JINCHEON -- Clad in a taekwondo uniform, a 13-year-old Afghan girl says she is happy with her newfound freedom in South Korea. She can participate in all sorts of social activities, which were limited only to boys in her home country, and is glad she can do taekwondo without wearing a hijab. “I want to learn Korean and work here,” she told reporters at a press briefing organized by the Ministry of Justice. Another evacuee, a 15-year-old boy, hopes to make Korea his new home,

National Assembly Speaker Park Byeong-seug asked for Egypt’s help in engaging with North Korea, and for the push to officially end the 1950-53 Korean War, in his meeting with Egypt’s President of the Senate Abdel-Wahab Abdel-Razeq and Speaker of the House of Representatives Hanafy Ali El Gebali. Park, who is current on an official visit to Egypt, is the first National Assembly speaker to visit Egypt since Speaker Lee Man-seop in 2002. The meeting with his Egyptian counterparts wa

South Korea is seeking to live with the pandemic by relaxing its social distancing rules and launching an expert committee for a return to normalcy. “If the situation in October is managed stably, the recovery that the people desire can be accelerated. And the pain of small-business owners and self-employed people can be relieved a little more,” said Prime Minister Kim Boo-kyum on Tuesday. Kim said increasing the vaccination rate is the most important thing for a step-by-step r

Lee Jae-myung, who was selected as the ruling Democratic Party‘s presidential candidate, now faces several challenges in the race for the top job, from clarifying property speculations and bringing together scattered party supporters. Gyeonggi Province Gov. Lee on Sunday won the majority of the Democratic Party’s primaries, crushing his rival Lee Nak-yon, a former prime minister. He won 50.29 percent of the votes and the narrow win was a surprise for Gov. Lee, who had won a solid

Gyeonggi Province Gov. Lee Jae-myung was announced on Sunday as the ruling party nominee for the upcoming presidential election. Lee has gained a total of 719,905 votes (50.29 percent), defeating his chief rival Lee Nak-yon, former prime minister, who received 560,392 votes (39.14 percent), in the party’s primary elections. Former Justice Minister Choo Mi-ae and Rep. Park Yong-jin received 129,035 votes (9.01 percent) and 22,261 votes (1.55 percent), respectively. The ruling party held

South Korea’s ruling Democratic Party will confirm its presidential candidate Sunday, with Gyeonggi Province Gov. Lee Jae-myung maintaining the top spot in the cumulative votes. 　 Starting at 3:30 p.m. on the day, the ruling party holds its last regional primary in Seoul and the third Super Week -- national electoral vote -- to choose a final candidate at SK Olympic Handball Gymnasium in Songpa-gu, Seoul.　 At 6 p.m., the results of about 140,000 votes from party members in the Seoul pr

Assembly Speaker Park Byeong-seug appealed for support for the declaration of the end of the war on the Korean Peninsula in a bilateral meeting with the speakers of the UK’s two houses of Parliament. Park made the request at a meeting with Speaker of the House of Commons Lindsay Hoyle and House of Lords Speaker John McFall at the 7th G20 National Assembly Speakers Meeting. According to a news release from the Korean speaker’s office, Park told Hoyle, “South Korea is pushi

More government support is required to address poverty among the nation’s older adults, a lawmaker said Thursday. According to the most recent data from Statistics Korea revealed by Rep. Ko Young-in of the Democratic Party, the poverty rate for people aged 66 and older was 45 percent in 2019 as compared with 10.72 percent for people under 66. When the nation’s population was divided into 10 income brackets, almost half of senior citizens were in the bottom two, with 29.42 percent

South Korea’s anti-corruption agency has launched an investigation into allegations that South Korea’s spy chief Park Jie-won attempted to meddle in the upcoming presidential election. On Tuesday, the Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials booked Park on charges of violating the National Intelligence Service Act and the Public Official Election Act. The investigation kicked off around three weeks after Prosecutor General Yoon Seok-youl’s campaign aides

The daily number of confirmed COVID-19 cases again topped 2,000 after three days below that mark, officials said Wednesday, with breakthrough infections accounting for more than 20 percent of the total. Breakthrough infections refer to cases in fully vaccinated individuals. As of Tuesday at midnight, the number of new cases had increased by 2,028 in the previous 24 hours, for a cumulative total of 323,379 cases to date. Of the new cases, 2,002 were locally acquired. Of South Korea’s pop

