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Epoch Times
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Epoch Times
Major South Korean Theater Abruptly Cancels Human Rights Film Festival Bookings
On the eve of the 5th Seoul Larkspur International Film Festival ( The abrupt decision came from MEGABOX Dongdaemun, the official screening venue of SLIFF, one day before the festival's opening on May 30, affecting multiple films documenting the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP's) human rights abuses. Organizers said they were shocked, and filmmakers said they were outraged. 'This is the first time I've seen something like this happen in Korea,' said Heo Eun-doh, SLIFF's general director and chief curator. 'A theater unilaterally canceling international human rights films—there's no question this was due to external pressure.' MEGABOX is one of Korea's largest theater chains, with more than 100 locations nationwide. According to the SLIFF organizers, they had provided all the materials to the Dongdaemun branch, had signed a contract, and had paid the full rental fee upon the approval that had been stamped by MEGABOX headquarters. Heo told The Epoch Times that his team had been monitoring ticket sales and had found that everything suddenly vanished. 'When we called, they told us, 'We don't support festivals with political nature,'' he said. Related Stories 5/30/2025 5/30/2025 Ticket sales for the festival began just the night before, on May 28, and some showings—including the May 31 screening of ' 'State Organs,' a 76-minute documentary produced by Peabody Award-winner Raymond Zhang, follows the perilous search of two families for their missing loved ones in China, according to the film's synopsis, revealing evidence of state-sanctioned forced organ harvesting, a practice unique to China that involves the killing of the organ donor. Zhang spent Zhang refuted the political allegations by the Megabox theater. 'This is not a political film—it addresses universal values such as humanity and human rights,' he said. 'I believe the sudden cancellation in Korea was driven by interference from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). When the film was screened in Taiwan, I received over a hundred threatening emails and messages and was targeted by pro-CCP cyberattacks. I didn't expect similar tactics to appear in South Korea.' Threats of mass shootings, bomb detonations, and systematic hacking were Other films affected by the last-minute cancellation include ' Despite the setback, Zhang emphasized his belief in South Korean society. 'I still believe Korea is a free and democratic country, and its citizens won't be swayed by this kind of pressure,' he said. 'Violation of Artistic and Expressive Freedom' SLIFF is the only film festival in South Korea dedicated to global human rights issues, according to Heo. He said that he and his team had spent a whole year preparing for the film festival, and described the last-minute cancellation as a devastating blow to the festival and a serious violation of free expression, attributing the cancellation to outside political pressure. 'This was not an internal decision. This was a forced shutdown—clearly influenced by external forces. It's a serious violation of artistic and expressive freedom,' Heo said. He said that what is happening now in South Korea is similar to what happened in Hong Kong in 2019, as depicted in 'Revolution of Our Times.' He said this documentary on Hong Kong's democracy movement serves as an example of why these films matter. 'No one has the right to strip away artistic or expressive freedom. And I believe the Korean public understands that. Think about it—a theater unilaterally labeling international human rights films as 'political' and pulling them while tickets are still on sale? There's no way this came from Koreans themselves,' he said. Heo pledged to keep fighting. 'We will not be silenced. We will not back down. We will stand firm, and in the end, we believe justice will prevail,' he said. 'If we remain silent in the face of this kind of censorship, we're not just giving up on art—we're giving up on democracy itself. This cannot be brushed aside. We will make sure the truth is known throughout South Korea and call on people to stand with us. That is our unwavering position.' The film festival organizers have managed to screen 'State Organs' for one listing in KBS Hall, Seoul, on May 30. The documentary has screened in the United States, Japan, and Taiwan, and is The Epoch Times reached out to the Megabox Dongdaemun branch, but the call was not answered. An Jing contributed to this report.
