The Korean Red Cross said Tuesday that it had collected 53.5 billion won ($43.9 million) in donations since Feb. 27 to help fight the novel coronavirus, and spent 33.4 billion won of it on emergency relief. Masks, protective clothing and medical gloves worth 13.7 billion won have been delivered to medical institutions and staff treating COVID-19 patients. About 2.9 billion won was spent on providing masks and care packages to patients confirmed with the virus, and another 13.9 billion won wen

A local court ruled Tuesday that using a smartphone to hit and injure others is a criminal offense of assault and punishable as per relevant laws. The Seoul Central District Court sentenced a 25-year-old person to a year in prison, suspended for two years, for hitting a colleague on his face with a smartphone, causing a bone fracture that required five weeks of medical treatment. The defendant attacked the victim after quarreling during a dinner meeting in February, and was indicted on charge

Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun said Friday that it was difficult to ban arrivals from Europe and the US to contain the novel coronavirus, as 90 percent of imported cases were Korean nationals. “The number of newly confirmed cases in the country has gone down to a stable level, but the share of imported cases are rising. Managing risks from overseas has become more important,” Chung said at the beginning of a meeting of the Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasures Headquarters. &

Nearly half of South Koreans working at US military camps here may face furloughs next month as the two countries failed to narrow their differences during the latest round of cost-sharing negotiations, which ended Thursday in the US. “Prior to furloughs of nearly half the Korean national employees of US Forces Korea on April 1, a US negotiating team traveled to Los Angeles under extraordinary circumstances this week to meet over four days,” Yonhap News Agency quoted a State Depa

Vehicle traffic and public transport ridership in Seoul inched up in the second week of March despite campaigns to continue with social distancing to contain the novel coronavirus. According to the Seoul City government, nearly 3.75 million people took the subway, and 3.87 million took buses on daily average between March 9 and 12, up from 3.67 million and 3.81 million, respectively, between March 2 and 6. Private vehicle traffic recorded close to 5.83 million units on daily average in March

A day after the parliament endorsed a 11.7-trillion-won supplementary budget, the ruling Democratic Party on Wednesday started official preparations for another extra budget, as the country fights a double whammy of a deadly virus and economic recession. It also said it was desirable that some local governments were seeking to provide something similar to basic income for disaster relief. “What the local governments are doing can help the central government prepare,” Lee Nak-yon

Despite suspicions to the contrary, the Shincheonji Church of Jesus membership list that authorities obtained through a probe was not much different from the list the Christian sect had provided earlier. Some politicians, heads of local governments and Justice Ministry officials had called for a prosecutorial investigation into the Shincheonji Church of Jesus, accusing the sect of hampering disease control efforts by intentionally omitting names from the list it submitted. After the Central D

The ruling Democratic Party’s efforts to launch a liberal coalition party to win more parliamentary seats via the new proportional representation system in next month’s general election got off to a rocky start as only minor parties with no seats in the legislature are expected to join. The Democratic Party said it would bring together all parties seeking to join the coalition by Wednesday, but it is yet to figure out its relationship with minor parties should it decide not to take

As the number of officials infected with COVID-19 continues to rise in the administrative capital of Sejong, the government has required all public servants to work from home on shifts. The Ministry of Personnel Management said Thursday that it has delivered to some 50 central government agencies a set of guidelines to reduce the number of people working in the offices. Heads of agencies will set the percentage of remotely working officials, and all non-managerial staff will take turns to wor

Internet cafes, where patrons mostly play multiplayer computer games for an hourly fee, are getting the blame for spreading the novel coronavirus as students have nowhere else to go amid extended school closures. Seoul City has advised owners of internet cafes and karaoke establishments to suspend business to keep COVID-19 from spreading, considering that they are enclosed spaces where people tend to stay for long hours. Four people who used the same internet cafe in Seoul’s Dongdaemun-

A look back on the past 50 days of South Korea’s coronavirus outbreak shows just how difficult it is to control and how easy it is for health authorities to lose sight of its spread. The nation’s first confirmed case of COVID-19 was on Jan. 20, and despite a gradual rise in the number of infections, the situation seemed to be under control for weeks. Most cases were traceable to China and other infected countries. But on Feb. 18, everything changed, with patient no. 31 in Daegu,

A man confirmed with COVID-19 infection was caught violating the self-quarantine order to buy a face mask in Daegu, and was handed over to health authorities by police on Monday. The man in his 50s was queueing to buy a mask at the post office in Daegu’s Pojeong-dong, Jung-gu, at around 11:40 a.m. on Monday, according to the Daegu Jungbu Police Station. He told a reporter of broadcaster KBS there that he was informed of his COVID-19 infection that morning, and came out to buy a mask. T

A South Korean woman forced into sexual slavery for Japanese troops during World War II died on Monday, leaving 18 surviving victims. The victim surnamed Lee passed away at the age of 92 at her home in Daegu, the Korean Council for Justice and Remembrance for the Issues of Military Sexual Slavery by Japan said Tuesday. Born in 1928 in Pohang, North Gyeongsang Province, Lee was taken to China and forced into sexual slavery for Japanese troops at the age of 17. She lived in China after Korea&

Local government chiefs are taking legal action against the Shincheonji Church of Jesus, the Christian sect at the center of the novel coronavirus outbreak, filing complaints against its branch heads and asking that they be charged with multiple offenses including murder. The Seoul City government filed complaints with the prosecution against Shincheonji leader Lee Man-hee and 12 branch heads alleging murder, inflicting injuries and violation of the law on the prevention and control of infecti

Seoul police and the city government plan to block a joint worship service, slated to take place at a plaza in central Seoul on Sunday, amid concerns over the COVID-19 outbreak. Led by a controversial pastor, who is now in police custody for violating the election law, a civic group has held street rallies opposing President Moon Jae-in for months, with some in the form of outdoor worship services. Despite repeated warnings, the group, which calls itself the “Pan-national Alliance for