Latest news with #NorthKorea
The Review Geek
an hour ago
- Entertainment
- The Review Geek
Squid Game – K-drama Season 3 Episode 5 Recap & Review
Episode 5 Episode 5 of Squid Game Season 3 begins with No-eul entering the base via a vent. Gi-hun returns to the bunker and tries to kill the rest of the players, starting with Player 100. While In-ho watches, it cuts to a flashback of his game. Old Man aka Chairman Oh makes In-ho the same offer. And while he is shaken, In-ho kills the remaining 5 members. At present, Gi-hun stops after he hallucinates Sae-byeok. Trouble is afoot for those on the sea. The pursuit team gets closer to 246 by tracking his boat. Jun-ho keeps searching for the island and In-ho finally radios him. He tells Jun-ho to stop or he will die. Jun-ho refuses. No-eul sneaks into the Officer's room and makes him delete the digital records of 246. Before she can kill him, he reveals that there is a hard copy but only he and the Frontman have access to the archives. Once they are in the elevator, he attacks. They reach the floor but lose the gun in the elevator. The Officer wonders if No-eul has feelings for 246. She reveals that she is doing it for his daughter. We learn that her daughter died in North Korea. The Officer reveals that he is partial to her not because of their shared hometown but because he too lost a loved one. He stabs her and lazily follows as she crawls. While he monologues, she reaches the elevator and shoots him with the abandoned gun. The final game is Sky Squid Game with 3 rounds. The players need to push one or more alive players off a tower to move to the next round. Round 1 begins on a square tower. If they do not eliminate anyone within 15 minutes, everyone will be killed. Each tower has a button they need to press to start the timer and the round. Unable to decide on which Red Team member to kill, the Blue Team agrees to be democratic and vote on their victims. But there is one problem – they need to separate Gi-hun and the baby, so they have 3 targets for all 3 rounds. Myung-gi suggests killing Min-su first to get it over with. Min-su doesn't make it easy but Myung-gi takes out the pole in the middle of the tower and pushes him off. Min-su hallucinates Se-mi and apologises to her before falling to his death. No-eul looks for 246's file in the archive and finally finds it. The players move to the second tower. Gi-hun realises that he has the upper hand as he sets up base on the edge. If the Blue Team kills him and the child now, they will have to pick among themselves for the last round. As the team frets, the hyper 203 starts the timer and Round 2 begins. He insists that Gi-hun will pick his own life over the kid but the rest know that 203 is wrong. Frustrated, 203 gets violent. Myung-gi interjects with an idea. On the sea, the pursuit team finds 246 and shoots at him. He shoots back but he soon runs out of bullets. Before they can kill him, Jun-ho finds them and kills the pursuit team. Back to the game, the Blue Team plays Rock, Paper, Scissors and the loser tries to convince Gi-hun that they will draw lots on who to kill. All they need is for him to join them in the center of the pillar (where they plan to grab the child from him). If he refuses, Plan B is for the loser to grab the child while Myung-gi pushes off Gi-hun with the pole. Unsurprisingly, Gi-hun refuses to move and the loser attacks. But Myung-gi pushes off the loser. Everyone is shocked and Myung-gi tries to convince Gi-hun that he is the child's father. The Blue Team thinks he is lying but Gi-hun recalls Myung-gi trying to help Jun-hee in the jump rope game. Seeing that Myung-gi has the pole and Gi-hun has the knife, the Blue Team suggests drawing lots for real. As the two hesitate, the team suddenly betrays their own member, Player 39 and breaks his leg. They offer to kill 39 in the next round but Gi-hun refuses, wanting to play fair. Having had enough, 203 and another player attack him. After a scuffle, Gi-hun and Myung-gi kill them. Player 100 is nervous as he tries to agree to whatever Gi-hun wants. However, Myung-gi pushes him off, citing that the prized money has just increased. Gi-hun doesn't look happy but it gets worse as 39 decides to kill himself. Gi-hun and Myung-gi try to stop him but he refuses to be anyone's pawn. He jumps off and the round ends. Only Gi-hun, Myung-gi and the baby remain at the end of Squid Game Season 3 Episode 5. The Episode Review It is always Myung-gi taking it too far, isn't it? With the crypto, with the Hide and Seek game and now with killing Player 100. If he hadn't been greedy, it wouldn't have come down to him, his kid, and Gi-hun. Great work, Myung-gi! Squid Game Season 3 Episode 5 is a pretty good penultimate episode, otherwise too. No-eul finally goes head-to-head with the Officer and we learn a whole lot about her. Their dynamic is also explained as they not only know each other from before, but they have a closer bond due to their shared experiences of losing a loved one. Jun-ho makes some headway too and we can rejoice. It only took the poor guy two seasons, 12 episodes and a couple of years in the Squid Game world. We do wish the show had left some more important characters for the final game. Killing Min-su and then the rest of the Blue Team did not pack the emotional punch as Season 1's penultimate episode. It also made Gi-hun and Myung-gi's survival predictable, as no way the final showdown would consist of inconsequential characters like Player 100. Previous Episode Next Episode (coming soon) Expect A Full Season Write-Up When This Season Concludes!
