South Korea's new COVID-19 cases fell to the lowest number in more than two months on Monday, as the virus wave has been slowing down at a steady pace and the government has fully lifted outdoor mask mandates. The country reported 14,168 new COVID-19 infections, including 220 from overseas, bringing the total caseload to 24,634,296, the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) said. It is the smallest figure since July 11, when the daily figure came to 12,672. The latest count is

Deputy National Assembly Speaker Chung Jin-suk departed for Japan on Monday to attend this week's state funeral of late former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Chung will make the three-day trip to Tokyo, leading a group of lawmakers from the ruling and opposition parties belonging to the Korea-Japan Parliamentarians' Union aimed at increasing parliamentary exchanges between the two countries. Eight lawmakers are traveling with Chung. Later Monday, Chung's delegation plans to

North Korea held a ruling Workers' Party politburo meeting to discuss the issue of improving the country's agricultural situation, its state media said Monday. Jo Yong-won, secretary for organizational affairs of the ruling Workers' Party's Central Committee, presided over the politburo meeting the previous day, according to the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA). North Korean leader Kim Jong-un did not attend the meeting. Officials at the meeting adopted an "imp

South Korea will no longer require masks for outdoor group activities, starting Monday. The government also plans to ease other antivirus measures down the road. The outdoor mask mandate ended May 2, but was kept for outdoor gatherings of 50 or more people. The rule remained due to concerns amid the recent resurgence of COVID-19. The government is expected to further ease the country’s antivirus measures for COVID-19. The government said it would soon introduce its future adjustments to

Calls for measures to counter sex crimes in the metaverse are rising with an increasing number of predators targeting teenagers. Huh Kyung-mi, a professor of police administration at Keimyung University, said that legal measures are essential to respond to sexual exploitation in the metaverse in a paper published on Sunday. According to Huh, 70 percent of metaverse service users are teenagers, and criminal attempts on the metaverse platform, especially those that target youthful avatars, has bee

Military tension escalates on Korean Peninsula

LONDON -- The strongly pro-Kremlin editor of Russia's state-run RT news channel expressed anger on Saturday that enlistment officers were sending call-up papers to the wrong men, as frustration about a military mobilization grew. Wednesday's announcement of Russia's first public mobilization since World War Two, to shore up its faltering Ukraine war, has triggered a rush for the border, the arrests of over 1,000 protesters, and unease in the wider population. It is also attracting

Japanese Ambassador to South Korea Koichi Aiboshi publicly gave a positive assessment Sunday of a meeting between President Yoon Suk-yeol and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in New York last week, describing it as a "forward-looking" step to improve bilateral ties. Aiboshi made the remarks earlier in the day at a meeting in Seoul on bilateral exchanges, days after Yoon and Kishida met in New York and agreed on the need to improve relations between the neighboring countries by res

UNITED NATIONS -- China underscored its commitment Saturday to its claim on Taiwan, telling assembled world leaders that anyone who gets in the way of its determination to reunify with the self-governing island would be "crushed by the wheels of history." The language was forceful but, for Chinese leadership, well within the realm of normal. "Only when China is fully reunified can there be true peace across the Taiwan Strait," Wang Yi, China's foreign minister, said at

South Korea's new COVID-19 cases remained below 30,000 for the third straight day Sunday in a sign that the virus wave is slowing down at a steady pace. The country reported 25,792 new COVID-19 infections, including 248 from overseas, bringing the total caseload to 24,620,128, the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) said. Newly reported virus cases have shown a steady downward trajectory as of late after the COVID-19 omicron variant surged again in early July and peaked above

North Korea fired a short-range ballistic missile into the East Sea on Sunday, South Korea's military said, two days after a nuclear-powered US aircraft carrier arrived here for allied drills. The Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said it detected the launch from an area in or around Taechon, North Pyongan Province, at 6:53 a.m., and that it flew some 600 kilometers at an apogee of around 60 km at a top speed of Mach 5. The intelligence authorities of the South and the United States are conductin

Antibody survey shows 57 percent recently infected

Deployment shows US commitment to face any challenge, threat with S.Korea

TOKYO -- Several hundred protesters demanded the cancellation of former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's state funeral as they shouted slogans and waved banners Friday in a Tokyo park. "Abe's policies supported war," demonstrator Mayumi Ishida said, noting Abe consistently sought to raise defense spending. Like others at the protest, Ishida said he feared Abe's views heralded a step back to the days of Japan's militarism preceding World War II. Abe, who was assa

The ban on free single-use cups will kick off in December, going on a test trial run in Sejong and on Jeju Island. A recent report by the Environment Ministry showed the use of disposable cups has soared during the pandemic. The number of single-use plastic and paper cups consumed at 14 cafes and four popular fast-food chains reached 1.02 billion last year, marking a huge surge from 770 million in 2019. After postponing the introduction of a ban on single-use cups at franchise stores due to opp