The new leader of the main opposition party said Tuesday that former chief prosecutor Yoon Seok-youl, who has topped polls on presidential preference, should start talking about his ability to run state affairs. “Other than his image of resistance against the Moon Jae-in administration, (Yoon) must answer people’s questions on whether he can run state affairs,” Lee Jun-seok, the newly elected chief of the People Power Party, said in a YTN radio interview Tuesday morning. &ldq

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un called K-pop a “vicious cancer” corrupting young North Koreans’ “attire, hairstyles, speeches, behaviors,” the New York Times reported on Thursday. Kim or the North Korean state media has slammed “anti-socialist and nonsocialist” influences across his country, especially South Korean movies, K-dramas and K-pop videos, almost every day in recent months, the newspaper said. In North Korea, computers, text messages, music p

A person who ran an unauthorized school teaching US curriculum in Gangnam was fined 3 million won ($2,700) for violation of the elementary and secondary education law. The school, set up in July 2018, taught subjects such as English language, American history and biology under a US curriculum to about 110 students from ninth to 12th grades from 8:30 a.m. until 3:10 p.m. for a tuition fee of 12 million won per semester, and ran after-school club activity programs as well. The accused insisted t

While calling North Korea “a country with the ambition to be capable of striking the US homeland,” US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said the US will continue to work on North Korea, leading with diplomacy. “Pyongyang continues to develop its nuclear and ballistic missile programs, posing an increasing threat to regional allies and partners and with ambitions to be able to strike the US homeland,” Austin said in his prepared remarks for a US Senate Armed Services Committ

A petition against abolishing the National Security Act received the consent of over 100,000 South Koreans, meeting the condition for the parliament to review it. The National Assembly said Wednesday that the online petition, which was posted May 13 in opposition to another petition calling for the abolition of the National Security Act, had garnered over 100,000 signatures. The petitioner wrote that Koreans had never been more worried about national security, and that he felt as if his life w

Video clips of a couple making their 10-year-old niece swallow dog feces and forcing her head underwater during weeks of abuse that led to the girl’s death were disclosed during a court trial on Wednesday. A shaman surnamed Lee, 34, and her 33-year-old husband, a Korean classical musician, are on trial for the murder of their niece, who they believed was possessed by the devil. During Wednesday’s trial at the Suwon District Court, prosecutors played video clips of child abuse from

The ruling Democratic Party convened an emergency meeting of its leadership Tuesday to discuss how to respond to a government report indicating that 12 of its lawmakers were implicated in illegal real estate transactions. The Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission said Monday that 12 Democratic Party lawmakers or family members of Democratic Party lawmakers were suspected of violating the law on real estate trade. The anti-corruption watchdog looked into the real estate transactions of 17

A Korean American facing extradition to Spain for taking part in a raid of the North Korean Embassy in Madrid in February 2019 said he could be assassinated if he leaves the US. Christopher Ahn, a member of the group Free Joseon, which has helped several high-level North Koreans defect, was arrested by the FBI in Los Angeles in April 2019. Spanish prosecutors have asked the US to hand him over to face charges including unlawful break-in, illegal confinement, willful bodily harm and theft. &ldq

As the military scrambles to improve meals amid continued reports of underfed conscripts in quarantine, overworked military cooks may be overlooked. Army cooks work nonstop from 5 a.m. through 8 p.m., according to an account from a person who claims her son is an Army cook at a base near Seoul. The day-to-day tasks include offloading food from trucks, managing ingredients, cleaning up after meals and taking photos of the meals given to soldiers under quarantine. “Army cooks are burnt out

Three out of 4 Americans think it is “very important” or “important” for the US to reach an agreement with North Korea on dismantling the North’s nuclear weapons, a survey of 1,000 American adults conducted earlier this month showed. Responses were consistent across political lines, with both Republicans (84 percent) and Democrats (79 percent) favoring an agreement, according to the poll conducted May 6 through 10 by the Korea Economic Institute of America, a Washi

US Vice President Kamala Harris is under fire in the US for an “insulting” gesture: She wiped her hand after shaking hands with President Moon Jae-in at the White House last week. Footage of Harris wiping her right hand on her jacket immediately after shaking hands with Moon at the end of a joint press conference last Friday went viral. Conservative US broadcaster Fox News said many Americans had become more germ-conscious since COVID-19 started, but that Harris may have made her

Foreign Minister Chung Eui-yong continued to be hopeful on North Korea, but failed to give details or reasons when pressed on the issue in a US media interview on Thursday, a day ahead of a summit between President Moon Jae-in and US President Joe Biden in Washington DC. “North Korea has a very unique system of governance. There is only one person who can make final decisions, which is their supreme leader Kim Jong-un. So we thought a top-down approach would be more effective. We tried it

South Korean soldiers have been using substandard exercise clothes and berets for years, the Defense Acquisition Program Administration said amid continued reports about poorly fed troops. According to DAPA data released by Rep. Yoon Joo-kyung of the main opposition People Power Party on Thursday, eight of the 18 companies that provide apparel for the military has supplied substandard exercise clothes and berets. The total cost of the faulty products supplied by the eight firms over the past

US Forces Korea commander nominee Gen. Paul LaCamera said he will advocate for inclusion of the USFK in contingency plans in the Indo-Pacific region, if it is confirmed he will take up the post. “Given the global role of the US military and, increasingly, the international reach of the South Korean military, opportunities are emerging for (Korea-US) alliance cooperation beyond the Korean Peninsula,” LaCamera said in his answers to advanced policy questions ahead of his confirmation

The case of a 21-year-old medical student found dead in the Han River on April 30, which has received much media interest, took a new turn on Monday as his friend spoke out through his lawyer for the first time. Sohn Jung-min went missing early on April 25 after drinking overnight with his friend at a riverside park in Banpo, Seoul, and was found dead in the river days later. As Sohn’s father desperately looked for his son, and after he told the press that he wanted to know how his son g