Free Republic

Japan’s Sankei Shimbun reported Wednesday that North Korea may be making preparations for a possible third nuclear test. The newspaper published satellite imagery from the North’s Punggye-ri nuclear site, which it alleged showed work toward the test in progress. The daily quoted an expert as saying, “Based on what’s been shown in the photos, it is clear that North Korea is preparing for a new experiment. Chances are high that something will happen in the next six months.” The report followed comments by Siegfried Hecker, a former director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory, and Charles Jack Pritchard, a former...

South Korea is reviewing its defense policy following North Korea's alleged sinking of a South Korean naval vessel, a process that could significantly change Seoul's military alliance with Washington, according to officials engaged in the process. Over the past week, U.S. and South Korean leaders have outlined plans to conduct war games and strategy sessions to better equip the South for combating the type of submarine attack Pyongyang is accused by international investigators to have staged in March, killing 46 South Korean sailors. For the longer term, President Lee Myung-bak's conservative government could seek to alter the alliance's command structure...

Japan proposes 'peace' tunnel to South KoreaJustin McCurry in Tokyo guardian.co.uk Friday February 15 2008 Politicians in Japan have proposed the construction of an 80-mile "peace" tunnel to South Korea that would boost trade and symbolise a recent warming of ties between the former enemies. The proposed tunnel, more than twice as long as the Channel Tunnel, would link Karatsu in south-western Japan and Pusan in South Korea, via two islands in the Japan Sea. It would be part of a 140-mile (230km) rail link passing through the Japanese islands of Iki and Tsushima, and making it possible to travel...

Alive and safe, the brutal Japanese soldiers who butchered 20,000 Allied seamen in cold bloodBy NIGEL BLUNDELL - More by this author » Last updated at 17:53pm on 3rd November 2007  The perpetrators of some of the worst atrocities of the Second World War remain alive and unpunished in Japan, according to a damning new book.  Painstaking research by British historian Mark Felton reveals that the wartime behaviour of the Japanese Navy was far worse than their counterparts in Hitler's Kriegsmarine. According to Felton, officers of the Imperial Japanese Navy ordered the deliberately sadistic murders of more than 20,000...

Michelle Malkin found a new photo of the Korean Hostages: http://kr.news.yahoo.com/service/news/shellview.htm?linkid=459&articleid=2007080107591321223http://img.news.yahoo.co.kr/picture/2007/23/20070801/2007080107591321223_115521_0.jpghttp://michellemalkin.com/2007/08/01/south-korean-christian-hostage-crisis-rescue-attempt/ Here's a very clumsy BabelFish translation, from Korean, to English: http://babelfish.altavista.com/babelfish/trurl_pagecontent?lp=ko_en&url=http%3A%2F%2Fkr.news.yahoo.com%2Fservice%2Fnews%2Fshellview.htm%3Flinkid%3D459%26articleid%3D2007080107591321223

A South Korean woman held hostage with 21 others in Afghanistan has pleaded for help to secure their release.The woman, who identified herself as Yo Syun Ju, told the BBC by telephone she was "sick and in a terrible situation". "Tell them to do something to get us released," she said in an interview carried out in the presence of the Taleban militants holding her captive. A group of 23 Koreans was abducted one week ago. The kidnappers have since killed one of the hostages.

Hiroshima has preserved some of its ruins from the blast The nuclear bombs dropped by the United States on Japan in 1945 were the inevitable way to end World War II, Japan's defence minister has said. "I think it was something that couldn't be helped," said Fumio Kyuma in a speech at a university east of Tokyo. His comments sparked outrage from survivors of the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The minister, who represents Nagasaki in parliament, said later that he was expressing the US view of events. In his speech, he said the US must have thought...

President Hu (l) met honorary KMT head Lien Chan (r) at the forum Chinese President Hu Jintao has called for closer economic and cultural exchanges between China and Taiwan. Mr Hu was speaking at a China-Taiwan forum in Beijing, aimed at improving ties between the two rival neighbours. More than 30 MPs from Taiwan's main opposition party, the Kuomintang (KMT), are taking part in the two-day event. It comes just days after Taiwan, seen by China as part of its territory, rejected Beijing's plan for the Olympic torch to pass through the island. President Hu told some 500 participants...

Koreans and Japanese Ranked World's Slimmest People Koreans, many of whom are experiencing a sweeping zeal for losing weight, count with the Japanese as among the slimmest people in the developed world, a study shows. According to PopNews, a study on body mass index (BMI) released by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development in 2005 shows that only 3.2 percent of Koreans and Japanese have a BMI higher than 30. A person with a BMI figure higher than 25 is considered overweight, while a reading above 30 means obesity. The U.S. is the fattest of the OECD member nations...

