The thousands of cases South Korea is still counting every day may be as low as the numbers are going to get, according to some top public health officials. In the last 24 hours ending Tuesday midnight, South Korea logged 10,463 new cases, exceeding the 10,000 mark for the first time in nearly three weeks. Lim Sook-young, a senior Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency official, told a new...

Former President Lee Myung-bak, 81, was granted a stay of sentence due to his health concerns, Suwon prosecutors said Tuesday. The Suwon prosecution service’s deliberation committee said in a press release that Lee was deemed to be “physically unfit” to be in jail, and that he would be granted a three-month break from his time. The deliberation committee decided that the ex-president could face ...

The family of Lee Dae-jun, a South Korean fisheries official who was killed by North Korean troops at sea in 2020, and their lawyer said Tuesday they plan on reaching out to a United Nations expert on extrajudicial killings for help. The official’s older brother, Lee Rae-jin, and his lawyer Kim Ki-yun met with Tomas Ojea Quintana, the UN special rapporteur on the human rights situation in North ...

The Ministry of Justice is seeking a constitutionality review of a series of prosecution reform laws passed during the final two weeks of the previous Moon Jae-in administration. In a press release, the ministry said it has asked the Constitutional Court to determine whether it was within the jurisdiction of the National Assembly to restrict the functions delegated to the prosecution by the Cons...

The family of Lee Dae-jun, a 47-year-old fisheries official who was fatally shot by North Korea in 2020, has asked for the Democratic Party of Korea’s support in the disclosure of records from the Moon Jae-in administration. Among the information the family is seeking are what was briefed to Cheong Wa Dae by the intelligence and armed services in the time between the capture and killing of Lee o...

The family of Lee Dae-jun, a fisheries official who was killed by North Korean troops in 2020, is seeking disclosure of what former President Moon Jae-in did in the time from when he was alerted of Lee’s capture by the North until he was shot dead six hours later. “President Moon had about six hours to take action and possibly save him,” the slain official’s older brother, Lee Rae-jin, told The ...

Putting North Korea’s numbers into perspective North Korea’s official figures, which are likely vastly underreported, defy a typical COVID-19 trajectory. For one thing, its highest one-day death count to date was eight logged on May 14, a day after cases were announced for the first time, Dr. Oh Ju-hwan pointed out. “If we were to take North Korea’s numbers at face value, their infections relat...

South Korea raised the alert level for monkeypox after confirming its first patient on Wednesday. The patient had come from Germany on Tuesday afternoon, and was sent straight to the Incheon Medical Center nearby the airport for showing possible monkeypox symptoms, according to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency. His symptoms were a low-grade fever of 37 degrees Celsius, sore throa...

The family of Lee Dae-jun, a South Korean fisheries official killed by North Korean soldiers at sea in 2020, on Wednesday filed a criminal complaint against national security and civil affairs officials of former President Moon Jae-in’s Cheong Wa Dae. Kim Ki-yun, an attorney working with the family, told reporters outside Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office that three ex-Cheong Wa Dae off...

South Korea may revisit another controversial North Korea decision made during the Moon Jae-in administration, President Yoon Suk-yeol hinted Tuesday. Speaking to reporters, Yoon said his administration may look into the 2019 repatriation of two North Korean fishermen who sailed into South Korean waters. The two, aged 22 and 23, said they wished to defect to South Korea in handwritten statements...

The widow of Lee Dae-jun, a South Korean fisheries official killed and burned by North Korean troops in 2020 at sea, said the Moon Jae-in administration seemed more sympathetic toward the North than the bereaved family. In a phone interview with The Korea Herald on Sunday, Lee’s widow Kwon Young-mi said the family had often felt the previous administration was “siding with North Korea.” Over th...

The family of the South Korean man who was shot dead in 2020 by North Korean troops at sea on Friday accused the preceding Moon Jae-in administration and the then-ruling Democratic Party of Korea of “insisting without evidence” that the deceased had tried to defect to the North. A day earlier, the Coast Guard and the Ministry of Defense corrected their earlier determination that Lee Dae-jun, a M...

INCHEON -- South Korea’s Coast Guard on Thursday reversed its earlier assertion that South Korean government worker Lee Dae-jun, who was killed by North Korean soldiers at sea nearly two years ago, was attempting to defect to the North. “After a comprehensive investigation, we have failed to find any evidence to believe that the official had intended to defect to North Korea,” said Park Sang-ch...

The United Nations special rapporteur on the promotion of truth, justice, reparation and guarantees, Fabian Salvioli, on Wednesday called for justice for victims of violations witnessed during Japanese colonial and Korean War times, as well as accountability from perpetrators. At a press conference held Wednesday in Seoul, the UN expert discussed the “preliminary impressions” from his June 8-15 ...

Suicides among young people, especially women, increased during the first year of the COVID-19 crisis in 2020, despite a drop overall in South Korea. The number of suicides fell by 604 to 13,195 in 2020 compared to the previous year, according to the Ministry of Health and Welfare’s report published Tuesday. The ministry said preliminary data from 2021 indicated a continued declining trend. The...