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Trump Wages Economic War On US Allies; BRICS Builds Alternative System

The US government has always had a very aggressive foreign policy. The United States has intervened in dozens of countries all around the world. But what is unique about Donald Trump is that many of his aggressive policies not only target US adversaries like China, Russia, Iran, Venezuela, and Cuba, but also longtime US allies. Trump has imposed high tariffs that have hurt the economies of key US allies such as Japan, South Korea, and Europe. In fact, the details of the agreement that Trump imposed on Japan are quite shocking. This was reported on by the Financial Times, which wrote that “Japan confronts the increased price of US friendship”. Although I would say it’s not so much “friendship”; rather it’s vassalage. Japan has been militarily occupied by the US for 80 years, and we’re now seeing the cost of this imperial relationship.

People’s Summit For Korea Spotlights Role Of US Imperialism

The Summit was organized by Nodutdol and convened by a list of other Korean and U.S.-based groups, including United National Antiwar Coalition (UNAC). Nodutdol describes itself as “an organization of diasporic Koreans and comrades organizing for a world free of imperialism and for Korea’s reunification and national liberation.” With the Summit, Nodutdol — with a majority of members below 30 years of age — galvanized the Korean movement in the U.S. in an anti-imperialist direction. By changing the fulcrum point of its movement from the start of the Korean war in 1950 back to 1945, when U.S. imperialists replaced Japanese imperialists, Nodutdol opened up a whole new range of understanding of the struggle for an independent and united Korea. It’s not just an anti-war struggle but a systemic fight between two class systems.

Don’t Miss People’s Summit For Korea In New York City July 25-27

The struggle for Korea’s sovereignty is at a crossroads. Despite empty gestures toward diplomacy, U.S. imperialism continues to escalate tensions in Korea — expanding war exercises, deepening the Japan-South Korea-U.S. alliance and pushing the peninsula to the brink of war. But our movements are fighting back. This July, join us at The People’s Summit for Korea in New York City to unite across borders and build a collective strategy for liberation. Together, we’ll: Analyze the impact of U.S. imperialism on Korea and the world. Strategize how to advance the fight for peace, sovereignty and collective liberation. Celebrate resistance through cultural performances and collective action.

Close The US Military Bases In Asia

President Donald Trump is again loudly complaining that the US military bases in Asia are too costly for the US to bear. As part of the new round of tariff negotiations with Japan and Korea, Trump is calling on Japan and Korea to pay for stationing the US troops. Here’s a much better idea: close the bases and return the US servicemen to the US. Trump implies that the US is providing a great service to Japan and Korea by stationing 50,000 troops in Japan and nearly 30,000 in Korea. Yet these countries do not need the US to defend themselves. They are wealthy and can certainly provide their own defense.

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.”
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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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