South

Torrey Pines State Natural Reserve, which includes some of the most dramatic sandstone sea cliffs and oceanfront trails in Southern California, closed Monday for utility upgrades. Reopening is scheduled for March 2027.

The closure covers cars, cyclists and walkers. The 1,750-acre Torrey Pines reserve, located north of La Jolla and south of Del Mar in San Diego County, attracts an estimated 4 million visitors yearly. Its population of Torrey pine trees is one of just two spots in the U. S. where that species is found. (The other is Channel Islands National Park’s Santa Rosa Island, where a fire in May killed much of the Torrey pine population.)

Meanwhile, next door to the natural reserve, Torrey Pines State Beach remains open. Visitors can still park at the North Beach and South Beach parking lots and walk to that 4.5-mile stretch of sand, much of it at the foot of 300-feet cliffs.

State parks officials said in a release that the improvement project includes installation of new gas, water, wastewater and communication lines, along with accessibility upgrades.

South Korean officers injured in DMZ explosion, possibly caused by a landmine, according to local media reports.

Three South Korean military officers have been wounded in an explosion in the western sector of the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) that separates North and South Korea, Seoul’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said.

The cause of Monday’s explosion was not immediately clear, the Ministry of Defence said.

Two of the officers were evacuated from the site by helicopter, while the third was transported by land before being airlifted, according to the ministry. The officers are being treated at a military hospital near the capital Seoul, it said.

Mine explosions and other blasts are a recurring hazard in and around the DMZ, where legacy ⁠devices and suspected stray mines have periodically wounded military personnel on both sides.

The DMZ, which is 248km (154 miles) long and 4km (2.5 miles) wide, is one of the world’s most heavily armed borders. An estimated 2 million mines are peppered inside and near the border, which is also guarded by barbed wire fences, tank traps and combat troops on both sides. The zone is a legacy of the Korean War from 1950 to 1953, which ended with an armistice but not a peace treaty.

There have been growing concerns in South Korea about increased activity by North Korean soldiers near the military demarcation line as the North strengthens its border defences during prolonged tensions.

The NATO Response Force (NRF) and EU Battlegroups have demonstrated that placing multinational forces on standby does not automatically make them immediately operational. German-Dutch military integration, in contrast, has generated a different outcome since cooperation was internalized within permanent command structures, units, training, and capability planning before a crisis occurred.

Such a comparison is becoming increasingly relevant to Northeast Asia. A Taiwan contingency could absorb American military assets at the very moment when North Korea embarks upon a serious provocation towards South Korea. Continued US commitments in Europe and the Middle East could further complicate the allocation of finite resources.

Why Standby Forces Encountered Problems

The NRF was established after the 2002 Prague Summit as a rapidly deployable multinational joint force of roughly 25,000 troops. Yet the NRF was heavily dependent on the member countries assigning their respective forces to particular rotations, while these governments had the final say over whether the forces could ultimately be employed. During the Afghanistan and Iraq wars—when operational demand was high—each government had strong disincentives in introducing scarce high-readiness units and specialized enablers to NRF rotational deployment.

This created a gap between designated readiness and actual availability. Strategic transportation, logistics, specialized support units, and communication capacity could still be subject to competing national demands. Eventually, in 2024, NATO replaced the NRF with the NATO Force Model, which emphasized a substantially larger pool of high-readiness forces that is closely aligned with specific defense plans.

Meanwhile, the EU Battlegroup was faced with an even clearer problem. Although the multinational battlegroups had been maintained on rotational standby since 2007, they had never been deployed. While acknowledging that the battlegroups enhanced interoperability and military transformation, the European Parliament attributed the shortcoming largely to insufficient political will, difficulties in decision-making, implementation problems, and the financing arrangements.

What Germany and the Netherlands Did Differently

German-Dutch cooperation developed according to a different institutional logic. Although the 1st German-Netherlands Corps was created in Münster in 1995, the integration later expanded deep into both militaries’ force structures. The Dutch 11th Airmobile Brigade was incorporated into the German Division Schnelle Kräfte (DSK) in 2014, while the Dutch 43rd Mechanized Brigade was integrated into Germany’s 1st Panzer Division in 2016, and the Dutch 13th Light Armoured Brigade joined Germany’s 10th Panzer Division in 2023.

The relationship was extended below the brigade level. Germany’s Panzerbataillon 414 is operated under the Dutch 43rd Mechanized Brigade, and Dutch personnel operate Germany’s Leopard 2A6MA2 tanks while serving within the battalion. Moreover, German officers serve in Dutch command headquarters and vice versa, turning multinational command into a routine organizational reality instead of a stopgap measure that is only activated during major exercises.

Needless to say, such an arrangement does not eliminate national sovereignty. Both Germany and the Netherlands preserve the political prerogative over whether and where their forces are deployed. Meanwhile, the benefits of integration would become observable once a crisis necessitates the deployment. Staff are already well-versed in each other’s procedures, and units have repeatedly conducted joint exercises, while command and logistics relations do not need to be newly constructed during mobilization.

The distinctions were visibly observable during training. For example, approximately 7,000 German and Dutch personnel participated in the 2026 Fighter Lion—the largest military exercise conducted by the Netherlands in two decades—ten years after the Dutch 43rd Mechanized Brigade was integrated into Germany’s 1st Panzer Division. These types of exercises strengthen existing command relations rather than creating temporary interoperability for a single event.

What Japan and South Korea Can Apply

It is quite obvious that Japan and South Korea cannot replicate the German-Dutch model. Neither country has a formal mutual defense pact nor a NATO-style integrated command structure. Therefore, the directly applicable lessons are more limited. Nonetheless, selected operational relationships can and should be institutionalized before multiple simultaneous contingencies make such coordination necessary.

The practical first step could be a standing bilateral adjustment mechanism that links Japan’s Joint Operations Command (JJOC) with relevant South Korean joint headquarters. Instead of exercising command authority, the mechanism could maintain procedures for intelligence exchange, deconfliction in the air and at sea, movement of US reinforcements, logistics coordination, and the use of Japanese facilities that support a Korean contingency. This would be especially crucial when Japan has to assist US operations related to Taiwan while installations across Japan—including Yokota, Yokosuka, Sasebo, Iwakuni, and other United Nations Command (UNC)-Rear facilities—play a pivotal role in US reinforcement to the Korean Peninsula in accordance with Operational Plan (OPLAN) 5055.

Under this mechanism, small-scale functional cells could concentrate on specific missions. Missile warning would be the most obvious starting point since the United States, Japan, and South Korea have conducted North Korean missile-warning data-sharing since December 2023. Additional cells could treat maritime domain awareness (MDA), anti-submarine warfare (ASW), cyber defense, transportation, medical evacuation, and logistics.

The exchange of officers should accompany the aforementioned measures. Japanese officers could participate in South Korean command posts, while South Korean officers could join Japanese operational staff who deal with naval operations, air defense, logistics, or reinforcement coordination. The goal is to get familiar with each country’s procedures, communications, command relations, and other miscellaneous constraints before wartime pressure markedly shortens the timeframe for decision-making.

Exercise Scarcity Rather Than Ideal Conditions

The most notable changes should be related to exercise design. Trilateral exercises should not be premised on the assumption that the full inventory of United States support capabilities will always be available. A more pessimistic scenario would begin with a Taiwan scenario that is already consuming a substantial amount of US assets—including its ISR capacity, strategic transportation, and precision-guided munitions—when North Korea embarks upon a serious horizontal or vertical military escalation on the Korean Peninsula.

In this particular situation, elaborated by the Atlantic Council report, South Korean military planners should determine which missions could be conducted independently and which can be addressed bilaterally. South Korea may assume greater responsibility for ISR, missile defense, logistics, and conventional firepower on the Korean Peninsula—yet this would be affected by the tempo of wartime operational control (OPCON) transition—while Japan could take on additional maritime surveillance, ASW, sea lines of communication (SLOC) protection, base defense, and logistics. The primary aim is not to divide the Taiwan and Korean Peninsula theaters between Seoul and Tokyo but to identify how both countries could most effectively conduct missions that complement US military operations across the two regions.

Logistics should be placed at the center of these exercises. A dual contingency could impose on the Japanese government the need to support both US operations on Taiwan and USFJ reinforcement to the Korean Peninsula, which inevitably involves Japanese ports and airfields. It could cause competition for fuel, maintenance, transportation, ammunition depots, runways, and port capacity. Thus, Tokyo and Seoul should develop procedures concerning reciprocal servicing, immediate repair, medical support, transportation, and selected supplies before the bottleneck transmogrifies into wartime problems.

