Civic activists detained last week for allegedly receiving orders from Pyongyang to organize protests against the purchase of F-35A stealth fighters from the US had received at least $20,000 from North Korean agents for their operation, warrant applications by the authorities showed. The National Intelligence Service and the police searched the homes of four activists in Cheongju, North Chungcheong Province, in May and found USB flash drives containing encrypted files of orders and reports they

Main opposition People Power Party leader Lee Jun-seok warned the minor opposition People’s Party to not treat him like a kid as the two parties blamed each other for failing to discuss a merger. “I recommend to the People’s Party, ‘Salute the rank, not the man,’” Lee wrote on Facebook on Wednesday, quoting a line from the American war drama miniseries “Band of Brothers,” with a link to a scene in the series. “They (People’s Party) ca

The provincial government of Gangwon began a major crackdown on COVID-19 rule violations in hotels and guesthouses on the eastern coast Tuesday, as young people flock to pool parties and other gatherings over the peak summer holiday season. The biggest hotel in northern Gangneung has been suspended for 10 days from Sunday, after authorities walked in on a pool party attended by dozens of people Saturday night. Gangneung Mayor Kim Han-geun said in a CBS radio interview Tuesday morning that the

Former prosecutor general and presidential frontrunner Yoon Seok-youl is under fire for saying during a media interview last month that poor people should be allowed to eat foods that don’t meet legal standards, as long as they don’t kill you. Yoon made the remarks as he spoke about economist Milton Friedman’s book “Free to Choose: A Personal Statement,” in a video clip of the interview released on YouTube. “Poor people should be allowed to choose food below

  South Korea’s main opposition party leader said Thursday that if former Prosecutor General Yoon Seok-youl does not join the party next month, party members who have joined his camp will be expelled. People Power Party Chairman Lee Jun-seok said that as the party has finalized the primary in late August, he expects Yoon to join the PPP in August. “The No. 1 opposition party’s primary is like a public good. A celebrity can’t stop the bus. That’s not going to

The number of foreigners in South Korea decreased for a consecutive 19 months amid the pandemic to its lowest in five years and six months in June, according to statistics released by the Korea Immigration Service under the Justice Ministry. The foreign population in Korea stood at about 1.98 million in June, 0.3 percent less compared to May, and the lowest since December 2015 (1.89 million). The number peaked at 2.52 million in December 2019, but plunged by nearly 100,000 in January 2020 as C

The leader of the main opposition party said Gyeonggi Province Gov. Lee Jae-myung was easier than former Prime Minister Lee Nak-yon as a presidential candidate to compete against in next year’s election. Asked during a radio interview Monday evening which of the two ruling party presidential contenders he thought was “more comfortable to deal with,” People Power Party leader Lee Jun-seok chose the governor. “If I say something like this, the Lee Jae-myung camp issues st

Gyeonggi Province Gov. Lee Jae-myung is fighting back criticism from all across the political spectrum of his presidential campaign pledge to provide a universal basic income of up to 2 million won ($1,730) per year to all citizens. Lee, currently the ruling Democratic Party of Korea’s presidential front-runner, announced last week that if he is elected president, the government will start giving 2 million won a year to citizens aged between 19 and 29, and 1 million won to all other citiz

Revised media guidelines on reporting of celebrity suicides resulted in reduced rate of suicides among the general public in South Korea, research results showed. A team of researchers led by Dr. Jeon Hong-jin in the psychiatry department of Samsung Medical Center analyzed the suicide rates from 2005 through 2017, and found that after media guidelines were revised in 2013, there was a significant downward trend in the average daily suicides. The paper, titled “Effect of suicide preventio

Members of the ruling Democratic Party continued to slam former prosecutor general and presidential contender Yoon Seok-youl on Wednesday for saying that people should be allowed to work 120 hours in a week if they need to. As Yoon criticized the 52-hour work week system as a failed policy in a recent newspaper interview, he said he met people in start-ups who said there should be exemptions to the work hour rule as game developers often need to work 120 hours for a couple of weeks and then hav

With heat wave warnings issued nationwide Tuesday, Korea is likely to see temperatures near 40 degrees Celsius this week, and possibly a return of the record-breaking heat in 2018 due to a “heat dome” phenomenon, the chief of a nongovernmental weather agency said. “Korea saw the hottest day ever recorded on Aug. 1, 2018, when temperatures hit 39.6 degrees in Seoul and 41 degrees in Hongcheon, Gangwon Province. These were official observatory records, and automatic weather stat

With less than eight months left until the presidential election on March 9, 2022, over a dozen people are weighing their chances at presidency in the conservative arena that no longer has major factions after two former presidents have been jailed. The establishment within the main conservative party broke down with the impeachment of former President Park Geun-hye and the party’s crushing defeat in the parliamentary election last year, giving way to new faces such as an ex-prosecutor ge

Former legislator and opposition presidential contender Yoo Seong-min criticized the ongoing political argument over whether to hand out another round of COVID-19 relief grants to all Koreans or to only those in the lower 80 percent of the income brackets. Based on the national health insurance premiums, the monthly income of a four-person household in the lower 80 percent income bracket is 9.75 million won at the upper bound, which is 117 million won in annual income (before tax), Yoo wrote on

A weekly presidential preference poll that showed higher support ratings for former Prosecutor General Yoon Seok-youl compared with other surveys was stopped this week, prompting Yoon to blame political pressure from other candidates and their supporters. PNR Research, the pollster that had conducted the survey every week since April, said its clients told it last week that they would no longer commission it for the poll. Yoon said in a statement on Tuesday that the PNR poll was stopped becaus

Ex-chief prosecutor and presidential contender Yoon Seok-youl appears more focused on bringing together centrists than joining the main opposition People Power Party, while former chief state auditor Choe Jae-hyeong is likely to join the party as another presidential hopeful, according to figures in close contact with the two men. Political critic Chin Jung-kwon said he met with Yoon last week and it seemed like the former prosecutor general “intends to stay outside the PPP for a while.&r