Most Popular
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Hyundai Motor eyes 80,000 jobs, W68tr investment at home by 2026
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Seoul bus drivers go on general strike, cause morning rush hour delays
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Korea enters full election mode
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Official campaigning kicks off for April 10 elections
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Dialogue hopes fade as doctors pick hard-liner as new head
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Coupang pledges W3tr to expand Rocket Delivery nationwide by 2027
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[Election Battlefield] Political novice to face off star politician in ‘swing district’
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Immigrant woman stabbed to death by Korean husband
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[Herald Interview] Son Suk-ku chooses to be swayed by others in navigating life
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Seoul’s bus union prepares for strike
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Police question doctors' association leader over walkout
A leader of the country's biggest doctors' assocation appeared before police for questioning Wednesday in connection with the walkout by trainee doctors protesting the government's decision to hike the medical school quota. The questioning of Joo Soo-ho, the chief spokesperson of the Korea Medical Association, came as thousands of intern and resident doctors have stayed off the jobs at general hospitals nationwide for the 16th day in protest of the plan to raise the quota by 2,000
Social AffairsMarch 6, 2024
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Police push to tighten noise level at rallies, fly drones for evidence of illegal acts
Police have passed strengthened regulations to lower noise from rallies and demonstrations and allow the use of drones to collect evidence of any illegal acts during such assemblies, officials said Wednesday. The revision to the enforcement decree of the Assembly and Demonstration Act was approved Monday as part of follow-up measures after police laid out plans to minimize public inconvenience from excessive noise at rally sites in September. The revision lowered the decibel limit around residen
Social AffairsMarch 6, 2024
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Financial regulator vows swift implementation of W5tr support fund for local firms
The financial regulator said Wednesday it will work to quickly provide up to 5 trillion won ($3.75 billion) in financial support to local firms this year, while pushing to create an additional 3 trillion-won investment fund for businesses. The government earlier announced plans to provide more than 76 trillion won in financial support for local businesses, with 20 trillion won earmarked for large businesses and 15 trillion won for mid-sized firms. "As a follow-up to the 'business-tailo
PoliticsMarch 6, 2024
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US nuclear envoy underlines need for 'interim steps' toward ultimate N. Korea denuclearization
The top US nuclear envoy pointed out the need Tuesday for "interim steps" to be taken on a path towards North Korea's ultimate denuclearization, which she stressed would not happen "overnight." US Senior Official for North Korea Jung Pak made the remarks while reiterating Washington's "clear" goal to pursue the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. On Monday, Mira Rapp-Hooper, the US National Security Council senior director for East Asia and Oceania,
North KoreaMarch 6, 2024
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Methodist Church of Korea confirms expulsion of priest for blessing LGBTQ+
The Methodist Church of Korea finalized its decision to expel a pastor who blessed LGBTQ+ participants at the 2019 Incheon Queer Culture Festival in Incheon. The church’s tribunal on Monday confirmed the disfellowship of Rev. Lee Dong-hwan (43) at the Korean Methodist Church Building in central Seoul. The annual conference of Methodist churches in Gyeonggi Province made the decision on Dec. 19, citing Lee broke the internal rule that bans “supporting or agreeing with homosexuality.&r
Social AffairsMarch 5, 2024
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Death reports of mountain goats soar 18-fold with heavy snowfall
The number of reported deaths of mountain goats soared by more than 18 times a year with heavy snows hindering their feeding activities. The South Korean Cultural Heritage Administration, responsible for the maintenance of natural heritages, collected 277 death reports of mountain goats across South Korea from November to February, showing a big jump from the 15 deaths reported for the comparable period last year, CHA said Tuesday. Mountain goats are an endangered species in Korea and are protec
Social AffairsMarch 5, 2024
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Man kidnaps ex-girlfriend's dog and threatens to kill it
South Korean police on Tuesday said it is investigating a claim that a man in his twenties had threatened to kill his former girlfriend's dog, after being dumped by the woman. Gimpo Police Station in Gyeonggi Province received a report from woman on Saturday that her dog has gone missing. According to the victim, she had recently ended her romantic relationship with a man, who had also threatened to kill her dog, a female Maltese by the name of Jenny. The suspect sent her a photo of a garba
Social AffairsMarch 5, 2024
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South Korea-US military drills ‘war exercises’: Pyongyang
The annual military drills conducted by South Korea and the US were “frantic war exercises,” North Korea said Tuesday, warning of consequences. “The US and the Republic of Korea have once again launched provocative, large-scale joint military exercises that amplify the unpredictability of the situation in the Korean Peninsula,” North Korea’s Ministry of Defense said in a statement carried by the official state media, the Korean Central News Agency, referring to Sout
DefenseMarch 5, 2024
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Korea's best hospitals skewed in central region: report
Several hospitals in South Korea made their way into a list of "best hospitals" around the world, all but one of which were located in the Greater Seoul region, drawing a contrast to several prestigious hospitals in Japan which were located in non-central areas. According to the list compiled by Newsweek, a global media organization, in partnership with Statista, 17 Korean hospitals were ranked in the top 250 hospitals worldwide. Among them, only one hospital came from outside the capi
Social AffairsMarch 5, 2024