Functional Integration Without a Bilateral Alliance

The German-Dutch case illustrates that political authority is not necessarily the same thing as operational preparedness. A government can maintain full authority over whether its forces enter conflicts and can also prepare in advance to cooperate effectively if that decision is made. These distinctions are highly relevant to Japan and South Korea since they enable a considerable level of operational preparedness without a formal defense pact. For instance, South Korea could discuss target allocations for North Korean TELs with its Japanese counterparts in order to effectively use the finite weapons available to Japan’s enemy base strike capability and South Korea’s Kill Chain and Korea Massive Punishment and Retaliation (KMPR).

Naturally, the primary objective should be functional integration in fields where both governments already have overlapping interests. A large set of measures—spanning from ISR coordination to cyber defense—can be institutionalized without creating either an integrated force or an Asian version of NATO.

Both the NRF and EU Battlegroups revealed the limits of formations that remained dependent on political and operational arrangements being assembled only when crises occur. German-Dutch cooperation worked better since many of those arrangements already existed.

Given the historical baggage that Japan and South Korea carry, it would undoubtedly be a Herculean task for them to take novel steps. Nonetheless, the emerging regional security environment is rapidly narrowing down the available options.

Organisers have apologised for playing the North Korean national anthem for the South Korean men’s hockey team at the Asian Games in Japan.

South Korea, who thrashed Bangladesh 5-0, looked confused as the incorrect national anthem was played.

South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported that Bangladesh’s national anthem followed before South Korea’s actual anthem was played.

A stadium announcer did apologise for the mistake.

“This is a really serious problem. When we protested, they said, ‘We’re sorry. It wasn’t that it wasn’t prepared; there was a mistake on the part of those responsible for playing it’,” South Korea coach Min Tae-seok said.

“But this is something that simply should never happen.”

North Korea’s national anthem, along with other symbols of the secretive state, are banned in South Korea.

The two countries are still technically at war, after the 1950-53 conflict between the two ended without a peace treaty.

The build-up to the Asian Games, which officially starts on Saturday, has already seen complaints from teams about the quality and amount of accommodation.

A member of the South Korea basketball team posted a video of a leaking pipe and soaked floor in his room, with the caption: “Please help me.”

Some teams were also stranded at the airport for up to six hours when they landed this week.

Field hockey at the Asian Games started on Friday and runs until 3 October.

South Korea will continue efforts to facilitate talks between Washington and Pyongyang.

South Korean President Lee Jae Myung said on Friday that United States President Donald Trump wants dialogue with Pyongyang and confirmed Seoul will not be deploying troops to intervene militarily in the Iran war.

“Trump clearly ⁠wants dialogue ⁠with North ⁠Korea,” Lee said on Friday.

He added that while such talks are uncertain, they are not impossible.

South Korea was continuing “preliminary coordination efforts” to facilitate dialogue between North Korea and the US.

“The resumption of North Korea-US dialogue would be far easier than resuming inter-Korean dialogue,” he said, according to South Korean news agency Yonhap.

Trump, seeking to revive the bond he claims to have forged with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in his first term, said he plans to meet Kim later this year.

The US president said it was important to “get along” with Kim, adding that Pyongyang now had 57 “very powerful” nuclear weapons.

Seoul has assessed that Pyongyang has about 80-120 nuclear warheads.

North Korea, which has secured critical backing from Russia in recent years, did not clearly respond to Trump.

Inter-Korean relations reached a high in 2018 but deteriorated after talks between Kim and Trump collapsed in February 2019.

On Thursday, a court in Seoul ordered North Korea to pay roughly $32.5m for blowing up the Inter-Korean Liaison Office building in 2020. The office was intended to improve relations on the peninsula but was destroyed amid rising tensions between the neighbours.

South Korea is working to strengthen relations with other regional partners. The first-ever presidential summit between Seoul and five Central Asian states was held on Wednesday, aiming to establish deeper economic engagement with the Russian-allied countries.

South Korea will not dispatch troops

Despite growing pressure from the US, Lee reiterated three times that South Korea will not deploy troops to the Strait of Hormuz.

“Let it be clear. There will be no dispatch of troops that will lead to involvement in a conflict. There will be no engagement or involvement in war,” Lee said.

The South Korean government found itself at odds with large parts of Korean society as protests broke out in recent weeks opposing a potential deployment of South Korean military assets to the Strait of Hormuz.

Lee added that South Korea will “carry out the minimum necessary activities” to protect its own merchant ships and oil shipping routes.

CAPE TOWN, South Africa — The Trump administration has announced that it will impose travel bans on officials it claims are responsible for discrimination against whites and other minority groups in South Africa.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Tuesday he would revoke U.S. visas or reject visa applications from foreign nationals found to be responsible for, or complicit in, enacting or enforcing laws and policies that allow for uncompensated land seizures, race-based discrimination and the incitement of violence against minority ethnic and racial groups in South Africa.

“The United States will not allow such behavior to go unchecked,” Rubio said in a statement. “These actions directly undermine peace, economic stability, and the rule of law, and they are incompatible with the pillars of America’s foreign policy.”

The South African government has strongly rejected U.S. allegations of discrimination against whites, calling the claims made by the administration since President Trump returned to office last year baseless and a result of misinformation.

It’s the latest U.S. move to sanction South Africa

Rubio did not identify any officials who would be targeted with the travel restrictions, though a lobby group for minority whites in South Africa has previously called for the U.S. to sanction officials of the African National Congress party, the party of South African President Cyril Ramaphosa and the largest in South Africa’s Parliament.

It’s the latest move by the Trump administration to sanction South Africa over its claims that whites, and especially the Afrikaner group, are being discriminated against by their Black-led government. Afrikaners are descended from mainly Dutch and French colonial settlers who first came to South Africa in the 17th century. They were at the heart of South Africa’s previous apartheid system of racial segregation.

There are approximately 4.5 million white people in South Africa’s population of 62 million, which also includes whites with British or other heritage.

The Trump administration casts South Africa as anti-white

The U.S. has cited a contentious South African law that allows for the expropriation of unused private land without compensation in some circumstances, affirmative action policies that advance opportunities for Blacks and others, and a small number of violent crimes against white farmers as evidence of a larger anti-white stance in South Africa.

The Trump administration has also strongly criticized South Africa’s move to accuse U.S. ally Israel of genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, in a highly emotive case at the United Nations’ top court. Israel vehemently denies that allegation.

South Africa asks the U.S. to respect its sovereignty

South African Foreign Minister Ronald Lamola said Wednesday that some of the domestic policies that the U.S. had branded as discriminatory were designed to address the injustices of apartheid and hundreds of years of colonial rule before that, when Black people were stripped of their rights.

“South Africa respects that the United States may hold differing views on certain policy measures and their implementation. … The people of South Africa likewise respect the right of the American people to develop legislation that addresses their own circumstances,” Lamola said in a statement. “We expect that the same respect will be accorded to the people of South Africa, as the principle of sovereignty requires.”

The U.S. says more sanctions will follow

The U.S. has enforced a series of other sanctions against South Africa during Trump’s second term for purported anti-white and anti-American policies. They include barring South African officials from meetings of the Group of 20 economic bloc this year in the U.S., and phasing out aid for South Africa’s HIV treatment program.

The U.S. has also launched a refugee program for Afrikaners and other whites, claiming baselessly that they are victims of a humanitarian emergency in South Africa.

The U.S. says the sanctions are because South Africa has not changed its policies, and warned of more to follow.

“This visa restriction policy is only the first step in a series of escalatory measures that will show America’s firm resolve in this matter,” the official U.S. Ambassador to South Africa account posted on X, referring to Rubio’s visa announcement.

Imray writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Matthew Lee in Washington contributed to this report.

Spanish manager has been appointed South Korea’s interim head coach following a disastrous World Cup campaign.

South Korea’s new interim football coach Robert Moreno has denied allegations that he relied on artificial intelligence during his last coaching role but admitted to using technology in his work.

Addressing his first news conference as the Taegeuk Warriors’ temporary coach on Monday, Moreno promised to make South Korean football fans “happy”.

The Spaniard was appointed as the Asian giants’ temporary coach following a disastrous few months for the team and the country’s football federation, during which on-field results and off-field controversies left the fans bitterly disappointed.

Moreno, who was forced to deny earlier this year that he used ChatGPT to prepare for games, will be in charge for friendly matches in the coming months.

He addressed allegations that he used artificial intelligence during his time in charge of Russian club Sochi, saying “It was a piece of news that is completely false and went viral.”

Moreno left the top-flight side in September 2025 after a poor run of results, and reports said he had heavily relied on ChatGPT in his role, even using it to decide between potential signings.

“Obviously, I use technology,” he said.

