“Women and dried pollock need to be beaten every three days for better taste” – so goes an old saying that was common in South Korea in the 1960s when Choi Mal-ja was growing up in a small city in the country’s southeast.

Back then, male violence against women was widely accepted. So when Choi bit off part of the tongue of a man who allegedly tried to rape her, it was she who was labeled the aggressor and jailed for grievous bodily harm.

At the time, Choi was 18 and living at home with her family. Now 78, she’s trying to clear her name in the hope that vindication will pave the way for other victims of sexual crime in South Korea, one of the world’s most advanced economies but one where society remains deeply patriarchal.

After Choi’s push for a retrial was rejected by courts in the city of Busan, she took her case to the Supreme Court. The top court ruled in her favor, sending the case back to Busan, where evidence will be called in coming months.

Experts say the verdict could rewrite the legal precedent set by her original trial, with far-reaching consequences for other women.

“The court must admit the fact that its unfair ruling has turned one person’s life upside down, and take responsibility with just judgement now,” Choi wrote.

‘Like I’d been hit with a hammer’

One spring evening in 1964, Choi, then a teenager, stopped to help a man who was asking for directions in Gimhae, South Gyeongsang province.

After walking with him for a few meters, Choi gave him further directions and turned around to go back home, but he tackled her to the ground.

“I was feeling woozy, like I’d been hit on the head with a hammer,” Choi told a local TV show in 2020.

Choi lost consciousness for a short while, but she remembers the man climbing on top of her and trying to force his tongue inside her mouth. She was only able to escape by biting 1.5cm (0.6 inch) of his tongue off, she said.

More than two weeks later, the man, who is not named in court documents, and his friends forced their way into Choi’s house and threatened to kill her father for what Choi had done.

Ignoring her claims of sexual assault, the man sued Choi for grievous bodily harm, leading her to sue him for attempted rape, trespassing and intimidation.

The police deemed Choi’s argument of self-defense reasonable; however, prosecutors in Busan thought otherwise.

They dropped the attempted rape charge against her assailant and accused Choi of grievous bodily harm, according to court documents.

In 1965, Choi was sentenced to 10 months in prison and two years of probation, a harsher punishment than that of the aggressor, who was sentenced to six months of prison and one year of probation for trespassing and threatening.

“It didn’t take a long time for the victim of a sexual crime to be turned into a perpetrator, nor did it take the strength of many people,” Choi wrote in a letter to the Supreme Court last year, as part of her application for a retrial.

Choi also claimed that her rights were infringed upon during the investigation and trial process, during which she and her supporters say she was handcuffed at one point and later made to undergo a test to prove her virginity, the result of which was made public.

No word for domestic violence

Until recent times, the social norm in South Korea was for women to support the men in their family. For example, when the country was developing rapidly after the 1950-53 Korean War, daughters were commonly sent to work at factories to financially support their brothers’ education.

And until the 1980s, South Korea was so focused on rebuilding from the devastation of the war and Japan’s brutal occupation before that, that fighting for women’s rights was considered “a luxury,” according to Chung.

In 1983 the Korea Women’s Hot-Line counseling center opened to campaign against “all institutions, customs and conventions that impose inhumane lives on women,” and establish a “just and peaceful family and society,” according to its statement.

At the time, there was no word for domestic violence.

“This is the 1980s. So, imagine what Choi Mal-ja had to go through for her case, in the 1960s,” said Kim.

According to Choi’s testimonies, prosecutors and judges asked her during the investigation and trial whether she would like to marry the aggressor to conclude the case.

Becoming his wife, so the theory went, might make amends for his injuries, as no other woman would want to marry a man with half a tongue.

Wang Mi-yang, the president of the Korea Women Lawyers Association, said the 1965 ruling reflected the “social prejudice and distorted views on victims of sexual violence that remained deeply rooted in our society.”

Ending decades of silence

Anti-sexual violence movements flourished in the 1990s and even included campaigns seeking justice for “comfort women,” a euphemism for the victims of sexual slavery enforced by the Japanese military in Korea during and before World War II.

For many years, “comfort women” kept their trauma secret to avoid shame and humiliation, but they finally spoke out, becoming what Chung calls South Korea’s “first MeToo movement.”

“These people lived 70 years, unable to talk about what they’ve experienced, because they would get blamed… but them revealing themselves to the world means society has changed that much,” Chung said.

