How the Obama administration’s Syria reversal looks in Seoul

How the Obama administration’s Syria reversal looks in Seoul

Special to WorldTribune.com By Donald Kirk, East-Asia-Intel.com SEOUL, South Korea — The pattern is distressingly familiar. Russia doesn’t want anyone to believe that its friends and allies are capable of wrongdoing. Remember the Russian experts who examined the sinking of the Cheonan and came up with a report that was never quite released? The reason […]

Kenneth Bae’s unforgiveable ‘crime’: Christianity

Kenneth Bae’s unforgiveable ‘crime’: Christianity

Special to WorldTribune.com By Donald Kirk, East-Asia-Intel.com The outlook for Kenneth Bae, the American preacher/tour guide who’s been sentenced to 15 years hard labor in North Korea, is bleak. That’s because his offenses against the system sound a lot more serious than those of three people rescued by former American presidents in great blazes of […]

From Stalin to Putin: Moscow maintains uneasy balance of power in Northeast Asia

From Stalin to Putin: Moscow maintains uneasy balance of power in Northeast Asia

Special to WorldTribune.com By Donald Kirk, East-Asia-Intel.com SEOUL — The resurgence of Vladimir Putin as president of Russia ushers in a new era of power politics and diplomacy in Northeast Asia with implications that may not be good news for either the United States or China. Campaigning against strong opposition from the educated, intellectual, often […]

China wins 50-year control of strategic N. Korea port in $3-billion deal

China wins 50-year control of strategic N. Korea port in $3-billion deal

Special to WorldTribune.com Compiled by Miles Yu, Geostrategy-Direct.com China has scored a major strategic victory by concluding a $3-billion deal with Pyongyang to lease the Rason Port along the northern stretch of the Chinese-North Korean border for 50 years. According to reports from Beijing and South Korean media, China is to build within the Rason […]

Traumatized by N. Korean ordeal, U.S. activist pleads for ‘international community to protect millions of victims’

Traumatized by N. Korean ordeal, U.S. activist pleads for ‘international community to protect millions of victims’

Special to WorldTribune.com By Donald Kirk, East-Asia-Intel.com WASHINGTON — Robert Park cried out in torment as he spoke on the phone from Seoul about what he had endured — not at the hands of the North Koreans who held him for 43 days after he crossed the frozen Tumen River into North Korea on Christmas […]