Category: World News

Source: Radio New Zealand

– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

Actor Idris Elba, a former All Blacks coach and members of England’s triumphant Women’s Euro 2025 football team were among famous Britons recognised in the country’s traditional New Year Honours on Monday.

Former All Blacks coach John Mitchell has been appointed an OBE for services to rugby after guiding England to the women’s Rugby World Cup title this year. He coached the All Blacks between 2001 and 2003 and has been England women’s coach since 2023.

Ice dancers Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean, and players from England’s victorious Women’s Rugby World Cup-winning squad were also honoured, according to the list.

Elba, known for his roles in hit TV series The Wire and Luther, was knighted for services to young people, having founded an international charity that helps support disadvantaged youngsters.

“I hope we can do more to draw attention to the importance of sustained, practical support for young people and to the responsibility we all share to help them find an alternative to violence,” said Elba, who becomes a sir.

Torvill and Dean, who won Olympic gold at the 1984 Winter Games in Sarajevo and clinched multiple world and European titles, were knighted for their contribution to ice skating.

The pair said becoming a dame and a sir respectively was “wonderful and humbling at the same time”.

More than 1,150 people received gongs in the latest list, which is decided by an honours committee.

King Charles III and other leading members of the royal family hand out the awards at ceremonies during the year.

England’s “Lionesses” featured heavily on the list after their Euros win in the summer, with captain Leah Williamson made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE).

Alex Greenwood, Keira Walsh, Georgia Stanway and Ella Toone, who were all part of the side that beat Spain on penalties in the final in Basel, Switzerland, in July, each received the title of MBE.

The team’s Dutch manager Sarina Wiegman, who has won the Euros twice with England and once with the Netherlands, was awarded an honorary damehood, the government said.

Elsewhere, Marlie Packer and Zoe Aldcroft of England’s successful 2025 Women’s Rugby World Cup squad become OBEs, with several MBEs going to their teammates.

-AFP w/RNZ

– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

2024 set a high bar to beat when it came to things being generally weird, but 2025 comfortably rose to the occasion.

That was perhaps a certainty set in motion late last year, when Americans took a look around and decided four more years of chaos was just what the world needed.

Things were no less unpredictable at home either, with no shortage of strange news filed by RNZ’s own reporters in the past 12 months.

January

It didn’t take long for the first ‘I cannot believe this is an actual headline’ news time to appear, with ‘Kiwi Water Park owner feels “victimised” by iPhone weather app’ appearing before midday on 1 January.

A few days later Meta scrambled to delete AI characters it put on Instagram after it emerged “proud black queer Momma” Liv was actually the creation of a dozen people, most of them white men and none of them Black. Another, presenting himself as a “warm grandpa”, eventually admitted he was nothing more than “a heart of algorithms and profit-driven design”. And before it had a chance to cry tears in rain, Brian too joined Roy Batty in silicon heaven.

Then we had a report of a fun new thing to do in the capital – go on a “tour of sites of murder, execution, suffering”. Should probably mention the tour focused on historical events, not the present day.

Later in the month RNZ met a woman whose “bread and butter” was removing cockroaches from people’s ears, and a mayor so fed up with his own council he removed a view-blocking abandoned double trailer unit himself.

A man in Invercargill was arrested after choosing to rob perhaps the worst possible victims – a group of elite cyclists.

You’d think selling a house once inhabited by a globally adored singer like Adele would be easy, right? Not if she once suggested the place was haunted, apparently.

In Napier, a woman was embarrassed to tell her visitors to find her house on ‘Pornwall Road’ after someone changed the C to a P. “It’s blatant unnecessary exposure to crude words,” a local shop owner said.

And rounding out an eventful first month of 2025 was a report that concluded the New Zealand economy would be significantly smaller if we didn’t drink so much beer.

February

“I’d ask if she could change her name for starters,” rising MMA fighter Taylor Swift told CNN, sick of the jokes and sniggers that greeted his every entrance.

