The Pige gets played

Former Japan souridaijin ("Prime Minister") Hatoyama Yukio (Y. Hatoyama), known derisively as "the Pige" here at CompHyp (Pige... pigeon; the family name means 'Pigeon Mountain'), hasn't figured out that the main benefit to his resignation from the premiership was that the world didn't have to listen to his loopy schemes and prevarications any more. Yes, I'm being mean. Sadly, the man deserves it:

He goes and runs off playing self-appointed diplomat, goes to Iran and says some very foolish things even though he was admonished not to go...

Hatoyama, who is visiting the country in a personal capacity to make efforts toward a peaceful resolution of the standoff over Tehran's nuclear program, will meet Sunday morning with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad before leaving the country in the evening.

Hatoyama visited Iran despite the Japanese government's concerns that it could result in "dual diplomacy".

Then, for doing so, he got the 'you shouldn't have lecture' from *his own party's officers*...

"The (Japanese) government is taking a consistent position that it would be better if he had not gone (to Iran) at a time like this, even if it is a personal trip," Chief Cabinet Secretary Osamu Fujimura told reporters.

And THEN he had the gall to claim that Iranian reports of his meeting were "completely fabricated"...

The (Iranian) presidential office quoted Hatoyama as saying the IAEA's treatment of certain countries including Iran is ''unfair,'' but the former Japanese leader told reporters Monday night upon returning to Tokyo that Tehran ''completely fabricated'' his comments and he finds that ''regrettable.''

''I have made no comments that deviate from the stance of the Japanese government,'' Hatoyama said.

So one of two things just happened:

Either the Pige went and said something he thought the Iranians wouldn't publicize, or; The Pige was just used as a propaganda tool by the Iranians because they know he can't make any counterclaim stick.

The first would be entirely in character, and damn foolish; The second would be (for the Iranian) entirely in character, and (for the Pige) damn foolish.

Note the similarity of the two possibilities in regard to Y. Hatoyama's conduct.

The ol' one-two

Here we go again: NorKs being NorKs.

North Korea has moved its "satellite launcher" ballistic missile test into launch position, on track for a launch between 12 and 16.April.

North Korea is also reported to be likely in the final stages of preparing a third nuclear test explosion at the same site as previous fizzles... er... tests.

OK, to quote another thread, so much for negotiations.

Open question to the UNSC, the United Nations Command in Korea, and to the governments of Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and the United States: So what are you going to do about it?

Further open question to Russia and the PRChinese: What are you going to do about it, or will you let this get hung on you for aiding and abetting?

'Close' was deadly enough

For those that have followed CompHyp, and really anyone who has seen international news over the last years, the group Boko Haram is a familiar one. This Islamist insurgency, mostly in Nigeria, was a vastly under-rated threat when they first surfaced and efforts to wipe them out have had decidedly mixed result.

Over the winter, the group launched a Christmas bombing campaign that caused significant death and destruction, and once again they are at it trying their murderous ways on a Christian holiday. The first bomb report came in from the city of Kaduna, where Easter celebrations at a Christian Church were targeted... that car bomb went off at a security checkpoint near the church... at least five dead...

... and now a related second bomb report has come in. There is some disagreement as to the total number of dead and injured, but at least 6 and 18 seems consistent.

No, Boko Haram hasn't (yet) issued any formal claim. Being that they are the only game in town, however, this is not a challenge to attribute the attacks to them.

So much for negotiations.

Saturday Open Push

Yeah, yeah, usually comes on Sunday...

Not happening.

Here's an Open Thread for you All while I have some time with family. As always, the usual rules apply, specifically: Play Nice.

See you on the 'morrow, and thanks for coming here.

and a cautionary note

Since the announcement of the sentencing of Viktor Bout earlier, the Foreign Ministry of the Russian Federation (MID) has out out a statement to the press about how they do not see the matter resolved. *NOTE: Statement was apparently a press statement and is not as of yet available on the MID site in English.*

Sky News UK, just to pick one of the reports out there, has it like this:

"The Russian foreign ministry views the US court verdict sentencing Viktor Bout to 25 years in prison as baseless and biased," the ministry said in a statement.

"(We will make) all possible efforts to return Viktor Bout to the Motherland, using for this all the existing international legal mechanisms."

Noble of them, standing up for a citizen of their republic; wish more countries had done so when Westerners got left to take the fall in places like Angola and Equatorial Guinea back in the day... but...

...the honest observation is that Viktor Bout was doing what he was doing with the help of a lot of powerful interests. They want him home and back to work, or at least in a place where he isn't pressured to say what he knows.

The most legitimate observation is that the MID will, through legal challenges and diplomatic linkage, try to get Bout sent to "serve his time" back in Russia.

Less sporting of them would be to make certain that one or more Americans working in Russia is "caught doing something bad".

Of course, from the point of view of any post-Soviet 'crime' interests that Bout was hooked up with, he is and has been since his arrest simply a detail that needs to be eliminated, but that is a danger really only to Viktor Bout right now.

Consider the second above a cautionary note, friends who are working in and with Russian interests: That deal that just broke your way that looks too good to be true... probably is. Watch yourselves.

five and twenty

Note to CompHyp Friend Will...

...it looks like pre-sentencing gamemanship was for 'naught. Viktor Bout gets 25 years.

Congratulations to Manhattan US Attorney Preet Bharara.

Congrats as well to the DEA-and-friends team that pulled the original sting.

Hell, as long as we are waving around the 'at-a-boy's, congratulations to Journalists and Investigators Douglas Farah and Stephan Braun, whose 2007 work publicized the role of Bout as a modern "Merchant of Death", and who have waited a very long time for this day to come.

Drink up, gents. Now let's go get some more bad guys.

Kim-the-newest base visit foreshadows trouble

Pretty much every time the Kim-in-power in North Korea visits some outlying military base and gives a statement (veiled as a speech) proclaiming doom for the enemies of the DPRK (North Korea), something bad happens. Consider it a "tell" of the crudest kind.

Well, guess what?

Shortly after this report of a visit to a navy base specializing in coastal submarine activities, where Kim-the-newest declared the following...:

SEOUL, April 5 (Yonhap) -- North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has ordered his troops to bury enemies at sea if provoked, Pyongyang's state media reported, amid tensions over his country's planned rocket launch.

...other reports came in via the Korea Herald stating that

Several North Korean submarines have disappeared after departing from bases on the eastern coast.

According to reports, three or four North Korean submarines recently departed from bases on the east coast and have since remained outside South Korean surveillance.

Consider this a very strong foreshadow of trouble to come.

Also, consider conducting some really realistic anti-submarine warfare drills (with live weapons and targets of opportunity) along the Sea of Japan coast of South Korea. Now. Not later. NOW.

***

h/t Galrahn via Twitter for setting me looking into this.