In The News

To China, North Korea Looks Radioactive

Joseph Kahn February 2, 2003
China’s reluctance to negotiate directly with North Korea about its nuclear program has surprised the Bush administration and Chinese foreign policy experts. China’s interests could be seriously threatened if North Korea is not dissuaded from building nuclear weapons. Such a buildup in North Korea could shift the balance of power in the region, should surrounding nations like Japan revive their...

Cash Went North; 'Why' Not Clear

Lee Sang-il January 31, 2003
An investigation in Seoul is casting some shadow on a Nobel Peace prize winner. Government investigators in Seoul have discovered that the South Korean government transferred $200 million to North Korea before the historic summit meeting between the two countries' leaders, Kim Jong Il and Kim Dae Jung, in June 2000. The same year, Kim Dae Jung was awarded the Nobel prize for his role in...

Satellites Said to See Activity at North Korean Nuclear Site

David E. Sanger January 31, 2003
It seems the fear of many analysts about North Korea is coming true. On January 28 a YaleGlobal article raised the possibility that North Korea may be rushing to reprocess its 8,000 rods of spent fuel into weapons-grade plutonium and that it could even be done without being observed by spy satellite. Today this new article in the New York Times quotes US intelligence sources as saying that "...

Nod for China-Taiwan Oil Search

January 30, 2003
Economics may trump politics in the 21st century, if recent Taiwan-China cooperation is any indication. Despite bitter relations for the past half-century, Taiwan and China are putting aside their political differences in the name of economic efficiency – at least for the moment. They have chosen to search jointly for oil in the Tainan Basin, the body of water that separates the two countries...

Students Close Down McDonald’s Restaurant in Riau

January 29, 2003
Muslim students have closed down a McDonald’s in Indonesia and are calling for a boycott of U.S. products to protest U.S. interference in Indonesia’s domestic affairs. - YaleGlobal

A Quietly Growing Nuclear Danger in North Korea

Nayan Chanda January 28, 2003
Since the first test of a nuclear weapon at Alamogordo, New Mexico on a summer day in 1945, a terrible device for mass slaughter has continued to gain ground. Although only five permanent members of the UN Security Council are nuclear weapons powers, two others - India and Pakistan - have blasted their way into the nuclear club. Israel, which, like India and Pakistan, has not signed the nuclear...

Landmark China-Taiwan Flight Thaws Ties, for Now

January 27, 2003
To loud fanfare, an airline flight from Taiwan to Hong Kong, and then on to Shanghai, was hailed as a first step towards direct transportation across the Taiwan Strait. Though about 800,000 Taiwanese live and work in China, they have traditionally had to make complex connections to fly home for the New Year’s holiday. Taiwan's China Airlines is leading five other airlines that wish to make...