Free Republic

TEMPERATURE RISING:Tokyo has lodged at least 32 protests since Aug. 5 over what it says have been 30 intrusions in its waters by Chinese vessels Tokyo yesterday protested to Beijing after Chinese Coast Guard vessels sailed into territorial waters surrounding disputed islands in the East China Sea, Japan said. Four Chinese vessels entered the waters around the Japanese-controlled Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台) — known as the Senkakus in Japan — at about 10am, the Japan Coast Guard said, adding that the vessels left the waters within one hour. The two countries are locked in a long-running dispute over the uninhabited islets,...

Japan's decision to develop surface-to-sea missiles with a range of 300 kilometers to cover the disputed islands shows the country may be eyeing a shift to an offensive posture, analysts said. The Japanese government has decided to develop the missiles to "protect the nation's isolated islands," including the disputed Diaoyu Islands, the Yomiuri newspaper reported. Development costs will be part of the Defense Ministry's budget request for the fiscal year ending March 2018, and the weapons are set to be deployed on islands, such as Miyako, in Japan's southernmost Okinawa prefecture by 2023. "Japan is trying to use the missile...

It seems if the People’s Republic of China is going to make a push to radically alter the status-quo in the South China Sea—by reclaiming the hotly disputed Scarborough Shoal that is clearly within the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) of the Philippines—we now have a good idea of when that might happen: sometime between early September, after the G-20 summit being hosted in China, and the U.S. presidential election on November 8th. The idea was laid out in a recent article in the South China Morning Post in an article dated August 13th. The report, quoting “a source familiar with...

Singapore is reportedly holding off a decision to buy the Lockheed Martin F-35 jet, a multi-role stealthy warplane that is touted as the world's most advanced fighter. A Bloomberg article published on Tuesday said the Republic's Permanent Secretary of Defence Development - who was not named in the story - informed the United States in mid-June that Singapore would be delaying the final steps of the purchasing process. The report added that Singapore had intended to acquire four F-35s by around 2022, with the option to purchase another eight more, citing information from the Pentagon's programme office.

(CNN)Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte called the US ambassador to his country a "gay son of a bitch" in a speech, prompting US diplomats to raise the issue with their Filipino counterparts in Washington. Recounting Secretary of State John Kerry's visit to the country, Duterte, speaking Tagalog, said that he was feuding with US Ambassador Philip Goldberg. "I was with (incoming defense chief General) Delfin Lorenzana. We talked to Kerry, he was actually OK because I had a fight with his ambassador. I told him: 'your ambassador is a gay son of a bitch.'"

WASHINGTON, Aug 9 (Reuters) – Satellite photographs taken in late July show China appears to have built reinforced aircraft hangars on its holdings in disputed South China Sea islands, a Washington-based research group said.

North Korea building secret ballistic missile submarine base By Peter Foster, and agencies 22 July 2016 • 4:08pm North Korea is constructing a massive underground facility capable of sheltering ballistic missile submarine at a location on its east coast, new satellite images have shown. News of the fortified submarine pens in the port city of Sinpo comes as tension spiked again on the Korean Peninsula following a series of recent missile and weapons tests. Earlier this month North Korea tested a Pukgeukseong (Polaris) submarine-launched ballistic missile in waters off Sinpo in the Sea of Japan, deepening fears that Pyongyang is...

A North Korean short wave radio station abruptly returned to the airwaves last Friday after a sixteen year absence. The mysterious broadcast has South Korean intelligence agents scrambling to figure out what its message means-and whom the message was intended for. The transmission, which began at approximately 12:45 on Friday, was made by an unnamed female announcer and began with, "From now on, I will give review work for the subject of mathematics under the curriculum of a remote education university for exploration agents of the 27th bureau." The announcer went on to say, "On page 459, question number 35,...

LADAKH: Tipu Sultan, Maharana Pratap and Aurangzeb are surveying the vast open valleys hugging the mountain ranges of eastern Ladakh, ready to counter any threat from China, which lies just across the border. If you are wondering how the three rulers, separated by hundreds of years, have come together, these are the names of three tanks of a regiment the Indian Army has positioned about six to eight months ago in eastern Ladakh. India did briefly use tanks here in the 1962 India-China war (five were air dropped) but they were withdrawn after the humiliating defeat. Now, the tanks of...

