South Korea Archives - Foreign Policy In Focus

Pacific Freeze: Call to Action

by John Feffer, Foreign Policy In Focus | Feb 9, 2009

With multiple crises affecting our world – global economy, climate change, resource depletion – we must urgently redirect the hundreds of billions of dollars spent on preparing for war. The United States, Russia, China, Japan, South Korea, and North Korea spent about $970 billion in 2008 on the military. That figure, alarmingly, is on the rise. For about one-tenth of this near-trillion dollar amount – about $90 billion a year – we can achieve more genuine security by eliminating global starvation and malnutrition, educating every child on earth, making clean water and sanitation accessible for all, and reversing the global spread of AIDS and malaria.

Bring Them Home…from Asia

by Doug Bandow, John Feffer | Sep 19, 2008

Gen. Douglas MacArthur said that old soldiers never die, they just fade away. It seems that old military commitments also never die. But they also don’t fade away — they live on forever.

South Korea’s Beef with America

by Christine Ahn, John Feffer | Jun 13, 2008

On June 10, one million South Koreans from all walks of life poured onto the streets of Seoul, the nation’s capital, to protest the newly elected President Lee Myung Bak’s deal with the United States to fully open Korean markets to U.S. beef.

Asia’s New Axis?

by John Feffer, Gavan McCormack | Apr 16, 2008

Australia and South Korea have both experienced major political shifts, but in opposite directions. Australia has emerged from 11 years of conservative government under John Howard to Labor under Kevin Rudd. South Korea is going from 10 years of progressive government under Kim Dae Jung and Roh Moo Hyun to the conservatives under Lee Myung Bak.

Letter to South Korea’s New President

by John Feffer | Jan 9, 2008

South Korea’s new president underwent his own personal green revolution when he became mayor of Seoul. In charge of major construction projects at Hyundai for three decades, Lee Myung-bak reversed himself in the new millennium. He made rivers spring from concrete and grass grow where there had once been only cars.

The Paradox of East Asian Peace

by John Feffer, Emily Schwartz Greco | Dec 12, 2007

At the center of East Asia lies the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) on the Korean peninsula. The DMZ has been called the most dangerous place on earth. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers face one another across this divide. And yet, the DMZ is also the lifeline between North and South Korea. It connects the two countries by way of the Kaesong Industrial Complex. Electricity, transportation, and communications lines connect the two sides across this dangerous rift. Perhaps most paradoxically, the DMZ itself is a quiet, largely undisturbed zone that is home to perhaps the greatest biological diversity on the peninsula. Unification is, of course, a life-and-death issue for Koreans. It is therefore fitting that the DMZ is a life-and-death zone.

Blood Money: U.S. Bank Funds Korean Project That Will Destroy Native Community

by Daphne Wysham | Apr 26, 2007

“When you share love’s warmth, it returns even warmer. Together we can move the world.”

Eyes on Different Prizes

by John Feffer | May 12, 2003

Roh Moo-hyun is coming to Washington with a public and a private message. Publicly, the South Korean president will affirm his government’s desire to strengthen its relationship with the United States and bring a peaceful end to the nuclear crisis with North Korea. The private message, which won’t appear in any newspaper headlines, will be: “Mr. Bush, please don’t screw things up for us.”