Most Popular
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[AtoZ into Korean mind] Humor in Korea: Navigating the line between what's funny and not
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[Exclusive] Korean military set to ban iPhones over 'security' concerns
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Yoon seeks rebound, taps 5-term lawmaker as chief of staff
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Medical standoff deepens as doctors reject new med school plan, talks
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Korean, Romanian leaders discuss defense tech, nuclear energy
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[Graphic News] 77% of young Koreans still financially dependent
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[Herald Interview] Why Toss invited hackers to penetrate its system
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S. Korean envoys convene to navigate strategy amid Middle East tensions
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North Korea fires several short-range ballistic missiles into sea: JCS
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Samsung, SK hynix investors dump shares on Nvidia crash
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[Editorial] Probe heading for Lee
Jeong Jin-sang, a vice chief of staff to the Democratic Party of Korea chairman Lee Jae-myung who is regarded as one of Lee's alleged two closest confidants, was detained by the prosecution Saturday. He is suspected of accepting 140 million won ($103,000) in bribes on six occasions from February 2013 to October 2020 from a small party of speculators including Kim Man-bae and Nam Wook in return for giving them an array of favors that enabled them to make astronomical returns from investing i
Nov. 22, 2022
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[Editorial] NK’s ICBM tests
North Korea on Saturday released photos of its leader Kim Jong-un conducting an on-site inspection of the regime’s test-firing of a Hwasong-17 intercontinental ballistic missile, revealing new details about its dangerous missile game that continues to heighten tensions on the Korean Peninsula. According to Pyongyang’s state media Korean Central News Agency, the missile was launched from Pyongyang International Airport on Friday. The missile flew 999.2 kilometers in one hour, eight mi
Nov. 21, 2022
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[Editorial] Majority party's tyranny
The Yoon Suk-yeol administration proposed a total of 77 bills in the six months since its inauguration on May 10. None of them have passed the National Assembly. The opposition Democratic Party of Korea, with its 169-seat majority in the 300-seat National Assembly has put a brake on them. This is a legislative tyranny. The Yoon administration revised 19 tax codes to reduce the tax burden on the people and invigorate the private economy, and submitted them to the Assembly. But the Democratic Part
Nov. 18, 2022
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[Editorial] Disclosing the list of victims
Disputes have intensified over the disclosure of the list of Itaewon tragedy victims, with related media outlets, Catholic priest groups and political parties engaged in politicizing the Oct. 29 crowd crush that killed at least 158. The controversy was sparked when two progressive online media outlets released a list of 155 people who died in the tragedy on their websites Monday. The names of 10 victims were removed after their families sent complaints to the outlets in question. It is deeply re
Nov. 17, 2022
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[Editorial] Grant abuse
Government grants towards the recovery of Ansan City from the shock of the Sewol ferry sinking were found to have been abused. According to data submitted Saturday by the city government to Suh Bum-soo, a National Assembly member of the ruling People Power Party, Ansan received 1 billion won ($759,000) to 2 billion won in “Sewol ferry tragedy grants” annually for six years, from 2017 to this year. The grants came from central and local governments under the special act regarding th
Nov. 16, 2022
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[Editorial] Joint efforts to deter NK
It is meaningful that the leaders of South Korea, the US and Japan confirmed they share the same view on North Korea’s continued missile launches that threaten security on the Korean Peninsula and destabilize geopolitics in the East Asian region. President Yoon Suk-yeol, while on his two-nation tour, met with US President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in Phnom Penh on the sidelines of the ASEAN summit in Cambodia on Sunday and issued a joint statement pledging to step
Nov. 15, 2022
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[Editorial] False quotes
The main opposition Democratic Party of Korea apologized for distorting a foreign envoy’s remarks. Its chairman Lee Jae-myung and European Union Ambassador to South Korea Maria Castillo Fernandez held a closed-door meeting in his office in the National Assembly on Tuesday. In a back briefing after the meeting, party spokesperson, Kim Eui-kyeom, said Fernandez said that there seems to be a limit to the Yoon Suk-yeol administration's response to North Korea's escalating provocation
Nov. 14, 2022
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[Editorial] Tarnished start
President Yoon Suk-yeol marked his first six months in office Thursday. Unfortunately, the scorecard for his starting period of a five-year term, usually filled with hopes for change and reform, is not so pretty. To be fair, Yoon confronted a host of thorny challenges on many fronts. The continued missile provocations of North Korea, the deepening economic woes including credit crunch and high inflation, and the Itaewon tragedy took place under his stewardship, to name just three negative factor
Nov. 11, 2022
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[Editorial] Excessive offense
Yang Kyung-sook, a Democratic Party of Korea member of the National Assembly, said during the Assembly's inspection of the presidential secretariat Tuesday that the Yoon Suk-yeol administration cornered many young people into a deadly situation in Itaewon. She likened the Yoon government to those who gripped military power and mobilized troops to massacre civilians in Gwangju in 1980. Yang probably made the remark to rebuke the absurd government response to the Itaewon crowd crush that kill
