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 […]
by WorldTribune Staff, October 22, 2017 Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his conservative Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) rolled to a landslide victory in Japan’s election on Oct. 22. The conservative coalition was on track to win 311 seats in the 465-seat House of Representatives on the National Diet, according to a projection published by private […]
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 By Donald Kirk It wasn’t exactly a declaration of war, but it did come close. What else to make of President Trump’s remark that the U.S. might “totally destroy North Korea”? It was one thing to belittle Kim Jong-Un as “rocket man” but quite another to threaten annihilation of a country torn […]
by WorldTribune Staff, September 15, 2017 For the second time in less than a month, North Korea launched an intermediate-range missile that flew over Japan. Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said at a press conference that the missile was launched on Sept. 15 at around 6:57 a.m. and went down at around 7:16 a.m. […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Donald Kirk President Moon Jae-In has to be a master of the art of compromise. He was all for the latest watered-down UN sanctions that cut down but don’t cut off the flow of oil from China and Russia to North Korea. The U.S. would far prefer to see all the […]
Analysis by WorldTribune Staff, September 12, 2017 Since the mid-Twentieth Century, it has fallen to the United States of America to deal with apocalyptic and devastating crises around the world including the World Wars and the Cold War. The emergence on the world stage in 2017 of North Korea — a belligerent communist rogue state […]
by WorldTribune Staff, September 3, 2017 The show of force by the U.S. and its allies in response to North Korea’s intermediate-range ballistic missile test on Aug. 28 included U.S. Marine Corps F-35s and U.S. Air Force B-1B bombers joined for the first time in a “sequenced bilateral mission” that included Japan and South Korea’s […]
by WorldTribune Staff, August 29, 2017 Residents of Japan’s Hokkaido, a northern island of 5.5 million, awoke early on Aug. 29 to a “J-Alert” on their mobile phones from the government, warning that North Korea had fired a missile and to take shelter. At 5:58 a.m., the Kim Jong-Un regime launched the North’s first ballistic […]
by WorldTribune Staff, August 10, 2017 Guam is prepared and its residents feel well-protected should North Korea launch an attack on the U.S. territory. The U.S. has two strategically significant bases on Guam, Andersen Air Force Base in the north and Naval Base Guam in the south. The two bases combined house 7,000 U.S. troops. […]