Special to WorldTribune.com BAGHDAD — Iraq has approved a nearly $1 billion energy contract. The Iraqi Cabinet has endorsed a $998 million service contract with South Korea’s Samsung Engineering for the development of the West Qurna Phase-2 oil field. The Cabinet reached the decision on Jan. 24 after Samsung appeared on the final list of […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Donald Kirk, East-Asia-Intel.com The rise of the son as “supreme commander” of North Korea’s armed forces gives rise to nostalgia. Already the reign of the father is beginning to seem like the good old days. At least as long as Kim Jong-Il was around a certain sense of security prevailed. South […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Lee Jong-Heon, East-Asia-Intel.com North Korea has quickly moved to cement its new leader’s position amid skepticism that an untested, inexperienced son in his late 20s could take the helm, beating out older and powerful military generals who presumably want to share power. Kim Jong-Un, the third son of Kim Jong-Il who […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Brian M. Downing, FreePressers.com One can scarcely read anything on world affairs these days without seeing discussion of the decline of the U.S. and the rise of China. In recent weeks, however, President Obama spoke plainly, bluntly, and even disparagingly to China. At the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, Obama chided China, […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Donald Kirk, East-Asia-Intel.com SEOUL — North Korea is playing a skillful game of funeral diplomacy and politics that’s dividing South Koreans and leaving everyone to wonder who’s doing what to whom in the corridors of power in Pyongyang. All North Korean strategists have had to do is issue a huge welcome […]
Sol W. Sanders A new era of increasing instability is opening in East Asia. The death of North Korean leader Kim Il-Jong is only adding another, if explosive, element to an already volatile equation: China enters a period of substantially slower economic growth, if not a crash, on the eve next autumn of a takeover […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Lee Jong-Heon, East-Asia-Intel.com North Korea’s military discipline has been significantly eroding and soldier loyalty to the regime weakening largely due to protracted economic troubles, according to South Korean think thanks, citing confidential military documents from the North. The declining military discipline had prompted the late ruler Kim Jong-Il to regularly issue […]
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 […]
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 […]
Times 247.com The Chinese Foreign Ministry on Monday made no apology for the killing of a Korean coast guard officer by the skipper of a Chinese trawler who was caught fishing illegally in Korean waters. … On Oct. 24, when the South Korean coast guard seized three Chinese fishing boats after a pitched battle with […]