About | Zoom in Korea

About | Zoom in Korea

About


ZoominKorea is an online resource that progressive minded individuals and groups interested in Korean issues as well as other U.S.-based media can access for timely updates on major news stories related to Korea, particularly exploring topics of the fight for democracy in South Korea as well as peace and reunification on the Korean Peninsula. This blog also aims to showcase or highlight critical analysis and historical context that are often lacking in mainstream media coverage of the Korean peninsula, especially in moments of crises. It is produced and run by volunteers committed to investigating developments on the Korean peninsula as well as U.S. policies toward Korea, and countering misinformation too often circulated by the corporate media.


ZoominKorea is a project of the Solidarity Committee for Democracy and Peace in Korea.

Special thanks to






Channing and Popai Liem Education Fund


Resist Foundation


Third World Newsreel, our fiscal sponsor

Contact






E-mail us at – zoominkorea@gmail.com

Editorial Advisory





Gregory Elich is on the Board of Directors of the Jasenovac Research Institute and the Advisory Board of the Korea Policy Institute. He is a member of the Solidarity Committee for Democracy and Peace in Korea, and a columnist for Voice of the People. He is the author of Strange Liberators: Militarism, Mayhem, and the Pursuit of Profit, and has chapters on North Korea and Yugoslavia in the anthology Killing Democracy: CIA and Pentagon Operations in the Post-Soviet Period, published in the Russian language. In 1999, he was a member of team that visited Yugoslavia, investigating NATO war crimes. His website is gregoryelich.org





Hyun Lee is a New York City-based writer and activist. She is a member of the Solidarity Committee for Democracy and Peace in Korea. She is also a Korea Policy Institute fellow and a member of Nodutdol for Korean Community Development.





Juyeon Rhee is a first generation Korean immigrant grassroots organizer whose work is focused on de-militarization, peace and unification in Korea. Juyeon has been a member of Nodutdol for Korean Community Development since 2000 and a board member at Korea Policy Institute. Before joining Nodutdol, she was a member of Center for Korean American Culture (aka 우리문화찾기회) from 1991 to 1998, where she served as the Executive Director from 1993 to 1995.





Tim Shorrock is a Washington-based investigative journalist who grew up in Japan and South Korea. He is the author of SPIES FOR HIRE: The Secret World of Outsourced Intelligence, published in 2008 by Simon & Schuster. Over the past 35 years, his work has appeared in many publications in the United States and abroad, including The Nation, The Progressive, Foreign Policy in Focus and Asia Times. He also appears frequently on the radio as a commentator on intelligence, contracting, foreign policy, East Asia and North and South Korea. He has been interviewed on Democracy Now, NPR’s Fresh Air, HuffPostLive and many other outlets. In 2015, Tim was named an honorary citizen of the city of Gwangju for his 1996 stories exposing the previously hidden role of the US government in the 1980 military coup that precipitated the massacre and uprising in Gwangju.

Advisors





Leo Chang is Professor Emeritus in Political Science at Regis College, Weston, MA. He received his Ph.D from Georgetown University in 1968. He was an Associate in Research at Fairbank Center for East Asian Research and Harvard University. He has taught in numerous institutions including, Regis College and Beijing University. He is currently a member of the Solidarity Committee for Democracy and Peace in Korea. His publications include: Reflections on the Roots of U.S. Involvement in Korea and A Research into the History of Han Fei’s Political Theory, co-authored with Hsiao-po Wang.





Ramsay Liem is professor emeritus of psychology, Boston College, and past co-coordinator of the Asian American Studies Program. He conducted the first systematic oral histories with Korean American survivors of the Korean War and directed the multi-media project, Still Present Pasts: Korean Americans and the “Forgotten War.” He also co-directed and produced the award-winning film, Memory of Forgotten War and contributed to the online archive, Legacies of the Korean War. He is a founding member of the Asian American Resource Workshop (Boston), adviser to the Korea Policy Institute, member of the National Campaign to End the Korean War, steering committee member of the Alliance of Scholars Concerned about Korea, and a co-founder of the Ignacio Martín-Baró Fund for Mental Health and Human Rights. He is also the president of the Channing and Popai Liem Education Foundation.





Dorothy Ogle lived for 15 years in postwar South Korea until her husband George Ogle was deported by South Korea’s military dictatorship because he prayed in public for eight innocent men who had been given the death sentence (who were all hung in 1975). Ms. Ogle visited North Korea in 1984 as a member of the American Friends’ Service Committee peace delegation and soon after supported the Korean peace movement as the Legislative Affairs Coordinator for the National Council of Churches 1986 Policy Statement of Peace and the Reunification of Korea. In 2012 Dr. and Ms. Ogle published their memoirs, Our Lives in Korea and Korea in Our Lives.





H.K. Suh is vice president of NAKA (National Association of Korean Americans), based in the Washington, DC area. Previously at the Korea Information and Resource Center, he was the editor of Korea Report, a newsmagazine on Korea news and policy analysis. He continues Korea Report in a blog format.

