Bitget reportedly loses licence after it promoted Army Coin, named after group’s ‘BTS army’ followers
Singapore’s financial regulator has reportedly suspended Bitget, a crypto exchange that is mired in a row involving South Korea’s biggest boyband, BTS.
Bitget has removed the Monetary Authority of Singapore’s logo from its website, the Guardian confirmed. The platform still claims to have licences from Australia, Canada and the United States, according to its website.
Continue reading...Japanese and Korean are in top five choices in UK this year at online platform Duolingo
Whether it’s down to Squid Game or kawaii culture, fascination with Korea and Japan is fuelling a boom in learning east Asian languages. Japanese is the fastest growing language to be learned in the UK this year on the online platform Duolingo, and Korean is the fourth fastest.
Most of the interest is driven by cultural issues, the firm said in its 2021 Duolingo language report, which will be published tomorrow and analyses how the 20 million downloads of its platform are used.
Continue reading...Germany is seeking to break a surge in coronavirus infections; India detects two cases of new Omicron variant in Karnataka; Greece and Finland detect first Omicron cases
Some Covid numbers from Germany are now in.
The European nation reported another 73,209 new Covid cases for Wednesday and 388 deaths, according to data from the Robert Koch Institute.
Continue reading...A Spanish trans woman’s memoirs, a Mumbai gangster drama, Israeli sisters in trouble… the Covid era is a rich moment for TV drama. Critics from Spain to South Korea tell us about the biggest shows in their countries
Continue reading...During the final funeral service Lee Soon-ja says sorry for the pains suffered during her husband’s reign
The widow of South Korea’s last military dictator has issued a brief apology over the “pains and scars” caused by her husband’s brutal rule as dozens of relatives and former aides gathered at a Seoul hospital to pay their final respects to Chun Doo-hwan.
Chun, who took power in a 1979 coup and violently crushed pro-democracy protests a year later before being jailed for treason in the 1990s, died at his Seoul home Tuesday at the age of 90.
Continue reading...Italy unveils new Covid measures, to come into force on 6 December, that will ban unvaccinated people from entering venues
The health service in the UK is considering “radical ideas” to help tackle the backlog of care that has built-up over the last few years and been exacerbated by the Covid pandemic. That includes the idea of sending patients to different regions for treatment, the chief executive of NHS Providers has said.
But Chris Hopson told Times Radio it is more likely that people will be asked to go to neighbouring hospitals rather than different parts of the country. PA Media quote him saying:
Everybody across the NHS recognises that having patients wait for their care is not an acceptable situation. There is a moral obligation on trusts and their leaders to make sure that they do everything they can, no stone unturned, to get through those care backlogs as quickly as possible.
What we’re working on at the moment is a really comprehensive plan to get through those backlogs as fast as possible. And some of it will be all the traditional things that we do, which is: we will expand temporary capacity; we will ensure that we use overtime as much as possible; we will ensure that we use the capacity that sits in the independent sector.
Continue reading...Prime minister Kim Boo-kyum says emergency measures may be imposed as cases spike just weeks after the country reopened
South Korea reported a new daily record of 4,116 new coronavirus cases as the country battles to contain a spike in serious cases requiring hospitalisation, health authorities said.
South Korea this month switched to a “living with Covid-19” plan aimed at lifting rigid distancing rules and ultimately reopening after reaching vaccination goals last month.
Continue reading...Chun ruled for eight years after seizing power in 1979 coup, and presided over 1980 Gwangju student massacre
Former South Korean president, Chun Doo-hwan, who presided over the infamous Gwangju massacre during his iron-fisted eight-year rule, has died aged 90.
Chun had multiple myeloma, a blood cancer which was in remission, and his health had deteriorated recently, his former press secretary Min Chung-ki told reporters. He passed away at his Seoul home early in the morning and his body will be moved to a hospital for a funeral later in the day.
Continue reading...At the start of the pandemic, Seoul pursued a zero-Covid policy. How will this affect the west’s response to the next pandemic?’
With winter approaching, it’s time to talk about the optimal Covid-19 strategy again – and for that, we need to look once more at what’s happening in South Korea.
