Years of patient diplomatic efforts by China with its belligerent neighbor North Korea seemed to be coming to an end on Saturday, following Beijing’s public announcement of an agreement with the U.S. on ridding North Korea of nuclear weapons. The action comes after last Sunday’s early warning shot by China’s President and CCP Secretary General […]
The insufferable Thomas Friedman has been ranting in recent columns about how North Korea threatens to step over a “red line” in the country’s latest belligerence towards the West which would disrupt the world’s conflict-free period. The New York Times’ champion of neoliberalism explains: “Think about what a relative luxury we’ve enjoyed since the Great […]
By Sarwar Kashmeri It would be a mistake to view President Obama’s visit to Israel as just a fence-mending exercise. It is in fact part of a planned redesign of U.S. foreign policy that will change the face of American leadership around the world. The redesign began with the appointment of John Kerry as Secretary […]
Update to 26 of March entry, “Will a New Arms Trade Treaty Be Approved?”: On 2 April, the U.N. General Assembly passed the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) – the first binding international treaty designed to regulate the $70 billion cross-border conventional arms trade, and create a standard to protect peace and security. Countries will be […]
In a post two weeks ago, I argued that the Obama administration confronts a serious credibility gap in Asia and cited as one example the small but growing number of influential South Koreans calling for their country to develop its own nuclear weapons because of renewed doubts about Washington’s commitment to South Korea’s security. This […]
What could be worse than living in a North Korean labor camp? Apparently, not much. This documentary centers mainly on Shin Dong-Huyk, an inmate who escaped Camp 14 and who now lives in South Korea. The tale he tells is horrific: beatings, torture, hard labor and near starvation are all the norm. He began hard […]
The news media lit up late Thursday on news that North Korea threatened to use preemptive nuclear warfare against the United States and canceled its non-aggression pact with South Korea. The regime of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, equipped with nuclear capabilities, seems less interested in peace and only throughout the last 24 hours upped […]
Give the people sports and they will forget all about politics. Such a maxim could be attributed to all manner of political figures from Commodus to Machiavelli. We can now add Kim Jong Un to that list after the North Korean leader welcomed former NBA weirdo Dennis Rodman to Pyongyang for a basketball game between […]
In an OpEd in Tuesday’s Wall Street Journal, Senators Bob Corker, currently Ranking Member on the Foreign Relations Committee, and James Inhofe, well-known global warming skeptic and Ranking Member on the Armed Services Committee, opined about how the administration’s commitment to eliminating nuclear weapons was 1) dangerous, 2) likely to cause an arms race around […]
A bitter campaign. A contentious election. A close vote. A winner boosted by overwhelming support among a particular age group. A leader who must unite a politically polarized nation. Sounds like the United States, but could also describe South Korea. On Wed. Dec. 19, the Asian nation made Park Geun-hye its first female president. In […]
Although recent media attention on North Korea has focused on its new first lady, the emergence of a significant humanitarian crisis has quickly replaced the sensational headlines. Compounding recent reports of malnutrition among North Korean children and the “…[estimation] that two-thirds of North Korea’s 24m population suffer from a chronic shortage of food…” , the […]
I step through the doors of the packed out Pyongyang restaurant on Monivong Boulevard in Phnom Penh and catch the eye of a very beautiful young Korean waitress. She traverses the crowded dining room and comes over to me with a bright smile on her face. “Table for two?” she asks, seeing my friend behind […]
To protect its national security, North Korea presents a strong visage to the world, but it is proving increasingly unable to provide food security for its people. North Korea’s children bear the brunt of its declining food security as, according to the Guardian, “Millions of North Korean children [nearly one-third under age 5] are not […]
A distinct sense of déjà vu has gripped the Korean peninsula, as Pyongyang now threatens to conduct a nuclear test in the forthcoming weeks, smarting from the embarrassment of its failed satellite launch to mark Kim Il-sung’s birthday in mid-April. The current sequence of events is almost a carbon copy of those that led up […]
Today in 1987, the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) was established by seven countries, including the U.S., in order to control the spread of unmanned delivery systems for weapons of mass destruction, and to coordinate national export licensing efforts aimed at preventing their proliferation. The regime, which has since expanded its membership to thirty-four (plus Israel, […]