In the fall of 2021, news broke out that, in addition to developing a missile program, the DPRK restarted the Yongbyon reactor, its main nuclear facility, which was not operational from December 2018 to early July 2021. During the February 2019 summit in Hanoi, Kim Jong-un told Donald Trump that he was willing to dismantle […]
On 17th September 2021, Xinhua News Agency of the People’s Republic of China reported that on the previous day the country’s Minister of Commerce, Wang Wentao, had sent a formal request to join the regional alliance of the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) during a teleconference with his New Zealand counterpart, Damien O’Connor. […]
Suspicions were raised when in late 2020 the US de-listed as a terrorist organization the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), sometimes referred to as the Turkestan Islamic Party (TIP). This was because the US had claimed as its rationale that the ETIM/TIP had not been active for over a decade despite the US itself admitting […]
The telephone conversation that took place on 9th September between the presidents of the People’s Republic of China and the USA, initiated by the latter, is well worth commenting on. Notably, this was only the second interaction between the leaders of the world’s two leading powers in over six months. During the first of these […]
Australia, the UK and the US announced the formation of “AUKUS,” an amalgamation of the three nation’s initials, as a tripartite “defense alliance.” Despite claims that the alliance is aimed at no particular country (and no particular country was mentioned during its announcement), the Western media has not reported it as such, and China – […]
On August 25, 2021, South Korea expressed “strong regret” that Japan was unilaterally implementing its plan to release radioactive water from the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant “without any prior consultations or seeking consent from the South Korean government”. Oh, my gosh – Tokyo Electric Power Company Holding Inc. (TEPCO) has unveiled a preliminary construction plan of […]
On September 3 this year, the current Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga announced that he would not run for president of the ruling (still and for now) Liberal Democratic Party. It also means that he will not be able to retain his top government position in case of a (not predetermined) LDP victory in the […]
South Korea’s armed forces have recently engaged in a series of demonstrative exercises. Had they occurred in the North, they would have prompted alarmist headlines, glib political rhetoric, and angry speeches at the UN Security Council. As reported on September 7 by the Korean Agency for Defense Development, on September 1, 2021, there was a […]
A bizarre war of words has erupted in recent days in the pages of financial media between billionaire hedge fund and color revolution specialist, George Soros, and the gigantic BlackRock investment group. The issue is a decision by BlackRock CEO Larry Fink to open the first foreign-owned mutual fund in China presumably to attract the […]
On September 11-12, North Korea successfully test-fired a new type of long-range cruise missile. The Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported that the missiles “traveled for 7,580 seconds along an oval and pattern-8 flight orbits in the air above the territorial land and waters” in North Korea “and hit targets 1,500 km away,” and all […]