The global #MeToo movement properly took hold in South Korea in 2018, holding powerful men to account and pushing the government to enforce harsher punishments for crimes of sexual violence.

Changing attitudes motivated Choi Mal-ja to seek a retrial.

“The girl’s life, which couldn’t even blossom, was forever unfair and in resentment… the country must compensate for my human rights,” Choi wrote in her letter to the Supreme Court.

Kim, from the Korea Women’s Hot-Line counseling center, said while there’s still work to be done, attitudes toward victims of sexual violence have changed dramatically.

“The perception that the sexual aggressor is at fault, not the victim, that women are more vulnerable to sexual crimes, and it’s the government’s responsibility to punish the perpetrator and protect the victim is so widely spread out among the people now,” she said.

Protests in solidarity

With the help of the Korea Women’s Hot-Line, Choi requested a retrial in 2020, but the court denied her application, calling the original ruling “inevitable” due to the “circumstances of the time.”

Choi condemned that decision as “truly embarrassing.”

“I was so tired, having come such a long way, that I wanted to lay everything down,” she wrote in her letter last year to the Supreme Court.

But she persisted, driven by the thought of “women of future generations.”

A petition by the Korea Women’s Hot-Line gathered more than 15,000 signatures and Choi started a one-person relay protest in front of the Supreme Court for a month to pressure the highest court to annul the original decision to deny a retrial.

In total, 42 people including Choi took part, swapping out after each day of protest, to show their solidarity with her cause.

The Supreme Court granted her request, calling Choi’s testimonies about unfair treatment during investigation by the prosecutors “consistent” and “credible,” adding that there was no evidence that contradicted her claims.

“Every drop of water pierced the rock. When I heard the news, I shouted hooray!” Choi said in a live-streamed press conference after the Supreme Court’s ruling in December.

The retrial will be held at the Busan District Court, which originally dismissed Choi’s retrial application in 2021.

The right to self-defense

Choi’s long fight for justice is well known in South Korea.

Her case is even cited in the Criminal Procedure Act textbook – used to educate generations of student lawyers – as an example of using excessive force in defense.

A successful retrial could expand the definition of self-defense and set new protections for future victims of sexual violence, said Kim from the Korea Women’s Hot-Line.

“I think it will become a very important case in getting women’s rights to defense, their responses against domestic or sexual violence, acknowledged more widely,” she said.

In 2017, a woman was found guilty of grievous bodily harm, like Choi, for biting the tongue of a man who allegedly tried to rape her.

The Incheon District Court partially acknowledged the man’s fault, but sentenced the woman to six months of imprisonment and two years on probation, citing the severity of the injury and “the failure to reach a settlement.”

Kim said there’s still a perception among investigators and the courts that victims are responsible for sexual violence, particularly in cases involving “the victim going to the aggressor’s house, drinking together or going to a place where they’re left alone.”

According to police statistics, more than 22,000 rapes and indecent assaults occurred in 2023 in South Korea.

It’s unclear how many victims were charged after trying to defend themselves.

Kim said there were still “many cases of women’s right to defense not being recognized.”

In her letter to the Supreme Court, Choi said old, victim-blaming beliefs must change if women’s rights are to improve in South Korea.

“I believe that women will only be able to protect themselves from sexual abuse and make a world without sexual violence when the court indisputably redefines victim and perpetrator, recognizes self-defense, and changes the outdated law,” she wrote.

Survival guides, stockpiling and mass evacuation drills. Europe is scrambling to prepare its citizens for the growing threat of conflict arriving on its doorstep.

Several European nations have been offering sobering guidance in recent months – envisioning garages and subway stations transformed into bunkers and promoting psychological resilience.

One overarching message is the need for a change in the population’s mentality to become war ready. As NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte told security experts in Brussels in December: “It is time to shift to a wartime mindset.”

It comes as European leaders fear that Russian President Vladimir Putin, emboldened by gains in Ukraine, could try to push further into the continent, while Europe’s longtime and powerful ally, the United States, adopts a more hostile stance to maintaining European security, raising doubts over how far it would be willing to intervene should a NATO country be invaded.

But questions remain over how effective these contingency plans would really be, and – moreover – whether civilians will take the guidance seriously.

