Monday 12 August – DAILY NEWS SUMMARY
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(한국콜마 윤동한 회장)News24 (www.news24.co.za)
South Korean Olympic skating champion banned over trouser-pulling North Korea fires ‘unidentified projectiles’: Yonhap
North Korea says latest test was ‘new weapon’
South Korean Olympic skating champion banned over trouser-pulling
2019-08-09 10:49
Bronze medalist Hyojun Lim of Korea stands on the podium during the medal ceremony for Short Track Speed Skating - Mens 500m on day 14 of the PyeongChang 2018 Winter Olympic Games at Medal Plaza on February
23, 2018 in Pyeongchang-gun, South Korea. (Photo by Lars Baron/Getty Images)
Seoul - South Korean Olympic short track speed skating champion Lim Hyo-jun has been banned from competition for a year for sexually harassing a fellow male athlete, officials said Friday.
Lim, 23, won the gold in the 1500m on home ice at last year's Winter Games in Pyeongchang and also took bronze in the 500m.
But in June he forcibly pulled down the victim's trousers in front of other teammates at the national training centre, a Korea Skating Union official said.
"Lim will be banned from competing in any sporting event until August 7 next year," the official told AFP.
The KSU also suspended four short track speed skaters -- two of them Olympic medallists -- from the national training centre for two months on Friday for "misbehaviour involving
drinking", the organisation said in a statement.
The cases are two of the latest in a series of embarrassing off-field incidents in South Korean sports.
The South is a regional sporting power and regularly in the top 10 medal table places at the summer and winter Olympics.
But in an already intensely competitive society, winning is virtually everything in its sports community -- and physical and verbal abuse are rife.
The nation's short track speed skating community in particular has faced several serious abuse scandals in recent years.
In January, double Olympic gold medallist Shim Suk-hee went public with accusations her former coach sexually molested and physically abused her multiple times.
Also earlier this year, a male skater was suspended for a month after secretly getting into the female dorm at the national training centre.
North Korea fires 'unidentified projectiles': Yonhap
2019-08-10 09:04
Play Video 1m 41s
North Korea calls missile tests a 'warning'
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un says his country's latest launch of tactical guided missiles was a warning to the United States and South Korea over their joint military drills this week.
North Korea fired two "unidentified projectiles" on Saturday into the sea, South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported, citing the country's Joint Chiefs of Staff - the latest in a series of such launches by Pyongyang.
The South Korean military said the projectiles were fired from near the northeastern city of Hamhung into the East Sea, also known as the Sea of Japan.
"The military is monitoring the situation in case of additional launches while maintaining a readiness posture," the Joint Chiefs of Staff said, according to Yonhap.
Play Video 1m 29s
North Korea launches two missiles: South Korea
The South Korean military said that North Korea has launched two short-range missiles, nearly a week after firing two other missiles. That was intended to put pressure on the joint military exercises between the U.S. and South Korea in August.
North Korea says latest test was 'new weapon'
2019-08-11 10:58
Play Video 1m 4s
Trump: Kim says ready to restart talks when U.S.-S.Korea joint drills end
U.S. President Donald Trump said on Saturday that Kim Jong Un told him North Korea was ready to resume talks on its nuclear and missile program as soon as U.S.-South Korea military exercises ended.
This early August 10, 2019 picture released from North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on August 11, 2019, shows the test-fire of a new weapon at an undisclosed location in North Korea. (KCNA VIA
KNS / AFP)
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un supervised a "new weapon" test, state media reported on Sunday, the latest in a series of launches that US President Donald Trump has played down as Washington seeks to restart nuclear talks with Pyongyang.
The report carried by the Korean Central News Agency followed Trump's comments that Kim had expressed a willingness to meet once the US-South Korean exercises are over and apologised for the slew of missile tests.
Saturday's launch was the North's fifth test in two weeks as it protests the annual military drills under way between Seoul and Washington which always infuriates Pyongyang.
Defence officials in Seoul said Pyongyang fired what appeared to be two short-range ballistic missiles Saturday, flying 400km before splashing down in the sea between the Korean peninsula and Japan.
Play Video 1m 41s
North Korea calls missile tests a 'warning'
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un says his country's latest launch of tactical guided missiles was a warning to the United States and South Korea over their joint military drills this week.
KCNA provided no technical specifications but said Sunday they were a "new weapon"
developed to suit the country's "terrain condition".
The official Rodong Sinmun newspaper carried several photos showing a broadly grinning Kim surrounded by his aides as he observed the test.
Kim Dong-yub, a researcher at the Institute for Far Eastern Studies, said the weapons were likely to be new short-range ballistic missiles that are part of Pyongyang's modernisation of its military capabilities.
They were the "North Korean version of a low-cost, high-efficiency retaliation system" aimed at "incapacitating missile defence systems" in the South, Kim added.
In a statement issued by KCNA on Sunday, the North's foreign ministry said the South's refusal to cancel its joint drills with the US had effectively scuppered any prospect of future talks with Seoul.
"They had better keep in mind that this dialogue would be held strictly between (North Korea) and the US, not between the North and the South," it said.
'Small apology'
Trump has appeared determined to secure a denuclearisation agreement with North Korea ahead of next year's US presidential elections, despite a breakdown in talks since he first met Kim in a historic summit in Singapore in June 2018.
Even after their abortive second summit in February - and as Pyongyang has continued to test short-range missiles - Trump has been reluctant to criticise the North Korean leader.
On Friday the US president said he agreed with Kim's opposition to the war games - albeit for financial rather than military reasons - and indicated the missile launches were not important.
"I'll say it again. There have been no nuclear tests. The missile tests have all been short- range. No ballistic missile tests, no long-range missiles," Trump said.
Then on Saturday, Trump said Kim had expressed in a letter his willingness to meet and resume negotiations once the US-South Korean exercises are over.
Kim also offered a "small apology for testing the short range missiles," the US leader noted, and said the tests would end once the military drills wrap up on August 20.
The pair last met in late June for brief talks in the Demilitarised Zone separating the two Koreas - and Trump became the first sitting US president ever to step inside the North.
'Licence to fire'
Shin Beom-chul, an analyst at the Asan Institute for Policy Studies in Seoul, said Trump's downplaying of the launches were equvalent to endorsing the missile tests.
"If Kim felt the missile tests could jeopardise the dialogue momentum, he would refrain. But right now, it's as if North Korea has a licence to fire short-range missiles," Shin told AFP.
The foreign ministry in Pyongyang said Trump's comments effectively recognised the North's
"self-defensive rights" as a sovereign state to conduct "small" missile tests.
Leif-Eric Easley, a professor at Ewha University in Seoul, said by appealing directly to Trump, Kim was "trying to drive a wedge between Washington and Seoul" as Pyongyang seeks to break the alliance.
Washington and Seoul pledged in March to scale down their joint drills in an effort to foster denuclearisation efforts.
While past exercises involved extensive combat field training - with thousands of American troops coming in from several countries to take part - the current games are decidedly low- key, with the emphasis on computer-simulated scenarios.
