South Korea's media regulator said Monday that Telegram has pledged to adopt a zero-tolerance policy and immediately remove deepfake pornography and other illegal content from its platform, in cooperation with local authorities. The Korea Communications Standards Commission (KCSC) said it had a face-to-face working-level meeting with Telegram on Friday, raising concerns over deepfake content involving doctored images of Korean women, which has surfaced on Telegram in recent months. In respo

A Seoul court is set to deliver verdicts Monday for the Yongsan Ward office chief and a former chief of the Yongsan Police Station over the deadly 2022 crowd crush in the district of Itaewon. Park Hee-young, head of the Yongsan Ward office, and former Yongsan Police Station chief Lee Im-jae were indicted last year over allegations that they failed to take steps to prevent the crowd crush that left 159 people dead on a Halloween weekend in the Itaewon nightlife district on Oct. 29, 2022. The Seou

Prosecutors on Monday grilled an e-commerce tycoon believed to be at the center of the large-scale insolvency incidents involving online shopping platforms TIMON and WeMakePrice. Ku Young-bae, CEO of the Singapore-based Qoo10 Group, the parent company of TIMON and WeMakePrice, underwent questioning as a fraud and embezzlement suspect at the Seoul Central District Prosecutors Office in the morning. He entered the prosecution office at 8:55 a.m. after telling reporters that he will faithfully unde

The South Korean state telecommunications watchdog on Sunday noted "significant progress" in its recent talks with Telegram over the handling of deepfake content on the encrypted messaging app. The Korea Communications Standards Commission added that its chairman, Ryu Hee-lim, is scheduled to announce the results of those talks with Telegram on Monday. "We met with Telegram's top security officer and others in a third country on Friday and Saturday," a KCSC official said

Prosecutors investigating two beleaguered e-commerce platforms' payment delays to vendors are now trying to determine the nature of huge sums of money changing hands between those firms and their parent company, legal sources said Sunday. According to the sources, the Seoul Central District Prosecutors Office secured a management consulting agreement between Qoo10 and their e-commerce affiliates, TMON and WeMakePrice, in June 2023. Under the deal, those affiliates were required to pay the S

The interior ministry held a meeting Sunday with relevant agencies to discuss preparedness for an approaching typhoon. Interior Minister Lee Sang-min presided over the meeting, where attending officials reviewed emergency plans and safety measures with Typhoon Krathon expected to affect the southern island of Jeju and other southern regions, plus the eastern province of Gangwon this week. The Korea Meteorological Administration said the typhoon will likely pass near Taipei on Wednesday with a ma

Seoul’s subway system, which serves 7 million passengers daily, recorded a total of 3,516 crimes in 2023, a 4 percent rise from the previous year, police data revealed. Misappropriation of lost property made up 42 percent of all crimes with 1,408 cases. Sexual assault accounted for 36 percent with 1,230 cases, and theft 25 percent with 855 cases, according to the data made public Sunday by Rep. Yang Bu-nam of the Democratic Party of Korea. The released data did not include comparative figu

Once a superstar in the 1990s K-pop scene, Korean American singer Steve Yoo strongly criticized South Korea’s recent refusal of his visa request. It is the third time his visa application has been denied. The singer, also known as Yoo Seung-jun, posted a statement written by his lawyer Ryu Jeong-sun on his Instagram account on Saturday. According to the statement, the South Korean consulate general in Los Angeles recently refused a visa to Korea for Yoo. Yoo has now been unable to enter Ko

A man showing symptoms of mpox was denied tests for 10 hours, with multiple medical institutions refusing to admit him for testing, local media reported Saturday. According to reports, the patient was receiving treatment for fever and difficulty breathing at a hospital in South Jeolla Province on Sept. 17, when blisters appeared on his hands and feet. Suspecting the blisters to be a symptom of mpox, medical workers at the hospital recommended he get tested for the virus immediately. The man then

● Updated law: Parking Lot Act What it does: Prohibits camping, cooking and lighting fires in public parking lots Took effect: Sept. 20 Punishment: Fine up to 500,000 won ($379.33) In recent years, “chabak,” or the trend of camping in one's car, has become a major trend in South Korea. While it has provided travelers with the benefits of convenient and flexible camping compared to pitching and sleeping in a tent, it has also contributed to a surge in fire hazards. Recent actio

Nearly 45 percent of the over 423,000 unregistered foreign nationals living in South Korea had originally entered the country under its visa waiver program and overstayed their permitted period of stay as of the end of 2023, according to data from the Ministry of Justice released Sunday in a report created by Rep. Song Seog-jun of the ruling People Power Party. The data in the report said 16.9 percent of the more than 2.5 million foreign national residents in Korea were unregistered as of the en

South Korea needs to shift its perspective on immigration beyond merely viewing immigrants as a solution to labor supply issues, experts said at a forum in Seoul last week. Emphasizing that any successful immigration policy must account for cultural, social and legal integration, Moon Jae-wan, president of the Korea Migration Law Association, said that overlooking the wider contributions of immigrants was a flawed approach. "In a rapidly changing global landscape, we must recognize immigr

Presidential office to launch new consultative body to forecast number of future health care workers needed

Two children’s smartwatch straps sold on Chinese e-commerce platform AliExpress were found to contain lead levels 121 times higher than the national safety limits, the Seoul Metropolitan Government said Thursday. The safety test results were released on 16 products, including smartwatch straps for children, pacifiers and pacifier clips sold on AliExpress and Temu. The city government revealed that two types of smartwatch straps sold on AliExpress exceeded the country’s lead safety le

The suicide rate among individuals under 20 has spiked in recent years in South Korea, with mental health disorders and interpersonal conflicts cited as the main cause. The proportion of those under 20 who had to go to the emergency room after attempting suicide jumped from 35 percent out of a total of 21,545 people in 2019, to 43.3 percent out of 30,665 people in 2023, according to Health Ministry data provided to Rep. Park Hee-seung of the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea. In partic