Global Pulse

标签： Asia

亚洲

  • Death toll from extreme weather in Afghanistan increases to 110

    Death toll from extreme weather in Afghanistan increases to 110

    Twelve days of relentless extreme weather across Afghanistan has left a devastating trail of destruction, with the national disaster authority confirming Monday that the death toll from widespread flooding and landslides has climbed to at least 110. Authorities have also warned that more heavy precipitation is on the way, leaving the country bracing for further hardship.

    The prolonged storm system has impacted almost all of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces, with new casualties continuing to mount in the most recent 24-hour window: the Disaster Management Authority reported 11 additional deaths, six new injuries, and seven people unaccounted for, all swept away by surging floodwaters in separate incidents.

    When accounting for all fatalities from flooding, landslides and associated lightning strikes over the 12-day crisis period, the total casualty count stands at 110 dead and 160 injured. The damage to infrastructure and private property is equally staggering: 958 homes have been completely leveled, and a further 4,155 residences have sustained partial damage that leaves many uninhabitable. More than 325 kilometers (200 miles) of critical public roads have been destroyed, while widespread damage to commercial property, agricultural plots, irrigation canals and drinking water wells has disrupted the lives of 6,122 registered families to date. Disaster management officials stress these numbers remain preliminary, as assessments are still ongoing in hard-to-reach affected areas.

    Emergency response operations are already underway across hard-hit regions. In the western province of Herat, Afghanistan’s Defense Ministry confirmed Monday that military helicopter crews successfully airlifted two stranded residents to safety after floodwaters cut off their escape route.

    Two of the country’s major arterial highways have been closed for days due to landslide and flood damage, forcing thousands of travelers to take lengthy, unplanned detours. The critical Kabul-Jalalabad highway, which connects the national capital to the Pakistani border and Afghanistan’s eastern provinces, has been shut since last Thursday. A second key route, running from Jalalabad city northeast to Kunar and Nuristan provinces, was closed Sunday by falling rock debris from unstable hillsides damaged by heavy rain.

    In anticipation of continued severe weather, national authorities have issued widespread flood warnings for Tuesday across nearly the entire country, urging residents to avoid low-lying river valleys and areas historically prone to flash flooding.

    This latest extreme weather event comes on the heels of multiple deadly climate disasters in Afghanistan already this year. Earlier in 2025, heavy snowfall followed by sudden flash floods killed dozens of people across the country. Afghanistan is annually at high risk of seasonal flood events, as spring melting and heavy rainfall often trigger sudden deadly flash floods on steep, deforested terrain that can kill scores or even hundreds of people in a single event. In 2024 alone, spring flash floods claimed more than 300 lives across the nation.

  • Thirteen monks earn top Tibetan Buddhist degree in Lhasa

    Thirteen monks earn top Tibetan Buddhist degree in Lhasa

    On a Sunday in early April 2026, 13 Buddhist monks successfully completed the rigorous annual sutra debate ceremony held at Lhasa’s iconic Jokhang Temple, walking away with the Geshe Lharampa degree—the highest academic honor conferred by the Geluk School of Tibetan Buddhism. Widely recognized as equivalent to a doctoral degree in modern academic systems, the Geshe Lharampa title represents the pinnacle of scholarly achievement for Tibetan Buddhist monastics, requiring decades of rigorous study, deep doctrinal understanding, and advanced skill in the traditional practice of dialectical debate. Each year, candidates gather at Jokhang Temple to defend their interpretations of core Buddhist scriptures through structured, dynamic debates, demonstrating their mastery of centuries-old religious teachings to a panel of senior examiners. The 13 newly accredited degree holders hail from Geluk School monasteries across five regions of the Xizang Autonomous Region: Shigatse, Lhokha, Chamdo, Nagchu, and Lhasa itself. This centuries-old tradition of recognizing advanced religious scholarship has been sustained in modern times, with the total number of monks awarded the prestigious Geshe Lharampa degree now reaching 215. The annual ceremony not only upholds the longstanding academic and religious traditions of Tibetan Buddhism but also reflects the ongoing preservation of regional cultural and religious heritage in the Xizang Autonomous Region.

  • Living history in the heart of Beijing

    Living history in the heart of Beijing

    Beneath the soft glow of Beijing’s morning sun, the weathered gray walls of Dajixiang’s traditional courtyards glow with quiet warmth. Tucked into the core of the city’s historic Xuannan district — a neighborhood that has carried the traces of Beijing’s cultural evolution for more than 800 years — this newly revitalized multifunctional complex stands as a living bridge between China’s distant past and its dynamic present.

