Special to WorldTribune.com By Lee Jong-Heon, East-Asia-Intel.com SEOUL — A growing number of North Koreans — from elite Party members in Pyongyang to farmers in remote areas — are involved in the lucrative drug smuggling routes to China. Many have become addicts in the process. Defectors and analysts here said the Workers’ Party and military had long […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Lee Jong-Heon, East-Asia-Intel.com SEOUL — North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un is at odds with Pyongyang’s ruling elite, according to media reports and sources here. “Senior officials in the Workers’ Party and the military are increasingly objecting to policies or ignoring orders from Kim Jong-Un,” South Korea’s top newspaper Chosun Ilbo reported, citing sources […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Lee Jong-Heon, East-Asia-Intel.com North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un who mobilized the military and threatened U.S. allies with Weapons of Mass Destruction for the past months has shifted his focus to the economic front. On March 31, the Workers’ Party adopted the country’s “new strategic course of parallel economic construction and nuclear weapons development […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Donald Kirk, East-Asia-Intel.com The North Koreans have got to love this one. The ruckus over disputed islands gets so much play in Korea and Japan that Koreans and Japanese tend to forget they’ve got a real enemy lurking somewhere over the 38th parallel. That would be North Korea, whose strategists may […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Donald Kirk, East-Asia-Intel.com SEOUL — The job of a journalist for the North Korean propaganda machine surely must be one of the more fun-filled gigs in the media business. Imagine the laughs the writers up there must be having as they dream up fresh turns of phrase with which to pillory […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Donald Kirk, East-Asia-Intel.com SEOUL — China is mending fences with North Korea after signing off on “condemnation” of North Korea’s failed missile launch while the North ratchets up the decibel level of invective against South Korea and the United States. The confluence of revived warmth between North Korea and China and […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Donald Kirk, East-Asia-Intel.com SEOUL — No doubt about it, United States negotiator Glyn Davies got suckered into one of the all-time negotiating tricks when he fell for the deal with North Korea’s veteran double-talker Kim Kye-Gwan on Feb. 29 in which Kim convinced him, really, this time North Korea would honor […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Donald Kirk, East-Asia-Intel.com SEOUL — North Korea’s determination to fire a long-range missile sometime between Wednesday and next Monday is leaving the United States and its allies in the humiliating position of issuing rhetorical threats with no real chance of carrying them out. The helplessness of the U.S. position was clear […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Lee Jong-Heon, East-Asia-Intel.com Kim Jong-Un’s faster-than-anticipated rise to North Korea’s top leadership suggests that he is vulnerable to possible domestic challenges following the death last month of his father, Kim Jong-Il, who handpicked the son as his successor, officials and analysts in Seoul say. The junior Kim, who is believed to […]
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 […]