Japan’s Emperor Akihito has expressed his intention to retire and relinquish his title in the next few years, the country’s public television said Wednesday. NHK said the 82-year-old Akihito did not wish to remain emperor if he had to reduce his official duties. […] It was not known if he had a timeline to relinquish his title to Crown Prince Naruhito. …

When looking for support for his foreign policy, President Barack Obama wants Republicans to line up behind him because politics should stop at the water’s edge. But when trying to elect a Democratic successor, Mr. Obama takes politics with him wherever he goes, including to this week’s G-7 Summit in Japan. Speaking at a press conference, he pontificated on the ongoing primary elections, including sharp jabs at Republican frontrunner Donald Trump. While he might think that his attacks on Trump’s “ignorance” and “cavalier attitude” will somehow help former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, they in fact diminish not only Mr....

The bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was the RESULT of what happens to a nation bent on “domination or conquest” As Barack Obama finishes out the last eight months of his second term as President, he has started working through his bucket list of things to do before he leaves office. This cringe-worthy endeavor has gotten off to a treason-worthy start with his trip to Vietnam highlighted by a photo op with a picture of Ho Chi Minh behind him. And I can’t think why Obama would have made his trip to Hiroshima except to present his warped vision of...

President Barack Obama should have gone to Pearl Harbor first. That way, when he got to Hiroshima, he could have told the world how Hiroshima would never have happened had not the Japanese provoked a war with the United States. He could also have added that Hiroshima would not have happened had Japan, having lost the war, surrendered. But the fanatic Japanese leaders refused, and vowed to fight a scorched earth final battle on Japanese soil. This meant a potential U.S. invasion of the Japanese homeland, an invasion that would have led to an horrific battle. That battle would have...

Does President Obama ever discuss the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor while he's in Japan? Thousands of American lives lost. #MDW— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 28, 2016

<p>As China continues to posture in the South China Sea, tensions rise between China, Vietnam, Philippines, Taiwan, Malaysia and other regional powers such as Japan and India.</p> <p>At the defense blog War is Boring, US Naval War College Professor James Holmes discusses recent developments in the South China Sea and the risk of regional conflict.</p>

Jill Stein, who is seeking the Green Party nomination for President, said that President Obama should apologize during his trip to Hiroshima for the use of nuclear weapons against Japan by pledging nuclear disarmament. Dr. Stein also urged Obama to listen to the testimony of the survivors of the nuclear attack, who have dedicated their lives to the elimination of nuclear weapons so that no one else should ever experience the hell on earth they survived. "The existence of nuclear weapons threatens the survival of humanity. I pledge to eliminate all such weapons as an urgent priority," stated Stein. Despite...

Does anyone think it an accident that President Obama chose Memorial Day weekend to give his high-sounding moral equivalence speech in Hiroshima calling for a “moral revolution”? What Obama proposed in his speech in Japan is moral disarmament, and the consequences of that moral capitulation will be horrific if the world follows his advice.

President Obama came face to face with the horror of nuclear war Friday in a somber visit to Hiroshima, becoming the first sitting U.S. president to tour the site of the atomic bombing 71 years ago that killed tens of thousands in an instant and ushered in the nuclear age. In a sweeping address that reflected on the obligations of humankind, Obama wrestled with the inherent contradiction that centuries of technical advancement have both made it easier to bind people together and given them the capacity for the carnage seen in this city. And he confronted the cold reality that...

HIROSHIMA, Japan (AP) - With an unflinching look back at a painful history, President Barack Obama stood on the hallowed ground of Hiroshima on Friday and declared it a fitting place to summon people everywhere to embrace the vision of a world without nuclear weapons. As the first American president to visit the city where the U.S. dropped the first atomic bomb, Obama came to acknowledge - but not apologize for - an act many Americans see as a justified end to a brutal war that Japan started with a sneak attack at Pearl Harbor. Some 140,000 people died after...

Thankfully Barry didn’t quite apologize for dropping the bomb when he went to visit Hiroshima. He did take the opportunity to call for a nuclear-free world though - which is about as realistic as a gun-free America, another of Barry’s pipe dreams (literally).An efficient pipedream delivery systemButt reality has never entered the picture when Barry has a Dream. And a nuclear free world world has been a dream of his ever since he was a young pup and “researched” the topic for his debut journalism thesis at Columbia’s Sundial.  “It’s naïve for us to think…that we can grow our nuclear...