CNN
3 hours ago
- General
- CNN
75 years after he was kidnapped to North Korea, these sisters still hope to see their brother
Min Young-jae has not seen or heard anything about her eldest brother for 75 years. He was 19 and she was only 2 when, during the early days of the Korean War, he was kidnapped to the North. 'We were known in the neighborhood as a happy family,' the now 77-year-old told CNN, as her older sister Min Jeong-ja nodded in agreement. Their peaceful days were shattered on June 25, 1950, when North Korea invaded the South. The three-year war would kill more than 847,000 troops and about 522,000 civilians from both sides, and tear apart more than 100,000 families, including Min's. After the war, the family kept the rusting doors of their tile-roofed house open, in hopes that their eldest would one day return. But over time, barbed wire has been installed between the two Koreas, and a modern apartment complex has replaced the house. Though 75 years have passed without a single word about or from the brother, Min and her siblings remain hopeful that they will hear about him some day. Or, if not him, then his children or grandchildren. The family lived in Dangnim village, nestled between green mountains on the western side of Chuncheon city, nearly 100 kilometers northeast of Seoul. It was a village of chirping birds, streaming water and chugging tractors. It was also dangerously close to the 38th parallel, which divided the peninsula after World War II. Min Young-jae, the youngest of seven, does not remember fighting with any of her siblings growing up; only sharing tofu that her parents made, splashing in the stream and being carried around on her eldest brother's shoulders. Handsome, kind and smart, Min Young-sun was studying at the Chuncheon National University of Education, following in the footsteps of his father, the principal of Dangnim Elementary School. 'His nickname was 'Math Whiz.' He excelled in math, even his classmates called him Math Whiz,' Min Jeong-ja, the fifth child of the family, said. Some days, students followed him all the way home, as he commuted via train and boat, asking him to teach math, the sisters recalled. The sisters remember Min Young-sun as a caring brother. They caught fish and splashed in the nearby stream, now widely covered with reeds and weeds and almost out of water. 'We grew up in real happiness,' Min Jeong-ja said. Living near the frontier between the newly separated Koreas – backed by the rival ideological forces of communism or capitalism – Min's family was among the first to experience the horrors of the Korean War. When Kim Il Sung's North Korean troops invaded, Min Jeong-ja remembers seeing her grandmother running in tears, with a cow in tow, screaming: 'We're in a war!' 'We all spread out and hid in the mountains, because we were scared. One day, we hid the 4-year-old, Young-jae, in the bushes and forgot to bring her back because we had so many siblings. When we returned that night, she was still there, not even crying,' Min Jeong-ja said. While the family was running in and out of the mountains, taking shelter from the troops coming from the North, Min Young-sun was kidnapped, taken to the North by his teacher. 'The teacher gathered smart students and hauled them (away). He took several students, tens of them. Took them to the North,' Min Jeong-ja said. It is unknown why the teacher would have kidnapped the students to North Korea, but the South Korean government assumes that Pyongyang had abducted South Koreans to supplement its military. 'People called the teacher a commie,' Min Jeong-ja said. That heartache was soon followed by another: the death of the second-eldest brother. He died of shock and pain, in deep sorrow from the kidnap of his brother, according to the sisters. 'The grief was huge. Our parents lost two sons… imagine how heartbreaking that would be,' Min Jeong-ja said. For their father, the pain of losing two sons was overwhelming. He developed a panic disorder, she said, and would struggle to work for the rest of his life. 