Asia

After the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement (KORUS FTA) is approved by the legislatures of Korea and the United States, it will likely provide a turning point for the countries’ bilateral…

The denuclearization of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) continues to be a source of considerable international concern. Yet, no coherent international framework has emerged to deal with this…

Korea is arguably the premier development success story of the last half century. Despite this success, there has been a nagging sense among many observers that the development of Korea’s…

The unique restriction of a one-time, five-year presidential term in the Republic of Korea (ROK) has often resulted in short-lived changes to the way the nation’s chief executive has staffed…

When you hear about trilateral cooperation between the United States, South Korea and Japan in the news, people are usually talking about how these three countries can work together to…

In this episode, Korean Kontext speaks with Ms. Jie-ae Sohn, President of Arirang TV & Radio, Korea's first English language international broadcast system. Ms. Sohn worked as the former CNN…

Last week, the news of a high-level defection by a North Korean diplomat stationed in London captivated North Korea watchers. For the next few says, analysts and the media speculated…

Ghosts and goblins are everywhere in Korean folktales, causing havoc for people through their antics. Equally common are the shamans who act as intermediaries, helping offer solutions to life's supernatural…

By Lisa Ji Computer science majors may have a larger role to play in promoting socio-political changes in North Korea than one may suspect. On August 2nd, computer programmers and human rights advocates gathered together in San Francisco, to discover new ways of providing information to and from the highly reclusive country, North Korea. In…

By Nicholas Hamisevicz Similar to previous months, inter-Korean relations remained tense, especially in the West Sea. South Korea claimed North Korea was renting out fishing grounds in the West Sea to Chinese fisherman, who then began to encroach beyond the Northern Limit Line (NLL) into South Korean territorial waters. Moreover, a South Korean military drill…

By Clare Hubbard While atrocious human rights violations continue in North Korea, the South Korean public remains focused on their daily lives. A prolonged separation and ideological division on the Korean peninsula has gradually produced two different peoples and the younger generations of South Koreans are losing more and more interest in their North Korean…

By Kenneth Lee Sixty years ago, virtually no one knew of Korea and the few that did would have described it as a war-ravaged backwater of a country. Now, Korea is slowly becoming recognized as a modern and prosperous country.  Companies like Samsung and Hyundai are now household names in the West; while Korea’s accomplishments…