Last month, Kim Byung-guk attended his own funeral. The 85-year-old, who was diagnosed with stage 4 prostate cancer last year, asked the attendees not to wear black. “I want to have this service while I’m still alive,” Kim wrote in his invitation to his friends. “Please dress in bright colors. Hope we can sing and dance together.”　Kim’s funeral ceremony, held on Aug. 14 in a hospice facility in Seoul, was indeed quite different from what one normally sees at Korean funerals. No one was sobbing.

Authorities on Sunday began demolishing a collapsing kindergarten in southern Seoul, a property that has been causing a public uproar over a lack of safety measures for young children.　The three-story building, where some 120 preschoolers went to kindergarten, started leaning nearly 20 degrees on Thursday after a retaining wall in a nearby construction site collapsed. The wall’s collapse is reported to have been caused by heavy rain earlier this month.  A kindergarten in Seoul`s Dongjak district

A Seoul court upheld the Korea Immigration Service’s decision to permanently ban a Chinese businessman, who has a history of sexually harassing two Korean women employed by his company, from entering Korea.The man who was investigated by the Korean prosecution in 2016 after two Korean female employees filed a complaint against him, claiming he sexually harassed them. The women worked as his secretary and a flight attendant on his private jet. South Korea`s Incheon International Airport (Yonhap)　

Generational conflict is severe in South Korea, especially between the elderly and the younger generation, with almost 90 percent of young and middle-aged adults saying they cannot “communicate well” with elderly Koreans, a newly released report showed.  　The report, authored by Jeong Sang-hwan from the National Human Rights Commission of Korea, was submitted to the third ASEM Conference on Global Ageing and Human Rights of Older Persons, which was held from Sept. 5-6 in central Seoul this year.

South Korea's food safety agency on Thursday banned Pulmuone Foodmerce, a major food distribution firm, from distributing chocolate cakes that are believed to have caused some 460 school children nationwide to come down with food poisoning. A school cafeteria in North Jeolla Province is closed during lunchtime, Thursday, after food poisoning was reported in 13 schools nationwide. (Yonhap)The decision was made after food poisoning was reported at 13 schools across the country, including those in

Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon indefinitely postponed the unveiling of his master plan for the next four years, saying making the announcement at this point could worsen the continued escalation of real estate prices.　　“We will postpone the announcement of the plans until Seoul’s real estate market is stabilized,” an official from the Seoul Metropolitan Government said. 　　Park was scheduled to unveil the plan on Sept. 13, including a major project to build a public park, the biggest in Seoul, in Mago

Former National Police Agency Commissioner-General Cho Hyun-oh was questioned by police Wednesday on allegations that he masterminded an online opinion-rigging operation carried out by police during the Lee Myung-bak administration. 　Cho denied the allegations upon his arrival at the central police headquarters in Seoul at 9 a.m. 　“I’ve never ordered anyone (within the police force) to interfere with politics,” Cho told reporters. “I don’t understand why I have to be here (at the police headquar

Corneille Nangaa, the head of the electoral commission of the Democratic Republic of Congo, said in Seoul on Tuesday that “very few” in his country are against the idea of using the much-disputed South Korean-made voting machines for the African nation’s long-delayed presidential election set for Dec. 23, just a day after Congolese police violently dispersed a protest against the machines in Kinshasa. Congo will not cancel the deal with the Korean supplier in spite of pressure from the internati

Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon’s latest pledge -- to spend a day in a wheelchair to experience the difficulties disabled people face in using public transportation -- is raising eyebrows among the people with disabilities in Seoul. 　Park’s latest pledge announced on Sunday is the mayor’s second attempt to “understand” the lives of socially vulnerable, following a monthlong stay in a rooftop apartment in an impoverished Seoul neighborhood.  Even his first attempt was criticized by some, who viewed Par

Ex-President Park Geun-hye ordered the Blue House staff to deliberately delay the Supreme Court’s ruling on a lawsuit filed by Koreans subjected to forced labor during Japan’s colonial rule, according to a local news report, which states that the ex-president gave the order after signing the controversial 2015 Seoul-Tokyo agreement on the issue of Japan’s wartime sexual enslavement of Korean women. 　　A UN anti-discrimination body recently said the 2015 deal -- in which Japanese Prime Minister Sh

