By Donald Kirk, East-Asia-Intel.com Why do the North Koreans simply refuse to follow the logic and needs of foreign analysts when it comes to the timing of great events? Here everyone was saying that Kim Jong-Un had to show up for the 69th anniversary of the founding of the Workers’ Party one week ago, and […]
By Donald Kirk, East-Asia-Intel.com The world seems to be missing Kim Jong-un. The porcine image of this overweight 30-something reviewing his troops or wagging a finger at a map or “ordering” a missile test had become a media staple until he vanished from view in early September. Oh, we also like to read about his […]
By Donald Kirk, East-Asia-Intel.com The democracy demos in Hong Kong evoke so many memories going back to the late 1960s when I saw thousands pouring on to the streets of what was then a British crown colony brandishing copies of Mao Zedong’s “little red book.” That was the era of the Great Cultural Revolution, and […]
By John J. Metzler UNITED NATIONS — The specter and shadow of international terrorism tragically clouded the opening of the UN General Assembly session, yet again. The growing menace from ISIS/ISIL jihadi terrorists threatening the sovereignty of Iraq and Syria goes beyond the Middle East and now extends to possible terror strikes in Western Europe […]
By Donald Kirk, East-Asia-Intel.com WASHINGTON — The eyes of the world are upon the new U.S. war in Syria and Iraq, and that’s not just because people want to know how or whether aerial bombardments and missile strikes are really knocking out the bad guys. One question is whether such high-tech attacks from the air […]
By John J. Metzler UNITED NATIONS — Presidents, prime ministers, kings and potentates are gathering in New York for the 69th General Assembly of the UN. But as diplomats come together for the annual general debate which begins on Sept. 24, there’s a cloud of political and social unease greeting delegations from the 193 member […]
By Donald Kirk, East-Asia-Intel.com WASHINGTON — The debate is so familiar. Should the United States plunge into a war in a region about which all too little is really understood? President Obama, having foresworn war, now is edging into a conflagration in Syria and Iraq that is sure to go on for years and may […]
By John J. Metzler UNITED NATIONS — Speaking in the somber shadow of the September 11th anniversary of the terrorist attacks on America in 2001, President Barack Obama sought to stake out an ambitious military and political strategy to degrade and defeat the new surge of Middle Eastern terrorism now sweeping Iraq and Syria. Yet […]
By Donald Kirk, East-Asia-Intel.com The United Nations as a force for peace has never lived up to the hopes implicit in the name. You can’t blame a succession of secretary-generals for the failures of the UN The current secretary-general, Ban Ki-Moon, may seem bland and ineffective, but there’s not much he can do when each […]
By Donald Kirk, East-Asia-Intel.com SEOUL — Star Wars is coming. Wait around long enough, and we’ll see missiles and interceptor projectiles knocking each other out in great blazes of flashing light hundreds of miles above from where we cower in fear of a deadly device sneaking its way through the flak and detonating on top […]