to bomb, as no way the plant was able to produce nuclear weapons grade materials, even IF it was a nuclear plant, which some still challenge.

Sheesh, this is just absolutely unreal, proving once again that truth is stranger than fiction. It's complicated and convoluted and I'll be following this story (and its spin-offs) more closely in the near future. But for now from tonight's Nelson Report on 'that Syrian nuke facility' and how the North Koreans were involved in it:

SUMMARY: six months after the event, Capitol Hill finally got a full-scale briefing on the Syrian plant destroyed by Israeli bombs after photo-recon allegedly proved it was a nuclear facility patterned after N. Korea's Yongbyon.

Allegedly intended to boost the Administration's case for continued 6 Party negotiations with N. Korea, carrying out the "Singapore" finesse of us telling the DPRK what it's doing, and they not denying it?

But...it may have had the opposite effect, especially since they are denying it for now, pending what Korea desk chief Sung Kim brings back.

CIA obviously mistrusted Capitol Hill capacity to "leak" responsibly, objectively...why else the leaks, starting Tuesday, with emphasis on what the intel community wants Cap Hill to hear, think?

NY Times story this morning hints that A/S Chris Hill is on the way out, and allegedly close associates seem to feel they can say he will quit soon, if he isn't forced out.

The "real story" on Syria intel reflects intrigue inside the White House, between "war with Syria" advocates vs those who have actually learned a few things from Iraq.

At a minimum, you have to worry that regardless of what happens in Pyongyang, the 6 Party process is about to be scuttled right here in Washington...stay tuned.

If you want the full story there's more.

Mark Tran | Washington | April 24

Guardian - The White House was today set to reveal video images it claims support allegations that North Korea was helping Syria to build a nuclear reactor.

The suspected reactor was destroyed by Israeli planes last September in a raid reminiscent of its 1981 raid on the Osirak nuclear reactor in Iraq.

Little remains known about the raid seven months later, and today's evidence has been keenly anticipated.

US media reports said the video images – believed to have been obtained via Israeli intelligence - show Korean faces among the workers at the Syrian plant.

The reports said the video also revealed that the Syrian reactor core's design was the same as that of the North Korean reactor at Yongbon, including a virtually identical configuration and number of holes for fuel rods.

more...

Tokyo | April 23

BBC - Leaders of Japan and the European Union have called for "highly ambitious and binding" global targets to fight climate change.

Leaders said the G8 summit of rich nations - to be held in Japan in July - must be a real moment of breakthrough on greenhouse gas emissions.

Helene Cooper | Washington | April 19

IHT - The Bush administration appears to be preparing to back away from a demand that North Korea fully disclose all of its past nuclear weapons activities, in an attempt to preserve a nuclear agreement requiring it to disclose and dismantle the bulk of its nuclear weapons program.

As described by administration officials on Thursday, the step would relax a demand for North Korea to admit fully that it supplied Syria with nuclear technology. The United States would also agree to postpone its demand that North Korea provide an immediate and full accounting of its fledgling uranium program.

The new stance is intended to help complete a denuclearization deal that would focus instead on North Korea's more extensive plutonium program, which has been at the heart of its nuclear weapons development and was the source of raw material for the device it tested in October 2006.

The State Department spokesman, Sean McCormack, said the emerging agreement would not represent a concession. He said that even if North Korea did not fully account for its uranium efforts, the deal would allow inspectors access to all of North Korea's nuclear facilities in order to verify that it had stopped its weapons programs.

Ashley Rowland | April 18

Stars and Stripes - When South Korea’s new president meets with President Bush in the United States on Friday and Saturday, he may ask for something that makes some South Koreans uneasy — that the United States pause its downsizing in South Korea.

Polls show that a significant number of South Koreans want the U.S. military to eventually leave the country — as much as 55 percent, according to a survey conducted by a South Korean newspaper. Others say the 63-year U.S. presence in South Korea has allowed the country to develop and continues to deter an attack from North Korea.

This is the first in a two-day series exploring the South Korean population’s perception of the U.S. military presence.

Michael Evans | April 11

Times of London -

The secret site where Iran is suspected of developing long-range ballistic missiles capable of reaching targets in Europe has been uncovered by new satellite photographs.

The imagery has pinpointed the facility from where the Iranians launched their Kavoshgar 1 “research rocket” on February 4, claiming that it was in connection with their space programme.

Analysis of the photographs taken by the Digital Globe QuickBird satellite four days after the launch has revealed a number of intriguing features that indicate to experts that it is the same site where Iran is focusing its efforts on developing a ballistic missile with a range of about 6,000km (4,000 miles).

