Most Popular
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Opposition head pleads for support in ‘fight against Yoon dictatorship’
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Xi says he will consider S. Korea visit
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BTS' Suga begins military service
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Opposition party leader ends 24-day hunger strike for treatment
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Surveillance cameras to be a must in hospital operating rooms
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[Weekender] Behind the scenes of Korean food crazes
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US finalizes national security 'guardrails' for CHIPS funding
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S. Korea calls on Russia to 'transparently explain' its dealing with N. Korea amid suspected arms supply agreement
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[Herald Interview] ‘Another Body,’ a riveting documentary on devasting effects of deepfake porn
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Allies vow stern measures against Russia-N. Korea arms deal
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[Editorial] Kepco’s woes
President Yoon Suk Yeol signed off on the appointments of Kim Dong-cheol as the new CEO of Korea Electric Power Corp., also known as Kepco, and Bang Moon-kyu as trade minister this week, the very two figures in charge of the highly explosive issue of electricity rate hikes. The idea of raising electricity rates is a sensitive topic for the government as many households find the sharp increase in August's electricity bills hard to swallow. This year’s lengthy heat waves forced many hou
Sept. 22, 2023
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[Editorial] Lee's arrest warrant
The National Assembly is set to vote on a government request for opposition leader Lee Jae-myung to attend a pretrial detention hearing. He has promised many times to give up his privilege as a lawmaker of being able to avoid detention depending on the result of a National Assembly vote and voluntarily attend a detention hearing like ordinary people do if the prosecution sought an arrest warrant for him, but his promises were just empty words. An incumbent National Assembly member can stand tria
Sept. 21, 2023
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[Editorial] A worrisome gap
South Korea’s tax revenue shortfall for 2023 is now estimated to stand at 59.1 trillion won ($44.6 billion), according to newly revised government data, the biggest in years. The Ministry of Finance and Economy announced Monday it has revised down its annual tax revenue projection to 341.4 trillion won, citing sluggish corporate earnings and a protracted slump in the property market. The ministry’s earlier tax revenue outlook for this year was 400.5 trillion won. The new revision ref
Sept. 20, 2023
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[Editorial] Deceit of the nation
The manipulation of economic statistics by the Moon Jae-in administration, disclosed by the Board of Audit and Inspection last week after a six-month probe, is astonishing. The audit agency found that the Moon administration had persistently and widely manipulated government statistics on real estate prices, national income and employment to hide its policy failures. The board asked the prosecution to investigate 22 former Moon government officials on suspicion of leading the statistics manipula
Sept. 19, 2023
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[Editorial] Dangerous deal
Military cooperation between North Korea and Russia is looming large. The recent summit between North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and Russian President Vladimir Putin is a sight showing that vague concern becomes real risk. It was a closed-door meeting and no press conference was held. Nothing is known about what they actually discussed, except for their open mention of cooperation in the field of satellites. Putin said Friday that Russia would not breach any agreements concerning the Korean Penin
Sept. 18, 2023
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[Editorial] In need of quality jobs
As far as headline numbers are concerned, South Korea’s job figures for August are not so bad. In fact, the number of employed people went up last month from a year earlier. But beneath the upbeat data lies a problematic trend that continues to keep policymakers on edge. According to data released by Statistics Korea on Wednesday, the country added 268,000 new jobs in August, increasing the total of employed people to 28.67 million. The new job additions mark a much welcome rebound. In Jul
Sept. 15, 2023
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[Editorial] Trial delayed
The first-trial court trying the case of former President Moon Jae-in's Cheong Wa Dae staff allegedly intervening in the June 2018 Ulsan mayoral election is finally set to pronounce a ruling -- three years and 10 months after the prosecution’s indictments. The prosecution on Monday asked the court to sentence former Ulsan Mayor Song Cheol-ho and an opposition party lawmaker, Hwang Un-ha, to six and five years behind bars, respectively, in connection with the case. The prosecution also
Sept. 14, 2023
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[Editorial] Blind spot
In the past decade, the South Korean government has been trying to locate and help people struggling with extreme poverty and diseases outside of the social security net. But the system is still fraught with loopholes, resulting in more tragic and unattended deaths. On Friday, a woman in her 40s was found dead alongside a young child, unconscious, in a rented residential villa in Jeonju, North Jeolla Province. The police said Monday the direct cause of the woman’s death is presumed to be a
Sept. 13, 2023
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[Editorial] Build anti-sub ability
North Korea's threat of underwater nuclear attacks, which are difficult to detect beforehand, is looming large. The North disclosed through state media Friday that it launched its first “tactical nuclear attack submarine” that can fire nuclear missiles underwater. Photos North Korea disclosed reveal 10 vertical launch tubes for short and medium-range ballistic missiles. The submarine is presumed to be capable of firing not only ballistic missiles tipped with nuclear warheads but
Sept. 12, 2023