It has vaccinated 79.2% of its population with two doses, and, if it continues administering 220,000 doses a day, will have covered almost 90% of its population by the end of the year. Compare this to the UK, where 68.6% of the population has received two doses, and the US, where this figure is at 58%. If we compare deaths, the numbers are even more shocking. South Korea has suffered only 3,137 from a population of 51.8 million. For the UK, the corresponding figures are 142,945 deaths from a population of 67.2 million, while in the US there have been 783,575 deaths from a population of 329.5 million. In addition, in the first quarter of 2021, South Korea became one of the first high-income countries to see its economy recover to pre-pandemic levels, after it managed to only experience a 1% contraction in GDP in 2020 (the second-best performance behind China).
Prof Devi Sridhar is chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh
Continue reading...As the London Korean film festival kicks off, Youn Yuh-jung, talks about how her portrayals of racy grannies and scheming maids scandalised the nation
In her Oscar-winning turn in last year’s Minari, Youn Yuh-jung played the mischievous granny you wished you’d had: the one who ignores your fun-sucking parents, takes you on wild adventures and teaches you to do your own thing. “You’re not a real grandma,” her Americanised grandson tells her. “They bake cookies! They don’t swear! They don’t wear men’s underwear!” In real life, Youn is pretty similar: lively, funny, unpretentious, and, she admits, not all that good at cooking. The 74-year-old actor has had an unconventional life and career, and most of us in the west know only a tiny fraction of it.
“My problem is, I don’t plan anything!” Youn laughs over Zoom from Los Angeles. Unlike her character in Minari, she speaks fluent English, although she apologises for it not being good enough.
Continue reading...Russia reports 1,163 new Covid deaths, its highest one-day toll of pandemic; whole households to self-isolate in Wales if one person tests positive
Bulgaria has recorded another 5,178 new Covid cases in the last 24 hours. Official data shows that there are 7,553 patients in hospital, 656 of them being in intensive care.
Yesterday a meeting of health authorities agreed to transform Lozenets Hospital in Sofia into an intensive care centre for Covid-19 treatment. Deputy health minister Dimitar Petrov said the government’s intention was to open 30 new beds every 3-4 days in the next two weeks. In addition, students will not be returning to in-person classes next week, with primary school pupils expected to be back at school on 8 November.
The truth of the matter is we wish the UK Government took a more precautionary approach to international travel. But when they choose to change the rules in England, in any practical sense it’s impossible for us to do anything different in Wales, because almost everybody from Wales who travels abroad or who returns to this country from abroad comes in through English ports and airports, and then travels on to Wales. So in a practical sense, we can’t make anything different happen there, although we wish the UK Government took a different approach. What we can do, when we can do things differently, when we have decisions that we can make effectively in Wales, then we take them.
We do have opportunities to discuss this with the UK Government. I have for a number of weeks been urging them to move to Plan B. It would certainly help us here in Wales to have a single communication that says across England and Wales we are all taking this virus as seriously as we need to take it as we go into the autumn and the winter.
Continue reading...President hails ‘excellent’ test, as rocket gets high enough, but fails to put dummy payload into orbit
South Korea’s first domestically produced space rocket reached its desired altitude but failed to deliver a dummy payload into orbit in its first test launch.
The South Korean president, Moon Jae-in, still described the test as an “excellent accomplishment” that takes the country a step further in its pursuit of a space launch programme.
Continue reading...First came K-cinema, then K-pop and K-TV. Now South Korea’s young stars are conquering the world with K-art. But what do their dark visions say about their nation’s psyche – and ours?
Ohnim is having a blue period, just like Picasso. Over Zoom from a gallery in Seoul, the Korean rapper Song Min-ho, better known as Mino to K-pop fans but Ohnim in the art world, shows me a painting he finished the previous evening in collaboration with artist Choi Na-ri. It depicts a blue crouched figure, like a depressed version of Rodin’s Thinker. It may be still wet but will soon be shipped to London’s Saatchi Gallery for an art fair that showcases work by three of Korea’s biggest K-pop stars.
