Unlikely Free Press champions: Defectors send balloons and leaflets North, rattling a nuclear power

By on    Columnists, COMMENTARY, Donald Kirk, Exclusives, NE Asia, North Korea, Rest of The Best, South Korea, Top Stories  

Unlikely Free Press champions: Defectors send balloons and leaflets North, rattling a nuclear power

Special to WorldTribune.com By Donald Kirk SEOUL — The insistence of a pair of brothers on scattering hundreds of thousands of leaflets from balloons fired over North Korea confronts the South with tough questions. Is it worth upsetting North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un and his sister, Kim Yo-Jong, knowing the negative effects the leaflets are […]

Daughter of a controversial leader runs for president of South Korea

By on    Exclusives, LIFE, NE Asia, South Korea, Top Stories  

Daughter of a controversial leader runs for president of South Korea

Special to WorldTribune.com By Donald Kirk, East-Asia-Intel.com The specter of Park Geun-Hye running for president of the Republic of Korea evokes almost as many memories for those foreigners who were here during the reign of her father as it does for millions of Koreans who share quite differing perspectives. As a journalist in pursuit of […]

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

By on    China, Exclusives, LIFE, NE Asia, North Korea, South Korea, Top Stories  

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 […]