Free Republic

South Korea’s largest dairy producer has faced furious backlash after its latest advertisement featured a man secretly filming a group of women — who were then depicted as cows. In the ad for Seoul Milk, a man is seen walking through the countryside with a camera and hiding in a bush. The women are then startled and turn into cows when the interloper steps on a twig. The ad ends with the words “Clean water, organic feed, 100 percent pure Seoul Milk. Organic milk from an organic ranch in the pleasant nature of Cheongyang.”

Not everyone is as pleased with the announcements as the president appears to be. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C. said the visit could possibly undermine efforts by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley to impose “maximum pressure” on Pyongyang. “While North Korea has stopped testing missiles and nuclear devices, they have NOT moved toward denuclearization,” he tweeted. Other analysts have noted that the North has yet to reveal where all of its nuclear facilities are located, a move they say is necessary to ensure compliance with eventual denuclearization pledges. But it’s not realistic at this point to...

South Korean President Moon Jae-in has arrived in the border village of Panmunjom in the Demilitarized Zone for his historic summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un will be accompanied by his sister and confidante, Kim Yo-jong, and the 90-year-old nominal head of the North Korean state, Kim Yong-nam, as well as foreign and defense ministers in the historic inter-Korean summit at the border village of Panmunjom in the Demilitarized Zone on Friday.Panmunjom, the world's last Cold War frontier, was designated as the venue of meeting for officials from the North and South after the...

South Korean Defense Minister Song Young-moo said Monday he would like the United States to consider redeploying nuclear weapons to the peninsula as threats from North Korea intensify. In the wake of North Korea's nuclear test over the weekend, Song is now calling on the U.S. to look at its 1991 withdrawal of nuclear weapons from South Korea. Song said he spoke with Defense Secretary James Mattis and asked him to beef up the U.S. military presence in and around South Korea as its northern neighbor shows no signs of backing off its aggressive actions that include multiple missile tests...

Nurses at a hospital in China have been reportedly drawing lots to determine who should treat a patient with Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (Mers). The hospital, in the southern city of Huizhou, said the ballot was arranged because there were too many volunteers to treat the South Korean man. But posts on social media suggest many were reluctant to take on the task. The virus has a death rate of 27%, according to the World Health Organization. The sick man was named as China's first Mers case last week, after travelling to the country from South Korea, via Hong Kong....

A Boeing 777 passenger jetliner bound from Seoul, South Korea, crashed and caught fire while landing at San Francisco International Airport at about 11:30 Saturday. The plane, Asiana Flight 214, came to rest on the side of the runway. The airport remains closed to all traffic and emergency teams are on the scene.

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SEOUL, Jan. 21 (Yonhap) -- South Korean naval special forces successfully rescued 21 seamen and their South Korean-operated cargo ship that was hijacked last week by Somali pirates in an operation that left eight Somali pirates dead, Seoul's military officials said Friday. "Our special forces stormed the hijacked Samho Jewelry earlier today and freed all hostages," said Col. Lee Bung-woo, a spokesman at South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff.

South Korean naval ship fired at an unidentified vessel to the north on Friday after a South Korean naval vessel began sinking, the Yonhap news agency reported. Broadcaster SBS said many sailors were feared dead on the stricken ship.

BREAKING NEWS: A South Korean navy ship with about 100 personnel on board is sinking off the west coast near North Korea, possibly due to a torpedo attack, reports say. The ship was sinking near Baengnyeong island, Yonhap news agency quoted navy officials as saying. The cause of the incident, which happened late on Friday night local time, was not known, the report said. A rescue operation is said to be under way. There were no immediate reports of casualties, Yonhap said.

The American hamburger continues its world tour, picking up new flavors along the route. A bulgogi burger, using ground beef marinated for a day in Asian seasonings — garlic, brown sugar, sesame oil — is now on the menu at New York Hot Dog & Coffee in Greenwich Village. The seven-ounce patties are then grilled and topped with Napa cabbage slaw, sesame seeds and, as options, cheese, kimchi or hot sauce. Crunchy cornmeal-dusted fries can go alongside. GLOBAL FOOD SWAP New York Hot Dog & Coffee is a chain of 200 or so cafes in South Korea, owned by Mi...

ABOARD USS GETTYSBURG AT SEA, May 14, 2009 – Ships from Combined Task Force 151 prevented a piracy attack in the Gulf of Aden, which resulted in the apprehension of more than a dozen suspected pirates aboard an alleged "mothership" yesterday. The South Korean destroyer ROKS Munmu the Great and guided missile cruiser USS Gettysburg responded to a distress call from the Egyptian-flagged motor vessel Amira, which reported being attacked about 75 nautical miles south of Mukalla, Yemen. Several assault rifle rounds and a rocket-propelled grenade round struck the Amira, causing little or no damage. A rope was thrown from...

