SEJONG -- Though the US has the highest number of confirmed cases of COVID-19, 10 European countries have been hit harder in terms of the number of infected people relative to the population. The Korea Herald compared 50 countries around the globe where the number of novel coronavirus infections exceeded 1,400 as of 11 p.m. April 6 (South Korean time). The paper’s calculations were based on epidemiological data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. Ten of the 50 countries had more

SEJONG -- Over the past one or two months, many online commenters have raised the possibility that COVID-19 would pull down apartment prices in Seoul, pointing out that the Moon Jae-in administration had failed to do so. Some likened the current situation to a decade ago, when the real estate market was hit by the 2008 global financial crisis after continuing to spiral in the mid-2000s. Recent trading data showed that Seoul apartment prices stopped their 10-month continuous increase in the fi

SEJONG -- South Korea’s population declined by 1,432 to 51.843 million as of March, posting a fall for the fourth consecutive month, according to the Ministry of Interior and Safety. Though the pace in population decrease has slowed, data shows that a historic inverse in Korea’s demographic trend is underway, which started in December. Compared to November, when the number of residents peaked at 51.851 million, the population has declined by 8,232 over the past four months. The mo

SEJONG -- Since 1994, the world’s four biggest, quadrennial sports games have been held in pairs on even-number years – the Summer Olympics and the UEFA Euros on one year, with the FIFA World Cup and the Winter Olympics two years later. And none of these events has been held on an odd-number year for more than a century since 1896. International sports fans had been eagerly waiting for the Euro 2020 (also called the European Football Championship) and the 2020 Tokyo Summer Ol

SEJONG -- Government payouts for the jobless are estimated to have shot up to a historic high in March in the wake of COVID-19. The Ministry of Employment and Labor is set to make the figure public in about two weeks. A surge in the number of unemployment benefits claimants is projected for sectors including tourism, airlines, restaurants, lodging, private educational institutes and many other retail services. Among the eight major cities and nine provinces in South Korea, Daegu and Nort

SEJONG -- Foreigners’ aggressive net-seller position on the local market has not yet subsided as of the fourth week of March. Over the past 16 trading sessions between March 5-26, foreign corporate investors net sold local stocks worth 10.7 trillion won ($8.69 billion), which are listed on the main bourse. Their divesting has continued for the 16th consecutive session since March 5. Their selling spree, which is attributed to fast spreading COVID-19 worldwide as well as the epidemic&rsq

INCHEON -- President Moon Jae-in was pinning high hopes on Kim Hong-hee when appointing the vigorous maritime police officer to be commissioner general of the Korea Coast Guard as part of a powerful reform drive. Moon promoted Kim by two ranks as part of a noteworthy personnel policy early this month. Compared to his 16 predecessors, Kim, 52, is a relatively young chief of what is seen as the maritime police agency of South Korea. “My life has been the continuation of challenges from th

SEJONG -- South Korea saw the number of single-person households grow sharply over the past 10 years in the wake of continuously declining marriages, higher divorce rate and increasing number of senior population residing alone. The number of single-person households came to 8.56 million out of the total, 22.56 million households, in the nation as of February, data from the Ministry of Interior and Safety showed. They took up the largest percentage -- 37.9 percent (all-time high) of the total

SEJONG -- It has been two months since the first case of COVID-19 was reported in South Korea on Jan. 20. The initial phase was limited to the Seoul metropolitan area, which encompasses the capital as well as nearby Gyeonggi Province and Incheon. The first confirmed case occurred in Incheon and the second was reported three days later in Seoul. The third was discovered in Gyeonggi Province on Jan. 26. Though the novel coronavirus from China took its greatest toll in Daegu and North Gyeongsang

SEJONG -- A country’s interest rate generally determines the value of its currency, although this formula may not be applicable to safe havens such as the US dollar, the euro, the British pound and the Japanese yen. For an emerging country whose currency depends on reserve currencies like the dollar, a low interest rate incurs an outflow of foreign capital as the currency becomes less attractive to investors. Capital flight results in a cheap local currency. Over the past few

SEJONG -- For several weeks until the first week of March, Sejong was posting the smallest number of novel coronavirus infections among 17 major regions in South Korea. But the nation’s smallest region among the 17, on the basis of population, ranked eighth as of Sunday in the wake of a heap of confirmed cases reported at Government Complex Sejong since March 7. As of 10 a.m. Sunday, the administrative city saw the number of COVID-19 patients rise to 40, outnumbering tallies in Incheon

