Seoul on Thursday announced that 110 manufacturers and sellers of counterfeit designer goods have been booked on criminal charges. According to the city's Special Judicial Police Bureau for Public Safety, more than 5,000 pieces of counterfeit designer goods valued at 3.9 billion won ($2.5 million) have been confiscated. Manufacturing, selling, or holding onto counterfeit goods is punishable by imprisonment of less than seven years, or a maximum fine of 100 million won. Those booked were fou

Scores don’t carry much weight this year as each university considers differ factors in admissions, according to experts

Medical staff dispatched to the Itaewon disaster site on Oct. 29 said they faced difficulties saving lives during critical hours due to no control unit giving orders, and instead conducting rescue operations and treatment on their own, reports showed Thursday. According to reports by doctors and nurses who provided medical assistance at the scene, the head of the Yongsan Public Health Center came nearly two hours after the disaster started. The medical team from Seoul National University Hospita

Jeon Kwang-hoon, a right-wing pastor who once served as the president of the Christian Council of Korea, has been expelled from the national evangelical alliance. The council, a member of the World Evangelical Alliance, convened on Tuesday and labeled Jeon of Sarang Jeil Church as a pseudo-religious figure based on a study by CCK’s committee on pseudo-religions. The study was launched after several requests last year and was published last month. The report said that most of the 15 claim

Order to enforce 10,500 more workers to return; Yoon's approval rating hits 5-month high

S. Korea’s 'inaction' on overseas child abduction cases involving non-custodial Korean parents stirs controversy

Despite public outrage, Seoul police said on Wednesday that they do not consider a drunk driving car accident that killed a 9-year-old in a school zone last week a hit-and-run. On Sunday, Police filed an arrest warrant for the suspect in his 30s, who ran over a student who was heading home from Seoul Eonbok Elementary School in Gangnam district on Friday afternoon. After hitting the child, the suspect just drove off, according to witness testimonies and CCTV footage. The suspect’s blood

As a rapid rise in drug-related offences is catching South Korea off guard, eyes are on the Ministry of the Interior and Safety’s final decision to abolish or formalize an official organization overseeing narcotics-related matters in the country. The Ministry of Food and Drug Safety is currently putting the final touches on transitioning a temporary narcotics division to an official organization called the Deputy Director General for Narcotics Safety Planning, with the aim of making it a m

The proportion of one-person households in South Korea hit a fresh record last year, data showed Wednesday, as more young people delayed marriages. One-person families accounted for 33.4 percent of the total last year, up from 31.7 percent the previous year, according to the data from Statistics Korea. It marked a sharp rise from just 20 percent tallied in 2005. The agency said the portion of single-member households is expected to hit 39.6 percent in 2050. Households consisting of a single memb

South Korea's pandemic response authorities proposed on Wednesday to lift the nationwide indoor mask mandate as early as January next year, with plans for policy talks and forums beginning this month. "As long as conditions (regarding the gravity of coronavirus) are met, (the eased mask rules) will come into effect at least in January, or March at the latest," Peck Kyong-ran, commissioner of the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency, said in a briefing in Seoul Wednesday. Pe

The number of female outside directors at major South Korean companies has risen sharply over the past year due to a tougher law, a corporate tracker said Wednesday. A total of 219 firms belonging to the country's top 30 business groups had a combined 120 women outside directors as of end-September, up 38 from a year earlier, according to the Leaders Index. The figure accounted for 15.4 percent of the 780 C-suite positions offered by the major companies, up from 10.6 percent from a year ear

Around 17 percent of South Korean women experienced a career break following their marriage this year, with child-rearing among the top reasons, official government data showed. The number of women aged 15-54 who had stopped working after marriage had come to 1.39 million as of April, slightly down from 1.44 million tallied a year earlier, according to data from Statistics Korea. The decrease came in line with a fall in marriages in South Korea. The number of married women in the age group came

A return-to-work order for cargo truckers dedicated to carrying steel and oil was not on the table during a Cabinet meeting held Tuesday, as the striking truckers appear to be losing steam, and as cement supply across the country returns to a normal level. At the Cabinet meeting, Prime Minister Han Duck-soo reiterated the administration's stance that the government will "not compromise with unlawful acts and take stern action against any violations by law and principle." But the orders

South Korea is looking to map out plans by 2023 to build the second presidential office in the administrative city of Sejong, the office of Prime Minister Han Duck-soo announced Tuesday. This is part of the Yoon Suk-yeol administration's policy road map to elevate Sejong, a city that is 120 kilometers south of Seoul, to the nation's de facto administrative capital. Currently, Yoon's office is located in Yongsan-gu, center of Seoul. The government also pledged to set up measures an

Several safety hazards evident in popular nightlife district