Special to WorldTribune.com By Donald Kirk [Editors’ note: South Korean President Park Geun-Hye, the country’s first female president, is facing her biggest political crisis since coming to power in 2013. A close female friend, Choi Soon-Sil, 60, is accused of selling influence. She is the daughter of late religious leader Choi Tae-Min, who befriended Park […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Donald Kirk Rodrigo Duterte was reputed as a killer long before his election as president of the Philippines five months ago. He countenanced the slaughter of hundreds of drug addicts and dealers while mayor of Davao, the major port city on the rebel-infested southern island of Mindanao, and has applauded the […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Donald Kirk We hear so much about China and Japan competing on and for the Korean peninsula, now and historically, that we overlook one other great Northeast Asian power. That would be Russia, which has a 17-kilometer border with North Korea as the Tumen River flows into the sea. In the […]
by WorldTribune Staff, October 14, 2016 Hillary Clinton warned that if Beijing didn’t “control” North Korea the U.S. would “ring China with missile defense.” The Chinese military was “the biggest supporters of a provocative North Korea. So China, come on. You either control them or we’re going to have to defend against them,” the former […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Donald Kirk Samantha Power, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, is on a fast track, and that’s not just in terms of her hot-shot career. She’s up against a tight deadline. She’s got until Jan. 20 to persuade the U.N. Security Council to strengthen what she says is already the […]
by WorldTribune Staff, October 10, 2016 Recent satellite images from a North Korean satellite launch facility showed the Kim Jong-Un regime may be preparing for a new long-range missile test. The images, released on Oct. 8 by the U.S.-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins University, showed increased activity at North Korea’s Sohae Satellite Launching Station. Analysts […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Donald Kirk The late Don Oberdorfer would surely have had qualms with the award named for him and presented by U.S. Ambassador Mark Lippert to Noh Hyo-dong, the longtime diplomatic and Washington correspondent for Yonhap News Agency. Why would a top U.S. diplomat be handing out a prize in the name […]
by WorldTribune Staff, October 4, 2016 North Korea’s ballistic missile technology is progressing at a pace that could pose a major problem for Japan’s missile defense capabilities, Japanese military sources say. The Kim Jong-Un regime in Pyongyang has test fired 21 ballistic missiles since the start of the year, leaving Tokyo unsure it could fend […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Donald Kirk The exchanges between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton in their first debate left an uneasy feeling about U.S. foreign policy. While Trump worried about all the money the U.S. has been squandering overseas, Clinton came through with ritual affirmation of U.S. treaty commitments. Their words were empty, less than […]
by WorldTribune Staff, September 28, 2016 The White House has ordered U.S. defense officials not to speak publicly about military competition with China, a report said. The directive comes from the National Security Council (NSC) and instructs Pentagon officials to replace the phrase “great power competition” with something less likely to aggravate China in official […]