Nov. 10, 2022
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[Editorial] Worsening debt crisis
Worries about the negative impact of rising interest rates on the South Korean economy are mounting, with some experts calling for a flexible approach in policy to tackle soaring debts shouldered by the government, companies and households. The predominant monetary policy trend both at home and abroad clearly leans toward raising the rates to keep high inflation under control. Last Wednesday the US Federal Reserve, as widely expected, raised its short-term borrowing rate by 0.75 percentage point
Nov. 9, 2022
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[Editorial] Miraculous rescue
A day before the national mourning period ended for the 156 people who died in the Halloween crowd crush in Itaewon, good news had come from Bongwha, North Gyeongsang Province. Two miners were rescued from a collapsed shaft in a zinc mine in the county of North Gyeongsang Province on Friday night. Their miraculous return brought a message of hope to the nation lost in grief over the Itaewon tragedy. Team leader Park Jeong-ha (62) and an assistant surnamed Park (56), both walked out alive, help
Nov. 8, 2022
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[Editorial] Deepening doubts
As a special investigation unit unearths details about what happened on Oct. 29 when a tragic crowd crush in Seoul’s Itaewon district killed at least 156 people, deeply disappointing facts have emerged about the police response, especially regarding high-ranking officials and a dysfunctional chain of command. The investigation into what went wrong in responding to the Halloween crowd surge is ongoing, but the details that have been revealed so far are outrageous enough to question whether
Nov. 7, 2022
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[Editorial] Stern response
North Korea‘s military provocation seems to be going to the extreme. It fired 25 missiles, including short-range ballistic missiles, into the East and West Seas on Wednesday. One of the ballistic missiles flew across the Northern Limit Line, a de facto maritime border, with South Korea. It is reportedly the first time since the division of the Korean Peninsula into the communist North and capitalist South in 1945 that a North Korean ballistic missile landed south of the borderline. Its mil
Nov. 4, 2022
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[Editorial] Blame game won’t help
Public figures have belatedly apologized for their improper responses to the Itaewon tragedy that killed at least 156 people, but questions are being raised over what went wrong, who is responsible for the missteps and what might have been done to prevent the disaster. At the heart of the raging dispute is whether police failed to take proper actions to prevent the weekend Halloween crowd surge in advance, especially after transcripts of emergency calls were disclosed, showing that police had re
Nov. 3, 2022
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[Editorial] No distorting facts
A post titled "I want only to fact check" on the Itaewon tragedy went viral on social media and online communities on Monday. It was written anonymously on an online community called "theqoo." The source of the information was not disclosed. It contained six questions and answers to them. For example: “Was the police force deployed this year smaller than that in the past? Yes. Eight hundred officers had been posted at one time in the past. This year it was 200 officer
Nov. 2, 2022
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[Editorial] Deadly crush in Itaewon
The Itaewon neighborhood in Seoul, well known for clubs, nightlife and Halloween festivities, turned into a terrible disaster zone late Saturday, as a sudden crowd surge in a narrow alley left 154 people dead and 149 injured as of Monday afternoon. The tragedy took place as thousands of people were packed into the alley, which measures only 4 meters wide and slopes downward. People got pushed and dragged, with victims being crushed or suffocated to death. Rescue efforts were desperately made to
Nov. 1, 2022
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[Editorial] Abrupt warning
Russian President Vladimir Putin issued an abrupt warning to South Korea on Thursday. Putin reportedly said that South Korea has decided to supply weapons and ammunition to Ukraine and that this will destroy South Korea-Russia relations. His words came at the 19th annual meeting of the Valdai Discussion Club in Moscow. But this is not true. South Korea's support for Ukraine has been limited to such materials as helmets and blankets as well as medical supplies and medicines. The South Korean
Oct. 31, 2022
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[Editorial] Proliferation of drugs
When Don Spike, a K-pop composer and TV celebrity, was arrested last month on charges of buying and using methamphetamine on multiple occasions, the public was initially shocked to see a fairly familiar figure entangled in a drug case. But more shocking was the scale of the crime involved. When the 45-year-old was apprehended, police confiscated 30 grams of meth, an amount equal to about 1,000 doses. Police referred him to the prosecution early this month. What matters is that Don Spike is not a
Oct. 28, 2022
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[Editorial] No free lunch
A special committee of the National Assembly to reform pension systems held its first plenary meeting Tuesday. The ruling and opposition parties had agreed to create the ad hoc committee in July to discuss plans to replenish four fast decreasing public pensions -- the national, government employee, military and teachers’ pensions. The severity of pension problems is too well known. According to the Ministry of Health and Welfare’s fourth forecast of pension reserves, announced in 2
Oct. 27, 2022
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[Editorial] Credit crunch
The outlook was rosy in May when a local Legoland theme park opened in Chuncheon, Gangwon Province. Around 2 million visitors were expected to visit the new attraction each year, creating growth momentum and new jobs in the region. As the initial phase of excitement passed, the number of visitors, which hit a peak of 130,000 in May, began to drop to around 100,000 in June and then 70,000 in July. But Legoland’s flash-in-the-pan popularity is nothing compared with what has followed in conne
Oct. 26, 2022