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Disgraced ex-minister meets opposition leader amid talk of alliance
Main opposition leader Lee Jae-myung on Tuesday met former Justice Minister Cho Kuk, who recently launched a political party of his own, exhibiting the possibility of an alliance. The meeting follows Cho’s move to launch the National Innovation Party on Sunday against the Yoon Suk Yeol administration ahead of the upcoming general election, which some critics say is an attempt to avoid jail time. The Seoul High Court in early February decided to uphold a lower court ruling to sentence the 5
PoliticsMarch 5, 2024
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Busan firefighters praised for saving premature baby
A rescue team is receiving praise after footage of them saving a premature baby went viral. The Gijang Fire Station in Gijang-gun, Busan, heralded five members of the Jeonggwan 119 Safety Center for successfully rescuing a premature baby on Friday. In the footage, the rescuers can be seen calling the baby, "Bboong-bboong," the nickname her parents gave her before birth, and gently encouraging her to keep her eyes open as they try to keep her conscious on the way to the hospital. The
Social AffairsMarch 5, 2024
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Yoon to expand state-backed college student aid
President Yoon Suk Yeol on Tuesday announced plans to expand state-backed scholarship programs to woo South Korea's young generation. Yoon told some 460 participants in a policy debate held in the city of Gwangmyeong, Gyeonggi Province, that the government "has the responsibility to help the talented young generation live up to their capacity." Yoon said the number of students eligible to get state-sponsored scholarships, provided by the state-run Korea Student Aid Foundation, wil
PoliticsMarch 5, 2024
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Allies aim to wrap up talks on defense costs before US election
South Korea and the United States on Tuesday appointed veteran diplomats as their chief delegates for upcoming negotiations on the next defense-cost sharing agreement, clearly signaling an early initiation of the talks. The move stands out as it precedes the expiration of the current agreement by almost two years, scheduled to end in 2025, and gains significance in light of the looming US presidential election. Lee Tae-woo, a seasoned diplomat with a career at the Foreign Ministry since 1996, br
Foreign AffairsMarch 5, 2024
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Med schools demand over 3,400 new student seats despite protests
South Korea’s 40 medical schools have collectively requested an increase in the annual student quota by 3,401 starting in 2025, defying doctors’ calls to resist the government’s plan to expand the quota by 2,000 a year. The figure, 1.7 times higher than the planned increase of 2,000 students, is expected to bolster the government’s quota expansion push, which has been encountering strong opposition from doctors, medical students and professors who walked out of hospitals
Social AffairsMarch 5, 2024
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Ministry to consider legal action against junior doctors leading protest
The Health Ministry on Tuesday said it was considering filing criminal complaints with the police against the trainee doctors who are leading the protest against the government's plan to expand the annual medical school student quota. “We are considering filing police complaints on the trainee doctors who led the walkouts,” said Second Vice Health Minister Park Min-soo. “Details as to when the police complaints will be filed and who it will be filed against will be decided
Social AffairsMarch 5, 2024
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Police to deploy deepfake detection system
The Korean National Police Agency said Tuesday it had developed deepfake detection software to probe crimes using the technology. Deepfakes, videos altered with AI to produce lifelike videos of things that did not happen, often depicting well-known public figures, have become a concern for authorities ahead of the upcoming general elections in April. A revision to the Public Official Election Act in December banned the use of fake content such as videos and images in election campaigns. Accordin
Social AffairsMarch 5, 2024
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S. Korea sees 26% increase in reports of financial crimes
The state-run financial watchdog said Tuesday that 2023 saw 13,751 citizen reports of damages caused by financial crimes, up 26 percent from 10,913 recorded the year before. The overwhelming majority of the cases, 12,844, were related to illegal private loans, according to the Financial Supervisory Service. The figure also marked a 24.5 percent increase from 10,350 reported the year before. Others included reports related to the illegal seizure of property of the debtor, which also jumped from 1
Social AffairsMarch 5, 2024
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Aging Korea needs foreign caregivers: report
South Korea should come up with various measures to attract foreign nationals to work here as care workers, as the country faces a shortage in the sector to care for its rapidly aging society, a report by the Bank of Korea argued, Tuesday. The cost of hiring a care worker at a nursing home or other facilities was estimated at 3.7 million won ($2,775) per month as of last year, according to the report titled “Measures to alleviate the care service labor shortage and cost burden” relea
Social AffairsMarch 5, 2024
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Indian FM visits Seoul to boost ties with S. Korea
Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar visited Seoul to boost bilateral ties on Tuesday. The visit comes as part of 10th India-Korea Joint Commission Meeting (JCM), to be co-chaired alongside his Korean counterpart Cho Tae-yul on Wednesday. According to the Indian Embassy in Seoul, the India-Korea Special Strategic Partnership spans various sectors such as trade, investments, defense, education, science and technology, and culture. India and South Korea established their diplomatic rela
Foreign AffairsMarch 5, 2024
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Possible ease of ban on marriages between distant blood relatives sparks backlash
As the South Korean government mulls easing a ban on consanguineous marriages, a local authority on the country's traditional rites on Tuesday voiced its strong opposition against what they say is "an act of destroying the concept of family." The Sungkyunkwan Confucian Association, which provides guidelines for the country's traditional rituals, said it commenced one-person protests against the move outside of the government complex in Gwacheon, Gyeonggi Province, on Monday.
Social AffairsMarch 5, 2024