The situation in Japan is serious. But, as of 1.30 3.00 9.30 pm PDT, there has been no “nuclear explosion” even though you may have seen headlines or tweets to that effect. Officials assume, but have not confirmed, a “partial meltdown” which does not appear to be either a “China Syndrome” (thank you, Hollywood) or a “Chernobyl” (thank you, media). Four nuclear...

What a difference 66 years makes! In 1945, the Japanese homeland was devastated, not by Nature, by my country dropping atomic bombs to save lives of soldiers like me in what surely would have been a bloody invasion. Now, an earthquake and tsunami have set off scrambling in that unwarlike nation to avert another nuclear catastrophe, and reports show the 8.9 magnitude seizure has shifted the Earth off its axis. The...

The New York Times today has an “Op-Chart” purporting to depict “The Pentagon’s biggest boondoggles.” According to the Times, the list of “boondoggles” is “just a sampling of what systems could be ended without endangering America; indeed, abandoning some of them might actually enhance national security.” Some of the alleged “boondoggles” whose abandonment, according to the Times, would...

The massive 8.9 earthquake that slammed into Japan with a one-two-punch of a mega-powerful tsumani was so potent that it moved Japan’s coastline 8 feet — and shifted the earth’s axis. See the before/after NASA photos above. CNN reports: The powerful earthquake that unleashed a devastating tsunami Friday appears to have moved the main island of Japan by 8 feet (2.4 meters) and shifted the Earth...

The death toll from the earthquake/tsunmani that belted Japan could exceed 10,000 making it the country’s worst crisis since World War II: The death toll from Japan’s devastating earthquake and tsunami on Friday is expected to exceed 10,000, Japanese news services announced Sunday. There are already 1,300 confirmed dead and 10,000 people are missing in just one town. The nuclear threat also loomed...

Updated In the wake of Friday’s earthquake and tsunami, Japan has reported having problems with nuclear reactors at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station, located about 150 miles north of Tokyo. This explainer provides an overview of nuclear power generation, summarizes what has happened (effective Saturday March 12, 5 pm PST), and rebuts an Internet meme that Japan is on the verge of another Chernobyl. Contents What...

One country’s human devastation is another country’s economic boon. And Larry Kudlow isn’t reluctant to say so (emphasis in the quote within the quote is Booman’s; emphasis in Booman’s ending commentary is mine):

John Cole, The Scranton Times-Tribune This copyrighted cartoon is licensed to run on TMV. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited. All rights reserved.

STRATFOR Red Alert: Nuclear Meltdown at Quake-Damaged Japanese Plant [March 12, 2011 | 0827 GMT] A March 12 explosion at the earthquake-damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Okuma, Japan, appears to have caused a reactor meltdown….. MORE

Just before today’s massive earthquake, U.S.-Japan relations were badly dented by comments made by Kevin Maher, a former U.S. consul to Japan who was, until yesterday, the head of the State Department’s Japan desk. As is reflected in this editorial from Japan’s Nishinippon Shimbun, Maher’s comments, jotted down by U.S. students, triggered an uncharacteristically angry response in Japan. The...

UPDATE: Washington Post, 20:12 ET, March 15: New assessments of the explosion at Unit 2 of Japan’s stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant Tuesday heightened fears that it will begin spewing large amounts of radiation. The explosion probably damaged the main protective shield around the uranium-filled core inside one of the plant’s six reactors. Such a breach would be the first at a nuclear power plant...

After my first initial reaction of pure horror, this was one of my first thoughts after hearing about the earthquake in Japan:

Raw footage — photographs and video — of the tsunami and its aftermath, and an extensive list of online resources for those who want to follow earthquake-related news and information.

On Friday, an earthquake, the largest in at least 100 years (1000 years?), struck Japan 130 kilometres east of Sendai on the main island of Honshu. It triggered a local tsunami with waves of 30 feet. The combined calamity killed hundreds. In addition, the 8.9-magnitude earthquake triggered tsunami alerts across the Pacific from Indonesia and New Zealand to Russia to the coasts of Alaska, Oregon and California. Initially,...

