JAPAN

JAPAN

Asahi Shimbun, Tokyo, April 24: Since North Korea fired a missile on April 5, Liberal Democratic Party lawmakers have hotly debated whether Japan should possess the capability to attack North Korean missile launching sites on its own.

The same day in Prague, U.S. President Barack Obama delivered a speech on nuclear disarmament. The reaction in Japan to the speech was cool.

It is true that Prime Minister Taro Aso sent a letter to the president, saying the two nations should work together for nuclear disarmament. Ruling and opposition parties in the Lower House are discussing a resolution calling for the abolition of nuclear weapons. But unfortunately, we do not sense any passion among the politicians to change the realities of the world.

Nuclear weapons

Although the Cold War has ended, a greater number of countries now possess nuclear weapons. Technologies to manufacture nuclear weapons have spread through black markets, and there is a growing danger that nuclear weapons may end up in the hands of terrorists. Obama pointed out his concern that if we sit back and do nothing to stop the trend, the world would be in chaos.

BRITAIN

The Times, London, April 28: There has been a lot of talk lately about global contagion. With the banking crisis the talk of an epidemic is a metaphor. The risk with the swine flu scare is that it turns into a genuine pandemic.

This inevitably throws up the specter of the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic, the worst of modern times. Forty percent of the world’s population were infected and 50 million people were killed. In 1957 the Asian flu virus, mutating from a strain found in wild ducks, killed two million people. A flu outbreak in 1968 in Hong Kong killed up to one million people globally.

So this is no idle threat. The pertinent question, then, is how prepared are governments in the face of the threat?

Prompt responses

The initial responses of the multinational arms of government were as prompt as one could expect of such cumbersome bodies and reassuring as a result. The World Health Organization (WHO) met in Geneva ... and the Director-General has said the threat constitutes a public health emergency of international concern. The European Commission is calling an urgent meeting of health ministers to discuss the situation. The World Bank is providing Mexico with more than $200 million in loans