“Anyone who spends 10 minutes looking into it can see that everything has been taken out of context and put together to cause harm.”

The Korea Football Association (KFA) said Moreno could stay on for the Asian Cup in Saudi Arabia in January-February, “subject to an evaluation”.

Moreno named captain Son Heung-min in his squad for four upcoming home friendlies and said he wanted to put a smile back on South Korean fans’ faces.

“We’re going to try to do our work honestly and with the aim of making all Korean football fans happy,” said the 48-year-old, who is the first Spaniard to coach South Korea.

“Good matches, and trying to help the players.”

Moreno will lead the team against Ecuador and Uruguay in September and Venezuela and Uzbekistan in October.

South Korea had been without a coach since Hong Myung-bo quit following their shock group-stage exit from the World Cup in North America in June.

Hong’s departure did little to quell public outrage over the disappointing campaign and added fuel to pre-existing questions about how he was hired.

Police raided KFA headquarters last month as part of an investigation into Hong’s 2024 appointment.

The KFA also apologised for allegations that it provided sexual entertainment for foreign referees.

Moreno named striker Son, now in the United States’ Major League Soccer with Los Angeles FC, in his first squad along with Atletico Madrid’s Lee Kang-in and Bayern Munich’s Kim Min-jae.

Hong’s decision to leave Son on the bench in the first half of the decisive match against South Africa at the World Cup baffled and angered many supporters.

“We’re all aware of Son’s versatility,” said Moreno.

“For me, he can play in three positions.”

Organisers in Japan say they had ‘neither the manpower nor the budget’ to deal with the accommodation shortage.

Accommodation at the Asian Games, which start this week in Japan, is the “worst ever”, say South Korean officials, warning of “a serious shortage” of rooms.

Beds in shipping container-style huts are too short for players to stretch out, the South Korean basketball chief said on Monday, while officials from the Philippines resorted to Airbnb.

There is no dedicated athletes’ village for the games, with organisers instead relying on a cruise ship, temporary wooden cabins and hotels to cut costs.

The games in the city of Nagoya in Aichi prefecture officially open on Saturday, but football and basketball are already under way.

Jung Jae-yong, vice president of the Korea Basketball Association (KBA), expressed his displeasure with the cabins where the men’s basketball team is staying.

“Based on my experience, this is the worst it has ever been,” he said.

“Athletes who are over two metres tall cannot even stretch their legs out on the beds. It’s unreasonable.”

Byeon Jun-hyeong, from the basketball team, posted a video on social media showing a leaking sink and a soaked floor in his hut.

“Please help us,” he posted.

The huts are set to be home to 2,000 athletes and officials over the more than two weeks of the games.

Worried about their athletes, Indian sports officials built replicas of cabins to help them get used to the games’ accommodation.

KBA’s Jung accused organisers of failing to respond to South Korea’s concerns.

“The organisers have still not said anything,” he said.

“We are very concerned and discussing extensively with the Korean Sport and Olympic Committee what to do about this.”

Hundreds of athletes were briefly evacuated from their accommodation last week as record rainfall lashed Nagoya.

More rain has been forecast in the coming days.

‘Serious shortage’ of accommodation

More than 17,000 athletes and officials are expected at the games — a bigger number than the Olympics.

Organisers were initially expecting 15,000 and argued last month that they had “neither the manpower nor the budget” to deal with ballooning numbers.

The Olympic Council of Asia later said everyone would get a place to stay.

Star cricketers have voiced fears about a lack of top-notch hotels.

A Korean Sport & Olympic Committee (KSOC) official agreed that problems persist with the games just days away.

“At the moment, there is a serious shortage of accommodation not only for the entire South Korean delegation to the Asian Games, but for delegations from around the world in the Aichi-Nagoya area,” the official said.

“We are doing everything we can to resolve the issue and ensure there are no such problems.”

Philippine Olympic Committee president Abraham Tolentino said all athletes from his country had been given a room. However, “some officials, like coaches, were moved to different hotels and Airbnb”.

The Italian cruise ship Costa Serena is due to arrive in Nagoya on Tuesday. Between 4,000 and 5,000 athletes will stay on the vessel.

The rest will be accommodated in hotels, including in Tokyo, where swimming, diving and equestrian events will take place.

Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry – Fourth Test

South Africa (17) 43

Tries: de Allende (2), van den Berg, PS du Toit, Arendse, Hanekom Cons: Feinberg-Mngomezulu (2), van den Berg, Libbok (2) Pens: Feinberg-Mngomezulu

New Zealand (14) 28

Tries: Taylor, Jordan, Blackadder, B Barrett Cons: McKenzie (4)

South Africa completed a 3-1 series win over New Zealand as the world champions’ consistency, power and cohesion once again proved too much in the fourth Test in Baltimore.

After victory in the series opener in Johannesburg last month, the All Blacks jumped to the top of the world rankings and threatened to shake up rugby’s world order.

However, South Africa clawed their way back to triumph – just as their director of rugby Rassie Erasmus had predicted.

While New Zealand were spirited and skilful in pursuit of a win to square the series, the Springboks’ go-forward up front and the depth of their bench kept the All Blacks at bay.

The match played out in front of a near-capacity crowd of 68,173 at the M&T Bank Stadium, the largest-ever crowd to watch a rugby match in the USA.

A successful stateside excursion completes a series that has been compelling viewing and stress-tested both sides’ aspirations of lifting the Rugby World Cup next year – the two nations have won the past five editions of the tournament.

It was New Zealand who started fastest in Maryland on Saturday.

Eight minutes in, their breathtakingly quick tiki-taka catch-pass, with the backline holding their depth, outflanked South Africa’s blitz defence to set up the first try of the match for hooker Codie Taylor.

However, the Springboks’ brute strength in the close quarters meant they could collect points without needing to resort to such high-risk passages of play.

With their forward pack on top in the scrum and winning collisions, Damian de Allende burrowed over from short range, before scrum-half Morne van den Berg flashed a dummy and darted past Sam Darry for a similar score.

Those tries opened up a 17-7 lead for the Springboks. With Eben Etzebeth crunching returning New Zealand fly-half Richie Mo’unga in the tackle and Jasper Wiese stampeding around in the loose, the Boks seemed poised to stretch away and out of sight.

Fly-half Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu, who had pushed a long-range penalty to the right of the uprights early on, missed a drop-goal shot. An overcooked attempt to find the corner also cost his team.

New Zealand’s combination of hard toil and sparkling hands then bought them a way back into the game just before half-time.

Will Jordan, his nation’s all-time leading try-scorer, streaked off his wing on a superb line to dunk down over the line at the end of 32 draining phases.

Four points down at the break, Dave Rennie’s side had hopes of taking home half of a specially-designed series trophy, which, held together by magnets, can be shared between the two sides.

But South Africa ensured that innovation went unused.

Malcolm Marx trundled over at the back of a rolling maul after the interval and, three minutes later, Pieter-Steph du Toit barged over after a sharp blindside break by the impressive Van den Berg.

Ethan Blackadder’s score in the final quarter cut the Boks’ lead to eight points, but South Africa hit the accelerator once again as the toll taken by a high-paced match and a long tour caught up on both teams and space opened up.

Kurt-Lee Arendse sliced through open field after Damian McKenzie had broken through in the opposite direction, but Josh Moorby failed to gather his pass.

Four minutes later, Cameron Hanekom scooped up scrappy ball to put the result beyond doubt and render replacement Beauden Barrett’s late try only a footnote.

South Africa: Willemse; Arendse, Kriel, de Allende, Hooker; Feinberg-Mngomezulu, van den Berg; Nche, Marx, Louw, Etzebeth, Nortje, Kolisi, du Toit, Wiese

Replacements: Fourie, Steenekamp, du Toit, de Jager, Esterhuizen, Hanekom, Reinach, Libbok

New Zealand: McKenzie; Jordan, Lienert-Brown, Barrett, Moorby; Mo’unga, Roigard; de Groot, Taylor, Newell, Tuipulotu, Darry, Vaa’i, Blackadder, Lakai

Aumua, Numia, Lomax, Lord, Sititi, Preston, Ioane, Barrett

Referee: Karl Dickson (England)

Assistant referees: Matthew Carley (England), Christophe Ridley (England)

TMO: Andrew Jackson (England)

CAPE TOWN: The head organizer of the 2010 World Cup was re-elected president of South Africa’s soccer federation on Saturday despite facing criminal charges over alleged fraud while in office.

Danny Jordaan, 75, beat challenger Sandile Zungu, a South African businessman and soccer club owner, by 157 votes to 82, according to an announcement by the South African Football Association. Jordaan has been head of SAFA since 2013 and will serve a fourth term.

