Wesley Pruden History loves irony, as Prof. Gingrich could (and no doubt will) tell us. Two men renowned for their deeds die more or less on the same day on opposite sides of the world. The bad guy gets the big headline, the good guy makes the front page one last time as a footnote […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Donald Kirk, East-Asia-Intel.com SEOUL — No matter which way South Korea looks, the government faces tough new/old issues with the two enormous powers that have subjected the Korean Peninsula to pain and suffering over the centuries. First, this week, the problem was with China after the skipper of a Chinese fishing […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Lee Jong-Heon, East-Asia-Intel.com As many as 200 North Korean college students who had been mobilized for construction work have died in recent accidents caused by a lack of safety equipment and procedures. The reclusive country has launched notorious “speed battles” that force workers to perform faster without concern for safety, a […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Willy Lam, East-Asia-Intel.com President Hu Jintao has underscored the imperative of developing a strong navy by directing the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) to “expand and deepen preparations for military struggle.” The term “military struggle” is longstanding PLA shorthand for “winning regional warfare under high-tech conditions.” Hu, who chairs the policy-setting […]
John J. Metzler UNITED NATIONS — Recently UN member states turned their attention to the need for Financing for Development, or put more plainly, stressing the still pressing need for development assistance to assist the plethora of poor nations. Fortunately foreign assistance donor states have not significantly cut their budgets, but rather sharpened their focus […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Donald Kirk, East-Asia-Intel.com MINAMISOMA, Japan — The soulful notes of Silent Night wafted from an outdoor sound system on the near-empty main street to the station of this coastal city on the northern edge of the 20-kilometer “exclusion zone” around the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. The doleful refrain set the […]
John J. Metzler UNITED NATIONS — With the historic visit of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to Burma, the highest profile American diplomatic contact in fifty years, the United States has entered a high stakes geopolitical chess game in Southeast Asia. Burma, a political pariah state has long been courted by China, coveted by India, […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Lee Jong-Heon, East-Asia-Intel.com SEOUL — North Korea has bolstered coastal surveillance as its citizens seek sea routes to South Korea following tightened controls over the land borders with China, a military source here said. The North’s navy has stepped up patrols along the coast to deter people from fleeing the famine-hit […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Donald Kirk, East-Asia-Intel.com SEOUL — Hillary Clinton would like nothing better than to wrap up her tour as one of America’s most successful secretaries of state than by going to North Korea and persuading North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-Il to return to six-party talks in return for a serious sign of […]
Special to WorldTribune.com ANKARA — China and Turkey have signed a natural gas storage agreement. Turkey’s state-owned Botas has contracted China’s Tianchen Engineering to build a gas depository under Turkey’s Lake Tuz in Central Anatolia. Under the agreement, reported at $559 million, Tianchen would build a facility by 2019 that could store one billion cubic […]