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James Oaten

@jamesoaten.bsky.social

North Asia correspondent for Australian Broadcasting Corporation, based in Tokyo, covering Japan ๐Ÿ‡ฏ๐Ÿ‡ต+ Koreas ๐Ÿ‡ฐ๐Ÿ‡ท๐Ÿ‡ฐ๐Ÿ‡ต. Previously India ๐Ÿ‡ฎ๐Ÿ‡ณ for Sth Asia. Opinions = my own, not ABC, retweets โ‰  endorsements.

1,283 Followers  |  156 Following  |  71 Posts  |  Joined: 06.10.2023  |  1.6972

Latest posts by jamesoaten.bsky.social on Bluesky

South Korea's Prime Minister Han Duck Soo has had his impeachment overturned, meaning he'll get his job and powers back.

Of course the main event is whether the Constitutional Court does the same for President Yoon Suk Yeol -- verdict expected to be any day now.

en.yna.co.kr/view/AEN2025...

24.03.2025 01:14 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 0    ๐Ÿ” 1    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0    ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

If youโ€™re more of a visual person - hereโ€™s the television version, which includes an AI model of me.

(Visuals have that deepfake sheen, but the audio is scarily spot on.)

How those suffering grief are turnjng to AI ๐Ÿ‘‡

youtu.be/HnKw9WYTpkc?...

23.03.2025 00:57 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 2    ๐Ÿ” 0    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0    ๐Ÿ“Œ 0
Preview
'My heart became lighter': AI gave this grieving mum a final farewell As AI technology rapidly improves, some people in South Korea talk with computer-generated models of their dead loved ones to process grief and say goodbye.

โ€œAn unexpected healing of wounds.โ€

Using VR or AI to reanimate the dead may sound like a Black Mirror episode, but it is becoming increasingly real and convincing.

Can the tech help or hinder the grieving process?

My latest on โ€œgrief botsโ€ in South Korea ๐Ÿ‘‡

www.abc.net.au/news/2025-03...

22.03.2025 02:23 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 3    ๐Ÿ” 0    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0    ๐Ÿ“Œ 1
Preview
Young men are fuelling the rise of the 'White Skull Squad' in Korea Wearing symbolic white helmets and waving "Stop the Steal" flags, the young men of the "white skull squad" are back on the streets of South Korea and wanting the US to intervene in their country's dem...

With South Koreaโ€™s Constitutional Court soon to deliver impeachment verdict of President Yoon Suk Yeol, there are increasing concerns about possible unrest and violence.

Hereโ€™s my latest on the MAGA tactics deployed by his most hardened followers ๐Ÿ‘‡

www.abc.net.au/news/2025-03...

11.03.2025 08:11 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 1    ๐Ÿ” 3    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0    ๐Ÿ“Œ 0
How synchronised walking became a smash hit in Japan | ABC NEWS
YouTube video by ABC News (Australia) How synchronised walking became a smash hit in Japan | ABC NEWS

Amid this rather chaotic news cycle - hereโ€™s a nice little television yarn from me, showcasing Japanโ€™s famous synchronised walking. Enjoy!

youtu.be/lLtR03xjsko?...

11.02.2025 06:07 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 0    ๐Ÿ” 0    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0    ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

I was just there today!!
Steak and Shiraz - 10/10.

26.01.2025 06:54 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 3    ๐Ÿ” 0    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 1    ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

New Gallup Korea numbers are out, with a few interesting pieces of data. Mini-thread incoming.

17.01.2025 15:41 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 24    ๐Ÿ” 6    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 3    ๐Ÿ“Œ 0
Post image

Australian satire takes on Korean politics

16.01.2025 01:57 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 7    ๐Ÿ” 1    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0    ๐Ÿ“Œ 0
Post image Post image Post image

Couple of snaps from the protest too

16.01.2025 00:09 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 0    ๐Ÿ” 0    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0    ๐Ÿ“Œ 0
Preview
After a game of hide and seek, South Korea's president emerges defiant After a weeks-long game of hide and seek, South Korea's president Yoon Suk Yeol has finally emerged from the shadows. The saga has exposed the nation's political division.

Thereโ€™s a feeling among pro-Yoon supporters a communist sympathising deep state is out to get their leader.

Itโ€™s a calling card that would typically unite his older supporters, but there was a notable presence of 20 and 30 somethings at the protest too.

My latest ๐Ÿ‘‡

www.abc.net.au/news/2025-01...

