Connect to share and comment

Guantanamo Bay detainees fight back against guards in clash

According to Joint Task Force Guantanamo, the guards isolated detainees in individual cells because the prisoners had covered up surveillance cameras, windows and glass partitions in communal living areas.

With North Korean threats, is South Korea safe for investment?

South Korean President Park Geun-hye reassured foreign investors despite talk from the North.
Seoul businessman1Enlarge
A foreign businessman walks in the Myungdong shopping district on April 11, 2013 in Seoul, South Korea. According to reports a North Korean missile launcher has been moved into firing position as the continuing threats of attack emit from Pyongyang. G8 leaders convened in London to discuss the situation. (Chung Sung-Jun/Getty Images)

SEOUL, South Korea — We've heard a lot of talk in recent weeks about the military side of the North Korea threat. Today, the Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency is reporting that North Korea could have the capabilities to build a nuclear warhead small enough to fit on a missile — even though there's a lot of disagreement over that part.

But how does the threat of military action play for foreign investors in South Korea?

Today, President Park Geun-hye met with foreign investors from Google, Citibank and Siemens — to name a few corporations — in her administration's Blue House, reported the JoongAng Ilbo newspaper. She tried to assure them that her administration would create a stable investment environment despite North Korea's bluster.

More

As Syria conflict rages, Israel's border is anything but quiet

GOLAN HEIGHTS — Until May of 2011, the green and undulating border between Israel and Syria was as placid as any hostile frontier could be. Only a flimsy chain-link fence marked the 50 mile cease-fire line of 1967. Not anymore.

Who pays for North Korea's mind games?

NAALEHU, Hawaii — For a while, pouring a huge proportion of their resources into conventional military buildup gave the northerners an edge that only US forces’ backing of the South could offset. Meanwhile, though, the South Koreans, by focusing their resources on the economy, were becoming rich enough to build a competing military financed with what to them was relative pocket change. Experts these days don’t see North Korea winning an actual war.

Will a Korean conflict go nuclear?

And other pressing questions.
North korea nuclear 2013 04 11 1Enlarge
A statue of former North Korean leader Kim Il Sung in the North Korean border town of Siniuju, across from China's northeastern city of Dandong. (Wang Zhao/AFP/Getty Images)

SEOUL, South Korea — Well, we don’t really know the answer. Last time there was a Korean War from 1950 to 1953, some historians say it nearly did go nuclear — although there’s disagreement over the extent President Harry Truman was willing to consider the Bomb based on vague public statements.

Over the past month, I’ve been collecting some of the most insightful reporting that addresses the nuclear question and other ones. They range from diffident to downright alarming. Some favorites:

More

How to fight Africa’s wars

NAIROBI — For Western nations, wars in far off places like Mali and Somalia cannot be ignored, though they might wish they could. US and European governments worry that Al Qaeda groups in Africa might threaten their citizens and interests — at home and abroad — and while France was willing to briefly intervene in Mali, most are wary of entrenching their own troops in potential quagmires on the continent. A cooperative model, where African armies supply the soldiers and the West provides the rest, might offer a way forward.  

Musing about policies toward China, North Korea, Israel and Cuba

Commentary: How Kerry can influence change in outdated US thinking.
Pyongyang north korea china 2013 04 12Enlarge
North Korean hostesses wait for customers at the entrance to a restaurant in the Chinese border city of Dandong in China's northeastern Liaoning province, Dec. 12, 2012. (Wang Zhao/AFP/Getty Images)

OWLS HEAD, Maine — "Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest."

Henry II's frustrated plea to be rid of Thomas a Becket is surely mimicked these days with regard to Kim Jong Un and his whole turbulent regime. And not so much in Washington and Seoul — though surely in both capitals such deliverance is devoutly wished — as in Beijing where their unruly puppets in Pyongyang could, through miscalculation, set off an explosion that China has no interest in but for which it would certainly share much blame.

For half a century China has tolerated, and indeed supported, their North Korean ally's belligerent behavior, regarding them as a welcome buffer to the nearly 30,000 American soldiers stationed in South Korea for well over 50 years.

But a China that has long since emerged from the hardline days of Mao must now be increasingly worried that its poorly trained pet will bite the wrong leg once too often.

Western analysts continue to suggest that Chinese reluctance to reign in its irrational neighbor reflects Chinese fear that overt pressure, were it to lead to North Korea's collapse, would have two disastrous consequences: in the short run, millions of starving North Koreans would flee across the Chinese border bringing economic and political instability to China. And, longer term, as the peninsula is re-united under Seoul, American troops would end up stationed along China's border.

More

Israel may be operating in Syria

JERUSALEM — While the Israeli forces may be operating in a non-military capacity, it would be the first time they have been known to set foot in Syria since the 1970s.

US will return some land near Okinawa air force base to Japan

Japan and the US have agreed to a plan to return some land near the Okinawa Kadena Air Force base to Japan, and have also agreed to a deal wherein the Futenma Air Force base could be returned to Japan as early as 2022. The huge Okinawa air force base hosts about three-quarters of US military presence in Japan, says Reuters, and residents are opposed to moving the Futenma base to a less populated area of the island, arguing that their small land area is disproportionately affected.

US military servicemen off the hook in South Korea

DONGDUCHEON, South Korea — Amid the cacophony of North Korean war threats, the streets are uneventful outside Camp Casey, an often-buzzing American military base about 20 miles south of the demilitarized zone (DMZ) near the North Korean border.
Syndicate content