South Korean customs officials confiscated 769 kilograms of illegal drugs being smuggled into the country last year, 18 percent more than the year before, data from state-run bodies showed Monday. The confiscated drugs are reportedly worth about 61.3 billion won ($45.7 million), according to the data compiled by the Incheon International Airport Corp. and the Korea Customs Service, submitted to Rep. Jeon Yong-gi of the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea. The amount of drugs seized by auth

Social Affairs Sept. 9, 2024

A backlash from the LGBTQ+ community has been mounting over Gangnam-gu office's decision to take down after four days what it called an "indecent" digital advertisement, which featured same-sex couples facing each other, hugging and kissing. Yang Sun-woo, chair of the Seoul Queer Culture Festival organizing committee, told local media that the decision was based on discrimination against LGBTQ+ members of society. "Many advertisements in Korea depict the affection between dif

Social Affairs Sept. 9, 2024

Another controversy surrounding NewJeans is rising, this time over pages run by production company Dolphiners Films. Shin Woo-seok, best known to the public for directing four NewJeans music videos, demanded a public apology from the group's label Ador through his Instagram page, accusing the label of lying about details behind the removal of videos. All NewJeans-related content on Dolphiners Films' social media pages and its nonprofit YouTube channel Ban Heesoo has been removed. Ban

Social Affairs Sept. 9, 2024

An annual average of 190,926 cases of fare evasions at major train services like KTX occurred here between 2019 and July of this year, data from state-run railway operators showed Friday. Over the last five years, officials caught an average of 4.12 billion won ($3 million) worth of illegal train rides a year, according to Korail data submitted to Rep. Yoon Jong-kun of the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea. The railway operator currently runs the high-speed KTX trains as well as the Sa

Social Affairs Sept. 6, 2024

A police officer managed to catch an elementary school student who had to jump out of a second-floor window of a burning building, local police said Friday. According to the Pyeongtaek Police Station, a fire broke out on the third floor of a factory building in Poseung-eup, Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi Province at 3:58 p.m on Thursday. Police officers evacuated the area but belatedly found the young boy crying for help, stranded on the second floor of the building. Unable to enter the building already i

Social Affairs Sept. 6, 2024

Most of the five-star hotels in Seoul are omitting mandatory additional fees from the room charges displayed on their homepages, the Seoul city government said Friday. Seoul Metropolitan Government conducted a survey of 27 hotels rated five stars by the Tourism Promotion Act and found that only three of them show room charges complete with taxes and additional fees to customers. The rest use "drip pricing," a technique where only a part of an item is advertised and the final amount is

Social Affairs Sept. 6, 2024

A full 31.2 percent of the 5.5 million total households in Gyeonggi Province consist of just one person as of last November, a report by the regional government showed Wednesday. As of November 2023, there were a total of 1.71 million single-person households in the province, up from 1.63 million the previous year. A full 21.9 percent of all single-person households nationwide are in Gyeonggi. South Korea's most populous province, Gyeonggi has a population of 13.67 million as of August 2024

Social Affairs Sept. 4, 2024

As South Korea suffers from the prolonged disruption of medical services across the country, government data showed Wednesday that rescue workers' requests for ERs have more than doubled this year compared to the same period last year. From February to June 25, 119 emergency control centers have selected hospitals for emergency patients on 1,196 occasions, according to the National Fire Agency. This marks an increase of 131 percent compared to 519 such cases in the same period last year.

Social Affairs Sept. 4, 2024

The mother of a 17-year-old girl who died from severe abuse by church members said she was "thankful" to the perpetrators, reiterating that she did not want them to be punished. The 52-year-old woman testified in a court hearing held at Incheon District Court on Monday and stated that there was no coercion from the defendants for the child to be sent to the church. A 52-year-old leader of an Incheon church choir and two other members are currently being tried on allegations of child

Social Affairs Sept. 3, 2024

Stories of bus drivers encouraging passengers to give up seats for pregnant women have been circulating online, most recently with a woman's compliment posted on the Seoul Bus Labor Union website on Monday. A woman who identified herself as 12 weeks pregnant said she got on a Seoul bus No. 440 at around 6 p.m. on Monday with no real hopes of getting a seat during rush hour. But when the driver saw her pregnancy badge, he asked the passengers sitting in the priority zones to give up their se

Social Affairs Sept. 3, 2024

Incheon Airport will introduce a new manual on dealing with private security personnel employed by celebrities, in light of the recent controversy surrounding what was alleged to be excessive security measures for actor Byeon Woo-seok. The manual will detail proper responses for when the terminals get crowded due to high-profile personnel leaving or arriving at the airport, according to the Incheon International Airport Corp. report submitted to Rep. Jeon Yong-gi of the main opposition Democrati

Social Affairs Sept. 3, 2024

  Over 7,000 people were investigated for online sex crimes between 2021 and 2023, but only 5.5 percent of them were detained, police data showed Tuesday. A total of 9,864 such crimes occurred in that period, according to National Police Agency data submitted to Democratic Party Rep. Hwang Jung-a. A total of 3,295 of them were related to child pornography -- accounting for 43.8 percent -- followed by 2,415 cases involving illegally filmed content and 1,563 cases involving other illegal porn

Social Affairs Sept. 3, 2024

South Korean police said Monday that a man in his 30s is being investigated for suspected drug use after he parked his car at a police station while apparently still under the influence of illegal drugs. The suspect was taken into custody by officers at Ilsan Dongbu Police Station in Gyeonggi Province on Saturday, after he parked his car in the handicapped zone of the station at around 5 p.m. He told the police official who approached him that he came to visit the traffic investigation unit, b

Social Affairs Sept. 2, 2024

A South Korean court recently upheld the state financial watchdog's decision to revoke the license of an insurance salesperson, after he submitted a fraudulent receipt in order to receive benefits for his hole-in-one insurance subscription. The Seoul Administrative Court ruled against the insurance agent, who challenged the Financial Services Commission's decision to take away his license for insurance fraud. In November 2014, the plaintiff shot a hole in one at a local golf course th

Social Affairs Sept. 2, 2024

A 35-year-old YouTuber who posted multiple videos about top K-pop stars denied accusations of defamation in a court hearing Monday. The lawyer of the defendant, surnamed Park, told the Incheon District Court that she admits to making the videos but denies the charges of defamation and insult she had been indicted with. Park claimed that the relevant statements in her videos were a mere expression of her personal opinion, and that her actions does not constitute defamation as she truly believed

Social Affairs Sept. 2, 2024