Tag: south korea

South Korean military says North Korea test-fired ‘ballistic missiles’ | Military News

The launches come a day after the United States and South Korea conducted joint fighter jet drills.

North Korea has test-fired short-range “ballistic missiles” towards the Sea of Japan, the South Korean military said a day after it conducted joint drills with the United States using stealth fighter jets to simulate air combat.

In a brief statement on Friday, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said the launches were made from North Korea’s eastern coast region of Wonsan and that the country had bolstered its surveillance posture and was maintaining readiness.

The statement did not provide further details of the latest launches but added that an analysis was under way.

On Thursday, two South Korean F-35As and two US F-22 Raptors conducted aerial exercises over the central region of South Korea. Such drills infuriate North Korea, which views them as rehearsals for invasion.

While the South’s military did not specify the latest type of weapon, North Korean state media reported that its military has been testing multiple launch rocket systems that are being upgraded.

North Korea also denounced a plan by South Korea and the US to stage joint annual military exercises in August, warning they could face a “catastrophic aftermath” if the drills are carried out. It described them as a “nuclear attack exercise”.

“This clearly shows that Washington’s claim that it has no hostile intent is nothing but a deceptive hypocrisy,” according to a statement published by the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

Banned tests

In late April, North Korea fired a 600mm “super-large warhead” towards the same area.

North Korea is barred by multiple United Nations sanctions from any tests using ballistic technology, but its key ally Russia used its UN Security Council veto in March to effectively end UN monitoring of violations.

The UN panel of experts was investigating allegations that North Korea was transferring weapons to Moscow, with South Korea claiming in March that some 7,000 containers of arms had been sent to Russia for use in Ukraine since around July 2023.

Earlier on Friday, Kim’s powerful sister Kim Yo Jong said the country’s tactical weapons were intended as a deterrent against South Korean military aggression and denied it exports weapons.

The US and experts have said North Korea is seeking a range of military assistance from Russia in return, such as satellite technology and upgrading its Soviet-era military equipment.

North Korea said last week it would equip its military with a new 240mm multiple rocket launcher this year, adding that a “significant change” for the army’s artillery combat capabilities was under way.

Check out our Latest News and Follow us at Facebook

Original Source

South Korea parliament approves new probe into deadly 2022 Halloween crush | News

Victims’ families have demanded independent investigation into disaster that killed more than 150 people.

South Korea’s parliament has passed a bill for a new, independent investigation into the 2022 Halloween crush in the capital, Seoul, that killed more than 150 people.

The single-chamber, opposition-led National Assembly on Thursday approved the measure in a bipartisan vote with 256 in favour, three abstentions, and no opposition. It will become law once signed by President Yoon Suk-yeol, which is considered a formality.

The legislation will create a fact-finding committee of nine members who will look into the cause of the crush, how the authorities handled it, and who should be blamed, a process that could last up to 15 months.

The crush took place on October 29, 2002, when revellers flooded the narrow alleyways of Seoul’s popular nightlife district of Itaewon to celebrate the first Halloween free of COVID-19 curbs in three years. Nearly 200 people were injured in the ensuing surge, with most of the victims in their 20s and 30s.

Anger that the government ignored safety and regulatory issues mounted in the aftermath of the disaster.

Police faced strong public criticism and scrutiny over their response, having dispatched just 137 officers to the area despite estimating in advance as many as 100,000 people would gather.

In 2023, a special police investigation concluded that police and municipal officials failed to formulate effective crowd control steps.

Investigators also said police had ignored hotline calls by pedestrians who warned of swelling crowds before the surge turned deadly.

Bereaved families and opposition lawmakers have repeatedly called for an independent probe as few have been held accountable for the incident, despite more than 20 police and other officials on trial.

In January, prosecutors charged Kim Kwang-ho, the former head of the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency, for negligence by failing to ensure there were enough officers at the scene. He has denied any wrongdoing.

Two former senior police officers were sentenced in February for destroying evidence linked to the crush.

