Day: January 17, 2024

SEOUL, A KBS TV producer and two other staff members at the public broadcaster were sentenced to 10 million won (US$7,434) in fines each Wednesday on charges of animal abuse over the 2021 death of a horse during the filming of a drama series.

The three were accused of tying up the horse’s forelegs and making it sprint forward, leading the animal to fall flat on its face, while shooting a scene of the drama, “The King of Tears, Lee Bangwon,” on Nov. 2, 2021.

The horse, which was left unattended without proper care, died five days later.

“The gravity of the crime is not light, taking into account the pain that the horse must have felt and the impact the case had on society after it was aired,” the Seoul Southern District Court said.

There were other methods to shoot the scene, including having a stunt fall from a horse, or utilizing computer graphics instead, but the crew went ahead by knocking down the horse, citing unrealistic expressions or the high cost of other methods, the court added.

The court als
o sentenced the TV station to 5 million won in fines.

The court said, however, it also took into account the fact that the defendants followed the customary method of filming and they established a set of guidelines after the incident.

Source: Yonhap News Agency

SEOUL, Unification Minister Kim Yung-ho visited a military base near the border with North Korea on Wednesday, the latest in a series of inspection tours by top South Korean officials amid heightened tensions.

Kim underscored the role of the unit in bolstering deterrence against North Korea during his visit to the Army unit in the western border city of Paju, according to the ministry, which handles inter-Korean affairs.

The rare visit came as North Korea has ratcheted up tensions on the peninsula with weapons tests, including the launch of a hypersonic missile this week, and its leader Kim Jong-un’s hostile rhetoric against the South.

At a key parliamentary meeting on Monday, the North’s leader called for revising the country’s constitution to define South Korea as its “primary foe” and codify the commitment to “completely occupying” the South Korean territory in the event of war.

Source: Yonhap News Agency

SEOUL, The chief nuclear envoys of South Korea and Japan held talks in Seoul on Wednesday to discuss North Korea’s military provocations amid its growing ties with Russia.

Kim Gunn, special representative for Korean Peninsula peace and security affairs, met with his Japanese counterpart, Hiroyuki Namazu, at the foreign ministry in Seoul earlier in the day.

On Thursday, the two sides are set to hold a three-way meeting with their U.S. counterpart, Jung Pak. Separately, Kim will also hold bilateral talks with Pak.

Earlier, the ministry said the three envoys plan to share their assessments of the situation on the Korean Peninsula, including North Korea’s recent provocations and deepening military cooperation with Russia.

The meeting came as North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son-hui traveled to Moscow this week and met Russian President Vladimir Putin for talks on ways to expand their ties, further raising concerns over their military ties.

South Korea and the United States have accused North Korea of prov
iding weapons to Russia for use in the war in Ukraine in exchange for technical assistance in its advanced arms development.

Source: Yonhap News Agency

SEOUL, After touring the athletes’ village for the upcoming Winter Youth Olympics in South Korea on Wednesday, International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach came away pleased with the setup.

“What I can say from this visit here in the village (is) that I’m very, very impressed by the quality of the accommodation and what I’m hearing from the athletes. They’re all very happy,” Bach told pool reporters after his visit to the village in Gangneung, some 160 kilometers east of Seoul in Gangwon Province. The 2024 Gangwon Winter Youth Olympics will begin Friday.

“For athletes, the most important is good sleep and good food and they all confirmed that their rooms are excellent and beds are excellent, and they’re enjoying food very much,” Bach added. “So all is set then for a successful Winter Youth Olympic Games here in Gangwon.”

Bach and Choi Jong-ku, head of the competition’s organizing committee, toured the village set up at Gangneung-Wonju National University. Bach chatted to teenage athletes from sev
eral different countries, took pictures with them and gave them souvenirs. He also went into one of the rooms inside the village to check on the beds and showers.

A 1976 Olympic gold medalist in fencing, Bach said his message to young athletes in Gangwon is “to enjoy this experience.”

“For young athletes, it’s a unique experience and a great stepping stone for the Olympic Games one day,” Bach said. “What I can tell them is to enjoy this experience and get ready for a great competition. Give it your best and then continue after to do the next step, and that’s participation in the Olympic Games. These Winter Youth Olympic Games have shown already in the past that they are a great stepping stone to success in the Olympic Games.”

