Democratic Party gets head start in tight race for top post

  The number of delivery workers in South Korea swelled nearly 12 percent in the second half of last year to hit a record high amid the coronavirus pandemic, government data showed. Asia’s fourth-largest economy had 390,000 carriers as of the end of December last year, up 11.8 percent from a year earlier, according to data from Statistics Korea. The tally covers mail carriers, door-to-door couriers, food delivery workers, newspaper delivery workers and carriers of milk and other bev

President Moon Jae-in made another overture toward North Korea at a UN climate summit Monday, suggesting planting trees together to reduce carbon emissions on the Korean Peninsula and pledging to make good on a 3-year-old promise in an apparent bid to reengage Pyongyang. “The Republic of Korea will take a leading role in cooperation for reforestation,” Moon said in his keynote speech at the 26th Conference of the Parties or COP26 held in Glasgow, Scotland, calling tree planting one

The ruling Democratic Party (DP) launched its presidential election committee on Tuesday to help steer its presidential candidate Lee Jae-myung to victory in the upcoming election in March. The committee is the liberal party's largest ever and includes all 169 of its National Assembly lawmakers with party chairman Song Young-gil as its standing chief and 12 others as co-chiefs. The party held a massive launching ceremony that was expected to be attended by up to 499 people under the government

Nearly half of all recent COVID-19 cases in Seoul were breakthrough infections, a Seoul city official said Tuesday. "Of the 646 new cases confirmed in Seoul on Sunday, 49.4 percent, or 319 cases, were breakthrough cases," Park Yoo-mi, a disease control official at the Seoul metropolitan government, said in a briefing. "The rate of breakthrough infections in Seoul is higher than the nationwide average," she noted. According to the city government, Seoul has recorded 12,663

Seoulites complain of noise, frequent traffic violations as motorcyclists rush deliveries

If anti-corruption agency secures critical evidence, future probe to point to Yoon

Global Green Growth week 2021 discusses success standards for developed and developing countries The Global Green Growth Institute and the British Embassy in Seoul co-organized a hybrid session to discuss standards for developed and developing countries, at GGGI headquarters on Oct. 27 Experts and decision-makers from developing and developed nations attended the session, part of GGGI week 2021, titled “Road to COP 26: what does success look like for developed and developing countries?&

The Royal Norwegian Embassy marked last month’s opening of the Munch Museum -- the home of to the world’s largest collection of works by Norwegian artist Edvard Munch – with a press conference in Seoul on Tuesday. Discussing the Munch Museum during opening remarks, Norwegian Ambassador to South Korea Frode Solberg said Munch’s works were iconic images of world art. “Visitors now have access to some of Munch’s great pieces of art,” Solberg said, descr

  The ASEAN Korea Centre last week held a webinar on trade facilitation for the food and beverage industry at Four Seasons Hotel in Seoul, highlighting the importance of trade and cooperation for Korea and ASEAN. The webinar facilitated information exchange with new business opportunities for food and beverage sector companies operating in ASEAN and Korea and explored effective ways to utilize the ASEAN-Korea Free Trade Agreement and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP),

The unification ministry on Tuesday vowed efforts to push for inter-Korean cooperation in the forestry sector as agreed to in an earlier deal, after President Moon Jae-in again stated on the global stage that Seoul will seek to reduce greenhouse gas emissions on the peninsula in cooperation with Pyongyang. Moon was addressing an annual UN climate conference in Glasgow on Monday (local time) that brought together more than 100 world leaders, including US President Joe Biden. Chinese President Xi

A total of 299 people were caught drunk driving on the first night after business hour restrictions were lifted and gathering size limits were raised Monday under the government's "living with COVID-19" scheme, police said. Of them, 89 were caught with blood alcohol levels high enough to have their license suspended and another 200 with levels warranting license revocation, according to the National Police Agency. The remaining 10 were caught for refusing to take a breathalyzer test.

The leader of the ruling Democratic Party (DP) met with a victim of Japan's wartime sexual slavery on Tuesday and discussed her calls for bringing the issue to a United Nations committee. Rep. Song Young-gil, chairman of the DP, said he met with Lee Yong-soo, one of the 13 registered surviving South Korean victims of sexual slavery, and discussed ways to bring Japan's wartime sexual slavery case to the United Nations Committee Against Torture (CAT). The UN body, comprising 10 experts, monitors

A sitting prosecutor was questioned Tuesday over allegations of conspiring with the main opposition party to investigate key ruling camp officials last year when Prosecutor-General Yoon Seok-youl, now a leading opposition presidential contender, was in office. Prosecutor Son Jun-sung appeared for questioning at the Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials (CIO) for allegedly asking Kim Woong, a prosecutor-turned-lawmaker of the main opposition People Power Party (PPP), to lodg

Unification Minister Lee In-young has held talks with the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva and agreed to strengthen cooperation on North Korea's public health issues, his office said Tuesday. Lee's meeting with WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus took place Monday (local time) after the minister accompanied President Moon Jae-in on his latest Vatican visit. "(The two sides) exchanged opinions on North Korea's COVID-19 situation and ways to cooperate in its