South Korea’s Ministry of Gender Equality and Family has come under fire for withdrawing plans to expand the legal definition of rape to non-consensual sex on the same day it was announced. The move would have ended the requirement in South Korea for the threat or use of force to be in evidence in order for an act to count as rape. Park Ji-hyun, who was briefly interim chair of the opposition D...

President Yoon Suk Yeol is rethinking the new law that will let police handle espionage cases, according to the ruling People Power Party spokesperson Yang Kum-hee. In December 2020, the laws on the National Intelligence Service were amended to forfeit the intelligence agency of the authority to investigate crimes related to North Korean espionage and other foreign meddling. The controversial a...

The opposition Democratic Party of Korea went after the Yoon Suk Yeol administration’s national security strategy on Thursday in a bid to keep the ruling People Power Party on the defense. Democratic Party floor leader Rep. Park Hong-keun convened an emergency meeting, in which he said that the “incompetence of the administration was threatening the security of the country.” “North Korean drone...

Dilemma for Xi? The pandemic likely served as a trigger for the Chinese public to express their already existing woes with intensifying repression, according to Moon Heung-ho, head of the Institute of Chinese Studies at Hanyang University in Seoul. “Before this point, public discontent rarely translated into tangible expressions like protests due to the state’s harsh crackdown,” he said in a ph...

Former top intelligence and security officials of the previous Moon Jae-in administration denied at the first hearing held Friday that they tried to cover up North Korean troops killing a South Korean government official at sea in 2020. Appearing at court, the lawyer representing former National Intelligence Service Director Park Jie-won said he “denies all that is written in the indictment.” A...

Park Jie-won, former head of the National Intelligence Service, on Friday denied criticism that the intelligence agency was lax on counterespionage investigations under the previous Moon Jae-in administration. People Power Party Rep. Sung Il-jong claimed in Friday’s meeting of the ruling party leadership that the Moon administration “let spy activities slide” and “tried to debilitate the NIS by ...

Starting Jan. 30, wearing face masks will no longer be required indoors in Korea -- a move that comes three years after the mandate was introduced. Prime Minister Han Duk-soo told a government meeting Friday that with the exception of some high-risk places including hospitals, pharmacies and public transit, face masks will cease being mandatory. “COVID-19 cases have been on the decline for thre...

Rep. Tae Yong-ho, who was a North Korean diplomat before he defected in 2016, on Thursday announced his bid to run for the Supreme Council member of the ruling People Power Party. Speaking at a press conference, he said as someone who has known the North Korean regime from the inside, he believes he has a “historical responsibility” to put his experience to greater use. “Sooner or later, North ...

The explosive omicron surge by comparison dwarfed any waves that came before. South Korea took more than two years to reach 1 million cumulative cases on Feb. 6, 2022. It took less than two months for the country to reach 10 million cumulative cases on March 23, 2022. The process of undoing policies and practices protecting against COVID-19 began long before omicron came around. “Return to norma...

Father who lost his son to the Itaewon crowd crush in October of last year collapsed Tuesday as the last day of the National Assembly probe turned into a row between the ruling and opposition parties. The father of late Lee Ji-han, who died at age 24 on the night of the disaster in central Seoul, was taken to a nearby hospital by an ambulance after collapsing near the end of the final plenary se...

The Democratic Party of Korea held a series of emergency meetings Monday, accusing the Yoon Suk Yeol administration of “being subservient” to Japan with its apparent plan for compensating victims of colonial forced labor. “The Yoon administration is willing to give up everything if it means mending ties with Japan,” Democratic Party head Rep. Lee Jae-myung said at the meeting convened by the par...

The former head of the National Intelligence Service of Korea, Park Jie-won, ordered the deletion of all intelligence reports on North Korean troops killing South Korean government official Lee Dae-jun on Sept. 22, 2020 at sea, according to an indictment submitted to the National Assembly on Thursday. Park “had officials at the National Intelligence Service delete intelligence reports related to...

The head of main opposition Democratic Party of Korea, Rep. Lee Jae-myung asked for a meeting with President Yoon Suk Yeol on Thursday, saying the conservative administration was not making an effort to bring the parties together. The party chair repeated his request for a meeting with the president at the press conference held just two days after he was summoned by prosecutors in an investigati...

Suh Hoon, an ex-national security and intelligence chief, ordered the cover-up of the killing of a South Korean official by North Korean troops at sea in 2020 over concerns the incident would prompt criticism of then-President Moon Jae-in, according to an indictment Seoul prosecutors submitted to the National Assembly. Seoul prosecutors said in the indictment written Dec. 9 that while Suh was th...

Experts called for giving emergency doctors more authority and the government more responsibility at the scene of major disasters. Speaking at the parliamentary probe hearing into the Halloween disaster in Itaewon last year, emergency medicine professor Dr. Lee Kyung-won of Yonsei University said first responders should be supported by an expert at the scene. “Large public hospitals get aid fro...