The youth competition will be held across venues used during the 2018 Winter Olympics in the same region. Bach said bringing the Youth Olympics to a former Olympic host city just six years later provides “a great example for an Olympic legacy in different respects.”

“For the athletes
, I think it’s a wonderful experience to compete on the venues their idols had been competing just six years ago,” he said. “Of course, there is also the hard legacy that you see the venues being used. And with these Winter Youth Olympic Games, we are building a new legacy. These young athletes are carrying this legacy on towards the next generation of athletes. So it’s a true success story.”

Choi said he, too, was happy to see young athletes enjoy themselves staying in Gangneung.

“We will work hard to make sure we maintain the high quality of the village until the end of the competition,” Choi added.

Gangwon is the first Asian host of the Winter Youth Olympics, with the three previous editions having all taken place in Europe.

This will be the largest Winter Youth Games with 1,803 athletes representing 79 nations.

The opening ceremony is scheduled for 8 p.m. Friday. It will take place simultaneously at Gangneung Oval, the speed skating venue in Gangneung, and Pyeongchang Dome in Pyeongchang, about 30 ki
lometers west of Gangneung.

Source: Yonhap News Agency

SEOUL, The South Korean spring league of League of Legends’ (LoL) 2024 season kicked off in Seoul on Wednesday to distinguish teams to play in the mid-season invitational (MSI) slated for May.

The opening game for LoL Champions Korea (LCK) spring split between Nongshim RedForce and DRX began at 5 p.m. in the LCK Arena in central Seoul.

In the spring season, 10 teams, including last year’s champion Gen.G and runner-up T1, will play a total of 90 games, and the upper six will move on to the play-offs set to begin March 30, according to the event’s organizer.

The finals will be held April 14.

The organizer said this year’s spring league winner and runner-up will win tickets to the MSI, which will be held in Chengdu, China, in May.

The MSI ticket is important as the winner of the event will go straight to the LoL World Championship set to take place in the second half of the year.

Gen.G and T1, last year’s top two, will clash in LCK spring’s second game set to take place right after the first game is over.

T1 has four world titles in LoL championships, including last year’s, and is led by start player “Faker,” or Lee Sang-hyeok.

Gen.G won the LoL Worlds twice, in 2014 and 2017.

Source: Yonhap News Agency

SEOUL, North Korea’s state-run broadcasting station on Wednesday aired a map that highlights only the northern part of the Korean Peninsula in red after its leader vowed to no longer seek reconciliation and unification with South Korea.

In the initial segment of a program broadcast on Pyongyang’s state-run Korean Central Television, the network presented a map highlighting only the northern region of the Korean Peninsula in red.

The station used the same map on another program Monday, which highlighted the entire Korean Peninsula, encompassing South Korea’s southern island of Jeju and the eastern island of Ulleung, in color.

The latest change came after North Korean leader Kim Jong-un called for revising the regime’s constitution earlier this week to define South Korea as its “invariable principal enemy” and to codify a commitment to “completely occupying” South Korean territory in the event of war.

South and North Korea remain technically at war as the 1950-53 Korean War ended with a truce, not a peace
treaty.

Source: Yonhap News Agency

SEOUL, South Korean budget airline Jin Air Co. said Wednesday it posted record earnings in 2023 on strong demand, shaking off the fallout of the coronavirus outbreak.

Net income came to an all-time high of 135.8 billion won (US$101 million) on a separate basis last year, the first black ink in five years, the low-cost carrier unit of top full-service airline Korean Air Co. said in a regulatory filing.

Sales also hit a record high of 1.28 trillion won, up 115 percent from a year earlier and even up 40.3 percent from 2019 just before the pandemic outbreak.

The airline swung to an operating profit of 181.6 billion won last year, which was also the first surplus in five years.

Its operating margin, or the ratio of operating income to sales, amounted to a new high of 14 percent.

Jin Air’s stellar performance was driven by a spike in the number of passengers. Government data showed some 9.83 million people used Jin Air flights in 2023, an all-time high and 113 percent of the 2019 level.

Forecasting air traff
ic to grow for the time being, Jin Air said competition will likely heat up this year amid an overall increase in flights.

