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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Official campaigning kicks off for April 10 elections
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Korea enters full election mode
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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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[Kim Seong-kon] The April 2024 election will decide our future
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Immigrant woman stabbed to death by Korean husband
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Seoul’s bus union prepares for strike
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Abortion in S. Korea: neither illegal nor legal
Kim, a 33-year-old woman living in Seoul, was taken by surprise when she found out she was pregnant late last year. With no intention of getting married or having a child of her own, she began searching for hospitals that would terminate the pregnancy for her. While searching online, Kim encountered numerous advertisements and blogs listing prices for abortions by vacuum aspiration. The prices varied according to the stage of pregnancy: 600,000 won ($450) before week 7 and 900,000 won before wee
March 7, 2024
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Yoon urged to retract appointment of ex-defense chief as envoy to Australia
South Korea’s main opposition party on Thursday asked President Yoon Suk Yeol to walk back the appointment of his former Minister of National Defense Lee Jong-sup as ambassador to Australia. According to the Democratic Party of Korea, Lee has been banned from leaving the country by the Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials since the beginning of this year over an investigation into the death of a Marine. The Marine died during a search and rescue operation in July last
March 7, 2024
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GTX-B breaks ground for 30-min Seoul-Incheon commute
Construction work for the GTX Line B suburban rail network broke ground in Incheon on Thursday, as the 6.84-trillion-won ($5.14 billion) project aims to connect the port city to Seoul and Gyeonggi Province via express train services. President Yoon Suk Yeol said the combined population of 13 million people in Incheon and Seoul will enjoy 30-minute commutes once construction of the 82-kilometer railway is complete as planned by 2030. "The transportation revolution in Incheon has just begun t
March 7, 2024
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Yoon refuses to bend to doctors' protest
President Yoon Suk Yeol on Wednesday refused to concede to some 9,000 trainee doctors' walkout, defining their collective action as "illegal" and insisting it must be met with stern actions guided by law and principle. Yoon denied the accusations that the government's measures against defiant doctors, such as its decision to suspend the medical licenses of some 7,000 trainees, were meant to suppress doctors' freedom and rights. Instead, these should be construed as actions "to mee
March 6, 2024
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Voter support for opposition party plummets: poll
The rate of respondents willing to vote for main opposition party candidates in the upcoming April 10 legislative election dropped by a whopping 9 percentage points from the previous month, poll results showed Wednesday. In a survey conducted by local pollster Metrix on 1,000 Koreans aged 18 or older on March 2-3, when asked which party they would vote for "if the election was held tomorrow," some 26 percent of respondents chose candidates from the main opposition Democratic Party of K
March 6, 2024
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North Korea sends political prisoners to nuclear facilities: defector
North Korea is forcing political prisoners to work at some of its high-risk nuclear facilities, a North Korean defector was quoted as telling South Korean authorities. A former Pyongyang resident in her 40s who defected in 2019 said in an in-depth interview with authorities in Seoul that North Korea was sending its political prisoners to labor camps close to nuclear sites, according to a recent report by the government-run Korea Institute for National Unification. “The levels of radiation
March 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
March 6, 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
March 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
March 5, 2024
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Ex-consul general in Sydney named chief negotiator for defense cost sharing with US
A senior South Korean diplomat who previously served as the consul general in Sydney has been named to lead the negotiations with the United States on the sharing of costs for the upkeep of US troops here, the foreign ministry said Tuesday. Lee Tae-woo will head the upcoming rounds of the talks on the 12th Special Measures Agreement, the ministry said, without specifying when the initial negotiations will be launched. The career diplomat has the experience and expertise in various fields of the
March 5, 2024
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NIS warns of rise in North Korean hacking threats against South Korean chipmakers
South Korea’s spy agency on Monday warned of a recent uptick in North Korean hacking threats against South Korean semiconductor firms. The National Intelligence Service said North Korean hackers have been ramping up hacking efforts targeting South Korean semiconductor equipment makers since the latter half of 2023. The NIS said the North Korean hackers mainly focused on companies whose servers are connected to the Internet and who had their vulnerabilities exposed. The North Korean hackers
March 4, 2024
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Why Jongno is known as Seoul’s center of politics
The race to win the Assembly seat for Jongno, long known as the center of politics in Seoul, officially kicked off Monday as the Democratic Party of Korea candidate, Kwak Sang-eon, set to work after a contentious primary. Kwak is the son-in-law of the late liberal President Roh Moo-hyun. The party decided to hand him the nomination for the symbolic Seoul district over other competitive figures such as Jeon Hyun-hee, who served as the head of the anti-corruption watchdog under President Moon Jae-
March 4, 2024
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[Election 2024] Will election untie Yoon's hands?
