A conflict over landfills has arisen with Incheon refusing to receive garbage from Seoul and Gyeonggi Province beginning in 2025. Experts say Seoul and Gyeonggi Province should look to reducing garbage to better persuade Incheon. Sudokwon Landfill in Incheon has been taking waste from the metropolitan area since 1992. The first and second parts of the landfills were used between 1992 and 2018. T...

Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon’s idea of using self-test kits as part of a “Seoul-type social distancing” is facing opposition from medical experts, the ruling party and the central government, who question their effectiveness. On Monday, Oh proposed a plan to allow customers to enter restaurants, bars and karaoke late at night after conducting self-tests using kits. This could help ease restrictions on...

New Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon, whose main pledge was to stabilize the city’s housing market, faces a difficult task of winning support from a ruling party-led government and lawmakers, on top of having to curb soaring property prices that have risen in anticipation of promised policy easing. Oh’s real estate policy focuses on revitalizing private-led development and urban redevelopment with various...

Oh Se-hoon, the new mayor of Seoul, who returned to the post Thursday 10 years after stepping down, has vowed to take care of citizens suffering as a result of the prolonged pandemic and to push for deregulation to increase the supply of housing. After arriving at Seoul City Hall on Thursday at 8:50 a.m., Oh met with reporters and expressed his feelings about his first day of work, saying that a...

The term for the new mayor will be about a year and three months, until June 30, 2022. The new mayors, including former Seoul mayor Oh, can serve up to three consecutive terms. For both ruling and opposition parties, the results of the elections were critical as they can be a prelude to determining the fate of next year’s presidential election. As Oh wins by a landslide, the People Power Party ...

While politicians make real estate development in Seoul their top priority, environmental campaigners say the next mayor must pay more attention to climate and environmental issues for the sake of future generations. “The direction we’ve been running so far has been to create added value by building more properties, roads and cars. I think it is time that we can turn around a little,” said Kim ...

Oh Se-hoon, a former mayor and the sole candidate from the main opposition People Power Party, won the by-election for Seoul mayor by a landslide. Oh won the race, taking 57.5 percent of the votes, compared to former SMEs minister Park Young-sun's 38.18 percent. Exits poll results showed that Oh received 59 percent of the votes while Park Young-sun, former minister of SMEs and startups and the ...

Amid growing anti-China sentiment in South Korea, people are calling for the withdrawal of the construction of a tourist-focused Chinatown in Gangwon province. As of Monday, more than 410,000 people signed up to a petition against the construction of the tourist site on the website of presidential Blue House. This reflects growing anti-China sentiment in the nation as China attempts to rewrite h...

With the number of new COVID-19 cases hovering in the 400s and 500s for weeks, the authorities have toughened basic quarantine rules, warning there will be zero tolerance for violations. As of midnight, the number of new COVID-19 cases increased by 473 to 105,752, the government’s central response team said Monday. Although the number dropped by 70 from the previous day’s 543, it is hard to say ...

National Assembly Speaker Park Byeong-seug began his nine-day visit to Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan to strengthen economic ties with the three emerging Central Asian nations, the National Assembly said Thursday. During the visit, Park will discuss cooperation in areas such as health care, energy, information and communications technology, public administration, agriculture and textiles....

As the April 7 by-election to choose Seoul’s next mayor approaches, a fierce battle is ongoing between the ruling and main opposition parties. At the same time, 10 minor parties and independent candidates are appealing to voters by talking about gender equality, LGBTQ rights, basic income and the environment. The 10 candidates, whose combined approval rating is less than 5 percent, are getting v...

Amid a growing shortage of migrant workers in South Korea, reported cases of sexual violence, assault and overdue wages among foreign workers have continued to emerge as they accuse their employers for exploiting their vulnerable status. Police said on Monday it is investigating a case of sexual assault after receiving a complaint that a Cambodian worker was sexually assaulted by a farm owner. ...

With the April 7 by-election to choose Seoul’s next mayor just around the corner, the election campaigns are becoming marred by mudslinging and personal insults between candidates, which may lead to political distrust and apathy among voters. About a week to go before the election, both the ruling and opposition parties appear to be focusing more on raising personal negative issues about rival c...

The South Korean government and National Assembly are looking to ease regulations on employing foreign nationals and for immigration in the face of labor shortages brought on by the prolonged pandemic. On Friday, a bill to revise the act on the employment of foreign workers, which was proposed by Rep. Lee Jong-bae of the main opposition People Power Party, passed the plenary session of the Natio...

Under the Resource Recycling Act, which took effect in December 2019, product containers are classified into grades of “excellent,” “best,” “normal” and “difficult” depending on the levels of recycling. If the container is classified as “difficult,” the phrase “difficult to recycle” is displayed on the containers. However, the Ministry of Environment excluded cosmetics containers from the regula...