‘Go indoors, close all windows and doors’

The European Commission has urged all citizens to stockpile enough food and other essential supplies to sustain them for at least 72 hours in the event of a crisis. In guidance released in March, the commission stressed the need for Europe to foster a culture of “preparedness” and “resilience.”

It came as individual countries have also been putting their own guidance in place for emergencies, including conflict.

Last June, Germany updated its Framework Directive for Overall Defense, giving directions on what to do should conflict break out in Europe. The document envisions the complete transformation of daily life for German citizens in the event of war.

Sweden has issued a survival guide titled, “If Crisis or War Comes.” The pamphlet was distributed to millions of households in November, after being updated for the first time in six years due to increasing military threat levels.

That leaflet instructs Swedes on how warnings would be issued in the event of war, including an outdoor alert system which it says is operational in most areas. “Go indoors, close all windows and doors and, if possible, switch off the ventilation. Listen to Swedish public broadcaster Sveriges Radio, channel P4 for more information,” the pamphlet instructs.

It offers advice on where to seek shelter during an air raid, including cellars, garages and underground metro stations. If caught outside with no immediate cover, it advises to lie on the ground, “preferably in a small pit or ditch.”

Specific advice is given to Swedish citizens regarding attacks using nuclear weapons, telling them to “take cover as you would during an air raid. Civil defense shelters provide the best protection.” It adds: “Radiation levels will lower drastically after a couple of days.”

It also includes tips on evacuation, how to stop bleeding, dealing with anxiety, and how to speak to children about crisis and war.

For Finland – which shares a 1,340-kilometer (830-mile) border with Russia, the longest of all NATO member states – the defense of its sovereignty against Moscow has long been part of the country’s psyche.

The country has been preparing for the possibility of a conflict with Russia for decades. Since the 1950s, the construction of bomb shelters under apartment blocks and office buildings has been mandatory.

But certainly, the Nordic state, which joined NATO in 2023 after decades of nonalignment, has been accelerating its state of readiness since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Two years ago, prompted by Russia’s war, the Finnish government took stock of its available emergency shelters, finding it had a total of 50,500 – which could shelter a possible 4.8 million people in a country of 5.6 million.

Helsinki’s interior ministry also issued new crisis guidance in November, giving readers advice on how to prepare for long power cuts, water outages, telecommunications disruptions, extreme weather events and military conflict.

Will people listen?

While nations have updated their civilian protection guidance, there remains no guarantee on how much attention individuals will pay to it.

However, she added: “The fine line to walk obviously is to increase preparedness without going into alarmism and catastrophizing. We want people to be aware, we don’t want them to be freaked out.”

For some countries, particularly those caught in Moscow’s sphere of influence, the threat from Russia feels more tangible. For others, it’s harder to grasp.

Major points to Finland – which lost territory to Russia during the Winter War in 1939-40 – and the Baltic nations, which were annexed by the Soviet Union between 1940 and 1991, as countries where the threat from Russia is more embedded in what she called the countries’ “DNA.”

“The existential threat, the fear of being overrun, of disappearing from the map, is very real in the Baltic states. They wonder why other countries don’t get it,” she said.

“The Finns, for the entire Cold War period, took defense seriously,” Major added. “Why are we all going to Finland now and looking at their bunker system and their stocks of medication and their reservist system? They learned from history; nobody is going to help us. We have to do it on our own.”

Major named Portugal, Italy and the United Kingdom as countries where the threat from Russia is less present in the national consciousness. Italy, she says, is more concerned with the threat from terrorism and instability from fragile states close to the country’s southern border. “It’s far closer to them,” she said. “It’s more of a problem for their stability, prosperity, domestic politics.”

The mainland UK, an island nation, was last invaded by a foreign power in 1066, while for many countries in Western Europe, they were invaded during the Second World War. This means living generations have less experience from which to draw on and its civilians may be less likely to take heed of any government advice.

“The question is how do you change the DNA of a country, that’s the crucial question,” Major said.

‘Protect and survive’

The effectiveness of such civilian protection plans also remains unclear. In the past, they have even been met with ridicule.

For decades during the Cold War era, the British government provided official information for its citizens to protect themselves against the nuclear Soviet threat.

The most prominent British public information source was known as the “Protect and Survive’” campaign, produced between 1974 and 1980. The series offered information on the dangers of nuclear fallout, instructions to follow in the hours and days after a nuclear attack, and a plan for survival.