Jin Air, which was set up in 2008, further said it will redouble efforts to hone its competitive edge by responding smartly to changes in the local aviation market amid continued negative factors at home and abroad.

Source: Yonhap News Agency

SEOUL, The state audit agency said Wednesday the government of Gyeonggi Province poorly supervised private companies receiving its subsidies, mostly during the time when opposition leader Lee Jae-myung served as governor.

Announcing the results of a regular audit, the Board of Audit and Inspection (BAI) said the provincial government failed to conduct proper oversight of subsidies given to companies for inter-Korean cooperation projects and local voucher businesses.

The result comes as Lee, chairman of the main opposition Democratic Party, has been standing trial over various corruption charges from his time as the Seongnam mayor and then as the governor of Gyeonggi Province from 2018 to 2021.

But the BAI said the audit, spanning from 2018 to 2022, is standard procedure, as the last audit on the provincial government was conducted in 2017.

According to the findings, the provincial government provided 1.29 billion won (US$963,000) in subsidies to a private organization chosen as a partner for a project to
provide assistance to North Korea in 2020.

But the audit revealed the organization illegally used 580 million won of the money for other purposes, including 430 million won for personal use.

The audit outcome also indicates the provincial government favored a private enterprise managing Gyeonggi Provincial local vouchers, which arbitrarily used an advance payment worth 10 billion won provided by the provincial government.

The BAI said the provincial government was aware of the irregularities since 2020 but failed to take any legal action.

Source: Yonhap News Agency

SEOUL, South Korea’s leading mobile carrier SK Telecom Co. said Wednesday it has signed a strategic partnership with a U.S. animal health care firm in a bid to enter the American pet market with its artificial intelligence (AI)-based veterinary care service “X Caliber.”

Under the memorandum of understanding with Vetology Innovations, SK Telecom will share its pet-related data and AI technology, and Vetology its expertise in veterinary medicine.

Founded in 2011, Vetology provides remote radiograph interpretation services to around 3,000 animal health clinics in the U.S.

The partnership is expected to enhance SK Telecom’s AI-based veterinary X-ray image diagnosis assistance service, X Caliber, which was launched in 2022, the South Korean company said.

SK Telecom and Vetology also have plans to collaboratively develop a new AI-based solution to expand their presence in the global veterinary market.

In a related move, SK Telecom has also signed a supply contract with local medical device manufacturer Viewor
ks Co. to create a new medical imaging solution in the first half.

Source: Yonhap News Agency

SEOUL, South Korea’s beer imports from Japan soared last year to regain its leading position in the country’s import beer market after five years, according to the customs office Wednesday.

The resurgence of Japanese beer products appears to have benefited from the release of a viral video showing a worker urinating into a tank at Tsingtao Brewery.

Last year, beer imports from Japan topped other import brands with US$55.5 million, jumping from $14.5 million in 2022, $6.9 million in 2021 and $5.7 million in 2020, data from the Korea Customs Service (KCS) showed.

Japanese beer imports ranked first with $78.3 million in 2018, but they nosedived to $39.7 million in 2019 due to Japan’s restrictions on exports to South Korea of key industrial materials for the production of semiconductors and displays.

In 2019, Japan also removed South Korea from its list of countries given preferential treatment in trade procedures.

South Korea viewed the moves as retaliation against 2018 Supreme Court rulings here ordering
Japanese firms to compensate South Korean victims of forced labor during Japan’s 1910-45 colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula.

Little doubt, the rebound in beer purchases from Japan is attributable to improved relations between Seoul and Tokyo from last year after President Yoon Suk Yeol offered to resolve the forced labor issue by compensating victims on South Korea’s own without asking for contributions from Japan.

Japan also reinstated South Korea on its “white list” of trusted trading partners last year, about four years after the removal, in a move to improve the bilateral economic relationship.

In contrast, beer imports from China ranked third last year with $30.1 million, down from the previous year’s top ranking with $36.4 million.

The video released on Oct. 19 shows a uniformed man climbing over a high wall and urinating into a Tsingtao beer tank.

Tsingtao said the batch of malt had been sealed off from use, and BK Co., which imports Tsingtao beer for distribution in Korea, said the plant in th
e video produces beer for local consumption in the Chinese market.

But the pee incident reignited concerns among consumers over the safety of Chinese food and beverage products.

Source: Yonhap News Agency