Marcus Ching

Baseball sensation Shohei Ohtani has joined the Los Angeles Dodgers in the biggest deal in the sport’s history.

The $700m (£557.8m) 10-year contract is the largest ever in US Major League Baseball (MLB) and makes Ohtani one of the world’s highest-earning athletes.

The Japanese player, who is widely seen as among the best to have ever played the game, was the most coveted target in baseball.

The move to the Dodgers comes after weeks of speculation about his future.

A major bidding war for his signature began when Ohtani opted to leave the Los Angeles Angels as a free agent after his contract expired following a six-year stint.

The reported value of the contract ranks alongside – or even surpasses – the sort of sums megastars like footballer Lionel Messi or basketball player LeBron James have commanded.

Fans and pundits have widely credited the 29-year-old with transforming how the sport is played in the modern era, and he is already well on the way to being considered an all-time great.

Unlike most baseball players who specialise in batting or pitching, Ohtani is equally skilled at both disciplines.

He won the American League MVP award in 2021 and again last month, despite his 2023 season being cut short by injury.

Ohtani led Japan to a famous victory over the US in March, their first ever win over the Americans at international level – a major milestone for a country where baseball is the most popular sport.

In a statement posted on Instagram, Ohtani said the Angels would be “etched in my heart forever”, adding: “Until the last day of my playing career, I want to continue to strive forward not only for the Dodgers but for the baseball world.”

Many Korean television series – or K-dramas – now feature complex and powerful female characters, reflecting momentous changes in society and media habits.

K-dramas are now just as likely to have a female lead as a male. One of this year’s biggest hits, The Glory, was about a woman taking revenge against her bullies, and the hugely popular Extraordinary Attorney Woo featured an autistic female lawyer.

Women’s roles in K-drama weren’t always this interesting. Traditionally made to be watched by the whole family, nowadays shows even have the odd sex scene – and taboos like bisexual relationships and older people having love lives are being broken.

“In the 1990s Korean dramas were mainly about chaebol – rich heirs – loving poor women,” says Hong Eun-mi, vice-chair of the Korean Screenwriters’ Association.

Dramas such as Boys Over Flowers, in which spoiled rich heirs fell for plucky, working-class girls, were typical. The genre was known as “Candy girl” – named after the Japanese anime Candy Candy, about a cheerful, hard-working orphan girl waiting for her prince to sweep her off her feet.

“That’s not the case now,” says Hong. “The female protagonist has changed – she’s very independent, has a professional job, and is not really bothered by marriage.”

And even though dramas still love rich and powerful characters, they can now be women, too – like in Crash Landing On You, a huge global hit about an implausible, cross-border romance.

The actress and singer Uhm Jung-hwa, one of the most powerful women in Korean entertainment, says the spotlight rarely shone on women in the ’90s, when women’s “life goals boiled down to finding the perfect man”.

“Now we can see many strong female characters boldly embracing life on their own terms, and I feel fortunate and happy to be able to tell women’s stories, even at my age.”

The 54-year-old has just starred in Doctor Cha, a Netflix series about a middle-aged woman who decides to complete her medical training and start work after 20 years of looking after her ungrateful family.

“Doctor Cha chooses to pursue her dreams, saying that she’s done her part as a mum. Her journey is incredibly inspiring,” says Uhm.

The idea of a middle-aged woman as the lead would have been unthinkable when she started her career.

“Once you hit 30, you couldn’t land a leading role. If you were over 35, you were often typecast as the mother figure in a family,” she says. “Even really talented and beautiful women would vanish from the screen because of their age.”

Uhm thinks the shift in women’s representation is thanks to South Korea’s extraordinary economic development, which has seen GDP per capita soar from $400 (£320) to about $35,000 (£27,730) in half a century. This has led to changes in society – including the social standing of women.

“Korean women are highly educated and want social success rather than marriage and childbirth – but there are some problems,” says Hong, the scriptwriter.

South Korea now has the lowest birth rate in the world and scores very low on measures of women’s equality. Korean women are paid a third less on average than their male counterparts.

