KOREA/NORTH KOREA

TIM SHORROCK—My award was doubly significant because my stories had grown directly out of events that took place on the very square where I stood. There, in the shadow of Gwangju’s old Provincial Capital, the last voices of the city’s rebels had been stilled on May 27, 1980, by a Korean Army division dispatched from the DMZ marking the border with North Korea. They were sent with the approval of the US commander of the US-Korea Joint Command, Gen. John Wickham. That decision, made at the highest levels of the US government, forever stained the relationship between the United States and the South. For the people of Gwangju, many of whom believed that the US military would side with the forces of democracy, it was a deep betrayal that they’ve never forgotten.

EDITOR—Comrades Harpal Brar, Joti Brar and Caleb Maupin discuss the conditions that led to the division of Korea and the history of free Korea, its struggle to build a socialist state while enduring massive sanctions and the torrent of Imperialist misinformation.

DEBORAH ARMSTRONG—Regis has traveled around the world to make documentaries like “The Ghosts of Jeju,” which he filmed in South Korea in 2012. Jeju is an eye-opening documentary about an island where the United States opened a naval base, causing great harm to the local ecosystem and indigenous people of Jeju, whose protests fell upon deaf ears.

ANDREI MARTYANOV—One of the things needed to be remembered while talking about SMO–life still continues. And here is an interesting video related to commercial aviation which I stumbled upon today and it discusses Air Koryo and the situation with North Korean civil aviation. 

JEFF J. BROWN—Felix Abt is a serial entrepreneur and, periodically, a coach, trainer and consultant. During his career, he has developed and managed a variety of businesses in different countries. He worked as a senior executive at multinational corporations such as the Swiss-Swedish ABB Group, a global leader in automation and power technologies; the F. Hoffmann-La Roche Group, a global leader in healthcare and the Zuellig Group Inc., a leading Asian distribution and trading group. He also worked with smaller and medium-sized enterprises, in both mature and new markets. He also feels privileged to have had the opportunity to strengthen his expertise as an investor and director of multiple companies. Thus far, he has lived and worked in nine countries, including Vietnam and North Korea, on three different continents.