S. Korea's gender minister vows policy efforts to narrow gender wage gap

Kim Hyun-sook, South Korea's minister of gender equality, vowed policy efforts to narrow the gender wage gap by expanding vocational courses, her office said Monday. South Korea still experiences a wide gender wage gap, a low ratio of female lawmakers and significant rate of sexual violence that an average woman suffers through a lifetime, she added. In the statement issued on International Women's Day, she also said that the government will protect the people from violence, such as st

March 7, 2023

Spending, tourist visits fall sharply in Itaewon: data

Card spending in Itaewon's nightlife district in the fourth week of February fell 57.1 percent compared with the fourth week of October 2022, just before the crowd crush disaster during the Halloween weekend which claimed 159 lives. According to data from the Seoul municipal government Tuesday, the foot traffic in Itaewon 1-dong -- which covers streets filled with international shops, bars, clubs and restaurants -- fell 29 percent over the cited period. This downward trend is in contrast wi

March 7, 2023

Incheon market fire set by arsonist with 24 priors

A 48-year old man with 24 prior charges of arson as well as an attempted rape charge is being investigated by the police over Saturday night's fire that devastated Incheon's Hyundai Market. According to Incheon Jungbu Police Station, the man is suspected of causing the fire that destroyed 55 shops in the market. The suspect initiated the fire by setting smaller fires at five locations inside and nearby the market at 11 p.m. on Saturday. No injuries have been reported as the market was

March 7, 2023

Meet Hwaseong mayor, man behind Korean 'Jessica bill'

Jeong Myeong-geun, the Mayor of Hwaseong, Gyeonggi Province, is pushing for new regulations against sex offenders, to provide a safer environment for citizens. On October 31, 2022, Park Byung-hwa, a sex offender who committed multiple crimes in Suwon decades ago, was released after completing a 15-year prison term. Park moved into a studio apartment in Hwaseong, which his family had prepared in advance. Nearby residents, who belatedly learned of this, strongly protested. After learning the issue

March 7, 2023

Yoon expresses gratitude to Korean relief team

President Yoon Suk Yeol has invited the Korean rescue team who returned from the earthquake site in Turkey to a Cheong Wa Dae luncheon to convey his gratitude, officials said on Tuesday. He thanked the 135-member team on behalf of the public and acknowledged the challenging conditions they faced with aftershocks and cold weather. “Your solidarity shown at the Turkey relief site reminds us once again that Korea and Turkey are true friends who help each other in difficult times,” he sa

March 7, 2023

[Herald Interview] Korean rescuers recall times of despair, hope in Turkey

Two days after a 7.8 magnitude earthquake hit southeastern Turkey and northwestern Syria on Feb. 6, South Korea dispatched a relief team of 118 people to Turkey. For 10 days, the team -- fighting cold, insecurity and human tragedy -- rescued eight people and recovered 19 bodies from the ravaged buildings that collapsed in one of the deadliest quakes in modern history. Korea was the first Asian country to dispatch a relief team to Turkey, and fifth in the world. The Korean team, which mainly co

March 7, 2023

Spending on private education surpasses W26tr in 2022

Koreans spent a record high of 26 trillion won ($20 billion) on private education in 2022, with spending on English being the highest, data from Statistics Korea and the Education Ministry showed Tuesday. Last year’s out-of-school expenditure marked a 10.8 percent increase from 2021’s 23.4 trillion won, showing that obligations for students here extend beyond the school curriculum to hagwons, also known as cram schools that provide tailor-made lessons. By subject, the average monthly

March 7, 2023

S. Korea eases travel advisories for Spain, Tunisia to lowest level

The South Korean government has eased travel advisories for six countries, including Spain and Tunisia, to the lowest level in line with its latest COVID-19 guidelines, Seoul's foreign ministry said Tuesday. The level 2 alert, which also affected Mauritius, Andorra, Jordan and Namibia, was lowered one notch to level 1, according to the ministry. It also eased travel advisories for Peru, Papua New Guinea and four other countries down a notch to level 2. The ministry said it decided to ke

March 7, 2023

Over half of young women willing to give birth: survey

Over half of young women in South Korea said they are willing to give birth, a government survey showed Tuesday, as the nation is struggling to boost the world's lowest fertility rate. According to the survey of 15,000 young people aged 19 to 34, 55.3 percent of female respondents said they intend to have children, the Office for Government Policy Coordination said in a statement. In comparison, 70.5 percent of male respondents said they are willing to have children. The survey was reported

March 7, 2023

S. Korea's new COVID-19 cases rebound to over 12,000 amid eased virus curbs

South Korea's new COVID-19 cases rebounded to over 12,000 on Tuesday amid eased COVID-19 virus curbs, with health authorities considering further easing antivirus measures in the coming months. The country reported 12,284 new COVID-19 infections, including 19 cases from overseas, bringing the total caseload to 30,581,499, according to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency. Tuesday's tally nearly tripled from 4,300 cases a day earlier and climbed more than 1,400 from a week ag

