"Even though they tell us they won't forget...we can't accept this." On 26 June, when the United States government announced that it would drop North Korea from its list of states that sponsor terrorism, voices of despair and hopelessness were raised by the families of [Japanese] abductees, which had expected cooperation and effort from the US toward resolving the issue. The move also fomented mistrust toward the Japanese government, which approved of the removal: "Why didn't they take a harder line?"

U.S. President George W. Bush told Japan's premier Wednesday he understands Tokyo's concern about Japanese citizens kidnapped by North Korea.

Bush telephoned Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda and told him that he "would not forget the abduction issue," said a statement from Japan's Foreign Ministry.

The 20-minute phone conversation came a day before North Korea is expected to provide a list of its nuclear activities, a process that could lead to taking Pyongyang off Washington's terrorism and sanctions blacklists in exchange for the regime giving up its nuclear weapons program.

North Korea's abduction of Japanese nationals in the 1970s and 80s is a high-profile issue here, and Tokyo has long pushed for the resolution of the abductions as a condition for providing aid and improved relations to the communist nation.

Japanese Foreign Minister Masahiko Komura on Tuesday suggested that Tokyo would not want Pyongyang taken off the U.S. terrorism blacklist until the abductions were resolved.

Komura is expected to voice Tokyo's concern during talks with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who is to visit Japan Thursday for a Group of Eight foreign ministers' meeting.

In a highly unusual remark for a Japanese official, Nobushige Takamizawa, director general of the Defense Ministry's defense policy bureau, said a contingency over Taiwan would be "a security matter for Japan."

"Because it would be a seriously significant matter for our country, the Self-Defense Forces would obviously step up their alert and surveillance activities before judging whether the contingency is happening in our so-called surrounding area," he told a gathering of ruling party lawmakers.

He apologized that, "If his words were taken at face value, there are parts that would not preclude the possibility of misunderstanding," he said by way of apology.

Hundreds of thousands of people have taken part in rival political rallies across Taiwan.

It was the last chance for big weekend rallies before the island votes for a new president on 22 March.

The events - organised by the two main political parties - were also aimed at expressing public opposition to China's anti-secession law.

...

In its carefully-choreographed event, the governing Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) asked people to gather at designated points and to walk anti-clockwise, highlighting the party's campaign slogan to "Reverse the Tide" - to turn back their political fortunes and that of their candidate, who has been trailing in opinion polls.

The party's presidential candidate, Frank Hsieh, attacked his rival's plan to establish a cross-strait common market with China, saying it could lead to job losses and other social problems.

He said he and his party stood for the protection of Taiwan's core values - which was important if the island was to avoid the fate of Tibet, which had seen peaceful protests violently put down by the Chinese military in recent days.

Baer reports that high-ranking CIA officials privately tell reporters that "when the dust finally clears, Americans will see that September 11 was a triumph for the intelligence community, not a failure."

It is a challenge to imagine what the words "intelligence failure" might mean, if not an unexpected attack on American soil that leaves more than three thousand civilians dead. Perhaps these officials are keeping the term in reserve for an invasion by extraterrestrials.

With Cabinet ministers debating all manner of security measures for unwanted visitors, be they terrorists or ballistic missiles, there was something that no one had apparently taken into consideration: Unidentified flying objects.

On Tuesday, the Cabinet made clear what it knows.

In an official written inquiry, Ryuji Yamane, an Upper House member from opposition Minshuto (Democratic Party of Japan), had requested an explanation of the government's stand on UFOs.

In response, the Cabinet endorsed a statement saying there had been no confirmed existence of UFOs from outer space.

...

Yamane noted that there have been numerous reports of UFO sightings and asked how the government goes about collecting information and studying UFOs, how it plans to deal with one landing in Japan, and whether Tokyo exchanges information on this issue with other nations.

The government's reply was that since it had not confirmed the existence of UFOs, it has not collected information on them, nor studied them.

The Maritime Self-Defense Force's Aegis destroyer Kongo succeeded in intercepting a mock ballistic missile warhead with an SM-3 missile as part of missile defense system test carried out at sea near Hawaii, the MSDF announced Monday.

The success of the test--the first conducted by the MSDF--means Japan will be able to counter the threat of North Korea's ballistic missiles, such as the Rodong and Taepodong-1, analysts said.

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Compared to a mock target based on a Scud-type missile, whose warhead and rocket engine do not separate, the target used in Monday's experiment flies much faster at about Mach 10 and is therefore more difficult to intercept.