New Zealand First MP Shane Jones, fresh off yelling “send the Mexicans home” in Parliament, dug a deeper hole by saying he’d had “exciting nocturnal experiences with the Latin American people” then offered the ambassador a shot of tequila.

Scientists in Italy came up with what they claimed to be the perfect way to boil an egg, unconcerned their method required more than half an hour of constant attention.

Saturday Morning spoke to a woman who had lived nearly a decade without using money who was beginning to wonder how she was going to pay a for a much-needed dentist appointment.

‘Africa’ by Toto this month was declared the ‘perfect’ song by a group of presumably tone-deaf neurologists and music enthusiasts.

On 27 February, RNZ reported on a woman who had given birth on a flight from Auckland to New Plymouth. Sadly for the baby, its arrival happened after the plane had landed, so its birth certificate will always say ‘New Plymouth’.

Meanwhile in Hamilton, people are “defecating, hanging clothes lines, taking drugs, begging and displaying threatening behaviour” in the city centre, but it’s those taking showers in the Garden Place fountains that really ground one councillor’s gears.

March

In March, England’s top cricketing body was forced to apologise for a joke about the pope that failed to hit the stumps, claiming his heartfelt post about an important day on the Catholic calendar was actually about a cricket match.

Government coalition partner New Zealand First announced it wanted to “remove woke ‘DEI’ regulations” from legislation that it helped put into place five years ago, despite its own constitution urging diversity in candidate selection. Amazingly, this wasn’t even the party’s most circus-level flip-flop this year (more on that below).

The ACT Party took offence at a social media post by Te Pāti Māori co-leader Rawiri Waititi that said his lawns were getting a “good f… hiding” because he was treating them like David Seymour.

Speaking of Seymour, in March his much-maligned school lunch programme delivered a lunch consisting of simply just a single bread roll.

April

The second Trump administration’s tough new tariffs spared virtually no one, even slapping a 10 percent levy on “a barren sub-Antarctic Australian territory without a human population, but four different species of penguin”. The president then posted an AI-generated picture of himself as the pope (and that wasn’t even the most offensive of his posts this year).

Meanwhile in Wellington, about 700 people squashed together on Cuba Street to watch a man fold a fitted sheet.

In Queensland, a woman gave birth to someone else’s baby after the wrong embryo was implanted.

A Far North man’s foot was lost in the mail, or possibly stolen.

A Napier man running on the lime paths in Ahuriri was “a bit shocked” to see a few dozen cows break into an estuary for a paddle.

The US Navy lost a $100m jet when it literally fell off the side of an aircraft carrier.

May

Insert your own ‘but would you want to?’ reply here, but in May researchers decided to find out if it was possible to survive a nuclear war in Palmerston North.

Chinese scientists were looking into far more important matters, like if it was possible to use AI to speak to a cat.

The US Navy lost a second jet off the same aircraft carrier it did in April.

The Livestock Improvement Corporation’s hall of fame for cattle that sire children received only its second female entry in 70 years, following 59 males and just one other female.

An Auckland kitten used up one of its nine lives when it was found in the bonnet of a vehicle travelling down one of the city’s motorways.

Some Southland Hospital staff were told they could only talk to each other for a maximum of five minutes a day.

Japan’s tourism industry took a hit mid-year when psychics, inspired by a comic book, began predicting a huge disaster.

Mutton Birds singer Don McGlashan had his biggest hit in years at the Aotearoa Music Awards when he told National MP Chris Bishop to “shut up”, calling him a “dickhead” for heckling a performance by Stan Walker. Later in the year he told RNZ he would have said “honourable dickhead” if he knew it was a government minister he was speaking to.

May ended the way every month should, with a truck crash that results in the release of 250 million bees.