According to the new bill, once the committee determines who is responsible and who should face charges, it would report them to the government’s investigation agencies. The agencies would then conclude investigations of the suspects within three months.

An earlier bill, which was backed by the opposition-led parliament, was vetoed by Yoon in January because of disputes over the panel’s powers, such as whether the fact-finding committee can request arrest warrants.

However, at a meeting on Monday with opposition leader Lee Jae-myung of the Democratic Party, Yoon said he would not oppose the bill should the disputes be resolved.

Yoon’s shift comes as he faces growing public calls to cooperate with Lee’s party, which secured a landslide victory in the April 10 elections.

In a meeting with Yoon’s ruling People Power Party on Wednesday, Lee’s party agreed to remove contentious clauses from the draft bill, including granting full investigative power to the panel.

Check out our Latest News and Follow us at Facebook

Original Source

Photos: May Day rallies across Asia demand improved labour rights | Workers’ Rights News

Workers and activists have taken to the streets across Asia as the world marks May Day.

Rallies took place in South Korea, Japan, Taiwan and the Philippines, among other countries, on Wednesday. The marchers protested rising prices and demanded greater labour rights.

Workers’ rights are celebrated on May Day across the globe, with events used to air general economic grievances and political demands.

In the South Korean capital Seoul, thousands of protesters sang, waved flags and shouted pro-labour slogans before marching through the centre. Organisers said the rally was primarily meant to step up criticism of what they call anti-labour policies pursued by the conservative government led by President Yoon Suk Yeol.

“In the past two years under the Yoon Suk Yeol government, the lives of our labourers have plunged into despair,” Yang Kyung-soo, leader of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions said in a speech. “We can’t overlook the Yoon Suk Yeol government. We’ll bring them down from power for ourselves.”

Similar rallies were held in several other cities across South Korea. Police mobilised thousands of officers to maintain order, but there were no immediate reports of violence.

In Japan, more than 10,000 people gathered in downtown Tokyo to demand salary increases sufficient to offset price increases. Masako Obata, leader of the National Confederation of Trade Unions, said that dwindling wages have put many workers in Japan under severe living conditions and widened income disparities.

“On this May Day, we unite with our fellow workers around the world standing up for their rights,” she said, shouting “banzai!” or long life, to all workers.

In Taiwan, more than 1,000 representatives from more than 100 workers’ unions took to the streets in downtown Taipei demanding worker rights laws be amended.

Waving banners and shouting slogans, demonstrators marched for hours in the capital calling for the law to be revised to include higher wages, better working conditions and pension packages.

“Prices have been soaring, but wages have not,” Said Chiang Chien-hsing, head of the Taiwan Confederation of Trade Unions.

In the Philippine capital Manila, hundreds of workers and activists marched in the scorching summer heat to demand wage increases and job security amid soaring food and oil prices.

Riot police stopped the protesting workers from getting close to the presidential palace. Waving red flags and holding up posters that read: “We work to live, not to die” and “Lower prices, increase salaries,” the protesters chanted and listened to speeches about the difficulties faced by Filipino labourers.

Drivers of jeepneys, the city’s main mode of public transport, joined the rally as they ended a three-day strike. The operators of the highly decorated vehicles fear that a government modernisation programme could see their often ramshackle vehicles removed from the capital’s streets.

Check out our Latest News and Follow us at Facebook

Original Source

Dystopia of Seoul | Climate Crisis

Vivaldi’s, Four Seasons, re-composed by AI using 2050 climate data to create a disturbing musical performance in Seoul.

Antonio Vivaldi published, The Four Seasons, in 1723, celebrating the natural world and the four distinct seasons. But what would this music sound like today in our age of climate crisis? The “Uncertain Four Seasons” global project uses climate modelling data to generate a 2050 version of, The Four Seasons, for orchestras around the world according to their climate projections.