'He couldn't go outside; he stayed home all the time. And because he was hugely shocked, he struggled going through day-to-day life. So, our mom went out (to work) and suffered a lot,' Min Young-jae said. The mother jumped into earning a living for the remaining five children and her husband. Still, every morning she prayed for Min Young-sun, filling a bowl with pure water as part of a Korean folk ritual and leaving the first scoop of the family's rice serving that day in a bowl for a son whom she believed would return one day. 'She couldn't move house; in case the brother cannot find his way back home. She wouldn't let us change anything of the house, not even the doors. That's how she waited for him… We waited for so long, and time just passed,' Min Jeong-ja said. Min Jeong-ja was 8 years old when the war started, but witnessed brutality that would overwhelm many adults. 'So many kids died. When I went out to the river to wash clothes, I occasionally saw bodies of children floating,' she recalled. She remembers witnessing North Korean soldiers lining up people in a barley field, and shooting at them with submachine guns. 'Then one by one, they fell on the barley field.' 'I saw too much. At one point – I didn't even know if the soldier was a South Korean or North Korean – but I saw beheaded remains.' The Min family is one of many torn apart by the war. More than 134,000 people are still waiting to hear from their loved ones believed to be in North Korea, which is now one of the world's most reclusive states, with travel between the two countries nigh-on impossible. Years after the Korean War, the two Koreas discussed organizing reunions for the separated families that have been identified from both sides through the Red Cross and both governments. The first reunion happened in 1985, more than 30 years after the ceasefire agreement was signed, and the annual reunions kicked off in 2000, when many first-hand war victims were still alive, but occasionally halted when tensions escalated on the peninsula. Once the two governments agree on a reunion date, one of the two Koreas selects families, prioritizing the elderly and immediate relatives, then shares the list with the other, which would cross check the family on its side to confirm the list of around 100 members. The selected families would meet at an office specifically built for reunions at the Mount Kumgang resort in North Korea. The Min siblings applied to the Red Cross at least five times and listed themselves under the South Korean government as a separated family. But there was never any word on their brother's whereabouts from the other side. As 75 years passed, the siblings grew up, got married, and formed their own families – but questions about their stolen brother linger. Even worse, the annual reunions of separated families have been halted since 2018, following failed summit between US President Donald Trump and North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un in Hanoi, while first-hand victims of the war age and pass away. The Kumgang resort was dismantled by the North in 2022, also amid strained tensions. But the siblings, following their parents' wishes, still hope to connect with Min Young-sun, who would now be 94 years old. 'My brother Young-sun, it's already been 75 years,' Min Young-jae said into a CNN camera, taking her glasses off so that he would recognize his sister's face. 'It's been a long time since we were separated, but I would be so grateful if you're alive. And if you're not, I still would love to meet your children. I want to share the love of family, remembering the happy days of the past… I love you, thank you.' She and the siblings remember the kidnapped brother by singing his favorite song, 'Thinking of My Brother,' a children's song about a brother that never returned. 'My brother, you said you would come back from Seoul with silk shoes,' Min Young-jae sang, while her sister wiped away tears.