June

At the start of June, the first Tasman War broke out with an Australian Navy attack on New Zealand communications infrastructure. Okay, perhaps that’s twisting the truth a bit – but the HMS Canberra did ‘accidentally’ knock out internet and radio transmission across parts of New Zealand. There was no apology noted in the story, so tensions remain high.

Two men were jailed for stealing an 18-carat golden toilet called ‘America’, on exhibition at the birthplace of Winston Churchill.

Aussies complained they had been fooled into buying ‘teacup’ pigs that grow into enormous hogs.

In a scene that would make John Cleese proud, a British man robbed a post office armed only with a banana.

Nelson began wondering whether displaying one of only two statues in the world of disgraced former US President Richard Nixon was on-brand for the city.

July

The second half of the year began with the Dalai Lama announcing that unlike the recently deceased Pope Francis, he planned to live well beyond 130.

After successfully reviving Lord of the Rings, the Beatles and nimbyism, Sir Peter Jackson in July said he was investing money into efforts to bring back the moa.

Some people might that’s cool – but at least thanks to scientists in Chile, we now have a way to test it.

Trump’s silliest utterance of July (at least in front of cameras) was telling the president of a country whose national language is English that he spoke good English.

Did you know the big bang’s source was found this year? In Wellington Hospital, of all places? Okay, might have been a slightly smaller big bang.

Moviegoers at Auckland’s Hollywood Cinema were blindsided by a “baffling” and “uncomfortable” AI-generated video of Russell Crowe as a medieval monk on a 14th century pilgrimage to “the Hollow Wood”, a medieval cinema “established by the first European settlers in 1349AD”.

A real video that made headlines in July was the infamous affair caught on the big screen at a Coldplay concert.

Good news! Asteroid 2024 YR4 in July was confirmed to not be on a collision course with the Earth. Instead, it might hit the moon.

August

A senior public servant’s remains were taken to his government department’s office for a memorial service.

A woman who bought a bag of potatoes and found a rock in it was told by the Pak’nSave she bought it from she could keep it.

The Ministry of Education canned a book for young rangatahi readers because it had too many Māori words,

Also in August, the government confirmed for the small price of $671 million, it had locked in a contract to receive no ferries at all.

New obesity research from Auckland University found a single pill of ‘good’ faecal bacteria could significantly improve a patient’s health.

And is anything sacred? A low fat yoghurt won NZ’s best ice cream award this year.

In Morocco the coolest-ever dinosaur skeleton was found, “lavishly adorned with armour and spikes”.

September

The month began with a multimillionaire businessman making a “huge mistake”, caught on camera snatching a tennis star’s hat from a child at the US Open.

Looking to one-up the Dalai Lama, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping were caught on a hot mic discussing organ transplants and the possibility that humans could live to 150 years old.

Argentina police recovered a painting stolen by the Nazis decades ago after it was spotted in a real estate photo.

Too much time on the porcelain throne can make you nearly 50 percent more likely to develop haemorrhoids, scientists confirmed.

In 1995, Mount Ruapehu exploded in spectacular fashion, triggering a somewhat haphazard emergency response – but reminiscing to RNZ at the 30th anniversary, one volcanologist admitted it was the “best day of my life”.

This month’s dumbest Trump-adjacent news emerged in the final week, when a statue of the president and his old party buddy Jeffrey Epstein was erected in front of the US Capitol.

That same day, the following quote appeared in a legit, real news story: “I believe adding more sausages to the situation will certainly improve our democracy rather than harm it.” Cannot be explained succinctly, you’ll have to read the whole story.

The month ended with the head of the FBI giving the head of the NZ Police an illegal 3D-printed firearm.

October

Nico the Great, a literal cat burglar in Hamilton, since June was reported to have stolen more than 200 items – “many of them women’s undies.”

Canadian rapper Drake lost a legal battle with his own record label, which released a song by a rival artist that called him a “certified paedophile”.

Russia proposed building a tunnel between itself and the United States.

