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Hither and Yon

Why North Korea has become flavor of the month for American media

"What counts is the story the North Koreans want the world to know"
Donald Kirk August 11th, 2016
North Korea is looking like the flavor of the month for American broadcast media.

ABC’s Bob Woodruff was just there, interviewing a foreign ministry official, flying over Pyongyang for an unprecedented view of the capital, mixing  Read More 
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Can a nation so divided against itself stand?

July 31, 2016
Special to WorldTribune.com

By Donald Kirk

WASHINGTON -- The two top American political parties are so badly fractured you wonder if they’ll ever come together again. And that’s to say nothing of the American public: that is, the vast majority who don’t participate in party politics at all.

It’s  Read More 
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Brexit comes as a shock depending on which Brits you talk to

By World Tribune on June 30, 2016
Special to WorldTribune.com

By Donald Kirk

WASHINGTON ― We’ve been reading for so long about Britain’s economic troubles, the social system and the culture intertwined with the country’s slow, not always graceful, decline, that the British exit from the European Union comes as less than a  Read More 
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Shooting it out in America, and may the good guys win

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

By Donald Kirk, EastAsiaIntel.com

[Editors’ Note: Don Kirk normally lives in Seoul under the constant threat of a nuclear missile attack from North Korea. Currently on a road trip back in the USA, he’s taking dead aim at the “gun nuts” on this  Read More 
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Surreal world: Ever notice how celebrity visitors to N. Korea have nothing to say about horrors there?

By World Tribune on June 9, 2016
Special to WorldTribune.com

DonKirk3By Donald Kirk, EastAsiaIntel.com

North Korea, that is the people who run the place, likes nothing better than endorsements from foreign visitors.

The list of foreigners paying obeisance to the Kim regime, Kim Jong-Un and his father and grandfather before him, is quite  Read More 
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North Korea ‘experts’ agree on the certainty of uncertain outcomes

By World Tribune on June 2, 2016
Special to WorldTribune.com

By Donald Kirk, EastAsiaIntel.com

JEJU ― Ask an expert analyst how to deal with North Korea, and the responses range from getting tough to massaging gently.

Nobody has the real answer ― though some people like to talk with absolute certainty ― and there’s no proof  Read More 
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Art of the deal: How about a summit between Donald Trump and Kim Jong-Un at the Korean DMZ?

By World Tribune on May 26, 2016
Special to WorldTribune.com

By Donald Kirk, EastAsiaIntel.com

Donald Trump may be running neck and neck with Hillary Clinton in the U.S. presidential sweepstakes if the polls are at all credible, but there’s one constituency in which he appears to be well ahead. That’s within  Read More 
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The South Korean split over Gwangju revolt still festers, empowering the North

Special to WorldTribune.com
By Donald Kirk, EastAsiaIntel.com

GWANGJU ― The ghosts of the uprising of May 18, 1980, hover over this old but new city in a restive spirit that shows the disunity, the factional splits and the regional hatreds that persist in undermining the ability of South Korea to stand effectively against challenges  Read More 
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Does China have more influence over South Korea than North Korea?

Special to WorldTribune.com
By Donald Kirk, EastAsiaIntel.com

We keep hearing about all the influence the Chinese have over North Korea.
If only they'd exert their power, maybe cut off or slow down the flow of oil that's the lifeblood of the country, then the North Koreans would start talking seriously about giving  Read More 
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South Korea’s Park rains on Kim Jong Un’s coronation parade

Special to WorldTribune.com
By Donald Kirk, EastAsiaIntel.com
Kim Jong-Un celebrates his “coronation” in Pyongyang Friday while forgetting about one unpleasant reality that deepens North Korea’s isolation in an already hostile world.
He presides over North Korea’s biggest-ever party, the Seventh Workers’ Party Congress, while Iran, his longtime partner in nuclear  Read More 
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