International Rotary, a nonprofit international volunteer organization, held its 2021 Rotary International President Conference and training session at the K Hotel in Gyeongju, North Gyeongsang Province, Tuesday. Themes of the conference were disease prevention and treatment as well as the environment, and the event was attended in person by Rotary International President Shekhar Mehta. The speakers included former Environment Minister Kim Myung-ja, Ehwa Womans University professor Choe Ja

Two presidential front-runners embroiled in political controversies came under fire at Tuesday’s parliamentary audits from ruling and opposition lawmakers alike. Lawmakers denounced Gyeonggi Province Gov. Lee Jae-myung of the Democratic Party of Korea and former Prosecutor General Yoon Seok-youl, the leading People Power Party hopeful, over allegations of preferential development in the Daejang-dong neighborhood of Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province, and abuse of authority in last year’s

Muneer Ahmad, 47, who has run Islamic Book Center in Yongsan, Seoul, has rarely experienced hatred or discrimination because of his religion or religious clothing in his 20 years in South Korea. Most of the time he encounters reasonable Koreans. Even when he walks in religious clothing with his wife, who wears a hijab headscarf, most people “just feel strange,” but do not “feel offended.” “When I talk about my culture or religion, first of all, Koreans are not to

South Korea has decided to maintain the current social distancing rules for two weeks from Monday. “Considering risk factors for quarantine, such as the stronger spread of coronavirus after the Chuseok holiday, and the two holidays starting this weekend, the government has decided to maintain the current distancing stage for the next two weeks,” Prime Minister Kim Boo-kyum said Friday. “The limit on the number of people at private gatherings will be the same as now.”&n

South Korea seeks to raise pet registration rates and neuter outdoor dogs to minimize the number of lost and abandoned animals. It is also considering introducing a pet acquisition system for owners who are unable to keep their pets, officials said Thursday. In a meeting presided by Prime Minister Kim Boo-kyum, the government has confirmed a measure to improve a management system for abandoned pets. It was attended by the Office for Government Policy Coordination and officials from 14 related

As infections continue to soar among those unvaccinated or partially vaccinated, the South Korean government is reviewing a “vaccine pass” that benefits only vaccinated people in accessing multiuse facilities. Health and Welfare Minister Kwon Deok-cheol hinted Tuesday at the possibility of introducing such a system in Korea. “We are considering ways to ease distancing rules for private gatherings and multiuse facilities centering on those who have been vaccinated,”

Ruling and opposition parties failed to agree on the revision of the Act on Press Arbitration on Monday, postponing the plenary session scheduled for Monday to the next day.  Yun Ho-jung, floor leader of the Democratic Party of Korea, and his counterpart Kim Gi-hyeon from the People Power Party met at around 10 a.m. to discuss the controversial “fake news” law.  The meeting presided over by Speaker Park Byeong-seug lasted for several hours but the floor leaders failed to

Gyeonggi Province Gov. Lee Jae-myung on Sunday extended his lead in the Democratic Party’s primaries, coming in top in the North Jeolla primary. With Sunday’s victory -- with 54.5 percent of the votes -- Lee Jae-myung solidified his lead over former Prime Minister Lee Nak-yon, who had broken the Gyeonggi governor’s winning streak on Saturday. The former prime minister, who had won the South Jeolla primaries by 122 votes on Saturday, came in second with 38.4 percent of t

Pregnant women and children aged 12 to 17 will get COVID-19 vaccines in the fourth quarter of this year, officials said Thursday. The Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said it would announce new immunization plans on Monday afternoon for those who have until now been left out of the vaccination drive. The plan will include inoculating pregnant women, children and adolescents. Details on booster shots will also be unveiled. In August, a vaccination committee recommended that

It is time to harvest, but farmers are facing a labor shortage due to a sharp drop in foreign arrivals caused by the pandemic. Even prior to the pandemic, the Ministry of Justice has been implementing a foreign seasonal worker system since 2017 to combat the shortage. In the first year of implementation, 1,085 people came in, and the number of entrants increased to 3,487 in 2019, but there were none last year when COVID-19 began to spread. This year, 504 people entered the country, and 1,01