And Trump (you thought we’d get through a month without him?) told former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd what a lot of Australians have probably always wanted to tell him: “I don’t like you either, and I probably never will.”

A surfboard lost in Tasmania’s in 2024 washed up thousands of kilometres away in Raglan.

For reasons probably indeterminable, Dictionary.com decided to reveal its word of the ‘year’ at the end of October, and even more baffling, they awarded it to two numbers – six and seven, or as the kids have been saying, ‘six-seven’.

November

Lord of the Rings star Elijah Wood casually walked in and surprised a Rotorua couple at their Hobbit-themed wedding at the Hobbiton movie set in Waikato.

‘Prank star’ Daniel Jarvis lined up with the Kangaroos during the national anthems before the second Ashes Test in Liverpool, and was arrested.

Paris unveiled a lottery with a macabre twist: Instead of a cash, entrants could win the right to share cemetery space with Doors singer Jim Morrison and writer Oscar Wilde.

Leroy Carter’s dream All Blacks call-up nearly turned sour when he discovered his passport had been chewed up by his dog, days before leaving for Argentina.

The funniest story of November was no doubt the brazen Louvre heist, specifically when it emerged one of the famous museum’s security passwords was just ‘LOUVRE’.

Some in France however found riches in their own back yard – a man in Lyon finding $1.4m worth of gold bars and coins while digging a swimming pool.

A Taranaki-based honey maker unveiled a two-litre jar of Manuka with a $500,000 price tag. Not to be beaten, Apple – the computer company, need I remind you – unveiled a $230 sock).

Hollywood star Jennifer Lawrence revealed she had been getting into anonymous fights on TikTok.

In ironic twists, New Zealand’s biggest landlords group on Facebook got evicted and the country’s top cop got busted for speeding then caught taking an ocean dip during a tsunami advisory.

An Australian restaurant chain apologised for cursing Oscar Piastri’s Formula 1 title hopes with an offer of a free burger every time he placed on the podium, the driver constantly losing since the promotion began.

Trump’s (yay, there he is again!) daughter made her debut in the LPGA and came dead last.

A well-timed photograph of a Kiwi runner about to get his face stomped in a race at the World Championships in Tokyo was nominated for the 2025 World Athletics Photograph of the Year.

Gareth Morgan declared victory over his haters with the addition of feral cats to the government’s Predator Free 2050 eradication programme.

NZ First promised to repeal a bill they had literally just voted into law. (Told a bigger flip-flop was on its way!)

People expressed surprise Millennials, with everything they’ve had to endure, were getting more left-wing as they grew older.

December

A Wellington dad did more than 4000 pull-ups in a row and almost died.

Local fashionistas were concerned the ‘ugly shoe trend’ in the northern hemisphere would soon make its way to New Zealand.

A cat that vanished 14 years ago was reunited with its owner, begging the question whether someone out there was under the impression their cat of 14 years had gone missing.

And finally – because what could follow it? – a Fabergé locket worth more than $33,500, swallowed by a man during an alleged theft at an Auckland jewellery store, was later “recovered” by police. And yes, ‘recovered’ means exactly what you think it does.

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

A Pacific security expert questions whether New Zealand should be the only country paying compensation for the sinking of the Manawanui.

The New Zealand navy vessel was surveying the south coast of Upolu when it hit the Tafitoala reef, set on fire and sank on 6 October last year.

Letters released by Winston Peters’ office under the Official Information Act show the Samoa government will not seek further compensation from New Zealand after receiving 10 million tala, about $6 million.

Senior lecturer and Pacific Security fellow at Victoria University’s Centre for Strategic Studies, Dr Iati Iati, wants to know whether any other country was involved in the reef survey.

“Given that the Manawanui sank exactly around the same time that CHOGM was going on, it drew a lot of attention to the Manawanui that perhaps they didn’t want to have drawn to it. It drew a lot of attention to the fact that there could be other actors involved other than New Zealand and Samoa.”

