A female high school teacher in the southeastern city of Daegu has been under investigation on suspicion of having an inappropriate relationship with one of her students, police said Tuesday. The unnamed teacher in her 30s, who has taught at a Daegu high school on a term contract, is suspected of having sex with a male student of the same school in late June in violation of the Child Welfare Act, according to the Daegu Bukbu Police Station. The case became known to the school after the police no

Drug trafficking caught by South Korea's customs agency grew 11.2 percent on-year in the first half of this year, data showed Tuesday. The Korea Customs Service said it confiscated a total of 238 kilograms of drugs in the January-June period, compared with 214 kg a year earlier. The number of cases that the agency discovered came to 372, down 43.8 percent on-year. But the average amount of drugs involved in a single case doubled to 0.64 kg from the previous year's 0.32 kg, according to

South Korea's new COVID-19 cases bounced back to nearly 100,000 on Tuesday as an omicron subvariant has spread fast amid a new wave of the virus resurgence. The country reported 99,327 new COVID-19 infections, including 353 cases from overseas, bringing the total caseload to 19,346,764, the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency said. Tuesday's count is more than double the previous day's 35,883 and the largest number since 111,291 reported on April 20. South Korea has seen a spike in

South Korea will keep the current level of response against monkeypox, public health officials said Monday. The Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency and the Ministry of Health and Welfare called an emergency meeting over monkeypox on Monday, and decided not to tighten rules based on their assessment of risk to the South Korean population. The emergency meeting follows the World Health Organization’s declaration Saturday that the monkeypox outbreak constitutes a public health eme

President Yoon Suk-yeol requested the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family to develop a roadmap for abolition soon. “(Yoon) has requested that (the Gender Minister) come up with a roadmap for abolition after figuring out the overall duties of the ministry,” spokesperson Kang In-sun said at a briefing held Monday after Gender Minister made her first report to the president. Gender Minister Kim Hyun-sook said the ministry is working on the agenda. 　 “We have launched a ta

Lee Sang-min attacks meeting of police chiefs, compares to coup d’etat

South Korea’s daily COVID-19 infections continued to post a week-on-week increase on Sunday amid the recent COVID-19 wave fueled by the highly contagious omicron strain BA.5, government data showed Monday. Amid the ongoing spread of the new omicron strain, some antivirus measures at international airports and senior care hospitals have also been reinstated. Starting on Monday, international arrivals need to take a polymerase chain reaction test on the day of their entry to the country,

With the end of the rainy season approaching, the state weather agency on Monday issued a heat wave advisory for Seoul and almost all parts of the country, excluding Jeju Island and inland mountain areas. The Korea Meteorological Administration (KMA) said the heat wave advisory takes effect in Seoul, Busan and all major cities nationwide as of 11 a.m. Such an advisory is issued when the maximum sensible temperatures are expected to exceed 33 C for two or more days, or when severe damage is expec

PCR tests made less reliable by Drug Ministry’s new guidance, says lab expert

A South Korean man believed to be one of the biggest drug traffickers in the country was expatriated from Vietnam last week, after a three-year international joint operation that zeroed in on a major drug smuggling ring based in Southeast Asia. The 47-year-old suspect, identified only by the surname Kim, known by the alias “Sara(salagim)” in the underground market, is believed to be the pinnacle of the drug ring suspected of supplying illegal substances through Telegram. Kim is su

GENEVA -- The World Health Organization on Saturday declared the monkeypox outbreak, which has affected nearly 17,000 people in 74 countries, to be a global health emergency -- the highest alarm it can sound. "I have decided that the global monkeypox outbreak represents a public health emergency of international concern," WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at a press conference. He said a committee of experts who met on Thursday was unable to reach a consensus, so it fell to him

　 The National Police Agency has been struggling with internal opposition a mere week ahead of the launch of a new “police bureau” under the Ministry of the Interior and Safety. Hours after a meeting of police chiefs from around the country who were against the launch of the new police bureau, Yoon Hee-keun, the national police chief nominee, ordered superintendent Ryu Sam-yeong to go on stand-by Saturday. The police agency is also looking into inspecting some 50 superintendents wh

GENEVA -- A Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) is the rarely used top alert available to the World Health Organization to tackle a global disease outbreak. The WHO on Saturday declared the surge in monkeypox to be a PHEIC after experts reviewed the situation at an emergency committee meeting two days earlier. Here is a look at how the decision is made and previous PHEIC declarations: What is a PHEIC?   The conditions which must be met are set out under the 2005 Interna

Siemens Korea was fined 480 million won ($365,600) for exaggerating expenses of repairing medical appliances and arbitrarily passing them onto its contractors, the antitrust regulator said Sunday. The Korean unit of the German conglomerate had sold major medical appliances to hospitals here, including magnetic resonance imaging and computerized tomography scanners until 2015. To repair those appliances, Siemens Korea was supposed to use software and pay its German head office for the use. But it

Prosecutors have raided the parent company of Terraform Labs as part of a broadening investigation into the massive collapse of the firm's Luna and TerraUSD cryptocurrencies, sources said Sunday. Last week, an investigation team of the Seoul Southern District Prosecutors Office conducted the search and seizure at the parent company currently headed by Terraform co-founder Daniel Shin, according to the legal sources. As part of the raid, prosecutors also searched the home of the chief of ano