Most Popular
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Contentious grain bill put directly to plenary meeting for vote
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Yoon's approval rating plunges to all-time low
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Will tug-of-war between doctors, government end soon?
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Climate impacts set to cut 2050 global GDP by nearly a fifth
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Trilateral talks acknowledge ‘serious’ slumps of won, yen
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[Graphic News] More Koreans say they plan long-distance trips this year
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[KH Explains] Hyundai's full hybrid edge to pay off amid slow transition to pure EVs
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North Korea removes streetlights along cross-border roads with South
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Russia's denial of entry of S. Korean national unrelated to bilateral ties: Seoul official
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Farming households dip below 1m for first time in 2023
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Court issues arrest warrant for suspect in stabbing attack against opposition leader
The suspect in the stabbing attack against opposition leader Lee Jae-myung was formally arrested Thursday on charges of attempted murder. The Busan District Court issued an arrest warrant for the 67-year-old assailant, surnamed Kim, citing the risk of him fleeing. The warrant, which was issued just two hours after the court's arraignment of him, allows the police to continue holding the suspect, who was detained at the scene. Lee, the chairman of the main opposition Democratic Party (DP), w
Jan. 4, 2024
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Lee Sun-kyun's alleged blackmailer also may have threatened another blackmailer
A woman suspected of blackmailing the late Lee Sun-kyun was found to have had threatened a 29-year-old bar worker who also coerced money from the late actor, police said Thursday. Incheon Metropolitan Police Agency recently discovered the complicated relationship between the two suspects while investigating Lee's claims that he had been blackmailed by the two women. The bar host, who worked at a high-end bar in Gangnam, southern Seoul, that Lee frequently visited, reportedly received 300 mi
Jan. 4, 2024
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Nearly half of S. Koreans live alone: report
The percentage of single-person households in South Korea reached a new all-time high last year to account for 42 percent of all households in the country, government data showed Thursday. As of December 2023, the number of single-person households increased to 9.93 million from 9.72 million the year before, according to the resident registration service of the Ministry of Interior and Safety. In the span of just one year, the number of households consisting of one person jumped by 211,344. The
Jan. 4, 2024
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Justice Ministry notification system backfires, leaving crime victims vulnerable
A female victim of dating violence recently requested to be added to a state service that notified victims of violence about when their assailant will be released after serving time, but the authorities only notified her after her perpetrator had already been freed, local media outlets reported Thursday. According to reports, the unnamed victim received a call from legal authorities on Dec. 1 that her ex-boyfriend had been released from prison. The culprit, surname Jeong, assaulted her in Octobe
Jan. 4, 2024
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Namsan toll fees to be charged for northbound traffic only
The Seoul Metropolitan Government has announced that it will charge the 2,000 won ($1.53) congestion toll fee at Namsan Tunnel Nos. 1 and 3 for northbound traffic only, beginning Jan. 15. The city government stopped collecting toll fees for the first time in 27 years from March 17 to May 16 last year as a temporary pricing model to decide whether to scrap the toll collection system. For the first month, toll fees were exempted for southbound traffic only, while for the second month toll fees wer
Jan. 4, 2024
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Birth rate-boosting bills should be passed: Assembly Speaker
South Korea’s National Assembly speaker on Thursday called for solutions to the nation’s low birth rate and declining population to be legislated, highlighting the need for more long-term policies. “The government and the political circles should see the ongoing population decline as a serious national crisis,” Kim Jin-pyo said in a New Year’s briefing held at the National Assembly. “The issue should be dealt with as a long-term agenda and solutions tied t
Jan. 4, 2024
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Verdict upheld against disclosing names of deadbeat dads
The Supreme Court on Thursday upheld a guilty sentence for the operator of a website that discloses the names of uncooperative parents refusing to pay child support. The Supreme Court found Koo Bon-chang, 61, who runs the name-and-shame website Bad Fathers, guilty of naming and publicly sharing personal information, such as the name, facial picture, age, residence and workplace, of men and women accused by their former partners or spouses of refusing to pay child support. The court upheld the se
Jan. 4, 2024
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Child abuse accusations in school plunge after teachers' protests
In the months after the mistreatment of teachers and the protection of their rights became a major social issue in the wake of the suicides of several teachers here, the number of child abuse accusations filed against school staff drastically dropped from before, government data showed Thursday. According to the Ministry of Education on Thursday, there have been 150 cases in which teachers were accused of child abuse in the three months following Sept. 25. That was when the ministry mandated reg
Jan. 4, 2024
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Opposition leader recovering after Tuesday’s knife attack: surgeon
Main opposition party leader Lee Jae-myung was on the mend after being stabbed in the neck during his visit to Busan on Tuesday morning, a surgeon who operated on him at Seoul National University Hospital said Thursday. Lee sustained a knife wound on the left side of his neck that was about 1.4 centimeters wide and had surgery to close the wound, according to vascular surgeon Min Seung-kee, who performed the surgery. “About 60 percent of the anterior part of the internal jugular vein was c
Jan. 4, 2024
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No. of 'daily smokers' plunged over the past decade
The number of South Koreans smoking every day has dropped significantly over the past 10 years, with government statistics showing Thursday that 15.4 percent of the population aged 15 or over were daily smokers as of 2021. The joint study by the Ministry of Health and Welfare and the Korea Center for Disease Control and Prevention defines daily smokers as people aged at least 15 years who smoke every day, and have smoked at least 100 cigarettes (five packs) throughout his or her life. The la
Jan. 4, 2024
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14 injured in 2 pileups on icy bridges in Sejong
Dozens of vehicles collided in two pileups on icy bridges in the central city of Sejong early Thursday, leaving 14 people injured, police said. About 30 vehicles were involved in a pileup that happened on the 925-meter-long Geumbitnoeul Bridge at 5:24 a.m. and left five people injured, while nine were injured in another pileup on the nearby Aramchan Bridge at 6:27 a.m. All 14 sustained light injuries, police said. Officials blamed the accidents on black ice that formed on the bridges. (Yonhap)
Jan. 4, 2024
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[Graphic News] A record 46% of newlyweds have no children
The number of newly married couples fell more than 6 percent to come to around 1 million in 2022, and the proportion of the couples having no children reached an all-time high, data showed. The number of newly married couples came to 1.03 million last year, down from the previous year’s 1.1 million, according to the data from Statistics Korea. The newlyweds here refer to couples who tied the knot for the first time in the five years up to November 2022. The figure has shown a downtrend fro
Jan. 4, 2024
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Arrest warrant sought for suspect in stabbing of opposition leader
Police sought an arrest warrant Wednesday for the suspect in the stabbing attack against opposition leader Lee Jae-myung, as Lee has remained hospitalized after surgery. The suspect, identified only by his surname Kim, 67, stabbed Lee, the chairman of the main opposition Democratic Party (DP), in the neck while posing as an autograph-seeker Tuesday morning during Lee's visit to the southeastern city of Busan. The attack occurred after Lee toured the construction site of a new airport on B
Jan. 3, 2024
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Why won't S. Koreans have kids? Costly housing, report says
The biggest factor influencing South Korea's families in deciding whether or not to have children is the cost of housing, a state research institute-issued report published Wednesday shows, in an analysis of various economic and labor factors. Researchers at the Korea Research Institute for Human Settlements analyzed the country's birth rate patterns, using data from Statistics Korea, and concluded that declines have been particularly profound during housing cost spikes. They noted tha
Jan. 3, 2024
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‘Suspicious’ bloody helmet turns out to be rigged evidence at industrial accident site
South Korean prosecutors said Wednesday they recently discovered that an official of a maintenance company had placed a blood-covered safety helmet at the site of an industrial accident in a bid to hide the fact that an employee of the company had been working without proper safety gear. The suspect, a midlevel manager of the company charged with management of an apartment complex in Gyeonggi Province, had been accused of death by negligence in the incident that took place in July of 2022. The e
Jan. 3, 2024
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Lee Sun-kyun’s alleged blackmailer accused of child abuse
A local civic group on Wednesday filed a complaint of child abuse against the alleged blackmailer of late actor Lee Sun-kyun, saying that the suspect had mistreated an infant by taking the baby to court. The suspect, recently arrested for extorting 50 million ($38,000) from the world-renowned actor, was seen carrying an unidentified baby when she arrived at Incheon District Court on Dec. 28 for her warrant hearing. "While appearing in court, (the suspect) brought along a child who had no re
Jan. 3, 2024
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Record-low 1st grade enrollment expected amid waning fertility rates
South Korea is expecting to see record-low numbers of first graders entering elementary school this year due to knock-on effects from the country's falling birth rate. The number of children eligible for enrolling in elementary school nationwide in March was 413,056 as of December, according to the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Public Administration and Security on Wednesday. However, only around 90 percent of eligible children are actually expected to enroll in elementary sch
Jan. 3, 2024
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Hospital visits for self-harm stay high despite fall in suicides
Despite an overall decline in the number of suicides in South Korea, more than 43,000 people visited emergency rooms nationwide in 2022 for reasons related to suicide attempts and self-harm, a report showed Wednesday. Out of 7.7 million emergency room visits recorded nationwide in 2022, 43,269 were related to self-harm and suicide attempts, according to a report published by the National Medical Center and the National Emergency Medical Center. The figure represented a slight increase from 42,96
Jan. 3, 2024
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2023 marks ‘hottest year on record’
The year 2023 was Korea's “hottest year on record,” according to the Korea Meteorological Administration on Wednesday. South Korea’s average annual temperature was 13.7 degrees Celsius, the highest average annual temperature since 1973, when weather records were first collected by the administration, the KMA said. The average annual temperature last year was 0.3 degrees higher than the previous record of 13.4 C in 2015. According to the KMA’s data, between January to Nove
Jan. 3, 2024
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Conspiracy theories about stabbing of opposition leader fan outrage
Conspiracy theories suggesting that Tuesday's stabbing of Korea's main opposition party leader, Lee Jae-myung, was orchestrated by the victim himself have been spreading on the internet here, sparking outrage from the public and those in political circles in both the liberal and conservative camps. The 59-year-old leader of the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea was stabbed in the left side of the neck by a 67-year-old man in Busan during a visit to the southernmost port city, s
Jan. 3, 2024