Lee's past remarks over sunken navy ship, origin of COVID-19 spark controversy

Proposed bill: Partial Amendment to the Motor Vehicle Management Act Proposed by Rep. Han Jun-ho (Democratic Party of Korea) ● Amid the series of recent car accidents involving suspected sudden unintended acceleration, car accident victims have found it difficult to prove the causality between a car defect and the accident, as highly specialized knowledge and access to core information held by the car manufacturer is required to establish such connections. This amendment aims to protect car acci

A new agency that will be exclusively in charge of representing the interests of 7.5 million overseas Koreans will help Incheon rise as a global business hub, President Yoon Suk Yeol said Monday, launching the body he promised a year ago to advance the country’s business ties. The Overseas Koreans Agency offers one-stop services for Koreans who have acquired permanent residency in a foreign country, who once held Korean nationality or who are lineal descendants of someone who once held Kor

The main opposition Democratic Party of Korea has appointed Lee Rae-kyung, the honorary chair of progressive non-profit media platform The Tomorrow, as the head of the new committee launched to renew and innovate the party. Party leader Rep. Lee Jae-myung announced at a Supreme Council meeting held at the National Assembly Monday that Lee Rae-kyung will be in charge of leading the party's new innovation committee. "We will leave all decisions, such as the names and roles of new innovat

Police seized the mobile phone of Rep. Choe Kang-wook of the main opposition Democratic Party on Monday in a raid conducted as part of an investigation into the alleged leak of personal information of Justice Minister Han Dong-hoon. Investigators from the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency confiscated Choe's phone in front of his home in the city of Yongin, south of Seoul, and were trying to search his office at the National Assembly, officials said. Investigators are looking into the alleged

Proposed Bill: Partial Amendment to the Act on the Promotion of Newspapers Proposed by Rep. Yoon Doo-hyun (People Power Party) ● An increasing number of people have begun using online news services to read the news, implying that public opinion can be significantly influenced by the positioning of news articles. Accordingly, there have been calls to prescribe the duties and public responsibility of online news service providers. This amendment aims to require online news services to uphold their

President Yoon Suk Yeol ordered a stern crackdown on corruption involving government subsidies to civil organizations and a full recovery of misused funds, his spokesperson said Monday. Yoon issued the instruction after an audit of government subsidies given to about 12,000 civil organizations over the past three years found a total of 1,865 cases of irregularities involving about 31.4 billion won ($24 million), presidential spokesperson Lee Do-woon said. The ruling People Power Party heaped cri

National Election Commission hit by nepotism in hiring, refuses inspection into North Korean hacking scandal

The Federation of Korean Trade Unions is considering whether to pull out of negotiations with the government following what it calls excessive use of force by police on one of its members. At around 5:31 a.m. last Wednesday, Kim Joon-young, an executive of the Federation of Korean Metalworkers' Trade Unions, sustained injuries from a police baton wielded by an officer while resisting a crackdown. Kim has been staging a sit-in rally since May 29 on a 7-meter-high steel structure installed on

Fearful Kim Jong-un may act out with “more venturous military provocations”

President Yoon Suk Yeol met with East Timor President Jose Ramos-Horta on Friday and agreed to upgrade the bilateral ties between the two nations in the fields of development, labor, education and forestry. Yoon was quoted by his office as saying that he had explained the Korea International Cooperation Agency’s projects in the health, medical and educational field and environmental projects in East Timor. The presidential office added that Yoon has also sought aid and support from the Eas

The approval ratings of President Yoon Suk Yeol and the ruling People Power Party inched down slightly this week, amid continued opposition attacks on the government's diplomacy with Japan, a poll showed Friday. In the poll of 1,002 adults aged 18 and over conducted by Gallup Korea from Tuesday to Thursday, the positive assessment of Yoon's performance inched down 1 percentage point from the previous week to 35 percent. Yoon's disapproval rating was 57 percent, up 2 percentage poi

Children of four retired senior officials at the National Election Commission were additionally found to have been employed by the election watchdog, an investigation showed Friday, raising suspicions that the individuals secured the positions through their fathers' influence. The children of the four former officials were hired for experienced positions at three different regional offices, where their fathers had previously worked, according to the results of the investigation conducted by

North Korea's satellite launch failure on Wednesday was likely to have happened because of an unexpected technical error, rather than leader Kim Jong-un’s impatience to improve surveillance capabilities, according to defector-turned-Assemblyman Rep. Tae Yong-ho. Tae, who was a senior diplomat for North Korea before defecting to Seoul in 2016, said in a press release that the spy satellite’s attempted launch was a key military milestone that has been a long time in the making. Fo

President Yoon Suk Yeol met with former Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga on Wednesday and discussed the recent improvement in the bilateral relationship, his office said. Suga was visiting Seoul in his capacity as the new chief of the Japan-Korea Parliamentarians' Union following an invitation from Yoon during their previous meeting in Tokyo in March. "The president said a complete restoration of the bilateral relationship was achieved through the three South Korea-Japan summit