16.01.2025 00:08 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 0    ๐Ÿ” 0    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 1    ๐Ÿ“Œ 1
Preview
[์†๋ณด] ๅฐน, 14์ผ ํ—Œ์žฌ ์ •์‹๋ณ€๋ก  ๋ถˆ์ถœ์„โ€ฆโ€œ์‹ ๋ณ€์•ˆ์ „ ๋“ฑ ์šฐ๋ คโ€ ์œค์„์—ด ๋Œ€ํ†ต๋ น์ด ์˜ค๋Š” 14์ผ ํ—Œ๋ฒ•์žฌํŒ์†Œ์˜ ํƒ„ํ•ต ์‹ฌํŒ ์ฒซ ๋ณ€๋ก ๊ธฐ์ผ์— ์ถœ์„ํ•˜์ง€ ์•Š์„ ๊ฒƒ์ด๋ผ๊ณ  ์œค ๋Œ€ํ†ต๋ น ์ธก ๋ณ€ํ˜ธ์ธ๋‹จ์ด 12์ผ ๋ฐํ˜”๋‹ค. ๋ณ€ํ˜ธ์ธ๋‹จ์€ โ€œ์‹ ๋ณ€ ๋ฌธ์ œ ์šฐ๋ คโ€๋ฅผ ๊ฑฐ๋ก ํ•˜๋ฉฐ โ€œ๊ฒฝํ˜ธ ๋ฌธ์ œ๊ฐ€ ํ•ด๊ฒฐ๋ผ์•ผ ์ถœ์„ํ•  ์ˆ˜ ์žˆ๋‹คโ€๋Š” ์ž…์žฅ์„ ์žฌ์ฐจ ์ „ํ–ˆ๋‹ค. ์•ž์„œ ์œค ๋Œ€ํ†ต๋ น ์ž…์žฅ์„ ๋Œ€์‹  ์ „ํ•˜๊ณ  ์žˆ๋Š” ์œค๊ฐ‘๊ทผ ๋ณ€ํ˜ธ์‚ฌ๋Š” 8์ผ ์˜คํ›„ ๊ธฐ์ž๋“ค์„ ๋งŒ๋‚˜ โ€œํ—Œ์žฌ ์žฌํŒ์— ์ถœ์„ํ•œ๋‹ค๋Š” ์˜์‚ฌ๋Š” ๋ณ€ํ•จ์ด

Just in: Yoon Suk Yeol's lawyer says he will be absent from the first hearing of his impeachment trial on Jan 14 out of "concerns about his personal safety".

12.01.2025 02:24 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 12    ๐Ÿ” 6    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0    ๐Ÿ“Œ 2

Update: S. Korea's transport ministry has revealed that both black boxes from the Jeju Air plane crash stopped recording approximately 4 minutes before the aircraft collided with a concrete structure, potentially complicating efforts to determine exact cause of crash. Reason remains unknown.

11.01.2025 06:00 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 28    ๐Ÿ” 8    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 2    ๐Ÿ“Œ 1

The 'stop the steal' is interesting -- according to @koreanforeigner.bsky.social

"Their hope is that Donald Trump will feel some sort of sympathy for Yoon and his supporters."

"They're hoping that their... images will appear in Fox News, which will eventually filter into Donald Trump's TV."

10.01.2025 01:07 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 2    ๐Ÿ” 0    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0    ๐Ÿ“Œ 0
Preview
The fortune teller who may be pulling the strings on Korea's wild political crisis South Koreans fearing the communist "wind from the north" back impeached president Yoon Suk Yeol, but he looks to shamans and mysticism to guide him into and through office.

Shamans, conspiracies, 'stop the steal'.

No, this isn't the MAGA movement.

These are the tactics of South Korea's impeached President Yoon Suk Yeol. It may be at odds with the mainstream public, but it seems to be helping Yoon... at least a bit.

My latest ๐Ÿ‘‡

www.abc.net.au/news/2025-01...

10.01.2025 01:04 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 2    ๐Ÿ” 0    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 1    ๐Ÿ“Œ 1

โ€œAnd why did the aircraft touch down so far down the runway that it had no chance of stopping before exited the runway?

And why was there a brick wall at the end of the runway?"

2/2

29.12.2024 22:49 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 0    ๐Ÿ” 0    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0    ๐Ÿ“Œ 0
Preview
Aviation expert says questions need answering after South Korea plane crash The Jeju Air crash on Sunday afternoon is South Korea's worst airline disaster in more than 30 years, with 179 of the 181 people on board dying.

"If they were going to make an emergency landing with the undercarriage up, why didn't the fire tenders lay foam on the runway?โ€

โ€œWhy weren't they in attendance when the plane touched down?โ€

Many questions from yesterdayโ€™s fatal Jeju plane crash in South Korea

1/2

www.abc.net.au/news/2024-12...

29.12.2024 22:49 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 0    ๐Ÿ” 0    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 1    ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

Firefighters EXPECT** all on board have died, except two rescued.

29.12.2024 04:18 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 0    ๐Ÿ” 0    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0    ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

A failed landing gear is believed to be reason for crash.

The aircraft abandoned its first landing attempt, and the second was a "belly landing" - so no landing gear. Bird strike suspected for fault.

Footage shows it skidding off the runway and exploding.