Dystopia of Seoul is the story of this piece of AI music in the South Korean capital which suffered devastating floods in 2022. The melodies, energy and tempo are twisted by the sophisticated algorithm to reflect Seoul’s climate predictions. The result makes for disturbing listening and is another stark warning to humanity about climate change.

Check out our Latest News and Follow us at Facebook

Original Source

South Korea’s Yoon left humbled by opposition election landslide | Elections News

President Yoon Suk-yeol promises changes, top aides quit, after opposition parties sweep National Assembly elections.

South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol has promised changes to his conservative administration after opposition parties romped to victory in Wednesday’s elections for the National Assembly.

With 99 percent of the votes counted, the main opposition Democratic Party (DP) and its satellite party appear to have won a combined 175 seats in the 300-seat parliament. The Rebuilding Korea party, considered allied with the DP, was expected to take about 12 seats, projections showed.

Yoon’s ruling People Power Party (PPP) and its satellite party were expected to have won 109 seats.

Turnout was 67 percent, the highest ever recorded for a parliamentary election. The National Elections Commission is expected to confirm the final results later on Thursday.

“When voters chose me, it was your judgement against the Yoon Suk-yeol administration and you are giving the Democratic Party the duty to take responsibility for the livelihood of the people and create a better society,” DP leader Lee Jae-myung said.

Lee defeated a conservative candidate considered a major Yoon ally to win his seat in the city of Incheon to the west of the capital, Seoul.

Wednesday’s election was widely seen as a mid-term confidence vote on Yoon, a former top prosecutor who narrowly beat Lee to take office in 2022 for a single five-year term.

Speaking after the scale of his party’s loss became clear, Yoon promised reform.

South Korea’s Yonhap news agency said Prime Minister Han Duck-soo and other senior aides all offered their resignations. The PPP leader Han Dong-hoon also quit.

Yoon has suffered low approval ratings for months amid a failure to deliver on his policy agenda and voter upset over rising prices and a series of corruption scandals.

The election setback is likely to further tie his hands domestically.

“Given his likely lame duck status, the temptation for Yoon will be to focus on foreign policy where he will still have statutory power,” said Mason Richey, a professor at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies.

Check out our Latest News and Follow us at Facebook

Original Source

South Koreans vote in election seen as test of President Yoon Suk-yeol | Elections News

South Korean voters could punish the ruling conservative party at the ballot box amid discontent over Yoon’s leadership.

Voting is under way in South Korea in parliamentary elections seen as a referendum on President Yoon Suk-yeol amid frustration about the cost of living and corruption.

Polls opened at 6am (19:00 GMT) on Wednesday and will remain open until 6pm (09:00 GMT). The country’s 44 million voters are choosing who will sit in the 300-seat National Assembly, with 254 members elected through direct votes in local districts and the other 46 allotted according to party support.

At a polling station in Seoul’s Gwangjin District, voters queued to have their identity documents checked and receive their ballot papers before heading into the polling booths to vote.

Opinion polls are mixed and election observers say candidates in about 50 to 55 local districts are in neck-and-neck races, making them too close to call.

“President Yoon has said a priority would be given to stabilising prices and livelihoods, but they weren’t stabilised, so I think that will be a big negative for the Yoon government during the election,” Kim Daye, a 32-year-old Seoul resident, told the Associated Press news agency.

Yoon, who narrowly beat the opposition Democratic Party (DP)’s Lee Jae-myung to the presidency in 2022, has struggled to push through his conservative policy agenda and is under pressure over a weeks-long doctors’ strike that has forced operations to be cancelled.

He is unpopular as a result of the “lack of real progress on domestic political and economic issues”, Andrew Yeo, a politics professor at the Catholic University of America, told the AFP news agency. “Prices and inflation remain high, housing is expensive, and political polarisation remains high.”

Corruption, disaffection

The DP had a majority in the outgoing assembly and has criticised Yoon and his conservative People Power Party (PPP) for mismanaging the economy and failing to rein in inflation.

