Category Archives: South Korea

Countries call for binding targets to cut plastic production after talks fail

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Group of 85 countries and blocs press for ambition in plastic waste treaty after no agreement was reached in Busan

Binding global targets to cut plastic production must be at the centre of any continuing negotiations to secure the world’s first treaty to tackle plastic waste, a group of 85 countries has said.

Talks in Busan, South Korea, attempting to secure agreement between more than 200 countries on the details of a plastic pollution treaty ended in failure over the weekend.

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Four killed and flights cancelled as heavy snowfall blankets Seoul

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South Korea’s capital has been hit by some of the heaviest snowfall in a century, with dangerous conditions wreaking havoc on transport

South Korea grappled with heavy snowfall for a second day on Thursday, with dozens of flights cancelled, ferry operations suspended and at least four people reported dead in a bitter winter, though conditions showed signs of easing.

Thursday’s snowfall was the third-heaviest in capital Seoul since records began in 1907, the Yonhap news agency said, citing city data. The previous day broke all snowfall records for November.

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Seoul slows down under blanket of heaviest November snow in 100 years

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First day of snowfall this season is heaviest on record, says weather bureau

South Korea’s capital has been blanketed by what the weather agency said was the heaviest November snowfall since records began over a century ago. It was the first snowfall of this year’s winter.

The Korea Meteorological Administration said 16.5cm (6.5 inches) of snow fell by 7am on Wednesday, compared with Seoul’s previous record of 12.4cm on 28 November 1972. It was the heaviest snowfall since records began in 1907, the KMA said.

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Seoul says Russia sent air-defence missiles to North Korea in return for troops

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Kremlin dispatched weapons as payment for 10,000 troops deployed to support war in Ukraine, says South Korean official

Russia has sent air defence missiles and other military technology to North Korea in return for the deployment of troops from the North to support the Kremlin’s war in Ukraine, intelligence officials in South Korea have said.

The shipments were the latest expression of a deepening alliance that allies and enemies fear could fuel the escalation of the war in Ukraine, geopolitical tensions in Asia, and potentially even global nuclear arms proliferation.

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Global plastic production must be cut to curb pollution, study says

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Analysis lays bare huge challenge of mismanaged waste on eve of UN plastic treaty talks in Busan

Global plastic production must be reduced to tackle the immense challenge of plastic pollution, according to an analysis published on the eve of crucial talks to hammer out the world’s first legally binding treaty on plastic waste.

Mismanaged plastic waste, which leaches into the environment and can be harmful to health, will double to 121m tonnes by 2050 if limits are not placed on the production of plastic, according to Samuel Pottinger, the lead author of the research.

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South Korean police arrest 215 people in suspected $228m crypto scam

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Alleged criminal ring is the biggest cryptocurrency investment scam in country’s history, according to police

South Korean police have arrested 215 people on suspicion of stealing 320 billion won ($228.4m) in the biggest cryptocurrency investment scam in the country.

Gyeonggi Nambu provincial police said on Wednesday that the arrests included the alleged mastermind of the organised crime group accused of selling 28 types of virtual tokens to about 15,000 people by promising high returns. Referred to as Mr A, he had fled to Australia but was arrested and extradited. Police have confiscated 22 Bitcoin from his accounts and have applied to seize some $34m more. Just 12 people of the 215 remain in custody, according to Yonhap.

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South Korean actor Song Jae-lim dies aged 39

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Star of Korean dramas Moon Embracing the Sun and Queen Woo was found dead at his home in Seoul

Song Jae-lim, a South Korean actor known for his roles in dramas Moon Embracing the Sun and Queen Woo, was found dead at his home in Seoul. He was 39.

Officials at Seoul’s Seongdong district police station didn’t immediately comment on the cause of death.

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South Korean president practising golf to prepare for future meetings with Donald Trump

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It is estimated that Trump played hundreds of rounds of golf during his first term as president of the United States

South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol is practising golf – for the first time in eight years – in preparation for future meetings with US president-elect Donald Trump, Yoon’s office has confirmed.

South Korean media said Yoon had visited a golf course on Saturday for a sport his office said he had last played in 2016.

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North Korea accused of GPS jamming attacks on South Korean ships and aircraft

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Seoul’s military says several vessels and dozens of civilian planes disrupted, a week after Pyongyang fired what it called its most powerful solid-fuel ICBM missile

North Korea staged GPS jamming attacks on Friday and Saturday, Seoul’s military said – an operation that was affecting several ships and dozens of civilian aircraft in South Korea.

The jamming allegations come about a week after the North test-fired what it said was its most advanced and powerful solid-fuel ICBM missile, its first such launch since being accused of sending soldiers to help Russia fight Ukraine.

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Korean cinema in ‘precarious period’ due to Netflix, says Jang Joon-hwan

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Director of Save the Green Planet, which is getting US remake, says film industry suffering amid rise of streaming

When Parasite became the first non-English language film in Oscars history to win best picture in 2019, it marked a breakthrough moment for Korean cinema.

But the surge of interest that followed the director Bong Joon-ho’s international success has not translated into a thriving local film industry, according to another of its leading lights.

The London Korean film festival takes place at BFI Southbank, Ciné Lumière and Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) 1-13 November. Echoes In Time: Korean Films of The Golden Age and New Cinema is at BFI Southbank until 31 December

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About 8,000 North Korean soldiers at Ukraine border, says US

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Antony Blinken warns that Russia is preparing to deploy the troops into combat ‘in the coming days’

About 8,000 North Korean soldiers are stationed in Russia on the border with Ukraine, the US secretary of state has said, warning that Moscow is preparing to deploy those troops into combat “in the coming days”.