South China Morning Post
3 hours ago
- Politics
- South China Morning Post
South Korea tries a different tack to sway its nuclear-armed neighbour: an olive branch
On a day heavy with memory, South Korea 's President Lee Jae-myung invoked the language of peace, urging restraint and dialogue even as the nuclear-armed North forges deeper ties with Russia and the Korean peninsula bristles with tension. 'The surest way to secure our safety is to build peace – peace so strong that there is no need to fight,' Lee said in a solemn social media post, commemorating the 75th anniversary of the onset of the Korean war. The conflict from 1950–53 left millions dead and ended with an armistice, but no peace treaty. 'The era of relying solely on military strength to defend the country is over,' Lee wrote in his post. 'It is better to win without war than to win through war.' His message was more than just rhetoric. In recent weeks, Lee's newly formed government has moved to recalibrate the peninsula's dangerous status quo, seeking to nudge North Korea from confrontation to conversation, even as the spectre of conflict looms larger than at any time in recent memory. A North Korean soldier stands guard in a watchtower next to a giant loudspeaker (right) near the demilitarised zone dividing the two Koreas on June 12. Photo: AFP In a gesture laden with symbolism, Seoul this month halted its loudspeaker propaganda broadcasts along the border – the first such move in a year. Within hours, Pyongyang reciprocated, silencing its own speakers.
CNN
3 hours ago
- General
- CNN
75 years after he was kidnapped to North Korea, these sisters still hope to see their brother
Min Young-jae has not seen or heard anything about her eldest brother for 75 years. He was 19 and she was only 2 when, during the early days of the Korean War, he was kidnapped to the North. 'We were known in the neighborhood as a happy family,' the now 77-year-old told CNN, as her older sister Min Jeong-ja nodded in agreement. Their peaceful days were shattered on June 25, 1950, when North Korea invaded the South. The three-year war would kill more than 847,000 troops and about 522,000 civilians from both sides, and tear apart more than 100,000 families, including Min's. After the war, the family kept the rusting doors of their tile-roofed house open, in hopes that their eldest would one day return. But over time, barbed wire has been installed between the two Koreas, and a modern apartment complex has replaced the house. Though 75 years have passed without a single word about or from the brother, Min and her siblings remain hopeful that they will hear about him some day. Or, if not him, then his children or grandchildren. The family lived in Dangnim village, nestled between green mountains on the western side of Chuncheon city, nearly 100 kilometers northeast of Seoul. It was a village of chirping birds, streaming water and chugging tractors. It was also dangerously close to the 38th parallel, which divided the peninsula after World War II. Min Young-jae, the youngest of seven, does not remember fighting with any of her siblings growing up; only sharing tofu that her parents made, splashing in the stream and being carried around on her eldest brother's shoulders. Handsome, kind and smart, Min Young-sun was studying at the Chuncheon National University of Education, following in the footsteps of his father, the principal of Dangnim Elementary School. 'His nickname was 'Math Whiz.' He excelled in math, even his classmates called him Math Whiz,' Min Jeong-ja, the fifth child of the family, said. Some days, students followed him all the way home, as he commuted via train and boat, asking him to teach math, the sisters recalled. The sisters remember Min Young-sun as a caring brother. They caught fish and splashed in the nearby stream, now widely covered with reeds and weeds and almost out of water. 'We grew up in real happiness,' Min Jeong-ja said. Living near the frontier between the newly separated Koreas – backed by the rival ideological forces of communism or capitalism – Min's family was among the first to experience the horrors of the Korean War. When Kim Il Sung's North Korean troops invaded, Min Jeong-ja remembers seeing her grandmother running in tears, with a cow in tow, screaming: 'We're in a war!' 'We all spread out and hid in the mountains, because we were scared. One day, we hid the 4-year-old, Young-jae, in the bushes and forgot to bring her back because we had so many siblings. When we returned that night, she was still there, not even crying,' Min Jeong-ja said. While the family was running in and out of the mountains, taking shelter from the troops coming from the North, Min Young-sun was kidnapped, taken to the North by his teacher. 'The teacher gathered smart students and hauled them (away). He took several students, tens of them. Took them to the North,' Min Jeong-ja said. It is unknown why the teacher would have kidnapped the students to North Korea, but the South Korean government assumes that Pyongyang had abducted South Koreans to supplement its military. 