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Wed, April 24, 2019 | 05:16

Opinion > Columnists > Donald Kirk >

Memorializing Sewol tragedy

The sinking of the Sewol ferry five years ago was one of the greatest tragedies in Korean history. The memory for me, along with many others, is especially poignant since I spent hours in the great school gymnasium where families of the 304 victims, most of them middle school students, were waiting endlessly for the terrible news they never wanted to hear.

Donald Kirk | 2019-04-18 17:00

Trump's 20-20 vision

WASHINGTON - Summit fever wasn't exactly a problem here this week. In fact, aside from those with a stake in observing, analyzing and assessing President Moon Jae-in's summit with President Trump on Thursday, most people hardly noticed it.

Donald Kirk | 2019-04-11 17:55

Plotting against North Korea

The raid on the North Korean embassy in Madrid by a band named Jayu Joseon, “Free Joseon,” portends disquieting possibilities. Does any movement stand a chance of challenging the regime of Kim Jong-un? Were these people a unique bunch of crazies acting on their own or do they have mysterious powerful backing? And will they wind up being imprisoned for barging into the embassy, beating and tying up everyone there and then stealing the embassy's computers and hard drives?

Donald Kirk | 2019-04-04 17:00

Wise words on North Korea

Ban Ki-moon, now that he's no longer United Nations secretary-general, can offer frank views that would definitely have had North Korean diplomats screaming bloody murder in the UN headquarters had he expressed them there.

Donald Kirk | 2019-03-28 17:55

In defense of freedom

President Moon Jae-in almost accidentally stepped into a battle that did not have to happen with journalists for foreign news organizations.

Donald Kirk | 2019-03-22 17:57

'Animal Farm' never like this

The Demilitarized Zone that's divided North from South Korea since the Korean War evokes images of the Berlin Wall that divided East from West Berlin from 1961 to 1991 but shows no signs of going down after the second summit between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.

Donald Kirk | 2019-03-14 17:17

To walk or not to walk

By Donald Kirk No matter what he does or says, Donald Trump is playing a losing game with his critics on the North Korea-U.S. situation and probably on just about everything else. If he had joined Kim Jong-un last week in signing a piece of paper agreeing to give up sanctions while Kim promised to shut down the main nuclear complex at Yongbyon, a chorus of Trump-haters would have hissed and booed him down. Those same people, of course, blamed him for “failure” when he rejected Kim's phony offer, shook hands and walked out at the Metropole Hotel in Hanoi.Aside from hardcore column...

Donald Kirk | 2019-03-07 17:43

US baffled by reports on NK missile sites

Vietnam versus North Korea

The slogan, “Hanoi, City for Peace,” would have seemed unimaginable when I was a correspondent in Saigon at the height of the Vietnam War nearly half a century ago.

Donald Kirk | 2019-02-28 18:02

Trump's Korea 'doctrine'

Is President Donald Trump capable of creating a “doctrine”? Can we dignify any of his utterances with the word, “doctrine?” Thae Yong-ho, the former North Korean deputy chief of mission at their embassy in London, has come up with just that term to describe Trump's policy toward North Korea. He even compares the nascent “Trump doctrine” with the “Nixon doctrine.”

Donald Kirk | 2019-02-22 17:42

On Vietnam's capitalist road

Everybody knows Kim Jong-un has a lot to learn from the capitalist success of nearby Communist countries. No example is better than that of China, whose leaders have urged him to walk the capitalist road to success. His late father, Kim Jong-il, was photographed during trips to China traipsing around one project or another as living evidence that communism and capitalism could survive together, to everyone's benefit, at no risk to his grip on power.

Donald Kirk | 2019-02-14 17:31

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