    Wandering through the neighborhood’s winding narrow lanes, visitors encounter snapshots of everyday life that feel both timeless and utterly contemporary. In one shaded quiet corner, an elderly resident hunches over a hand-carved wooden chessboard, his brow furrowed as he plots his next move, while his opponent lets out a low, amused chuckle after a particularly clever gambit. A few steps away, doting grandparents walk slowly beside a wobbly toddler, guiding her as she takes her first unsteady steps into the world. Further along the lane, a local resident strolls at a relaxed pace, his golden retriever pulling eagerly at the leash, nose working overtime to sniff out every interesting scent along the path. Each small, unscripted moment weaves together to form a vibrant, living tapestry, proving that history here is not locked away in glass museum cases — it is part of daily life, where the past and present coexist without friction.

    At the heart of the complex, one carefully restored courtyard holds the former residence of Kang Youwei, the prominent reformer from China’s late Qing Dynasty (1644–1912). Kang was one of the masterminds behind the Hundred Days’ Reform of 1898, a landmark movement that sought to modernize China through political and institutional change. Standing surrounded by sleek, contemporary office buildings, the traditional Qing-era residence is a striking visual contrast, and a permanent reminder of Xuannan’s extraordinary layered history. Long before modern development reached central Beijing, Xuannan earned a reputation as a thriving cultural gathering hub, home to leading scholars, radical intellectuals, and revolutionary thinkers who shaped the course of modern Chinese history. Today, that centuries-old legacy endures, giving locals and tourists alike a tangible connection to the profound transformations that built the China we know.

  • China overtakes US in R&D, but genesis spark still lags

    China overtakes US in R&D, but genesis spark still lags

    For decades, experts have predicted the moment would come, and 2024 has delivered a historic shift in global research and development. Fresh data from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) confirms China’s total annual R&D investment reached $1.03 trillion this year, edging past the United States’ $1.01 trillion to claim the top spot globally for the first time in recorded history.

    This milestone was far from an unexpected surprise. After 20 consecutive years of double-digit annual growth in R&D outlays, the question facing analysts was never if China would surpass the U.S. in total spending, but when. Now that the symbolic threshold has been crossed, however, the critical conversation shifts to what this shift actually means for global science and innovation — and the answer is far more nuanced than many sensational headlines suggest.

    The headline figures are indeed striking on their own. Since 2004, China’s R&D spending has expanded at an average annual rate of more than 14%, pushing its R&D intensity (the share of GDP dedicated to research) to 2.7%, a figure that now approaches the average for advanced OECD member economies. Looking ahead, Beijing has locked in plans to grow national science budgets by 7% annually over the next five years, with a planned 16.3% jump in central government funding for basic research set for 2026 alone.

    Beyond funding, China has built up its human capital pipeline at an unprecedented pace. Its universities now graduate twice as many students with science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) degrees as U.S. institutions. In 2022 alone, Chinese universities awarded more than 53,000 doctoral degrees in STEM fields, compared to fewer than 45,000 awarded across the United States. This growing talent base has translated directly to measurable research output: on the 2025 Nature Index, which tracks high-impact publications in the world’s leading peer-reviewed science journals, nine of the top 10 global research institutions are now Chinese, up from just one a decade earlier in 2016.

    Industry analysts have also noted China’s growing edge in strategically critical technology research. A 2025 report from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute found that China now leads the world in high-quality research across 66 of 74 prioritized strategic technologies. Even global pharmaceutical leaders have acknowledged China’s unique efficiency in advancing research: Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla recently noted that R&D work in China typically moves at “three times the speed, half the cost” of comparable projects in Western markets.

    Still, experts warn against jumping to conclusions about a shift in global scientific hegemony just yet. Historical context offers important perspective: at the height of the Cold War, the Soviet Union claimed the world’s largest scientific workforce, yet it ultimately could not match the pace of innovation driven by the United States’ more open, decentralized research ecosystem.

    Total spending and publication counts are key inputs, not final measures of success. The true test of scientific leadership lies in whether research delivers groundbreaking theoretical insights, transformative commercial technologies, and tangible benefits to global society — and on these metrics, the global landscape remains far more complex.

