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Donald Kirk

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

One crazy campaign

WASHINGTON - There's never been an American presidential campaign like this one. In fact, there may not have been a campaign like this one in any other country.

2020-10-08 17:13

America's 'perfect storm'

PHILADELPHIA - The Independence Hall where 56 men signed the Declaration of Independence is a vision in red brick, its clock tower looking over a park where the Liberty Bell is now encased in glass. It was that bell, famed for its hairline crack, that rang out the news of the 56 members of the continental congress approving the declaration on July 4, 1776.

2020-09-24 17:06

Woodward's take on Trump

Acclaimed journalist Bob Woodward offers inside stories that escaped all of us while covering the three Trump-Kim meetings in 2018 and 2019. In the course of 18 interviews, and in 27 messages that he obtained between Trump and Kim, he provides details that make his latest book, “Rage,” enthralling reading for anyone, whether a scholar, journalist, government official or a total newcomer to the scene, and outlines the issues that have made it impossible to bring about permanent peace and tranquility on the Korean Peninsula.

2020-09-17 17:27

President 'bone spur'

NORFOLK, Virginia - President Donald Trump is noted for his outrageous remarks, none more absurd than his claim to have averted another Korean War by meeting Kim Jong-un three times for nothing more than a bonanza of breathless media coverage.

2020-09-10 17:26

Protests inflaming politics

WASHINGTON - A wooden barrier was blocking the street, and a policeman was standing beside his patrol car. Accident? Arrest? Nope, “protests,” the cop told me. A few blocks toward the center of the capital, more police cars cut off main avenues. Over the radio came word that demonstrators were near the White House shouting slogans.

2020-09-03 17:21

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