Kim, Moon discussed denuclearization; permanent peace on peninsula – Seoul

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and South Korean President Moon Jae-in discussed denuclearization and a permanent peace on the Korean peninsula at their summit Friday.

“The two leaders had a sincere and frank dialogue over the denuclearization and the establishment of permanent peace of the Korean peninsula and development of inter-Korea ties,” said Moon’s spokesman Yoon Young-chan.
Wives to attend summit banquet

Meanwhile, Seoul also said the wives of Kim and Moon will join a banquet on Friday.


The banquet would follow the historic summit of the two leaders of the two Koreas.

The presence of the two first ladies – Ri Sol Ju and Kim Jung-sook – had previously been up in the air. /kga

source: newsinfo.inquirer.net

BTS, Cho Seong-jin make Forbes’ ’30 Under 30 Asia’ list in entertainment

K-pop group BTS and rising classical pianist Cho Seong-jin have been named among Asia’s 30 most influential people under the age of 30 in entertainment and sports this year.

BTS and Cho were included in Forbes’ “30 Under 30 Asia” list in the entertainment and sports category, which was published on the US magazine’s website Tuesday (local time).

The other Korean stars included on the list were actress Ahn Seo-hyun, figure skater You Young, skeleton gold medalist Yun Sung-bin, LPGA golfer Park Sung-hyun and professional climber Kim Ja-in. North Korean footballer Han Kwong-song also made the list.

Forbes described BTS as having “cracked the notoriously competitive US market,” referencing the band becoming the first K-pop act to perform at the American Music Awards, in November of last year. The K-pop sensation enjoyed massive success last year, with its EP, “Love Yourself: Her,” having sold over 1.49 million copies since September.

For Cho, the magazine explained how his recorded performance at the 2015 Chopin Piano Competition gained popularity worldwide, including in Poland, the birthplace of composer Fredric Chopin.

source: entertainment.inquirer.net

South Korea cuts rates as MERS clouds outlook; 10th patient dies

SEOUL - A deadly outbreak of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) forced South Korea to cut interest rates on Thursday in the hope of softening the blow to an economy already beset by slack demand, as authorities reported 14 new cases and a 10th fatality.

Worry about the disease has been reflected across the region with dozens of suspected cases being tested in Hong Kong, though none confirmed, and many thousands of people cancelling trips to South Korea.

The outbreak, with 122 cases and 10 deaths, is the largest outside Saudi Arabia and began last month when a 68-year-old South Korean businessman brought the disease back from a trip to the Middle East.

He was diagnosed with MERS on May 20, and all subsequent infections have been traced to him and happened in health facilities.

The 10th person to die was a 65-year-old terminal lung cancer patient whose condition deteriorated after testing positive for the MERS virus, South Korea's health ministry said.

President Park Geun-hye has put off a trip to the United States to deal with the outbreak as the total number of cases rises daily.

The central bank of Asia's fourth biggest economy said it had to act and cut its policy rate by 25 basis points to a record-low 1.50 percent.

"We decided to cut rates today in a pre-emptive move to contain the economic fallout from MERS," Bank of Korea Governor Lee Ju-yeol told a media briefing.

Policymakers were already under pressure to stimulate the economy as weak global demand and a strong won have dented exports and discouraged spending by consumers and companies.

One positive sign was a decline in the number of South Korea's schools and universities that have closed.

The total dipped to 2,622 on Thursday from about 2,700 the previous day after a joint team of experts from the World Health Organization (WHO) and South Korea recommended that schools be reopened as they were unlikely to spread the disease.

Some schools were set to reopen on Monday as the province of Gyeonggi, which surrounds the capital, said it would call off an advisory to suspend classes.

"We all need to put behind us excessive fear and psychological withdrawal over MERS and try to go back to normal daily lives next week so we can minimise the impact on the economy," Kim Moo-sung, who heads the ruling Saenuri party, said at a party meeting.

Hong Kong alert

MERS was first identified in humans in 2012. Most of the global cases, which number 1,271 according to WHO data and at least 448 related deaths, have been in the Middle East.

But memories are fresh in Asia of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), which emerged in 2002-2003 and killed about 800 people worldwide.

MERS is caused by a coronavirus from the same family as the one that caused SARS. It is more deadly than SARS but does not spread as easily, at least for now.

Its symptoms include fever and a cough.

