A dispute is intensifying between parents and health authorities, largely due to deepening mistrust in the government’s COVID-19 policies for students and schools. Starting in February, young people ages 12 to 18 will be allowed to go to cram schools, public study rooms and libraries only if they are fully vaccinated for COVID-19 or have a recent negative test. Given the impracticality of frequ...

One of the most important roles for the legislature is to scrutinize the administration’s use of taxpayer money. But the National Assembly did the opposite with next year’s budget bill, adding to the waste. The budget bill that the majority ruling Democratic Party of Korea effectively passed single-handedly is the largest-ever, at 607.7 trillion won ($516.3 billion), 3.3 trillion won more than t...

The long-awaited year-end festive mood is unlikely to be seen in 2021, as South Korea is beset by a host of negative economic signs and the people are increasingly forced to bear the brunt of the painful developments amid another resurgence of COVID-19. Asia’s fourth-largest economy faces a double whammy of surging consumer prices and shrinking incomes that threatens its recovery from the corona...

Lee Jae-myung, presidential candidate of the ruling Democratic Party of Korea, said in an interview with local media Monday that he would not seek to create a land ownership tax if the people oppose it. Lee has vowed to tax owners up to 1 percent of the value of their land, and spend the tax revenue on funding basic income that he pledged to distribute to everyone. But on Nov. 15, he posted on ...