North Korea has held a general meeting of its Olympic Committee to discuss plans for this year, vowing to win more medals in international competitions, its state media said Saturday, after the country was reinstated for the Olympic Games. The official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said high-ranking officials attended the meeting on Friday to discuss ways to win more medals in global-scale c...

South Korea's new COVID-19 cases topped the 10,000 threshold for the fifth consecutive Saturday, with more people traveling mask-free amid eased virus restrictions in public areas. The country reported 10,448 new COVID-19 infections, including 17 cases from overseas, bringing the total caseload to 30,759,895, the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) said. The Saturday figure sligh...

Keeping foreign nationals subject to deportation in detention centers for long periods of time is incompatible with the Constitution, South Korea’s Constitutional Court ruled Thursday. The clauses of the current Immigration Control Law that allow the authorities to prolong physical custody of foreign nationals slated for deportation until their departure must be amended to eliminate their uncons...

Chun Woo-won, former President Chun Doo-hwan's grandson, on Friday, said he had recovered from losing consciousness and vowed not to use drugs again. The 27-year-old who lives in New York wrote an update on his Instagram account about what had happened to him since he abruptly stopped live-streaming on March 16, when local police pulled him out of his apartment after he began using drugs while l...

South Koreans charged with spying for North Korea met secretly with North Korean agents in Cambodia and other Southeast Asian countries, according to Seoul prosecutors. The Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office wrote in an indictment released late Thursday that the head of the alleged spy ring, a 60-year-old identified only by his surname of Hwang, made overseas trips to communicate with No...

Applicants try year after year before being admitted; those successful mostly from big cities

Three of former President Moon Jae-in’s key security officials stood trial on Friday for their alleged roles in the cover-up of North Korea’s killing of the South Korean official Lee Dae-jun at sea in September 2020. The three accused in the case are Moon’s Cheong Wa Dae National Security Adviser Suh Hoon, his National Intelligence Service Director Park Jie-won, and his Minister of National Defe...

Four former Hana Bank officials have been found guilty by the Supreme Court for manipulating recruitment results in favor of graduates from certain schools and those recommended by high-ranking bank officials or financial authorities. They were also accused of discriminating female applicants from 2013 to 2016, local media reported Friday. Song, a former head of the bank’s human resources depar...

North Korea tested a new underwater drone capable of nuclear attacks on South Korea and its biggest ally, the United States, in its latest drills in response to the two allies’ resumption of their annual military exercises this month after a five-year hiatus failed to bring the North back to nuclear talks. The North’s state-run Korean Central News Agency said Friday that leader Kim Jong-un overs...

South Korean prosecutors said Friday that they would seek the extradition of Do Kwon, the wanted co-founder of Terraform Labs, via the Ministry of Justice, hours after he was arrested in Montenegro. The Seoul Southern District Prosecutors’ Office said it would initiate a repatriation request to the Montenegrin authorities to transfer him to Korea. Kwon was arrested at Podgorica Airport on Thursd...

The video also showed Sero being aggressive to zookeepers and the officials trying to calm it down with toys and snacks. On Thursday, the zebra was captured after being cornered and tranquilized by the rescue team. It was loaded onto a truck and brought back to the zoo it escaped from. A zoo representative said the park would do its best to prevent future escapes by thoroughly investigating the...

Police raided offices of a major construction workers' union Friday over allegations that the union provided illegal political funds to a minor progressive party ahead of the 2020 parliamentary election. The Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency sent investigators to two branch offices of the Korean Construction Workers' Union and eight other locations to seize evidence, including account books and c...

Prime Minister Han Duck-soo said Friday that the government will make efforts to improve child care services, as the nation is struggling to tackle the world's lowest birth rate. Han made the remarks as he visited a child care center in Seoul earlier in the day, Han's office said in a statement. "The low birth rate is based on complex causes, such as jobs, housing, education and child care, but...

South Korea's unification minister had discussions with top Japanese government officials on ways to bolster cooperation over North Korea's nuclear and missile problems and the issue of those abducted by the North decades ago, according to his office Friday. Kwon Young-se had talks with Japanese Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi and Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno in Tokyo on Thursday,...