Jordaan was a pivotal figure in bringing the World Cup to Africa for the first time in 2010 and his work was praised in helping make the tournament a success.

But he has been followed by controversy since then.

He came under scrutiny in 2015 over if he had knowledge of an alleged $10 million bribe made by South Africa to a FIFA official to help win the 2010 hosting rights. The allegation against unidentified South African bid officials was contained in an indictment by the US Department of Justice. South Africa denied the allegation.

Jordaan was accused in 2017 of rape by South African singer and political activist Jennifer Ferguson, who said the rape happened more than two decades earlier. Jordaan denied that allegation, and charges against him were dropped because of a lack of evidence.

Jordaan was arrested in 2024 and charged with fraud and theft for the alleged misuse of around $70,000 while SAFA president. He was accused alongside several others, including a former acting CEO of SAFA and the chief financial officer of SAFA.

The charges accuse Jordaan of using SAFA money to hire personal security and a PR company to enhance his public image in the wake of the Ferguson rape allegations.

The fraud case has been bogged down by delays and is yet to go to trial. Jordaan and his co-accused denied wrongdoing.

The buildup to Saturday’s SAFA election was also troubled, with the national association saying some voting officials had received death threats and others had been harassed and intimidated. SAFA said it would notify the police but didn’t say who was behind the threats.

Billionaire comedy duo Trey Parker and Matt Stone are unveiling a new name for “South Park” ahead of the show’s 29th season: “South America.”

The satirical series’ name change follows President Trump’s renaming of Lake Ontario to Lake America amid the escalating U.S.-Canada trade war. Last week, tech behemoths Apple and Google honored Trump’s executive order and renamed the Great Lake on their maps for U.S. users.

Parker and Stone made the announcement on social media on Tuesday, writing, “Inspired by the bravery and patriotism of Apple and Google, we are changing the name of South Park to SOUTH AMERICA. We especially want to thank our parent company Paramount — a Skydance Capitulation.”

The duo also jabbed at their parent company and its new owner, Skydance Media, for what media critics have characterized as caving to the Trump administration’s Federal Communications Commission. The “capitulation” involved controversial corporate and programming adjustments as well as agreeing to a $16-million settlement over a lawsuit brought by Trump involving a “60 Minutes” segment to get Paramount’s $8-billion merger with Skydance approved.

Last year, following a particularly incendiary episode of the show — in which a parody of Trump has an X-rated fling with Satan, and the president is portrayed as having an animated micropenis — the White House issued a statement to Variety slamming the series.

“The Left’s hypocrisy truly has no end — for years they have come after ‘South Park’ for what they labeled as ‘offense’ [sic] content, but suddenly they are praising the show,” White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers said in a statement to the outlet. “Just like the creators of ‘South Park,’ the Left has no authentic or original content, which is why their popularity continues to hit record lows.”

Last week, “South Park,” won an Emmy Award for outstanding animated program. And last summer, Parker and Stone reached a five-year, $1.5-billion deal with Paramount to secure exclusive global streaming rights on Paramount+, making the series one of television’s most valuable shows and its creators two of the highest-paid comedy writers in the biz.

The 29th season of “South America” premieres Sept. 16 at 10 p.m. on Comedy Central.

KFAR RUMMAN, Lebanon: Hundreds of people in south Lebanon gathered on Tuesday to mourn two Hezbollah members and their family, among them a three-month-old infant, killed by an Israeli strike a day prior.

The two brothers’ coffins, draped in the Iran-backed group’s yellow flag, portraits of them in camouflage fatigues fixed to the front, led the procession through the village battered by repeated conflict over nearly three years.

Another 10 coffins were covered in Lebanese flags, indicating that the rest of the Farhat family killed when Monday’s strike levelled their home were civilians.

Israel has launched airstrikes and a ground invasion in south Lebanon during the Middle East war, which erupted with joint US-Israeli attacks on Iran and spread to Lebanon after Hezbollah targeted Israel in support of its backer.

The fighting in Lebanon had calmed since a US-Iran memorandum of understanding and a framework agreement between Israel and Lebanon were both agreed in June.

But Beirut still reports recurring Israeli strikes, which it says have killed more than 4,300 people in total since March, and Israeli forces continue to occupy what it calls a “security zone” in the south.

A separate strike on Kfar Rumman on Monday killed an 18-year-old rescuer with the Risala Association, linked to the Hezbollah-allied Amal movement, the organisation said, who was mourned alongside the Farhat family on Tuesday.

“We have 13 killed including grandfather and grandmother, husbands and wives, and their children including a three-months old infant,” deputy mayor Nureddine Nureddine told AFP from the funeral.

“Someone put an end to these crimes,” Nureddine said, adding that the strike that killed the Farhat family “occurred at night, while they were sleeping”.

“There was no military activity, nothing.”

An AFP correspondent saw people marching to the cemetery, waving Hezbollah flags as women dressed in black wept, holding pictures of the dead as an Israeli drone flew overhead.

“Death to America, death to Israel,” mourners yelled.

– ‘A shred of honour’ –

The Israeli military said on Monday that it had struck Hezbollah “infrastructure sites” across southern Lebanon after the launch of two explosive drones towards its troops, as well as “several terrorists” it said were transferring weapons.

“The claim that several uninvolved individuals were harmed as a result of the strikes is being reviewed,” it said, adding that the military “will continue to operate to remove threats while remaining committed to the ceasefire agreement”.

Since Friday, at least 28 people have been killed in Israeli attacks on southern Lebanon, according to Lebanon’s health ministry.

Standing next to a picture of his own son, a Hezbollah member killed by Israel, Ghaleb Baalbaki slammed the Lebanese government for continuing direct talks with Israel.

“If they have even a shred of honour, the first thing they should do would be to stop the negotiations,” he said.

The lull in violence that began in June had allowed hundreds of thousands of displaced people to return home.

“Kfar Rumman was coming back to life, there were more than 1,400 people” in the town before the latest escalation, Nureddine said,

“Now, they can be counted on your fingers.”

Tehran has threatened “serious consequences” for South Korea if it interferes in the US-Israel war on Iran.

The warning comes amid reports that Seoul is mulling contributing to the US naval blockade of the Strait of Hormuz passage, which has hampered Iran’s oil exports.

In a statement posted on X on Monday, Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said Iran and South Korea had more than 64 years of diplomatic relations based on mutual respect and that Tehran values that friendship.

However, if South Korea joins the United States in its military actions against Iran at a time when the country is defending itself from what he called US aggression and “war crimes against women and children”, then there will be consequences, he warned.

Baghaei threatened that Iran would regard any military presence or participation in operations by another country in the Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz “would inevitably be regarded as direct support for the aggressor and would have serious consequences”.

“No sovereign and responsible country should succumb to US pressure and intimidation and become complicit in acts of aggression and horrific crimes against the great Iranian nation,” he added.

Seoul did not respond directly, but a Ministry of Foreign Affairs statement on Monday said it is communicating with the international community over the situation in the passageway.

Here’s what we know about how South Korea is getting roped in:

Why is South Korea involved?

Seoul, a close ally of Washington, has been under pressure from US President Donald Trump.

The issues began in mid-August, when Trump revealed in an interview, and later online, that he had spoken to South Korean President Lee Jae Myung and asked that Seoul give “a little hand” in the war on Iran.

According to media reports, the two leaders had spoken over the phone on May 17.

Seoul said, “No, thanks!”, according to Trump’s message on social media.

However, as South Korea now knows, saying no to Trump has repercussions.

On August 16, Trump announced that the US would significantly scale back joint military drills it holds annually with South Korea – the evening before they were scheduled to begin.

The Ulchi Freedom Shield (UFS) exercises are meant to sharpen Seoul’s readiness in case of a North Korean attack. They usually last for more than 11 days but were reduced to five.

In a post on his Truth Social site, Trump claimed the drills were “costly” and that they send a “hostile” signal to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, with whom he is trying to build a relationship. South Korean Foreign Minister Cho Hyun said in parliament there was no warning from the US.

Trump also questioned why South Korea would refuse his request when thousands of US soldiers are stationed on the Korean Peninsula.

The US also cancelled another military exercise scheduled for September, although South Korea’s military revealed it received a notification much earlier in June, with Washington citing constraints due to the war on Iran.

How has South Korea responded?

President Lee, a liberal who pushes for a dialled-down defence posture, has opted to negotiate. His office earlier released statements saying it hopes for “meaningful dialogue” with Trump.

South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported on Monday that Washington has, however, “ratcheted up pressure” on Seoul.

On Friday, a South Korean presidential official told Yonhap that Seoul could consider a military contribution to international measures seeking to free up navigation in the passageway as long as it does not affect the country’s defence readiness.

