Let’s say you rented a house under a two-year "jeonse" contract using your life savings, and your landlord sold the house to someone else. The new owner of the house automatically becomes your new landlord. What happens if the new landlord is unlikely, or rather, unable, to return your deposit, potentially because he or she heavily relied on mortgage financing to buy the house? The law doesn't explicitly say what you can do, but according to case law, you may refuse successi

An 82-year-old general hospital in central Seoul is in the process of closing its doors, due mainly to mounting losses. Inje University Seoul Paik Hospital’s board of directors will convene on June 20 to finalize the decision, proposed by the hospital’s self-help task force, an official from the hospital said. The hospital, located near Myeongdong Cathedral in Seoul’s Jung-gu district, has accumulated a deficit of 174.5 billion won ($135 million) over the past 20 years. Sin

South Korea's top court ruled in favor of two parents' life insurance claim after their son, the policyholder, died by suicide due to chronic depression, recognizing that the man was unable to make decisions of his own free will. The Supreme Court dismissed a lower court's decision on Tuesday to exempt the insurance company from paying out after the parents of the deceased had filed a lawsuit against the insurance company. The lower court had argued that the suicide did not appe

Only approximately one in five fathers in Korea are using paternity leave, despite being entitled to the longest period of child care leave among the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development's member countries, data showed Tuesday. According to the OECD Family Database, of Korea's total parental leave takers in 2021, 22.7 percent were fathers. This figure differs from countries that implement what is called a "father’s quota" system, such as Sweden, Icela

College students rush to deactivate their accounts on tutor-matching apps after Jung Yoo-jung, a 23-year-old suspect in the murder of a woman in her 20s in Busan, was identified as having found the victim through one of these apps. A female student residing in Busan has expressed concern on Everytime, a community popular among university students, saying, “I feel dizzy and disgusted at the thought of Jung having seen my information on the app. I could have been a victim.” She added

Three indigenous streaming platforms in South Korea saw a rise in their users in May while global streaming giant Netflix suffered a slight fall. Tving, the nation's largest streaming platform run by CJ ENM, saw the number of its monthly active users reach some 5.15 million in May, up 4.8 percent from the previous month, according to data from app tracker Mobile Index. The May figure also marks a 35 percent jump from 3.81 million monthly active users in May last year. Coupang Play and Wavve

The number of flight passengers using Korean flag air carriers rose nearly 24 percent in May from a year earlier amid a nationwide move to return to pre-pandemic normalcy, government data showed Tuesday. Korean airlines carried a total of 9.32 million people on international and domestic routes last month, up 23.8 percent from 7.54 million tallied a year ago, according to the data compiled by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport. International passengers soared more than sixfold to

The presidential office said Monday it has recommended collecting the license fee for state broadcaster KBS separately from the electricity bill amid overwhelming public support. The recommendation was sent to the Korea Communications Commission, the state broadcasting watchdog, and the industry ministry, calling for an amendment to relevant laws and the implementation of follow-up measures. KBS has charged a monthly fee of 2,500 won ($1.91) to households on top of their electricity bills since

  The South Korean government on Monday approved a bill to remove the sunset clause for the death penalty in a bid to prevent inmates on death row from avoiding execution after 30 years in prison. The revision, once enacted, will be applied retroactively, the government added. Before being signed into law, the revision bill, which was proposed by the Ministry of Justice, will require parliamentary approval after passing through the Cabinet. South Korean law requires a government-proposed bi

Suspect reported to have some 700 photographs of juveniles and sexually harassed one teen in person

South Korea's Supreme Court has recently sentenced a 46-year-old man to 10 years of imprisonment for subjecting his intellectually disabled younger brother to alcohol and drug influence and abandoning him near a stream, leading to his death by drowning. According to the top court on Monday, it upheld the commuted sentence for the man, who had earlier been sentenced to a 30-year imprisonment by a district court. The man, surnamed Lee, offered his younger brother, then 38, whisky and sleepi

City, once at the heart of Korea's democratic transition, sets sight on future cars, chip and AI

The Ministry of Health and Welfare said it seeks to promote the expansion of medical institutions overseas and facilitate the export of advanced medical systems through deregulation measures and advisory services. Under the plan to promote health and medical exports, the Welfare Ministry on Monday said it sees the global medical market as a promising industry and aims to boost it as a key driver of future growth. The market is expected to grow 6.3 percent annually from $10.4 trillion in 2021 to

The government is developing a system to monitor how busy subway stations are in the Greater Seoul area on a real-time basis, as part of efforts to avoid accidents due to overcrowding. Development of the data analysis model will be completed by August, the Integrated Data Analysis Center under the Ministry of the Interior and Safety said Sunday. Starting with Seoul subway stations in September, the congestion levels at each station will be shown on the Seoul Metro app. Ridership inside subway ca

A meth user was arrested Sunday after he sought police assistance in locating a bag of methamphetamine that he had lost. According to Gwangju Bukbu Police Station, the suspect, a man in his 40s, had accidentally dropped a white plastic bag containing meth and 1 million won in cash. After realizing that the bag was missing, he went to the nearest police station and stated that he was “in search of a white plastic bag” he had lost. The police, which was holding the man’s plastic