Special to WorldTribune.com By Lee Jong-Heon, East-Asia-Intel.com SEOUL — North Korea has increasingly exported laborers since Kim Jong-Un took power in late 2011 in a bid to earn much-needed foreign currencies given the tightened international curbs on cash flows. The policy risks exposing more North Koreans to outside influences, which could result in more defections and cracks […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Parris Chang On July 20, Taiwan’s ruling party (Kuomintang or KMT) elected its chairman, and tens of thousands of its members were mobilized to vote for the incumbent — President Ma Ying-jeou. Pundits likened the election to a mid-summer festival political farce, as Ma was the only candidate on the ballot, […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Lee Jong-Heon, East-Asia-Intel.com SEOUL — North Korea has begun parceling out state-owned farmland to city laborers to address chronic food shortages in urban areas, sources here said. “The North has started to lend cooperative farmland to city workers since mid-May in an attempt to ease acute food shortage problems for urban citizens,” said […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Lee Jong-Heon, East-Asia-Intel.com SEOUL — North Korean leaders have been living in fear of coming under Chinese control but had no option but to rely on the economic giant for much-needed hard currency, documents and sources said. According to the 2007 inter-Korean summit transcript disclosed by South Korea’s spy agency, then North Korean […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Lee Jong-Heon, East-Asia-Intel.com SEOUL — Senior Chinese military officials have begun calling for the downgrading of military ties with North Korea arguing that Pyongyang should be seen more as a “burden” than an ally, officials here said. According to South Korea’s leading newspaper Chosun Ilbo, some Chinese military leaders have called for the […]
Special to WorldTribune.com East-Asia-Intel.com In a shocking poll, 69 percent of South Korea’s high school students believed that it was the South that started the Korean War in 1950. President Park Geun-Hye expressed dismay on June 17 during a cabinet meeting in the Blue House, the presidential office/residence complex in Seoul. “This kind of wrong […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Lee Jong-Heon, East-Asia-Intel.com SEOUL — North Korea’s Swiss-educated young leader Kim Jong-Un, who spent his first year in office enjoying amusement parks and a basketball game with Dennis Rodman, has now made the building of a luxury ski resort a national priority. In January, Kim, who has been referred to as a “ski […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Donald Kirk, East-Asia-Intel.com Sometimes you have to wonder when reading the top stories how much people are really thinking about some of the implications. Take this running story about Edward Snowden. It’s a fun read, and it would not be a good idea to put him in jail for a lot […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Donald Kirk, East-Asia-Intel.com Ok, the North-South talks fizzled when neither could agree on who was truly “ministerial.” Now the question is when, how, or if the talks will happen. No matter, the Xi-Obama summit has to be viewed as a success in view of the post-summit sideshow between negotiators of North […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Lee Jong-Heon, East-Asia-Intel.com SEOUL — The surprising expulsion of young North Korean asylum-seekers by the Laotian government was a result of Pyongyang’s aggressive diplomacy under leader Kim Jong-Un, sources here said. The nine North Korean defectors, who are believed to all be orphans and aged between 14 and 18, made their way to […]