Special to WorldTribune.com By Lee Jong-Heon, East-Asia-Intel.com SEOUL — North Korea is increasing pressure on Seoul to resume the long-stalled inter-Korean tour project, a rare source of cash for the destitute nation, sources and analysts here said. The North was involved in months-long military sabre rattling in the spring highlighted by a third nuclear test, threats of […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Lee Jong-Heon, East-Asia-Intel.com SEOUL — North Korea has ordered its diplomats and trading company officials living overseas to send their children back home. Pyongyang apparently hopes to prevent families living abroad from defecting at a time when it seeks better ties with South Korea and the United States, sources here said. Holding family […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Donald Kirk, East-Asia-Intel.com SEOUL, South Korea — The pattern is distressingly familiar. Russia doesn’t want anyone to believe that its friends and allies are capable of wrongdoing. Remember the Russian experts who examined the sinking of the Cheonan and came up with a report that was never quite released? The reason […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Lee Jong-Heon, East-Asia-Intel.com SEOUL — The regime of North Korean ruler Kim Jong-Un has turned to sports as the tool to shape his image of a genial and friendly leader at home and mend fences with South Korea and the United States, officials and analysts here say. The initiatives range from inviting former […]
Special to WorldTribune.com East-Asia-Intel.com One year after China’s government erupted over Japan’s decision to buy three islands in the Senkaku chain from private investors, a decision dubbed by politicians as “nationalization,” a whopping 69.6 percent of Japanese in a recent public opinion poll endorsed the government’s action. Respondents to the poll clearly put blame for […]
Special to WorldTribune.com East-Asia-Intel.com The mercurial nature of North Korea’s Kim Jong-Un was further evidenced by his surprising decision to allow a South Korean weightlifting team to participate in the Pyongyang-hosted 2013 Asia Cup and Asia Club Weightlifting tournament. Furthermore, for the first time, the stridently anti-Seoul regime allowed the South Korean weightlifting team to […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Lee Jong-Heon, East-Asia-Intel.com SEOUL — North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un has conducted another military reshuffle, the third in a year, a sign that the young leader is still struggling to bring the powerful military under his command. Kim Kyok-Sik, one of the country’s most hawkish military leaders, is believed to have stepped down […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Donald Kirk, East-Asia-Intel.com Dennis Rodman while in North Korea might have asked his friend “Kim” about North Korea and Syria. Too bad he missed the chance, along with any notion of getting “Kim” to “do me a solid,” as he once put it, and let him bring Kenneth Bae out of […]
Special to WorldTribune.com East-Asia-Intel.com SEOUL — A majority of North Korean defectors here believe North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un’s public approval rating is above 50 percent thanks to programs to shape his image as a genial and friendly leader, a poll shows. [See also: Basketball diplomacy: The Harlem Globetrotters inside the hermit kingdom of North […]
Special to WorldTribune.com East-Asia-Intel.com A number of countries supporting UN sanctions against North Korea are sparing the communist regime’s ruling class, according to the U.S. broadcaster Voice of America. Of the 96 countries that submitted implementation reports on what actions they have taken as part of sanctions on the North, only 24 included the shipment […]