South Korea is looking at various options, the official said, including possible cooperation with France, the United Kingdom and other allies on sending noncombat and search-and-rescue forces.

The South Korean military has also started reviewing assets and troops that could be deployed, including maritime patrol aircraft, explosive ordnance disposal teams and unmanned mine detection and clearing systems, he added.

Such a move would be unpopular. The opposition has spoken out against a possible deployment, as have some within Lee’s ruling Democratic Party. Many South Koreans have also protested against the US-Israel war on Iran.

What is the history of US-South Korea relations?

South Korea became one of the US’s closest allies after Washington backed Seoul against Pyongyang in the Korean War of 1950.

The US supported Seoul’s economic and military growth in the years after. Under a treaty, some 29,000 US soldiers have been stationed permanently on the Korean Peninsula since the end of the war. Seoul has also relied on US defence might to deter nuclear-armed North Korea.

In return, South Korea supported several US wars, including the Iraq War, and is designated an important non-NATO ally.

In 2025, however, Washington imposed a 25 percent tariff on the country, testing relations. Seoul opted to negotiate rather than retaliate, leading the US to lower tariffs to 15 percent.

Many South Koreans were also alarmed after hundreds of South Koreans were arrested in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids on a Hyundai plant in Georgia in September 2025.

Last October, Trump travelled to Seoul in a historic state visit, and earlier this year, President Lee visited the US. Lee is also trying to resume dialogue between Washington and Pyongyang.

How is South Korea being affected by the US-Israel war on Iran?

South Korea is facing an economic crisis. The country relies on the Gulf supplies via the Strait of Hormuz for 60 to 70 percent of crude imports, meaning supply is being severely hit. The war has led to soaring inflation, causing the Korean won to fall to a 17-year low.

Seoul therefore has an interest in freeing up the strait. However, under Korean law, the government will require parliament’s approval before a military deployment, although some governing party members could oppose it.

VENICE, Italy — “My actual personality is not very friendly, I’m afraid,” claims Korean actor Jeon Do-yeon. “Myself and actor Sul Kyung-gu, we can be a little bit brusque. We don’t really have the talent to make the set fun.”

As she says it, though, Jeon and co-star Cho Yeo-jeong are laughing — making the assertion rather harder to believe when it arrives in English from Korean via an interpreter. Throughout our conversation, in fact, the pair chuckles, nods along to each other’s answers, interjects sounds of assent. Enough for me to understand that their chemistry comes naturally, whatever Jeon’s protestations.

“In the film I play a character that chases [Jeon’s character] and it really suited me, almost to the point where I didn’t really need to try and act this role,” as Cho puts it. “I was almost like a sunflower, constantly facing and chasing actor Jeon.”

The actors needed every ounce of the sublime chemistry they forged to portray the magnetic but fatally flawed relationship at the heart of auteur Lee Chang-dong’s first film in eight years, “Possible Love,” which premiered Sunday at the Venice Film Festival. South Korea’s international feature submission for the 2027 Oscars, the Netflix film sees Ye-ji (Cho), a documentarian married to a wealthy businessman (Zo In-sung), cozy up to Mi-ok (Jeon), whose husband (Sul) has been seriously injured in a brutal crackdown on striking factory workers, in order to secure an interview with him — only for divisions of class and professional ambition to expose the fault lines in their relationship, and in turn their marriages.

“It seems like they want to be friends with each other, but then there seems to be a line that just cannot be crossed between them,” says Lee, also through an interpreter, of the actors’ accomplished double act, referring to a scene in which Ye-ji bristles at Mi-ok’s suggestion that her high-end clothes are out of place interviewing unemployed laborers. “[Jeon and Cho] knew of that and they went into shooting that scene knowing that it was quite challenging to express. There were, of course, some things that were up to the camera in bringing that about, but I think that was a scene where the two were able to express just how nuanced and quite strange the relationship can be.”

The film itself is just as slippery and multi-layered, down to Lee’s heady admixture of documentary and dramatic aesthetics. Inspired by real-life labor conflict in South Korea, “Possible Love” uses Ye-ji’s nonfiction study of laid-off workers as a window into the lives of ordinary people swept up in large-scale social change, against the backdrop of which the two women’s competing priorities are thrown into stark relief. Can a filmmaker who totes a $4,000 Lora Piana backpack, however well-intentioned, truly understand the plight of the working class? Is a subject eager to publicize a political struggle prepared for the risk that her personal privacy will be invaded in the process?

To choreograph the film within the film — so compelling that I almost missed seeing its conclusion when “Possible Love” shifts the focus to interpersonal fireworks in the third hour — Lee cast a real-life documentary director and cinematographer as Ye-ji’s crew, lending what Cho calls their “natural energy” to the movements of the camera. Cho herself prepared by consulting the late master of the form, Frederick Wiseman, who was unabashed about the tension between documentary filmaking’s often radical politics and the privilege required to turn it into a profession.

“[Wiseman] was posed the question by some students studying film and documentary: ‘How can I pursue this work in reality?’” she recalls. “And he replied with the immortal words, ‘Marry a rich man.’ And you know, I was preparing for the role of Ye-ji, so it was such an apt response for her situation.”

Jeon, left, and Cho in “Possible Love.”

(Joo Jae-bum/Netflix)

The potential for conflict bursts into the open at a seaside home that has been in Ye-ji’s husband’s family for years, where the group has decamped for a supposedly restorative holiday. Reminded of the setting by the location of our conversation — a set of green-curtained, pink-carpeted suites at the Hotel Excelsior, overlooking the northern shores of the Adriatic — I ask the actors what’s going through their characters’ minds when Mi-ok and Ye-ji’s promising connection ultimately severs.

Mi-ok “doesn’t really want to reveal to anyone else what’s going on in the family … She only wants to show the good side that they are trying to live their best life and trying to improve and move forward with hopefulness,” Jeon says, citing an early scene in which Mi-ok asks the crew not to film her son’s awkward taekwondo at a school field day. When the camera’s prying eye becomes more intrusive, though, she “feels a great sense of betrayal, that her family is being used and exploited.”

For Cho, who says Ye-ji is “constantly balancing the ethical dilemma” between documenting the truth and treating her subjects with care, the break was always inevitable, and no amount of Ye-ji’s remorse or guilt can repair the damage.

Against this microcosm of the class war Lee sets the emergence of artificial intelligence, which threatens to further destabilize labor across a range of industries — including his own. Although he’s uncertain if, when or how AI will “intrude” on the “entirely creative” filmmaking process, the “Poetry” and “Burning” director is already using it for everyday tasks.

“Before going to see the doctor, I like to ask AI all the symptoms that I have, ask what’s wrong with me. Or I would ask, you know, ‘What’s the weather like in Venice?’” he says. “AI gives us instant answers, and it goes even beyond that to where it gives you advice these days. And in that sense, AI has indeed really gotten deeply intertwined in my daily life.”

Similarly, Jeon is open to using AI for more “trivial” matters, such as simultaneous translation from English to Korean and vice versa. But she admits to more “extreme thoughts” than Lee about the technology’s role in the future of screen acting.

“I’m going to be starring in a [Korean-language adaptation] of Anton Chekov’s “The Cherry Orchard” upcoming in New York. And I was wondering, actually, is the stage the last place that cannot be conquered by AI, and will not be replaced by AI?”

Perhaps. But the scene in “Possible Love” that best captures the finely honed chemistry of its female leads, in which Mi-ok and Ye-ji drunkenly bond over soju and Korean barbecue as their bemused husbands look on, seems to me beyond the capabilities of AI — it’s too warm, too meticulously rendered to be anything other than fully human, the sort of acting one hopes the Venice jury will remember when it hands out the Volpi Cup for best actress on Saturday.

“It is quite difficult technically and practically — it was a scene that we shot all night long,” Cho says. “But I remember shooting it with a lot of pleasure.”

No protest there.

The Eastern Economic Forum (EEF) has been described as a successful solid platform since its creation. It increasingly attracts guests from widely different countries, especially leaders of China, India, Malaysia, Mongolia, and Myanmar. The leaders of Vietnam, Kazakhstan, Laos, and Thailand have visited it in various capacities. The business segment of the forum has long gone far beyond the geographical boundaries of Eurasia. Its frequent unprecedented large number of guests includes businesspeople from South America, Africa, and the Middle East. That, however, it remains open for entrepreneurial contacts with everyone whose natural interests are primarily in the trade, economic, and social spheres. This cross-platform cooperation between the structures is developing, growing deeper and creating a new agenda. The most essential feature is that the platform is guided by the principles of equality, mutual benefit, and honest dialogue, which are entirely different from those of Western-oriented structures. 