A village schoolmaster and his family voting in Nonsan in South Korea [Yonhap/via Reuters]

PPP leader Han Dong-hoon, meanwhile, has said a big win by the DP, whose leader Lee Jae-myung is facing corruption charges, would create a crisis for the country.

Rebuilding Korea, a liberal splinter party led by former Justice Minister Cho Kuk, has emerged as a dark horse and is projected to win at least a dozen seats despite offering few substantive policies of its own.

“I am going to make President Yoon first a lame duck, then a dead duck,” Cho told the AFP earlier this month.

Cho is himself facing jail time for corruption charges that he denies.

The DP’s Lee is also on trial for fraud, while Yoon has been embroiled in a scandal over his wife’s decision to accept a designer Dior bag as a gift and the appointment of a former defence minister as South Korea’s ambassador to Australia even while he was under investigation for corruption.

Demographics could help Yoon, however, with voters aged 60 and older – seen as more conservative – now outnumbering those in their 20s and 30s.

Many younger voters are less likely to vote, with many saying they are put off by a political class dominated by older men who ignore their concerns.

They are also struggling economically, with cut-throat competition in education, fewer job opportunities and sky-high housing costs.

Yoon has three more years to serve of his single term in office. The National Assembly will serve a four-year term.

Chung Jin-young, a former dean of the Graduate School of Pan-Pacific International Studies at Kyung Hee University, predicts the opposition parties could win a combined 150-180 seats.

“That would cause a political deadlock for the Republic of Korea for the next three years, as both the ruling and opposition parties can’t pursue things unilaterally and won’t likely make terms with each other,” Chung said.

Exit polls will become available from about 6.30pm (09:30 GMT).

Check out our Latest News and Follow us at Facebook

Original Source

South Korea puts second military spy satellite successfully into orbit | Military News

Seoul and Pyongyang are in a race to put more reconnaissance satellites into orbit amid rising tensions on the peninsula.

South Korea has successfully launched its second military reconnaissance satellite, days after North Korea reiterated its intention to launch multiple spy satellites this year.

The satellite entered orbit after its launch on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from the John F Kennedy Space Center in Florida in the United States on Sunday, South Korea’s National Ministry of Defense said.

Seoul’s military said in a statement that its “independent intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities have been further strengthened” by the successful launch.

“We will proceed with future satellite launches without a hitch,” it added.

The Falcon 9 rocket was launched at 23:17 GMT and the satellite successfully separated from the launch vehicle 45 minutes later and entered its targeted orbit, according to the statement.

It made successful communications with a ground station about two hours and 40 minutes after the launch, the ministry added.

South Korea, which plans to launch a total of five military spy satellites by 2025, is in a race with North Korea to expand its surveillance capabilities amid rising tension on the Korean Peninsula. Pyongyang launched its first spy satellite – Malligyong-1 – in November last year in its third attempt, while South Korea put its satellite into orbit the following month.

North Korea has since said its satellite had transmitted imagery of key sites in the US, including the White House and the Pentagon, but has not released any of the photos.

On March 31, Pak Kyong Su, the vice general director of North Korea’s National Aerospace Technology Administration, said the country expected to launch several more reconnaissance satellites this year. Leader Kim Jong Un has previously said he aimed to put three more military spy satellites into space in 2024.

South Korean Defence Minister Shin Wonsik said on Monday that the first of those launches could take place as soon as next week – to mark the April 15 birthday of state founder Kim Il Sung. The holiday, known as the  Day of the Sun, is typically marked with mass ceremonies and military parades.

North Korean satellite launches are seen as a violation of United Nations sanctions imposed on Pyongyang over its nuclear weapons programme because they make use of banned ballistic missile technology.

Check out our Latest News and Follow us at Facebook

Original Source

Why are doctors striking in several countries? | TV Shows

Doctors are trying to make the field more accessible, but are they concerned about quality of care or their own prestige?