March 7, 2023

Jeju 2nd airport plan back on track

The Ministry of Environment said Monday that it has "conditionally agreed" to a strategic environmental impact assessment submitted by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport for the construction of a second airport in Jeju, bringing a decade-old project back on track. The project, first proposed in 2005, centers on building a new airport with a 3,200-meter-long airstrip in Seogwipo, southeast of Jeju. Previously, the Environment Ministry has repeatedly opposed the Transport

March 6, 2023

[New Neighbors] Going for broker: Farms struggle to keep seasonal foreign workers

WANJU, North Jeolla Province -- Jossa Gomez Lobo, a 29-year-old from the Philippines came to Korea last month for a six-month seasonal working program at a strawberry farm in Wanju, North Jeolla Province. "I came here to earn money. I can only earn 450 Philippine pesos ($8.22) per day as a daily wage in the Philippines, but in Korea, I can earn the same amount of money in an hour. That's why I came to Korea,” she said while picking strawberries. Her wish to make money matched wel

March 6, 2023

[Newsmaker] Crime victims, socially stigmatized open up on YouTube

Ondoni Ssem was previously just another popular fitness instructor on YouTube. But her online identity changed overnight when she uploaded a video late last month. In the video, she revealed herself to be the sole survivor of an infamous familicide that happened in Seoul’s satellite city of Yongin in 2017, in which her stepbrother killed her father, stepmother and younger brother. With her confession, the YouTuber with over 200,000 subscribers joined a growing group of individuals who are

March 6, 2023

[Photo News] Street cats relocated from Marado to Jeju

A group of cats relocated from the southernmost island of Marado are being temporarily housed at a provisional shelter at the Jeju World Natural Heritage Center in Jocheon-eup, northern Jeju Island on Monday. The 42 cats, caught on Wednesday and Thursday, were found to be healthy in a brief check-up by a medical team from Jeju National University's Wildlife Rescue Center following their move to Jeju Island on Friday. Jeju Special Self-Governing Province on Thursday announced that it would r

March 6, 2023

Over 1,000 dead dogs found in horrific animal abuse case

Over a thousand dead dogs were found on the grounds of a house in Yangpyeong, Gyeonggi Province, and police are investigating a man in his 60s on charges of violating animal protection law. The man said he collected abandoned dogs and starved them to death, but animal rights activists allege that he was paid by dog breeders to get rid of dogs who couldn’t get pregnant anymore or whose commercial value had dipped. A representative of animal rights group Care told cable news channel MBN that

March 6, 2023

Law firm Law-Win to provide legal, tax practice

South Korean legal service firm Law-Win has recently signed a memorandum of understanding with Tax-Ro, its peer specializing in tax practice and consulting, the company said Sunday. Under the agreement, the two companies would be able to address legal services demands of one another, which, for example, will allow Tax-Ro to handle tax practices for Law-Win clients on behalf of Law-Win, and vice versa. In Korea, many small-sized law firms are not capable of covering what is beyond their own pract

March 6, 2023

[Graphic News] S. Korea’s suicide rate up in 2021 amid pandemic: data

South Korea’s suicide rate increased in 2021 during the COVID-19 pandemic, data showed Monday, with higher rates seen for people in their 20s and those aged 70 and above. The number of suicides for every 100,000 South Koreans was 26.0 in 2021, up 0.3 from a year earlier, according to the data compiled by Statistics Korea. The rate among males aged 70 and above came to 81.8 in 2021, up from 79.5 recorded the previous year. As for females, the rate for the same age group came to 25.7, also u

March 6, 2023

Former Lone Star official arrested in US

The former Seoul branch chief of Lone Star, who had led the US equity fund's acquisition of a local bank, has been arrested in the United States, South Korea's justice ministry said Sunday. Steven Lee, a Korean American who headed the branch office between 1998 and 2005, was caught in New Jersey, 17 years after the South Korean government had asked the US authorities to extradite him in 2006, according to the Ministry of Justice. Texas-based Lone Star took over the Korea Exchange Bank

March 5, 2023

Victims of school bullying more prone to suicide risks

Students who experienced bullying during their school years are more likely to report high levels of suicide-related behavior, research showed Sunday. A joint research team led by Professor Park Ae-ri at Sunchon National University and Professor Kim Yu-na’s research team at Yuhan University showed that college students who had experienced school violence were 2.6 times more likely to attempt suicide than their peers who hadn't been involved in such incidents. The finding came to light

March 5, 2023

Calling woman 'ajumma' leads to subway stabbing

A 37-year-old woman accused of injuring three people with a knife on a subway told police that she did so because someone called her “ajumma,” police said Saturday. The accused, whose identity was withheld, is charged with injuring two women in her 60s and a man in his 50s inside a subway train headed to Jukjeon Station in the city of Yongin, Gyeonggi Province. According to the subway police, the accused was speaking on the phone when one of the two women asked her to lower her voice

March 5, 2023