Korea Herald
3 days ago
- Business
- Korea Herald
Time to pivot to China, India and move beyond US: Mirae Asset vice chairman
As cracks emerge in the US-centered investment landscape -- driven by geopolitical uncertainty and waning global confidence -- Mirae Asset Securities Vice Chairman Heo Sun-ho called for a strategic rebalancing toward China and India. Speaking at a global asset allocation forum hosted by Mirae Asset in Seoul on Thursday, Heo said the global financial market has relied heavily on the US as its primary growth engine over the past three years. However, with the return of President Donald Trump and the onset of a high-tariff era, he warned that the global trade order is being reshaped. 'The recent depreciation of the US dollar reflects weakening global confidence, spurred by growing nationalism and ballooning fiscal deficits,' Heo said, urging investors to pivot from a US-centric strategy and realign their portfolios with the shifting global innovation landscape. China and India, he said, represent promising alternatives. 'Innovative technology that once fueled US growth is no longer its exclusive domain,' he added, pointing to China's accelerating technological self-reliance, supported by pro-market policy shifts. He cited examples such as Chinese AI startup DeepSeek positioning itself as a challenger to OpenAI, and BYD, which in April overtook Tesla in the European electric vehicle market for the first time. Meanwhile, India is emerging as a vast consumer market, Heo said, powered by robust digital infrastructure and a rapidly expanding population. His remarks come amid a noticeable cooling of Korean retail interest in US equities following a period of record buying. As of May 26, Korean individual investors had sold a net $1.065 billion (1.46 trillion won) in US stocks -- their first net sell-off in seven months. Even longtime favorites like Tesla and Nvidia saw combined net sales of about $306 million during the week of May 19-23. Echoing the call for a diversified investment strategy, Lee Phil-sang, director and head of Asia Pacific Research at Mirae Asset Hong Kong, highlighted China's healthcare tech sector as a compelling opportunity. He cited the country's deep talent pool as a key factor driving its progress toward catching up with the more established US biopharmaceutical industry. 'China has made significant strides in new drug development over the past four years. In 2010, its output in this field was minimal, but it now ranks second globally,' Lee said. Chinese biotech firms such as Beigene, Akeso, Hansoh, and Eccogene have been expanding globally through out-licensing deals and international clinical trials. Lee said that China is also taking the lead in advanced drug modalities, including antibody-drug conjugates, targeted cancer therapies linking antibodies to toxic agents, and bispecific antibodies, designed to bind two different antigens for enhanced efficacy. Policy shifts in China are also creating a more favorable environment for foreign investors, Lee said. Whereas past periods of double-digit economic growth often led to excessive government investment and harmful oversupply, a slowing Chinese economy is now helping to differentiate true market leaders. 'China's slow growth isn't necessarily negative,' Lee said. 'It's in low-growth conditions that world-class enterprises emerge. When a leading company dominates the domestic market and expands overseas, it sets the stage for the rise of truly global champions.'
News18
6 days ago
- General
- News18
What INSV Kaundinya Actually Stitches Together
Last Updated: The wooden sailing ship rekindles ancient India's bustling trade and cultural links with the ancient world to its east and west. Showcasing India's little-discussed but longstanding maritime tradition reached a (nautical) milestone with the launch of INSV Kaundinya at Karwar Naval Base in Karnataka last week. The re-creation of an ancient Indian 'stitched" ship as a joint venture between the Indian Navy and Ministry of Culture was discussed in a Firstpost article, ' Why recreating a 5th century stitched ship is as important as Chandrayaan ' (September 23, 2023) , but even the name has a story. Writers like Amitav Ghosh, William Dalrymple and Sanjeev Sanyal have dwelt on the Indian influence on the cultures of south-east Asia thanks mainly to sea-borne trade. But these are yet to become common knowledge in the way that, say, the life and times of Ashoka have in India. That is why the name Kaundinya is particularly apt for this stitched ship as he was the first known Indian who sailed to South-East Asia and ended up founding Cambodia's first Hindu kingdom. Kaundinya is thought to have hailed from India's east coast, probably somewhere in Ganjam district of Odisha or the adjoining Srikakulam district in Andhra, both of which were part of the ancient Kalinga kingdom and included the bustling Kalingapuram port. That is because 'Kaundinya" is a gotra common to Brahmins in the south-eastern Indian coastal region even today, indicating the ancient mariner's probable antecedents and reiterating Odisha's maritime legacy. The kingdom Kaundinya and Soma founded nearly 2,000 years ago is now referred to as Funan based on Chinese texts written over a millennium later, but contemporary Khmer sources cite names such as Shresthapura, Bhavapura, Vyadhapura and Aninditapura, pointing to its Indian/Hindu links. The Indian propensity to not chronicle anything till relatively recently has led to Chinese records dominating the discourse, hence Funan is the better known name. Incidentally, even Kaundinya's marriage to Soma is not the only such instance. It is said that an Indian princess Hwang-hok (Yellow Jade in Korean) of Ayodhya sailed away to marry Emperor Kim Suro of Gaya in Korea and became Empress Heo, not long after Kaundinya. Today, many Koreans claim descent from their 12 children. Curiously, the ancient burial mounds in Assam called moidam are amazingly similar to those of Korean royalty