Hong Kong has plummeted down an international press freedom chart as authorities have wielded a draconian new security law to silence critical news outlets and jail journalists, a new report said. 　For two decades, media rights watchdog Reporters Without Borders has ranked countries and territories around the world by how free their press is. 　Hong Kong, a regional media hub for both international and local media, has been steadily slipping down the table under Chinese rule. 　In the last ye

　The number of South Korean workers who took parental leave in 2021 decreased year-on-year for the first time since the system was introduced in 2001, government data showed. 　A total of 110,555 workers took time off to take care of their children last year, down 1.3 percent from the previous year‘s 112,040, according to statistics from the Labor Ministry. 　The decrease was attributed to the exceptionally large number of parental leave takers in 2020, when many schools and kindergartens

　Nearly half of LGBTQ youth aged 13 to 24 in America seriously considered committing suicide last year, according to a survey released. 　The poll of nearly 34,000 people was conducted by The Trevor Project, a non-profit that works to prevent suicide among young people in the LGTBQ community. 　This annual survey “demonstrates that rates of suicidal thoughts have trended upward among LGBTQ young people over the last three years,” said Amit Paley, the organization’s executive d

　The number of obese people in South Korea more than doubled between 2017 and 2021, a trend exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic, data showed.  　According to the Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service, the number of overweight patients increased from 14,966 in 2017 to 31,170 last year. 　The number of obese men increased by 3.4-fold to 9,676 and that of female patients grew by 1.7 times to 20,494. 　By age, those in their 30s had the largest proportion at 22.1 percent, followed

　Global military spending reached an all-time high of $2.1 trillion in 2021 for first time, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. 　The world military expenditure increase has not died down despite the economic fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic. The spending rose by 0.7 percent last year, and it was the seventh consecutive yearly increase. 　The five largest spenders were the US, China, India, the UK and Russia, which together accounted for 62 percent of the total ex

  　Even as a new omicron wave gathers speed in some parts of the world, most countries are pushing ahead with reopening travel and easing restrictions in a bid to move past the COVID-19 era. 　In March, Norway claimed the No. 1 spot in Bloomberg’s COVID Resilience Ranking. After scrapping all of its travel restrictions, the country scored the highest among the 53 economies ranked with the most Vaccinated Travel Routes open and loose social curbs. The United Arab Emirates and Ireland r

　Global preferences for city destinations have changed, affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. 　UK-based Euromonitor picked Paris as No. 1 destination for city tours in 2021, based on its new index, comprising six performance pillars, including “tourism policy” and “health and safety.” 　Previously before the pandemic, Asian cities, such as Hong Kong and Bangkok, placed higher, with rankings based on the number of international arrivals. In 2021, travelers chose to visit Eu

　The number of students from multicultural backgrounds enrolled in elementary, middle, and high schools increased by three times over the last nine years to 160,058 this year from 46,954 in 2012, according to the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family and the Ministry of Education. 　As a result, the proportion of multicultural students among all students increased from 0.7 percent to 3 percent. 　In particular, in the case of elementary schools, the proportion nearly quadrupled from 1.1 percen

　The United States’ approval rating in South Korea jumped at one of the steepest rates among Asian countries in 2021, a poll showed. 　The approval rating of US leadership in South Korea climbed to 59 percent last year from 30 percent a year earlier, according to Gallup. 　The increase marks the second highest among 33 Asian countries where the poll was conducted between April 2021 and January 2022. 　The median approval of US leadership in Asia was 41 percent.  　The approval rate f

　Phishing scams involving instant messages in South Korea spiked in 2021 due to increased not-in-person activities amid the coronavirus pandemic, data showed. 　The amount in damages from messenger phishing came to 99.1 billion won ($80.3 million) last year, up 166 percent from the previous year, according to the data from the Financial Supervisory Service. 　The figure accounted for nearly 59 percent of last year‘s total damages of 168.2 billion won resulting from phishing. 　Phishing is

　South Korea’s total population has started to decline amid low childbirths, but the number of foreigners here is forecast to continue to increase to make up of 4.3 percent of the population in 2040, a report showed. 　After peaking at 51.84 million in 2020, the country’s total population started to decline in 2021 and will likely further fall to 50.19 million in 2040, according to the report from Statistics Korea. 　Despite a fall in Korean nationals, the number of foreigners who r

　Almost half of call center workers have thought about taking their own lives due to poor labor conditions and extreme emotional labor, a state human rights watchdog survey showed. 　In the survey of 1,996 call center people conducted by the National Human Rights Commission of Korea from August to October, 48 percent said they thought of killing themselves and 30 percent said they had the thought in the past year. 　As reasons for having suicidal thoughts, economic difficulty was cited the most

　The number of registered vehicles in South Korea surpassed 25 million as of end-March, meaning roughly 1 out of every 2 South Koreans owns a vehicle, data showed.  　Car registrations had come to 25.07 million in the country of 52 million people as of end-March, up 2.12 percent from a year earlier, according to the data from the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport. 　The number of environmentally friendly cars registered here had advanced 7.7 percent from the previous year to r

　Incheon Airport, the main gateway to South Korea, became the world’s second-busiest cargo airport in 2021, up one notch from the previous year, a trade body said. 　Incheon International Airport handled 3.23 million tons of international cargo, up 18.6 percent from a year earlier, according to the Airports Council International. 　The airport, some 40 kilometers west of Seoul, ranked third in the world in terms of international cargo handling in 2019 and 2020. 　Hong Kong International A

　A majority of people in the United States continue to support a mask requirement for travel on airplanes and other shared transportation, a poll finds. A ruling by a federal judge has put the government’s transportation mask mandate on hold. 　The poll by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research finds that despite opposition to masks that included verbal abuse and physical violence against flight attendants, 56 percent of those surveyed favor requiring people on plane