The disease control authorities asked front-line agencies Friday to temporarily stop reserving initial shots of the Pfizer coronavirus vaccine, currently limited to those aged 75 and above. The authorities asked them to refrain from booking initial Pfizer shots so that seniors could get their second doses without a hitch, citing a possible temporary imbalance of supply and demand. South Korea is running short of Pfizer vaccine. It has so far brought in about 2.11 million doses, enough to inoc

The heirs of late Samsung Group chief Lee Kun-hee announced Wednesday they would pay more than 12 trillion won ($10.8 billion) in inheritance tax, the largest in the country’s history. The amount is about three times as large as the total inheritance taxes collected in South Korea last year. Lee, who died in October, is survived by his wife, only son, Jae-yong, and two daughters. He left assets estimated to top 26 trillion won, including around 19 trillion won in stocks in key companies a

The acquisition of real estate by foreign nationals in South Korea has surged, fueling an already overheated property market. Some of those properties have been purchased through financial misconduct, intensifying concerns about the inflow of foreign capital. The government needs to regulate real estate acquisitions by foreign nationals.　 According to the Korea Real Estate Board, the number of transactions by foreigners in residential buildings -- apartments, detached houses, multiplex housing

A report released by a state-run research institute last week rings the alarm about the mounting debts of South Korea’s public corporations. Debt owed by nonfinancial public companies accounted for 23.5 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product in 2017, the highest but for Norway among the comparable 33 members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, according to the paper from the Korea Development Institute. The figure far exceeds the OECD average of 12.

The government said Saturday that it has signed a deal with Pfizer to import additional coronavirus vaccine doses for 20 million people from the US pharmaceutical giant. With the latest deal, South Korea has secured enough Pfizer vaccine for 33 million people, including the doses it secured in December last year and February this year. The deal will also raise the total number of COVID-19 vaccine doses the country has so far secured to an amount enough to inoculate 99 million people. This is

It is uneasy to see both the judiciary and administration of South Korea as inconsistent in handling sensitive cases with Japan. A panel of judges at the Seoul Central District Court last week dismissed a suit filed by South Korean victims of wartime sexual slavery against the Japanese government. In January, another judge of the same court ordered Tokyo to make reparations of 100 million won ($89,500) to each of a separate group of victims who had brought a similar case. Foreign Minister Chun

An amendment bill on press arbitration proposed by Choe Kang-wook and two other lawmakers of the Open Democratic Party and nine lawmakers of the ruling Democratic Party of Korea was referred to a National Assembly committee on Monday. They say it was drawn up to remedy the damage caused by fake news, but it seriously threatens freedom of speech, one of the most important roots of democracy. Its point is to change the Press Arbitration Commission into the Press Commission and place it under the