But on screen, at least, women are taking charge.

Forbes’ K-drama critic Joan MacDonald credits the move away from Cinderella stories to the changing landscape of Korean television, with cable channels and streaming platforms willing to take more risks – 2016 was the first year that Netflix invested in a Korean drama: Kingdom, a historical zombie saga, where a woman played one of the leads.

By 2019, there were more workplace dramas and stories that involved women having influence in courts and in politics, even in historical dramas.

“You started to see a lot more women with jobs, women solving problems that had nothing to do with men,” MacDonald says.

Covid lockdown accelerated change – a combination of video on-demand streaming and people consuming more from home trebled K-drama viewership during the pandemic.

This year half of the K-dramas MacDonald reviewed had strong female characters, which was quite a departure.

“I’m not sure it completely reflects what’s going on in Korean society – but dramas certainly are leading the way.”

She is reminded of how people in apartheid South Africa saw black middle-class characters for the first time on TV, when watching the Cosby show – “they had never seen black people as professionals before, and it actually influenced society”, she says.

Drama writer Baek Mi-kyoung has pioneered female narratives on Korean television, and her shows often tackle taboo subjects.

“With every show I try to break boundaries,” she says.

Baek’s highly-rated 2021 drama Mine featured a love story between two women, the first depiction of bisexuality on Korean TV – it was well-received, despite some angry letters.

But getting women’s stories on air has not always been easy. Baek’s acclaimed 2017 series The Lady in Dignity was repeatedly rejected by broadcasters.

“They thought that a story about two middle-aged women would not be commercially successful,” she says.

It was only after she had a huge hit with Strong Girl Bong-soon – about a girl from a family where all women inherit supernatural strength – that Korean broadcaster JTBC finally took a punt on Lady in Dignity. The series went on to beat the viewing records Strong Girl Bong-soon had just broken.

“I faced significant opposition to this project, but luckily, it was a big hit,” Baek says.

“Since my drama, female characters have become more proactive and empowered and very cool and independent. But I’m not satisfied yet. I want to be game-changing.”

In her latest comedy series, about another female superhero, Strong Girl Nam-soon, she decided to tackle a different TV taboo: older people in love.

“Korean audiences are crazy about romantic comedies, but only for young people. It’s a contradiction – most viewers sitting in front of the TV are seniors, but they don’t love senior love,” she says.

She says she was asked not to write about older people’s sex lives because it was feared viewers would switch off.

“But an older woman has a right to love in their life,” Baek says.

So her character, Nam-soon’s equally strong grandmother – played by 67-year-old Kim Hae-sook – falls in love with a barista, and at one point even carries her beau into a hotel, over her shoulder.

In the show, the grandmother says she has stopped watching Korean dramas because they only show young people in love. “Seniors have hearts too – their breasts may be sagging, but their hearts are beating,” her character says.

“That is an important message for me to send,” says Baek.

She had ambitions to write the “first female generation superhero series” – but a very small budget limited what they could do with special effects. “There is a big difference between Marvel and my stories,” she sighs.

“It is difficult to receive investment for a script featuring a woman,” says Hong, who writes for both film and television. “When a woman is the main character, the budget is very small. I am very disappointed by that.”

Her own debut 2016 film, Missing, was about a workaholic, divorced mother’s desperate search for her kidnapped daughter. “I’m really proud of myself because I made a movie with female protagonists,” she says.

During the pandemic Korea’s movie industry slumped, while K-drama viewership rose sharply. Streaming services provided freedom of expression and big budgets, and many filmmakers started making K-dramas. The gap between K-drama and cinema has narrowed, with dramas such as Squid Game – a hyper-violent dystopian thriller and Netflix’s most-viewed show ever – actually being made by filmmakers.

Before Covid, more than 80 big-budget movies were made per year – but this year only six, Hong says. “For the filmmakers it is a very sad story, but it’s good for Korean content, I think.”