The EEF, which opened on 1st-4th September, in Russia’s Far Eastern city of Vladivostok, has become a solid platform for open and constructive dialogue among business leaders, government officials, and members of the expert community. It has also become a unique venue for discussing the strategic development of the Russian Far East and the country as a whole, while fostering and strengthening potential partnerships with counterparts, particularly from the Asia-Pacific region, in food production, infrastructure, logistics, industry, energy, and many other sectors of the economy. While recognizing the huge untapped economic potential of the region, it is also understandable that the development of the Far East largely depends on human capital, entrepreneurial efforts, and the ability of regions to create the necessary conditions for realizing the practical expectations.

On 2nd September, as part of the business program, the “Towards a Common Future: Inclusion as a Development Resource for the Far East” discussion was held with a strong focus on how to create an equal opportunity environment, develop human capital, and engage diverse groups in economic and social life. The following day, the majority of the participants in the “Inspiring Investments: A Development Strategy for Growth and Scaling” session touched on funding mechanisms for creative projects, opportunities to enter foreign markets, and collaboration between businesses, investors, development institutions, and government agencies. The key point focused on the development of the creative economy and international cooperation with Asia-Pacific countries, industry investments, the export of intellectual property and creative products, the media’s role in the development and positioning of regions in the Far East, new content formats, and training personnel for the economy of the future.

As part of the discussions at the forum, Russia and the United States continued their business dialogue, headed by Robert Agee, president and CEO of the American Chamber of Commerce in Russia (AmCham Russia), and with the participation of US representatives. It was spearheaded by the Roscongress Foundation in Russia.  Anton Kobyakov, Adviser to the President of the Russian Federation, noted, however, that there is a strong appetite on both sides for direct professional engagement. What matters most is to sustain the momentum and possibly broaden the agenda to include bilateral entrepreneurial partnership. 

“There is the need to facilitate more networking to identify specific strategic areas for cooperation,” said Robert Agee, president and CEO of the American Chamber of Commerce in Russia, and unreservedly agreed to continue their work on developing business ties and prepare for the participation of American representatives in the Russian Federation.

With many Asian and Pacific participants, explored opportunities for developing small and medium-sized enterprises. This is becoming increasingly important amid structural changes in the economy, as businesses look for new avenues for growth. The EEF made it possible not only to exchange experience but also to find concrete solutions that will help entrepreneurs adapt to changing conditions and unlock new opportunities for growth.

Developing trade, strengthening of interstate ties, and the creation of a common space for interaction among Asia-Pacific countries have assumed a new trend with Russia. The argument was logically based on Russia’s historical experience of cooperation with East Asian countries. It was further underlined that Russia and the Asia-Pacific attract politicians and entrepreneurs from around the world. In these current geopolitical circumstances, Russia needs to seek out new opportunities for development, particularly from the Asia-Pacific region, and with reference to the emerging new multipolar world. At the heart of the forum program was the search for new sources of growth and resilience for SMEs amid structural changes in the economy, from raising productivity and adopting new technologies to managing risks and adapting business models. One section of the program focused on the role of automation and artificial intelligence, changes in business processes, employees’ readiness to work with new technologies, and ways of improving productivity. 

In addition to the above, a special session was devoted to analysis where experts outlined the key economic trends across the Asia-Pacific region. As monitored, this session was set out in the analytical review entitled “Asia Trends 2026: The AI Boom, Industrial Relocation, and Geopolitical Fragmentation,” prepared ahead of the opening of the Eastern Economic Forum on 1st September. The review clearly noted, among other things, that Asia accounts for around 60% of global GDP growth and is becoming the world’s new center of trade, industry, technology, finance, and military power. Within the region, however, economic growth is highly uneven, while technology and capital are concentrated in a small group of states, making consolidation difficult. The ASEAN countries, meanwhile, face competition from Chinese manufacturers while also coming under growing geopolitical pressure from Washington. More broadly, the Asia-Pacific region is more exposed than any other to the effects of the energy crisis and to climate risks such as a super El Niño. 

According to the International Monetary Fund, Asian GDP grew by 5% in 2025, significantly ahead of global growth of 3.5%. Within the region, however, countries face a range of specific challenges, from high labor costs and insufficient industrial capacity to balance-of-payments difficulties and currency instability. These factors are driving increasingly divergent development paths among Asian economies. The region’s advanced economies, such as Japan and South Korea, posted lower growth rates, at 1.2% and 1%, respectively, in 2025. Asia’s emerging economies grew by 5.5% overall over the same period, with performance ranging from a 2% contraction in GDP in Myanmar to an 8% surge in Vietnam. 

Countries with the strongest growth prospects are attracting investment, leaving others with fewer opportunities to draw in capital. According to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, developing countries in Asia attracted US$644 billion in foreign direct investment in 2025. That is around 40% of the global total and more than 70% of all investment in developing countries. Capital flows are unevenly distributed: eight of the ten largest recipients of foreign direct investment among developing countries are in Asia, and together they account for around 60% of all inflows to developing economies and more than 80% of inflows to the region. 

Capital is becoming increasingly concentrated not only in a small number of countries but also in a narrow range of sectors, particularly artificial intelligence, clean energy, semiconductors, and critical minerals. In the longer term, this could deepen inequality and worsen the position of countries without a strong presence in these fields. Asia is one of the principal beneficiaries of the global AI boom. The investment cycle associated with its development has driven up demand for semiconductors, memory, servers, network equipment, and related electronics. The region occupies a central position in the global supply chain for these products. Technology exports will remain a powerful engine of economic growth in Asia, although the benefits will be distributed unevenly depending on each country’s position in the value chain.

South-East Asia’s role as an industrial center is growing as production capacity relocates there from China, which is no longer a low-cost manufacturing base. Chinese companies have begun redirecting production to Vietnam and Indonesia in particular in order to mitigate the impact of US tariffs. At the same time, China has increased its exports of industrial components and capital goods, supplying the equipment and parts needed by manufacturing centers in other countries. Exports of intermediate goods, including memory chips, other semiconductors, and industrial components, rose by 9% in 2025. Part of this represented an indirect offset to reduced shipments to the United States, as components, particularly in electronics, were used by manufacturers in other countries to produce goods that were subsequently exported to the US. A fall of roughly US$15 billion in smartphone exports, for example, was matched by a comparable increase in shipments of components, notably to India. 

In many other cases, however, the growth in exports of components and equipment was not linked to replacing sales China had lost in the US. Instead, it supported the expansion of production in third markets, especially developing ones, reinforcing China’s role as a supplier of production inputs rather than an exporter of finished goods. The result is an integrated supply chain taking shape across the region, encompassing research and development and the manufacture of high-technology components in China, assembly and packaging in an ASEAN country such as Malaysia or Vietnam, and the subsequent shipment of products to markets within the region and beyond. 

Amid the fragmentation of the global economy and trade, the development of the Eurasian space calls for resilient regional supply chains and logistical connectivity between states. Russia’s Far Eastern Federal District can play a strategically important role here. Thanks to its location, the district can serve as a resource and logistics gateway within the transport corridors linking European Russia with Asia. For a long time, infrastructure constraints held back the expansion of ties between Russia and Asian states, but the situation has begun to change with the development of the Eastern Operating Domain, which comprises the Baikal–Amur Mainline and the Trans-Siberian Railway. 

A program to modernize the Eastern Operating Domain has been under way since 2013, aimed at eliminating bottlenecks on the railways of Siberia and the Far East. Over that period, its carrying capacity has increased by 84%, reaching 180 million tonnes in 2025. The modernization is expected to raise that figure to 210 million tonnes by the end of 2030 and 270 million tonnes by the end of 2032. The development of the rail network and port infrastructure will largely determine the prospects for Eurasia and for the Asia-Pacific region in particular, as the world’s economic, financial, and trade center shifts towards the region. 

Emerging trends are reshaping the world; South-South economic partnership is seemingly becoming both the political and economic architecture. Logically, developing collaboration with Asian partners, anchoring discussions on technological leadership, and making breakthroughs in scientific fields and adopting innovative technologies are increasingly reshaping the world. Today, the role of academic institutions is to build a solid scientific and technological foundation that addresses applied industrial challenges while enhancing business efficiency, eco-friendliness, and sustainability. It is only through this synergy between science and the real economic sectors that can bring true multifaceted sovereignty. In conclusion, Asia-Pacific and Russia have to create a new model of economic and business and trade relations in the Global South.

