The city of Seoul reported 1,760 new COVID-19 cases Thursday, the most the capital has reported since the onset of the pandemic, health officials said. The total, which tallied all new cases confirmed in Seoul a day earlier, is 25 cases more than the previous record high of 1,735 posted just a day ago. It also marks a steep rise from the daily tally of 1,429 from a week earlier. Of the total, only three were imported cases. The capital city has been constantly renewing its daily COVID-19 infe

Police will introduce a multiple-shot stun gun, a less lethal pistol and other new weapons to cope better with violence, officials said Thursday, amid heavy criticism over a bungled police response to a recent knife attack. The new stun gun allows three consecutive shots and logs records of time and location of the use, while the less lethal gun uses special bullets with one-tenth of the killing power of ordinary pistols, according to the officials. The current police stun guns, all imported f

South Korea's new coronavirus cases fell below 4,000 on Thursday, a day after hitting an all time-high of 4,115. But critical cases and deaths climbed to fresh highs, fueling worries about the virus spread ahead of another pandemic winter. The country reported 3,938 new COVID-19 cases, including 3,917 local infections, raising the total caseload to 429,002, according to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA). Critically ill patients hit an all-time high of 612, up 26 from the p

Police on Wednesday disclosed the identity of a man accused of killing his ex-girlfriend with a knife at her studio apartment in central Seoul last week. The Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency identified the suspect as 35-year-old Kim Byung-chan and disclosed a photo of his face and other personal information following a police committee's decision in the afternoon. Kim was arrested Saturday in the southeastern city of Daegu, a day after the murder. The case sparked public fury, as it was known

Ansan Urban Corp., a corporation run by the local government of Ansan, Gyeonggi Province, is resolving labor-management conflicts and improving workplace culture with the aid of the Korea Labor and Employment Service. The service, a state-run organization under the Ministry of Employment and Labor, offers a wide range of services to help local firms solve a range of labor-involved issues. Ansan Urban Corp. is one of several companies that have successfully improved their labor-management relat

In South Korea, many firms located outside of Greater Seoul suffer difficulties in recruiting young employees, as they continue to move to the capital and nearby areas to find jobs. Ercohs, a baby food company based in Daejeon, faced the same problem in the past. The company had to deal with problems caused by its aging workforce as well as a high turnover rate for young workers. Due to the high turnover rate for young workers, employees who stayed at the company were burdened with additio

A Korean woman had a stillbirth after being confirmed with COVID-19 and the deceased fetus tested positive, officials said Wednesday. It is the first COVID-19 death in Korea in a child under the age of 19. “The route of infection has not been confirmed,” authorities said. “It was a stillbirth case before birth registration, so we decided to separate it from the confirmed cases.” The mother’s gestation period was 24 weeks and she was not vaccinated against COVID-

Victims of the brutal crackdown on a 1980 pro-democracy uprising in the southwestern city of Gwangju have launched a damage suit against the government, a lawyer's group announced Wednesday, a day after the death of former President Chun Doo-hwan accused of ordering the crackdown. Lawyers for a Democratic Society said it has filed the suit on behalf of 70 people who were subject to brutal violence by soldiers during the democracy protests in May 1980 in Gwangju, 329 kilometers south of Seoul, a

Police will reinforce training of its workforce on the use of stun guns and other weapons to enhance their ability to deal with violent criminal scenes, officials said Wednesday amid public fury over a bungled police response to a knife attacker. The plan came after criticism that police officers failed to stop a knife-wielding man from seriously wounding a neighbor over a noise dispute earlier this month even though they were deployed at the scene and were in possession of a stun gun and a gu

Police have apprehended 130 members of a criminal ring that operated an illegal gambling website from the Philippines, where about 1.3 trillion won ($1.09 billion) was bet over a two and a half year period, officials said Wednesday. Of them, nine have been formally arrested, and the group's leader, who had fled to the Philippines, will be repatriated to South Korea, the international crime investigation unit of the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency said. The group was found to have streamed ga

PM urges public to take booster shots, vaccinate teens

The number of babies born in South Korea fell to a record low in September, data showed Wednesday, underscoring the country's bleak demographic situation with the chronically low birth rate. A total of 21,920 babies were born in September, down 6.7 percent from the previous year, according to the data compiled by Statistics Korea. It marked the lowest for any September since 1981, when the statistics agency began compiling related data. In the third quarter, the number of newborns also reache

A massive search operation resumed Wednesday to find an Asiatic black bear that remained on the loose for a third day after escaping from a bear farm just south of Seoul, officials said Wednesday. The escape occurred at the farm in Yongin, 50 kilometers south of Seoul, at 10:30 a.m. Monday, when five Asiatic black bears left their cage. Three of the bears were soon discovered by officials of the Han River Basin Environmental Office, who captured two of them and killed a third that ran to attac

South Korea's new coronavirus cases and critical cases soared to all-time highs Wednesday, prompting the government to consider imposing an emergency COVID-19 response plan just weeks after easing social distancing rules under the "living with COVID-19" scheme. Prime Minister Kim Boo-kyum urged health authorities to beef up containment measures, saying the country is facing the first hurdle in its move back toward normalcy and the Seoul metropolitan area, home to half of the country's

Part of the remains of St. Andrew Kim Tae-gon, the first native Korean Catholic priest, will be enshrined in an African country, the Catholic church here said Wednesday. Cardinal Andrew Yeom Soo-jung, the archbishop of Seoul, handed over the relic to Monsignor Julien Kabore, charge d'affaires of the Apostolic Nunciature in Manila, in a meeting held in Seoul the previous day, according to the Catholic Archdiocese of Seoul. The remains will be enshrined in the Cathedral of St. Joseph of the Arch