Iati said it probably served the interests of New Zealand to make questions over the Manawanui go away as quickly as possible.

The letters between Winston Peters and then Samoa Prime Minister Fiame Naomi Mata’afa appeared to be a diplomatic way to end Samoa’s compensation claim for the sinking of the Manawanui last year, he said.

Iati questioned whether New Zealand put pressure on Samoa to accept the low payout.

“I’d be curious to know how the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Samoa came to figure of 10 million tala. Were there studies done or did they just pluck it out of thin air?” he said.

“I think there’s probably an email trail that precedes this correspondence between Peters and Fiame and if there is an email trail it would be very interesting to see what it is, and how it related to the issue of why the Manawanui was there in the first place and how the 10 million tala figure was arrived at.”

Auckland University of Technology law professor Paul Myburgh said the letters showed the New Zealand government applied political pressure on the Samoa government “by saying that the Samoan government agrees that it will try to head off any future claims for compensation by satisfying them accordingly”.

Myburgh said the letters showed an agreement between the governments of New Zealand and Samoa and did not bind third party litigants.

New Zealand could evoke sovereign immunity regarding the Manawanui because it is a naval vessel and therefore could not be sued through the Samoan courts, he said.

“But because this is a New Zealand naval vessel and because the Commission of Inquiry has made it plain that the damage here was caused by the negligence of navy personnel, there is the possibility of bringing proceedings under the Crown Proceedings Act in the New Zealand courts against the New Zealand government,” Myburgh said.

“I would not have thought that this letter between the two governments precludes villagers from actually seeking legal advice and support in New Zealand and taking the claims further if they feel they have been short-changed.”

A spokesperson from New Zealand’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade said New Zealand paid the full amount requested by the government of Samoa.

“This payment demonstrates that we have resolved a number of the issues stemming from the sinking of HMNZS Manawanui, including removal of diesel fuel and other pollutants, as well as debris. We continue to work with Samoa on the next steps for the ship. We are awaiting the results of an independent wreck assessment, with reef and environmental studies that sit alongside this assessment, to inform those next steps.”

MFAT said the agreement between New Zealand and Samoa was a treaty under international law, and therefore its terms were legally binding on both countries.

“These obligations relate only to New Zealand and Samoa, so it would not be appropriate to speculate or comment regarding third parties.”

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

Analysis by Aaron Blake, CNN

Analysis – Vice President JD Vance has never looked more like the presumptive 2028 Republican presidential nominee.

We learned last week that perhaps his most formidable would-be foe, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, had said he would defer to Vance. Then the vice president landed a major endorsement from Turning Point USA – nearly three full years before Election Day 2028.

But Vance could inherit a conservative movement that is increasingly riven over antisemitism and conspiracy theories in its midst.

It’s the kind of problem that could benefit from a leader like Vance taking the reins and charting a new post-Donald Trump path.

But the Ohio Republican’s approach has been remarkably uncertain. He seems to want to pretend the problem doesn’t exist and hope it goes away – while giving plenty of winks and nods to the fringe.

Sunday was telling in this regard.

In an interview with UnHerd, Vance finally addressed Nick Fuentes, the White nationalist podcaster whose recent friendly interview with Tucker Carlson set off a tempest in the Republican Party.

Fuentes has called Vance a “race traitor” for marrying a woman of Indian descent, but Vance is also close to Carlson politically. Some Republicans have called for their side to more forcefully disown Fuentes and even Carlson, and it was a huge subplot at Turning Point USA’s gathering in Phoenix this weekend

“Let me be clear: anyone who attacks my wife, whether their name is Jen Psaki or Nick Fuentes, can eat s…,” Vance said in the UnHerd interview. “That’s my official policy as vice president of the United States.”

He added that “antisemitism and all forms of ethnic hatred have no place in the conservative movement.”

These are the kinds of comments that sound firm and tough. But they were hard to square with the reset of Vance’s rhetoric this weekend.

