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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Dialogue hopes fade as doctors pick hard-liner as new head
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Korea enters full election mode
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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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Seoul’s bus union prepares for strike
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[Hello India] Corporate Korea sees new growth drivers in India
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2028 Suneung will 'aim to ensure fairness'
South Korea's Education Ministry confirmed changes for the college entrance exam starting in the year 2028 on Wednesday, largely by consolidating the test topics, aiming to "ensure fairness and stability" in the country's highly competitive education system. Currently, the standard score for each test taker of the same subject might differ among those who got the same raw score, depending on their choices of elective topics for the subject, prompting questions about the test&
Dec. 27, 2023
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Ticket scalping expands beyond music to anything that can be bought
South Korea is being plagued by illegal ticket sales ranging from music and other forms of performing arts to reservations for hotels, restaurants and popular services all throughout the country. An online post on Joonggonara, a website for secondhand sales, offered a reservation for a meal for two at a high-end sushi restaurant in Gangnam's Cheongdam-dong, an affluent region in southern Seoul, for 540,000 won ($410) -- 100,000 won more than the original price. A separate post on the simila
Dec. 27, 2023
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City of Seoul to extend late-night public transit for New Year's Eve
Subways and buses running in central Seoul will extend late-night operating hours for those enjoying New Year's Eve celebrations, with the bell-ringing ceremony at Bosingak Pavilion and Sejongdaero expected to take place from 11 p.m. to 1 a.m the next day. Normally, on public holidays subways are scheduled to arrive at their final station by midnight. However, on Sunday, subway trains will operate until 2 a.m. on New Year’s Day. A total of 173 subway trains will run on Line Nos. 1 to
Dec. 27, 2023
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8 trains to be added to Seoul Metro Line No. 9 by early 2024
The Seoul Metropolitan Government announced Wednesday that it will add eight six-carriage trains on Line No. 9 of the Seoul Metro, increasing the number of trains in operation from the current 45 to 53 by early 2024. Out of the eight that are planned to be added, five will begin operating from this weekend on Dec. 30. With the newly added trains, the city government plans to reduce train arrival intervals and extreme overcrowding during rush hour. By the year-end, train arrival intervals are exp
Dec. 27, 2023
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Gender gap at work improving, albeit slowly
The gender gap at South Korean workplaces has shown signs of narrowing over the past decade, signaling that the country might be breaking away from the long-standing division of labor between the sexes and outdated stereotypes toward women who work. The gender gap in the employment rate has narrowed slightly from 22.5 percentage points in 2012 to 18.6 percentage points last year, according to the 2023 Women’s Participation in Economic Activities White Paper, jointly published by the Minist
Dec. 27, 2023
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Actor Lee Sun-kyun found dead
South Korean police confirmed that Lee Sun-kyun had been found dead Wednesday morning at Waryong Park in northern Jongno-gu in Seoul. He had been under investigation for alleged drug use. Police confirmed his identity after earlier reports said the body of a man suspected to be the well-known actor had been found at the park. Lee was found unconscious inside of his car at around 10:30 a.m., having inhaled smoke from charcoal briquette. Emergency workers said he was already dead at the time of
Dec. 27, 2023
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S. Korea to push for DNA tests on descendants of separated families
The unification ministry said Tuesday it will push to conduct DNA tests on descendants of families separated by the 1950-53 Korean War in a bid to use their gene information for potential family reunions with their relatives in North Korea. The move comes as more aging separated family members in South Korea have died without having a chance to meet with their long-lost relatives in North Korea amid strained inter-Korean ties. A plan to conduct DNA tests on children and grandchildren of separate
Dec. 26, 2023
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Actor Lee Sun-kyun requests lie detector test over drug suspicions
Actor Lee Sun-kyun of the Oscar-winning "Parasite" requested a lie detector test Tuesday for his ongoing drug investigation, claiming innocence, sources said. Through his lawyer, Lee submitted a polygraph test request to the Incheon Metropolitan Police Agency in Incheon, about 30 kilometers west of Seoul, the legal sources said. Lee has gone through three rounds of police questioning on suspicions of using marijuana and other illegal drugs at the home of a hostess working at a high-end
Dec. 26, 2023
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Police hunting down mastermind behind defacing of Seoul palace walls
Police are hunting down the mastermind who commissioned a teen to spray paint 44-meter-long graffiti on the walls of a historic palace in central Seoul earlier this month, officials said Tuesday. A 17-year-old, only identified by his surname Im, was arrested last week after spray painting the phrase "free movie" in Korean on both sides of the western gate to Gyeongbok Palace and palace walls near the National Palace Museum of Korea on Dec. 16. Investigators have since found that Im was
Dec. 26, 2023
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Apartment fire on Christmas could be due to ‘negligence’: police
A fire that broke out in an apartment building in Dobong-gu, northern Seoul that left two people dead and injured 30 others Monday was likely caused by human negligence, the police and fire authorities said Tuesday. A police official on-site said that it seems “unlikely that the fire was ignited due to electrical factors” after a joint on-site investigation. “It seems unlikely that the fire was caused by a short circuit or malfunctioning electrical equipment. Based on the evide