Tokyo's Imperial Palace was valued higher than California in the 1980s Japan's land prices have risen for the first time in 16 years, in a further sign that the world's second-largest economy is continuing to recover.Since 1990, land prices have been sliding following the bursting of the asset price bubble. However, government figures showed that nationwide land prices rose by 0.1% last year with commercial land prices increasing by 2.3%. Strong price increases in commercial areas in major cities drove the gains. 1990s peak The major metropolitan areas of Tokyo, Nagoya and Osaka each saw significant increases. Commercial land...

It may be surprising to learn that China has a parliament. This country is, after all, a one-party state - and there are no general elections. Thousands of delegates have gathered in Beijing Still, almost 3000 delegates make up the ranks of China's legislature. Members are chosen from China's different regions. Once a year - for just two weeks - they come to the Great Hall of the People in Beijing to discuss (and then inevitably approve) the Communist Party's latest set of proposals. During these two weeks, Tiananmen Square outside becomes the world's most orderly coach park. Rows...

Not everyone is in favour of a free trade deal South Korea and the US are in the final round of free trade talks, trying to reach a deal before a looming deadline.US presidential powers to fast track trade deals ends at the end of March, making agreement all the more urgent. Since talks started on Thursday they have agreed to streamline customs and anti-trust rules, but farming and automobiles remain contentious issues. Hundreds of South Koreans have protested in Seoul arguing that a trade deal could threaten their livelihoods. Seoul wants the US to immediately end tariffs that...

A protest staged by thousands of rural workers in central China ended in violent clashes last week, media reports and an official said.Several people were injured as up to 20,000 people clashed with 1,000 police in Hunan province on Friday, a local official told Reuters news agency. A report on the Boxun Chinese news website said the clash was sparked by rising public transport costs. Rural regions of China have mounting unrest in recent years. Thousands of protests were held last year amid growing discontent over the widening gap between rich and poor and corruption among officials at local...

Mr Howard will hold talks with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe Australian Prime Minister John Howard has arrived in Japan on a visit which will include the signing of a bilateral security pact. The declaration is thought to include co-operation on terrorism, peacekeeping and disaster relief. The government has dismissed suggestions that the defence deal could strain ties with China. Meanwhile, Australian diplomats are due in North Korea for talks on its nuclear programme. The delegation will urge Pyongyang to abide by its agreement last month to start dismantling its nuclear facilities. Such progress could result in Australian aid,...

Did Hirohito play an active part in planning and conducting the war? Japanese emperor Hirohito expressed doubts about going to war with China in the 1930s and 40s, extracts from a diary of one of his advisers reveal. They show Hirohito was afraid the Soviet Union would intervene. The diary by Kuraji Ogura, who worked as a chamberlain to Hirohito in World War II, was found recently and parts have been published in Japan's media. The full text may help solve the debate about how much responsibility the emperor had for Japan's wartime action. South Pacific visit The document...

While Christianity's explosive growth has swept through much of the Southern Hemisphere – particularly across Africa – another dramatic story has unfolded in Asia. Some have dubbed it the "Korean miracle." About one-third of South Koreans are now Christian. Seoul, the capital, boasts 10 of the 11 largest Christian congregations in the world. And South Korea sends more missionaries abroad to spread the word than any other country except the United States. No one knows how many Christians remain in North Korea. Two-thirds of Korean Christians lived there before the war, but many fled to escape Communist rule. ~sNip Today,...

In Pictures: Robot menagerie An ethical code to prevent humans abusing robots, and vice versa, is being drawn up by South Korea. The Robot Ethics Charter will cover standards for users and manufacturers and will be released later in 2007. It is being put together by a five member team of experts that includes futurists and a science fiction writer. The South Korean government has identified robotics as a key economic driver and is pumping millions of dollars into research. "The government plans to set ethical guidelines concerning the roles and functions of robots as robots are expected to...

There are hundreds of dialects among China's 1.3bn people Only about half of China's population can speak the national language, Mandarin, according to the state news agency Xinhua.More men speak Mandarin than women, and more urbanites speak the language than those in rural areas, Xinhua said. For many years now, the government has tried to increase the use of Mandarin, to promote social cohesion. But China has hundreds of dialects, some of which - such as Cantonese and Hokkien - have strong regional support. In a survey of 500,000 people around the country, the Ministry of Education found that...

Summary: Controversies over the war in Iraq and U.S. unilateralism have overshadowed a more pragmatic and multilateral component of the Bush administration's grand strategy: its attempt to reconfigure U.S. foreign policy and international institutions in order to account for shifts in the global distribution of power and the emergence of states such as China and India. This unheralded move is well intentioned and well advised, and Washington should redouble its efforts.

After more than 60 years of silence, World War II's most enduring and horrible secret is being nudged into the light of day. One by one the participants, white-haired and mildmannered, line up to tell their dreadful stories before they die. Akira Makino is a frail widower living near Osaka in Japan. His only unusual habit is to regularly visit an obscure little town in the southern Philippines, where he gives clothes to poor children and has set up war memorials. Mr Makino was stationed there during the war. What he never told anybody, including his wife, was that during...