Fuselage destroyed.

29.12.2024 04:11 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 0    ๐Ÿ” 0    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0    ๐Ÿ“Œ 0
Preview
Live: Plane carrying 181 crashes in South Korea, at least 85 dead Authorities say the plane was attempting a crash landing due to a malfunctioning landing gear, when it veered off the runway and collided with a fence at Muan Airport. Follow live.

Firefighters except all on board Jeju aircraft, except two rescued, have died.

The aircraft was landing at Muan International Airport.

Live blog here:
www.abc.net.au/news/2024-12...

29.12.2024 04:11 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 0    ๐Ÿ” 2    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 1    ๐Ÿ“Œ 2

Death toll now at 62.

ABC running a live blog with all the latest:

www.abc.net.au/news/2024-12...

29.12.2024 03:19 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 2    ๐Ÿ” 1    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0    ๐Ÿ“Œ 1

Horrible news -- death toll from Muan International Airport plane crash now at 47, according to Yonhap.

The Jeju aircraft, returning from Bangkok, was attempting a crash landing due to a malfunctioning landing gear, authorities say.

29.12.2024 02:42 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 4    ๐Ÿ” 2    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0    ๐Ÿ“Œ 2

Opposition wants the full bench to effectively lower the bar for impeachment.

When the PM and acting President refused to approve the extra three judges, he was impeached too.

27.12.2024 08:11 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 3    ๐Ÿ” 0    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0    ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

Bit of extra detail....
There are six judges on Constitutional Court, which is hearing the matter of Yoon Suk Yeol's impeachment.
There are meant to be nine.
SO, the court would need a unanimous decision to uphold impeachment, instead of majority.

27.12.2024 08:11 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 4    ๐Ÿ” 1    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 2    ๐Ÿ“Œ 0
Preview
(2nd LD) Nat'l Assembly votes to impeach acting President Han | Yonhap News Agency (ATTN: UPDATES throughout with impeachment vote; CHANGES headline, photos)By Lee Haye-ah a...

South Korea has now impeached the acting President Han Duck-soo less than two weeks after he took over for President Yoon Suk Yeol.
en.yna.co.kr/view/AEN2024...

27.12.2024 07:50 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 16    ๐Ÿ” 1    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 1    ๐Ÿ“Œ 2

The charge is attempted murder, prosecutors seeking eight years jail.

23.12.2024 23:08 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 0    ๐Ÿ” 0    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0    ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

Prosecutors allege Yang Ping befriended Alex Shorey after her spouse died unexpectedly and was motivated by "a desire to satisfy her personal needs for control, jealousy, and revenge".

"He was at constant risk of massive bleeding from various parts of his body and could have died at any moment.โ€

23.12.2024 23:07 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 0    ๐Ÿ” 0    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 1    ๐Ÿ“Œ 0
Preview
Woman charged with attempted murder over Australian student's 2023 poisoning in Taiwan A woman in Taiwan is facing eight years jail after being charged with attempted murder for allegedly poisoning Brisbane university student, Alex Shorey, with rat poison

Extraordinary case from Taiwan:

Woman allegedly gave rat poison to her Australian friend because he was leaving the country early.

While in hospital, she allegedly continued to lace his food and drink with rat poison.

Now charges laid.

My latest.
www.abc.net.au/news/2024-12...

23.12.2024 23:06 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 11    ๐Ÿ” 3    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 1    ๐Ÿ“Œ 2
Preview
The rise and fall of Yoon Suk Yeol โ€” South Korea's impeached president South Korea's president Yoon Suk Yeol has been impeached in a historic vote, marking the end of a tremulous week since his desperate attempt to impose martial law spectacularly failed.

The elation in Seoul last night when President Yoon was impeached was comparable to a victorious penalty shootout in the FIFA World Cup.

A dramatic rise and fall for Yoon, from anti corruption crusader toโ€ฆ this mess.

My feature - feat. @joelatkinson.bsky.social

www.abc.net.au/news/2024-12...

14.12.2024 23:32 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 31    ๐Ÿ” 3    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0    ๐Ÿ“Œ 1

Yoon's impeachment proceeding to begin at 4pm local today. If it passes, it goes to the Constitutional Court, which must decide within 180 days whether to support or reject it. (The court plays the role of the U.S. Senate in the American presidential impeachment process.)

14.12.2024 02:43 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 137    ๐Ÿ” 41    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 3    ๐Ÿ“Œ 3
Preview
Yoon's approval rating sinks to all-time low of 11 pct: poll | Yonhap News Agency SEOUL, Dec. 13 (Yonhap) -- President Yoon Suk Yeol's approval rating fell to a record...

Yoon's approval rating has sunk to an all-time low of 11%, according to Gallup Korea.

13.12.2024 10:57 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 34    ๐Ÿ” 6    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 2    ๐Ÿ“Œ 6

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