Kim Jong-Un speeding up generation shift, may have sidelined powerful stepmother

Kim Jong-Un speeding up generation shift, may have sidelined powerful stepmother

Special to WorldTribune.com By East-Asia-Intel.com”>Lee Jong-Heon, East-Asia-Intel.com North Korea’s newly-installed ruler Kim Jong-Un has been accelerating efforts to form his own independent power base, placing individuals loyal to him in key positions of authority after purging a number of potential rivals, sources in Seoul said. “A series of reshuffles are undergoing in the Party, the […]

Liquidate the World Bank!

Liquidate the World Bank!

Sol W. Sanders [See Archive] An old adage holds bureaucracies may successfully pursue their original goals for only a generation. After that their efforts go to feathering their bureaucratic nest. Freddy Mac and Fannie Mae are examples: outrageous executive compensation and payoffs to Congressional friends, all contributing to a housing bust, now requiring more billions […]

Next president can cope with Putin redux and China’s sinister rise … if his name is not Obama

Next president can cope with Putin redux and China’s sinister rise … if his name is not Obama

Lev Navrozov “China Builds the Bomb” is the title of a 327-page book written by two American nuclear scientists and published in 1988. I bought this book as soon as it hit the bookstores. Indeed, the book invited the readers to pay special attention to Chapter “China’s Nuclear Weapons Tests, 1964-1978” (pp. 244-245). Quite a […]

China finally feeling heat over its ‘repatriation’ of N. Korean defectors to their doom

China finally feeling heat over its ‘repatriation’ of N. Korean defectors to their doom

Special to WorldTribune.com By Donald Kirk, East-Asia-Intel.com SEOUL — Star power, political pressure and diplomacy may be forcing the Chinese into second thoughts about their much reviled policy of sending North Korean defectors back to uncertain fates in North Korea whenever they catch them. In the face of pleas by well known performers and South […]

Tale of two brothers: Speaking out costly for older? Silence is golden for the kid

Tale of two brothers: Speaking out costly for older? Silence is golden for the kid

Special to WorldTribune.com By Donald Kirk, East-Asia-Intel.com SEOUL — The youngest son keeps his mouth shut, and the oldest one talks too much. Clearly, the silent one knows what’s best for him as he plays the title role bequeathed to him by his late father, North Korea’s “Dear Leader” Kim Jong-Il. Kim Jong-Un is showing […]

What reset? What Arab Spring? Veto of Syria resolution reminds world of its Russia-China problem

What reset? What Arab Spring? Veto of Syria resolution reminds world of its Russia-China problem

John J. Metzler UNITED NATIONS — Secretary of State Hillary Clinton may have lambasted Russia’s veto of a Security Council resolution on Syria, calling it a “travesty,” but did she really think for a moment that Moscow was going to ditch an old political ally? Did Hillary moreover really believe that Beijing was going to […]

World waits for someone to do something, and then waits some more

World waits for someone to do something, and then waits some more

Sol W. Sanders Looking around the world, the striking characteristic is waiting out a number of crises. Their outcome seems almost artificially suspended, and their interaction on one another and their ultimate effect on the world is at issue. We start with the Euro. Chancellor Angela Merkel’s supplications in Beijing were perhaps laudable but a […]

China’s dictators are not stupid like Stalin and Obama is their ally

China’s dictators are not stupid like Stalin and Obama is their ally

Lev Navrozov In my columns, I have been writing a lot about PRC’s aggressive policies, its growing military might, and its global ambitions. Today’s PRC’s dictators are not as stupid and naive as was Stalin, who kept his country isolated from the entire world. Nobody, except Soviet spies and high-post ambassadors he sent abroad to […]

Kim Jong-Un era starts with new landmines on China border and shoot-to-kill orders to stop defections

Kim Jong-Un era starts with new landmines on China border and shoot-to-kill orders to stop defections

Special to WorldTribune.com By Lee Jong-Heon, East-Asia-Intel.com North Korea has planted land mines and installed wooden planks studded with sharp iron nails along its border with China in one of the strictest measures yet to deter starving citizens from fleeing into China, according to Seoul-based defectors’ groups. “North Korea is planting a number of land […]

Never mind the facts: Our love affair with China goes on and on

Never mind the facts: Our love affair with China goes on and on

Sol W. Sanders Old friend columnist Joseph Alsop once told me of arriving in China with a clanking sword he had hassled across the Pacific, given him by his cousin, FDR, along with an instant “Inside-the-Beltway” Navy commission. President Roosevelt sent him immediately after Pearl Harbor to Chungking as “political adviser” to Claire Lee Chenault […]