For one, the decision to lump Psaki – former President Joe Biden’s press secretary – in with Fuentes, a Holocaust denier, is a conspicuous one. What is the MS NOW host’s offense that is comparable to Fuentes calling Vance a “race traitor” and his wife, Usha, a “j…t,” a slur for Indian people? It’s apparently having suggested in October that Vance’s wife might need to be saved from him.

Secondly, Vance went on in the interview to suggest Fuentes simply isn’t worth spending much time on.

“I think that Nick Fuentes, his influence within Donald Trump’s administration, and within a whole host of institutions on the right, is vastly overstated,” Vance said. “And frankly, it’s overstated by people who want to avoid having a foreign-policy conversation about America’s relationship with Israel.”

Just to underline: Fuentes didn’t just get an interview with Carlson. He’s also gotten an audience with Trump in recent years, and even GOP members of Congress have flirted with Fuentes’ movement.

And perhaps most notably, Vance spent the rest of Sunday making a very different argument than the ones in the UnHerd interview.

He used his speech at Turning Point USA – by far his biggest platform of the weekend – to argue that the party shouldn’t do much of anything to police the people in its midst.

Indeed, it was the first substantive point he made in the speech. After days of fighting between the likes of Carlson and Steve Bannon on one side and Vivek Ramaswamy and Ben Shapiro on the other, Vance seemed to land firmly on Carlson’s side.

“President Trump did not build the greatest coalition in politics by running his supporters through endless self-defeating purity tests,” Vance said. “He says, ‘Make America great again because every American is invited.'”

Vance said that he didn’t “bring a list of conservatives to denounce or to deplatform.” He added that “we have far more important work to do than canceling each other.”

His speech went on to serve up a number of lines about identity that seemed tailormade for the extremes of the party.

He called the city of Minneapolis “Mogadishu” – the capital of Somali and a reference to the number of Somali immigrants there. He said of Rep. Jasmine Crockett, a Black Democrat from Texas: “Her street girl persona is about as real as her nails.” Shortly thereafter, he made a reference to “Soros DAs” – a reference to prominent Jewish Democratic donor George Soros, who often figures prominently in antisemitic tropes.

So to recap Vance’s message: antisemitism doesn’t have a place in the GOP, but the party also shouldn’t have purity tests or cancel people. And there’s no place in the party for any “forms of ethnic hatred,” but also have you seen how overrun Minneapolis is with Somalis? (Vance also last year baselessly accused Haitian immigrants in Ohio of stealing and eating people’s pets.)

Vance seems to be gambling that this whole internal feud will go away eventually, and that he can get through it without totally alienating anyone.

But that’s certainly a gamble.

It’s been a very long time since we’ve seen a GOP dispute that has divided conservatives against each other in such an animated way.

And it’s not like this is a media construct. We’ve seen a number of examples of prominent conservatives, especially young ones, saying racist and antisemitic things in recent months.

One of the most prominent podcasters on the right, Candace Owens, is saying increasingly provocative things about Jews and Israel, including as regards former Turning Point head Charlie Kirk’s assassination.

This trend has been elevated as an urgent concern by lots of prominent Republicans and conservatives like Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas and, more recently, Ramaswamy. We continue to see fallout to this day at the Heritage Foundation over that organization initially siding with Carlson on the Fuentes interview.

Perhaps some Republicans sense a political opportunity here. The Washington Post reported Monday that Cruz is eyeing a potential run in 2028 that would pit himself against the Vance and Carlson wing of the party.

Still, prominent conservatives have painted antisemitism as a real, growing and urgent issue in the GOP base and seem to genuinely fear where their party is headed.

Vance continues to argue much the opposite. He told NBC News earlier this month that the GOP was “absolutely not” more antisemitic than it had been 10-15 years ago.

“When I talk to young conservatives, I don’t see some simmering antisemitism that’s exploding,” he said.

