The Dictator’s Daughter Strikes Again
"Baek Nam-gi has become a symbol of the resistance to the Park Geun-hye government," one activist told me.
The Shorrock Files
New, Rare and Unreleased Material from the DMZ Empire
The Shorrock Files
New, Rare and Unreleased Material from the DMZ Empire
Korea
Gwangju: Preserving the vicious nature of martial law, 1980
I spent most of the last three weeks in South Korea, primarily in Gwangju, Jeju and Seoul. I was invited to Gwangju by the city, along with three American journalists who witnessed the uprising and the final military takeover on…
Guest Post: South Korea Bans Korean-German from Kwangju
In an extraordinary and undemocratic act, the South Korean government has prevented Lee Jong-Hyeon, a 79 year-old Korean living in Germany to enter the country to attend commemoration ceremonies remembering the May 18, 1980, uprising in Kwangju. He arrived on…
Back to Korea
I’m heading back to Korea on Friday. I’ve been invited to Gwangju by the city government with the small group of Korean and foreign reporters who were there during the citizens’ uprising of May 18, 1980. The city is sponsoring…
A Plea for Peace in Korea
The wars drums are beating in Pyongyang and Washington, and the official media in both North Korea and the United States are eating it up. Time for a little sanity: a guest post by my colleague Simone Chun. “Heart speaks…
Chomsky on Korea, U.S. Foreign Policy, Sanders and Clinton
Noam Chomsky has long had a deep interest in Korea. Ever since his involvement in the antiwar movement of the 1960s, he’s paid close attention to the country and the controversial role played by the United States on the peninsula…
South Korean opposition fights draconian anti-terrorism law
Opposition lawmakers in South Korea’s National Assembly are staging a marathon filibuster against a so-called Anti-Terrorist Act being pushed by the Park Geun-Hye government in the wake of North Korea’s latest rocket launch and nuclear test. As the independent…
Republican and Media Idiocy on North Korea
Democracy Now! has published the full transcript of my February 8 interview on North Korea’s latest satellite launch. Since that day, President Obama has dispatched nuclear-armed F-22s into Korea as a “warning” to Pyongyang and signed tough sanctions passed unanimously…
The Road to Kaesong: The Tragedy of a Divided Korea
This week, following North Korea’s launch of a satellite, South Korea unilaterally shut down the Kaesong Industrial Zone just north of the DMZ. The decision marked a decisive shift in the situation in the Korean Peninsula. I’ve always seen the…
The Hidden History of the (Current) Korean War
In 2016, about a year before the latest "crisis" over North Korea's possession of nuclear weapons boiled over during the first months of the Trump administration, I spoke to Radio War Nerd for a wide-ranging interview about the unending Korean War and its origins in the Cold War years of the late 1940s.
On that North Korean satellite launch
North Korea’s rocket test and satellite launch on Saturday has deepened tensions on the Korean Peninsula and led to today’s closure by South Korea of the Kaesong Industrial Zone, the last remaining project from the days of Kim Dae…
BLAST FROM THE PAST (2015)
This happened in 2015 under Park Guen Hye. It might sound trivial compared to what lots of Korean went through under her rule, but it was a bit intimidating at the time. And it cost me: this same year I…
Labor crackdown in Seoul: Transport Union fights police raid
South Korean police raided the national offices of the Korean Federation of Public Services and Transport Workers Union (KPTU) on Friday but were thwarted by workers and union members. The raid is part of a broad crackdown on organized labor by…
Roundup: US militarism in Asia-Pacific, Oct. 19-30, 2015
A Storify listing of stories I posted on Twitter from China, Japan and Korea over the past two weeks, prepared for the Founding Meeting of the Korea Peace Network. I’m giving a talk Friday morning on the “Geopolitical contest and…
The U.S. media will believe anything on North Korea — some perspective from a long-time Asia hand
Over the last week, the U.S. media have been filled with lurid accounts of a “coup” in North Korea and predictions of either a revolution from within or a coming collapse of the country. In this piece, I look first…
Stunning report from South Korea: “A worker’s body is stolen.”
Read how Samsung treats its workers, even dead ones, and you might reconsider the giant company for your next phone. From Hankyoreh, one of South Korea’s only independent newspapers. Members of the Samsung service workers chapter of the Korean Metal…
Just as I thought: U.S. prevented ROK retaliation in 2010
Robert Gates’ new book on his time as Secretary of Defense makes an amazing claim that shows how close we were to war in Korea in 2010. It also describes how the United States stopped the South from launching an…
Stay tuned
To my readers: Apologies for the skimpy posting this year. I’m working on a major piece about an intelligence contractor nobody’s ever heard of and can see the light at the end of the tunnel. Keep checking back, or follow…
Obama’s Militaristic Tilt in Korea
My latest, in The Nation: [On July 27], President Obama became the first US president to attend the official armistice commemorations at the Korean War Memorial. Addressing a phalanx of US and South Korean generals and hundreds of veterans, he…
Time to End the Cold War in Korea
On July 26, I spoke in Seoul at the “International Peace Symposium to Establish a Peace Treaty on the Korean Peninsula.” It was organized by the Progressive Policy Institute of the Unified Progressive Party, a coalition of peace, labor and…
Marking the Armistice: Dispatch from South Korea
I was in Seoul during the July 27 commemorations of the 60th anniversary of the armistice agreement that brought an end to the fighting in the Korean War, one of the most brutal conflicts of the 20th century. My visit…
North Korea: What’s really happening
My latest, in Salon – A look back at 15 years of U.S.-North Korean toil and trouble.
Time (Again) for Direct Negotiations with North Korea
I was on Democracy Now! this morning talking about the latest North Korean nuclear test and its implications for U.S. policy. As usual, I spoke out for direct U.S. negotiations with the DPRK and called for a halt in the…
Kicking (Paul Ryan) Ass for the Working Class
This afternoon in Las Vegas, about 300 members of my union, AFGE, with members from several other AFL-CIO unions, turned out in 109 degree heat to give a vociferous welcome to Republican Vice Presidential candidate Paul Ryan. He was meeting…
Tall Tales About Special Forces in North Korea?
Foreign Policy in Focus just posted my take on the recent brouhaha about U.S. Special Forces “parachuting” into North Korea. Here’s an excerpt: A classified Pentagon document leaked to me in 1984 may shed some light on a U.S. general’s outlandish claim last…