The US embassy in Seoul has posted a video on Twitter of Harry Harris visiting a barbershop to remove his moustache months after his facial hair became the subject of unusual criticism. The US ambassador says he shaved it off because of the summer heat and having to wear a face mask.
He has faced criticism for his moustache before. Commentators have said his facial hair reminded South Koreans of that of Japanese governor generals when Korea was a Japanese colony from 1910-45
The case has triggered an emergency lockdown in the North, but officials in Seoul say the man had no record of infection or contact
South Korea has said that a defector who recently fled to the North does not appear to have contracted Covid-19, a day after Pyongyang imposed a lockdown near the border, claiming the man was its first recorded case of the illness.
North Korean state media reported on Sunday that the 24-year-old man, who was reportedly in quarantine, was displaying symptoms of coronavirus after returning to his homeland across the border separating the two Koreas last week.
Continue reading...More than 500,000 people sign petition calling for quiet family funeral for Park Won-soon amid sexual harassment allegations
A row has broken out over whether the mayor of Seoul, who was found dead last week in an apparent suicide, should be given a publicly funded funeral amid allegations he sexually harassed a member of his staff.
The South Korean capital’s administrative court dismissed an eleventh-hour injunction to block the use of taxpayer funds for the funeral on Monday morning of Park Won-soon, whose body was found in mountain woods in Seoul on Friday.
Continue reading...Body found as local reports say Park had been subject of sexual harassment complaint
The missing mayor of Seoul, who had reportedly been accused of sexual harassment, has been found dead more than half a day after leaving a message for his daughter that was “like a will”.
Police said rescue dogs found Park Won-soon’s body near a restaurant in wooded hills in northern Seoul, more than seven hours after they launched a search for him.
Continue reading...Kim Jong-un unexpectedly vetoes the idea to redeploy troops to the border amid rising tensions between the two countries
Kim Jong-un has suspended plans to increase military pressure on South Korea, in a surprise move that comes after weeks of mounting tensions on the peninsula.
The North Korean leader vetoed measures that are thought to have included the redeployment of troops neat the border between the two countries, apparently in retaliation for Seoul’s inability to prevent defector groups from sending propaganda leaflets into the North.
Continue reading...New infections in and around Seoul; Spain reports 36 new outbreaks; New Zealand strengthens borders
Authorities in South Korea have said the country is experiencing a second wave of the coronavirus in and around Seoul, and warned that stronger physical-distancing measures will be reimposed if the daily increase in infections does not come down.
Confirmation of the new wave came as the Israeli government said a lockdown could be reintroduced amid a sharp rise in cases, and a team of contact tracing experts prepared to deploy to the Australian state of Victoria to tackle a new outbreak in Melbourne.
Continue reading...Regime creating piles of propaganda in retaliation for similar campaign from South amid worsening relations
North Korea is gearing up to send propaganda leaflets over its southern border, denouncing North Korean defectors and South Korea, its state media said on Saturday, the latest retaliation for leaflets from the South as bilateral tensions rise.
The North’s Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported: “The enraged people across the country are actively pushing forward with the preparations for launching a large-scale distribution of leaflets to pour the leaflets of punishment upon those in South Korea who are bereft of even elementary morality.”
Continue reading...Record label announces ‘the most unfortunate, sorrowful news’ about singer from boyband TST
Kim Jeong-hwan, known as Yohan in the Korean pop group TST, has died aged 28.
TST’s record label, KJ Entertainment confirmed the news, saying: “We are sad to relay the most unfortunate, sorrowful news. On June 16, TST member Yohan left this world. The late Yohan’s family is currently in deep mourning.” The cause of death has not been announced.
Continue reading...Pyongyang news agency steps up war of words against Seoul as Kim Jong-un’s sister says South’s president has put his neck in ‘noose of US flunkyism’
North Korea has accused South Korea of behaving like a “mongrel dog” bent on confrontation in a state media report that explains the regime’s decision to blow up a liaison office – a move that has significantly raised tensions between the two countries.
A commentary carried by the state KCNA news agency said the South’s defence ministry was “bragging and bluffing, rattling the dialogue partner and stoking a confrontational atmosphere”, and warned that Tuesday’s destruction of the office – which opened in 2018 to foster better cross-border ties – could be a prelude to a “total catastrophe” in North-South relations.
Continue reading...North Korea has blown up a liaison office set up to improve communications with South Korea in a row over defectors’ plans to send anti-Pyongyang propaganda leaflets across the heavily armed border. North Korea appears to have acted on a warning by Kim Yo-jong, the increasingly influential sister of the country’s leader, Kim Jong-un, to destroy the 'useless' office.
The office opened in September 2018 to facilitate inter-Korean cooperation after successful talks between Kim Jong-un and the South Korean president, Moon Jae-in.
