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South Korea on Wednesday reported its first cases of the Omicron coronavirus variant and tightened travel restrictions as fears grew about the strain’s impact on the country’s ongoing Covid surge. Health authorities said Omicron was detected in five people, including a fully vaccinated couple who had visited Nigeria from November 14 to 23, returning two days before the variant was officially reported by South Africa. They tested positive for the coronavirus on Thursday, and subsequent […]
SEOUL, South Korea (AFP) — Seoul will face a “serious security crisis” for going ahead with its joint military drills with the United States, a senior Pyongyang official threatened Wednesday, saying the South had missed its opportunity to improve inter-Korean ties. The statement by Kim Yong Chol came just a day after Kim Yo Jong, the powerful sister of leader Kim Jong Un, demanded Washington withdraw its forces from the peninsula. The US and South […]
SEOUL, South Korea (AFP) — The influential sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said Sunday that a planned military exercise between Seoul and Washington would “becloud” relations, state-run media reported. The warning comes amid a surprise thaw on the Korean peninsula, prompted by a series of personal letters between Kim and South Korean President Moon Jae-in. The two sides on Tuesday restored cross-border communications that were severed more than a year ago, announcing […]
SEOUL, South Korea (AFP) — North and South Korea said Tuesday they had restored cross-border communications, more than a year after Pyongyang severed all official hotlines between the two rivals, who technically remain at war. The North unilaterally cut off all official military and political communication links with the South in June last year after threats over activists sending anti-Pyongyang leaflets over the border. The suspension came with inter-Korean ties at a standstill, despite three […]
SEOUL, South Korea (AFP) — South Korean mega-hit “Gangnam Style” may be taken off gym playlists in the great Seoul region — but K-pop giants BTS can stay — under new rules aimed at stemming a rising tide of coronavirus infections. The regulations, aimed at stopping gym-goers breathing too hard or splashing sweat on others, ban gyms from playing music with a faster tempo than 120 beats per minute during group exercises like zumba and […]
by Sebastian Smith WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — President Joe Biden acknowledged Friday there is no easy path to getting North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons but reaffirmed his “iron-clad” commitment to the US alliance with South Korea after talks with President Moon Jae-in. “We’re under no illusions how difficult this is — none whatsoever. The past four administrations have not achieved the objective. It’s an incredibly difficult objective,” Biden told reporters at […]
UNITED NATION, United States (AFP) — A UN sanctions committee focused on nuclear-armed North Korea has asked its experts to investigate Pyongyang’s launch of missiles on Thursday, diplomats said. The panel is composed of the same 15 countries that sit on the Security Council. The request to the experts was made Friday in a closed door meeting of the committee. North Korea launched two weapons from its east coast Thursday, with Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide […]
by Kang Jin-kyu SEOUL, South Korea (AFP) — North Korea fired two suspected ballistic missiles into the sea Thursday, in its first substantive provocation to the new US administration of Joe Biden. The nuclear-armed North has a long history of using weapons tests to ramp up tensions, in a carefully calibrated process to try to forward its objectives. Donald Trump’s first year in office was marked by a series of escalating launches, accompanied by a […]
SEOUL, South Korea (AFP) — The United States began a coronavirus vaccination campaign for its troops stationed in South Korea Tuesday as a third virus wave saw the host country record its highest daily death toll since the pandemic began. US Forces Korea (USFK) administered initial doses of the Moderna vaccine for military and civilian healthcare workers, first responders and command staff across its medical treatment facilities in the country, it said in a statement. […]
SEOUL, South Korea (AFP) — South Korea’s billionaire business leaders lined up Monday to pay respects to the late Samsung Electronics chairman Lee Kun-hee, for decades the country’s richest and most powerful industrialist. Lee died aged 78 on Sunday, six years after suffering a heart attack that had left him bedridden. Under his leadership, Samsung became the world’s largest producer of smartphones and memory chips, and the firm’s overall turnover today is equivalent to a […]
SEOUL, South Korea (AFP) — K-pop sensation BTS’s US-chart-topping single “Dynamite” could generate more than $1.4 billion for the South Korean economy and thousands of new jobs in the country, a government study claimed Monday. The trailblazing septet cemented their prominence in the world’s biggest music market last week, when the all-English track debuted at number one in the Billboard Hot 100. The feat had previously eluded rapper Psy, whose Gangnam Style was a global […]
by Sunghee HWANG with Charly TRIBALLEAU in Kagoshima, JAPAN SEOUL, South Korea (AFP) — A powerful typhoon lashed South Korea on Monday after smashing into southern Japan with record winds and heavy rains that left four people missing in a landslide. Half a million people were without power after Typhoon Haishen roared past Japan’s southern-most main island of Kyushu, ripping off roofs and dumping half a metre (20 inches) of water in just a day. […]
