The military safely detonated a suspected North Korean land mine washed up on a western border island, with no casualties or property damage reported, the Marine Corps said Thursday. A worker discovered the mine near a beach on Ganghwa Island off the west coast at around 3:30 p.m., and an explosive ordnance disposal (EOD) team of the 2nd Marine Division was sent to the site to neutralize it, the Marine Corps said in a message to the press. "The land mine is presumed to be an antipersonnel mine that washed ashore from North Korea. There were no human casualties or property damage between the time the mine was discovered and when it was detonated," the armed force said. Heavy rains often wash North Korean mines across the border into South Korean territory. Located just northwest of Incheon along the Han River estuary, Ganghwa Island is one of the closest islands to the Military Demarcation Line (MDL) separating the two Koreas. The last land mine found on Ganghwa Island was discovered on Aug. 15. Between July and August, a total of 17 mines, including wooden-box and antipersonnel mines, we

Three decades into their relationship, Seoul and Australia’s New South Wales (NSW) are taking their 35-year partnership past traditional trade and transportation. Now, the two regions are uniting around tourism, business development and the distinctly modern urban challenge of social isolation. Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon met NSW Gov. Margaret Beazley at Seoul City Hall on Thursday to discuss expanding exchanges between the two regions across tourism, economics, business, transportation, infrastructure and urban policy. Seoul and NSW established their partnership in November 1991 and have since expanded cooperation in human exchanges, economic policy and transportation. Their relationship deepened in 2017 with an agreement covering foreign investment and cooperation in startup sectors including fintech, biotech and digital creative industries. Officials said roughly 100 Korean companies have bases in NSW, while about 30 NSW companies have entered Seoul, with recent business activity concentrated in finance, biotech and technology. Seoul Metropolitan Government and Korean companies have also

South Korea conducted its first test launch of a hypersonic glide vehicle (HGV) on Thursday, Cheong Wa Dae said, in an apparent show of force against North Korea amid heightening inter-Korean tensions following a recent border land mine blast. The test launch was carried out to verify core hypersonic technologies, such as flight trajectories and speed, as a game-changing strategic asset capable of launching surprise precision strikes against enemy targets, presidential spokesperson Kang Yu-jung said in a written briefing to the press. President Lee Jae Myung observed the launch in person, accompanied by Defense Minister Kang Shin-chul and other officials. An HGV is a missile system that uses a booster to accelerate and ascend into the upper atmosphere before separating from the booster to glide at lower altitudes at hypersonic speeds. "The HGV successfully separated from its booster and seamlessly executed its planned flight path under hypersonic conditions," the spokesperson said. "This successful launch marks a major milestone in that preparations are complete to secure a new deterrent

INCHEON — Korean literature’s growing international recognition must be matched by sustained translation funding and greater autonomy, translators said Thursday, warning that global success cannot rest on individual passion. Speaking at “Translation: Text in Transit,” an international colloquium organized by the National Museum of World Writing Systems, Debora Smith, Anton Hur and Choi Mi-kyung called for support that enables translators to discover overlooked works while defending the human judgment behind literary translation. Smith, who translated the 2016 Man Booker International Prize “The Vegetarian” by Han Kang, recalled choosing to learn Korean when its literature was barely available in British bookstores. “Now it’s a completely different story. I see Korean literature and translation everywhere,” she said. Smith and Hur emphasized that the breakthrough reflected years of work by translators across many languages, rather than a single award or author. Han’s Nobel Prize, Hur said, arrived amid Korean literature’s ascent, not before it. Hur, whose translations

MANILA, Philippines — Lawyer Sheila Sison, Vice President Sara Duterte’s lead lawyer in the impeachment trial, has questioned the prosecution panel for asking them to adjust — to allow the presentation of a forensic financial analyst instead of the originally scheduled witness — when it was a private prosecutor who got sick. Sison, during the resumption

There were no winners of the two major lotto draws on October 8, 2026 as the Lotto 6/42 jackpot prize has reached P85 million, the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO) announced on Thursday.

(1st UPDATE) '[The chamber] is satisfied that the Accused is able to effectively exercise his fair trial rights in the proceedings and is therefore fit to stand trial,' says the International Criminal Court Trial Chamber III

According to an OCCRP and Ozodlik investigation, Otabek Umarov, the Uzbek president’s son-in-law, obtained Emirati citizenship in 2023, while he was deputy head of the Presidential Security Service.