Contributors





Christine Ahn is the Executive Director of Women Cross DMZ, a global movement of women mobilizing to end the Korean War, reunite families, and ensure women’s leadership in peace building. She is co-founder of the Korea Peace Network, Korea Policy Institute and Global Campaign to Save Jeju Island. Christine has addressed the United Nations, U.S. Congress and ROK National Human Rights Commission. Ahn has been a policy analyst at the Global Fund for Women, Oakland Institute, Institute for Food and Development Policy, and Nautilus Institute. A columnist with Foreign Policy In Focus, Ahn’s writings have been published in The New York Times, CNN, and The Nation. She has appeared on Al Jazeera, CNN, Democracy Now!, NPR and Voice of America.





Tim Beal is a scholar who has been researching the geopolitics of Asia. He has taught on subjects ranging from Chinese politics to international marketing at universities in Britain, Japan, China, South Korea, Indonesia, and New Zealand. He has written numerous articles and two books focusing on the Korean peninsula – published by Pluto Press in London; North Korea: The Struggle against American Power, in 2005 and Crisis in Korea: America, China and the Risk of War in 2011. He is an invited occasional columnist for the Washington based website NK News and he is frequently interviewed by the media, especially Russia Today in Moscow. His personal website is at http://www.timbeal.net.nz/





Marie Choi is a Bay Area based mama, researcher, and radio producer. She has participated in workplace and community organizing since she was a high school student. She likes cooking, swimming, and children’s audio books.






Simone Chun received her Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of California, Santa Barbara. An accomplished international scholar-activist, she has been a central contributor to numerous interdisciplinary Asian and Korean Studies programs. Her international activism has included collaboration with such notables as Noam Chomsky, whose solidarity with Korean labor and peace activism has been featured widely in South Korean media such as Hankyoreh and the Kyunghyang Shinmun. She is a frequent presenter on Asian labor and peace issues at institutions like the Woodrow Wilson Center and the USC-Korea Foundation. She is an active member of the Korea Peace Network and a Steering Committee member of the Alliance of Scholars Concerned about Korea. Dr. Chun served as an Associate in Research at Harvard University’s Korea Institute and currently lectures at Northeastern University.






Bruce Gagnon is the Coordinator of the Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space. He was a co-founder of the Global Network when it was created in 1992. He is an active member of Veterans for Peace and is the Secretary of Space in the Green Shadow Cabinet. Bruce published a new version of his book in 2008 called Come Together Right Now: Organizing Stories from a Fading Empire. Bruce also has a blog called Organizing Notes. He has also written articles that have appeared in publications like: Asia Times, CounterPunch, Ryukyu Shimpo (Okinawa) and Z Magazine. In 2013 Bruce was featured in the documentary video called The Ghosts of Jeju about the South Korean village fighting against construction of a Navy base. He has worked to help build support for the Jeju Island issue for many years.





Daniel Jasper is AFSC’s Public Education and Advocacy Coordinator for the Asia Region. His work focuses on improving relations between the US and Asian countries where AFSC operates such as North Korea, China, and Myanmar. He holds a master’s degree in public policy from Duke University and bachelor’s degree in Global Studies, Cultural Studies, and Linguistics from the University of Minnesota – Twin Cities.





Hosu Kim is Assistant Professor of Sociology and Anthropology at CUNY College of Staten Island. Previously, she has taught at Fordham University and Drake University as a visiting assistant professor. Her research interests include: Transnational Adoption, Reproductive Politics, Affect, Bodies, Performance, and Information Technologies. In addition to her academic teaching, Hosu has worked for five years as a primary coordinator and instructor for Korean Language classes at the Nodutdol for Korean Community Development. Recently, she has completed a book manuscript based on her research on Korean birthmothers involved in transnational adoption.





Wol-san Liem is the Director of International Affairs for the Korean Federation of Public and Social Services and Transportation Workers’ Unions. She has been an activist and researcher in South Korea since 2006, working in a number of organizations including the Migrants Trade Union, the Korean Alliance against the KORUS FTA and the Research Institute for Alternative Workers Movements. Her work has focused on opposing racial capitalism and strengthening workers’ international solidarity. She received her B.A. from Columbia University and her Ph.D. from the New York University History Department in 2010.





Koohan Paik is Coordinator of the Asia-Pacific program at the International Forum on Globalization. She is also a journalist, media-literacy educator, and award-winning filmmaker. She has degrees in media studies from the University of Southern California and NYU, and has also written extensively about the social and environmental impacts of militarism. Recent articles concerned with Pacific issues have appeared in The Progressive, and in The Nation. She is based in Hawai’i and is co-author of The Superferry Chronicles: Hawaii’s Uprising Against Militarism, Commercialism and the Desecration of the Earth (2008), with Jerry Mander.