China-made components raise security concerns | BTS's RM in hot water over Chris Brown photo

The Daily Debrief | Aug. 21, 2026 Humanoid robots dance at the grand opening event of the Galaxy Robot Park in Gangdong District, eastern Seoul, on Aug. 21. YONHAP Happy Friday! It's wet underfoot, but the mood is high as we head into the weekend. Here are the stories you need to know in Korea. In today's news, concerns have been raised after Chinese-made components were discovered in videoconferencing systems used by the Korean Army. In other stories, Korean temple cuisine is being hailed as a new way of developing a more sustainable global food culture. And BTS's RM is under fire over a recent photo where he and fellow member J-Hope pose with U.S. singer Chris Brown. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Today's top story KOREA Chinese components found in Army communications systems Chinese-made components have been found in key parts of videoconferencing systems used by Korean Army units for command and communications in wartime and peacetime. The discovery is raising concerns about vulnerabilities in military communications as worries grow at home and abroad over malware and data leaks involving Chinese-made equipment. Of the 11 types of components used in the equipment, two types of codecs — key devices that convert analog video and audio signals into digital signals for transmission — were found to be made in China. They included the MeetingEye 500, made by Yealink, a videoconferencing company headquartered in Shenzhen, China. Read more ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Feature of the day LIFESTYLE & ENTERTAINMENT Korean temple cuisine asks a hungry world to slow down, waste less and eat with gratitude Korea gave the world mukbang . And people loved it. Millions watch others devour delicious, often over-the-top and sometimes bizarre foods in quantities that can be hard to believe. But Korea has another way of approaching food that could hardly be more different. Read more ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ More stories Samsung SDI to sell $3.2B stake in Samsung Display to fund battery push for AI era Prosecutors raid Roh Tae-woo family properties over alleged 126.6 billion won slush fund YouTuber fined for animal abuse caught beating pet dog again in livestream Gov’t considers expanding prescription drug delivery to all telemedicine patients Beauty, fashion and wellness come together at new Seoul lifestyle festival this weekend ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Editor's picks LIFESTYLE & ENTERTAINMENT Anti-violence nonprofit suspends BTS leader RM from role-model list after Chris Brown photo The Pixel Project cited RM's silence after he attended Chris Brown's Toronto concert and appeared in a backstage photo with the U.S. singer who pleaded guilty to assaulting his then-girlfriend Rihanna in 2009. Read more ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ KOREA 'Shopping deserts' leave older, rural Koreans struggling to buy groceries and daily essentials As local stores disappear and populations age, many residents outside Seoul face long trips for even basic necessities. Read more ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ KOREA River of dreams? A rainy, game-filled all-nighter on the banks of the Han. Thousands braved the heat, humidity and rain at Seoul's overnight Han River festival to watch dramas, play games and eat ramyeon. Read more ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ KOREA Hana Bank strikes a $50 million won swap in London in a first for a Korean bank The won-denominated deal with an undisclosed overseas bank is part of Hana's efforts to expand its business in London. Read more ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ All materials contained on this site are protected by Korean copyright law and may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, displayed, published or broadcast without the prior consent of the JoongAng Ilbo | Tel: 1577-0510 JoongAng Ilbo Co., Ltd. | Address: 48-6 Sangamsan-ro, Mapo-gu, Seoul, Republic of Korea Business registration number: 110-81-00999 | CEO & Publisher: Park Chang-hee | Executive Editor: Choi Ji-young Mail order business report number: 2020-Seoul Mapo-3838 | Online newspaper registration No: 서울,아55177 Date of Registration: 2023. 11. 21 | Juvenile Protection Manager: Park Hyunyoung