Gyeonggi Bukbu Provincial Police Agency said Tuesday it had uncovered a cybercrime ring accused of operating an illegal gambling website and attracting minors into gambling. Police apprehended 35 suspects, including the ringleader in his 40s, on suspicion of operating illegal gambling websites for five years, from December 2018 to March this year. Out of the 35 suspects, 10 had been arrested as of Tuesday. According to police officials, the criminal ring operated gambling websites out of Dubai a

Meteorological drought levels are forecast to remain normal nationwide, due to high levels of precipitation over the past few months compared to previous years, the Ministry of Interior and Safety said Tuesday. According to the Interior Ministry, the total precipitation levels recorded over the past six months reached up to 504.7 millimeters nationwide -- 150.6 percent above the average precipitation levels recorded between 1991 and 2020. In February alone, up to 102.6 mm of rain was recorded, m

The Seoul Metropolitan Government and Wad, the developer behind the app Catch Table, will sign a business agreement Tuesday to make it easier for international tourists without Korean phone numbers to make restaurant reservations and join online queues. The move comes amid an increase in the number of international visitors coming to South Korea for culinary tourism purposes. According to a survey conducted by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, in 2022, 68 percent of tourists answered

The tightening of border controls by the Kim Jong-un regime, marked by the construction of multiple layers of fences along the China-North Korea border following the COVID-19 pandemic, has exacerbated the already dire humanitarian and human rights crisis in North Korea, according to a report by Human Rights Watch. The HRW, an international human rights organization headquartered in New York, on Thursday published a comprehensive 148-page report titled "A Sense of Terror Stronger than a Bull

A circulated online list containing the names of doctors who did not participate in the prolonged walkout and instead remained or returned to their positions has prompted the police to pledge action against the individual responsible for its distribution. The National Police Agency released an official statement, stating that it will “strictly handle any acts that interfere with normal medical procedures.” “Posting full names of trainee doctors returning to work and writing thr

South Korea dealt with the wettest winter in about half a century, seeing a historic amount of 236.7 millimeters of rain drenching the nation in recent months, the weather agency said Thursday. From Dec. 1 through the end of February, up to 236.7 mm of rain was observed here, marking the highest amount of precipitation to be recorded in the cited period since 1973, when the Korea Meteorological Administration started collecting the related data. The latest precipitation level was 2.7 times highe

The Seoul Metropolitan Government will build up to 1,007 gardens across the city by 2026, starting with 150 new gardens by the first half of 2024, the city government said Thursday. The city government will spend 265.9 billion won ($199.8 million) to install gardens and green areas in various places around the city, specifically for groups such as children, older citizens and people with disabilities. The installation of the new gardens aims to lessen the stress and anxiety levels felt by Seoul

With South Korea’s total fertility rate reaching as low as 0.72 in 2023, making it one of the lowest among the ranks of the 38-member Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the government is devising a list of attractive policies to persuade women to have babies -- that includes giving them hefty amounts of subsidies dubbed “childbirth benefits.” From the central government, potential mothers receive 1 million won ($751) to pay for their medical expenses. Once t

As ocean surface temperatures in the Pacific Ocean gradually decrease, climate conditions will most likely switch to a neutral state between April and June, according to the World Meteorological Organization. El Nino is a natural phenomenon in which ocean surface temperatures in the eastern and central Pacific remain 0.5 degrees Celsius higher than usual for more than five months. The El Nino phenomenon officially began between May and June 2023 and was recorded as one of the five strongest El N

The Health Ministry on Tuesday said it was considering filing criminal complaints with the police against the trainee doctors who are leading the protest against the government's plan to expand the annual medical school student quota. “We are considering filing police complaints on the trainee doctors who led the walkouts,” said Second Vice Health Minister Park Min-soo. “Details as to when the police complaints will be filed and who it will be filed against will be decided

The Korean National Police Agency said Tuesday it had developed deepfake detection software to probe crimes using the technology. Deepfakes, videos altered with AI to produce lifelike videos of things that did not happen, often depicting well-known public figures, have become a concern for authorities ahead of the upcoming general elections in April. A revision to the Public Official Election Act in December banned the use of fake content such as videos and images in election campaigns. Accordin

Tensions between the Yoon Suk Yeol government and the medical community have escalated to a boiling point, with doctors flooding the streets in a massive protest on Sunday, defying the government's ultimatum to return to work by Thursday or face legal consequences. At the Yeouido Hangang Park in western Seoul, doctors, interns, residents and medical students staged a large-scale protest to denounce the government's decision to increase the annual medical school student enrollment quo

After the COVID-19 virus hit, camping caught on among Koreans as an outdoor leisure activity that didn't break social distancing rules. The pandemic may have officially ended, but the camping craze has stuck around. In the past few years, the popularity of car camping has stood out. As of end-2022, 41.6 percent of Koreans said they went car camping at least once compared with the corresponding figure of 4 percent in the previous year, a survey released by the Korea Tourism Organization in J

Only 294 of 9,000 striking junior doctors on strike returned to work on Thursday morning, the Ministry of Health and Welfare said Thursday. Thursday is the final day of the back-to-work deadline set by the government, with officials warning that the doctors could have their licenses suspended if they fail to heed the ultimatum. The Health Ministry has said the government is prepared to take legal steps beginning March. On Wednesday, the Health Ministry said that its officials had visited the hom

A flood forecasting system equipped with artificial intelligence technology will be implemented nationwide from May, in preparation for the rainy season during the summer, the Ministry of Environment said Wednesday. The new AI-based flood forecasting system will be installed in a total of 223 locations nationwide, including 75 locations categorized as special flood warning points such as those next to large rivers. The system will analyze the possibility of a flood occurring every 10 minutes and

From Wednesday, emergency text alerts will include keywords in English to help people who don't speak Korean understand better what kind of emergencies are occurring, said the Ministry of Interior and Safety on Wednesday. Emergency text alerts are alert messages that are sent to everyone who is within a certain radius of emergency situations, such as evacuation alerts and extreme weather events like earthquakes and heavy rain. These alert messages are categorized into three different types:

Ultrafine dust levels in March could be higher than previous years due to high pressure, higher-than-normal temperatures and a stagnant atmosphere, according to the Ministry of Environment on Tuesday. As a measure to reduce exposure to higher ultrafine dust levels, the Environment Ministry stated that it recommends workers, especially those who have respiratory symptoms or those who are pregnant, to work flexibly if high fine dust levels persist for more than two days. Flexible work includes spa

The Seoul Metropolitan Government unveiled plans to redevelop southwest Seoul into an innovative urban district that combines functions such as work, leisure and housing on Tuesday. During Tuesday’s press briefing, Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon said that the city government will begin construction in southwest Seoul in 2025 to transform industrial and old residential areas into futuristic, high-tech industrial clusters and residential, leisure and work areas with green spaces. Southwest Seoul con

The Seoul Metropolitan Government will recruit 40 foreign national volunteers as the “Seoul Life Monitoring Team,” to help the city government identify any concerns or inconveniences foreign nationals living in Seoul have. The city government has been recruiting Seoul Life Monitoring Team volunteers since introducing the program in 2012. In 2023, 37 volunteers of 20 different nationalities participated in the program. This year, foreign nationals and naturalized citizens may apply if

A fake compilation video featuring President Yoon Suk Yeol delivering a speech has spread rapidly on social media, prompting South Korea's independent media regulation agency to decide on Friday to remove the deceptive video from all social media channels. The 46-second fabricated video shows Yoon saying “I, Yoon Suk Yeol, have been enforcing laws that harass our nation,” as well as “I ruined our country and made its people suffer by clinging onto an ideology that deviates