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Korea

Han Kang’s Nobel Prize Award Is A Cry For Palestine

South Korean novelist Han Kang has won the Nobel Prize for Literature, beating short-listed literary heavyweights like Thomas Pynchon, Haruki Murakami, Salman Rushdie, Gerald Murnane, and the all-odds-favorite, Chinese author Can Xue.  Han Kang was as shocked as anyone else after receiving the call notifying her that she had won. When asked what she would do next, she said she would quietly "have tea with her son". She has refused a press conference, saying that "with the wars raging between Russia and Ukraine, Israel and Palestine, with deaths being reported every day, she could not hold a celebratory press conference. She asked for understanding in this matter."

Korean Girls Killed By US Troops: The Price Of Military Tensions

As military tensions continue to rise on the Korean Peninsula, South Korea recently marked the 22nd anniversary of the deaths of Shin Hyo-sun and Shim Mi-seon, two middle school girls who were killed in 2002 when a US Forces Korea convoy driving an armored vehicle struck and crushed them. On Thursday, 23 activist groups, including the Hyo-sun Mi-seon Peace Peace Park Project Committee, gathered at the park named after two girls in Yangju, Gyeonggi Province, to hold a candlelight memorial vigil. Over 150 people, representing groups ranging from religious communities to youth groups, attended the memorial to pay their respects.

Imagining South Korea Without America

Is the ROK-US alliance unconditionally good? A new book raises radical questions about the ROK-US alliance on the 70th anniversary of the two countries’ mutual defense treaty, which was signed on Oct. 1, 1953. The book is “The Naked ROK-US Alliance,” written by Daegu University professor Kim Sung-hae, who completed a master’s in international affairs at the University of Georgia and a doctorate in journalism at the University of Pennsylvania. As the book’s subtitle suggests, this book lists the “reasons for resolving to break up with America” while urging us to imagine what South Korea would be like without the US or their alliance.

When The River Roars: 70 Years Of Confusion

This year is incredibly important to me and the Korean people. Next Wednesday, July 27th is the 70th anniversary of the armistice of Korean War, the longest war in American history. I turn 34 this year, almost half of that number. And my grandmother, who left a memoir that I finally found in 2015, was aged 70 years when she published these words, translated by me: I only understood what that war was, felt it against my flesh only after I came down from the mountains. Nobody was whole after the war. It spared no one. People either lost their lives, lost their families, lost their legs or arms, or were irrevocably scarred in their hearts. People who survived the war were like people who had already lost their lives once and came back from the dead.

Knives Are Out Again For Advocates Of Peace On The Korean Peninsula

The knives are out again for those advocating for peace on the Korean Peninsula.  Almost eight years to the day, I wrote “The Knives are Out For Those Who Challenge Militarization of the Korean Peninsula,” about Washington Beltway pundits and those on the payroll of organizations and corporations that make money out of the U.S. bureaucracy’s need for an enemy.  These groups had focused their outrage and diatribes at Women Cross DMZ for organizing the 2015 trip to North and South Korea and daring to challenge the status quo of U.S. policy toward North Korea.  Eight years later as Women Cross DMZ and other Korea peace advocacy groups are organizing a National Mobilization to End the Korean War July 26-28, 2023 in Washington, DC, the knives are out again.

Pyongyang Urges UN Demand End To South Korea–US Military Exercises

The United States and South Korea have been stirring up the situation on the Korean peninsula to an “extremely dangerous level,” with threatening rhetoric and a military demonstration targeting the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK or North Korea), DPRK’s Vice Foreign Minister Kim Son-gyong said. In a statement published on the website of the national media aggregator KCNA, the senior official drew attention to the aerial exercises carried out by Washington and Seoul in the Yellow Sea on March 3, which included equipment such as the B-1B strategic bomber and the MQ-9 Reaper unmanned attack aircraft.

Controversy Over Activist’s Award Reflects The Challenges Of Bringing Peace To Korea

On December 13, 2022, Women Cross DMZ Executive Director Christine Ahn received the Peace Summit Medal for Social Activism at the 18th World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates in Pyeongchang, South Korea, but not without controversy. As we all well know, not everyone — mostly politicians in the U.S. and South Korea — want peace with North Korea. In fact, Jin-tae Kim, the right-wing, conservative, hawkish governor of the province of Pyeongchang, where the World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates was held, declined to attend the conference, a conference about peace-making.  South Korean news media sources stated that the governor reportedly believed that Christine Ahn was a North Korea apologist because seven years ago, in 2015, she led a 30-woman international delegation, including two Nobel Peace Laureates, to North Korea for meetings with North Korean women, not North Korean government officials. 

