Delhi.

On Wednesday, April 24, a day after Bangladeshi authorities asked the owners to evacuate their garment factory that employed almost three thousand workers, the building collapsed.

Newsclick discusses with Aijaz Ahmad the rising tensions concerning North Korea. Aijaz Ahmad says there have been provocative war games taking place every year involving South Korea, the United States and Australia to simulate an attack on North Korea. But, of late, there is a distinct escalation at the level at which the United States is posing this threat. It is in the interests of the US to whip up a war hysteria in order to create a popular demand for the return of its tactical nuclear weapons to South Korea which were withdrawn in 1991 as part of a bilateral agreement with North Korea. These moves are also aimed at building a new cold war against China. The only guarantee that North Korea has for its security is its nuclear power.
 

After threatening for quite some time to do so, North Korea carried out a third underground test of a nuclear device on its own territory just a few days back.

Is Bo Xilai's downfall from his post in Chongqing a blow to the "New Left" in China?

 Chanida Bamford from the Focus on The Global South, speaks on the election results in Thailand. The decisive victory for Yingluck Shinawatra's Pheu Thai party is a positive development for Thailand which has suffered autocratic rule in the near past, she says.

The triple disaster - the March 11th earthquake and tsunami followed by the nuclear accident in Fukushima has tested the famed resilience of the Japanese people. Professor at the department of East Asian studies at Delhi University, Brij Tankha comments on the reactions to the triple disaster by the Japanese government and society.

Part II of Newclick's interview with Prof. Anuradha Chenoy of the Centre for Russian and Central Asian Studies, SIS, JNU, on developments in Central Asia, as a pro-democracy uprising wave is in progress in West Asia.

Professor Anuradha Chenoy, Center for Russian and Central Asian Studies, JNU, speaks to Newsclick about the possibility of recent West Asian events being replicated in Central Asia.

Newsclick interviews Dr. A. Gopalakrishnan, former chairman of the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board in India on March 24, 2011. He speaks about the primary reasons for the continuing disaster in the Fukushima reactors following a major earthquake and tsunami in Japan.