'People called the teacher a commie,' Min Jeong-ja said. That heartache was soon followed by another: the death of the second-eldest brother. He died of shock and pain, in deep sorrow from the kidnap of his brother, according to the sisters. 'The grief was huge. Our parents lost two sons… imagine how heartbreaking that would be,' Min Jeong-ja said. For their father, the pain of losing two sons was overwhelming. He developed a panic disorder, she said, and would struggle to work for the rest of his life. 'He couldn't go outside; he stayed home all the time. And because he was hugely shocked, he struggled going through day-to-day life. So, our mom went out (to work) and suffered a lot,' Min Young-jae said. The mother jumped into earning a living for the remaining five children and her husband. Still, every morning she prayed for Min Young-sun, filling a bowl with pure water as part of a Korean folk ritual and leaving the first scoop of the family's rice serving that day in a bowl for a son whom she believed would return one day. 'She couldn't move house; in case the brother cannot find his way back home. She wouldn't let us change anything of the house, not even the doors. That's how she waited for him… We waited for so long, and time just passed,' Min Jeong-ja said. Min Jeong-ja was 8 years old when the war started, but witnessed brutality that would overwhelm many adults. 'So many kids died. When I went out to the river to wash clothes, I occasionally saw bodies of children floating,' she recalled. She remembers witnessing North Korean soldiers lining up people in a barley field, and shooting at them with submachine guns. 'Then one by one, they fell on the barley field.' 'I saw too much. At one point – I didn't even know if the soldier was a South Korean or North Korean – but I saw beheaded remains.' The Min family is one of many torn apart by the war. More than 134,000 people are still waiting to hear from their loved ones believed to be in North Korea, which is now one of the world's most reclusive states, with travel between the two countries nigh-on impossible. Years after the Korean War, the two Koreas discussed organizing reunions for the separated families that have been identified from both sides through the Red Cross and both governments. The first reunion happened in 1985, more than 30 years after the ceasefire agreement was signed, and the annual reunions kicked off in 2000, when many first-hand war victims were still alive, but occasionally halted when tensions escalated on the peninsula. Once the two governments agree on a reunion date, one of the two Koreas selects families, prioritizing the elderly and immediate relatives, then shares the list with the other, which would cross check the family on its side to confirm the list of around 100 members. The selected families would meet at an office specifically built for reunions at the Mount Kumgang resort in North Korea. The Min siblings applied to the Red Cross at least five times and listed themselves under the South Korean government as a separated family. But there was never any word on their brother's whereabouts from the other side. As 75 years passed, the siblings grew up, got married, and formed their own families – but questions about their stolen brother linger. Even worse, the annual reunions of separated families have been halted since 2018, following failed summit between US President Donald Trump and North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un in Hanoi, while first-hand victims of the war age and pass away. The Kumgang resort was dismantled by the North in 2022, also amid strained tensions. But the siblings, following their parents' wishes, still hope to connect with Min Young-sun, who would now be 94 years old. 'My brother Young-sun, it's already been 75 years,' Min Young-jae said into a CNN camera, taking her glasses off so that he would recognize his sister's face. 'It's been a long time since we were separated, but I would be so grateful if you're alive. And if you're not, I still would love to meet your children. I want to share the love of family, remembering the happy days of the past… I love you, thank you.' She and the siblings remember the kidnapped brother by singing his favorite song, 'Thinking of My Brother,' a children's song about a brother that never returned. 'My brother, you said you would come back from Seoul with silk shoes,' Min Young-jae sang, while her sister wiped away tears.
Reuters
6 hours ago
- Politics
- Reuters
Trump says he will 'get the conflict solved with North Korea'
June 27 (Reuters) - President Donald Trump on Friday said he will "get the conflict solved with North Korea." "I've had a good relationship with Kim Jong Un and get along with him, really great," Trump told reporters the Oval Office. "So we'll see what happens." "Somebody's saying there's a potential conflict, I think we'll work it out," Trump said. "If there is, it wouldn't involve us."