In Memoriam Of Hyun Lee

Hyun was a tireless advocate for peace on the Korean Peninsula. Every generation has its leaders who build powerful movements; she was among the giants of our time. Beginning in 2018, Hyun served as the U.S. National Organizer and then the Campaign Strategist for Women Cross DMZ and our Korea Peace Now! campaign. Her ability to move an organizing and advocacy agenda was instrumental to building the Korea Peace Now! Grassroots Network, which consists of more than a dozen chapters across the country. This multi-generational, grassroots, people-powered movement that Hyun helped create is what led to the first Congressional resolution calling for an end to the Korean War with a peace agreement.

Washington Has Been Asking The Wrong Question On North Korea

Despite its devastating destructive toll, the Korean War has been dubbed the “Forgotten War,” for the lack of public awareness or understanding in the US. Many Americans might be surprised to hear calls for peace on the Korean Peninsula, because we’re rarely made aware that the conflict there is ongoing, much less the US role in it. And, then again, we don’t very often hear the phrase “Korean Peninsula.” We’re more accustomed to seeing North and South Korea presented as natural antagonists, and North Korea as a virtual cartoon of an official enemy, about whom no claim is too grandiose. Into this context of myth and missing information comes a new call for a peace agreement to officially end the war. The report, called Path to Peace, was compiled by the Korea Peace Now! coalition, and we’re joined now by Hyun Lee, US national organizer for Women Cross DMZ, part of Korea Peace Now!.

Korean Peace Group Letter To UN Secretary-General: “UN Command Stop Using the UN Flag ”

More than 40 Korean as well as international peace organizations have sent an open interrogatory to UN Secretary-General indicating that the use of the UN flag by the so-called “United Nations Command” based in South Korea and Japan is not appropriate. The so-called “UN Command” based in Korea since the Korean War which started in 1950 is a ‘camouflage’ organization made by the United States by distorting the resolutions of the UN Security Council.  In addition, the right to authorize the use of the UN flag by the UN Security Council is also in violation of the UN Flag Code.

Hope For A Breakthrough In Korea

There is hope for some real progress in U.S.-North Korean relations after Sunday morning’s unscheduled meeting between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un, largely because Russia and China seem more determined than ever to facilitate forward movement. Sitting down before the talks began, Kim underlined the importance of the meeting.“I hope it can be the foundation for better things that people will not be expecting,” he said. “Our great relationship will provide the magical power with which to overcome hardships and obstacles in the tasks that need to be done from now on.”

Korea: A Brief History Explains Everything

A good starting point for understanding the ongoing conflict between North and South Korea is the agreement between the United States and Japan in 1905, known as the Taft-Katsura Memorandum, which was signed as Japan was defeating Russia in the 1904-05 Russo-Japanese War. In that document the U.S. agreed to the Japanese colonization of Korea in trade for the American occupation of Hawaii (which the U.S. had annexed in 1898) and the Philippines (which the U.S. had acquired as booty in 1898 at the conclusion of the Spanish-American War). Koreans were not consulted about this arrangement.

Two Koreas Begin Verifying Removal Of DMZ Guard Posts: Defense Ministry

North and South Korea began a mutual on-site verification of the trial withdrawal and disarmament of 22 guard posts (GPs) along the demilitarized zone (DMZ) on Wednesday, the ROK Ministry of National Defense (MND) announced the same day. The verification process follows the completed demolition by November 30 of 10 GPs on either side of the DMZ as part of the two Koreas’ implementation of September’s joint military agreement. Seoul and Pyongyang originally agreed to destroy a total of 22 GPs from the area, but after withdrawing firearms, equipment, and all personnel decided to leave two standing for historic purposes.

Progress Continues On Korea

South Korean President Moon Jae-in delivered a message on December 1 urging North Korean leader Kim Jong-un to pay a reciprocal visit to Seoul within the year for the promised summit meeting in the capital city of South Korea, which will be historic first for a North Korean leader. “I am certain that if denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and inter-Korean peace are achieved through a reciprocal visit by Chairman Kim Jong-un, all South Koreans will truly welcome that with open arms,” Moon said.

United States Blocks Inter-Korean Railway Project

The UN Command, headed by the United States, refused to allow a South Korean train to travel to North Korea for a joint North-South inspection of railway conditions for the planned inter-Korean railway. The two Koreas had planned for a South Korean train to depart from Seoul Station and travel to Sinuiju at the far northern end of the Gyeongui (Seoul-Sinuiju) railway line in North Korea, with South and North Korea conducting a joint inspection on the North Korean stretch of the line between Kaesong and Sinuiju.

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Urgent End Of Year Fundraising Campaign

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Keep independent media alive. 

Due to the attacks on our fiscal sponsor, we were unable to raise funds online for nearly two years.  As the bills pile up, your help is needed now to cover the monthly costs of operating Popular Resistance.

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