Exercising his 2nd veto, Yoon says the bill exacerbates conflict; nurses vow to take collective action

Prosecutors raided two of South Korea's local cryptocurrency exchanges Monday as part of an investigation into the snowballing suspicions surrounding opposition lawmaker Kim Nam-kuk's digital assets, officials said. A team of investigators from the Seoul Southern District Prosecutors Office seized transaction records and other materials from Upbit and Bithumb, they said. The move came as Rep. K...

Eyes are on President Yoon Suk Yeol’s upcoming diplomatic engagements, with some speculating how the coming weeks could influence his still-low popularity at home, which has seen improvement since summits with the US and Japanese leaders. The five-day Realmeter poll conducted from May 8-12 found that 36.8 percent of Koreans approve of Yoon’s job performance -- a steady rise from three weeks ago,...

The ruling People Power Party said Monday it plans to launch an internal task force to look into suspicions surrounding cryptocurrency dealings of opposition lawmaker Kim Nam-kuk. Kim has come under fire following revelations he owned around 800,000 Wemix coins in 2021, worth around 6 billion won ($4.5 million), a significant amount inconsistent with his frugal image. Suspicions have arisen over...

Investigators have identified two suspects who allegedly desecrated the grave site of the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea's leader Lee Jae-myung’s parents, said officials at the North Gyeongsang Provincial Police on Sunday. The two male suspects, aged 83 and 70, are accused of digging holes around the grave in Bonghwa-gun, North Gyeongsang Province and burying six stones painted with s...

Rep. Kim Nam-kuk of the main opposition Democratic Party said Sunday he will leave the party amid snowballing allegations of his involvement in massive cryptocurrency dealings. "Today, I am briefly leaving the Democratic Party that I love," he wrote on his Facebook page. "I decided that it would not be right to be a burden to the party and party members any longer." Kim has come under fire foll...

The main opposition Democratic Party on Saturday urged the government to withdraw its plan to send an inspection team to Japan to assess Tokyo's plan to discharge radioactive water from the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant, saying it would only "give justification" to Japan's plan. Rep. Park Sung-joon, the Democratic Party's spokesperson, said the Japanese government has no plan to allow t...

President Yoon Suk Yeol on Wednesday vowed to prioritize addressing the economic crisis and improving citizens’ livelihoods during his second year in office, according to the presidential office on Wednesday. At a luncheon held with members of the ruling People Power Party and Cabinet members to mark the completion of his first year at the presidential office, Yoon said: “Our people have not had...

Rep. Tae Yong-ho stepped down Wednesday from his leadership position in the ruling People Power Party amid political scandals involving one of his staffers and a senior presidential secretary. The resignation comes less than two weeks since the scandals first broke and about two months since Tae -- the first North Korean defector to be directly elected into South Korea’s National Assembly -- was...

Dozens of South Korean lawmakers submitted a petition Wednesday asking a Japanese court to acquit a Japanese labor activist charged with violence while campaigning for laid-off South Korean workers, a lawmaker said. A total of 68 lawmakers, including independent Rep. Youn Mee-hyang, sent the petition to the Saitama District Court, calling for a not-guilty sentence for the 73-year-old activist, T...

Rep. Tae Yong-ho voluntarily resigned from the Supreme Council of the ruling People Power Party on Wednesday as the party's ethics committee was set to deliver disciplinary measures for him for making a series of controversial remarks. The North Korean defector-turned-lawmaker made the decision in an apparent attempt to get the panel to take his voluntary resignation into consideration and reduc...

South Korea’s formerly distant relationship with Japan under the preceding administration is getting back to normal with Yoon Suk Yeol in office, according to a former consul general to Osaka and ruling People Power Party lawmaker Rep. Kim Seok-ki. Kim, the ruling party’s executive secretary for the National Assembly foreign affairs committee, said the country’s relations with Japan, which he as...

President Yoon Suk Yeol on Tuesday blamed the main opposition party for impeding his push for reform, and hit out at the former Moon Jae-in administration for "leaving the country plagued by crimes due to its policies." Yoon also accused the Democratic Party of Korea, which controls parliament with 168 out of 300 seats, of using their legislative power to undermine his policy momentum. "It take...

Foreign policy initiatives biggest accomplishment since inauguration: Yoon

Despite making bold moves diplomatically, president struggling to pursue policy agenda with hostile Assembly, low approval rating