The prosecution on Friday requested four years in prison for Kim Ki-choon, ex-President Park Geun-hye’s chief of staff, on charges of abuse of power and perjury in relation to his involvement in the drafting of a white list to illicitly provide support in the form of hundreds of millions of won to pro-Park civic organizations. 　　The prosecution also requested six years in prison and a fine of 100 million won ($90,000) for Cho Yoon-sun, who served as minister of culture, minister of gender equali

After a UN anti-discrimination body on Thursday advised Tokyo to adopt a victim-centered approach to achieve a lasting solution on the issue of Japan’s wartime military sexual slavery, which largely involved Korean women, Tokyo’s UN mission has expressed its regret and lodged a protest with the UN committee, according to local media.　　The 18-member UN body stated that Tokyo’s efforts did not “take a fully victim-centered approach (and) that the surviving (victims) were not adequately consulted.”

Unionized employees of Kangwon Land, a Gangwon Province-based, state-owned casino, reported their former head Ham Seung-hee over corruption allegations Thursday, after a lawmaker accused him of having spent some 70 million won ($63,000) worth of company funds for personal use while in office.　Ham, once a celebrated prosecutor and lawmaker, served as the head of the country’s largest casino from 2014 to 2017. According to Rep. Song Ki-hun of the ruling Democratic Party, the 67-year-old is suspect

After a special police investigation team on Tuesday concluded that the 2009 crackdown against SsangYong Motors’ laid-off workers was a form of state violence and that it was orchestrated under the leadership and approval of the former President Lee Myung-bak, former SsangYong employees demanded an apology from the government. 　　“I had to watch my colleagues being beaten by SWAT police officers back in 2009, and the traumatic experience still haunts me to this day,” said Kim Sun-dong, one of the

One of the biggest professional organizations of obstetricians and gynecologists in South Korea on Tuesday said its members have discontinued performing abortions, except legally allowed procedures, in spite of existing demand due to the government’s latest law revision that imposes harsher punishments on doctors who perform the illegal but common procedure in the country.The decision is estimated to affect many women in South Korea, where some 3,000 abortions are said to be performed daily -- i

The Health Ministry is pushing a proposal that would restrict Korean National Health Insurance coverage for foreign nationals to those who have stayed in the country for at least six months. The current requirement is three months.　Under the proposed changes, to be finalized later this year, only F-5 and F-6 visa holders -- permanent residents and marriage immigrants -- would be eligible to pay insurance premiums equivalent to those paid by Korean nationals. F-1 and F-2 visa holders would have t

The number of elderly South Koreans who have committed crimes increased dramatically, by 45 percent in the last five years, while 21.1 percent of the country’s elderly population is experiencing depression, police and government data has showed. 　　Rising elderly poverty rates, social isolation and mental health issues are being blamed for the surge in crime rates among the elderly -- defined as those aged 65 and older -- who account for 14 percent of the Korean population as of this year.　　Accor

Former President Chun Doo-hwan, accused of defaming a late Roman Catholic priest over a military crackdown during the 1980 pro-democracy uprising in Gwangju, did not show up in a Gwangju court Monday for the first day of his trial, saying he has Alzheimer’s and cannot travel as far as Gwangju due to his age. Prosecutors had indicted Chun in May on libel charges concerning the priest Cho Chul-hyun, who said he had seen the military, led by then-President Chun, firing at civilians from helicopters

The youth unemployment rate, which tracks Koreans aged 25-34 who have not secured jobs, reached its highest in South Korea in 19 years last month, government statistics showed. Concerns are rising over the effectiveness of the Moon administration’s pro-labor policies, such as the latest minimum wage hike, and whether or not these measures are in any way responsible for the current unemployment crisis.According to Statistics Korea, 338,000 young Koreans were unemployed last month. The number is t

The National Human Rights Commission Korea said Tuesday that holding young children in prison-like immigration detention centers must be prohibited, revealing that 225 foreign-born children including a 2-year-old were detained in such facilities in South Korea from 2015-2017.　“We strongly advise the government to revise the relevant laws to ban detainment of all children in the country, as it can be a traumatic experience for any child, even if it is for a short period,” the human rights commiss