The crackdown on Falungong continues and intensifies. The government is quite frightened of the ability of Falungong to maintain itself via the internet and fearless volunteers. The government sees Falungong as the possible core of a new political party capable of mobilizing widespread unhappiness with the often corrupt local communist officials that still run the country. 

According to official Chinese newspapers, China will spend $9.7 billion to field weapons to retaliate for a nuclear strike.--Stephen V Cole

Japanese Vice-Minister of Defense Shingo Nishimura, the outspoken voice of Japanese nationalism, was forced to resign after he gave an interview suggesting that Japan should have a nuclear arsenal to deter attacks from other nuclear states, and that Japan's policy of not shooting until the enemy shot first was questionable.--Stephen V Cole