A previously unknown missile location, the site, about 230km southeast of Tehran, and the link with Iran's long-range programme, was revealed by Jane's Intelligence Review after a study of the imagery by a former Iraq weapons inspector. A close examination of the photographs has indicated that the Iranians are following the same path as North Korea, pursuing a space programme that enables Tehran to acquire expertise in long-range missile technology.

** Do satellite photos show Iran ballistic missile facility? ~ CSM roundup

Glenn Kessler | April 11

WaPo - The United States is prepared to lift two key economic sanctions against North Korea under a tentative deal reached with that country this week, which requires Pyongyang to acknowledge U.S. concerns and evidence about a range of nuclear activities, U.S. and Asian diplomats said yesterday.

The agreement also requires North Korea to finish disabling its main nuclear facility and provide a full accounting of its stockpile of plutonium. But, in a key shift, the two sides agreed to sidestep a dispute over how much detail North Korea must provide about any past uranium enrichment-related activities and its involvement in a mysterious Syrian facility bombed by Israel last September.

North Korea had balked at confirming the Bush administration's allegations, stalling for months a process designed to eliminate its nuclear programs. But after negotiations this week in Singapore and last month in Geneva, the United States and North Korea agreed that Pyongyang must "acknowledge" the allegations without precisely admitting them publicly.

That paves the way, diplomats said, for President Bush to remove North Korea from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism and to exempt it from the Trading With the Enemy Act.

Maureen Fan | Beijing | April 6

WaPo - Go, Teams! Learning The Drill In China

When the Summer Olympics open to great fanfare in August, an estimated 500,000 foreign tourists will be here rooting for their home teams. The Chinese will be cheering, too. They've been trained for it.

In a decision that is highly unusual by Olympic standards, the Chinese government has trained hundreds of thousands of official cheerleaders. Most are former state employees drafted out of retirement. They have been taught when to roar their approval and why not to boo other teams, especially those from onetime enemy countries. They will be assigned to events based partly on the decibel levels desired, organizers say.

Athens and Turin, Italy, host cities in 2004 and 2006, each had small teams of Olympic cheerleaders, controversial for their bikinis and their lack of rhythm, respectively. But China's effort is different in scope and ambition. The cheerleaders here, numbering more than 210,000 and growing, are a powerful symbol of how this country wants to be perceived by the rest of the world: united, strong and of one voice.

Blaine Harden | Sado Island, Japan | April 6

WaPo - Charles Robert Jenkins, an American Army sergeant who deserted to North Korea and spent 40 years there before his release in 2004, has become a celebrity in Japan.

Charles Robert Jenkins was planning a trip to the United States this spring to do "Larry King Live" and promote his book, but the tourist season on Sado Island is heating up.

So Jenkins decided to stay home, sell cookies and sign autographs. At 68, the former U.S. Army sergeant who defected to North Korea and lived as a captive in the curtained-off communist state for 40 years is a celebrity in Japan.

His Stalinist odyssey -- marriage to a Japanese woman who was abducted by North Korea and given to him one evening, her highly publicized release and their eventual reunion -- is household knowledge in this country. An impish man with big ears and a thick North Carolina drawl, he has done as many as 28 interviews in one day with the Japanese media. His autobiography, being published in the United States this spring as "The Reluctant Communist," has sold more than 300,000 copies in hardback in Japan.

April 4

Radio Australia - North Korea says it is ready to abandon dialogue and attack the South, ignoring a call from its neighbour's new president to return to talks aimed at ending its nuclear ambitions.

It comes after the Northern navy claimed South Korean ships violated its waters on April 3.

According to Kyodo newsagency, the state-run KRT television reported that on Thursday, "the warmongers of the South Korean forces infiltrated three warships deep into the territorial waters of the north side south east of Ssanggyo-ri, Kangryong County, South Hwanghae Province".

The alleged violation has been dismissed by South Korea.

South Korea's Defence Ministry says Pyongyang threatened "military responsive actions" during a telephone message between North Korean Lieutenant-General Kim Yong Chol and South Korean Major General Kwon Oh Sung.

Claire Truscott | March 27

The Guardian - North Korea has expelled South Korean officials from a joint industrial complex on the border between the two countries, it was reported today.

The move came as relations between the two continued to deteriorate over the North's nuclear programme.

The new South Korean government has adopted a tougher stance towards Pyongyang on nuclear disarmament, demanding action before expanding joint industrial works.