As monitored from official reports, Russia is creating practically a new model of development of the Far East with maximally comfortable conditions for enterprises, as well as legal innovations for the investment climate in the region. Therefore, potential Asia-Pacific investors have to work on new ideas and new strategies for developing trade, agro-processing, industry, and other economic sectors in the Far Eastern region. The Eastern Economic Forum was held from September 1 to 4 on the campus of the Far Eastern Federal University. This year’s theme: “The Far East: Development for the Benefit of People.” It was the 11th EEF and organized by the Roscongress Foundation.

This is Galaxy Robot Park, a 16,500-square-meter venue that’s opened near Seoul in South Korea . The company behind the park says their aim is to bring artificial intelligence and robotics into the world of entertainment. The question is, can robots keep people coming back?

Sept. 3 (UPI) — South Korean shipbuilders are pouring investment, technology and expertise into a U.S. maritime industry struggling with shrinking capacity, worker shortages and competition from China, offering Washington a potential path to rebuild American shipyards without sending ship construction overseas.

The growing partnership also raises a difficult question: How much foreign participation is the United States prepared to accept in an industry considered essential to national security?

The issue has gained urgency following a White House directive aimed at increasing competition and capacity in the U.S. maritime industrial base. The administration’s plan allows greater use of foreign shipbuilding expertise under certain conditions, including investment in American shipyards, training U.S. workers, transferring production technologies and developing domestic supply chains.

Limited shipyard capacity and a shortage of skilled workers remain major obstacles to expanding the U.S. Navy fleet, according to Shelby S. Oakley, director of Contracting and National Security Acquisitions at the U.S. Government Accountability Office.

“The capacity of the existing yards and the size and skill level of the current workforce are certainly a limiting factor when it comes to the U.S. Navy’s ability to increase the size of the fleet,” Oakley told UPI.

Oakley said meeting Navy shipbuilding goals will require expanding existing yards or adding new ones, increasing the skilled workforce and making greater use of technology and automation. Without those changes, she said, the Navy will struggle to meet its fleet targets.

South Korea could provide part of that capacity.

Under a broader $350 billion U.S.-South Korea investment framework, Seoul has committed $150 billion specifically to shipbuilding cooperation, with another $200 billion intended for strategic investments in other sectors.

South Korea moved toward implementing the maritime portion in June when the Korea-U.S. Strategic Investment Corporation, Korean policy finance institutions and shipbuilders HD Hyundai Heavy Industries, Hanwha Ocean and Samsung Heavy Industries agreed to identify projects and coordinate financing.

The arrangement combines something Washington needs: capital and industrial expertise.

For decades, U.S. commercial shipbuilding has lost ground to Asian competitors. China now dominates global commercial ship construction, while South Korea and Japan retain substantial production capacity. The United States accounts for only a fraction of global commercial output.

President Donald Trump recently elevated shipbuilding capacity to a national security priority, directing his administration to look abroad for models that could help rebuild the U.S. maritime industrial base.

“I have determined that it is in the national security interest of the United States to increase domestic shipbuilding capacity,” Trump said in the memorandum, pointing to the October 2025 U.S. Finland Agreement on icebreaker construction as a model for cooperation with foreign companies.

China adds urgency to that effort.

China’s enormous civilian shipbuilding industry supports an expanding naval industrial base, allowing shipyards, suppliers and skilled workers to serve both commercial and military production. That industrial scale has made shipbuilding an increasingly important element of U.S.-China strategic competition.

The United States faces a different reality. The Government Accountability Office reported this year that Navy and Coast Guard shipbuilding programs have repeatedly exceeded budgets and fallen years behind schedule, while yards face skilled-worker shortages, capacity constraints and fragile supplier networks.

South Korea offers an alternative source of expertise. Its yards have decades of experience with modular construction, automation, digital design and high-volume production. Korean companies also build sophisticated naval vessels, including Aegis-equipped destroyers and submarines.

Hanwha has moved furthest into the U.S. market.

Hanwha Ocean and Hanwha Systems acquired Philly Shipyard for $100 million in 2024, giving the conglomerate a direct U.S. manufacturing foothold. Hanwha subsequently announced plans for billions of dollars in additional investment to expand the yard and introduce Korean shipbuilding technology.

Hanwha employs nearly 30,000 workers at Hanwha Ocean’s Geoje Shipyard in South Korea, where advanced manufacturing and automation help produce more than 40 ships a year.

“In the coming years, we will continue to bring trainers to develop our workforce at the Hanwha Philadelphia Shipyard as well as transfer technology to expand commercial and naval shipbuilding capacity,” Hanwha Defense USA spokesman James Hewitt told UPI.

Hanwha Ocean also completed a major overhaul of the Military Sealift Command dry cargo ship USNS Wally Schirra at Geoje in March 2025. The seven-month project was the first large-scale regular overhaul of a Military Sealift Command vessel awarded to a South Korean yard.

HD Hyundai Heavy Industries is pursuing a different route.

Rather than acquiring a U.S. yard, HD Hyundai has developed partnerships with American shipbuilders. The company and Huntington Ingalls Industries are cooperating on shipbuilding technology and production, including an August pilot program to expand automated welding at HII’s Ingalls Shipbuilding yard in Mississippi.

“The United States is a strong ally and a key business partner for us,” said Hannae Choi, Executive Vice President at HD Hyundai Shipbuilding and Offshore Engineering.

Such arrangements offer Washington a possible compromise: Korean companies can bring capital, technology, automation and production methods into American yards while training U.S. workers and developing domestic supply chains.

That distinction — foreign investment in U.S. shipbuilding rather than shifting construction overseas — has emerged as a key dividing line for the domestic industry.

The Shipbuilders Council of America supports foreign investment when it expands U.S. shipyard capacity but opposes sending construction abroad, said Danielle Hagen, the council’s executive vice president for communications.

“If South Korean capital and automation expertise flow into American facilities, employ American workers and produce American-built hulls, that model is consistent with our longstanding position,” Hagen told UPI.

“The SCA’s concern has never been the nationality of capital, but whether the work, the workforce and the industrial capability remain here in the U.S.,” she said.

Federal law has long restricted construction of U.S. naval vessels in foreign shipyards, while the Jones Act requires vessels operating in U.S. coastwise trade to be U.S.-built, U.S.-owned and U.S.-crewed.

“Any foreign partner needs to operate their U.S. yard as a genuinely American enterprise, with real decision-making authority here,” the council said, adding that foreign acquisitions should face national security scrutiny and continued congressional oversight.

Despite the backlog at U.S. yards, bipartisan opposition remains strong in Congress to building Navy vessels overseas. Rep. Jared Golden, D-Maine, a member of the House Armed Services Committee, has been among lawmakers seeking to preserve domestic construction requirements and prevent naval shipbuilding from migrating to foreign yards, including South Korea and Japan.

Those concerns extend beyond jobs. Modern warships contain classified systems, sensitive designs and specialized supply chains. Greater participation by even close allies raises questions about intellectual property, cybersecurity and control over technologies considered essential to U.S. military power.

Few U.S. allies, however, can match South Korea’s shipbuilding scale, speed and technical expertise. The emerging model seeks to use those capabilities to increase production in the United States rather than substitute foreign yards for American ones.

Whether that approach succeeds will depend not only on transferring Korean technology and manufacturing expertise into U.S. yards, but also on Washington’s ability to integrate those investments into a broader shipbuilding strategy.

Managing competing demands for Navy ship construction and repair requires such an approach, Oakley told UPI. A 2025 GAO report found that the Navy lacked a comprehensive strategy for managing the private shipbuilding and repair industry on which it depends, complicating efforts to coordinate investment, yard capacity and workforce needs.

The challenge is magnified by China. Its dominance of commercial shipbuilding has created a vast network of yards, suppliers and skilled workers that the United States cannot quickly replicate. South Korea cannot close that gap alone, but its capital, technology and expertise could help expand U.S. capacity as American yards modernize, train workers and rebuild supply chains.

For Washington, the central policy question is whether greater South Korean participation can strengthen U.S. shipbuilding capacity without creating a new dependence on foreign production.

It’s back-to-school time for the Broad.

The Broad museum is launching a new educational initiative, it announced on Saturday. “Our Block, Our Stories” will pair students with contemporary artists to explore how those artists have been inspired by their local neighborhoods, communities and personal experiences.

The program, open to grades 3 through 12, includes off-site activities and field trips to the museum. The Broad is paying for students’ transport to the museum.

The inaugural project will focus on South Los Angeles students and spotlight L.A. artist Lauren Halsey. Students will visit Halsey’s South L.A. sculpture garden, “sister dreamer, lauren halsey’s architectural ode to tha surge n splurge of south central los angeles,” to explore themes of neighborhood, memory and belonging. Halsey’s work, which debuted in March, was presented by Los Angeles Nomadic Division and curated by LAND co-founder Christine Y. Kim.

