Special to WorldTribune.com By Donald Kirk President Donald Trump faces obstacles when he gets to Seoul next week that have nothing to do with unruly mobs trying to shout loudly enough over mega-loudspeakers for him to hear them across rows of policemen in body armor. No doubt Trump’s handlers will come up with the proper […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By John J. Metzler UNITED NATIONS — The political optics could not have been more contrasting as China selected its leader and Japan elected its Prime Minister. In a grandiose and stunning setting, draped in the trappings of crimson and gold, 2,300 Chinese Communist Party (CCP) grandees predictably anointed Xi Jinping as […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Donald Kirk TOKYO ― The overwhelming success of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in the latest elections for members of the Japanese “Diet” ― the peculiar word for Japan’s parliament or national assembly ― portends hardening of tensions and priorities in Northeast Asia. Yes, Abe would dearly like to revise Japan’s post-war […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By John J. Metzler UNITED NATIONS — Truth is often stranger than fiction. Indeed elections for new members of the UN’s 47-member Human Rights Council proved yet again that some of the least qualified and most repressive regimes would win coveted seats on the watchdog committee tasked with monitoring human rights and […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Donald Kirk The line-up of warplanes on display beside the runway at Seoul Air Base has got to be intimidating. The sight of the latest American F35s and F22s along with all those South Korean fighters may frighten anyone contemplating war on the Korean Peninsula. They’re parked near spacious exhibition halls […]
Special to WorldTribune.com Jeffrey T. Kuhner Hollywood is a moral cesspool. I’ve always known it. Now, with the Harvey Weinstein scandal, it’s official. But the consequences of Harveygate go way beyond Tinseltown. A nuclear bomb has just been detonated in one of the major centers of liberal, Democratic power. Weinstein is an evil, grotesque pervert. […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By John J. Metzler UNITED NATIONS — A dangerous and potentially riveting political fault line stretches from Spain across Europe to Ukraine as smoldering separatist movements have gained new strength and standing. From Catalonia in Spain to the eastern regions of Ukraine with Corsica in between, the nationalist rift runs through the […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Donald Kirk Donald Trump at times engages in such flights of rhetorical fancy that a lot of people think he’s crazy or anyway unpredictable. How can you be sure of a president who talks about destroying North Korea, who holds out “the military option” ― but professes to want to avoid […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Donald Kirk SEOUL —South Korea’s outspoken radicals and leftists can hardly hide their dismay. To the consternation of organizers of the candlelight crusade that brought down the government of the conservative Park Geun-Hye, ousted and jailed on a wide range of offenses, their one-time hero, Moon Jae-In, elected president as Park’s […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By John J. Metzler UNITED NATIONS — Perhaps it’s the dangerous global threat from North Korean nukes. Maybe it’s political fatigue and crisis overload. Or it could be the escalating ethnic cleansing in Burma. But the long running and brutal Syrian civil war has become largely an afterthought for many delegates at […]