Earlier this week, North Korea responded by ordering 11 South Korean officials to leave the Kaesong industrial complex.

The South's unification ministry spokesman, Kim Ho-nyeon, said the move was "very regrettable" and "could hinder [the] stable development of inter-Korean economic cooperation".

Paul Gallagher | Tokyo | Feb 24

The Observer - Japan's grim reputation as one of the world's suicide nations has been confirmed by statistics that show more than 30,000 people a year have taken their own lives since figures first began to rise in 1998. In 2006, there were 32,115 suicides - 25 per 100,000 people; nearly 100 people a day; one every 15 minutes. The most common hour of death is 5am for men and noon for women, after their families have left for work or school.

Japan has roughly half the population of the US, yet the same number of suicides. There were 5,554 suicides of people aged 15 and over in the UK in 2006; three quarters involved men.

Experts in Japan were puzzled when the suicide rate jumped in 1998 from 24,391 to 32,863 - a 35 per cent rise - and the annual figure has continued to stay above 30,000. Two theories have been put forward by the media: bullying at school and netto shinju - online suicide pacts.

Choe Sang-Hun | Feb 23

IHT - Koreans say they must eat kimchi wherever they are. When South Korea dispatched troops to the Vietnam War in the 1960s, tearful mothers sent off their sons with clay pots containing homemade kimchi. Soon troopships were filled with the pungent smell of the fermenting cabbage slathered with pepper and garlic.

So it was only natural for Koreans to think that their first astronaut must have the beloved national dish when he goes on his historic space mission in April. Three top government research institutes went to work. Their mission: to create "space kimchi."

"If a Korean goes to space, kimchi must go there, too," said Kim Sung Soo, a Korea Food Research Institute scientist. "Without kimchi, Koreans feel flabby. Kimchi first came to our mind when we began discussing what Korean food should go into space."

Does smell travel through time ;)

Takehiko Kambayashi | Tokyo | February 13

CSM - Dozens of men stood side by side in a cabbage patch in Tsumagoi, 90 miles northwest of the capital. It was "Shout Your Love From the Middle of a Cabbage Patch" Day, and participants on the balmy day last fall went down the row yelling, "I love you!" or "Thank you!," trying earnestly to say the words to their wives – some for the first time. Most of their spouses stood in the field, watching. Some were in tears.

These couples were participating in an event created by Kiyotaka Yamana, founder of the Japan Aisaika ("Devoted Husband") Organization. His goal is to help improve Japan's troubled approach to marriage – often regarded more as a status than as a relationship – by teaching men to appreciate their wives and express their feelings.

In Japan, expressing love and appreciation is uncommon, especially among men. Even Valentine's Day is a time for women to give men gifts. In the majority of marriages, husbands are the breadwinners; wives, the homemakers. But that doesn't sit well in a rapidly changing Japan: The number of divorces rose 73 percent from 1985 to 2002, to reach 289,836, according to government reports. Though the number has slowly decreased since then, in-home separations remain common in a country that has few marriage counselors.

Washington | February 7

AFP - The United States said Wednesday it planned to send a second shipment of fuel oil to North Korea even though it has not provided a full declaration of its nuclear programmes under an aid-for-disarmament deal.

"We have another shipment which we are beginning to get going on this week," said Christopher Hill, the US envoy to the six-party talks aimed at ending North Korea's nuclear weapons drive, at a Congressional hearing.

Under the deal, the North Koreans would receive about one million tonnes of fuel oil or its equivalent as well as diplomatic and security guarantees as it moves to disband its nuclear programme.

The United States, China, South Korea and Russia had dispatched 50,000 tonnes of oil each to North Korea so far after it froze its key Yongbyon nuclear facilities and began disabling them last year.

But Pyongyang, which tested a nuclear bomb more than a year ago, has not meet a December 31, 2007 deadline to make a complete declaration of its nuclear programmes despite prodding by the United States and other partners.

Washington | January 23

AFP - North Korea will stay on the US list of state sponsors of terrorism until it makes a full declaration of its nuclear activities, the White House warned on Wednesday.

Asked whether Washington was about to remove Pyongyang from the group, which exposes the Stalinist country to sanctions, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino replied: "No."

"Right now where we are is waiting on the North Koreans to provide a complete and accurate declaration of their nuclear activities," which had been due by December 31 under a February 2007 deal, said Perino.

The State Department's coordinator for counter-terrorism, Dell Dailey, told a group of reporters on Tuesday that North Korea appeared to have met the requirements for being taken off the list, the Washington Post reported.

