Left-leaning journalist Kim Ou-joon, who has been a magnet of controversy for his brash words, is making top earnings as a YouTuber off its super chat donation system, the platform's website showed Thursday. According to Playboard, which shows various statistics related to YouTube, Kim's newly launched channel gyeomsonisnothing logged 31.8 million won ($25,533) in earnings. It topped the daily chart every day from Monday to Thursday. On Monday, when the first video was uploaded, it gar

An appellate court on Thursday found the South Korean state partially guilty of secondary victimization of Sewol ferry victims' bereaved families. The Seoul High Court ordered the government and now-defunct Sewol ferry operator Chonghaejin Marine to pay over a combined 88 billion won ($70.6 million) to people who lost their loved ones in the 2014 ferry sinking. The size of the compensation went up by 15.7 billion won compared with the previous ruling. This includes 1.06 billion won in the s

China’s visa ban on South Koreans following Seoul’s tighter COVID-19 curbs on Chinese travelers is the kind of tit-for-tat spat the two Asian neighbors will have to deal with on multiple fronts for some time, experts said Thursday. China this week stopped issuing short-term visas in Korea for business visits, tourism, medical care, transit and other personal matters -- a response to what Beijing said were discriminatory restrictions Seoul had imposed on people arriving from China. Th

A Incheon man will serve 22 years in prison for the attempted murder of three members of a neighboring family over noise complaints, after he dropped his appeal, according to legal professionals and news reports Thursday. The Incheon District Court ordered the man to serve 22 years in prison and to wear a GPS-equipped electronic monitoring anklet for 10 years in the first trial in May. The ruling was confirmed as he withdrew the appeal he filed with the Supreme Court earlier this year. Only iden

On Dec. 6, a sport-utility vehicle driven by a 68-year-old woman suddenly raced about 600 meters forward for about 30 seconds before falling into an underpass in Gangneung. The driver’s 12-year-old grandson was killed, while the driver suffered severe injuries. This week, the family has filed a lawsuit against the car manufacturer, alleging that it was a sudden unintended acceleration due to vehicle defects. “To prevent similar accidents in the future, the car’s manufacturer

A former music professor of Yonsei University has been indicted with detention on charges of telling a prospective student what song will be on the school's music college admission exam, officials said Thursday. The former professor of the piano department allegedly gave illegal piano lessons to the student preparing for music college admission and leaked to the student a song to be on the performance test for the university's 2022 music college admissions. The alleged leakage came und

South Korea's new COVID-19 cases fell to the lowest Thursday tally in 11 weeks, with rising imported cases putting health authorities on high alert. The country reported 43,953 new COVID-19 infections, including 135 cases from overseas, bringing the total caseload to 29,698,043, the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency said. The tally marked the lowest for any Thursday since Oct. 27, when the country reported 34,972 new cases. The country added 76 COVID-19 deaths, bringing the death

WASHINGTON -- The United States is working with South Korea and Japan to strengthen their trilateral cooperation against North Korea's reckless provocations, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken reiterated Wednesday. The top US diplomat also reaffirmed US support for Japan's new National Security Strategy that will arm Tokyo with counter-strike capabilities. "In the face of the DPRK's unlawful and reckless missile launches, including the launch of a long range ballistic missi

South Korea's foreign ministry plans to hold a public hearing Thursday on ways to resolve the thorny issue of how to compensate victims of Japan's wartime forced labor during World War II in line with the Supreme Court's ruling. The hearing, co-organized by the ministry and Rep. Chung Jin-suk, head of the South Korea-Japan Parliamentarians' Union, is scheduled to be held at the National Assembly in Seoul. The government is reportedly considering creating a fund from donations

Seoul has more than 310 English-language kindergartens known for their high cost, about twice as much as annual college tuition, a civic group said. The number of English-language kindergartens in the capital totaled 311 as of the end of last year, an increase of 17 from the previous year, according to the group named World Without Private Education Worries. Two southern Seoul wards of Gangnam and Seocho accounted for 86 of the total, with 54 located in adjacent Gangdong and Songpa wards. The av

S.Korea, US plan to stage a tabletop exercise simulating N.Korean nuclear attacks in February

Killing at sea coincides with then-president’s UN address calling for end-of-war declaration

A trip to the US by President Yoon Suk Yeol is high up on the priority list for the Foreign Ministry, part of efforts it hopes would help South Korea gain a larger share of the international diplomatic spotlight, Foreign Minister Park Jin said Wednesday. Seoul -- set to mark its 70 years of security ties with Washington in October, its biggest ally -- revealed a month ago its Indo-Pacific strategy, a commitment to help reshape the world order alongside the US, primarily, amid deglobalization p

The school bullying scenes depicted in Netflix’s blood-soaking revenge drama “The Glory” have fanned memories of a horrific case of school violence that happened 17 years ago. The no-holds-barred depictions of abuse in the drama reminded many viewers of the incident dubbed “hair curler bullying” that took place at a girls’ middle school in Cheongju, North Chungcheong Province, in May 2006. In the drama, Park Yeon-jin, the main bully in her senior year of high

First lady Kim Keon Hee visited community centers and a local market in Daegu on Wednesday, expanding her public service activities ahead of President Yoon Suk Yeol's state visit to the United Arab Emirates and Korea's Lunar New Year holiday next week, according to the presidential office. She visited Seongseo Social Welfare Center in Daegu and served meals with college student volunteers of the Korea Saemaul Undong Center, the office said. The trip was planned at the invitation of the