SOUTH KOREA
Police raid aerospace office
Police yesterday raided the head office of Korea Aerospace Industries (KAI) in connection with two Indonesian nationals accused of leaking technology related to a fighter jet project, a police official said. The two engineers are accused of breaching the Defense Acquisition Program Act and leaking technology related to the KF-21, a homegrown fighter jet that is partially backed by Indonesia. The raid started on Thursday and was continuing for a second day, an official at the security investigation bureau of Gyeongnam Provincial Police said. A KAI spokesperson said the company was “actively cooperating” to ensure it could provide anything necessary for the police investigation to establish the truth. The KF-21, developed by KAI, is designed to be a cheaper, less stealthy alternative to the US-built F-35, on which Seoul relies. An Indonesian foreign ministry spokesperson last month told reporters that Jakarta was gathering evidence about the allegations.
EL SALVADOR
Bitcoin savings hit US$406m
President Nayib Bukele on Thursday said that his country has stored more than US$400 million in bitcoin in an offline “cold wallet” as the cryptocurrency forges new record highs. “We’ve decided to transfer a big chunk of our bitcoin to a cold wallet, and store that cold wallet in a physical vault within our national territory,” Bukele wrote on X. “You can call it our first bitcoin piggy bank,” he added. The cold wallet protects cryptocurrency investments by keeping them offline to prevent hacking attacks. Bukele shared a screenshot of the investment showing a total of 5,689.7 bitcoin, with a valuation of US$406.6 million. The nation was the first in the world to legally circulate bitcoin as legal tender on par with the US dollar in September 2021. “It’s not much, but it’s honest work,” Bukele said about the cold wallet initiative.
CHINA
US envoy mocks criticism
US Ambassador to China Nicholas Burns yesterday said that Beijing’s position on a potential TikTok ban in the US was “supremely ironic” given the Chinese Communist Party’s censorship of online platforms within its borders. The US House of Representatives on Wednesday overwhelmingly approved a bill that would force the short-video app to break with its Chinese parent company or face a nationwide ban. Beijing called the move Washington’s “bandit” mentality and accused US lawmakers of “unjustly suppressing foreign companies.” During an online seminar by the US-based East-West Center, Burns said Chinese officials “won’t even let TikTok be available to 1.4 billion Chinese.” Many Western platforms, including Google, Facebook and Instagram, are blocked from operating in the country.
SOUTH KOREA
Actor guilty of sex crime
South Korean actor O Yeong-su, who starred in the first season of the hit Netflix series Squid Game, was yesterday convicted on charges of sexual harassment and handed a suspended prison sentence, a court official said. The Seongnam branch of the Suwon District Court sentenced O to eight months in prison, suspended for two years, as well as 40 hours of attendance at a sexual violence treatment program, the court official said by telephone. The 79-year-old actor, who was charged with two counts of sexual harassment in 2017, had denied the accusations. O told reporters he planned to appeal against the decision. He has seven days to appeal or the ruling will be upheld.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
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