kim jong il
The Kim is Dead. What Happens Next?
1 year 22 weeks ago

BUSAN, South Korea -- A friend from Reuters AP asked me to comment on Kim Jong-il's death with these questions and I wanted to share my assessment of the still unfolding situation with my readers:

How stable is North Korea today, with the news of Kim’s death?

Pretty stable actually. When Stalin and Mao died the whole show didn’t tip over. Insiders took a bit more power from the now-missing center but...

North Korea's One Party Elections are a Success!
1 year 43 weeks ago

PYONGYANG, North Korea -- One gets the feeling that the regime in North Korea doesn’t fully grasp the meaning of free elections when their lead statement on the recent one party ‘vote’ was this:  

"Polling stations are crowded with well-dressed voters eagerly waiting for their turns with many dancing to music of drums and gongs.”

Drums, gongs and well-dressed voters. What more could a Jeffersonian democrat ask for other than the chance to...

Mr. Kim: It's a Long Train to Russia
1 year 46 weeks ago

Somwhere near Vladivostok -- From near deathbed to hoping-for-a-handout train traveler, the aerophobic Kim Jong il’s armored train has been spotted on the Russian border.

U.S. and South Korean intelligence officials confirmed that the armored train departed from Pyongyang for Hamgyong Province, and that Kim was expected to meet Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in Vladivostok.

But the train never crossed the border.

Kremlin spokeswoman Natalya Timakova...

Reunification: The German Comparison
2 years 5 weeks ago
For Part One go here.

First off, lets examine some more differences between East and West German reunification with that of North and South Korea:

Domestic Differences

>East Germany (EG) was much wealthier than North Korea (NK) is now. EG was the ‘leading’ economic performer of the east bloc. The USSR realized how central the German...

Reunification: The German Comparison
2 years 11 weeks ago

BUSAN, South Korea - Last week I participated in a scenario to map out possible futures of Kim Jong Il’s sudden death. My best guess is that what we will see is a military dictatorship with Kim III (Jong-Un) as a familial, yet...

McDonald's Moves on Korea
2 years 13 weeks ago

McDonald's Korea Set to Expand

The Ronald McDonald invasion continues as the fast food icon’s familiar face will become easier to spot around Korea as McDonald's Korea is set for a major expansion -- both in number of restaurants and around the peninsula’s waistline.

With nearly $500 million in the next five years, McDonald's hopes to boost the number of outlets here to 500 by 2015. Zoning...

Tharp On: Danger
2 years 13 weeks ago

BUSAN, South Korea - When I originally told people I was coming to Korea to teach English, many were concerned, if not outright horrified: “Is it safe there?” “Aren’t you afraid of terrorists?” “Are you sure this is the best time to be living outside of the USA?”

Bear in mind, this was over six years ago, during the reign of modern history’s most untraveled U.S. president, George W. Bush. This was the post-9/11 world, where many...

A Little Less than a Rock Star Appearance
3 years 2 weeks ago

BUSAN, South Korea - And there he was, Kim Jong-il, hobbling into into Dalian China, a shadow of his former self, trying to look strong, but looking more like the next stop was shuffleboard and Ben Gay in Miami.

Captured first by Japanese TV no less.

The Nuke NorKo nincompoop has got a little less hair and a lot less pull than he once did. Ahh, how the ol' boy must long for the glory days; when sitting on top of a nuclear arsenal was all it took to get a little respect...

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