Students will then, on the same day, travel to the Broad for guided tours, discussions and writing prompts. They’ll be encouraged to connect their personal experiences to works in the museum’s collection while also considering how they might creatively express their own life stories, from their individual communities, through art. April De Leon, Broad interim school program manager, is overseeing the program.

“It’s so we can bring hundreds of young people [to the museum] so they can be inspired to be creative — and in a way that helps their community, gives back to their community, transforms their community and their city,” said Ed Patuto, Broad director for audience engagement. “We’ll look at how other artists, too — like Mark Bradford, John Ahearn and Rigoberto Torres — deal with their neighborhoods and opportunities in their neighborhoods for inspiration.”

The museum will provide educators with on-site worksheets and background materials on the artists, along with other pre-visit and post-visit resources in English and Spanish.

Field trips to the museum begin Sept. 18, though the Broad is still enrolling schools in the program. It’s giving priority to schools and youth organizations in and around South L.A. The Halsey program runs through Dec. 11.

Lauren Halsey’s South L.A. sculpture garden, “sister dreamer.”

(Allen Chen @_h_studio)

Patuto said that Halsey was the perfect artist to launch the program. Not only is her work represented in the Broad’s collection, but “she’s an artist who’s influenced by her community and, like a Mark Bradford, is actually building something in her community, for her community,” he said. “And that needs to be supported by arts institutions around the city.”

The idea behind the sculpture park, when Halsey first conceived it about 16 years ago, she said in an interview, was a space that represents and pays homage to the neighborhood, both aesthetically and conceptually.

“The heroes, the poetics, the material culture, the everyday,” she said. “But also, that it’s a sculpture park that serves — and for free — the neighborhood and L.A. at large.”

The Broad says it will continue to develop “learning modules” over the next several years.

The next one will launch in conjunction with the upcoming exhibition, “Has the myth been shattered,” opening in November. The show of Broad collection works spanning six decades, as curated by Jen Vanegas Rocha, addresses myths “and the way social media, mass media, can kind of mythologize things that happened to us,” Patuto said.

Free, youth-oriented cultural programming such as “Our Block, Our Stories” is a game-changer, Halsey said, adding that field trips she took to LACMA in middle school helped give her confidence to create and solidify her identity as an artist.

She hopes the Broad’s new educational initiative does the same for other young artists.

“It builds pride in one’s own neighborhood and validates experiences and expands on the possibility of what you can be as a young child and sparks your imagination,” she said. “I didn’t have that growing up in South Central, this access to art. So it’s really cool that the Broad came in and is partnering with me to bring this amazing, free programming to the neighborhood.”

Nquthu, South Africa – When Zwelibi Jack Ngubane died at the age of 105, he had already made one thing clear to his family: he wanted to be buried as a Muslim.

Hundreds of family and community members gathered for his funeral in Nquthu, a rural part of northern KwaZulu-Natal where Christianity and traditional African beliefs are dominant and Muslims are a tiny minority. Ngubane had converted to Islam late in life after observing the faith of his young grandson.

When he died, his family honoured his wishes. His funeral was conducted according to Muslim burial rites before he was laid to rest in the family burial plot in his village. For a community largely unfamiliar with Islamic burial practices, the funeral was a novelty.

But it wasn’t a controversy. That distinction has become increasingly important in South Africa.

In recent months, anti-Muslim rhetoric has become more visible online, intersecting with a heated national debate about immigration and anti-migrant movements. Posts have accused Muslims of attempting to take over South Africa, questioned their belonging in the country and accused Muslim organisations of using charity and poverty to convert Black South Africans to Islam.

One social media post complained that humanitarian organisation Gift of the Givers had been “getting on our nerves with their insistence on pushing their Muslim beliefs in South Africa”. Another claimed: “Most foreigners in South Africa are Muslim and if you look most countries experiencing war are Muslim countries not Christian ones.” Others have accused Muslims of “targeting poverty-stricken communities and converting them to Islam”.

But in the rolling hills and villages of Nquthu, the picture is different.

For Samukelisiwe Ngubane, her first encounters with Muslims came through Indian shopkeepers in a nearby town. “We have never had a problem. Some people are curious about what they [Muslims] do, but there have been no problems,” she told Al Jazeera.

When her brother, Khethukuthula Dlame, converted to Islam in 2012 as a teenager, it was hardly an issue. Dlame, now 26 and one of only a handful of Muslims known in his village, is familiar enough to his neighbours that his Islamic clothing is a source of teasing rather than hostility. One neighbour jokes that he wears a dress.

“In these communities, there’s harmony and respect. People really respect my religion,” he told Al Jazeera, standing alongside his grandfather’s gravesite.

The contrast raises a question: is South Africa experiencing a rise in Islamophobia, or is social media making a marginal phenomenon appear much larger than it is?

Muslims make up a small minority in South Africa. The country’s 2022 census counted less than one million Muslims, or approximately 1.6 percent of the population. South African Muslim leaders give higher estimates, with some putting the country’s Muslim population at between two million and five million people.

But Islam’s presence in South Africa stretches back centuries. Muslims came to the Cape through several routes, including enslavement and political exile, from parts of Asia and the Indian Ocean world under Dutch colonial rule from the 17th century. Muslims were already present at the Cape before the arrival in 1694 of Shaykh Yusuf of Macassar, a Muslim scholar and political exile.

Today, the community includes descendants of enslaved Muslims brought to the Cape centuries ago, South Africans of Indian ancestry whose families have lived in the country for generations, Black African Muslims, converts and more recent migrants.

Dlame believes attempts to mobilise people against Muslims are not primarily emerging from rural communities.

“The move to orchestrated hate towards Muslims is not at a community level. If you’re looking at people when they’re mobilising, it’s not people from the villages. It is people in cities and in hostels.”

“The people behind this understand the flash points. If you really want to cause divisions, you use tribal rhetoric and the people you mobilise and agitate are in hostels because the living conditions are not good.”

South Africa has repeatedly experienced outbreaks of xenophobic violence since the end of apartheid, with migrants from elsewhere on the African continent often bearing the brunt. The question is whether some of that anti-migrant rhetoric is also being directed at Muslims.

‘No widespread Islamophobia’

Thembisa Fakude, a South African political analyst and journalist who is Muslim, told Al Jazeera that fears of widespread Islamophobia are being overstated.

“I’ll argue that there is no widespread or any orchestrated, well-planned Islamophobia directed towards Muslims. We don’t have that.”

He acknowledges anti-Muslim rhetoric online, but argues that it should not automatically be interpreted as evidence that South African society itself has become Islamophobic.

“It’s true, but it’s not only South Africa. This is global … In South Africa, yes, it’s true. You find that there will always be bigots, you know, and others will be, you know, ultra-Zulu nationalist or ultra-nationalist.”

Fakude also argues that Muslim communities need to confront allegations of racism and exploitative labour practices within their own ranks rather than characterising every criticism as religious prejudice.

“It is a storm in a teacup. And I think what’s concerning me is this othering by Muslims wanting to position themselves as victims and taking this course by themselves. It’s extremely dangerous.”

What starts online does not always stay there

Muslim religious leader Moulana Sulaiman Ravat told Al Jazeera that, while ordinary South Africans are largely not Islamophobic, he is more cautious about what could happen next.

“At the same time, I think on the ground, South Africans in the main are not Islamophobic, and there’s a variety of indicators to substantiate that.”

But Ravat warns that online rhetoric can influence attitudes over time.

“I don’t think we can go to the other extreme. We must understand that there are certain global political realities, and the Islamophobia project aligns with those global agendas. And therefore, if we become complacent or nonchalant about it, what people are exposed to online could start impacting their psyche and how they think.”

Ravat argues that Muslim identity is sometimes being presented as evidence that a person is somehow less South African. For him, the premise is false.

“I would think I would say they are deeply religious and deeply patriotic, and there is no contradiction between the two.”

His own children, he said, are fifth-generation South African Muslims of Indian heritage.

“They don’t speak the language any more. They are as South African as anyone else.”

Two South Africas?

Back in Nquthu, Islam does not arrive through a social media algorithm. It arrives through a neighbour, where Dlame’s mother cooks a halal meal for this reporter and other guests. Earlier, at a community meeting, Dlame explained that Muslims, too, believe that Jesus was a prophet of God. Ordinary villagers listened attentively and joined in Zulu melodies in praise of God.

For now, the distance between the online conversation and life in communities such as Nquthu remains significant. But Ravat says that does not mean the possibility of deeper hostility should be dismissed.

“Better be proactive than reactive. It’s a global reality. It has been for the last 20 years. And the fact that it could increase in South Africa and could have serious consequences, you could argue, is unlikely but not impossible.”