If he’s right and this is oversold as a problem, perhaps he can emerge from this dispute without having gotten his nose dirty. But antisemitism within the base could be a pretty stubborn problem best dealt with outside of the context of a presidential primary process.

For now, Vance doesn’t seem willing to spend his political capital.

– CNN

– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

By Kang Jin-kyu, AFP

Grieving mother Lee Hyo-eun returns every weekend to the airport where her daughter and 178 others died last year, desperate for the truth about South Korea’s deadliest airline disaster.

Jeju Air Flight 2216 was coming in to land at Muan International Airport from Thailand when it struck a flock of birds and was forced to make a belly landing that sent it crashing into a structure at the end of the runway.

Only two flight attendants seated in the tail section survived.

Lee vividly remembers that day.

Her daughter Ye-won, a cello instructor, had just celebrated her birthday and was due to return from a short holiday in Bangkok.

Lee was planning a welcome dinner when her sister called to ask if Ye-won had landed.

What happened next, she said, was “unbelievable”.

“She was gone when she was at her brightest, in full bloom at 24,” Lee said.

Official findings have pointed to pilot error in explaining why the December 29, 2024 crash happened.

But one year on, Lee and other relatives of the victims say they harbour deep mistrust over how the investigation has been handled.

They are still demanding answers over the key question surrounding the crash: why was there a concrete block at the end of the runway, despite international aviation safety guidelines?

‘We demand answers’ –

At the Muan airport – which has been closed to commercial flights since the crash – families of the victims spend days and nights in and around tents set up in the departure terminal on the second floor.

Blue ribbons symbolising the victims adorn the airport, while letters remembering the dead line the stairways.

The localisers damaged in the crash still stand at the end of the runway, and what appear to be fragments of concrete slabs and pillars are strewn across a field not far away.

Banners draped along the walls criticise the official investigation, with one reading: “A country incapable of protecting citizens is not a country. We demand answers!”

Park In-wook told AFP he is “famous” among the two dozen relatives who choose to return to the airport weekend after weekend.

He lost five loved ones in the crash: his wife, daughter, son-in-law and two young grandchildren.

“In the first days, I felt like I was dreaming,” said Park, 70.

“Almost a year has passed, but I cannot recall how many days it took to hold my wife’s funeral or the exact date it took place.”

The families’ anger intensified following the release of an interim investigation report in July.

The report emphasised that the pilot decided to shut down the less damaged left engine during the crash, but it did not address the concrete structure housing antenna localisers at the end of the runway.

International aviation safety guidelines state that such navigation structures should be made of frangible, or breakable, material – a recommendation not followed at the Muan airport.

A nationwide inspection after the crash found six other airports where localisers were also housed in concrete or steel structures.

Five of them have had their localisers retrofitted with breakable material, while another will be retrofitted next year, Seoul’s transport ministry told AFP.

“The July report highlights the government’s attempt to frame the accident as being caused mainly by pilot error,” Ko Jae-seung, 43, who lost both parents in the crash, said.

“An official investigation should not be about assigning blame to individuals but about examining the systems and conditions that made the accident inevitable,” Ko said.

‘Everyone could have survived’

Ye-won’s mother believes the pilots did everything they could in those crucial moments to save lives on board.

“They managed to land the plane on its belly against all odds, with everyone still alive at that point, without knowing there was a concrete structure ahead of them,” she told AFP at her home in the southwestern city of Gwangju.

“Everyone could have survived – only with injuries – if it had been a mound of earth.”

Her home is decorated with photographs of her late daughter alongside handwritten letters from Ye-won’s friends.

“Thank you for everything. You were a deeply respected and beloved teacher,” the mother of one student wrote.

On a cabinet sit several framed photos from Ye-won’s final days in Bangkok, retrieved from her phone, which was discovered at the crash site.

“Sometimes it feels like she just hasn’t come home from her vacation,” Lee said.

“I find myself wondering when she will.”

– AFP

– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand