President Moon Jae-in ordered the government to immediately implement stricter immigration quarantine measures to block the inflow of the omicron variant after receiving a report that a suspected case was found here, officials said Tuesday. Authorities said on the day that a Korean couple, who visited Nigeria, was suspected of having the omicron variant, and is currently conducting a genome test. The results will be confirmed later on Wednesday evening. “The analysis of the new variant

A South Korean child died of COVID-19 on Sunday, marking the country’s first pediatric death from the disease, the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency said Tuesday. The KDCA did not make public the child’s age or gender for privacy reasons, but sources familiar with the matter told The Korea Herald that the 5-year-old girl was dead on arrival. When she was brought into the hospital’s emergency service’s isolation unit on Sunday, her heart had already stopped.

Korea abandons crucial pillar of ‘3T’ amid crowded hospitals

Close to 70 study-abroad students in South Korea are under police investigation for alleged statutory rape of a teenager. News reports said Monday that police investigators in Gangwon Province are investigating 69 foreign university students and graduates in the province after it was alleged that they had unlawful sexual intercourse with the victim on nearly 100 occasions since last December. The police said the group of foreign students had sex with the victim despite being aware of the fact

Education Ministry continues in-person class scheme despite increase in confirmed cases among students around Seoul

Korea University fails to obtain high school records of ex-justice minister’s daughter

An attorney-turned-presidential candidate is under attack for having represented in court heinous murderers, including his nephew. What does a lawyer’s case history tell you about the person? Before entering politics, Lee Jae-myung was a lawyer – a human rights lawyer according to his own words. Now he is South Korean liberal faction’s presidential candidate. To reach the top office, he must beat conservative standard-bearer Yoon Seok-youl, who was until this March the count

Approximately one-fifth of Seoul youths have been exposed to digital sex crime risks, according to a Seoul city government survey Tuesday. In the survey on 4,012 students in Seoul aged between 12 and 19 conducted in July, 21.3 percent said they have been exposed to the risks of digital sex crimes through online chat applications or social media. Of those, 56.4 percent said they were sent sexual messages or images, and 27.2 percent said they were constantly heckled online for in-person meetings

A near-century-old restaurant in Seoul, believed to be the first to serve western-style cuisine in Korea, has announced it will shut down due to the pandemic after nearly a century of business. Seoul Station Grill, which opened on Oct. 15, 1925, on the second floor of the old Seoul Station building, is known for introducing pork cutlet and hamburger steak to Koreans for the first time during Japan's colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula from 1910-45. "Our business has suffered greatly fro

South Korea's new coronavirus cases stayed below 4,000 for the third straight day Tuesday, but the number of critically ill patients hit a fresh high amid concerns over the global spread of the new virus variant. The country reported 3,032 new COVID-19 cases, including 3,003 local infections, raising the total caseload to 447,230, according to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA). The country reported the highest daily cases of 4,115 to date on Nov. 24. South Korea added 44 m

Moon Jae-in urges all Koreans to take booster shots

The Gyeonggi Provincial Office of Education deleted a cartoon after it drew controversy for praising North Korea. The education office uploaded a cartoon on social media Friday, based on a story sent in by an elementary school teacher. The story was about what happened in class when they introduced what school life is like for North Korean students. In the cartoon, a teacher character talks about a typical school day for North Korean children, explaining that the students go home or eat lu

South Korea's female population expanded slightly over 1 percent over the past five years to surpass the 25 million mark in 2020, census data showed Monday. The number of women in Asia's fourth-largest economy stood at 25.16 million last year, up 275,000 from five years earlier, according to the 2020 census by Statistics Korea. The average age of South Korean women came to 44.2 years last year, 2.6 years older than in 2015. The median age of married South Korean women who tied the knot for th

A 35-year-old stalking murder suspect timidly apologized Monday as he appeared before the public eye for the first time since he was arrested and had his identity disclosed on suspicions of stalking and brutally killing his ex-girlfriend. Kim Byung-chan stood in front of reporters and photographers as he was taken from Seoul Namdaemun Police Station to the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office for a further investigation and indictment on the stalking murder charges. Kim repeatedly said,

South Korea's new coronavirus cases stayed below 4,000 for the second straight day Monday due largely to fewer tests, but the high number of critically ill patients remained worrisome amid concerns about the new virus variant. The country reported 3,309 new COVID-19 cases, including 3,286 local infections, raising the total caseload to 444,200, according to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA). Monday's tally was down from 3,928 reported Sunday and 4,068 on Saturday. The cou