SEJONG -- Sejong has only about half as many residents as Songpa-gu, one of 25 wards in Seoul. The administrative city’s population posted 343,000 as of February, whereas Songpa had 675,000 people. Nonetheless, as of 8:01 p.m., Thursday, Sejong had overtaken three of the nation’s provinces -- South Jeolla Province, population 1.86 million, North Jeolla Province, population 1.81 million, Daejeon, population 1.47 million, Gwangju, population 1.45 million and Jeju Provi

제주영어교육도시의 국제학교 4곳이 토요일 수업을 실시하기로 했다. 또 인터넷을 활용한 비대면 수업을 적극 확대한다. 이는 국내외 코로나19 확산에 따른 복안이다. 동·하절기 방학을 줄이는 대신에 온라인과 주말 등교로 수업일수를 채우겠다는 것. 서귀포 대정에 위치한 브랭섬홀 아시아의 개학일은 국내학교와 마찬가지로 오는 23일이다. 단, 이에 앞선 16일부터 20일까지는 온라인 수업을 진행한다. 이 학교 관계자는 “제주교육청이 온라인 수업 전반에 대한 점검차 방문한 바 있다”며 “정규 시수로 인정받는 데 문제가 없을 것”이라고 10일 밝혔다. 학교 측은 또 내달 첫 주말을 시작으로 총 3주간의 토요일 등교를 공식화했다. 4월4일, 11일, 18일이다. 이와 관련해 학부모 공지까지 이미 마친 상태다. 인근의 세인트존스베리아카데미 제주 또한 마찬가지. 이 학교는 토요수업 계획을 23일 개학

SEJONG -- One of the major concerns amid the COVID-19 panic in South Korea is how it will affect the academic calendar for students in elementary school through high school. Considering the delayed start of the new school year, which was supposed to begin March 2, parents are asking whether their children will be able to attend classes for the required number of days and whether the authorities will fine-tune the vacation period to make up for school closures. But the Ministry of Education has

SEJONG -- Residents of the central administrative city of Sejong are sounding alarm bells now that the COVID-19 epidemic has truly reached them, with five new cases reported over four consecutive days beginning Thursday. The man who tested positive Thursday was not counted in the statistics for Sejong because he had moved to North Gyeongsang Province before receiving his diagnosis. But he had lived and worked in Sejong until Feb. 29. A woman in her 40s residing in Saerom-dong was confirmed po

SEJONG -- South Korea continued to post a negative growth in population in February -- for an unprecedented third consecutive month. According to the Ministry of Interior and Safety, the nation’s population declined by 2,882 as of February, compared to a month earlier, to post 51.844 million. The pace of negative growth has increased since the nation entered the era of population decline in December 2019, when it fell by 1,566. The figure for January 2020 was minus 2,352. Over the past

SEJONG -- South Korean health care workers are suffering the effects of severe overwork from taking care of an exponentially increasing number of COVID-19 patients. More and more doctors and nurses from across the country are volunteering to join emergency medical teams serving the Yeongnam area, which encompasses Daegu and neighboring North Gyeongsang Province, where the highest and second-highest numbers of infections with the new coronavirus disease have been reported among the nation&rsquo

SEJONG -- The South Korean won has lost its value versus yuan as well as key currencies such as the US dollar, euro and yen over the past two weeks. Despite the simultaneous epidemic shock in the region from the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) that originated in China, the recent weak position of the local currency against the yen and yuan is attributable to the rapidly growing number of infections here since the third week of February, according to market analysts. The Chinese yuan traded at 17

SEJONG -- The tight hiring market has been a point of contention over the past two or three years, though the Moon Jae-in administration has continued to express a strong commitment to job creation as often as possible. Recent data from a government agency showed that people are still having difficulty holding jobs, which particularly has been witnessed among almost entire generations. According to Statistics Korea, the number of employed people fell for the second consecutive month -- from 2

SEJONG -- Women have longer lifespans than men, and a government database suggests that the gender gap in South Korea’s population will grow wider in the coming years and decades. According to the Ministry of Interior and Safety, women outnumbered men by 121,783 as of January 2020. The sex ratio, or the number of men per 100 women, posted an all-time low of 99.5, down 0.1 percentage point from a year earlier. The nation’s male and female populations stood at 25.862 million and 25.