Special to WorldTribune.com By Donald Kirk, East-Asia-Intel.com SEOUL — Maybe Japan’s Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, should have kept his mouth shut. No matter what he might have said on the 70th anniversary of the Japanese surrender, he would be the target of intensive criticism. The fact is the Japanese are done with apologizing for World […]
Special to WorldTribune.com South Korean artillery on Aug. 20 launched “dozens of rounds of 155mm shells” at the launch site of a North Korean rocket. The North Korean rocket was reportedly aimed at a front-line military unit in Yeoncheon, 35 miles northwest of Seoul. The rocket caused no damage or casualties, but the South responded […]
Special to WorldTribune.com North Korea on Aug. 14 denied it planted landmines inside the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) that injured two South Korean soldiers. South Korean military officials blamed Pyongyang for placing the mines in a neutral area of the DMZ. Analysis by the U.S.-led United Nations Command determined from the mine debris that they were […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Donald Kirk, East-Asia-Intel.com SEOUL — The looming 70th anniversary of the Japanese surrender and Korea’s ”liberation” reminds us of the dangers of new wars in a region where peace may be a fleeting phenomenon. North Korea, writhing under the humiliation of the failure of “Great Leader” Kim Il-Sung’s invasion of the […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Donald Kirk, East-Asia-Intel.com The temptation to slash defense spending is overwhelming. Why worry about huge standing forces overseas when they’re not deployed much except on military exercises and war games that are repetitious and boring? Easy to say, but the U.S. had only 500 advisers in South Korea when the North […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Donald Kirk, East-Asia-Intel.com SEOUL — Cyber espionage is the cutting edge of modern warfare. Think of all the great stuff intelligence agents learn from monitoring the conversations of just about everyone. The only problem is how to separate the meaningless, which means almost everything, from the inside clues that really count. […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Donald Kirk, East-Asia-Intel.com It’s a time for anniversaries and memories of the tragedies that have afflicted Northeast Asia over the past century. On Tuesday, the Japanese remembered the horror of the single worst battle in Asian history, the three-month struggle for Okinawa. The battle ended with the final defeat of the […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Donald Kirk, East-Asia-Intel.com AIDS, SARS, MERS ― the four-letter acronyms leap from the headlines like killers in a horror movie each time the latest deadly disease spreads shock and awe among people to whom the inability to find cures seems unimaginable. It was just a century or so ago when the […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Donald Kirk, East-Asia-Intel.com The crusade of WomenCrossDMZ for peace on the Korean Peninsula had certain defined boundaries. Don’t talk about human rights and nukes. Say all you want about American sanctions on North Korea and the need for a peace treaty to end the Korean War. The women were no doubt […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Donald Kirk, East-Asia-Intel.com Two very different visitors crossed paths in Seoul this week. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi bumped into each other after calling on President Park Geun-Hye at the Blue House. They’re old pals. Kerry and Modi have met in New Delhi and […]