A pamphlet published in May 1980 included tips on how to build a makeshift fallout room in your home, including a so-called inner refuge to protect from radioactive dust.

The campaign became the subject of criticism for offering unrealistic advice and presenting a false sense of optimism in the face of nuclear annihilation. It was long satirized in British popular culture.

However, after Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher came to power in 1979, Britain’s The Times newspaper demanded the government publish the booklets. “As a result, it was published at a time when there wasn’t an imminent threat of attack, so people looked at it through a different lens,” Young said. For that reason, he believes, there was more of a “cultural backlash” against it, adding that it was even ridiculed in popular British sitcoms.

Young pointed to the UK government’s advice to whitewash windows to help stop the spread of heat from a nuclear blast as one of the more comical suggestions. Civilians were instructed to “coat windows inside with diluted emulsion paint of a light color so that they will reflect away much of the heat flash, even if the blast which will follow is to shatter them.”

In comparison, Young sees Europe’s modern-day advice – including the UK’s guidance on preparing for emergencies – as more realistic, and incorporating more of the important psychological aspects, such as how to deal with trauma.

For Major, the need to prepare civilians for external threats – particularly in the “grey zone” area – can’t be stressed enough.

“We tend to look at the military (aspect), but we are terribly vulnerable in the grey zone. So what we have to think about is deterrence, defense and resilience. And this particularly implies a greater preparedness of society.”

She adds, “If the society is not willing and not ready to support a war like the Ukrainian society is doing at the moment, we will not prevail.”

An explosion occurred outside the offices of Hellenic Train in Athens, Greek police said on Friday, adding there were no immediate reports of injuries.

Police cordoned off the area after two Greek media organizations received warning calls that an explosive device would go off within 35 minutes, police officials said. A suspicious-looking bag was spotted outside the building which was evacuated.

An investigation is under way. A police official said the cause was likely a makeshift bomb.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility.

Hellenic Train is a unit of Italy’s Ferrovie dello Stato IPO-FERRO.MI, which operates passenger and freight routes in Greece.

A deadly 2023 train crash, Greece’s worst rail disaster, killed 57 people, mostly students, and injured dozens.

Many Greeks view the crash as emblematic of the neglect of the country’s railways in recent decades and also of a persistent failure by the state to address safety concerns. The crash has prompted angry protests, fueled further by a lack of trust in institutions.

As civil war-torn Myanmar struggles to recover from a devastating earthquake, the United States is facing criticism that it has abandoned the country in its hour of need – and is ceding global leadership on disaster response to its rivals.

The 7.7-magnitude quake, which struck on March 28 and killed thousands, is the first major natural disaster since the Trump administration canceled billions of dollars in lifesaving programs under its drive to dismantle the US Agency for International Development (USAID), the main US humanitarian aid agency.

USAID used to administer most of America’s foreign aid – 61% of the $71 billion total budget in 2023. But since taking office in January, the Trump administration has laid off thousands of its employees, and cut 83% of USAID programs – including staff and programs working to help Myanmar. On Wednesday, they also announced that all foreign staff would be laid off.

Those cuts have been felt in the meager US response to the Myanmar quake, according to experts, exposing a void in international relief measures for major catastrophes.

“Not only did the United States only send a paltry amount of assistance, it sent only three workers, which then subsequently were fired while they were on the ground in Myanmar providing assistance.”

At least 3,550 people died and nearly 5,000 others were injured when the earthquake hit the impoverished Southeast Asian nation – which has already endured years of civil war since a military coup in 2021, leaving nearly 20 million people in need of aid.

The military government does not control all of the resource-rich country, as it battles a patchwork of powerful ethnic militias and pro-democracy groups.

“The needs are massive right now,” said Matthew Smith, CEO of human rights organization Fortify Rights, based in neighboring Thailand. “And unfortunately, the aid effort is not as robust as it could or should be.”

Two days after the quake, the US pledged $2 million in assistance to Myanmar – later increased to a total of $9 million – for emergency shelter, food, medical care and water, according to a post on X from State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce.

But Smith says that with minimal staffing on the ground, it is unclear how that money would be channeled.

“There’s nobody to administer that aid, there (are) no aid workers on the ground, there’s no deployment happening,” Smith said. “To so drastically cut it the way that they have was reckless and irresponsible.”