Many countries around the world are facing a shortage of qualified doctors. Several countries have taken steps in recent months to make achieving qualification as a doctor more accessible. But these attempts have been met with pushback from doctors, especially younger junior doctors, with many expressing frustration at having undertaken long and expensive degrees that will no longer have the same value. Some have taken their frustrations to extremes, with patients dying as junior doctors in South Korea strike.

Presenter: Myriam Francois

Guests:

Dr Habib Rahman – Cardiology registrar

Dr David Bhimji Atellah – KMPDU secretary-general

Dr Alice Tan – Internal medicine specialist

Check out our Latest News and Follow us at Facebook

Original Source

South Korea’s Yoon accuses doctors of running ‘cartel’ as strike drags on | Labour Rights News

Yoon pledges not to back down on plans to increase medical school admissions.

South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol has pledged not to back down on plans to increase medical school admissions as he accused striking doctors of operating as a “cartel”.

In an address to the nation on Monday, Yoon said the planned addition of 2,000 medical school places was the minimum needed.

“The number 2,000 is not a random figure we came up with. We have thoroughly reviewed relevant statistics and research and reviewed present and future medical situations,” Yoon said, adding that the government’s reforms aimed to create “a medical environment where all people can receive treatment with a peace of mind”.

Yoon said doctors opposed to the plans should stop “making threats” and present a “unified blueprint with clear scientific reasoning”.

“If a more valid and reasonable plan is brought forward, we can discuss as much as they want,” he said.

Some 12,000 junior doctors in South Korea have been on strike since early February over the proposals, forcing hospitals to cancel treatments and surgeries.

South Korea’s government has argued that the reforms are necessary to alleviate staff shortages and manage the country’s rapid transition to an aged society.

South Korea had 2.6 doctors per 1,000 people in 2022, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), well below the average among developed nations.

Trainee doctors argue that the medical system is not equipped to handle such a steep increase in new recruits and that medical services will suffer as a result.

Doctors participating in the walkout face the risk of losing their medical licences after the government last month began taking steps to suspend them.

Yoon urged the doctors to return to work before the process to suspend their licences was complete, saying collective action should only be considered “when I do not keep my promises”.

Yoon also expressed regret at the inconvenience caused to the public, saying he was sorry he had been unable to “quickly resolve the inconveniences of the people”.

Public approval of Yoon has declined as the strike has dragged on, with just over 36 percent of South Koreans expressing a positive view of the president in a RealMeter poll released on Monday.

South Korea will hold parliamentary elections next week that will be crucial to Yoon’s chances of avoiding lame-duck status in the remaining three years of his five-year term.

Check out our Latest News and Follow us at Facebook

Original Source

China releases South Korean footballer Son Jun-ho held in bribery case | Football News

Son has returned home after being held on the suspicion of accepting bribes while playing in the Chinese Super League.

South Korean international footballer Son Jun-ho, who was detained by Chinese authorities over bribery allegations, has been released and returned home, according to the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The midfielder was detained in China last May “on suspicion of accepting bribes by non-state employees”, the Chinese government said at the time, without providing further details.

Son “recently arrived in South Korea as his detention ended” after 10 months, the South Korean Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Monday.

The government has provided “active legal assistance through close communication with Son’s family”, it added.

The Foreign Ministry did not reveal when he returned or whether the charges against him were proven.

“We have been communicating with Chinese authorities through various channels to request their cooperation in ensuring a fast and fair process [for Son] while also communicating closely with his family in South Korea,” the South Korean ministry said in a statement. It said it had conducted about 20 consular interviews with Son to provide assistance and ensure fair access to lawyers.

The Korea Football Association confirmed Son’s release, saying the 31-year-old footballer had returned on Monday.

Son played for Shandong Taishan football club in the Chinese Super League since 2021 and appeared in three of South Korea’s four matches during the 2022 Qatar World Cup.

Son played seven seasons with South Korea’s Pohang Steelers and Jeonbuk Hyundai Motors before joining Shandong Taishan in 2021 on a four-year contract. He has played for South Korea 18 times.

Check out our Latest News and Follow us at Facebook

Original Source

Exit mobile version