Seven out of 10 civil servants who have worked for less than five years at their posts have considered leaving their jobs, according to government data Tuesday, indicating a shift in the perception of what had once been considered among the most coveted positions by young workers for lifetime job security to prioritize a horizontal and efficient work culture. A survey of public sector organizational culture among civil servants with low seniority conducted by the Interior Ministry submitted to R

A South Korean court has recently granted refugee status to a Ugandan woman who fled her country to escape severe domestic violence, court officials said Tuesday, showing greater acceptance of gender-based violence as grounds for granting refugee status here. The Seoul Administrative Court ruled in favor of the woman, who had filed a lawsuit against the Seoul Immigration Office to overturn a previous decision denying her refugee status, on Sept. 25. The court determined that she demonstrated a w

In the past five years, nearly 700 cases of bullying in the workplace have been classified by the government as industrial accidents entitling the victims to compensation, including 16 cases that resulted in the victim committing suicide, government data showed Tuesday. A total of 675 cases of workplace bullying were recognized by the authorities as industrial accidents, defined as death, injury or disease caused by factors related to a job, according to Article 2 of the Occupational Safety and

A South Korean civic group on Monday said it has filed a complaint against a local writer alleging she has defamed Han Kang, the first Korean and first Asian woman to win the Nobel Prize in literature. The group, Citizens' Solidarity for the Eradication of Deeply-rooted Corruption, accused Kim Gyu-na of a "politically-motivated and personal attack against an individual that not only exceeds the limits of freedom of expression guaranteed by the Constitution, but also goes beyond bound

A South Korean court said Tuesday it handed down a sentence of five years in jail to a man for the attempted murder of another man living next door, who had asked him not to smoke inside the home. The defendant, in his 20s, was found guilty of attempted murder by the Daejeon District Court. On June 20 of last year the convicted man had been smoking inside his home in Asan, South Chungcheong Province, when his 40-year-old neighbor -- with whom he shared a wall -- reportedly said, "Excuse m

A pro-Russia Telegram account has posted a photo showing the Russian and North Korean flags side by side on a Ukrainian battlefield, indicating that North Korea has likely sent troops to support Russia in its prolonged war with Ukraine. The image, shared by a blogger named @rvvoenkor_bot on Monday, showed the two flags raised together over a mine in Pokrovsk, one of the strongholds on Ukraine's eastern front. The blogger said that the North Korean flag has recently been raised on a hill at

A recent report reveals that the sales gap between convenience stores and department stores has narrowed to less than 1 percentage point. According to the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, convenience stores accounted for 16 percent of sales in the first half of the year compared to department stores’ 16.6 percent. In contrast, large supermarkets held an 11.3 percent share of sales. Convenience stores surpassed large supermarkets in annual sales for the first time in 2021 and have

Russia said on Monday it will continue its cooperation with North Korea but declined to comment on allegations that it plans to use North Korean soldiers in military operations against Ukraine. "There is a lot of contradictory information," Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters when questioned about the alleged dispatch of North Korean troops and a possible plan to use them, according to the Russian news agency TASS. He added such questions should be directed to the defense

President Yoon Suk Yeol met with British Foreign Secretary David Lammy on Monday to discuss strengthening security and defense industry cooperation amid deepening military ties between North Korea and Russia, Yoon's office said. During the meeting, Yoon shared the latest information on North Korea's preparations for sending troops to Russia to support its war in Ukraine, and pledged to cooperate closely with Britain and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to counter the threats, h

Russian envoy says cooperation with N. Korea 'not directed' against S. Korea's security interests

More than 1,000 convicts sentenced to prison were found to be avoiding imprisonment by hiding overseas last year, data showed Monday. According to Ministry of Justice data from 2019 to 2023 released by Rep. Jang Dong-hyuk of the ruling People Power Party, as of last year, a total of 6,075 criminals sentenced to incarceration had absconded either domestically or overseas. The figure increased from 4,405 in 2019 to 5,911 in 2022. Of the total number of fugitives, 1,014 were on the run in other c

A family of nine siblings received a new home in Yeongdong-gun North Chungcheong Province, thanks to support and contributions from the provincial government, organizations and businesses. North Chungcheong Province on Saturday announced the completion of a new house for the family of 11 with five sons and four daughters, and held a celebration ceremony. The family was featured in the KBS TV series “Donghaeng” in May, where their poor living conditions went on air. At the time, the

Nearly 40,000 babies were lost to miscarriages or stillbirths in the first half of this year in South Korea, government data distributed a lawmaker's report showed Monday. From January to June, there were 39,295 miscarriages and 121 stillbirths, according to the National Health Insurance Service data submitted to Rep. Baek Jong-heon of the ruling People Power Party. A miscarriage is defined as the loss of a baby before the 20th week of pregnancy, while stillbirths are defined as the loss of

Amid nationwide elation over South Korean novelist Han Kang being awarded the 2024 Nobel Prize for Literature, one of her works has stirred debate for being "deemed harmful to youths." The controversy ignited after Han's "The Vegetarian" was found to be among the 2,528 books removed from some 2,490 elementary, middle and high school libraries in Gyeonggi Province last year for being detrimental to students. Among them were not only Han Kang's book, but also "Bl

President Yoon Suk Yeol urged police on Monday to step up their efforts to crack down on crimes affecting ordinary people, as well as new types of crimes emerging from advanced technologies like artificial intelligence. Yoon expressed concerns over new crimes enabled by AI, as well as illegal drugs and online gambling, during a commemorative speech marking the 79th Police Day. “To keep the public safe, the police must develop faster, become more proactive (and implement more scientific tec