Prosecutor General Lee One-seok on Tuesday ordered the Busan High Prosecutors’ Office to form a special investigative team to look swiftly into the stabbing of the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea leader during his visit to Busan at the hands of an unidentified man. He also ordered prosecutors to team up with the police to investigate the case thoroughly, according to the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office. “The prosecutor general has asked that a special probe team be formed

South Korean students will each benefit more from central government education spending in 10 years’ time as shrinking enrollment numbers push per-pupil budgets up, data showed Tuesday. As Korea grapples with a dwindling school-age population, fewer students are likely to be enrolled at schools across the nation in the coming years. As a result, the estimated education subsidy per pupil is expected to rise to some 20 million won ($15,350) in 2028 and to surpass 30 million won in 2032. Th

HANOI, Vietnam -- Vietnam sees South Korea as a “good peer” in its plan to achieve developed-country status by 2045, according to Nguyen Anh Tuan, the deputy director general at the Foreign Investment Agency under Vietnam’s Ministry of Planning and Investment. “We plan to grow our economy to be a developing country with the GDP per capita in the group of the high-middle income by the year 2030,” Tuan told a group of Korean reporters at the ministry’s headqua

Over 240,000 illegally produced and distributed sexual photos and videos were deleted in 2023 in South Korea, an anti-digital sex crime organization said Friday. A total of 243,855 items of such illegal content were deleted between January and Dec. 20, data compiled by the Digital Sex Crime Victims Support Center, an organization closely affiliated with the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family, showed. The figure is up 30,855 from about 213,000 last year, highlighting a troubling potential tre

Jeong Myeong-seok, the leader of a controversial religious group, Jesus Morning Star, lodged an appeal on a court ruling last week sentencing him to 23 years behind bars for sexual assault and molestation. However, the future looks grim for Jeong, as legal experts on Thursday said it is highly unlikely that the 78-year-old will succeed in reversing the Daejeon District Court’s ruling in the appellate court due to the trustworthiness of the victims’ testimony and evidence. “The

Using AI learning tools to unlock students’ abilities, such as creativity and critical thinking, has become more pivotal than ever at a time when AI becoming more influential in the educational landscape. In line with these developments, “100 Classics,” an English education service brand for children and teenagers, offers an integrated English curriculum through debate sessions, interactive presentation activities and essay writing using materials recommended by prestigious sch

Not long after a 23-year-old elementary school teacher’s death in July laid bare the truth of waning respect for educators, a group of 30 elementary and middle school teachers came together to shed light on the realities of teaching in South Korea. In late August, they formed the group “K-Teachers,” an abbreviation for Korean teachers, to create and upload English-language content on educational issues in Korea on Instagram and YouTube. There, they speak their minds on what nee

South Korea’s older adults have remained the most mired in poverty among the members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development for 14 consecutive years since 2009. The OECD currently has 38 member countries. In the Paris-based organization’s analysis of the latest available data, the relative poverty rate for Korean seniors aged 66 or older stood at 40.4 percent in 2020, a whopping three times the OECD average of 14.2 percent, and the only country with old-age pove

Less than a day after another piece of graffiti defaced one of South Korea’s most significant cultural heritage sites, a suspect turned himself into the police, according to officials on Monday. The suspect, who is believed to be a man in his 20s, voluntarily surrendered to the Seoul Jongno Police Station at around 11:45 a.m. and underwent police questioning about the crime, including whether he had an accomplice. Police are still looking for two suspects who had vandalized the walls of Gy

The South Korean Air Force announced on Dec. 3 that it had enlisted two dogs -- Dindin and Tank -- to detect the smuggling of drugs into the military. It was the first case of the military deploying and nurturing its own dogs not to detect enemy soliders, but illegal drug activities at the barracks. Bringing the detection dogs in is just a part of measures devised to prevent the use of illegal substances at all levels of command, as the military has been dealing with the rise of illegal drug act

