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The Korea Times

The Korea Times

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Donald Kirk

Ancient history, modern kingdom

LONDON - Mired in scandal and gossip, the Brits still seem to love their royal family. Not even the black sheep princes of the realm can stop pollsters from discovering that a majority believe the monarchy is fine even if it's sopping up more than $100 million a year in taxpayer money.

2023-01-05 16:51

Winners and losers in war and peace

“All happy families are alike, but every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” Maybe we should go back to that maxim about happy and unhappy families at the opening of "Anna Karenina," the Russian classic by Leo Tolstoy. To paraphrase Tolstoy, all happy victors in war are alike, but every unhappy loser is unhappy in his or her own way. Let us consider how wars have ended since the victory of the allied powers over Nazi Germany and imperial Japan in 1945.

2022-12-29 16:50

Hong Kong's media hero

The history of the media is full of stories about journalists who defied authority, risked death covering wars and sought stories behind cover-ups. Few media heroes can match Jimmy Lai, founder of Apple Daily, a Hong Kong paper that was shut down last year after 26 years defending Hong Kong's democracy movement and offending China's leadership in Beijing.

2022-12-15 15:45

Protests in China, Iran

Protests in China and Iran come as a surprise. One would have thought those bastions of authoritarian rule would have been almost the last places on Earth where dissidents would defy the systems in which they exist. The dictators at the top of the ruling structures of both countries count on their security forces to round up the miscreants and on their courts to mete out drastic sentences, including death.

2022-12-01 17:00

Exercises in summitry

WASHINGTON - What a great two weeks it's been for President Joe Biden. First, his Democratic Party survived the midterm elections in the U.S., clinging to a bare majority in the Senate and winning close races for governors of key states. Those victories were vital if Biden is to stand firm against Donald Trump's bid to recover the presidency in 2024.

2022-11-17 16:15

From 'ppalli-ppalli' to tragedy

Blame it on Korea's culture of “ppalli-ppalli” - “quickly, quickly.” That was the simplistic explanation that a Korean gave me for the crowd surge in the narrow Itaewon alley where so many were trapped, crushed and died last weekend. “They were madly pushing each other,” she said. “It's in the genes.”

2022-11-03 14:35

Act Three for Xi in China

Xi Jinping, the strongest, most enduring Chinese leader since Mao Zedong, opens possibly the climactic act of his rule with his uncontested election to a third five-year term as general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, which controls just about everything in China. No, the government does not operate independently of the party. Top government officials are party members. Almost all young people hired for government jobs also belong to the party.

2022-10-20 14:21

Playing with fire

It's getting harder all the time to think that Kim Jong-un is just play-acting when he rams through a law saying North Korea can unleash a nuclear warhead whenever he feels threatened. And it's also getting harder to assume the Americans and South Koreans will never translate the lessons of their own war games into real live action.

2022-10-06 15:50

Art of non-apology

The pomp and circumstance surrounding the passing of Queen Elizabeth II evoked memories of the days of the British Raj.

2022-09-22 15:15

Admitting North Korea to 'nuclear club'

James Clapper, a retired air force lieutenant general who served two tours in South Korea and then as President Barack Obama's director of national intelligence from 2010 to 2017, has shocked a virtual forum by asking, rhetorically, if “our policy of demanding North Korean denuclearization is going to work.”

2022-09-08 15:44

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