    China has already established clear leadership in several applied research domains, including electric vehicles, advanced energy storage, solar photovoltaic technology, 5G and next-generation wireless telecommunications, and humanoid robotics. Its domestic pharmaceutical sector is also rapidly narrowing the innovation gap with Western industry leaders. But when it comes to foundational, paradigm-shifting discovery, gaps remain. For context, just one Chinese scientist has won a Nobel Prize in a scientific field for research conducted entirely within mainland China. While China’s share of the world’s most highly cited, influential research is growing rapidly, the U.S. still retains a leading edge in the proportion of research that falls into the highest tier of global impact.

    These differences are not contradictions, but rather natural markers of a research ecosystem that is maturing at extraordinary speed but has not yet fully reached its full potential. What receives too little attention in most coverage of this milestone is the systemic difference between the two nations’ approaches to supporting science. Research does not thrive in a vacuum; it grows strongest in ecosystems built on openness, talent mobility, intellectual freedom, and long-term patient capital.

    The U.S. built its post-war scientific dominance not only through heavy public and private investment, but by creating an ecosystem that attracted global talent: merit-based funding allocation, world-class research universities, and an immigration system that for decades drew the brightest scientific minds from every corner of the globe. Over the past 25 years, 40% of U.S.-based Nobel laureates in the sciences have been immigrants, and immigrants have founded more than half of all billion-dollar technology startups in the country.

    China’s innovation model follows a different structure: it is centrally coordinated, strategically targeted at priority sectors, and disciplined in execution. This approach has proven extraordinarily effective at scaling proven technologies and closing historical development gaps. What remains unproven is whether this model can equally support the serendipitous, often inefficient process of fundamental discovery that produces true paradigm-shifting breakthroughs. Centuries of scientific progress have shown that the relationship between state direction and scientific creativity is not linear; excessive centralized control can limit innovation just as severely as insufficient funding.

    Instead of framing this shift as a binary race where one nation wins and another loses, a more productive framing is to recognize that global R&D is not a zero-sum enterprise. When Chinese chemists advance next-generation battery technology or Chinese engineers pioneer low-cost solar manufacturing, the entire world benefits from lower carbon emissions and more affordable clean energy — just as the entire globe gained from the U.S.-led development of mRNA vaccine technology that saved millions of lives during the COVID-19 pandemic.

    The real global risk is not that one nation invests more in research than another, but that growing geopolitical rivalry will push both sides to erect new barriers to knowledge sharing, restrict cross-border talent flows, and prioritize political goals over scientific merit. This milestone should push policymakers on both sides to engage in honest self-assessment, not reach for alarmist rhetoric.

    No matter what a single annual spending ranking shows, the nations that will prosper in the long run are those that invest consistently in basic research, cultivate STEM and research talent, protect academic freedom, and remain open to international collaboration. Nations that treat science primarily as a tool for geopolitical competition may end up leading the spending metric, while losing sight of what makes scientific progress possible.

    China’s surpassing of the U.S. in total R&D spending is a critical data point, not a final verdict on global scientific leadership. The full story of this shift is still being written, in laboratories, lecture halls, and policy offices across every continent. As scientific capacity becomes more broadly distributed across the globe, middle powers and regional innovation hubs across Asia and beyond have new room to shape the next era of global progress through targeted specialization, collaborative research, and strategic investment.

    A more multipolar global research ecosystem could ultimately prove more resilient and more inventive than the unipolar system that dominated the late 20th century — provided it remains open enough for ideas and talent to cross borders even as nations compete. The wisest response to this milestone is neither panic nor complacency, but a recommitment to the core conditions that enable great science. Those conditions have never been the exclusive property of any single nation, and they never will be.

    This analysis is by Y. Tony Yang, an Endowed Professor at the George Washington University in Washington, D.C.

  • XMU at 105: Honoring the past, inspiring the future

    XMU at 105: Honoring the past, inspiring the future

    In 1921, a visionary patriotic overseas Chinese leader, Tan Kah Kee, made history by establishing Xiamen University (XMU) – the first institution of modern higher education in China founded by an overseas Chinese philanthropist. One hundred and five years later, in 2026, the prestigious institution is marking its historic milestone, reflecting on a century of progress while pushing forward with its ambitious goal of rising as a leading world-class university.