including that of Suro and Heo. Tales of the connections between ancient India and the cultures and kingdoms of south-east Asia and beyond have been far too persistent to be dismissed now as being without any basis. Academia (western-dominated as it has been) tended to firmly relegate such stories to the realms of mythology earlier, unwilling to even acknowledge that India had much of an international profile beyond the well-documented spread of Buddhism eastwards. India's Hinduism was sidelined. Thus, the story of the seafaring Kaundinya and his marriage to the Naga princess Soma nearly 2,000 years ago also never gained traction. That watershed event is remembered in Cambodia till today, but not many Indians visiting there are aware of it even if they do know that Hinduism was once the main religion in the region, indicating ancient links with India. Even a cursory research reveals details about profound cross-cultural connections, going beyond architecture and culture. Hinduism's cultural influence seen there, hark back to their earliest kingdoms, but now there is even DNA proof that 'proto-historic" South-East Asians had Indian lineage, indicating a wide intermingling between the peoples of India and that region – probably even predating Kaundinya's arrival. South-East Asian genealogies today have some Indian ancestry, but new studies on an ancient boy's skeleton in Cambodia have revealed a 40-50% South Asian/ Indian DNA. Radiocarbon testing of that ancient boy's bone dated it to the early period of Funan (the kingdom Kaundinya co-founded), showing that the Indian gene flow to Cambodia started 1,000 years earlier than the previously posited 12th to 14th century on the strength of genetic studies of current populations. The researchers also say they expect to find further traces of interactions with South Asia (India?) —corroborated by archaeological evidence—from about 4th century BCE. Paleogenomics does not make for racy reading, but its findings certainly add heft to the 'mythological" stories of connections between the Hindu kingdoms and cultures of ancient India and the populations of South-East Asia. Later in the first millennium CE the Indian connection becomes too evident to gloss over, such as the arrival in 731CE of a boy prince from Simhapura in Champa kingdom (now Vietnam) to ascend the Pallava throne in South India as Nandivarman II. That the INSV Kaundinya was launched on India's west coast is apt too. For millennia ancient Indian ships set sail from Khambat, Kutch and the Konkan coast to the west. The Sindhu-Sarasvati civilisation had robust trade relations with the cultures of the Euphrates and Nile to its west, most of it conducted via the seas. Harappan seals found at Dilmun (now Bahrain) attest to the fact that it was an entrepot for goods from India like lapis lazuli, carnelian, pearls and ivory. And later, the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea mentions that 'cloths and precious stones, timbers and spices—particularly cinnamon" and even iron, steel, skins and muslin were transported from India mostly on Indian vessels and transhipped at Socotra Island or Cape Guardafui (off the Horn of Africa) from the 1st century CE onwards. Exploration of the huge Hoq Cave in Socotra has revealed many inscriptions (more like graffiti really) on its walls in ancient Brahmi script. Socotra is said to be derived from the Sanskrit name Dvipa Sukhadara (Island of Bliss) or its Greek contraction Dioskorida. But the fact that there were many Hindus engaged in this trade is also underlined by their reverence for a deity named Socotri Mata or Sikotar Maa, propitiated by the seafarers to protect them from being shipwrecked. Temples were dedicated to her in Gujarat and Sindh, not only as Sikotar Maa but also as Vahanvati, always depicted sitting in a boat. Coins of the Satavahana or Andhra dynasty (2nd century BCE to 3rd century CE) featuring sailing ships that look astonishingly like the INSV Kaundinya point to the importance of maritime trade for that huge Hindu empire straddling the peninsula. They maintained many bustling ports including Bharuch, Sopara and Kalyan on the Arabian Sea and Ghantasala and Machhilipatnam on east, trading with both South-East Asia and the expansive Roman Empire to the west. So, the good ship INSV Kaundinya stitches together the proto-history and history of maritime India, resurrecting not only the shipbuilding prowess of ancient Indians but also India's longstanding ties—commercial and cultural—down the millennia with the world. Later this year the wooden vessel will sail to Oman, retracing the route that other stitched Indian ships had made for centuries. May it always have 'fair winds and following seas" as the old nautical blessing goes! The author is a freelance writer. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect News18's views. tags : indian navy Location : New Delhi, India, India First Published: May 27, 2025, 12:18 IST News opinion Opinion | What INSV Kaundinya Actually Stitches Together
Korea Herald
21-05-2025
- Politics
- Korea Herald
Court rejects arrest warrant for reporter behind '99 Chinese spies' article
A Seoul court on Wednesday rejected an arrest warrant for a reporter accused of writing a false article on the apprehension of 99 Chinese spies during former President Yoon Suk Yeol's imposition of martial law. The Seoul Central District Court said it rejected the warrant for the reporter, surnamed Heo, of online outlet SkyeDaily as it was "difficult to recognize the need or validity for arresting the suspect at this stage." Heo is accused of obstructing the National Election Commission (NEC)'s official duties by publishing a false article on Jan. 16 that 99 Chinese spies were captured at an NEC facility on Dec. 3, after Yoon declared martial law, and transported to a U.S. base in Japan's Okinawa, where they confessed to charges of election interference. The NEC said the article was "clearly false" and requested an investigation by the police.
Herald Malaysia
21-05-2025
- General
- Herald Malaysia
South Korean Catholic convert finds strength in Legion of Mary
Even at 94, Helena Heo Yung-ja continues her life of witness and prayer with a smile May 21, 2025 Heo Yong-ja, the 94-year-old head of the Legion of the Central Episcopal Parish of Jeonju Diocese. (Photo: SEOUL: For 94-year-old Helena Heo Yung-ja, her time at the Legion of Mary has been an inseparable part of her daily life and a testament to her faith. 'I always say, 'now is heaven,' because I live with God, Jesus, and Mary in my heart,' says Heo, who converted to Catholicism in 1957 at the age of 26. 'When I think about that, it makes me humble and careful, and I try to live a life that is pleasing to them,' adds Heo. But her association with the Legion of Mary is as old as her faith. She has been a member of the Legion of Mary Hope of Sinners Presidium for 68 years. A regular at presidium meetings A regular face at presidium meetings, Heo has only missed a few of them following a hospitalization due to leg surgery. Heo says she would hurry home after visiting her children, who were staying in other parts of South Korea, to ensure she did not miss the Legion meetings. 'We are the Legionaries of Mary, so how can we miss the [Legion] meetings?' Heo says when asked about the enthusiasm and dedication she exhibits for the Legion. As a result of her consistent dedication, Bishop Sun Tae Kim of Jeonju awarded Heo a certificate of appreciation as part of the 70th anniversary celebration of the introduction of the Legion of Mary in the diocese on May 17. However, her dedication was also acknowledged by her appointment as the presidium director at the Cathedral Church, a position that Heo says she initially declined. 'At the age of 94, I was asked to preside over the Legion, and although I refused, I accepted when they asked me to preside at the beginning of the meeting,' says Heo. The presidium in Jeonju started in 1955, about two years after Columban Father Harold Henry introduced the Legion of Mary to South Korea at Kwangju's Kyong-dong and Sanjong-dong parishes in 1953. Frank Duff, a layperson and civil servant, founded the Legion of Mary in Dublin, Ireland, in 1921. The Marian movement, an international association of lay members of the Catholic Church, now has more than 10 million members across 170 countries. The Legion aims to glorify God through the holiness of its members, through prayer and active cooperation in the Church's work. Daily Mass and Rosary recitations For Heo, another activity that bolstered her faith life was attending daily Mass at the church. She says that she used to attend Holy Mass daily since her baptism, but had to discontinue a few months back due to health concerns. A regular at the church, Heo even has a seat that is reserved for her. Heo says she loves to recite the Rosary as a small contribution to Mother Mary, whom she believes prays tirelessly for the world and remembers each individual. She says she does not have a favorite Rosary, pointing out that 'they are all the same, a tool to pray to the Holy Mother.' She claims that she used to recite up to 100 decades, equivalent to twenty cycles of the complete Rosary, in a day. However, due to her advancing age, she has reduced the numbers to 70 decades a day. More than 60 converts to Catholicism For Heo, her faith and steadfastness also led more than 60 people to the Catholic faith, for which she received the Legion of Mary Award for Mission Excellence in 2014. But Heo recalls that bringing her husband to the Catholic faith was the most challenging ordeal she faced. 'I had a hard time because of my husband, but I left it all to Mary,' says Heo. Heo recalls how her husband would come home from time to time and ask for a divorce, which was painful for her. She often prayed in tears in front of the statue of Our Lady in the cathedral, seeking divine help in mending the relationship with her husband. The Pieta, which depicts Mother Mary holding the body of Jesus, reminded her that the suffering she faced was nothing compared to Mary's, she says. 'Whenever he came home, I would treat him with all my heart, and he eventually relented and was baptized and confirmed at the age of 80,' says Heo. Heo says her husband's conversion happened with the help of her children, the parish priest, and nuns. She said she is happy that her husband received the Sacrament of the Sick before he died peacefully. At 94, Heo continues her life of witness and prayer, with a smile for
