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, […]
Special to WorldTribune.com A surge in the number of abandoned homes in Japan has been attributed to the country’s aging population and low rate of births. According to the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency’s World Factbook, Japan’s death rate (the deaths during a year per 1,000 population) ranks 54th out of 225 countries. Japan also has the third-lowest recorded […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By John J. Metzler NEW YORK — It’s time to consult the crystal snow globe for a look at both the likely and unexpected events which will shape the New Year. Serious strife both in the Middle East, and Africa to a lesser extent, have expanded leading to a culture of conflict […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Donald Kirk, EastAsiaIntel.com The Koreans are using art to upset the Japanese. That’s in the form of statues of innocent young girls ― reminders of the suffering of Korean and other Asian women in the service of Japanese soldiers in World War II. They’ve got these statues in New Jersey, California […]
Special to WorldTribune.com The mysterious death of a top aide to Kim Jong-Un has all the markings of another purge by the young leader, analysts say. Kim Yang-Gon, secretary of the Workers’ Party and Kim Jong-Un’s point man on South Korea, was killed in a car crash in Pyongyang at 6:15 a.m. on Dec. 29. […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Dr. Willy Lam, EastAsiaIntel.com Efforts by the Xi Jinping administration to suppress embarrassing stories about his career in Fujian Province in the late 1980s and 1990s were behind two of the most brazen overseas acts of Chinese state-security agents. In October this year, four Chinese state-security agents kidnapped Hong Kong-based publisher […]
Special to WorldTribune.com China passed a new anti-terrorism law on Dec. 27 that critics say exploits fears of terrorism in order to extract sensitive information from technology companies. Tech firms strenuously objected to the law that was unanimously passed by Beijing’s rubber-stamp parliament. The new law states that telecom operators and Internet service providers must […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Norman Bailey Israel has no choice but to deal with unsavory regimes but it might be a mistake to renew ties with Turkey. The communist leadership of China; President Putin of Russia; Turkey’s Erdogan, King Salman of Saudi Arabia. Should Israel deal with such regimes? They are all wholesale violators of […]