Chuseok sparks COVID-19 worries for partially vaccinated Korea

South Korea is close to reaching its goal of having 70 percent of the population vaccinated with a first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine before Saturday, when this year’s Chuseok holiday begins. So what does this mean for the country’s pandemic response going forward? Lee Ki-il, the Ministry of Health and Welfare’s deputy minister for health care policy, told Friday’s televised news briefing that Korea was close to hitting “a significant milestone in the vaccination

President Moon Jae-in will attend a virtual meeting of the Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate on Friday to discuss global warming ahead of the UN climate summit, known as COP26, to be held in Glasgow, Scotland in October. The MEF is a US-led initiative that aims to ramp up supplies of clean energy while reducing carbon emissions. US President Joe Biden will convene the Friday meeting to strengthen the climate ambitions of the 17 members, including Australia, Canada, China, the EU and

Time ran out Friday for cryptocurrency exchanges to announce the closure of their services if they would not be operable after Sept. 24, marking a critical time that will decide the fate of many cryptocurrency exchanges in the country. More than 30 cryptocurrency exchanges were expected to give notice for a service shutdown by the end of Friday, as 24 exchanges have not applied for the Information Security Management System and 10 failed to acquire a certificate, according to industry source

A report released by the Bank of Korea this week estimated the country’s potential growth rate for 2021-22 at 2 percent, down 0.2 percentage point from its previous estimate made in August 2019. The rate for 2019-20 was estimated at 2.2 percent, also a fall from the previous projection of 2.5-2.6 percent. The fall in South Korea’s potential growth rate has been accelerated in recent years not just by the economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic but by structural problems weighing

National Intelligence Service Director Park Jie-won, whose duties require him to act clandestinely, is now in the media spotlight over a political issue. The controversy concerns election-meddling allegations involving Yoon Seok-youl, a leading presidential contender affiliated with the main opposition People Power Party.　 On Sept. 2, online news outlet Newsverse revealed anonymous allegations that prosecutor Son Jun-sung, who at the time was an investigative intelligence policy officer under