Radio Aum Shinrikyo

It must be coming up for 10 years since I heard this station on the radio. I vaguely recall hearing it on mediumwave via Russia, and a quick search on Google shows that the station was on 1494khz back in 1994. I don't recall much about the broadcast - I assume it wasn't fantastically listenable in that I believe I only ever listened to the broadcast once, however it was truly bizarre, and naturally rather shocking, to discover the following year that the people behind a programme I'd listened to were also behind the gas attacks on the Tokyo subway.

I'd long since forgotten of any motive for these attacks by the group, if indeed any were ever discovered. However the sentencing of Aum's leader this week has cast the attention of the media once more upon the group. It seems, as with terrorists the world over, that it is those disillusioned with the state of things around them who take to such extreme actions. Curiously, the quality of life of those in Japan is generally high, yet still the stresses and nature of the Japanese capitalist culture nevertheless proved too much for some to handle.

I wonder how differently news of the Aum attacks would have been received around the world had they occurred in 2004 instead of 1994...