Special to WorldTribune.com By Lee Jong-Heon, East-Asia-Intel.com North Korea’s youthful leader Kim Jong-Un is taking another risky step to win much-needed foreign currency by allowing certain capitalist practices in the world’s last Stalinist nation. Workers at state-run shops in the capital city of Pyongyang have begun wearing name cards instead of badges displaying Kim’s grandfather [...]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Willy Lam, East-Asia-Intel.com Judging by the rhetoric of the official Chinese media and military commentators, the Chinese Communist Party authorities seem to be readying a small-scale naval skirmish to “teach the Philippines a lesson.” Yet at the same time, Beijing is brandishing non-military solutions, such as joint development of oil and [...]
John J. Metzler UNITED NATIONS — Despite the persistent economic headwinds which are expected to slow economic expansion this year, “growth in the Asia and the Pacific area remains better than in any other region; continuing as an anchor of stability and a new growth pole for the world economy.” That’s the guardedly optimistic prognosis [...]
Special to WorldTribune.com LONDON — Despite reduced tension with Iran, global oil prices were expected to remain high throughout 2012. The International Energy Agency (IEA) said oil prices would remain high amid rising demand. The Paris-based agency said demand would increase in China and Japan with a decline reported in Europe and the United States. [...]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Gregory Copley, Global Information System Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s Labor Party (ALP)-dominated coalition Government of Australia has clung to power without an express public mandate since the August 21, 2010, House of Representatives elections. This has been largely because its parliamentary majority has been guaranteed by four independent parliamentarians and one [...]
Special to WorldTribune.com ABU DHABI — The United Arab Emirates has completed an oil pipeline that bypasses the Iranian-dominated Strait of Hormuz. Officials said the pipeline that links the Habshan oil fields to the UAE port of Fujairah was completed in April. They said the facility would allow the UAE and other Gulf Cooperation Council [...]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Lee Jong-Heon, East-Asia-Intel.com North Korea’s young ruler Kim Jong-Un, who poured scarce hard currency into political events to celebrate his formal rise to power, has issued an order to send as many workers as possible abroad to earn much-needed cash, even at the risk of defections, sources in Seoul say. The [...]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Fariborz Saremi The Iranian revolutionary regime has succeeded in alienating other Muslim states in the region by attempting to export its own version of Islam to countries within the Middle East. Ever since its first day of coming to power in 1979, the Islamic Republic of Iran has meddled in the [...]
Special to WorldTribune.com Compiled by Miles Yu, Geostrategy-Direct.com Week-long Chinese-Russian naval exercises in the Yellow Sea ended April 27 with much official hype but little convincing enthusiasm. That’s because throughout the exercises China desperately tried to convince the world that a solid Sino-Russian military alliance was in the works. The Chinese Defense Ministry called the [...]
Sol W. Sanders [See Archive] Chen Guangcheng and Bo Xilai represent the two poles of the Chinese political spectrum. Chen is a blind, self-taught lawyer and provincial activist for human rights, in a life and death struggle to reinterpret the system. Bo is a pampered scion of a famous Communist family, until recently a [...]
