Three foreign students attending universities in Seoul have been confirmed to be infected with omicron, officials said Tuesday, signaling the highly contagious COVID-19 variant's penetration into the capital. One foreign student each from Seoul National University (SNU), Hankuk University of Foreign Studies (HUFS) and Kyunghee University has been confirmed to have contracted the omicron variant, according to the Seoul city government.All of the three were found to have visited a church in Inche

South Korea said Tuesday it has allocated 73 percent of fiscal spending for implementation in the first half of next year in a bid to help the country's economic recovery gain traction. The government plans to front-load 363.5 trillion won ($307.7 billion) of next year's budget spending of 497.7 trillion won in the January-June period, according to the Ministry of Economy and Finance. The 2022 proposition is higher than 72.4 percent of the budget spending allocated in the first half of this ye

President Moon Jae-in instructed aides Tuesday to make greater efforts to prevent the spread of the omicron variant, urging more people to get booster shots as the nation is struggling with a spike in COVID-19 deaths and infections. "We are facing a very grave situation as the numbers of confirmed patients, critically ill patients and deaths are on the rise, coupled with the omicron variant," Moon told a Cabinet meeting. Amid growing alarm over omicron, which is potentially more cont