Investment from streaming platforms, and with it change, looks set to continue. Netflix is planning to invest another $2.5bn – 60% of its subscribers saw a Korean drama in 2022. Disney, Amazon Prime and others are also ploughing cash in.

Hong says she no longer has to think about the budget when she writes – but at the same time, she worries that quieter, female narratives could be pushed aside to make action-packed shows in what she calls “the Squid Game effect”.

“I feel they want more and more of that for the audience. Women writers get a bit sick of it,” she says.

Squid Game would not have been made unless Netflix had invested money in it because it was deemed “too violent and strange” for terrestrial television in Korea, says MacDonald.

She can already see that streaming is changing K-dramas. “I started watching them 14 years ago and there was a lot less violence, there was a lot less sex – you had to wait until episode 10 to get a kiss, and that’s certainly not the case any more.”

Women are taking part in the violence too. My Name, a hard-hitting drama about a policeman’s daughter seeking revenge for her father’s death, had lots of fighting – and even a sex scene.

K-dramas are famously chaste, which is part of their global appeal.

“Women don’t generally have free and enjoyable sex lives in K-dramas,” says MacDonald – but that, too, is changing.

And K-dramas are beginning to depict different genders and sexuality in a positive way.

The hit drama Itaewon Class featured a transgender character who was treated with respect. The show was adapted from a webtoon – a comic designed to be read vertically on a smartphone – which often have millions of international fans, acting as a sort of barometer for any drama reversion.

Minyoung Alissia Hong, an executive at Kakao Entertainment who was behind the adaptation, says this popularity comes with increased responsibility.

“We need to be very careful not to offend any audience globally,” she says.

“Korean dramas used to have much more aggressive male characters when it comes to romantic scenes. It was something that we identified as a risk, so we dealt with it before it turned out to be problematic.”

Alissia Hong feels that K-dramas and K-pop actually show that men don’t have to be macho. “You can be very sensitive but you can still be a cool character,” she says.

Even though the classic K-drama hero starts off as “kind of arrogant”, MacDonald says that one of the things she first liked was seeing men cry and express their feelings.

“I think one of the reasons women are drawn to K-dramas is the way they portray men,” she says. “They might pretend to be macho at the beginning, but inside they’re tender, and very romantic.”

She hopes K-drama “doesn’t change too much because we like it for what it is”.

But she says: “Perhaps it is time for men to take note of what women’s fantasies entail. Women have been catering to men’s fantasies for centuries.”

The Philippines has accused China of using water cannons to obstruct three of its vessels, in the latest territorial dispute between the two countries in the South China Sea.

Video footage shows Chinese ships firing powerful blasts of water towards the Philippine government vessels.

The Philippines called China’s actions “illegal and aggressive”.

The South China Sea is at the centre of a territorial dispute between China, the Philippines and other countries.

The incident happened near Scarborough Shoal, a flashpoint between the two countries. Beijing seized the shoal in 2012 and Chinese boats have since harassed Philippine fishermen in the area.

The National Task Force for the West Philippine Sea said that “Chinese Coast Guard ships utilised water cannons to obstruct” government vessels from delivering fuel and food supplies to fishing boats.

The agency said it “vehemently condemns the illegal and aggressive actions”.

Beijing said it had used what it called “control measures” on ships that had intruded into its waters.

Earlier this week, the Philippines accused China of “swarming” a reef off its coast after more than 135 military boats were spotted in the South China Sea.

On Sunday, the Philippines plans to send a Christmas convoy of around 40 boats to distribute gifts and other provisions to people on Thitu island, the Philippines’ largest occupied island in the South China Sea.

Friction between the two countries over competing sovereignty claims has increased since Ferdinand Marcos Jr became Philippine president last year.

Last month, the Philippines carried out two separate joint air and sea patrols with the US, and with Australia a few days earlier.

An international tribunal invalidated China’s claim to 90% of the South China Sea in 2016, but Beijing does not recognise the ruling and has been building islands in the disputed waters in recent years.

The contested waters have also become a naval flashpoint for China-US relations, and in October, US President Joe Biden warned that the US will defend the Philippines in case of any attack.