In Hong Kong, a clinic said it was testing two people who had both recently travelled to South Korea. Thirty-one people in Hong Kong who suspected they might have caught the disease have tested negative.

Hong Kong issued a "red alert" advisory on Tuesday against non-essential travel to South Korea, while Singapore Airlines said it would waive fees for customers who want to cancel or re-book flights to South Korea.

Despite the fears, only one case has been reported outside South Korea in the current outbreak, that of a South Korean man who travelled to China via Hong Kong after defying a suggestion from health authorities that he stay in voluntary quarantine at home.

China's Center for Disease Control and Prevention said the country was fully capable of containing any outbreak.

"There is no need to panic," the Xinhua news agency quoted the centre's deputy head, Feng Zijian, as saying.

Among the new South Korean cases was a pregnant woman who contracted the virus in an emergency ward that has been linked to other confirmed cases, the health ministry said.

The woman's pregnancy would limit the scope of treatment available, but she was in stable condition, the ministry said. The woman's parents had previously tested positive for MERS.

Another new patient was a police officer in the city of Pyeongtaek, where dozens of infections occurred, all linked to the first patient.

Three more patients were discharged, the health ministry said on Thursday, taking the total number of patients recovered in the outbreak to seven. — Reuters

Study ties breathing problems, asthma to bone loss

NEW YORK - People with asthma-related breathing problems may be at increased risk for bone loss, according to a new study.

The study examined the records of more than 7,000 adults in Seoul, Korea, and found those with a certain characteristic of asthma had significantly lower bone density in a region of their spine than those without asthma symptoms.

The characteristic, called airway hyperresponsiveness, means the airways in the lungs are particularly sensitive, and it doesn't take much to trigger an asthma attack.

However, both men and women with airway hyperresponsiveness were still in the normal range for overall bone density, on average. And researchers couldn't say whether the asthma symptoms or the bone loss came first or what linked the two.

"Asthma could be a risk for bone loss. The degree to which their disease puts them at risk for bone loss and fractures needs to be further studied," Dr. Sonal Singh told Reuters Health.

"We should be thinking about fractures in patients with asthma," he said. "The study did make me think about the link between asthma and bone loss as I see my patients."

Singh, from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland, was not involved in the current research but has studied broken bones in people taking steroids for chronic obstructive lung disease.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that 25 million Americans - or one in 12 - have asthma. The US Surgeon General in 2012 predicted that by 2020 half of Americans over age 50 could have weak bones.

For the new study, researchers led by Dr. Jae-Woo Jung of Seoul National University Medical Research Center analyzed the health records of 7,034 patients seen at their hospital.

They found average bone density was lower in the lumbar spine in the 216 people who tested positive for airway hyperresponsiveness.

The lumbar spine is the region between the ribs and the pelvis.

In addition, about 45 percent of those patients had osteopenia, or lower than normal bone density, and six percent had osteoporosis. That compared to a 30 percent rate of osteopenia and a four percent rate of osteoporosis among people without airway hyperresponsiveness, according to findings published in the Annals of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology.

The study also found a lower bone density in the lumbar spines of people who reported having been diagnosed with asthma than in people without asthma. But Singh said it was hard to know whether that was meaningful, because the researchers didn't measure asthma objectively.

Previous studies have found lower vitamin D levels among patients with asthma and related symptoms, the authors write.

They did not respond to a request for comment but speculate in the study that vitamin D deficiency might factor into bone loss among people with asthma and airway hyperresponsiveness.

The current study did not measure participants' vitamin D levels, so it can't say anything about the vitamin's link to asthma and bone loss.

Fractures are a known side effect of the systemic steroids used to treat asthma, Jung and colleagues write. Several studies have also tied inhaled steroids to decreased bone density, they note.

Steroids can decrease bone formation by stopping calcium from being absorbed. The drugs can also interfere with production of sex hormones, causing muscle weakness and raising the risk of falls and related fractures, according to the National Institutes of Health.

The NIH also says that people with asthma may avoid calcium-rich milk and other dairy products as well as weight-bearing exercise - key ingredients for bone health.

In the new study, the researchers excluded patients who had used systemic steroid medications. But the study did not consider participants' use of inhaled steroids or other drugs for control of asthma and related symptoms.

Singh said the study prompted him to want to examine asthma and bone loss in research considering ethnicity, physical activity, vitamin D levels and use of inhaled steroids. — Reuter

source: gmanetwork.com