Gyeonggi Province Gov. Lee Jae-myung scored a landslide victory in the ruling Democratic Party (DP)'s presidential primary in the southeast region Saturday, further consolidating his lead in the race to pick the party's flag bearer for the 2022 election. Lee won 55.3 percent of all 35,832 ballots cast by registered party members in the Busan-Ulsan-South Gyeongsang Province region, the eighth round of the party's 11-leg primary race, the party announced. Lee Nak-yon, formerly a prime minister a

Rep. Kwak Sang-do, an independent lawmaker who defected from the main opposition People Power Party a week ago, offered to resign from his parliamentary seat on Saturday amid mounting suspicions over his son receiving an unreasonably huge sum of severance pay from a firm at the center of a massive land development scandal. "I can no longer work as a member of parliament amid widespread misunderstanding and distrust toward me," Kwak said in a news conference at the National Assembly.

A key figure in the snowballing land development scandal in Seongnam, just south of Seoul, was arrested Friday for questioning over allegations that Gyeonggi Gov. Lee Jae-myung, the ruling Democratic Party's leading presidential contender, gave business favors to certain developers. Yoo Dong-gyu, former acting president of Seongnam Development Corp., was apprehended by prosecutors at a hospital Friday morning and was taken to the Seoul Central District Prosecutors Office. He was asked to appear

President Moon Jae-in voiced strong confidence in South Korea's defense posture Friday, saying he proposed an end-of-war declaration with North Korea based on such readiness and vowing to deal sternly with any threats to the country. His Armed Forces Day speech came hours after North Korea test-fired an anti-aircraft missile in the third missile launch in about two weeks. Earlier this week, the North tested what it claimed was a "hypersonic" missile. "I have pride in our solid sec

The National Assembly will launch its annual three-week audit of the government and state agencies Friday, the last such parliamentary inspection under the Moon Jae-in administration. A total of 745 government ministries and agencies will be subject to this year's parliamentary investigation to be simultaneously conducted by the assembly's 17 standing committees, according to legislative officials. The three-week event is predicted to be a scene of intense bipartisan disputes over a couple of sn

   Prosecutors investigating a political meddling scandal that possibly involves Yoon Seok-youl, a leading opposition presidential contender, have discovered circumstances on the implication of one of Yoon's former subordinates, informed officials said Thursday.    The scandal is centered on allegations that prosecutor Son Jun-sung asked the main opposition People Power Party (PPP) to file a complaint against three pro-government figures just before the general elections i

Public support for the two leading presidential contenders -- former Prosecutor General Yoon Seok-youl of the main opposition party and Gyeonggi Province Gov. Lee Jae-myung of the ruling party -- both increased in an opinion poll released Thursday with Yoon leading Lee by a small margin. In the poll of 2,043 voters conducted by Realmeter on Monday and Tuesday, Yoon of the People Power Party (PPP) retook the lead with support from 28 percent of the respondents, closely followed by Lee of the Dem

The head of the main opposition People Power Party (PPP) on Thursday stressed the need to maintain caution in approaching President Moon Jae-in's proposal of seeking a declaration to formally end the Korean War. "There needs to be a cautious approach on the end-of-war declaration proposed by the Moon Jae-in administration, which has been reciprocated conditionally by North Korea," PPP Chairman Lee Jun-seok said during a supreme council meeting of the party. Last week, Moon proposed i

Ruling party walks back from its plan and suggests forming a parliamentary committee

Ruling party could push bill for final vote on its own while opposition stages filibuster

The two Koreas could hold an additional summit under the next presidency of the South if another meeting between the leaders isn't able to take place before the end of President Moon Jae-in's term next year, a senior Cheong Wa Dae official said Wednesday. Speculation of an inter-Korean summit has surfaced as of late, especially following Moon's proposal of signing a declaration on the end of the 1950-53 Korean War in his speech to the recent United Nations General Assembly. Last week, Kim Yo-jon

Parties lash out at each other while corruption investigation ensues

The Cabinet approved a revision to the civil law Tuesday that would grant animals legal status as individuals with lives that deserve to be protected. The revision was proposed by the Ministry of Justice in July to add the new clause, "animals are not objects," to Article 82 of the Civil Code. Currently, animals are identified as "an object that takes up space" and are not separated from inanimate things, so animal abusers have been punished only for damaging property if th

South Korea will continue efforts to stabilize situations on the Korean Peninsula and advance stalled inter-Korean relations through dialogue and cooperation despite North Korea's latest missile test, the unification ministry said Tuesday. Earlier in the day, North Korea fired what appears to be one short-range missile into the East Sea. The firing came days after North Korea expressed a willingness to discuss the improvement of inter-Korean relations and even a summit between their leaders.

President Moon Jae-in said Tuesday there will be no let-up in his administration's efforts till its last day to lay the groundwork for South Korea's "great transition" toward a better future. He cited the urgency of addressing the COVID-19 crisis, climate change and the fourth industrial revolution. "(We) are faced with an era of a great transition into digital civilization and green civilization. This is not the philosophy or choice of our government but a global trend," h