    To honor this landmark occasion, the university has launched a series of celebratory activities centered on connecting its past, present, and global community. XMU’s beloved official mascots, Xiao Bai and Xiao Xia, embarked on a nostalgic and celebratory tour that spanned the university’s three domestic campuses in Xiamen and extended all the way to its overseas campus in Malaysia. Along the journey, the mascots revisited iconic locations that hold decades of institutional memory, bringing together generations of students, faculty, and alumni around shared experiences and institutional pride.

    A companion video released for the anniversary captures heartfelt moments from the global XMU community, where graduates gathered beneath the sprawling branches of blooming royal poinciana trees – a botanical symbol long tied to XMU’s identity, representing youthful vitality and the joy of reunion after years apart. In these moments, alumni from across the globe shared their warm well-wishes for the university’s next chapter, reflecting on the foundational impact their time at XMU had on their personal and professional lives.

    Throughout its 105-year history, Xiamen University has stayed rooted in the patriotic spirit of its founder, expanding its academic influence, global outreach, and research capacity to become one of China’s most respected comprehensive higher education institutions. As it enters its 106th year of operation, the anniversary celebration serves as both a tribute to the legacy that built the institution and a source of inspiration for the next generation of scholars and leaders who will carry its mission forward.

  • Cross-Strait ferry routes see thousands of Taiwan compatriots return to ancestral homes

    Cross-Strait ferry routes see thousands of Taiwan compatriots return to ancestral homes

    As the Qingming Festival, a traditional Chinese occasion for ancestor veneration and family reunion, approaches this year, cross-Strait ferry routes have recorded a sharp uptick in passenger traffic, with thousands of Taiwan compatriots journeying back to their ancestral hometowns on the Chinese mainland to pay respects at ancestral tombs and reconnect with their family roots.

    Official data from the Fujian Maritime Safety Administration shows that on April 4, the four established “Mini Three Links” routes — which deliver direct maritime connectivity between Fujian province’s coastal regions on the mainland and Taiwan-held Kinmen and Matsu islands — handled 6,655 passenger trips, marking a 22.5% year-on-year increase.

    The busiest of these routes, the Xiamen-Kinmen corridor, which is widely favored for its short travel times, frequent sailings and affordable fares, accommodated nearly 6,000 cross-Strait travelers on that single Saturday, with Taiwan compatriots making up more than 70% of that total. Local border inspection authorities project that the total passenger volume for the Xiamen-Kinmen route across the three-day Qingming holiday will climb to almost 20,000.

    For many Taiwan families, this annual journey is far more than a seasonal trip: it is a centuries-old tradition meant to pass down collective identity to younger generations. Li Yung-hung, a Taiwan compatriot who traveled to Xiamen via the ferry route this holiday, emphasized that her family has upheld this practice for generations, noting that the trip teaches younger family members that their cultural and ancestral roots are firmly planted on the mainland.

    Chen Chin-lai, deputy head of Xiamen’s Gaoqi Border Inspection Station, pointed out that more than 80% of Taiwan compatriots can trace their ancestral origins back to Fujian. This annual wave of ancestral homecoming during Qingming, he explained, serves as a vivid, tangible reminder that people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait share the same cultural lineage and belong to one Chinese family.

    To support Taiwan compatriots in tracing their family histories, local institutions rolled out targeted support ahead of the holiday. On April 3, the China Museum for Fujian-Taiwan Kinship, in partnership with the Quanzhou Border Inspection Station, launched free genealogy matching services at a port in Nan’an, Quanzhou. Through a simple QR code scan, visiting Taiwan compatriots can register their requests for assistance to trace their family trees and locate ancestral villages.

    Since opening to the public in 2006, the museum has built a decades-long track record of supporting root-seeking efforts, having helped more than 300 Taiwan compatriots successfully identify and reconnect with their ancestral clans on the mainland over the past 20 years.

  • Tran Thanh Man elected Vietnam’s National Assembly chairman

    Tran Thanh Man elected Vietnam’s National Assembly chairman

    HANOI — In a key institutional step for Vietnam’s legislative branch, the country’s National Assembly formally elected Tran Thanh Man to the position of chairman on Monday, according to state sources. The election, which took place in the Vietnamese capital, marks a new leadership appointment for the country’s top lawmaking body. The announcement of the outcome was updated on April 6, 2026, confirming the result of the vote held by the legislative assembly. As the chairman of the National Assembly, Tran Thanh Man will lead the body’s legislative work, oversee its operational agenda, and fulfill the core constitutional responsibilities associated with the role. This leadership transition aligns with Vietnam’s established legislative governance procedures, bringing a new presiding officer to the national legislature that shapes the country’s policy and legal framework.

