Public anger has exploded over a recently busted Telegram sexual abuse ring, prompting millions to sign petitions for the disclosure of the full identities of the operators as well as their tens of thousands of clients. A petition filed with Cheong Wa Dae calling for the disclosure of the main suspect, arrested last week, quickly garnered a record number of signatures: 1.85 million as of 4 p.m. Sunday. A separate petition calling for the disclosure of some 260,000 users of Telegram chat roo

Police nabbed a 20-something man for allegedly subjecting at least 74 people, including 16 minors, to sexual exploitation and assault and operating a pornography ring on Telegram, the police revealed Friday. The alleged crimes involved the messenger service Telegram, where videos of a sexual nature were posted in return for cryptocurrency payments. The suspect, currently known by the surname Cho and by the Telegram nickname “doctor,” is thought to be one of a large number of ind

Mainstream Protestant church groups -- the National Council of Churches in Korea and the United Christian Churches of Korea -- apologized to the public on Thursday for the COVID-19 clusters that formed at churches. The statement also said the organizations hoped to normalize group activities and worship services from April 6. The joint statement followed an increase in the number of novel coronavirus clusters in South Korea this week among those attending Protestant church services. As of Fr

South Korea is seeking to arrange two chartered flights to bring home hundreds of its citizens from Italy, which has been hit hard by the new coronavirus, a senior foreign ministry official said Friday. Italy's COVID-19 death toll had topped 3,400 as of Thursday afternoon -- a tally higher than that of China where the novel virus first emerged in December. As of Friday afternoon, more than 570 people have expressed their wish to return to Korea. "We currently think that two flights are

There will be no more women's pro basketball played in South Korea this spring in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak. The Women's Korean Basketball League decided on Friday to scrap the rest of the regular season, which had been on hold since March 10, and to also wipe out the playoffs. With all other major professional sports -- men's basketball, baseball, men's football and men's and women's volleyball -- having come to a halt due to COVID-19, the WKBL became the first league to cancel it

Decision comes amid unprecedented virus-hit difficulties including plant shutdown in US

South Korea's weather agency on Thursday issued a strong wind advisory for the entire nation, calling for concerted preparedness for typhoon-class winds and forest fires throughout the day. The Korea Meteorological Administration (KMA) said wind gusts of up to 90 kilometers per hour, or 25 meters per second, will blow across the nation, due to the difference in air pressure between cold low pressure over North Korea and warm high pressure southeast of the peninsula. The KMA put the entire nat

Self-employed struggle as population flow plunges by 80 percent

Two members who held private lessons suspended

River of Grace Community Church in Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province, is alleged to have sprayed saltwater into the mouths of people attending church services on March 1 and 8, which may have contributed to the cluster infection of at least 46 people with the novel coronavirus. “It is very unfortunate. As we were reviewing the CCTV footage from River of Grace Community Church, we found that members of the congregation were sprayed saltwater into their mouths one-by-one because of misinformati

A deliveryman was found dead while working after midnight for Coupang. The exact cause of death is not known. According to the Korean Public Service and Transport Workers’ Union on Sunday, the 46-year-old contract worker, surnamed Kim, was found Thursday around 2 a.m. between the fourth and fifth floors of a residential building in Ansan, Gyeonggi Province. The building had no elevator. “Due to the COVID-19 outbreak, deliveries of heavy daily necessities such as rice, drinking wa

Defective security cameras and lax discipline led to a Navy unit on the southern island of Jeju failing to detect civic activists intruding into its compound earlier this month, the Joint Chiefs of Staff said Sunday, promising to strongly reprimand the officers responsible. On March 7, four activists who have long opposed the construction of the naval base cut the barbed-wire fences surrounding the installation, and two of them entered the base and wandered around for about two hours before be

Eight in 10 coronavirus cases in South Korea have been linked to cluster infections, health authorities said Saturday, as the recent trend of spread shows a continued slowdown. Despite the slowdown in Daegu and North Gyeongsang Province, the areas hit hardest by the virus outbreak here, authorities are grappling with the new clusters including a call center in southwestern Seoul and the administrative city of Sejong. Korea reported 107 new cases Saturday, bringing the number of infections to

A 23-year-old South Korean student was punched in the face for not wearing a face mask in New York, in what appears to be a hate crime against Asians amid virus fears, reports said Friday. According to the reports, the student was entering a building in midtown Manhattan on Tuesday morning when she was grabbed by the hair and punched in the face. The alleged attacker reportedly attends an institution located in the same building as the victim’s language school. The attacker assaulted th

LOS ANGELES (AFP) -- Tom Hanks and his wife Rita Wilson have both tested positive for coronavirus, the US actor said Wednesday. Hanks, 63, said he and Wilson came down with a fever while in Australia, where he is set to film a new movie about the life of Elvis Presley. "To play things right, as is needed in the world right now, we were tested for the coronavirus, and were found to be positive," he wrote in a statement posted to Instagram. Hanks is the first major Hollywood star to