Continue reading...Kim Jong-un’s sister had said office, set up to improve co-operation with South Korea, was ‘useless’
North Korea has blown up a liaison office set up to improve communications with the South, media reports said, in a row over defectors’ plans to send anti-Pyongyang propaganda leaflets across the heavily armed border.
South Korea’s unification ministry said the North had set off an explosion at the joint liaison office at 2:49 pm, in the North Korean border town of Kaesong. The reports, from the Yonhap news agency, added that military sources had heard an explosion and seen smoke rising from the building.
Continue reading...South Korean survivor claims support group failed to spend donations on welfare
It began with a call by a South Korean former “comfort woman” to end protests outside Japan’s embassy in Seoul – a rare attempt at reconciliation that has quickly spiralled into the biggest crisis the campaign for justice for survivors of wartime sexual slavery has faced in its three-decade history.
Lee Yong-soo, a 92-year-old veteran campaigner, told reporters last month that she would no longer attend weekly rallies outside the embassy, claiming that they had only engendered hatred between young South Koreans and their Japanese counterparts.
Continue reading...Retailer paid $109m in dividends just weeks after cancelling clothing orders, leaving suppliers in Bangladesh facing financial crisis
Kohl’s, one of the US’s largest clothing retailers, cancelled millions of dollars worth of existing orders from Bangladeshi and Korean garment factories just weeks before paying out $109m (£85m) in dividends to shareholders, the Guardian can reveal.
The company cancelled orders of clothing worth approximately $100m from Korea and $50m from Bangaldeshi factories after the Covid-19 pandemic struck, and refused petitions from suppliers asking for the option to renegotiate payments.
Continue reading...Pyongyang has said it will make Seoul ‘suffer’ during worsening spat over anti-North Korean leaflets sent from South
North Korea says it will sever hotlines with South Korea as the first step toward shutting down all means of contact with Seoul, state news agency KCNA has reported.
For several days, North Korea has lashed out at South Korea, threatening to close an inter-Korean liaison office and other projects if the South does not stop activists and defectors from sending leaflets and other anti-Pyongyang material into the North.
Continue reading...North Korean leader’s sister says continued air drops by defectors could jeopardise peacekeeping agreement
Kim Yo-jong, the powerful sister of the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, has warned South Korea to stop propaganda leaflets coming over the border, warning it could wreck an agreement to reduce military tensions.
Her statement came after anti-Pyongyang leaflets were sent across the border earlier this week by a group of North Korean defectors. The leaflets concealed in 500,000 balloons criticised Kim Jong-un’s nuclear threats, according to the Yonhap news agency. Previous messages have also condemned North Korea’s human rights record.
Continue reading...France, Italy and Belgium respond to safety fears around drug; UN issues food insecurity warning for Africa; mosques reopen in Syria
France, Italy and Belgium have all taken steps against the use of hydroxychloroquine in treating patients with Covid-19 as safety concerns over the drug, touted by Donald Trump and Brazil’s president, Jair Bolsonaro, continue to grow.
Paris on Wednesday revoked a decree allowing doctors to use the drug with severely ill coronavirus patients, while the Italian and Belgian medicine agencies either suspended or warned against its use except in clinical trials.
Continue reading...Pledge of ‘world-beating’ system will have to look to likes of South Korea and Germany
Boris Johnson’s insistence that the UK will be able to roll out a “world-beating” coronavirus test, track and trace regime by 1 June has inevitably drawn comparisons with countries around the world that have already set up effective Covid-19 tracing programmes.
It has also raised questions about timing, as some experts insist a system would have been more useful at the beginning of the pandemic.
Continue reading...K-League says club ‘deeply humiliated’ female football fans and damaged the league’s reputation
South Korea’s professional football league has imposed a record fine on one of its clubs for placing sex dolls in empty seats during a recent match played without spectators due to the coronavirus pandemic.
FC Seoul was forced to apologise this week after TV and online viewers spotted about two dozen sex dolls dotted around the stadium during the club’s 1-0 win over Gwangju FC on Sunday.
Continue reading...Trump brands Fauci’s caution over reopening ‘unacceptable’; Russia has second highest infections; Japan eyes lifting national emergency
The World Health Organisation has warned that coronavirus “may never go away” as its experts predicted that a global mental health crisis caused by the pandemic was looming.
The global health body on Wednesday cautioned against trying to predict how long coronavirus would keep circulating, and called for a “massive effort” to overcome it.
Continue reading...Health body says coronavirus restrictions must be eased carefully; Iran to reopens mosques; China reports one new case
The World Health Organization has called on countries to show “extreme vigilance” when loosening Covid-19 restrictions as the top US infectious diseases expert, Anthony Fauci, warned that prematurely reopening the American economy would cause “needless suffering and death”.
The WHO’s emergencies chief, Michael Ryan, has hailed the gradual lifting of coronavirus lockdowns in some countries whose death and infection rates were dropping, as a sign of “hope”, but he cautioned that “extreme vigilance is required”.
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