The meeting of K-pop and K-art is making the art world lick its lips. Businessman David Ciclitira, who set up the StART Art Fair at the Saatchi, says: “K-pop stars have immense reach through their social media. Guys like Mino, Henry Lau and Kang Seung-yoon, whose work will be in the show, have six to seven million followers each on Instagram. In Seoul, fans queue round the block just to see a work of art by any of them. Then they fight each other to buy. I don’t suppose it’ll be quite like that at the Saatchi Gallery, but you never know.”
Continue reading...The dystopian drama tops the streaming service’s charts in more than 80 countries, bumping aside recent Regency-era romp, Bridgerton
Dystopian South Korean drama Squid Game has become Netflix’s most popular series ever, drawing 111 million fans since its debut less than four weeks ago, the streaming service said Tuesday.
The unprecedented global viral hit imagines a macabre world in which marginalised people are pitted against one another in traditional children’s games. While the victor can earn millions in cash, losing players are killed.
Continue reading...Restaurant plants Japanese flag in seafood dish moulded in shape of islands that are also claimed by South Korea
A simple bowl of curry is at the centre of the latest row in a long-running territorial dispute between Japan and the Koreas.
Media in North and South Korea reacted angrily after an online media report about a seafood curry sold in Japan that includes mounds of rice shaped to resemble the Takeshima islands, which Koreans refer to as Dokdo.
Continue reading...Demand for capacity grows on back of hit Netflix shows, online games and more
The breakout success of the South Korean drama Squid Game has prompted a local broadband provider to launch legal action to force the maker, Netflix, to help pay for the huge surge in traffic, the latest flashpoint in the argument over who should carry the burden of the spiralling costs of data fuelled by the global streaming boom.
From Netflix’s latest global sensation and livestreamed Premier League football matches on Amazon Prime Video, to bandwidth-busting traffic when hit online games such as Fortnite or Call of Duty are updated, the demand for internet capacity has undergone unprecedented growth in recent years.
Continue reading...Household debt is now equivalent to over 100% of GDP and has gone hand in hand with a dramatically widening income gap
After midnight, when the crowds of revellers have gone, Choi Young-soo* crouches in a shabby alleyway in Seoul’s wealthy Gangnam district. This is the only time that the 35-year-old, a part-time food delivery rider, dare leave his tiny room at a cheap hostel he shares with about 30 other people.
The rooms, he says, are “only slightly bigger than coffins”.
Continue reading...New additions highlight Korean culture wave as interest in the country’s food, fashion and entertainment spreads
The Korean culture wave has swept through the editorial offices of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), which has added more than 20 new words of Korean origin to its latest edition.
The “definitive record of the English language” included words alluding to the global popularity of the country’s music and cuisine, plus one or two whose roots in the Korean language may be less obvious.
Continue reading...North Korean leader said Biden offer of dialogue is ‘a facade’ and blamed the US for ‘hostile policy’
Kim Jong-un has condemned a US offer of dialogue as a “facade”, state media reported, but said he had ordered officials to restore communication lines with South Korea to “promote peace”.
Speaking in parliament on Wednesday, the North Korean leader accused the US of continuing a “hostile policy” against his nuclear-armed country, despite the Biden administration’s offers of negotiations without preconditions.
Continue reading...In the gory thriller that has swiftly become a smash hit on Netflix, competitors play children’s games for huge cash prizes … and if they lose, they die. Can you stomach it?
What if winning playground games could make you rich? That’s the basis of Squid Game – the South Korean show currently at number one on Netflix around the world – where debt-ridden players sign up to compete in six games for a cash prize of 45.6 billion won (around £28m). The small print: if you lose, you get killed. In the first episode, a game of Grandma’s Footsteps (known as Red Light, Green Light in South Korea) leaves bodies piled high as the shell-shocked winners proceed to round two. It’s blood-splattered child’s play – a kind of Takeshi’s Castle with fatalities, or Saw with stylish shell suits.
If you can stomach the events of the first episode, what follows is a tightly written horror thriller that has captivated viewers. The nine-part series is the first Korean show to reach the top spot on the streaming platform in the US, and is currently number one in the UK. Its success won’t come as a surprise to a generation of viewers who got hooked on murderous dystopian series The Hunger Games and cult favourite Battle Royale. But Squid Game’s backdrop is South Korea’s present-day, very real wealth inequality.
Continue reading...