Until this summer, Jeong Ran, a freelance photographer, had no idea where Hamyang was. The rural county of South Gyeongsang Province is just about one and a half hours’ drive from the city of Gumi, where she lives, yet it has never entered her scope of interest. When this reporter talked to her early this week, the 32-year-old was on her second trip to Hamyang. Only two weeks ago, she returned from a two-week rural stay program there. “This time, I want to make postcards with

The Seoul city government on Wednesday announced it would propose a record-breaking extra budget of 6.37 trillion won ($4.88 billion). The city government will submit the proposal on the same day to the Seoul Metropolitan Council, which would start its review on Friday this week. The budget is the first supplementary budget proposal since Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon began his new term earlier this month. It is also the largest extra budget ever, following the previous record-high extra budget of 4.

With the whole nation in the middle of the annual monsoon season, heavy downpours of up to 150 millimeters are forecast to pound the central region between Wednesday and Thursday morning, the state weather agency said. The Korea Meteorological Administration (KMA) said up to 100 mm of monsoon rains are expected to soak the Seoul metropolitan area and almost all parts of the central region, including Gangwon Province, until early Thursday. The precipitation may reach up to 150 mm in some mountain

An autopsy on the family of three that were found dead last month in a submerged car found that they had taken sleeping pills, police said Wednesday. Officials at the Gwangju Nambu Police Station said they were recently notified of this from the National Forensic Service, although the NFS is currently conducting additional analysis to determine the amounts that the family took. Ten-year-old Cho Yu-na and her parents went missing in Wando-gun, South Jeolla Province, in May and were found dead

Prime Minister Han Duck-soo said Wednesday that the government will expand eligibility for the fourth COVID-19 vaccine shot to people aged 50 and older as well as people aged 18 and older who have underlying health conditions. The move comes as the nation is facing another wave of virus resurgence, driven by the fast spread of the highly contagious mutation of the omicron strains, BA.5, which is known to be more contagious and better able to escape immunity compared with earlier versions. "

Release of records kept secret by Moon at core of legal fight

Widely known for mass wedding ceremonies, S. Korea-founded religious sect in spotlight in wake of assassination of former Japanese PM

British American Tobacco has selected 10 teams of college students for an idea contest focused on sustainability. BAT Rothmans, the South Korean business arm of the international tobacco group, said Monday it has started a five month-long ESG campaign by holding an orientation for the 10 college teams, who will compete to win prizes based on their suggestions on eco-friendly business ideas. The selected teams are from Seoul National University, Yonsei University, Korea University, Konkuk Unive

The weekly average number of COVID-19 infections increased 87% last week

JEJU -- The Coast Guard retrieved Tuesday a body believed to be of a crewman who went missing in a devastating fire at a port on the southern island of Jeju last week, officials said. The fire broke out on a 29-ton fishing boat docked at Hallim Port on Thursday and spread to two others, leaving three crewmen of the first boat seriously injured and two others -- one foreigner and one South Korean -- missing. During an operation to lift the 29-ton boat out of the sea Tuesday, Coast Guard workers f

South Korea's new coronavirus cases surged to a two-month high of over 37,000 on Tuesday, driven by the spread of a highly contagious new omicron subvariant and deepening concerns over another virus wave. The country added 37,360 new COVID-19 infections, including 260 from overseas, bringing the total caseload to 18,561,861, the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) said. Tuesday's figure is the highest since May 11, when the daily count came to 43,908 in the aftermath of

President Yoon Suk-yeol said Tuesday his focus is on protecting people's livelihoods from the economic crisis as he took questions from reporters a day after daily Q&A sessions were suspended due to a COVID-19 outbreak among the press corps. Yoon greeted reporters as he arrived for work by saying he had heard some of them had tested positive for COVID-19 and wanted them to work from home for their own safety and the safety of others in the building. Yoon shares his office building with the p

Amid a resurgence of COVID-19 infections nationwide, the number of confirmed cases among students in Seoul more than doubled over the past week, the municipal education office said Tuesday. A total of 2,587 students in the capital's kindergartens and elementary, middle and high schools tested positive for the coronavirus for one week beginning on July 4, according to the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education. The figure marked a rise of 161.8 percent, or 1,599, from 988 student infections

The atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2) in South Korea hit an all-time high last year, with the atmospheric methane level also registering a sharp increase, a meteorological institute said Tuesday. The CO2 level in the air, measured from the country's longest-running observation station on Anmyeon Island, 124 kilometers southwest of Seoul, averaged at 423.1 parts per million in 2021, according to a climate report by the National Institute of Meteorological Sciences. The figure

The Foreign Language Newspapers Association of Korea marked its seventh anniversary on Monday in a ceremony in Seoul, reconfirming its unique role to bridge Korea and the rest of the world. 　 At the event, held at the Korea Press Center in Jongno, central Seoul, and attended by foreign dignitaries as well as media industry executives, Chinese Ambassador to Korea Xing Haiming delivered a congratulatory speech. After offering condolences to Japan over the tragic death of former Japanese leader