"You go back six months, you see if there's been any visible support or material support. We don't see that with North Korea. You also ask them to give an affirmation that they will not do things in the future," the Post cited him as saying. "It appears that North Korea has complied with those criteria."

Washington | January 18

AFP - North Korea is unlikely to abandon its nuclear weapons before US President George W. Bush leaves office in January 2009, his special envoy said on Thursday, calling for a revamp of six-party talks on the crisis.

Jay Lefkowitz, special envoy for human rights in North Korea, also accused China and South Korea of not exerting enough pressure on North Korea during the talks that first began in 2003 to end Pyongyang's nuclear weapons drive.

"It is increasingly clear that North Korea will remain in its present nuclear status when the administration leaves office in one year," he told a forum in Washington.

Using unusually sharp words, he said North Korea "is not serious about disarming in a timely manner" and "its conduct does not appear to be that of a government that is willing to come in from the cold."

Lefkowitz also accused Pyongyang of using its nuclear arms to "extort" foreign aid.

Why is it that everything this Administration does has a dishonest taint? From McClatchy:

a 10-month McClatchy investigation on three continents has found that the evidence to support Bush's charges against North Korea is uncertain at best and that the claims of the North Korean defectors cited in news accounts are dubious and perhaps bogus. One key law enforcement agency, the Swiss federal criminal police, has publicly questioned whether North Korea is even capable of producing "supernotes," counterfeit $100 bills that are nearly perfect except for some practically invisible additions.

Couple the above with Bush's most recent "peacemaking in the Middle East" comments and well, what can you say, other than utter incompetence.

Kevin G. Hal | WASHINGTON | January 9

McClatchy - Two years ago, as he was ratcheting up a campaign to isolate and cripple North Korea's dictatorship financially, President Bush accused the communist regime there of printing phony U.S. currency.

"When someone is counterfeiting our money, we want them to stop doing that. We are aggressively saying to the North Koreans just that — don't counterfeit our money," Bush said on Jan. 26, 2006.

However, a 10-month McClatchy investigation on three continents has found that the evidence to support Bush's charges against North Korea is uncertain at best and that the claims of the North Korean defectors cited in news accounts are dubious and perhaps bogus. One key law enforcement agency, the Swiss federal criminal police, has publicly questioned whether North Korea is even capable of producing "supernotes," counterfeit $100 bills that are nearly perfect except for some practically invisible additions.

Seoul | January 5

AFP - International efforts to put an end to North Korea's nuclear programme appeared to hit a snag Saturday after Pyongyang defiantly insisted it had lived up to its end of a six-party disarmament deal.

Days after the North missed a December 31 deadline to disable its nuclear plants and provide a full declaration of its nuclear facilities, it insisted it had given the list to the United States in November, a claim Washington denied.

North Korea said it had been forced to slow compliance with the deal reached last February as the other parties to the agreement -- China, Japan, South Korea, Russia and the US -- had not held up their end of the bargain.

Tom Casey | December 31

BBC - Nations involved in North Korea's nuclear disablement programme have expressed disappointment that it looks set to miss a year-end deadline.

Pyongyang had agreed to disable its Yongbyon reactor and provide a detailed declaration of all its nuclear activities by 31 December.

In return, it is due to recieve fuel aid and diplomatic concessions.

But neither the declaration nor the disablement are complete, which both the US and Japan say is "unfortunate".

The deadline was due to bring a close to the second part of the nuclear deal, which was agreed at six-party talks in February.

The nations involved in the process are China, the US, Japan, Russia and North and South Korea.

New York | Dec 30

dpa - The New York Philharmonic will be in Pyongyang for just 48 hours in February for its first visit ever, giving the North Koreans a rare taste of classical and Western music in the tightly controlled communist nation.

If the Pyongyang government is true to its word, some North Koreans living in the countryside will also hear 'The Star-Spangled Banner,' the US national anthem, through a radio broadcast for the first time in their lives. The momentous opportunity of the Philharmonic's presence in Pyongyang is unique in cultural and musical diplomacy.

Allen T. Cheng & Takashi Hirokawa | Dec 28

Bloomberg - Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao pledged to resolve a dispute over gas fields in the East China Sea and cooperate on regional security and the environment in order to build on improving ties.

``We feel each other's sincerity,'' Wen said during a joint press conference in Beijing after the leaders held a meeting this morning. ``We both hope for joint development, to turn the East China Sea into a sea of peace and cooperation. Let's work for more progress on common points. We hope for settlement as early as possible.''