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Hither and Yon

Memo to President-elect Trump: Beware of the experts on East Asia’s chessboard

By World Tribune on November 24, 2016
Special to WorldTribune.com

By Donald Kirk

The process of “making America great again” is filled with perils and pitfalls, nowhere more so than in Asia.

The intricacies and subtleties of the Great Game for Asia often are about as incomprehensible to the experts as they are to amateurs  Read More 
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North Korea and the Left love ‘democratic’ protests that back their agendas

By World Tribune on November 17, 2016
Special to WorldTribune.com

By Donald Kirk

Too bad President-elect Donald Trump’s phone call to President Park Geun-Hye the day after his victory may be his only chance to talk with her. Even if she’s still in the Blue House when he moves into the White House,  Read More 
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Make believe war games south of the DMZ, but what if the North is for real?

By World Tribune on November 10, 2016
Special to WorldTribune.com

By Donald Kirk

An air of unreality pervaded the atmosphere if not the skies over Osan Air Base this week as three of the niftiest warplanes on the planet zoomed off the runway for war games intended to strengthen their ability to work together to  Read More 
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Girl talk: Imagine what Hillary Clinton and South Korea’s Park Geun-Hye discussed in private

November 3, 2016
Special to WorldTribune.com
By Donald Kirk

[Editors’ note: South Korean President Park Geun-Hye, the country’s first female president, is facing her biggest political crisis since coming to power in 2013. A close female friend, Choi Soon-Sil, 60, is accused of selling influence. She is the daughter of late religious leader Choi Tae-Min, who  Read More 
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Russia’s stake in Korea: How U.S.-backed unification could work for Moscow

By World Tribune on October 20, 2016
Special to WorldTribune.com

By Donald Kirk

We hear so much about China and Japan competing on and for the Korean peninsula, now and historically, that we overlook one other great Northeast Asian power.

That would be Russia, which has a 17-kilometer border with North Korea as the Tumen  Read More 
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The brilliant Samantha Power’s two problems: China and her ‘monster’ comment about another powerful woman

By World Tribune on October 13, 2016
Special to WorldTribune.com

By Donald Kirk

Samantha Power, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, is on a fast track, and that’s not just in terms of her hot-shot career. She’s up against a tight deadline. She’s got until Jan. 20 to persuade the U. Read More 
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Remembering when journalists covered the government, rather than belonging to it

By World Tribune on October 6, 2016
Special to WorldTribune.com

By Donald Kirk

The late Don Oberdorfer would surely have had qualms with the award named for him and presented by U.S. Ambassador Mark Lippert to Noh Hyo-dong, the longtime diplomatic and Washington correspondent for Yonhap News Agency.

Why would a top U.S.  Read More 
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North Korea curses the world yet again and with more venom than ever

By World Tribune on September 8, 2016
Special to WorldTribune.com

By Donald Kirk

You have to credit the North Koreans with chutzpah ― the Yiddish word for “nerve,” brazen arrogance or insolence, all in untranslatable exclamation.

The leaders of the world’s 20 strongest, most powerful nations were gathered in a solemn conclave in China, and  Read More 
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A loyal son’s lonely crusade

By World Tribune on September 1, 2016

By Donald Kirk

Time slowly erases the traces of those held in North Korea. The longer they’re there, the easier it is to forget them. Their families, reluctant to invest more psychic energy on those for whom they know the North Koreans have no mercy, give up the  Read More 
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Where does bankrupt North Korea get the cash for those skyscrapers and missiles?

By World Tribune on August 25, 2016
Special to WorldTribune.com

By Donald Kirk

U.S.-China relations are at their worst in years, and North and South Korean are not getting along either. In fact, relations between those two are at such a low ebb that two-way trade, once about several hundred million dollars a  Read More 
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