The general election on April 10 will not only be an election for a new parliament of 300 legislators but also a decisive moment for the presidency of Yoon Suk Yeol, who has been struggling to advance his agenda since his narrow election victory two years ago. The main opposition Democratic Party of Korea, led by Yoon's presidential election opponent Rep. Lee Jae-myung, currently holds a simple majority. The ruling party, on the other hand, has only 113 out of the 300 parliamentary seats. T
March 4, 2024
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Ruling party chief calls for TV debate with main opposition leader
The ruling party chief on Monday called on the main opposition leader to engage in a televised debate ahead of the April 10 legislative election, saying that it’s “what many people want.” People Power Party Interim Chair Han Dong-hoon told reporters that he is ready to face off against the Democratic Party of Korea Chair Lee Jae-myung in a debate, while hinting that the opposition leader has been avoiding it on purpose. “I believe it is what several media and many people
March 4, 2024
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[Bills in Focus] Tax relief for birth benefits, green light for local logistics facilities
Proposed Bill: Partial Amendment to the Telecommunications Business Act Proposed by Rep. Yoon Doo-hyun (People Power Party) ● To ensure consumers are protected after the abolition of the Mobile Device Distribution Improvement Act, this amendment transfers provisions related to selective contract discounts and prohibitions on compulsory subscriptions to add-on services to the Telecommunications Business Act. It also promotes free competition among mobile communications businesses and enhances use
March 4, 2024
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Ex-DP lawmaker to join PPP amid growing factional rift as April 10 elections near
A four-term lawmaker previously affiliated with the main opposition Democratic Party joined the ruling People Power Party on Monday as a factional rift in the Democratic Party deepened over candidate nominations for the April 10 parliamentary elections. Rep. Kim Young-joo, a deputy National Assembly speaker, quit the Democratic Party last month, protesting the party's inclusion of her in a list of underperformers to be disadvantaged in election nominations amid allegations the party is side
March 4, 2024
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Mainstream factions dominate as election candidates
The overwhelming majority of candidates from the two main parties picked to run in the upcoming legislative election so far are viewed as part of the parties’ respective mainstream factions, data showed Sunday. The outcome contradicts earlier pledges made by the two parties to select more candidates from their respective nonmainstream pools for the April 10 general election in order to promote fairness. According to data provided by the ruling party, the majority of the candidates from
March 3, 2024
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Ex-PPP leader to run for seat in less conservative Hwaseong city
Lee Jun-seok, leader of the newly launched New Reform Party, said Saturday that he will run for a parliamentary seat representing a constituency in Hwaseong, a metropolitan city near Seoul considered traditionally a liberal stronghold. Lee, a former leader of the ruling conservative People Power Party, made the announcement in a Facebook post that he will run for the constituency that covers Dongtan 2 New Town in the upcoming April 10 elections. "Hwaseong is a difficult area for conservativ
March 2, 2024
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DP leader Lee retains ticket to his constituency for April elections
The main opposition Democratic Party (DP) leader Lee Jae-myung retained the ticket as the party's single candidate to his constituency for the upcoming April 10 elections, the party announced Saturday. The DP's nomination committee made the announcement as it unveiled the decisions on the candidate nominations for seven other constituencies, with about a month left before the parliamentary votes expected to serve as a political litmus test for the Yoon Suk Yeol government. The announce
March 2, 2024
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Vote on bill to probe first lady lays bare Democratic Party of Korea split
The bill to launch a special counsel investigation into allegations surrounding First Lady Kim Keon-hee was struck down in a National Assembly vote late Thursday, amid a loud protest from the Democratic Party of Korea’s primary losers challenging the results of the nominations for the April general election. The ruling People Power Party and the main opposition Democratic Party convened a plenary session to vote on the special counsel bill, which was sent back to the Assembly for a re-vote
March 1, 2024