Choi Won-suk is a photojournalist at The Korea Times. Before joining the newspaper, he also worked as a photojournalist with AFP and St. Joseph News-Press in Missouri. He spent 13 years in the United States, graduating with a Bachelor of Journalism degree (Cum Laude) from the University of Missouri - Columbia and a Master of Arts in Photography from Ohio University - Athens. Over the past 11 years, Choi covered various news events such as presidential elections, the 2019 North Korea-United States Hanoi Summit and 2022 Qatar World Cup. But above all, Choi believes in local journalism and finds a lot of joy telling life stories of ordinary citizens in small neighborhoods.
Japan denounces South Korean court decision as "unthinkable"
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said on Tuesday (October 30) that a South Korean court's order to a Japanese firm to compensate wartime forced laborers was "unthinkable," and the ruling overturned the legal basis for bilateral friendship since 1965.
South Korea's top court ruled on Tuesday Japan's Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal Corp. must compensate four South Koreans for their forced labor during World War Two.
Following the verdict, Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Kono summoned South Korean ambassador Lee Su-hoon. Kono told Lee that he hopes South Korean government will immediately and resolutely respond to the controversial matter.
Japan and South Korea share a bitter history that includes Japan's 35-year occupation of the Korean peninsula until 1945 and the use of comfort women, Japan's euphemism for girls and women, many of them Korean, forced to work in its wartime brothels. (Reuters)