suspend

May 1 (UPI) — South Korea’s Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) reportedly decided Thursday to suspend the business operations of Lotte Card for 4 1/2 months over a data breach.

The financial watchdog is also reported to have finalized the disciplinary measure, including a $3.4 million penalty and a reprimand warning for its former CEO Cho Jwa-jin.

The FSS declined to confirm the reports, while Lotte Card acknowledged it.

“Imposing a business suspension over a hacking case would be an unprecedented level of sanction,” Lotte Card said in a statement.

“As follow-up procedures remain, including a resolution by the Financial Services Commission (FSC), we will fully explain our position regarding the severity of the punishment, as well as our post-incident response efforts,” it added.

Nearly 3 million Lotte Card customers had their personal information compromised last year. The state-run Personal Information Protection Commission has already imposed a $64 million fine on the firm over the incident.

Following the FSS decision, the FSC is expected to make the final call in the coming months.

In 2019, South Korea’s leading private equity company, MBK Partners, teamed up with Woori Bank to acquire a 79.8% stake in Lotte Card for about $1 billion. MBK took 59.8%, and Woori held the remaining 20%.

MBK Partners sought to sell its stake in Lotte Card in 2023 but failed to find a buyer, and a similar effort last year also yielded limited results.

Lotte Card is not publicly listed.

Ryanair is warning customers after problems with the European Entry/Exit System (EES)

Ryanair has provided an update regarding its stance on the new European Entry/Exit System (EES), which is continuing to pose difficulties for travellers. The system affects Brits heading to the Schengen zone, encompassing sought-after destinations including France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Portugal, and Spain.

It is a digital system that is taking the place of conventional passport stamps. Travellers may need to register biometric information, such as fingerprints and a photograph, upon arrival. No advance action is required before reaching the border, and there is no charge for using the system.

EES officially went live on April 10, 2026. Yet difficulties with the system, particularly during peak periods at busy airports, have resulted in its suspension in several countries on multiple occasions.

Budget carrier Ryanair issued a blistering message on social media, demanding the EES rollout be halted until September. The low-cost airline criticised France, Portugal, Poland, Italy, Spain, and Germany for failing to ‘ensure that adequate staffing, system readiness, or kiosks are in place’.

Reports indicate that passengers have been left waiting for hours due to the new system, with some even missing their flights as a result. Branding the system as ‘half-baked’, Ryanair’s statement read: “Despite knowing for over three years that EES would become fully operational from 10 April 2026, France, Portugal, Poland, Italy, Spain, and Germany have failed to ensure that adequate staffing, system readiness, or kiosks are in place.

“As a result, passengers are suffering long passport control queues and, in some cases, missing their flights.

“Ryanair calls on these EU Governments to suspend the rollout of the EU’s passport control Entry/Exit System (EES) until September to ensure that passengers are not needlessly forced to suffer long passport control queue delays at European airports during the peak summer season.”

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The system was gradually rolled out from October 2025 before coming into full effect on April 10 across Schengen countries, which comprise 25 of the EU’s 27 member states alongside Iceland, Norway, Liechtenstein, and Switzerland.

Frustrated holidaymakers have reported a range of issues, from an insufficient number of kiosks to handle registrations, to malfunctioning fingerprint scanners and being forced to repeat the entire process on both arrival and departure.

The experts call Israel’s bombardment of Lebanon on April 8 ‘a blatant violation of the UN Charter’.

A group of United Nations experts has denounced Israel’s attack on Lebanon a day after the United States and Iran agreed a ceasefire as illegal and urged UN member states to halt all arms transfers to Israel.

The 19 experts – including special rapporteurs and independent experts across a range of human rights mandates – issued the condemnation on Wednesday as Israel continued to pound areas of southern Lebanon, killing at least 16 people, including four paramedics, Lebanese state media reported.

Referring to a devastating wave of Israeli attacks across Lebanon on April 8, which Lebanese authorities said killed more than 350 people, including 30 children, the experts said: “This is not self-defence. It is a blatant violation of the UN Charter, a deliberate ‌destruction of prospects for peace, and an affront to multilateralism and the UN-based international order.”

They called for Israel to “cease all military operations in Lebanon” and urged UN member states to halt arms transfers to Israel while “there is credible evidence of serious violations of international humanitarian and human rights law”, according to the UN Human Rights Council.

Israel escalated its attacks on Lebanon on March 2 after the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah fired rockets into Israel in response to the US-Israel killing of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei two days earlier, the first day of their war on Iran.

Israel has carried out a devastating bombardment across Lebanon and a ground invasion in the south, killing more than 2,000 people and forcibly displacing more than 1.2 million.

The UN experts said such forced displacement “of a civilian population constitutes crimes against humanity”. They also condemned Israel’s targeted “destruction of homes”, particularly in predominantly Shia areas of the south, as “a form of collective punishment” that “points to ethnic cleansing”.

Israel’s continuing bombardment of Lebanon has been a point of tension in US-Iran negotiations. Tehran said Lebanon should be covered in the ongoing ceasefire. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Lebanon is ‌not ‌part of the ceasefire with Iran and Israel will continue to target Hezbollah “wherever required”.

On Saturday, days before Israel and Lebanon held rare, high-level diplomatic talks in the US, Netanyahu said Israel wanted long-term peace with Lebanon but on the condition that Hezbollah is disarmed.

The Reuters news agency quoted a senior Israeli official as saying ⁠Israel’s security cabinet planned to convene on Wednesday evening to discuss a possible ceasefire in Lebanon. It also quoted several senior ⁠Lebanese officials as saying ceasefire efforts were under way.