The Seoul Metropolitan Government announced Wednesday plans to have all 450 shuttle buses running between Incheon Airport and Seoul powered by clean energy by 2030. Currently, all 450 airport buses are diesel-powered. Airport shuttle buses run about 550 kilometers a day on average -- shuttling from the airport to a final destination twice a day -- double that of city buses, meaning the amount of carbon they emit is 30 times more than that of sedans, according to Seoul city. In Seoul city's

Social Affairs June 7, 2023

Lee Rae-kyung, the honorary chair of the progressive grassroots advocacy group The Tomorrow, offered to resign from his role to lead the reform of the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea, about 10 hours after his nomination Monday. Lee's decision comes following controversy in political circles over past pro-North Korea remarks, which surfaced immediately after the news of his nomination. "I regret that a private opinion ... has become the subject of a political witch-hunt,"

Politics June 5, 2023

  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

Social Affairs June 5, 2023

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

Social Affairs June 5, 2023

A YouTuber's unauthorized disclosure of the identity of a suspect who was earlier convicted of attempting to murder a stranger, is stirring up a number of controversies, including over whether the right to privacy of a person convicted of a crime outweighs the public's right to know. The YouTuber, who has some 729,000 subscribers and goes by the name Caracula Detective, revealed on Friday the identity of a man who in May 2022 kicked a woman in the head, knocked her down and dragged her

Social Affairs June 4, 2023

The suspect in the murder of a university student in Busan told police that she was being manipulated by a stranger during her first interrogation, according to a news report on Sunday. Suspect Jung Yoo-jung said she "was told by a stranger to steal the identity of a woman they had murdered," while refusing to admit to the murder, broadcaster JTBC reported, quoting the notes from the police interrogation on May 27. But police concluded that her statement was false after examination of

Social Affairs June 4, 2023

Nearly half of students attending prestigious high schools came from five districts in Seoul which are believed to have a higher fervor for education compared to the city's other 20 districts, data showed Sunday. Of the total 7,895 students who in 2022 advanced to prestigious high schools -- science high schools, foreign language high schools, international high schools and autonomous private high schools -- 3,671, or 46.5 percent, were those who graduated from middle schools in five distri

Social Affairs June 4, 2023

A type of radioactive isotope in the over 1.3 million tons of wastewater being collected at the destroyed Fukushima nuclear power plant and planned for discharge by as early as this summer has been found at levels beyond those earlier suggested to be safe by the Japanese government, a wastewater safety review report by the International Atomic Energy Agency showed Thursday. The finding has raised the need to ensure the treated wastewater is diluted before it is discharged, so that the wastewater

Foreign Affairs June 1, 2023

Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon said the warning alarm sent out by the city government early Wednesday morning telling people to evacuate to the nearest shelter following North Korea's launch of a projectile was "not an error," amid the intensifying blame game between the central government and the municipality with the former criticizing the latter for overreacting and throwing its residents into chaos. In an emergency press conference, Oh admitted that Seoul had "overreacted" to the

Social Affairs May 31, 2023

The emergency mobile alert that woke up many Seoul residents early on Wednesday is classified as a "warning alarm," one of three types meant to help South Koreans brace for attacks. As the country is still technically at war with North Korea, the civil defense system involves two other types of alarms: the "air raid alarm" and the "chemical, biological and radiological (CBR) alarm." An air raid alarm is sent to urge people to evacuate to the nearest underground shel

Social Affairs May 31, 2023

A rare warning alert asking Seoul residents to "prepare to evacuate to the nearest underground shelter" on Wednesday left many confused as the text message didn't elaborate on where exactly they should go. "Underground shelter" became one of the most-searched-for words online shortly after the warning alarm rang for North Korea's launch of a projectile that it claimed to be a military reconnaissance satellite at 6:32 a.m. According to the Ministry of Interior and Sa

Social Affairs May 31, 2023

The South Korean government said Wednesday a disaster alert it issued in Seoul at around 6:30 a.m. was issued in error after North Korea attempted to launch a space satellite. According to an official at the Joint Chiefs of Staff of South Korea, the North Korea's projectile "flew over the Yellow Sea, and (its trajectory) had nothing to do with the Seoul and the neighboring areas." This came as the Seoul Metropolitan Government issued a disaster alert calling for evacuation of Seou

Social Affairs May 31, 2023

South Korea's Supreme Court on Tuesday expanded the definition of harassment to include repeated missed calls by an offender meant to intimidate a victim in a landmark ruling. On May 18, the nation's top court remanded the case to the Busan District Court, dismissing the lower court's ruling that refused to recognize the behavior of leaving numerous missed calls as harassment. It was the first Supreme Court ruling to define the nature of such behavior. A rights advocacy group known as the Korean

Social Affairs May 30, 2023

The scandal surrounding alleged unfair hiring practices in South Korea's National Election Commission is growing. Jeon Hyun-heui, chair of the Anti-corruption and Civil Rights Commission, told a press briefing Tuesday that it has embarked on an investigation into unfair hiring practices in the election commission, following complaints filed with the civil rights authorities. The investigation will run until the end of June, Jeon said. At least 11 officials at the commission have allegedly r

Social Affairs May 30, 2023

The Seoul Metropolitan Government on Tuesday proposed a bill to increase its annual budget by 3.04 trillion won ($2.3 billion) to boost the social safety net, as inflation bites hard on finances of the city's nearly 10 million residents. The plan, submitted to the city council, will bring this year's total budget of South Korea's capital city to 50.3 trillion won. The increased budget will be spent to alleviate the rising cost of living of those marginalized, offset city transportation maintenan

Social Affairs May 30, 2023