Special to WorldTribune.com Chinese President Xi Jinping on Jan. 21 pledged billions of dollars in aid to Egypt as Beijing moved to boost its influence in the Middle East. “China supports Egypt’s efforts to maintain stability, develop the economy and improve livelihoods, and … play an even greater role in international and regional affairs,” Xi […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Donald Kirk, EastAsiaIntel.com Donald Gregg, former U.S. ambassador to Korea, makes an astounding statement in a piece published after North Korea’s fourth nuclear test. Striking “a very positive note,” he praises “the performance of Kim Jong-Un in improving the North Korean economy and downplaying nuclear threats and nuclear weapons development.” It […]
Special to WorldTribune.com The landslide victory for Taiwan’s Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) over the pro-China Kuomintang, (Nationalist Party) in the Jan. 16 elections was driven by the nation’s youthful “strawberry generation.” It was a particularly satisfying victory for Taiwan’s youth movement, who had been written off by their elders as soft, self-satisfied and apathetic – […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Donald Kirk, EastAsiaIntel.com WASHINGTON ― Park Yu-Ha, under fire in Korea for writing “Comfort Women of the Empire,” offers what she believes may be a way to reach an understanding with Japan on the whole controversy. Why not, she suggested in a panel discussion at the Woodrow Wilson Center, form a […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By John J. Metzler UNITED NATIONS — President Barack Obama’s State of the Union Address, the annual speech to a joint session of Congress, has emerged as more of a political pep rally than a clear overview of America’s standing in the world both domestic and foreign. The address was touted as […]
Special to WorldTribune.com An Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL) jihadist instructed his Indonesia cells to launch a Paris-style attack in Jakarta on Jan. 14, police said. Two people were killed and 24 injured as five terrorists attacked a Starbucks cafe and a traffic police booth with hand-made bombs, guns and suicide vests, Jakarta […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Backgrounder, Geostrategy-Direct.com Djibouti, a former French colony, is a country of searing heat (summer temperatures average over 100 degrees) and little rain (17 days a year on average). The population of the East African state is 900,000, which ranks 159th in the world. But the tiny state on the Horn of […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By John J. Metzler UNITED NATIONS — Not one week into the New Year, the North Koreans jolted global concerns as well as the Richter scale with a nuclear weapons test. While the underground blast shook the remote Punggye-ri region near the Russian border, the political reverberations of the bomb have been […]
Special to WorldTribune.com North Korea conducted another nuclear test after recognizing how Iran was “gaming the system” in the nuclear deal pushed by U.S. President Barack Obama, an analyst said. The Kim Jong-Un regime is continuing a tradition of information- and technology-sharing between North Korea and Iran and using it to “outwit” the U.S. and […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Donald Kirk, EastAsiaIntel.com American ambassadors to South Korea pursue a fine line between defense of the U.S.-Korean alliance and pursuit of North-South reconciliation. If they seem hell-bent on military goals, they’re accused of trying to push Korea into a war that nobody wants. And if they appear overly eager for talks, […]
