South Korean intelligence authorities believe a Chinese restaurant in Seoul’s central Songpa secretly served as an overseas police station for China, according to a lawmaker. Speaking anonymously to The Korea Herald, the lawmaker said the National Intelligence Service believes the restaurant in Seoul “virtually functioned” as a secret police station for the Chinese government. The NIS declined ...

A 21-member team of South Korean experts are visiting Japan for six days from Sunday to inspect safety of the waste water from the quake-wrecked Fukushima nuclear power plant to be released into the Pacific. According to the Prime Minister’s office on Friday, the team comprises experts from the Korea Institute of Nuclear Safety and the Korea Institute of Ocean Science and Technology. Over the c...

Partisanship put aside on anniversary of 1980 bloody crackdown on pro-democracy protests

A ruling from South Korea's top court on Thursday has stripped Rep. Kim Sun-gyo of the ruling People Power Party of his position as a lawmaker representing the city of Yeoju and Yangpyeong County, both in Gyeonggi Province. The Supreme Court upheld the high court's decision, convicting the accountant for Kim's election campaign, surnamed Lee, of excessive campaign finance and expenses during the...

A special parliamentary ethics committee is set to review two motions calling for disciplinary action against Rep. Kim Nam-kuk over dubious cryptocurrency transactions, yet it is unlikely the embattled lawmaker will be unseated. Kim left the main opposition Democratic Party to become an independent after it was revealed he owns a significant amount of coins, raising concerns about conflicts of i...

We must find solutions to grow our economies while protecting the environment. I want to recognize the leadership you have taken as a member of the High Ambition Coalition for Nature and People. Korean leadership helped us reach a historic agreement to protect biodiversity at COP 15 last December in my hometown of Montreal. You also launched an ambitious national policy ban on disposable items, a...

As the COVID-19 health emergency is due to expire in South Korea, so are the remote medical service policy put in place to allow people access to health care amid physical distancing restrictions. The Ministry of Health and Welfare said Wednesday it was working on a plan to keep such remote care options available beyond the end of the pandemic's emergency status at the start of next month. Acco...

A group of nurses said Wednesday that they will refuse to carry out doctors' orders for medical procedures that are illegal for them to proceed with, such as prescribing medication, performing surgery and collecting blood samples, in response to President Yoon Suk Yeol's veto of the Nursing Act. Announcing their first collective action since his rejection of the legislation, the Korean Nurses As...

Prime minister says Seoul, Ottawa “need to be very best of friends”

The main opposition Democratic Party decided Wednesday to refer Rep. Kim Nam-kuk, a former party member, to the parliamentary ethics committee over his dubious cryptocurrency dealings. Kim departed from the DP earlier this week after revelations that he owned a significant amount of coins, fueling questions about the source of the funds and whether the independent lawmaker had access to insider ...

Proposed Bill: Partial Amendment to the Road Traffic Act Proposed by Rep. Kim Gi-hyeon (People Power Party) ● Although the number of driving under the influence cases has decreased throughout the past five years, the recidivism rate remains high in around 40 percent. As drunk driving tends to be habitual, the public has been demanding an effective system that preemptively prevents drunk driving...

The legal status and features of cryptocurrency have allowed the attorney-turned-lawmaker to take advantage of a grey area in Seoul's legal frameworks for crypto assets and to avert the full disclosure of his assets. What upped the ante were recent revelations that Kim had received crypto assets for free as marketing airdrops. This triggered speculations that Kim might have been illegally lobbie...

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,...