Secretary of State Marco Rubio defended the American response in Brussels last week. The US is “not the government of the world,” he said, adding that although Washington would continue to provide some humanitarian assistance, others should do more.

“There are a lot of other countries in the world and everyone should pitch in,” Rubio said. “I don’t think it’s fair to assume that the United States needs to continue to share the burden (of) 60-70% of humanitarian aid around the world.”

Comparisons have been made to the 7.8-magnitude earthquake that struck Turkey and Syria in February 2023, when the US deployed hundreds of relief workers and pledged $185 million in assistance.

“In the past, the US government has certainly been one of the most effective response teams to mass-scale natural disasters,” Smith said.

‘Strategic mistake’

Multiple countries are filling the gap left by Washington’s limited earthquake response, including China, Russia and India – which have sent aid, rescue teams and mobile medical units to Myanmar.

Tom Fletcher, the United Nations’ humanitarian affairs chief – who spent several days visiting the areas worst affected by the quake – said the world “can’t be reliant on US support alone.”

This year’s humanitarian appeal from the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has only been 7% funded – which will hamper relief efforts around the world, he added.

“I’ve been in touch with China, with Russia, other countries that are moving aid in to try to ensure that we get as much global support as possible,” Fletcher said.

Beyond the humanitarian impact of the US retreat on assistance, ex-USAID official Bencosme said ceding this ground to adversaries such as Beijing and Moscow is a “strategic mistake” from a soft power perspective.

“Other actors will fill in that leadership void, which makes it difficult for the US to leverage international assistance or international help in the future,” Bencosme said.

Smith, of Fortify Rights, said some of the countries providing help to Myanmar are also facilitating the military’s attacks on rebel-held areas, which have continued since the disaster.

“It’s deeply troubling, ironic sadly, in some ways that the same countries that are providing the Myanmar military junta with weapons that the junta is using to kill civilians, those are the same countries now arriving into Myanmar to help with the aid effort,” he said.

Reduced to ashes

For the homeless residents of Mandalay’s Sein Pan district, in the epicenter of the earthquake zone, aid can’t come fast enough.

The informal settlement of wooden shacks was built on a landfill dump, and the tremors ignited a huge fire which spread rapidly, residents said.

“The fireball emerged from the ground immediately after the earthquake,” said resident Kyi Thein, as she stood on the charred remains of her home. “The fire spread out across the district and wiped out all 400 houses. Everybody ran away and now nothing remains.”

“I hope the government authorities will provide aid to us,” Kyi Thein said. “We are now depending on private donors for a living, but we need support.”

Another Sein Pan resident, who did not wish to share her name for security reasons, said the flames were so intense that they were unable to save any possessions.

“The entire neighborhood was reduced to ashes,” she said. “I’m relieved to have survived. I just want my home back.”

In the quake’s aftermath, junta leader Gen. Min Aung Hlaing made a rare request for international aid. But the UN human rights office says the military has also been using its routine strategy of blocking and controlling access to aid and humanitarian workers.

Two weeks after the disaster struck, workers in the impacted areas are no longer looking for survivors – they have now switched to a recovery and aid operation.

But the challenges of doing so without the support they need are growing.

“We need to use proper machines to recover bodies under the collapsed buildings,” said 41-year-old Ei Mon Khine, an official from a social assistance association who was working on the scene. “When the rescuers do not arrive in time, the dead bodies become spoiled and deformed,” making it harder to recover the remains, she said.

People who have lost their homes are also dealing with temperatures of more than 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 degrees Celsius), along with thunderstorms that rolled through last weekend.

“There was heavy wind and rain, and you have people living in tents outside on the street, so it made an already difficult situation even worse,” said Sara Netzer, Myanmar country director for the UN Office for Project Services (UNOPS), based in Yangon.

“We need to ensure that we are already thinking about how we can build some temporary shelter for people, and that will also help prevent this spread of disease as well.”

Many quake-hit communities in Mandalay and the neighboring Sagaing region were already hosting those displaced by the civil war, she added, showing the “resiliency” of Myanmar, but increasing the need for help before more heavy rains arrive.

“I think it’s illustrative of the kind of race against time that we have right now, before the monsoon season starts here in Myanmar,” Netzer said.