Environment World

There has been an interesting bit of news in the Japanese media lately. You can’t turn on the TV without getting an update it seems. Last month there was an admission by the North Korean government that they had abducted 13 Japanese people by force 24 years ago. Of those 13 only 5 remain alive today. They were abducted to provide intelligence and to help NK agents learn the Japanese language so that they could infiltrate Japan. The NK government of course claims that those agents were working independently and have since been punished, yeah right. I don’t buy into Bush’s Axis Of Evil^tm thing that pollutes a brain of someone wearing his aluminum hat to tight (damn aliens are always trying to read your mind). But the leader of North Korea, Kim Jong-il, has issues with aluminum hats himself. I don’t think he is crazy but honesty is not his forte, he did tell Tokyo that he doesn’t have a nuclear program but proof was brought forward he admitted the program existed. ’Oh, that nuclear program.’ Ok, he’s turned a new leaf and wants to play nice in the sandbox, especially for a new non-aggressions treaty with Japan.

All the living abductees are currently in Japan visiting family and friends they haven’t seen in 24 years. Looks like a real circus when they go out in public but there all very good-natured and very surprised at their reception. The abductees have grown children they did not bring with them and do not know they are really Japanese (Lucy, you have some splaining to do). One of the children, 15-year-old Kim Hye-gyong, does know she is half Japanese. Her mother, Megumi Yokota, was abducted when she was 13 years old. In 1993 Megumi killed herself, so say NK. It is confirmed that Kim Hye-gyong is the daughter of Megumi but the governments are trying to figure out what to do. Japan is willing to welcome all with open arms and give all the children citizenship. Japan has even gone as far as promising permanent residency in Japan to the American defector that is the husband of one of the abductees. He won’t come to Japan until he has assurance that he won’t deported to the states once he comes over.

I’ve read conflicting reports that NK says it’s Ok for anyone who wants to go back to Japan should go, then another report that not so positive. In either case no one ever says no. So I hope to see the abductees giving a choice, something that’s not afforded to anyone else in NK.

The Russian military/police agency with swift brutal force freed most of the captives of the hostage situation in a Moscow theater, they freed the ones they didn’t kill. Should anyone bow to pressures of terrorists to save some lives, not IMHO but 117 innocents killed maybe a high price to pay to stamp out terrorists. There is and will be lots of hindsight call by the media for either argument. They should have done this or that to save lives or the other side is if they didn’t do anything more lives would have been lost. I think the government and Putin in particular wanted to show the Chechnyans how far they would go to destroy them, to save face after failing for so long. But 117 dead … My hindsight call is that something else should have been tried, not negotiations, not with terrorists but some kind of military action designed to spare more lives. They pumped in poison gas to incapacitate the terrorists but it had the same effect of the hostages. Maybe the lost lives would have been more if they hadn’t done it this way and this is so much Monday morning quarter backing. I do believe the Russian troops did what they could to end the situation as best they could but the leadership wanted an easy way out of this. To those how lost something due to the fight against terrorists you have my sympathies.