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[Editorial] Supply chain risks
China’s moves to place restrictions on two fields -- one on exports of urea for fertilizer and the other on the use of Apple’s iPhone for government workers -- have sent a chill down the spine of South Korean policymakers and businesspeople. Both regulations have not affected Korean exporters and consumers yet, but given the past case in which China caught the country off guard with its curb on urea solution exports, much caution and proactive preparations for export control on other
Sept. 11, 2023
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[Editorial] Fake election news
Kim Man-bae, a key figure in the high-profile Daejang-dong development scandal, was found to have fabricated news stories unfavorable to the then-People Power Party candidate Yoon Suk Yeol before the 2022 presidential election. The scandal concerns a project to develop Daejang-dong in Seongnam City as apartment complexes. The project was planned and executed under then-Mayor Lee Jae-myung, who is leader of the Democratic Party of Korea. Kim allegedly received astronomical returns on investment
Sept. 8, 2023
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[Editorial] Kim’s visit to Russia
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s rare expected trip to Russia sometime next week is sending loud alarms to government officials in South Korea and the United States, as Kim is seen pushing for an arms deal with President Vladimir Putin, a scenario that will complicate the already thorny geopolitical situation on and possibly beyond the Korean Peninsula. Kim is now expected to travel from Pyongyang by armored train to Vladivostok on the Pacific coast of Russia, where he would attend the Ea
Sept. 7, 2023
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[Editorial] Dubious qualifications
Youn Mee-hyang's qualifications as a lawmaker are questionable. The independent lawmaker attended an event Friday in Tokyo organized by the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan, a pro-North Korean group of Zainichi residents in Japan, abbreviated as Chongryon, to commemorate Korean victims of the Kanto Massacre in the wake of the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake. Chongryon Chairperson Ho Jong-man, who was granted the title of "hero" by North Korea, and other leaders of the
Sept. 6, 2023
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[Editorial] Teachers’ rally
Tens of thousands of schoolteachers in South Korea held a massive rally in front of the National Assembly in Seoul on Monday to mourn the recent deaths of fellow teachers who had suffered from extreme stress due to abusive parents and unruly students. The rally in Seoul was held along with similar mourning events across the nation, and some school classes finished early since as many as a thousand teachers in a single local education district took the day off to join the collective action. The c
Sept. 5, 2023
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[Editorial] Absurd hunger strike
Democratic Party of Korea leader Lee Jae-myung's hunger strike is irrational and unjustifiable. He suddenly declared he would go on an indefinite hunger strike on Thursday, just a day before the National Assembly opened its regular session. Whenever he opens his mouth, out come concerns about the livelihoods of the public. But in the Assembly, where the party he leads holds a legislative majority, he behaves like he does not care. The demands he made are absurd. He demands three things from
Sept. 4, 2023
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[Editorial] Red alert
Setting a fresh record is usually a positive development. But it’s disheartening when it comes to South Korea’s dismal birth rate, which is breaking one record after another -- in a downward direction. According to population data released by Statistics Korea on Wednesday, only 249,000 babies were born in 2022, down 11,000 from a year earlier. It is the first time the figure fell below 250,000 since the agency began compiling data in 1970. The latest figure comes as a big challenge f
Sept. 1, 2023
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[Editorial] Shift to fiscal soundness
The government budget proposal for 2024 which passed the Cabinet meeting Tuesday shows the Yoon Suk Yeol administration's will to recover its financial soundness through retrenchment. Next year's expenditure budget amounts to 656.9 trillion won ($497 billion), 2.8 percent or 18.2 trillion won more than this year's. The on-year increase rate is the lowest since 2005 -- a big difference from the annual budget growth average of 8.7 percent for five years of the previous Moon Jae-in a
Aug. 31, 2023
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[Editorial] Telemedicine failure
South Korea’s major telemedicine service operators announced they would shutter their operations, an inevitable outcome resulting from a mix of strict government restrictions and strong pressure from the medical sector. Telemedicine was hailed as a promising field, offering innovative remote medical services for patients. When telemedicine was temporarily allowed in 2020 to fight COVID-19, few expected that it would become very popular. During the three-year period, a total of 36.61 millio
Aug. 30, 2023
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[Editorial] Overflowing grant
The reality of a government grant program for elementary, middle and high school education, exposed as a result of a 10-month inspection by the top audit agency, is extremely deplorable. The Board of Audit and Inspection disclosed the results of its inspection into the program on Thursday. Grants to the nation's 17 offices of education and schools in their districts were so excessive that much of them were wasted, for example, on an array of cash welfare benefits and interest-free loans to
Aug. 29, 2023
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[Editorial] Ballooning household debt
South Korea’s growth momentum is weakening. The real income of households is dropping, even as their debt is mounting. The economic debacle of China, which is the country’s biggest trading partner, is deepening. Although both the nation’s internal and external economic situations face more and more obstacles, there is one strangely upbeat sector here: the real estate market, where speculative investors sense property prices are close to hitting their bottom. In a country where
Aug. 28, 2023