The WikiLeaks wave has now moved to Latin America, where newspapers around the region have been supplied with U.S. diplomatic cables from local U.S. Embassies. This article by columnist Luis Hernandez Navarro of Mexico’s La Jornada underscores the tremendous damage the cables have done to the credibility of President Felipe Calderon, and the fear that many Mexicans have of a U.S. invasion. For La Jornada,...

Gabriel Ledeen, a former U.S. Marine Captain and two-tour veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom asked the following question at the Huffington Post last week: “Who supports the U.S. soldier?” He was referring to an oft-debated and emotional issue that comes up whenever our nation is engaged in combat operations: Can Americans support our troops in combat while at the same time opposing the cause, the mission,...

Is it possible to financially starve Libyan despot Muammar Qaddafi into submission? This editorial from Germany’s Financial Times Deutschland warns that a no-fly zone would lead to another war that the West cannot afford to wage, and that the only way to defeat Qaddafi is massive global cooperation to deny his regime the funds it needs to survive. The Financial Times Deutschland editorial says in part: It’s...

Ben Ferencz was Chief Prosecutor at the Nuremberg trials — not the initial set of trials that took place in 1946 under the auspices of the International Military Tribuanl (the Chief Prosecutor for those was Robert Jackson) — but a second set of about a dozen trials that focused specifically on the Einsatzgruppen, which were basically death squads that murdered roughly a million Jews, Gypsies, and...

…a Franciscan blessing I hope everyone will appreciate: May God bless you with discomfort. Discomfort at easy answers, half truths, and superficial relationships, so that you may live deep within your heart. Amen. May God bless you with anger. Anger at injustice, oppression and exploitation of people, so that you may work for justice, freedom and peace. Amen. May God bless you with tears. Tears to shed...

Guest post by Ali Ezzatyar Ali Ezzatyar is a journalist and American attorney practising in Paris, France. On the situation in Egypt, he was recently quoted by Robert Fisk at The Independent. ********** Comparisons to Ceausescu, while initially pessimistic, could turn out to be understated. Qaddafi is digging in and Libya is moving closer to what may be a prolonged and bloody struggle for the country’s...

Mr. President: Lead or Get out of the Way! by Michael Reagan Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi is getting away with murder because the president of the United States refuses to take action when that’s exactly what is called for. Gadhafi is thumbing his nose at the alleged leader of the Free World, leaving the crazed dictator free to slaughter his own people in a frantic effort to save his dictatorship. It is hard...

In an editorial that many will find ironic in the extreme, Japan’s Nishi Nippon defends the practice of whaling by insisting that it actually contributes to the protection of other marine life. The newspaper goes on to criticize the U.S. group Sea Shepard for protecting whales from death by arguing that doing so endangers the lives of whale hunters – and that whaling must go on to preserve the...

Libyan dictator Moammar Gaddafi — the leader whose name is spelled a half dozen ways — is reportedly looking for a deal that will allow him to step down alive and avoid legal consquences: Or is he? Moammar Gadhafi is trying to strike a deal with opposition leaders, saying he will step down as Libya’s leader if they can guarantee him safe passage out of the country and promise that neither...

What Libya may look like after Quaddafi by Prairie Weather In eastern Libya, where the protesters seem to have won the day and probably the future, the town of Bayda offers some clues as to what the future may look like once Muammar Quaddafi has disappeared. It’s not Cairo, after all, where the bureaucracy is entrenched and a system of governance was already in place. At the height of Egypt’s uprising,...

Are Western journalists, who have been reporting attempts by people in China to demonstrate against their government, aspiring for China’s “collapse”? This editorial from China’s state-run Global Times tells its readers hopefully, ‘Chinese society has no interest in resolving problems through revolution.’ The editorial from the Global Times says in part: “A few Western...