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Donald Kirk

Trump's last stand

The great New York Yankee baseball player, Yogi Berra, played in 14 World Series, hit 358 home runs and made it to 18 all-star teams, but he's just as well remembered for one enduring line, “It ain't over 'til it's over.”

2020-12-17 17:04

Human rights for both Koreas

We hear so much about human rights that many of us are tired of the term. Sure, North Korea is an egregious human rights violator. True, Americans, ranging from law enforcement people to officials hauling in illegal immigrants and asylum seekers along the Mexican border, violate human rights too. And, yes, a number of American friends and allies have far worse records. Assaults on life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness may vary in degree but are commonplace everywhere in one form or another.

2020-12-10 17:00

Tales of gloom and doom

The North Korean economy is in such dire straits that none of the experts know quite what to do about it other than beg Kim Jong-un, please, sir, reform the economy and do away with your nuclear program in return for sanctions relief and a lot of aid.

2020-12-03 17:56

Trump remains unpredictable

The rise of Joe Biden is ushering in an array of old and new names vying for the president-elect's ear, or the ears of those close to him, or the ears of anyone who knows anyone who might be orbiting a planet that may be remote but not too far away from the sun as to be invisible. Think of all the departments, agencies,

2020-11-26 17:09

Undoing Trump's mistakes

It's not difficult to overstate the importance of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) just signed by China and 14 other nations, mostly in Asia, including the 10 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) plus South Korea and Japan (The other two signatories, Australia and New Zealand, are in the same region but, heaven forbid, would never identify as “Asian”).

2020-11-19 16:42

Biden and North Korea

Look for familiar names from the presidency of Barack Obama to deal with North Korea after the inauguration of Joseph Biden as president on Jan. 20. Biden, having served as vice president for two terms under Obama, knows these old-timers well and may be inclined to name some of them to influential positions in hopes, finally, of bringing North Korea to terms on its nuclear program.

2020-11-12 18:05

Politics of vengeance

No American presidential election in recent years was watched so closely as the one that concluded on Tuesday after considerably more than half of eligible voters had already cast their ballots by mail. It wasn't just the Americans voting in record numbers who were mesmerized by the whole process. The rest of the world was watching too as if it were some great game like the Superbowl played between two football teams, the annual gladiatorial contest that's almost as popular globally as it is across the U.S.

2020-11-05 17:20

Trump versus Biden

Odds-makers have no doubt fine-tuned the chances of Donald Trump or Joe Biden winning next Tuesday's presidential election. I might lay odds on one or the other but not for the record. It's not that I think it would be wrong to let it be known on whom I was betting. It's just the campaign is so fraught with variables and imponderables that I wouldn't hazard a guess for fear I could be proven dead wrong a few days from now, or later next week, or next month.

2020-10-29 18:19

Relationships - diplomatic, economic or personal - evolve. The U.S.-Korea relationship is not cast in stone. U.S. diplomats can go on all they want about the tightness of the bond, “no daylight between us” and all that, but it's got to change with the times.

2020-10-22 17:46

Protests amid pandemic

The pandemic assumes strange forms under strange conditions. No one knows who will be next to catch the bug. It's difficult to criticize the rules set forth in Korea for making as sure as humanly possible that COVID-19 won't spread. For the second time this year, I've been quarantined for two weeks at my place in Seoul, under orders not to leave for so much as a cup of coffee or a stop at a convenience store.

2020-10-15 17:59

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