President Biden’s comments were made days after two collisions between Filipino and Chinese vessels in the waters.

Taiwan, Malaysia, Vietnam, and Brunei also claim parts of the sea.

The UN climate talks start haggling over how protect the oceans on Saturday – and one woman will be closely watching.

Mervina Paueli, 25, has come to Dubai to negotiate a future for her home, Tuvalu – a group of low-lying Pacific islands.

We owe the oceans a lot – by absorbing heat, they protect us from the full cost of global warming.

If this summit agrees to slash fossil fuel use, oceans could be a big winner.

This is Mervina’s first COP summit – she was in the air for 24 hours, flying from Fiji to Hong Kong before finally landing here in the United Arab Emirates.

“We all have that umbilical cord attachment to our lands. Anything for my country is worth it,” she says.

As a negotiator with Tuvalu’s team, she belongs to a club no-one wants to join – a community facing a wipe-out of home and history.

“The numbers are not looking good for Tuvalu. Picturing it just not being there anymore makes me feel really sad,” she says.

She talks about the island’s white sands and beautiful clear waters lying either side of her family home.

Sea levels are 0.15 metres higher than 30 years ago, with an average increase rate of 5mm a year. That increase is expected to speed up and by 2050 the sea will be be 20cm higher than it is today.

The islanders’ culture, history and livelihood is totally reliant on the seas. They need healthy oceans with good fish stocks, and crucially, limited or no rise in sea levels.

That relationship is not unique to this population of a few thousand.

The oceans have provided a “great service” to Earth and everything that lives on it, says Ko Barrett, senior climate advisor at the US’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and vice chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Their dark waters have absorbed 90% of the warming humans have created by burning coal, oil and gas and releasing greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

But that service could soon end. Oceans are showing signs of huge stress from climate change, pollution and loss of habitats.

Metres away from the politicians at COP28, the waters shimmering off the shores of Dubai are close to 30C. In July, the average global ocean temperature reached its highest on record.

In Tuvalu, tuna are relocating to cooler waters, pushing fishermen further and further away from the shores, Mervina explains.

Despite this, oceans are the “poor cousin” of climate talks, the UN Special Envoy on Oceans Peter Thompson says, speaking at the Oceans Pavilion at COP28.

The first time oceans were mentioned in a UN climate talks deal was just two years ago, he explains.

On Saturday ministers from major ocean nations – including the US, Norway, and the Seychelles – meet to discuss next steps and how they can provide climate solutions including renewable power from tidal energy.

More than 100 organisations have signed the Dubai Oceans Declaration – including scientists anchored on a ship off the coast of Peru, frantically working to understand how long oceans have left before they start pumping out heat.

Collette Kelly from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution is on board, hanging instruments from the ship’s side to measure nitrogen levels and acidification, both signs of higher ocean temperatures in the waters deep below.

The Dubai Oceans Declaration calls for investment in ocean science, so experts can better understand issues like rising sea levels and the death of coral reefs.

“Put simply, the ocean is one of the best solutions we have to tackle climate change. Governments must commit to ocean-based action in their national climate goals, strategies and policies,” says Tom Pickerell, director of the ocean programme at the World Resources Institute.

But it may be too late for Pacific Islanders. Sea level rise has been baked into Earth’s system by melting glaciers, and it is uncertain whether sea surface temperatures will stabilise at cooler levels.

Recognising the existential threat facing these communities, in November close neighbour Australia offered climate refugee visas to Pacific Islanders.

Mervina says she would not take up the offer. “No. I just love Tuvalu. I would lose my culture and community where everybody knows each other, everybody helps each other,” she explains.

She describes a New Year’s eve party on her grandmother’s island.

“We were children but we stayed up until four o’clock in the morning. Everyone was dancing the traditional fakaseasea – the kids beating tin cans. Whenever you hear it, you join it. Whoever wants to join starts dancing,” she says.

She plans to stay and fight for this community and tell COP28 it must save her island home.