Dec. 26, 2023
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Underage drinkers turning themselves in becomes issue in S. Korea
Earlier this month, online communities across South Korea were abuzz with a story of a group of high school students who fled from a local eatery without paying. On the back of a bill, they wrote "I'm sorry but you didn't check our IDs. If we report you, you'll get shut down. We'll just go. We'll come back later after we're adults." Legal minors reporting themselves after consuming alcohol, or threatening to do so, is quickly becoming a social issue. South
Dec. 26, 2023
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A closer look into Korea’s suicide statistics
It is no longer news that South Korea has a high suicide rate. With 25.2 deaths per 100,000 people in 2022, the country topped the 38-member Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development in terms of suicide rates. This rate is more than double that of the OECD average of around 10-11 deaths per 100,000. But under the headline numbers, when, where and how do most suicide attempts occur here? A recently released set of data encompassing crucial information from first response records t
Dec. 26, 2023
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Ministry inspected 2% of 2,600+ sexual abuse cases in public sectors
Over 2,600 cases of sexual violence and harassment were reported in public organizations nationwide over the past two years, with the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family responding to just over 50 cases for on-site inspection, the ministry's data showed Tuesday. Some 18,000 government offices, institutions and schools recorded 2,620 cases of sexual abuse from July 2021 until June this year, according to data provided by the ministry to Rep. Yangyi Won-young of the main opposition Democ
Dec. 26, 2023
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From 2024, Seoul to use drones to monitor traffic
The Seoul Metropolitan Government announced on Tuesday that it will monitor traffic conditions in real time using drones starting in 2024. Using drone footage of traffic taken 200 meters above the ground, an artificial intelligence algorithm will analyze the footage to find patterns and predict future traffic conditions. To create a traffic management system that utilizes drones and AI, the Seoul Metropolitan Government conducted several tests in September and October. The city government tested
Dec. 26, 2023
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Man loses appeal for draft dodging, despite claiming to be gay
A Suwon district court recently handed down a jail term to a man in his 20s for evading his military duties. The man had reportedly vowed to to fulfill his duties when first accused but later claimed to be a conscientious objector based on his sexuality, according to local media reports, Tuesday. The defendant was sentenced to one year and six months behind bars by the appellate division of the Suwon court, which upheld an earlier ruling that punished him for violating the Military Service A
Dec. 26, 2023
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Govt. pays out most for whistleblowers in 2023
The state anti-corruption agency on Tuesday announced that it recorded the highest ever amount in rewards provided to those who reported corrupt officials or companies in 2023. The Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission said it disbursed some 4.243 billion won ($3.273 million) as rewards to whistleblowers whose reports led directly to recovery or increase in public institution revenue in 2023, marking a 40 percent increase from the previous year. This annual figure represents the highest am
Dec. 26, 2023
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Fire at apartment building in northern Seoul kills 2, injures 29 people
A fire broke out at an apartment building in northern Seoul, leaving two people dead and injuring 29 others, firefighters said Monday. The blaze occurred at the third floor of the 23-story apartment building in Seoul's Dobong district at around 4:57 a.m., according to fire services. Two men in their 30s and a woman in her 70s were found in a state of cardiac arrest and sent to a hospital. The two men were pronounced dead, but the woman is known to have regained consciousness. The other 28 p
Dec. 25, 2023
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Seoul welcomes white Christmas for the first time in 8 years
A canopy of white covered the capital city of Seoul on Christmas morning, making it a white Christmas for the first time since 2015. In Gwanghwamun Square, central Seoul, while there were several pedestrians hurrying to get indoors to escape the snow, there were also some taking photos of the winter scenery. “It really feels like Christmas today,” said 25-year-old Baek Ji-yoon. “Christmas is one of my favorite holidays of the year because of its general atmosphere, but the sn
Dec. 25, 2023
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Not just pay, SME workers lag behind in benefits, too
The welfare benefits offered to employees at small to medium companies were around one-third of those provided by major corporations last year, amid widening gaps between the two groups, government data showed Monday. Smaller companies with less than 300 employees provided nonstatutory welfare benefits, also called fringe benefits, averaging 136,900 won ($105) per month as of the end of last year, according to data compiled in a report called "Corporate Labor Cost Survey for the 2022 Fiscal
Dec. 25, 2023
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[Herald Interview] Young leaders of Korea, Indonesia ask: How can we help each other?
In South Korea, concern over a looming demographic crisis is escalating, as the rapid aging of the population is feared to sap the vitality of what was once a dynamic society. From an Indonesian perspective, the country has something to offer: its abundant young workforce. Young leaders of Korea and Indonesia who are part of the nonprofit and nongovernmental organization Junior Chamber International have been exploring such opportunities. “If Korean companies have problems in hiring new,
Dec. 25, 2023