ANDREA PLATE WRITES – Retired Lieutenant Colonel Amy McGrath served 20 years in the Marines, flew 89 combat missions and dropped bombs on Al Qaeda and the Taliban. Now, she’s aiming for a bigger target: the Senate seat of Republican Majority leader Mitch McConnell, the longest-serving US Senator from the…
Category: South Korea
KOREAN CONUNDRUM: IS IT TIME FOR XI JINPING TO UP HIS GAME?
GUEST CONTRIBUTOR LEE HONG-KOO WRITES – Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to North Korea is cleverly timed. World leaders attending the Group of 20 (G-20) summit in Osaka, Japan, a week after the visit, will be eager to discover whether China will have a forward-looking stance on the North Korean…
SHADOWS OF WAR: ARE THE TWO KOREAS THE CORINTH AND KORCYA OF OUR TIME?
[Editor’s Note] – The rise of a new global power has often led to hegemonic wars. In the following essay, Prof. Graham Allison discusses how the rise of China might affect the Korean Peninsula and offers his insights on the possibility of a second Korea war. An earlier version of…
VETERANS OF ASIAN WARS: THE TERRIBLY SAD STORY THAT NEVER ENDS
ANDREA PLATE WRITES – For 15 years, I was a senior staff social worker at the United States federal government’s Department of Veterans Affairs—the country’s largest integrated healthcare system— in its largest branch, located in West Los Angeles, California. Each year, the system serves 9 million veterans nationwide. One summer…
Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival: Happy Cleaners – a Happy Review
IMMANUEL PORTUS WRITES- The 35th Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival ushered in a myriad of untold stories within the backdrop of the Asian-American canvas. Waves of audiences lavished applause as every film took its place and breathed color into every every nook, cranny, and fold of the cinematic canvas. And in…
South Korea: Another Battleground for the Feminist Movement
ABDULMOHSEN Al JUMA WRITES– South Korea is undergoing a measure of major social upheaval with regard to how women are treated in the country. Change has been catalyzed mainly by a myriad of scandals that rocked the country over the past year. Despite having the 11th largest economy in the…
South Korea: Were the Clues There All Along? BTS to release new album April 12
The ground-breaking K-Pop band BTS is set to release its new record Map of the Soul: Persona on April 12— a day before the band’s SNL Performance and a month before their World Tour: Love Yourself: Speak Yourself. Persona will mark the end of the Love Yourself trilogy, which included…
KOREA: Fish Bones Review — Family Expectations and Individual Aspirations
“You can’t keep living for other people, you know. No one is going to win like that.” Hana defies every norm: as a full-time student studying math, and the daughter of an immigrant, she is also a daughter caring for her ill mother, a part-time worker at her family’s Korean…
SOUTH KOREA: SHOULD CELEBRITIES ENJOY PRIVACY RIGHTS?
KOREA TIMES’ KIM HYUN-BIN WRITES – Public calls are growing for the closure of an entertainment media outlet for violating entertainers’ privacy rights. The negative sentiment toward Dispatch, notorious for revealing celebrity dating stories by constantly following them, came after the tabloid broke the news that popular boy band EXO’s…
KOREA TODAY: Artist Maureen Wolfson and Her Inspiration for the March First Movement
ASIA MEDIA INTERNATIONAL AND PACIFIC CENTURY INSTITUTE WRITE — March First, 2019, marks the one hundred year anniversary of the Sam-il movement in Korea. We interviewed artist Maureen Wolfson from Calabasas, California, who was recently inspired by the storied life of one of the movement organizers, Ryu Gwan-Soon (1902 – 1920), to…
SEOUL: SECOND KIM-TRUMP SUMMIT ‘URGENT,’ SAYS TOP ADVISER TO SOUTH KOREA’S PRESIDENT
SEOUL, Nov. 29 (Yonhap) — The United States and North Korea should hold their second summit at an early date to break the impasse in their denuclearization talks, a special adviser to President Moon Jae-in says. Moon Chung-in, who serves as special presidential adviser for unification, foreign and security affairs,…
KOREAN PENINSULA: THERE MAY BE NO WAY OUT
This following is a special and important interview with South Korea’s special presidential advisor Moon Ching-in that appeared in the Korea Times on November 01, 2018 – By Kim Bo-eun, Kim Yoo-chul Differences between South Korea and the United States on how to push North Korea’s denuclearization are standing out…
SAN FRANCISCO: BAN KI-MOON – ‘LEADER ON THE FRONTLINES’
KATRINA CROSBY WRITES – With so much tragedy occurring in the world, it is always refreshing to see some good news, especially if it involves the recognition of a political visionary who has gone above and beyond to share knowledge and on international development. This year, the Asia Foundation invited…
SOUTH KOREA & THE QUESTION OF JUSTICE: AHN HEE JUNG NOT GUILTY OF RAPE
ELIZABETH SOELISTIO WRITES — Ahn Hee Jung, a 53-year-old politician and former rising star of South Korea’s Democratic, party was acquitted August 14 on charges of raping his female secretary, Kim Ji Eun. The controversial verdict sparked massive debates on the topics of justice, sexual hierarchies and the power wielded…
SINGAPORE SUMMIT: COOPERATION TRUMPS GO-IT-ALONE FOR EAST ASIAN STABILITY
(AMI NOTES: Moon Chung-in is a distinguished professor at Yonsei University and the special advisor for unification, diplomacy and national security affairs for South Korean President Moon Jae-in. His essay, condensed via common use courtesy, was produced by The WorldPost, a partnership of the Berggruen Institute, and The Washington Post.)…
KOREAN COUNTDOWN: GETTING TOGETHER SURE BEATS STAYING APART, BEATING YOUR CHEST AND PLAYING WITH YOUR RED BUTTON
SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST COLUMNIST TOM PLATE WRITES – To appreciate the sageuk drama unfolding on the Korean Peninsula, understand that not just two Korean entities have starring roles in history’s cast but three. The first is the Republic of Korea of the south – developmentally accomplished, politically volatile. The…