Pirates hijacked a South Korean bulk carrier with 21 crew off Somalia's coast Wednesday but were thwarted in a separate attempt to seize a Greek ship... The South Korean vessel is the 11th to be hijacked since July 20 off Somalia, which is the world's top piracy hotspot. The surge in attacks has prompted the U.S. Naval Central Command to establish a security corridor patrolled by an international coalition of warships.

GHAZNI, Afghanistan (AFP) - Two South Korean women freed by Afghanistan's Taliban began to make the long journey home, where their families spoke of their joy but worried over the fate of 19 other hostages. Pale, tearful and clutching Muslim headscarves, the women were handed over to international aid agency officials near the southern Afghan town of Ghazni late Monday and sped off to waiting South Korean representatives. The pair -- Kim Gin-A, 32, and Kim Kyung-Ja, 37 -- were at a safe place, a South Korean embassy spokesman told AFP under cover of anonymity. Details for their departure from...

GHAZNI, Afghanistan - Two South Korean women kidnapped by the Taliban burst into tears Monday after being turned over to the Red Cross on a desert road where the body of one of the original 23 hostages was dumped. The women's release was the first breakthrough in a drama that began more than three weeks ago when a busload of Korean church volunteers was seized. A second male captive also was shot to death in late July, meaning 14 women and five men are still being held. The handover came after two days of face-to-face talks between the Taliban and...

SEOUL (AFP) - Afghanistan's Taliban has decided not to free any of 21 South Korean hostages despite earlier saying two women could go, the Korea's Yonhap news agency reported Sunday citing an insurgents' spokesman. Yonhap quoted Taliban spokesman Yousuf Ahmadi as saying: "Our leaders have changed their minds and decided not to free two female hostages." South Korean officials refused to confirm the report. After face-to-face talks between the Taliban and a South Korean delegation, Ahmadi told AFP late Saturday that the two women, who are reported to be ill, were being released unconditionally as a "gesture of goodwill." The...

DAEJEON, South Korea (AFP) - A robot on Sunday acted as master of ceremonies at a South Korean wedding in what its creators claimed as a world first. Tiro the robot assisted at the wedding of Seok Gyeong-Jae, one of the engineers who designed it, and his bride at Daejeon, 130 kilometres (78 miles) south of Seoul. "This is Tiro, master of ceremonies for today's wedding," the robot -- featuring a cone-shaped body, two arms and a dark-glassed face with eyes and a mouth of flashing lights -- said in front of smiling guests. In a male voice, the robot...

WASHINGTON, Oct. 31, 2006 -- A group of South Korean pastors made a pilgrimage to the Pentagon today to show their support for the U.S. military. Left to Right: Lee Sang Hyung, General Secretary of the Korean-American Protestant Pastors’ Association; Shin Shin Mook, KAPPA co-chairman; Bishop Kim Hong Do, head of the Kumnan Methodist Church; and Kim Dong Kwon, KAPPA co-chairman, pose for a photo in the Pentagon Memorial Chapel Oct. 31. The South Korean churchmen were part of a 52-member group that visited the Pentagon to show their support for American-South Korean partnership. The group had helped to...

WASHINGTON, Oct. 12, 2006 – South Korean servicemembers deployed in Iraq the past two years have accomplished “some absolutely remarkable work” in the city of Erbil, a senior U.S. military officer said today. Some 2,200 South Korean troops at Camp Zeitoun have built a hospital there that’s equipped with operating rooms staffed by 19 doctors and 15 nurses, Army Maj. Gen. William Caldwell, a spokesman for Multinational Force Iraq, told reporters at a Baghdad news conference. More than 40,000 Iraqi patients have been treated at the hospital, he noted. The South Korean servicemembers are working every day to improve the...

SEOUL, South Korea - Disgraced researcher Hwang Woo-suk asked forgiveness Thursday from fellow South Koreans for his fraudulent claims of human stem cell breakthroughs, but blamed the scandal on junior researchers who he said deceived him. Hwang, in his first public appearance in nearly three weeks, continued to insist he has the technology to use cloning to create human embryonic stem cells genetically matched to patients — saying he could do so in six months if he had access to enough human eggs. Seoul National University, where Hwang is a professor, issued investigation results Tuesday saying he fabricated landmark claims...