The government is reportedly supportive of a bill that would allow South Koreans seeking to contact North Korean residents to do so by simply giving prior notice to the government, rather than obtaining its prior approval. The bill in question to revise the Inter-Korean Exchange and Cooperation Act was proposed by Rep. Kim Joon-hyung of the minor Rebuilding Korea Party in June last year. Under the current law, the Minister of Unification may reject an application for prior approval of contact wi

A couple of years ago, while driving, I heard a unique Korean song on the radio. It was “Space Travel,” a 1970 track by the twin-sister duo Bunny Girls, composed by the legendary musician Shin Joong-hyun. Yes, it is a song about space travel — all the way back in 1970, right here in Seoul. It beautifully captured the wave of cosmic enthusiasm sparked by the Apollo 11 moon landing just the year before. What grabbed my attention was the singing technique: Instead of performing in unison, the siste

The rapid expansion of data centers has become one of the most tangible expressions of the artificial intelligence revolution. But debate about their environmental, economic and social impact threatens their future development. And rightly so. Every cloud service and AI application depends on massive physical infrastructure that takes up land, consumes energy, uses water and requires ever-increasing investment. International experience suggests that as the data center industry scales up, tension

President Lee Jae Myung recently ordered additional vetting of Kim Ji-yong, whom he nominated to head the Serious Crimes Investigation Agency, which is scheduled to launch early next month. It is necessary to clarify whether there were any problems with the initial vetting, though it had already been completed; above all, the circumstances raise suspicions that Lee's order may have been influenced by strong backlash from hard-liners in the ruling party. Democratic Party of Korea lawmakers Park J

Rep. Yong Hye-in's resignation as nominee for Minister of Gender Equality and Family is ultimately the result of Cheong Wa Dae's vetting failure. Yong did not even make it to the National Assembly's confirmation hearing. The ruling Democratic Party of Korea did not even schedule a confirmation hearing for her, and its leader, Kim Min-seok, reportedly went so far as to send his chief of staff to urge her to step down. Her firm stance that she would retain her seat as a sitting proportional-repres

A Cheong Wa Dae spokesperson said Tuesday that President Lee Jae Myung nominated lawyer Kim Ji-yong to be the first head of the Serious Crimes Investigation Agency, which is scheduled to launch alongside the Prosecution Service on Oct. 2. Kim is a former chief of the Criminal Affairs Department at the Supreme Prosecutors' Office and will lead the agency for two years following a confirmation hearing. A revision to the Criminal Procedure Act pushed through by the Democratic Party of Korea and pro

Suspicions surrounding Justice Minister nominee Kim Seung-won continue to mount after it was revealed following his nomination that he had previously been investigated by prosecutors. In October 2021, Kim, then a first-term Democratic Party of Korea lawmaker, was investigated for allegedly requesting the then head of the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety to approve clinical trials for a COVID-19 drug developed by Genencell, at the request of a female broker surnamed Yang, who was also an acquaint

The government’s budget proposal for next year, totaling 820.9 trillion won ($599 billion), is the largest ever. The 12.8 percent year-on-year rise and the 92 trillion won increase are also the largest on record. The government’s ability to ramp up spending so substantially is due above all to an exceptional tax revenue windfall brought about by the semiconductor supercycle. The ambitious 162 trillion won Future Response Fund, too, would not have been possible without the surge in corporate tax

President Lee Jae Myung’s partial Cabinet reshuffle on Sunday appears to reflect his determination to restore the momentum of his administration, which has been weakening amid a recent decline in his approval ratings. Most notably, the two top officials in charge of real estate policy, which has been a major source of public discontent, have been replaced. The Lee administration’s real estate policies so far, including punitive tax reforms and half-baked initiatives such as plans to develop Yong

The government of North Jeolla Province in southwestern Korea will reportedly pay an annual allowance of 1.2 million won ($868) to each of 723 family members of participants in the Donghak Peasant Revolution, which took place 132 years ago. The government is using taxpayers’ money to provide cash payments to the great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren of participants in the revolution, as descendants of victims of the historic event of 1894-1895. The Donghak Peasant Revolution was a po

Two Chinese nationals were arrested earlier this month for allegedly collecting classified information related to South Korea-US military exercises and intercepting fighter jet communications near an air force base, police said on Aug. 11. One of the suspects, a Chinese man in his 40s, allegedly recruited a South Korean civilian employee at Camp Humphreys, a major US military base in Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi Province, and obtained information on the locations of US command facilities, weapons moveme

South Korea and the United States have scaled back field training exercises (FTX) during the Ulchi Freedom Shield, a combined military exercise, compared with last year. Meanwhile, North Korea, which is accelerating its nuclear threat, is gaining real-world combat experience by deploying troops to Russia to fight in the war against Ukraine. This year's UFS also provides an opportunity to assess South Korea's ability to lead the combined forces after assuming wartime operational control from the

Hwang Hee, a three-term lawmaker from the ruling Democratic Party of Korea, on Friday proposed a plan to convert scrapped buses into housing for young people. This is nothing short of an absurd idea and an insult to young people struggling to find a home. The proposal sparked an angry backlash among young people and on online communities, with critics denouncing it as an out-of-touch idea that ignores the harsh realities young people face. “Are young people homeless or refugees?” and “Why don’t

The Lee Jae Myung administration said it would gather a wide range of market views through five rounds of public debates on real estate policy. Yet the tax reform package the government unveiled on Monday following the debates ultimately amounted to a tax hike. Lee's pledge not to use taxation as a tool of housing policy has vanished into thin air. The government announced a package that would sharply raise both the holding tax (the Comprehensive Real Estate Tax) and the transaction tax (the cap