  • Taiwan youth surnamed Huang traces roots in Jiangxia

    Taiwan youth surnamed Huang traces roots in Jiangxia

    Cross-Strait people-to-people exchanges continue to strengthen bonds across the Taiwan Strait, as one young Taiwanese visitor recently discovered his deep ancestral connection to mainland China during a cultural trip to Hubei province. Twenty-year-old Huang Chao-jung, a young man from Taiwan with the family name Huang, joined a recent cross-Strait exchange gathering hosted in Wuhan, the capital of central China’s Hubei province, where he traveled to Jiangxia District — the historic ancestral homeland widely recognized as the original origin of all Chinese people with the Huang surname.

    For years, Huang had grown up hearing the well-known traditional saying that all individuals with the surname Huang trace their lineage back to Jiangxia. But the saying remained an abstract piece of family lore until he stepped onto the soil of Jiangxia District himself. Standing in the region that has held this ancestral significance for countless Huang families across generations, Huang said he finally felt the tangible meaning of the tradition. He described an overwhelming sense of belonging and connection that he had not experienced before, saying the trip allowed him to complete a meaningful journey to trace his family’s roots.

    This root-tracing trip is part of a broader wave of cross-Strait cultural exchanges that have brought growing numbers of young people from Taiwan to the Chinese mainland to explore their family histories, connect with long-distant relatives, and build personal ties with communities on the other side of the Taiwan Strait. For many young Taiwanese participants, these trips do more than teach them about family history: they create personal, emotional connections that reinforce the shared cultural and ancestral heritage that unites people across the Strait.

  • Emergency jabs after 100 children die of suspected measles in a month in Bangladesh

    Emergency jabs after 100 children die of suspected measles in a month in Bangladesh

    A devastating measles outbreak sweeping across Bangladesh has claimed more than 100 lives, the vast majority of them young children, since mid-March, prompting public health authorities to roll out an urgent mass vaccination campaign targeting the nation’s most vulnerable youth. Officials fear this outbreak could become the deadliest wave of the highly contagious airborne disease the country has seen in recent decades.

    Official data from Bangladesh’s Ministry of Health confirms that more than 7,500 suspected measles cases have been recorded since 15 March, with over 900 of those cases already laboratory-confirmed. Local media reports highlight just how dramatic this surge is: in all of 2025, Bangladesh recorded only 125 total confirmed measles cases.

    For decades, Bangladesh has run routine childhood immunization programs to protect against measles, but this sudden outbreak has laid bare critical gaps in the country’s vaccination infrastructure that have sparked widespread alarm among global and local public health experts.

    “Vaccines are foundational to child survival,” Rana Flowers, UNICEF’s representative in Bangladesh, said in an official statement released Sunday. “The current measles outbreak is putting thousands of children, especially the youngest and most vulnerable, at serious risk.”

    Under Bangladesh’s standard public health protocols, routine measles vaccination is administered to infants at nine months of age. But Shahriar Sajjad, deputy director of Bangladesh’s Health Department, told BBC Bangla that roughly one-third of all infected patients in the current outbreak are younger than nine months old – putting them outside the age eligibility for standard immunization before they were exposed.

    Flowers noted that infections among these too-young infants are “especially alarming” given their weaker immune systems and higher risk of life-threatening complications.

    Beyond routine annual vaccinations, Bangladesh has historically held targeted mass measles vaccination campaigns every four years to boost coverage and close immunity gaps. But those scheduled campaigns have been derailed by successive crises since 2020. Sajjad told BBC Bangla that the first disruption came from the global COVID-19 pandemic, followed by widespread domestic political unrest that delayed planning and execution.

    Bangladesh saw major political upheaval in 2024, when large-scale anti-government protests led to the ousting of long-serving prime minister Sheikh Hasina. An interim caretaker government governed the country until a new administration was elected in February 2026, creating months of political and administrative uncertainty that disrupted public health programming. A planned mass vaccination campaign that was scheduled for April 2026 never launched, Sajjad confirmed.

