South Korea - Page 6

A South Korean labor union official died in a Seoul hospital on Tuesday after setting himself on fire during a May Day protest. The official was evidently in distress over a pretrial hearing over extortion charges.

North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un’s sister, top communist official Kim Yo-jong, lobbed a barrage of insults at American President Joe Biden in a screed this weekend accusing him of endangering America with his “senility” and being incapable of serving through 2024.

A well known piece of art depicting a banana taped to a wall became a snack for a young man in Seoul, South Korea.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry and the Communist Party’s media arms ardently condemned conservative South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol on Thursday for coming to an agreement that would see the return of American nuclear submarines to the Korean peninsula, warning he had “likely” caused a “nuclear crisis.”

Conservative South Korean President Yoon Suk-Yeol surprised attendees at Wednesday’s lavish White House state dinner with a karaoke rendition of “American Pie,” a rock classic that host President Joe Biden described as Yoon’s favorite from his school years.

President Joe Biden and visiting South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol on Wednesday signed an agreement that would increase U.S. support for South Korea’s security and give Seoul more input in responses to North Korean aggression.

South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol landed in Washington, DC, on Monday for a nearly week-long trip that will include extensive meetings with leftist President Joe Biden, a state dinner, and business negotiations between some of South Korea’s top corporate entities and American counterparts.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) will travel to four countties overseas as part of an international trade mission as he prepares to make a decision on whether to enter the 2024 Republican presidential primary. 

A study published on Thursday by the United Nation’s children’s agency UNICEF found a dramatic global decline in public support for childhood vaccination in the years of the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic.

Seoul, South Korea (AP) — Moon Bin, a singer from South Korean boyband Astro, was found dead at his home in Seoul, his management agency said Thursday.

The Pentagon continued on Tuesday evening to respond to the fallout from the surfacing of dozens of documents online, allegedly featuring highly sensitive U.S. intelligence, implicating Washington in everything from on-the-ground operations in Ukraine to spying on top ally South Korea.

Japan issued an emergency alert on Thursday to residents of its northernmost island, Hokkaido, urging them to “evacuate immediately” or take shelter from a potential bombing in their respective locations in response to a missile launch from North Korea.

The Pentagon is scrambling to contain the damage from alleged intelligence leaks that revealed Ukraine’s military vulnerabilities in its war with Russia as well as embarrassing claims regarding some of the U.S.’s allies.

China’s state-run propaganda outlets welcomed the news of extensive alleged leaks from the U.S. government surfacing in dozens of documents on social media sites and video game servers, declaring the information on Wednesday to be a blow to Washington’s “surveillance empire.”

The office of South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol told reporters on Tuesday that a “significant number” of documents alleging to be American intelligence information were “forged” and did not represent authentic classified information, but did not specify which documents were “forged” and which may be real.

The Pentagon appears to be in full damage control mode after the discovery of leaked intelligence that revealed closely guarded details regarding the Ukraine War as well as potentially politically embarrassing assertions about close allies.

Alleged confidential U.S. government leaks to left-wing media over the weekend included information from documents, allegedly sourced from intercepting conversations among South Korean officials, indicating that the conservative government of President Yoon Suk-yeol was concerned that leftist President Joe Biden would drag Seoul into the ongoing war in Ukraine.

Satellite images published by the monitor site 38 North this weekend indicate that communist North Korea has “refurbished” the uranium enrichment facility at its Yongbyon Nuclear Scientific Research Center and is potentially expanding the operation of its nuclear reactors there.

North Korea’s state media outlets published photos on Tuesday of communist dictator Kim Jong-un alongside a weapon identified as the “Hwasan-31,” the country’s first apparent tactical nuclear warhead produced in response to Kim’s call for the country to become “flawlessly prepared to use nuclear weapons anytime and anywhere.”

North Korean state media claimed on Thursday that the belligerent Communist regime tested an undersea drone that could carry a nuclear warhead. The weapon is supposedly designed to wipe out enemy cities by sneaking close to harbors and detonating to cause a “radioactive tsunami.”

North Korean state media on Monday said dictator Kim Jong-un personally oversaw drills on Saturday and Sunday that simulated his regime’s “war deterrence and nuclear counterattack capability,” meaning a nuclear attack on the United States and South Korea. The drill included the troubling launch of solid-fueled ballistic missile from a hidden underground silo.

The aftershocks of Silicon Valley Bank’s (SVB) multibillion-dollar collapse reached Asia on Tuesday, as stock indexes in Japan, South Korea, and Hong Kong tumbled by more than two percent.

The mayor of Seoul, Oh Se-hoon, told Reuters in an interview published on Monday that he supported South Korea developing nuclear weapons in response to increased belligerence from communist North Korea, a nuclear-armed state.

North Korean state media on Friday described dictator Kim Jong-un supervising a live-fire artillery drill that simulated an attack on a South Korean airfield.

North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un’s sister, Kim Yo-jong, published an inflammatory screed on Monday referring to South Korean officials as “idiots” and “maniacs” and warning that Pyongyang is willing to turn the Pacific Ocean into “our firing range.”

North Korea conducted an “ICBM [inter-contiential ballistic missile] launching drill” Saturday, hours after South Korea announced it would hold joint exercises with the United States.

South Korea’s latest defense white paper referred to North Korea as the “enemy” for the first time in six years, citing Pyongyang’s violation of bilateral agreements, missile tests, penetration of South Korean airspace with drones, and growing stockpile of weapons-grade nuclear material.

The government of North Korea staged a citywide party in Pyongyang on Wednesday night to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the founding of the nation’s military – featuring apparent intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) believed to be able to reach the United States.

Balloon-mania spread across the world this weekend as South Korea reported an incursion by a North Korean balloon into its territory, and the Colombian military confirmed a sighting of a “balloon-like object” within its airspace.

The Chinese Communist Party, through its foreign ministry and state media outlets, sternly condemned NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg for seeking friendly ties with China’s neighbors, fuming in particular over a potential “devilish deal” with Japan.

North Korean state media on Monday denounced NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg’s visit to South Korea as a “prelude to confrontation and war.” During his visit, Stoltenberg urged South Korea to “step up to the specific issue of military support” for Ukraine.

The government of South Korea reportedly sent thousands of police officers to descend on the headquarters of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU), a coalition of labor organizations, on Wednesday in an extensive national security raid union officials said was ongoing as of Thursday.

The president of South Korea, Yoon Suk-yeol, suggested this week that his country could “possess its own nukes” in response to North Korea’s incessant, and escalating, threats against Seoul.

Chinese officials on Tuesday confidently assured a nervous global audience that the “peak” of the massive omicron outbreak has passed. 

The Washington Post looked at social media posts and satellite images on Monday to estimate the true death toll from China’s coronavirus surge and concluded the number is much higher than the 40 fatalities the Chinese Communist Party has chosen to acknowledge.

The scandal brewing in South Korea over last month’s invasion by North Korean drones took another turn on Thursday, as the South Korean military admitted one of the five invading drones managed to penetrate the no-fly zone around President Yoon Suk-yeol’s office in Seoul.