NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

Okinawa's musicians provide a focus for Japanese protest against US bases With Barack Obama visiting Japan in April, resentment at plans for the US Futenma military base is finding a musical voice Justin McCurry in Okinawa theguardian.com , Thursday 17 April 2014 15.50 BST If an island of 1.4m people can be summed up in a sound, it is that of the sanshin . Where there are people on Okinawa, a Japanese island almost 1,000 miles south of Tokyo, the distinctive tones of the three-stringed instrument are never far away. Music is deeply rooted in Okinawa's tragic place in Japan 's history and the conduit for its modern grievances against the glut of US military bases on the island. As Barack

US nearly detonated atomic bomb over North Carolina – secret document Exclusive: Journalist uses Freedom of Information Act to disclose 1961 accident in which one switch averted catastrophe by Ed Pilkington The Guardian/UK   A secret document, published in declassified form for the first time by the Guardian today, reveals that the US Air Force came dramatically close to detonating an atom bomb over North Carolina that would have been 260 times more powerful than the device that devastated Hiroshima. The document , obtained by the investigative journalist Eric Schlosser under the Freedom of Information Act, gives the first conclusive evidence that the US was narrowly spared a disaster of monumental proportions when two Mark 39 hydrogen bombs were accidentally dropped over Goldsboro, North Carolina

Today I'm heading to a peace and demilitarization conference in Okinawa. I'm travelling as part of a delegation of people from Guam who are going to discuss Guam's role in the larger strategic vision that the US has for the Asia-Pacific region. Delegates will also be coming from Hawai'i, Palau, the Marshall Islands, the Philippines, South Korea and mainland Japan. For my part, I've written a speech on the dream of a world without nuclear weapons that I'll be sharing the day after tomorrow. For me, this trip to Okinawa is a dream come true. I have read and heard so much about Okinawa since it was first announced as the place that Guam was scheduled to receive 7,000 Marines and 8,000 dependents from in late 2005. Since then, the buildup has changed many times, I've changed many times, and the people around me who discuss this issue and work on this issue has changed as well. Okinawa has become an strangely intimate part of my life over the past few years b

Last weekend there was no Chamorro Village night market on Wednesday, the reason being because a terrible accident had taken place there. A man driving on Marine Drive left the road and jumped the curb driving directly into tents and vendors where the Sagan Dinana' used to be on the Chief Kepuha side of the Chamorro Village. The car didn't hit anyone, but smashed into equipment and tables, sending them flying which struck several people who were barbecuing. The car eventually was stopped when it ran into a concrete structure, the bathroom, breaking a waterfountain. The medical examiner stated that the driver died from the injuries from the crash, and could find no evidence of any prior trauma or damage, such as a heart attack which could have caused him to careen off the road the way he did. When I arrived at the Chamorro Village in order to open my grandfather's blacksmith shop, the police had put up yellow tape and had brought in a tow truck to take the car away. Doze