26/03/2025

WEDNESDAY | MAR 26, 2025

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South Korea struggles to contain deadly wildfires

Samsung co-CEO dies of heart attack SEOUL: Samsung Electronics said yesterday that co-CEO Han Jong-hee (pic) had died of a heart attack, leaving

newly-appointed boss Jun Young-hyun in charge of the tech giant as it revamps its chip business and navigates trade uncertainties. Han, 63, became chief executive officer in 2022 and was also in charge of its consumer electronics and mobile devices division.

o State of emergency declared in four regions

“Strong winds, dry weather, and haze are hampering firefighting efforts,” Ko told a disaster and safety meeting. The government is “mobilising all available resources”, he said. In Uiseong, the sky was full of smoke and haze. Workers at a local temple were attempting to move historical artefacts and cover up statues to protect them from possible damage. The Korea Forest Service said the containment rate for the fire in Uiseong decreased from 60% to 55% by yesterday morning. More than 6,700 firefighters have been deployed to battle the wildfires, according to the Interior and Safety Ministry, with nearly two-fifths of the personnel despatched to Uiseong. The government declared a state of emergency in four regions, citing “the extensive damage caused by wildfires across the country”. In Daegu and the North Gyeongsang region, “the air is extremely dry and strong winds are

blowing, creating the risk that even a small spark could quickly spread into a large wildfire”, said a meteorological department official. The fire in Uiseong was reportedly caused by an individual visiting a family grave. The person told emergency services: “I accidentally started the fire while cleaning the grave site.” Prime Minister Han Duck-soo said: “Most wildfires are caused by human negligence and the public should strictly follow wildfire prevention guidelines.” South Korea’s neighbour Japan was also experiencing wildfires, with hundreds of firefighters battling a blaze in Imabari city of western Ehime region since Sunday. Another wildfire, which also started on Sunday, was affecting the city of Okayama, burning around 250ha and damaging six buildings. Japan saw the country’s worst wildfire in more than half a century early this month. It engulfed about 2,900ha and killed at least one person. – AFP

UISEONG: Deadly wildfires in South Korea worsened, officials said yesterday, as dry, windy weather hampers efforts to contain one of the country’s worst-ever fire outbreaks. More than a dozen different blazes broke out over the weekend, with the safety minister reporting thousands of hectares burned and four people killed. “The wildfires have so far affected 14,694ha, with damage continuing to grow,” acting Interior and Safety Minister Ko Ki-dong said. The extent of damage would make the fires collectively the third-largest in South Korea’s history. The largest was an April 2000 blaze that scorched 23,913ha across the east coast. More than 3,000 people have been evacuated to shelters, Ko said. At least 11 people have been seriously injured.

Jun was appointed co-CEO last week at Samsung’s annual shareholders meeting following his promotion last year to lead its semiconductor division, which has been lagging rivals like SK Hynix and TSMC in the global artificial intelligence chip market. Samsung said in a stock exchange filing that Jun would be the sole CEO of the company after Han’s death. Han, who was also a board member, passed away at a hospital yesterday while being treated for cardiac arrest. Samsung has not yet decided on a successor, a spokesperson said. The company has traditionally had a co CEO structure that divides oversight of its consumer and chips divisions. Han joined Samsung 40 years ago and built his career in its television business. “Han was the key figure behind making Samsung’s TV business influential on a global scale,” said an analyst who declined to be identified. “With his sudden passing there could be some long-term impact on its business strategy, particularly in areas such as marketing.” Han’s absence could also potentially affect Samsung’s efforts to improve the performance of its home appliance division at a time when it has to deal with uncertainties involving tariffs and trade wars, the analyst said. – Reuters SEOUL: A motorcyclist who had plunged into a 20m deep sinkhole here was found dead yesterday. The body of the 33-year-old man was found 50m away from the centre of the collapsed sinkhole in a subway tunnel under construction almost 20m from the surface, said fire rescue official Kim Chang-seob. It took rescuers almost 18 hours to find the motorcyclist after they had to pump out water and dig through dirt, as well as navigate past construction equipment and other debris, he said, adding that the exact cause of death had yet to be determined. City officials said the cause of the collapse was under investigation. – Reuters PNG PROBES LOSS OF FACEBOOK ACCESS PORT MORESBY: Papua New Guinea opened an investigation yesterday after losing access to Facebook during a police test of “innovative technology” to regulate online content. Meta said there was no outage at its end in the past 48 hours. Information and Technology authority’s chief executive Kila Gulo-Vui said his agency had become aware of a police media release on Monday lauding a “successful” test to regulate content on Facebook and other online platforms. Gulo-Vui said his agency “was neither consulted nor involved in the testing”, despite police saying they had acted in partnership. – AFP MOTORCYCLIST KILLED IN SINKHOLE PLUNGE

BR I E F S

An Uiseong resident talking on his phone yesterday in front of his home as wildfires rage nearby. – AFPPIC

DeepSeek narrows China-US AI gap to three months BEIJING: China has narrowed the AI development gap with the United States to just three months in some areas, because firms such as DeepSeek have worked out how to use chips and apply algorithms more efficiently, the CEO of Chinese startup 01.AI Lee Kai-fu said. core technologies, but actually ahead in some specific areas,” Lee said in Hong Kong. Washington’s semiconductor sanctions were a “double edged sword” that created short-term challenges but also forced Chinese firms to innovate under constraints, he said, pointing out how Chinese companies had developed their algorithms. until DeepSeek’s launch, many of the country’s tech leaders said they were far behind Western counterparts.

Lee, who also runs his own venture capital firm, founded 01.AI in March 2023, joining other new AI startups such as ZhipuAI and Moonshot as well as Chinese tech giants Baidu, Alibaba and ByteDance in building foundational models. Lee said investing in proprietary models had become “courageous” for AI startups in a market environment dominated by well-funded tech giants and rapidly evolving open-source alternatives. He said 01.AI will instead focus on practical AI applications – software solutions that help clients better deploy foundational models, he said. Earlier this month, 01.AI launched Wanzhi, a new software platform that helps enterprises deploy AI technology. – Reuters

Lee, a former head of Google China, said DeepSeek revealed that China had pulled ahead in areas such as infrastructure software engineering. DeepSeek shook the AI industry when it launched an AI reasoning model in January that it said was trained with less advanced chips and was cheaper to develop than its Western rivals. The announcement challenged the assumption that US sanctions were holding back China’s AI sector. “Previously I think it was a six- to nine-month gap and behind in everything. Now I think that’s probably three months behind in some of the

“The fact that DeepSeek is able to figure out the chain of thought with a new way to do reinforcement learning is either catching up with the US, learning quickly, or maybe even more innovative now,” Lee said, referring to how DeepSeek models show users their reasoning process before delivering answers – a capability first developed by OpenAI but not released to users. China’s tech sector jumped into the global race to develop generative AI soon after the launch of OpenAI’s ChatGPT in late 2022 but