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    From ‘hellhole’ UK to anti-Muslim rhetoric in Japan, Charlie Kirk took his message abroad

    Charlie Kirk directed most of his rhetoric at the US political scene, but he also strayed into foreign affairs, drawing both favourable and critical comparisons between life in the US and in other countries on his shows and doing the occasional speaking tour.In May, Kirk visited the UK, debating against students at Oxford and Cambridge universities and appearing on the conservative GB News channel. Days before he was fatally shot in Utah he took his message to relatively new audiences on a tour to South Korea and Japan.Last weekend he addressed like-minded politicians and activists at a symposium in Tokyo organised by Sanseito, a rightwing populist party that shook up the political establishment in upper house elections this summer.In Tokyo, Kirk described Sanseito, which ran in July’s elections on a “Japanese first” platform, as “all about kicking foreigners out of Japan”, where the foreign population has risen to about 3.8 million out of a total of 124 million.Foreign residents and supporters of mass migration were, he claimed, “very quietly and secretly funnelling themselves into Japanese life. They want to erase, replace and eradicate Japan by bringing in Indonesians, by bringing in Arabs, by bringing in Muslims”.He spoke at length about his trip in a podcast released the day before his death, returning to a familiar theme – criticising women who choose not to have children – that echoed the views of his host in Japan, the Sanseito leader, Sohei Kamiya.In Seoul, he addressed more than 2,000 supporters at the Build Up Korea 2025 event, which drew predominantly young Christians and students from evangelical schools, representing a self-styled Korean Maga movement that has rallied in support of the impeached former president Yoon Suk Yeol.The event invited a host of far-right American personalities, who openly promoted conspiracy theories including claims that China orchestrated “stolen elections” in both America and South Korea, and that Lee Jae Myung’s recent presidential victory was fraudulent.Kirk criticised special prosecutor investigations into Yoon and his martial law, describing “several disturbing things happening right now in South Korea” where “pastors are being arrested” and “homes are being raided”, adding: “If South Korea keeps on acting like this, it is the American way to step up and fight for what is right.”Kirk said he had “learned a lot” from his time in South Korea and Japan, recalling how safe he had felt on the clean and orderly streets of Seoul, where there were “no bums, no one asking you for money”.In his three-day visit to the UK in May, he clashed with students at the Cambridge Union debating society, arguing that “lockdowns were unnecessary”, “life begins at conception”, and the US Civil Rights Act was a “mistake”.Kirk made the same points in Oxford, also alleging immigrants were “importing insidious values into the west” and that police violence against Black people was a result of a “disproportionate crime problem” in the Black community.He told the rightwing GB News that the UK was a “husk” of its former self and needed to “get its mojo back”. The perception among US conservatives, he said, was that “this is increasingly a conquered country … We love this country from afar, and we’re really sad about what’s happening to it, and what has happened to it”.On his first show after returning to the US, Kirk described the UK as a “totalitarian third world hellhole”, adding: “It’s tragic. I don’t say that with glib, I don’t say that with delight. It is sad. It’s chilling and it’s depressing.”He claimed he had seen a cafe in which “every single table was taken by a Mohammedan and a fully burqa-wearing woman – not a single native Brit” and that people were being arrested for online posts that displayed no apparent harmful intent.“They invented free speech,” he said. “Now there’s so much wrong with that country and it is not worthy of making fun of. I mean, you can have some laughs and some comedy, but it is depressing. It is dark.”View image in fullscreenWhile he was fond of referencing Europe in his shows, Kirk’s only other recent public visit there appears to have been a trip to Greenland in January in the company of Donald Trump Jr.He said afterwards that Greenlanders should be allowed to “use personal autonomy and agency to disconnect from their Danish masters”, then have “the opportunity to be part of the US, no different than either Puerto Rico or Guam” (two self-governing “unincorporated territories” of the US) in order to be “wealthier, richer … and protected”.Kirk was also sharply critical of many countries in his videos and podcasts. “France has basically become a joke, for a lot of reasons,” he said last year, amid widespread French protests over pension changes. “What’s happening in France should serve as a warning to America.”After JD Vance attacked Europe for alleged free speech shortcomings this year, Kirk hit out at Germany. “Germans are a bunch of troublemakers,” he said. “German prosecutors say someone can be locked up if they insult someone online. Free speech is not a German value. Totalitarianism is a German value.”He was a vocal supporter of Trump’s China-focused policies, backing the president’s attacks on Harvard University in April, and the punishing trade war with Beijing.In April, he claimed Harvard had “raked in” more than $100m from China. “We need to ask serious questions in this country about whether we can trust our elite universities to put America first when so much money is flowing to them from America’s number one rival.”The same month, he told Fox News the US had become “a glorified vassal state” subservient to the Chinese Communist party, by relying on China for rare earth minerals. He said the CCP wanted to create “lots of little colonies all around the world through the belt and road initiative”.He also waded into the complicated waters of cross-strait relations. In April, Kirk told his podcast he had “a soft spot for the people of Taiwan”, but also showed a limited understanding of its history and the complexities of the dispute.“I would say, sadly if we took Taiwan, it would probably start a nuclear war. Our leaders have largely mishandled China. We probably should have taken it in 1950 right after world war two,” he said.There has never been any discussion of the US “taking” Taiwan. The US is Taiwan’s most important backer, providing billions of dollars in weapons and some military training, and has not ruled out coming to its defence in the event of a Chinese attack or invasion.In a video in May, Kirk used the escalating hostilities between India and Pakistan to push his argument against US military intervention abroad. Describing Pakistan as a “very, very sneaky actor”, Kirk was emphatic that “very simply, this is not our war … This is a great test of whether every great conflict is America’s problem”.Kirk was equally dogmatic on the issue of Indians being granted more visas as part of a US-India trade deal, accusing Indians of taking American jobs.“America does not need more visas for people from India,” he said. “Perhaps no form of legal immigration has so displaced American workers as those from India. Enough already. We’re full. Let’s finally put our own people first.” More

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    Leaked Ice document shows worker detained in Hyundai raid had valid visa

    At least one of the Korean workers swept up in a massive immigration raid on a Hyundai Motor factory site in Georgia last week was living and working legally in the US, according to an internal federal government document obtained by the Guardian.Officials then “mandated” that he agree to be removed from the US despite not having violated his visa.The document shows that immigration officials are aware that someone with a valid visa was among the people arrested during the raid at the Hyundai factory and taken to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) detention for removal proceedings, where the people arrested remained on Tuesday before expected deportation flights back to South Korea.The document in question reports on the man’s case and was leaked exclusively to the Guardian. It was written by an Ice agent. The Guardian is redacting the identity of the man in question, who arrived in the US in June, because it has not been possible to reach him directly and it is unclear whether he has any legal representation.The document says that immigration agents from Atlanta “determined that [redacted] entered into the United States in [redacted], with a valid B1/B2 visa and [redacted] was employed at HL-GA Battery Company LLC as a contractor from the South Korean company SFA. From statements made and queries in law enforcement databases, [redacted] has not violated his visa; however, the Atlanta Field Office Director has mandated [redacted] be presented as a Voluntary Departure. [Redacted] has accepted voluntary departure despite not violating his B1/B2 visa requirements.”The internal file describes “an actual crime”, according to Charles Kuck, an immigration attorney based in Georgia – but with the crime allegedly being committed by the government, not the immigrant in question. Kuck, who is representing a number of people arrested during last week’s raid, said it is illegal to detain a valid visa holder in this way.“This is outrageous,” Kuck said.The document contradicts claims by the agency that all 475 people arrested during the raid were working illegally or violating their visas. Attorneys scrambling in recent days to provide representation to the men detained had already claimed that immigrants with a valid working status were swept up alongside the people allegedly working unlawfully, and placed in removal proceedings. That view was backed up by an agency official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive government matters.It is not yet clear whether other people with valid visas were detained in the raid, nor how many were actually alleged to be working illegally at the factory.Approximately 300 people arrested could be put on flights back to South Korea as early as Wednesday, according to one source familiar with events who requested anonymity to speak about what is going on behind the scenes. Non-Koreans arrested during the operation are expected to remain in Ice detention.Last Thursday, Ice led a raid at the Hyundai battery factory under construction in Ellabell, near Savannah, Georgia, and arrested nearly 500 people, the majority of whom were from South Korea, part of a $12.6bn investment program in Georgia by the company. Construction had to be halted on the plant that is designed to supply batteries for electric vehicles.A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the federal parent agency of Ice, said in a statement to the Guardian that: “This individual admitted to unauthorized work on a B1/B2 visa. He was offered voluntary departure and accepted it,” despite this being the opposite of what the leaked document says. When pressed for further clarification, DHS reiterated its first statement. Ice did not respond to a request for comment about legal workers being arrested.“This is a clear violation of the law in detaining somebody who is not lawfully detainable,” Kuck said. “That’s a crime – that’s unlawful imprisonment in the United States. This isn’t an accident. People go to prison for stuff like this.”According to the file written by an agent with Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), an agency within Ice, the man entered the US “with a valid B1/B2 visa”, which allows for some business-related activities and tourism. He was at the Hyundai factory as a contractor with a South Korean company.“‘ Voluntarily’ means something different in immigration than it does in the real world,” Kuck said. “When you basically leave under Ice custody, then you have immigration consequences that come with that, including the loss of visa and possibly an inability to return [to the US].”After the raid, additional Ice officers and agents were sent to the detention facility to process the sheer number of people arrested, according to the agency official who spoke to the Guardian.Although officials say that the people arrested were in some violation of immigration laws, many others with valid legal status were offered voluntary departure, the official claimed. The official added that it is unclear what will happen with any legal immigrants who refuse to be deported voluntarily, since there is “no legal mechanism to remove them if they are not in violation” of US civil immigration laws. There is no suggestion that the Korean man in question has a criminal record in the US.“The arrest itself is illegal and this just might be a way of pushing up [arrest] numbers and covering up mistakes,” the official added.The raid angered the South Korean government, which announced billions of dollars of investment in the US following a new trade deal between the countries. On Sunday, the South Korean and US governments negotiated a deal to take the arrested workers home.“These workers were put in incredibly vulnerable positions,” said Samantha Hamilton, a litigation attorney with Asian Americans Advancing Justice-Atlanta. She emphasized that the men have ended up imperiled simply by taking up the opportunity of work on what was an ambitious international project.DHS and Ice did not respond to requests for comment on allegations that they are pressuring the detainees to agree to be deported. More

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    Trump says he wants to meet with Kim Jong-un as South Korea’s Lee Jae Myung visits US

    Donald Trump said on Monday he wanted to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and that he was open to further trade talks with South Korea even as he lobbed new criticisms at the visiting Asian ally.South Korea’s new president, Lee Jae Myung, arrived for talks just after the US president criticized the South Korean government, apparently over its handling of investigations related to his conservative predecessor’s December attempt to impose martial law.The remarks cast a dark mood over high-stakes talks for Lee, who took office in June after a snap election that followed Yoon Suk Yeol’s impeachment and removal.Welcoming Lee to the White House’s Oval Office, Trump said he was open to negotiating aspects of the US-South Korean trade deal and to meeting Kim.“I’d like to have a meeting,” Trump told reporters. “I look forward to meeting with Kim Jong-un in the appropriate future.“Trump and Lee held their first meeting in tense circumstances. The US president lodged vague complaints about a “purge or revolution” in South Korea on social media before later walking the comments back as a likely “misunderstanding” between the allies.Despite clinching a trade deal in July that spared South Korean exports harsher US tariffs, the two sides continue to wrangle over nuclear energy, military spending and details of a trade deal that included $350bn in promised South Korean investments in the United States.North Korea’s rhetoric has ramped up, with Kim pledging to speed his nuclear program and condemning joint US-South Korea military drills. Over the weekend, Kim supervised the test firing of new air defense systems.Since Trump’s January inauguration, Kim has ignored Trump’s repeated calls to revive the direct diplomacy he pursued during his 2017-2021 term in office, which produced no deal to halt North Korea’s nuclear program. In the Oval Office, Lee avoided the theatrical confrontations that dominated a February visit by Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the Ukrainian president, and a May visit from Cyril Ramaphosa, the South African president.Lee, deploying a well-worn strategy by foreign visitors to the Trump White House, talked golf and lavished praise on the Republican president’s interior decorating and peacemaking. He told reporters earlier that he had read the president’s 1987 memoir, Trump: The Art of the Deal, to prepare.As the leaders met, the liberal South Korean encouraged Trump to engage with North Korea.“I hope you can bring peace to the Korean Peninsula, the only divided nation in the world, so that you can meet with Kim Jong-un, build a Trump World [real-estate complex] in North Korea so that I can play golf there, and so that you can truly play a role as a world-historical peacemaker,” Lee said, speaking in Korean.South Korea’s economy relies heavily on the US, with Washington underwriting its security with troops and nuclear deterrence. Trump has called Seoul a “money machine” that takes advantage of American military protection. More

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    Hwang Sok-Yong: In South Korea, Young People Are Resisting Authoritarianism

    In South Korea, the collective memory of a pro-democracy uprising inspires a new generation to resist authoritarianism.This personal reflection is part of a series called The Big Ideas, in which writers respond to a single question: What is history? You can read more by visiting The Big Ideas series page.Modernity is born from the struggle between remembering and forgetting, and South Koreans on all sides of the political spectrum have learned from our shared history.That history includes the Gwangju uprising, a 10-day mass protest that occurred shortly after the 1979 assassination of President Park Chung-hee, who ruled South Korea for 18 years as a military dictator.Taking advantage of the power vacuum, Chun Doo-hwan, an army general, staged a coup and quickly began laying the groundwork for a new dictatorship. In May 1980, he declared martial law, and the citizens of Gwangju rose up in opposition to this continuation of military rule.The military responded with lethal force, indiscriminately killing citizens regardless of their involvement in the protest. Despite this, Gwangju became a watershed moment in the fight for Korean democracy.“We know that we cannot defeat such a powerful army. But to end the resistance now would render meaningless all the blood shed by our fellow citizens. We must defend the provincial office to our deaths. That’s the only way for us to be remembered by future generations and for the resistance to be complete.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Stocks Jump in Asia After Trump’s Tariff Reprieve

    Markets in Japan, South Korea and Taiwan soar after the U.S. president pauses punishing tariffs. Gains in mainland China were modest as trade hostilities heat up between Washington and Beijing.Following President Trump’s decision to pause punishing tariffs on dozens of countries, markets in Asia reacted predictably: Stocks soared in the countries that were spared.In early trading on Thursday, benchmark indexes rose more than 9 percent in Taiwan, 8 percent in Japan and 5 percent in South Korea. All three Asian economies were among the U.S. trading partners given a 90-day reprieve from Mr. Trump’s so-called reciprocal tariffs.While the U.S. allies won’t immediately face the 24 percent to 32 percent tariffs the Trump Administration had previously threatened, they will still be subject to a lower rate of 10 percent. That comes on top of 25 percent tariffs that Mr. Trump has imposed on goods including cars — a particular sore point for big auto exporters Japan and South Korea.In the United States, the reversal by Mr. Trump on Wednesday sparked the biggest one-day rally of the S&P 500 since October 2008, when stocks soared as investors anticipated central bank rate cuts in the wake of the global financial crisis.Huge Gains and Losses in One WeekModest gains or losses are the most common outcomes on S&P 500 trading days. But since last Thursday the index has had two steep drops and one of its biggest gains since 2000. More

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    Another Rocky Day in Markets: Stocks in Asia Resume Their Slide

    With the S&P 500 nearing a bear market, shares in Asia decline as China and other major U.S. trading partners await the start of significantly higher tariffs.Market turmoil extended into Wednesday’s trading session in Asia, as stocks across the region faced renewed downward pressure amid the impending imposition of significantly higher taxes on imports to the United States.Benchmark indexes in Japan and Hong Kong opened down more than 3 percent on Wednesday morning, following a day on Wall Street when stocks whipsawed. The S&P 500 ended near a bear market, which is a 20 percent drop from a recent peak — a symbolic, and relatively rare and worrisome threshold for investors.Stocks slumped across Asia in early trading on Wednesday. The declines were less pronounced in mainland China, South Korea and Taiwan, where indexes fell between around 1 and 2 percent.President Trump uprooted investors last week with the announcement of tariffs on countries across the world. Significantly higher American import taxes on goods from dozens of other countries were set to take effect at 12:01 a.m. ET on Wednesday.After Tuesday’s drop, the S&P 500 closed 18.9 percent below its mid-February record, having plunged more than 12 percent just in the days since Mr. Trump announced his new tariffs. S&P 500 futures, which let investors bet on the direction of the index when it resumes trading in New York, were about 1 percent lower.Administration officials appeared to leave the door open for negotiations that could ultimately defuse the trade war, citing the fact that dozens of countries had approached the U.S. government in recent days to strike deals. But White House officials have sought to set a high bar for what the president is willing to accept, marking a shift in tone after Mr. Trump and his aides initially signaled they would not haggle over tariffs at all.“If they come to us with really great deals that advantage American manufacturing and American farmers, I’m sure he’ll listen,” Kevin Hassett, the director of the White House National Economic Council, said in an interview on Fox News.But, he added, “after decades and decades of mistreating American workers, it’s going to be tough to get him to decide to really come to the table and sign on the dotted line.”Since Mr. Trump’s announcement last week of new tariffs, including a base tax of 10 percent on virtually all American imports, countries have responded with tariffs of their own on U.S. goods, or with threats of retaliation.China, the world’s second-largest economy, retaliated with 34 percent tariffs on American goods that are set to take effect at noon ET on Wednesday.Earlier this week, Japan emerged as the first major economy to secure priority tariff negotiations with the Trump administration. The news triggered a brief surge in Tokyo-listed stocks before they resumed their decline on Wednesday. More

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    Pilots Discussed Alternate Ways to Land Before Deadly Jeju Air Crash

    The pilots’ conversation with air traffic controllers, revealed in a partial transcript, could offer clues to what caused the disaster in South Korea, which killed 179 people.The pilots of Jeju Air Flight 2216 signaled three different plans for landing the stricken plane in the minutes before it crashed and killed 179 people in December, according to a partial transcript of their communication with air traffic controllers obtained by The New York Times.The transcript shows that the pilots reported a bird strike and radioed a mayday call as they approached Muan International Airport in South Korea on the morning of Dec. 29. They said they would turn left, then asked to turn right, intending to approach the airport’s sole runway from the south. When that failed, air traffic controllers asked if they wanted to land from the opposite direction, and the pilots said yes.The plane landed on its belly, overran the runway and struck a concrete structure that housed navigation aids, bursting into a deadly fireball. Only two people — flight attendants at the very back of the plane, a Boeing 737-800 — survived.The cause of the disaster, the deadliest plane crash on South Korean soil, is still being investigated, and the exchange between the pilots and the control tower could be a crucial piece of the puzzle. That is because it covers a period of about four minutes during which both of the plane’s flight recorders, known as black boxes, had stopped recording.The transcript includes no information about the state of the jet’s two engines or its electrical supply, which are intense areas of focus for investigators. It is still unclear why the black boxes went dark or why the plane’s landing gear was not engaged.The transcript was read out on Saturday to relatives of the victims by a representative of a board that was set up to investigate the crash. The official told them that the readout excluded parts of the conversation to protect the privacy of its participants, according to people who shared it with The Times. Officials have not publicly released the transcript, and the board did not immediately respond to a request for comment.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Protesters Amass in Seoul Ahead of Court Ruling on South Korea’s Yoon

    The authorities in South Korea were expecting tens of thousands of protesters to descend on central Seoul on Friday as the nation’s Constitutional Court decides the fate of President Yoon Suk Yeol.At least 14,000 police had been deployed to the area around the court, closing subway stations and locking down an area near a former royal palace that is popular with tourists and home to major businesses. Drones have been banned from the area, and schools, vendors and businesses have been ordered to close.The first protests were set to start at 10 a.m. local time, ahead of a possible decision by the court that could come as early as 11 a.m. Mr. Yoon was not expected to attend the reading of the decision, which will determine whether he will be formally removed from office or returned to power.Millions of South Koreans have protested, mostly peacefully, since Mr. Yoon briefly declared martial law on Dec. 3, plunging the nation into political upheaval and prompting lawmakers to impeach him. Mr. Yoon was detained in January on insurrection charges but released unexpectedly last month after a Seoul court said his detention was procedurally flawed.Ahead of the Constitutional Court’s decision, which cannot be appealed, there have been growing worries that Mr. Yoon’s supporters will clash with those demanding he be removed from office. After his arrest in January, some of Mr. Yoon’s supporters overran a local court, breaking windows and threatening the judge hearing his case.The Constitutional Court with increased security on Thursday.Chang W. Lee/The New York TimesA supporter of President Yoon confronting police officers in Seoul, near the court on Thursday.Chang W. Lee/The New York TimesThe police have created a fortresslike environment outside the Constitutional Court, placing 15-foot-tall metal barriers on either side of the main avenue approaching the complex in an effort to keep the two camps from confronting each other. Between the added security gates, police have parked dozens of buses and put up smaller metal fences to deter people from occupying the area. The police response is not without precedent. In 2017, thousands of people tried to cross the police barricade near the court after it ruled that the president, Park Geun-hye, should be removed from office. At least four people died during the protests.On the eve of the Constitutional Court’s ruling this time, South Korea’s interim leader, Han Duck-soo, called on the nation to respect the decision “with calm.”“The government will not tolerate any illegal or violent acts,” he said on Wednesday, urging politicians not to incite violence. “This is a time to put the stability and fate of our community ahead of political interests.” More