Stung by its employees‘ first collective action, Starbucks Korea said Sunday that it will hire 1,600 more baristas and store staff by the end of this year and improve working conditions. The hiring plan is part of the firm’s package of measures announced in response to recent complaints from in-store staff that they were overworked and underpaid. “We plan to hire in order to secure more staff and enhance work efficiency at stores nationwide. The company is also reviewing p

Sales of air tickets to Madrid increased 625 percent on-month in September amid growing hopes for a resumption of overseas tourism, as vaccination speeds up in South Korea. According to Interpark Tour, a leading travel agency here, demand for flights to European destinations sharply increased last month, compared with a month earlier. Sales of plane tickets to Zurich soared 275 percent, while those for Amsterdam grew 250 percent. Paris saw a jump of 76.3 percent, followed by Istanbul at 68 p

South Korea’s top health agency said Thursday that it would be evaluating the age recommendations for the use of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine in the wake of recent decisions by some European countries and Japan, which are now discouraging its use in some young people. Hong Jeong-ik, head of the KDCA’s vaccination management division, told a news briefing that the national advisory committee on immunization practices and a panel of outside experts would be conducting a safety revi

Non-Korean-speaking patients can opt to stay home if staff can assist them

Prosecutors asked for death penalty

Lawmaker says people have different ‘starting lines’ in life according to parents’ wealth

Breakdown into how real-life events in South Korea were depicted in “Squid Game”

International craze aside, the Netflix original series “Squid Game” is inspiring parodies and send-ups throughout the South Korean entertainment industry. Cable channel Channel A was one of the first to air a parody of the global megahit. “The Fisherman and the City,” a show featuring five Korean TV celebrities who are obsessed with fishing, introduced its cast as if they were “Squid Game” contestants, with tags like those used in the Netflix series. &ldquo

Military prosecutors on Friday sought a 15-year prison sentence for a noncommissioned Air Force officer for the alleged sexual abuse of a female colleague that led to her death by suicide, officials said. The master sergeant, surnamed Jang, is suspected of sexually harassing the victim of the same rank inside a car on their way back to their base in the western city of Seosan after a private gathering in March. Following the military's poor initial responses to the case, she took her own life in

South Korean biotech firm ABL Bio said Thursday that it has begun the phase 1 clinical trial of anticancer drug candidate ABL501. ABL501 is an antibody that uses the Grabody-I platform technology to block both the PD-L1 and LAG-3 checkpoint pathways, improving the current limitation in PD-L1 therapies. ABL Bio said the company has administered the drug candidate to the first patient with a solid tumor at Samsung Medical Center in Seoul. An official from ABL Bio said the phase 1 clinical tria

To respond to the growing pressure to meet net-zero pledges, steelmakers around the world must work together to find ways to decarbonize steelmaking, mostly likely with the use of hydrogen, the chief of South Korea’s top steel manufacturer said Wednesday. Hosting the Hydrogen Iron & Steel Making Forum 2021, the world’s first international forum on hydrogen steelmaking, Posco Chairman Choi Jeong-woo highlighted the need for urgent, concerted action as an industry and an open pla

Finance Minister Hong Nam-ki came under fire during a parliamentary inspection on Tuesday for failing to stop the relentless rise in housing prices despite dozens of policy measures implemented in recent months. To address the nationwide outcry over soaring housing prices, the Moon Jae-in administration has introduced 26 sets of real estate policies. The latest centered on raising taxes on owners of multiple homes and rooting out property speculation. But there are signs these policies may ba

‘I love the fans, but the song must stop’

Over half of young people living in Seoul say they couldn’t buy a home without the help of their parents, data showed Friday. According to a survey conducted by the Seoul Institute, a think tank under the Seoul Metropolitan Government, 53 percent out of 676 Seoul citizens ranging in age from 18 to 34 said that it would be impossible to purchase a house without financial support from their parents. The nationwide average is 46 percent. While 44 percent of respondents said that they would

A key figure in the snowballing land development scandal in Seongnam, just south of Seoul, was arrested Friday for questioning over allegations that Gyeonggi Gov. Lee Jae-myung, the ruling Democratic Party's leading presidential contender, gave business favors to certain developers. Yoo Dong-gyu, former acting president of Seongnam Development Corp., was apprehended by prosecutors at a hospital Friday morning and was taken to the Seoul Central District Prosecutors Office. He was asked to appear