Special to WorldTribune.com By Donald Kirk, East-Asia-Intel.com The murder of journalists at the hands of ISIS forces shows how far a few daring correspondents will go to find out what’s going on. Covering wars has always been hazardous, never more so than when highly resourceful, motivated reporters go beyond the protective cover of military units […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Donald Kirk, East-Asia-Intel.com In sunny Florida, while storms and blizzards rage in the American Northeast, old war correspondents from our days in Vietnam and Cambodia talk about those days of fighting in the jungles, of going down remote roads, of running into the bad guys and coming back alive. One of […]
Special to WorldTribune.com LONDON — Turkey, amid a crackdown on the opposition, has found a new supplier for anti-riot equipment. Amnesty International reported that the Islamist government in Ankara has begun ordering anti-riot equipment from South Korea. Amnesty said the Turkish Interior Ministry procured 1.9 million tear canisters from a South Korean company. “The first […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Donald Kirk, East-Asia-Intel.com Maybe we should all be thankful. No harm done in this Sony/North Korea flap; just a war of words. A torrent of them, in fact, but so far no fatalities, no injuries, merely hurt feelings, stunned outrage, routine mass media sturm and drang. Ok, sound and fury, signifying […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Donald Kirk, East-Asia-Intel.com I know how she feels. You ask for nuts, you get pretzels, and that’s upsetting. That’s just the view from economy class. Up there in first class, you ask for nuts, and you’ve got to have them strewn on a plate. Open up the baggie yourself? You’ve gotta […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Donald Kirk, East-Asia-Intel.com MANILA — The title was alluring: “The First Asian Investigative Journalism Conference.” For two days, experts regaled journalists from all over Asia on how to track down the secret stories, the purloined funds, the hidden wealth of the high and mighty in countries and economies ranging from Pakistan […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Donald Kirk, East-Asia-Intel.com The growth of megachurches worldwide is a phenomenon in which thousands of individual churches or parishes each claim more than 2,000 members. The Full Gospel Church in Yeoeuido is the world’s largest, with hundreds of thousands attending 10 or more services every Sunday. Nearly half the world’s 50 […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Lee Jong-Heon, EastAsiaIntel.com SEOUL — A secret North Korean military document contains reports of troops leaving their barracks without permission, commandeering trains to forage for food and other evidence of sharply relaxed military disciplines under Kim Jong-Un’s rule. Some deserters were travelling to markets to earn money and seek for foods, […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Donald Kirk, East-Asia-Intel.com American baseball fans, maybe U.S. major league baseball in general, have some lessons to learn from the way that diehard Koreans cheer on their teams. At the final game of the Korea Series, I was surrounded wherever I hung out in the stands by people standing up, swinging […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Donald Kirk, East-Asia-Intel.com Many Koreans don’t know it, but Korea is cool. Three newly published books say so. Two of them even have “cool” in the title — “The Birth of Korean Cool” by Euny Hong, who describes herself as having “spent her childhood in Chicago and in the elite Gangnam […]