Disturbed by the serious souring of Japan's relationships with China and South Korea during the Koizumi era, Fukuda was trying to mend the ties. Abe's visits to the two countries soon after he came to power have changed the atmosphere between Japan and these countries. But Fukuda appears to be hoping to bring fundamental changes to these important relations.

Aso vowed to promote the "arc of freedom and prosperity" initiative he proposed as Abe's foreign minister. This initiative is based on the idea of supporting countries that share such basic values as freedom and democracy. But his vision of the "arc" doesn't include China and is therefore criticized as an attempt to create a network of countries around China to contain the expansion of its regional influence.

Aso seems to be advocating a dual approach to dealing with China that combines dialogue with diplomatic maneuvering to put a brake on its influence.

The objective is for us to help democracy take root in a region that we envision as an 'arc of freedom and prosperity,' extending from the Baltic Sea to the Black and Caspian Seas.

In Osaka, both candidates addressed the North Korea abductee issue. Fukuda stated, “I want to be the one to solve this problem,” and his indicated that he had resolved to effect normalization of Japan-DPRK relations through dialogue. Aso stated emphatically, “Without pressure, no dialogue will get off the ground.”

On the morning after the South Carolina debate, the Clinton campaign trotted out former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright to gush about the senator's declaration that she would not meet with various dictators "until we know better what the way forward would be." Said Albright, "She gave a very sophisticated answer that showed her understanding of the diplomatic process."

Being praised for your diplomatic sophistication by Madeleine Albright is like being complimented on your sense of humor by John Kerry. Albright is the renowned diplomat who helped the Clinton administration blunder its way into an 11-week aerial war in Kosovo. Albright was confident that Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic would cave at the first whiff of gunpowder, and was shocked when he didn't.

...

There you have it. A Hillary Clinton presidency promises to unite Madeleine Albright's zeal for using bombs in pursuit of liberal ideals with Dick Cheney's vision of the president as emperor. Won't that be fun?

But perhaps it is more troublesome for democracy (where religion should be kept distinct from government) if Hillary's religiosity is genuine. It would certainly explain her air of smug moral superiority and her close to messianic view of her destiny as a reformer. The egotism of career humanitarians was dissected by William Blake and Charles Dickens and later satirised by Oscar Wilde, all of whom saw the nascent tyranny in fervent idealists with a masterplan for humanity.

On the evidence of this book, Hillary appears to believe that good intentions excuse all. Impediments to her lofty goals may have arisen partly through minor miscalculations on her part, she concedes, but most of the problems, in her view, have come from pigheaded reactionaries "who want to turn the clock back on many of the advances our country has made", thanks to the Democratic Party, a congregation of the elect whose mission is the salvation of mankind.

During a meeting of about ten minutes, the prime minister told Kyuma, "Japan is the only country to suffer a nuclear strike, and we must think of the feelings of the bombing victims in Nagasaki and Hiroshima, who suffered horribly. We mustn't hurt their feelings."

Opposition parties unanimously criticized Defense Minister Fumio Kyuma for remarks he made in a lecture on 30 June. Kyuma had stated that the dropping of the atom bomb by the United States during World War II was "unavoidable."

Kyuma said later that his comments had been misinterpreted, telling reporters he meant to say the bombing "could not be helped from the American point of view."

"It's too bad that my comments were interpreted as approving the U.S. bombing," he said.

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Bombing survivors have developed various illnesses from radiation exposure, including cancer and liver diseases.

"The U.S. justifies the bombings saying they saved American lives," said Nobuo Miyake, 78, director-general of a group of victims living in Tokyo. "It's outrageous for a Japanese politician to voice such thinking. Japan is a victim."

Nagasaki Mayor Tomihisa Taue was quoted as saying by Kyodo, "The use of nuclear weapons constitutes the indiscriminate massacre of ordinary citizens, and it cannot be justified for any reason."

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In America, the bombings are widely seen as a weapon of last resort against an enemy that was determined to fight to the death but instead surrendered unconditionally, six days after Nagasaki was attacked.

Japanese and North Korean delegations agreed Tuesday to discuss the abduction issue on Wednesday and diplomatic normalization Thursday during a two-day bilateral working group meeting within the framework of the six-party talks.

The two sides agreed during informal talks Tuesday that the two sides would separately discuss "pending issues including the abduction issue" on Wednesday and "normalization" on Thursday.

The government welcomed the fact that the North Korean side agreed to first discuss the issue of the abduction of Japanese nationals by North Korea, as Pyongyang has claimed the issue has already been settled. The government hopes to see some progress during the Wednesday talks.