진행자: 박준희, Beth Eunhee Hong [Weekender] Can't get a date? Try a temple ... or city hall 기사 요약: 솔로 남녀들 위해 만남 주선하는 절, 지자체들 [1] On a chilly Saturday afternoon, a group of people dressed in Buddhist vests and pants strolled slowly around a pagoda at Jogyesa,making wishes and touring different corners of the Buddhist temple in Jongno-gu, Seoul. *Chilly: 쌀쌀한, 추운 / Cold; Crisp; Frosty *Dressed in: 옷을 입고 / Clad in; Sported in *Strolled: (한가로이) 산책하다 / Wander; Take a walk [2] The 20 men and women w

At around noon on a Friday, hundreds of students filed through the cafeteria at Changdeok Girls’ Middle School in Jung-gu, central Seoul, as they took a school canteen food tray, spoon and chopsticks, quickly scanning the day’s lunch menu offerings. One at a time, the students loaded their trays with fish cake soup, bibimbap, chocolate breadsticks and a mango popsicle for dessert. These school lunches resembled delicious-looking home-cooked meals. “It’s not mass-produced,

진행자: 박준희, Beth Eunhee Hong Day laborers, low-income earners fear lonely death 기사 요약: 고독사에 걱정하는 일용직 근로자, 소득 낮은 층 [1] Day laborers and low-income earners in South Korea feel that they have a high chance of dying alone and remaining unnoticed for days, compared to peers with regular jobs earning higher incomes, a survey showed Sunday. *Day laborer: 일용직 근로자 *Low-income: 소득이 낮은 *Regular job: 정규직 [2] Those employed and paid daily without a regular job feared they would have an average 41.8 perc

South Korea’s special investigation unit on drug crimes on Wednesday said it had caught a record-high of 22,393 people suspected of drug offenses from January to October this year. The figure is nearly a 50 percent increase, or up 7,211, from last year’s tally of 15,182, reflecting the troubling trend of rapidly growing drug use here. People in their teens and 20s made up the largest number, accounting for 34.6 percent of the total -- 1,174 were in their teens and 6,580 were in their

South Korean drugmakers are in a rush to mass-produce antipyretics and antibiotics to keep pace with demand for medicines amid the rise in cases of mycoplasma pneumonia -- a bacterium that causes respiratory infections -- and flu viruses during the winter. To avoid a medicine shortage, Daewon Pharmaceutical has started boosting the production of fever medicines and antibiotics, according to reports on Wednesday citing pharmaceutical industry insiders. Hanmi Pharmaceutical, another leading drugma

South Korea on Tuesday rolled out a comprehensive plan to offer mental health checkups every two years for young Koreans aged 20 to 34 and other counseling services tailored to all age groups, in the first-ever detailed state policy aimed at tackling the country’s consistently high suicide rates. Korea has recorded the highest suicide rate among member nations of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development for almost 20 years, with 25.2 deaths per 100,000 people in 2022, more

For the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic, hundreds of recovering drug users from South Korea and Japan gathered in Seoul on Saturday to support each others’ path to sobriety. The 19th edition of the workshop took place as a one-day event with the members of Narcotics Anonymous from the two countries. NA is a community organization made up of peers to support those in recovery from drug addiction using a non-professional approach. It aims to remove the stigma surrounding drug addict

To tackle the hike in bedbug infestations in single-room residences, the Seoul Metropolitan Government said Friday that it would increase inspections of such homes as nearly half of all bedbug reports came from there. The plan comes after 39 reports out of 89 came from “goshiwon,” a type of budget accommodation consisting of one small studio room with no separate kitchen or bathroom. The city government will assign personnel dedicated to overseeing goshiwon in each autonomous distric

Following back-to-back incidents of public servants illegally going on livestreaming platforms to create sexual content, the government has rolled out a set of guidelines for public officials’ duties to prevent such incidents from happening, according to reports on Friday. On Monday, the Ministry of Personnel Management reportedly distributed a document to all ministries on the ethical conduct of national public service officials and specified guidelines for public officials’ persona

Korean American singer Steve Yoo, known here as Yoo Seung-jun, won the final trial that overturned the initial denial of his visa and passport issuance, according to legal professionals on Thursday. The Supreme Court ruled in favor of the disgraced K-pop singer in his case against the South Korean Consulate General in Los Angeles, which turned down his request for an F-4 visa issuance, upholding an appellate court’s ruling. The Seoul High Court ruled in favor of Yoo in July. The court judg