Antony Blinken said the US believed that North Korea had sent 10,000 troops to Russia in total, deploying them first to training bases in the far east before sending the vast majority to the Kursk region on the border with Ukraine.

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North Korea missile test reaches record height and duration, says Japan

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Test of apparent ICBM theoretically capable of striking US mainland comes amid warnings over North Korean troops in Ukraine

North Korea has test launched a long-range missile theoretically capable of striking the US mainland in another display of defiance by the regime amid growing warnings over its troops’ participation in the war in Ukraine.

US officials said they believed Thursday’s launch was that of an intercontinental ballistic missile [ICBM] but did not say how they had reached that assessment. Japan’s defence minister, Gen Nakatani, said the missile had flown higher and for longer than others tested by North Korea.

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North Korean troops in Russian uniforms heading to Kursk, says US

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Lloyd Austin says deployment near Ukraine border is a dangerous and destabilising development

North Korean troops wearing Russian uniforms and carrying Russian equipment are moving to the Russian region of Kursk, near Ukraine, according to the US defence secretary, Lloyd Austin, who described the deployment as a dangerous and destabilising development.

Austin was speaking at a press conference at the Pentagon with the South Korean defence minister, Kim Yong-hyun, as concerns grow about Pyongyang’s deployment of as many as 11,000 troops to Russia. The US and South Korea said some of the North Korean troops are heading to Kursk, on the border with Ukraine, where the Kremlin’s forces have struggled to push back a Ukrainian incursion.

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North Korean troops in Russia are ‘fair game’ if deployed to fight in Ukraine, US says

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US says for first time that North Korea has sent at least 3,000 soldiers to Russia and are training at military bases

The US has said for the first time that it has seen evidence that North Korea has sent 3,000 troops to Russia for possible deployment in Ukraine, a move that could mark a significant escalation in Russia’s war against its neighbour.

US defence secretary Lloyd Austin said it would be “very, very serious” if the North Koreans were preparing to fight alongside Russia in Ukraine, as Kyiv has alleged. But he said it remained to be seen what they would be doing there.

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South Korea mulls aiding Ukraine amid reports North Korea to assist Russia

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Seoul signals its most proactive position towards arming Ukraine to date

South Korea is considering directly supplying weapons to Ukraine as evidence increases that North Korean soldiers are preparing to assist Russia in its war against Ukraine.

South Korea’s spy agency (NIS) said last week that North Korea had shipped 1,500 special forces personnel to Russia’s far east for training and acclimatising at local military bases for future combat alongside Moscow’s troops in Ukraine.

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North Korean arms more significant than troops in Russia’s war against Ukraine

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Intelligence builds that members of Pyongyang’s special forces are in Russia preparing for combat as munitions are also shipped

Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, got to the point in his presidential address last night: “Another state,” he said, was “joining the war against Ukraine”. He was referring to the growing intelligence that shows elite soldiers from North Korea are in Russia preparing to join what has become a fight that, in effect, extends all the way across Asia.

The effect will be greater than the numbers believed to be involved. On Friday, South Korea’s National Intelligence Service (NIS) reported that 1,500 members of Pyongyang’s special forces had crossed the border to Vladivostok in Russia’s far east to begin training and some degree of participation in the war in Ukraine.

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South Korea summons Russian envoy over North Korean troop deployment

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Seoul demands immediate withdrawal of elite soldiers reportedly helping Russia in its war against Ukraine

South Korea has summoned the Russian ambassador to Seoul to protest “in the strongest terms” about the reported dispatch of thousands of North Korean troops to help Russia in its war against Ukraine.

The first vice-foreign minister, Kim Hong-kyun, told the Russian envoy, Georgy Zinoviev, that the participation of North Korean troops in the war violated UN resolutions and demanded their immediate withdrawal, South Korea’s foreign ministry said in a statement on Monday.

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K-pop, K-movies, a Nobel prize … and now K-poetry: book of wise words adds to Korea’s cultural glory

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After Han Kang’s Nobel award and South Korean cinema hits, Penguin publishes new English edition of maxims by Lee Seong-bok in wake of US success

A collection of wise maxims written by a 72-year old poet, calmly setting out illuminating advice to other poets, is the latest and perhaps most unlikely book to benefit from a surge in demand for South Korean literature.

“Kick against words like you would kick back on a swing. You’ve got to feel as if the soles of your feet are touching the sky,” suggests Lee Seong-bok in his hit title Indeterminate Inflorescence.

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North Korean troops have arrived in Russia to fight Ukraine, says Seoul

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Russian navy ships reportedly transferred 1,500 forces to Vladivostok, where they are being trained

South Korea’s intelligence agency said on Friday that North Korea had dispatched troops to assist Russia in its war against Ukraine, a development that could intensify the standoff between North Korea and the west.

In a statement on its website, the National Intelligence Service (NIS) said Russian navy ships transferred 1,500 North Korean special operation forces to the port city of Vladivostok between 8 and 13 October who were now undergoing training.

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North Korea blows up roads linking it with South, prompting warning shots at border

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Roads have long been unused but destroying them sends clear message Pyongyang does not want to negotiate with Seoul, experts say

South Korea has condemned North Korea after it destroyed roads linking the countries on Tuesday, in another blow to bilateral ties on the increasingly tense peninsula.

The South Korean unification ministry, which overseas inter-Korean relations, described the North’s decision to blow up roads on its side of the countries’ heavily armed border as “abnormal” and a violation of bilateral agreements designed to lower tensions.

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