Posts Tagged ‘Kim Jong-un’
A Week of Terror in 1968
“We thought the president there was a stooge, an American collaborator. I hated him.” – Kim Shin-jo, member of a North Korean commando team sent to assassinate the South Korean president in January 1968 On the afternoon of January 17, 1968, a 31-man, hand-picked team of North Korean commandos who had been…
Read MoreIs The Korean War Finally Ending?
For those who served on the Korean peninsula from 1950-1953 and survived, men now in their eighties and nineties, the fighting ended when they came home. For those who died in the streets, fields, landing zones, and mountains of Korea, the fighting ended when their young lives were snuffed out by a North Korean or Chinese…
Read MoreSending Them to Die
At the age of 16, Lee Tae-won, convicted of helping a young woman escape from North Korea and deemed an enemy of the state, was sentenced to five years in a “re-education” camp, or gulag. His father, an accomplice to his son’s treasonous behavior, was given the same sentence. As traitors of the Supreme Leader,…
Read MoreTwenty and Counting
North Korea has launched 20 (yes, twenty) missiles this year. And we still have a month to go. Tensions on the Korean peninsula are at an all-time high, and as we look back on the Trump administration’s response to Kim Jong-un’s reckless and relentless pursuit of a nuclear-armed ICBM arsenal capable of hitting the US,…
Read MoreTrump’s First Visit to Korea
It’s always fun to write a piece for The Korea Times, and when I was asked to contribute my views on Trump’s upcoming visit I jumped on the opportunity. As I point out in my article below, the ROK-US alliance is strong – and getting stronger. South Korea and the United States have agreed to increase…
Read MoreNorth Korean Manmade Earthquake Reshapes the World
South Korean decontamination crews rehearsing for the worst. (Reuters) It was one of those days. After waking up and making coffee, I scrolled through the top stories on my iPad’s “News” icon. North Korea was in the spotlight – again. Jonathan Cheng, The Wall Street Journal’s Seoul bureau chief and a friend, had written an…
Read MoreEnter at Your Own Risk
It’s not adventuresome, cool, or cute. But that’s the way many people who travel to North Korea view their irresponsible and selfish decisions to defy the US State Department’s travel warnings for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK). One of my friends visited the reclusive, draconian country a few years ago and told me, “I just wanted to go…
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