    The English-language Bangladeshi newspaper *Daily Star* also reported that procurement challenges have led to widespread shortages of routine vaccines, including measles doses, across the country. Many political observers and local stakeholders have blamed the former interim government, which oversaw the rollout of a new vaccine procurement system, for the current supply shortfalls. But UNICEF pushed back on framing the crisis as the result of a single failure, noting that measles resurgences almost always stem from accumulated gaps in immunization coverage over time, rather than one isolated error.

    “Bangladesh has a strong history of high immunisation coverage, but even small disruptions can lead to the gradual accumulation of immunity gaps over time,” the organization explained in its statement.

    Working alongside global health partners UNICEF and the World Health Organization (WHO), Bangladesh’s new government has now launched an emergency vaccination campaign targeting both measles and rubella – a milder disease that shares similar symptomatic traits with measles. The campaign launched Sunday, and will roll out across 30 high-risk sub-districts (called upazilas) nationwide, aiming to reach more than 1.2 million children between the ages of six months and five years.

    UNICEF confirmed that the emergency drive will prioritize children who have previously missed routine immunization doses, who face the highest risk of severe illness and life-threatening complications from the virus. Special focus is being placed on two high-risk, densely populated areas: Dhaka, the overcrowded national capital, and Cox’s Bazar, which hosts massive, crowded camps for Rohingya refugees fleeing violence in neighboring Myanmar.

    Beyond the vaccination push, national health authorities are also launching public education campaigns, distributing informative infographics to teach communities how to identify early measles symptoms and prevent further spread. Measles spreads easily through airborne respiratory particles, and can cause severe neurological complications, organ damage, and death even in previously healthy children. Common early symptoms include high fever, red watery eyes, sore throat, cough, and sneezing.

    Global public health data underscores the ongoing threat of measles worldwide. According to the WHO, an estimated 95,000 people died from measles globally in 2024, more than 90% of whom were children under five years old. The disease is entirely preventable through safe, effective vaccination, but herd immunity requires a 95% population vaccination rate to stop sustained community transmission.

    Over the past 20 years, global public health efforts drove a dramatic decline in global measles cases and deaths: total annual cases fell from 38 million in 2000 to 11 million in 2024, a 71% drop. But the WHO has repeatedly warned of a growing global resurgence as routine vaccination coverage dropped following the COVID-19 pandemic. A 2026 report in the medical journal *The Lancet* found that 2024 and 2025 saw the highest number of national measles outbreaks recorded worldwide in more than 20 years.

    Outbreaks have surged across parts of Asia, Africa, Europe, the United States, and the United Kingdom in recent years. In many Western nations, growing anti-vaccine skepticism that expanded during the COVID-19 pandemic has driven down vaccination rates below the herd immunity threshold. In February 2026, for example, a measles outbreak at multiple schools in north London prompted UK public health officials to issue an urgent reminder to parents to ensure their children are fully vaccinated.

  • ROK president expresses regret to DPRK over drone incident

    ROK president expresses regret to DPRK over drone incident

    In a landmark address to his cabinet on Monday, Republic of Korea (ROK) President Lee Jae-myung became the first South Korean head of state to formally express regret to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) following an incident involving unauthorized civilian drone flights into DPRK territory that sparked unneeded military friction on the Korean Peninsula.

    Lee emphasized that while the South Korean government bore no direct intention for the incident, the irresponsible and reckless actions of a small number of private actors had generated avoidable military tension between the two Koreas. In his capacity as the nation’s president, Lee extended his official regret to the DPRK over the episode.

    Beyond the expression of regret, the president ordered South Korea’s relevant government ministries to immediately overhaul existing regulatory and security systems, rolling out concrete, enforceable measures to prevent similar unauthorized incidents from occurring in the future. He also offered his deepest consolation to residents living along the inter-Korean border, who have faced elevated anxiety and uncertainty in the wake of the incident.

    This public address marks the first time the South Korean president has issued a formal statement of regret since the drone incident was brought to light. Earlier in February, South Korea’s Unification Minister Chung Dong-young had already conveyed an official government-level expression of regret to the DPRK regarding the unauthorized civilian drone incursions.

    Lee reinforced that South Korea’s constitution and national laws explicitly prohibit private citizens from carrying out independent provocative acts against the DPRK, noting that the occurrence of such private provocations remains a source of deep regret for his administration. The president added that all South Korean people must clearly recognize that peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula are the most critical priorities for the region, and that this shared stability must be safeguarded collectively by all parties.