Latest news with #SouthKorea
Phone Arena
an hour ago
- Phone Arena
New Galaxy Z Fold 7 and Flip 7 renders show off Samsung's much thinner side profile
Flip 7 Fold 7 Flip 7 Fold 7 Yes, the Fold 7 looks brilliant! No, it's still a dated phone It's good, but needs to be even better Fold 7 Leaked renders of the Flip 7 and Fold 7 . | Image credit — Evan Blass Slim, yet powerful Fold 7 Receive the latest Samsung news Subscribe By subscribing you agree to our terms and conditions and privacy policy Galaxy Z Fold 6 Just what the foldable industry needed Fold 7 Fold 7 Flip 7 Flip 7 Fold 7 Yeah, 8.9 mm. Compared to the 12.1 mm of the Galaxy Z Fold 6 , it almost feels like Samsung has skipped a generation or Samsung hasn't sacrificed performance to achieve this slim form. Under the hood, thewill be powered by the Snapdragon 8 Elite, the same processor that's found in the entire Galaxy S25 is promising its most advanced foldable smartphone yet, and rumors claim that the main display's crease is vastly improved over the. The battery — said to be the same 4,400 mAh as the Fold 6 — and the charging speeds are a bit of a letdown, foldable industry has been in a bit of a downward spiral, despite some excellent phones like the Oppo Find N5, the Honor Magic V5, and the Xiaomi Mix Flip 2 . Samsung is one of the few manufacturers that can afford to continue investing in foldables, and I'm glad it's doing really good, and may just be what the foldable industry needed. Samsung's upcoming G Fold tri-foldable smartphone will further bring innovation to the market, and give the Huawei Mate XT some competition as well. And, of course, if the foldable iPhone comes out next year, that's likely to get some people's Honor Magic V5 is the slimmest foldable ever, as of now. However, if you value long-term software support, or are just a fan of Samsung's One UI, then theis the phone for you. TheFE, andwill be unveiled next month, and will become available for purchase in August.
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
‘Squid Game' Season 3: Reviews warn of a divisive WTF sprint to the finish line
Let the games... end! Four years after it took the world by storm, Squid Game is throwing in the towel. The South Korean sensation just dropped its third and final season on Netflix, bringing the story of debtor-turned-liberator Seong Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae) to a conclusion. "It's a mixture of everything you can imagine. It's more brutal, more violent. It'sdarker, and even funnier," show creator told Gold Derby last month. "If I have to pick one season out of all three [as] my favorite, the best season is going to be Season 3." More from Gold Derby 'F1: The Movie' - Instant Oscar predictions The Emmys have one last chance to make things right with 'The Comeback' But do critics agree with Hwang? Opinions on the final six episodes — particularly the big denouement — are all over the map. Take Rebecca Nicholson writing in The Guardian that the series ends on a "moment so WTF and genuinely surprising that I bet my editor a serious amount of money she wouldn't be able to guess what happens." "Such reckless gambling is the sort of behaviour that would land me in Squid Game in the first place, so it just shows that nobody here has learned any lessons from it whatsoever," she continues. "The final two episodes have a nicely grand and operatic feel to them, and ultimately, Squid Game does its job. But it leaves the impression, too, that it has become a more traditional action-thriller than it once was." But Indiewire's Ben Travers is more on board with where the series goes in its grand finale. "While the general vibes are dour (there's very little room left for humor), Squid Game delivers enough closure to satiate anyone still perched on the edge of their seat, and its brief, fleeting bursts of light frame the darkness with the starkest truths." Time's Judy Berman is similarly ready to award a medal to the show's final sprint, singling out the second episode, "The Starry Night," for particular praise. "This is the kind of episode that will surely thrill fans and inspire recappers to dissect the ethical and emotional dimensions of each unthinkable choice," she teases. "Welcome to the exhilaratingly brutal last chapter of Squid Game, which ensnares viewers with characters and storylines we can't help but care about, then implicates us for treating a sadistic spectacle as entertainment."Over in The Hollywood Reporter, though, Angie Han knocks the series for an "unsatisfying" finish. "It brings me no pleasure to report that the third and thankfully last of Squid Game seasons only confirms that we, like Gi-hun should've left that cursed island behind for good after his first victory," she writes, later adding: "By the time Squid Game finally crawls over the finish line, there's no sense of the triumph you might get from completing a really good story — only of relief that this entire grueling experience is finally over." Look no further than Rotten Tomatoes to get a sense of the polarizing nature of Season 3: The aggregated critical reviews have resulted in a strong score of 88 percent but, the users "Popcornmeter" clocks in with a woeful 39 percent, indicating fans have not responded well. As Vulture's Roxana Hadadi puts it, Squid Game probably should have remained a "one-season wonder," instead of coming back for more. "There's an increasing repetition to how Squid Game plays out, a rehashing of the original idea instead of a deepening of it," she notes. "The payoff is in the metatext, in how Squid Game aimed its contempt outward through the existential dilemma of its own popularity." Best of Gold Derby Cristin Milioti, Amanda Seyfried, Michelle Williams, and the best of our Emmy Limited Series/Movie Actress interviews Paul Giamatti, Stephen Graham, Cooper Koch, and the best of our Emmy Limited Series/Movie Actor interviews Lee Jung-jae, Adam Scott, Noah Wyle, and the best of our Emmy Drama Actor interviews Click here to read the full article.
CNN
2 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
2 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
2 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.
