New Prime Minister Kim Boo-kyum said on his first day of work that the nation would have new social distancing rules from July if the coronavirus situation stabilizes. Kim, who took office Friday, presided over a meeting of the Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasures Headquarters held at the Seoul Government Complex. “We will do our best to ensure that more than 13 million people complete their first vaccinations without a hitch in the first half,” Kim said. He added that t

Senior South Korean and US defense officials agreed to hold three-way minister-level talks with Japan in the coming days, potentially to discuss security issues involving the Korean Peninsula, at a two-day dialogue that ended Thursday in Washington, DC. The trilateral talks, which last opened at an expanded meeting of ASEAN defense ministers in 2019, are expected to resume at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore on June 4-5. The gathering is coming at a critical time for the US seeking to en

President Moon Jae-in on Friday emphasized the importance of close cooperation between his Cheong Wa Dae team and the ruling party in handling major policy issues during the remainder of his tenure. Meeting with the leaders of the Democratic Party (DP) at Cheong Wa Dae, he recalled frequent rifts between South Korea's ruling parties and lame-duck presidents. When a presidency was on the home stretch, there used to be a chasm between a ruling party and the government, Moon pointed out. "T